Androgyny

When Dulcinea told me she thought I may be androgynous, part of me felt like a piece of the puzzle fell into place. And then part of me thought, what the hell does that even mean?

I knew one definition of androgyny: a person is androgynous when you can’t be sure, by looking at them, what their gender is.

Which couldn’t be used to describe me—I’m a pretty quintessential male form, when it comes to my physical body. That’s part of what attracted Dulcinea to me in the first place.

There must be more to androgyny. Dulcinea was referring to a sort of psychological/emotional androgyny, and while the general gist of this definition seems to fit for how I know myself, I’m still left with an awful lot of questions and uncertainty. Which means: research, reading, reasoning, and writing. And lots of links.

Here are some things I’ve found interesting and useful.

A couple videos:

Androgynous and Proud

Androgyny - In/defined

A few links:

What is Androgyny?

Gender May Not Be Fixed - I’m not sure I agree with the idea of gender being a simple performance, but I included this anyway.

BEM Sex Role Inventory - a ‘gender test’ really not worth taking, but included for people who are curious.

Androgyne on gender.wikia

Androgyne Online - The best resource I’ve come across so far. Pay no attention to the garish background.

And a book I need to put on my reading list:

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

I’ve been reading through these articles, and it’s very enlightening stuff. What I’m finding is that, while I’ve acted through a male filter for most of my life, discovering my feminine side has made my actions fit more into a bigender profile. I switch between my regular everyday projection and a much more feminine projection, which is more bigendered than truly androgynous. I think, though, after I’ve cooled a bit on my exploration, that I’ll fit more into the androgyne profile. This is just a guess though. It’s nice to be able to produce an answer when I ask myself what am I?

This is just a start. Can anybody recommend any other resources for me?

Dulcinea