It doesn't just feel like masculine and feminine traits to me... It feels very personal and I see myself as genuinely female in my head as well. When I'm in a more "feminine" state I feel my brain works more like one in that moment. I feel it, I see it, and I've dreamed it.
That reminds me. Cross dressing is interesting too. Like... Drag Queens. Apparently in 'Drag' you are to recognize and identify them as the opposite gender, or else it's "offensive". I was in formed of this, rather defensively, of course. When I had no intention of stepping on toes but it's rather easy.
Well, the difficulty is that not everyone has the same expectation, so having 'rules' doesn't necessarily help. There can be rule of thumbs, but the only way to really know what a certain individual expects from you for sure is to ask them and be willing to self-correct in the moment.
But yes, dress code's and stuff. Meh. I'm not totally sure. I've seen guys in full dresses before which is... a bit much to me. But if they like it they like it. My idea would be growing my hair out more fully and putting on makeup(female shirts are often nicer than male shirts too, same with shoes sometimes), since even if I can't physically be totally female... it's the closest I can get without undergoing a huge drastic change that I'd be chastised by my religious family over for it being wrong. As to the last part, it's kinda like... I do have dyphoria about my biological sex. I know I do. Sometimes it hurts terribly to know I'm in this body and can't experience being the other part of myself. But I also know it probably ain't worth it. Especially since their are those who will never recognize you as that sex/gender or whatever and just... consider you what you were born with. That we lie to ourselves. Maybe we do.
We all live with whatever we are able to live with. Our decisions always are based on, well, a prioritization and then a choice. (Your paragraph includes a number of prioritizations, for example.) We decide what is most important to us and what we can live with compared to cost/risk, then live accordingly. Sometimes our prioritizations change over time, sometimes not. But it definitely shows why we need to be very honest with ourselves, so that we can make the best decision at the best time for ourselves.
As mentioned in my other post, in the end, "fuck society." this isn't society's life, and this isn't the religious family's life, and no one else can decide what you truly need and what leaves you feeling the most you, and others will always be glad to tell you what they think you are and how you need to live to make THEM happy. In the end, it's your life from birth to death and you need to decide how it best needs to be lived; you don't get a trophy after you die for living according to society's decisions for you.
At the same time, yes, there has to be a risk assessment to determine probable outcome for any decision and to decide if it is a price you are willing and able to pay, worst-case scenario.
(Side note: Fuck dysphoria too.)
Yes, it would come off as trivializing but I won't say it's entirely inaccurate. In a way. I spoke with someone who thought it was cosmetic and like butchery to the body and lying to oneself of who they really are underneath. That it is traumatic and maybe sometimes it is? But who is she to say it is simply wrong and bad. And especially the fact it being from a "godly" point of view it kinda makes it bias. I can't imagine how others have felt she spoke that to that she refuses to recognize how they are now because her values supersede.
It's difficult because yes, people get to choose what they believe, including their religious faith. However, it doesn't mean they're right and it doesn't mean you need to mold yourself to it. It also doesn't mean you can't criticize, hopefully for the legitimate problems/failures of a particular philosophy rather than unfairly.
So you analyze it, determine where the values are being drawn from, then weigh the authority level of those sources, and engage with those things drawn out into view. Lots of times people will have ideas that claim are legitimate for one reason or another but those legitimacies can be challenged.
I also think people find it really easy to pigeonhole or damn things they've never dealt with and come up with a pat answer at the other person's expense; but when they go through it themselves, they gain an awareness they did not formerly have.
The best speaker I heard these last few days was a religious right baptist Christian mom whose 6th child (she has 7) ended up being trans and now she is a fierce advocate for her child. her child exhibited extreme gender variant behavior at 18 months (not uncommon with transkids). Like any baptist mom, her first response was to try to smack her kid down; and when her kid did not change, she doubled-down and tried to get the day cares and churches and other adult authorities to comply. This went on until her daughter was five and her experiences with her and with the church and the medical/psychiatric community led to a change of heart on her part. Which resulted in her losing her family and her church and everything aligned with that, but her awareness had been changed, her experience with her child helped her realize how intrinsic this was for her rather than something bad, and she could no longer justify her prior beliefs about it. So she still has her faith and it's integrated into being an advocate for her child and other transkids, but it did mean she had to leave HER safe world. It's ironic too because the siblings all recognized the trans sibling's identity early on and accepted it, but it just took the mom some time to catch up.
Anyway.
But an INFx I spoke to was super open minded to gender neutrality, and expecting me to be very respectful about it. Her being gender neutral and having many friends who are. Totally used to that environment. We are formed by our environment are we not? To some level. But even my saying it don't make sense logically was taken a little defensively. Knowing I was similar yet I questioned it. Like why?
So bringing this up can seem to be a touchy iffy subject. Leaving me in an awkward place taking no side, really. As I see both sides.
it's very personal to people. I try to just listen versus externally challenging someone, to make sure I grasp what they are saying and why they are saying it, for things like that. Sometimes I have strong visceral reactions internally (something I have had to learn to acknowledge in myself, because I didn't realize it earlier in life) but I don't allow those to come out until I've learned more and had more processing time.