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Cisgendered or not? by Shadderstag
Alright so… I have a character, Ashley, who dresses in very feminine clothing normally, and presents/pretends to be a woman when he’s Magpie, his alter ego, who is a thief.
So his gender expression is basically that of a woman, but he identifies as a man.
Or so I thought. I recently ran into a couple of blogs (houseofalexzander and ivanfahy) and they made me reconsider. Elliott Alexzander identifies as genderfluid/gender variant, whereas Ivan Fahy identifies as androgynous. Both dress in feminine clothing in accordance with the binary system (and are absolutely gorgeous jfc).
Basically now I’m wondering if I’m just projecting onto Ashley, since I identify as a man (albeit a trans one rather than a cis one) and am sloooooowly coming to terms with liking to wear feminine clothing sometimes. I tend to present myself as androgynous rather than masculine or feminine, though.
Do you think it’s possible for a cisgendered man to have the gender expression of a binary woman while identifying as a binary man? I just don’t want to force labels onto him that don’t fit :|
Cisgendered or not?
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Comments
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Haha no worries you're good. And I don't know, like... the stuff he wears isn't made for women, it's feminine clothing made for men, so is it /really/ crossdressing? I mean, yeah he uses product in his hair and wears makeup and nail polish but... that's not gender related to me so I don't count it?
I guess my confusion garners from his tendency to run around pretending and presenting as a woman when he's his alter-ego, Magpie. He got voice training and wears falsies and padding and everything while he's her, and considers her a woman through and through despite it being him under the costume?
My own characters can be so confusing fffffffffff
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hmmm, ye i could see the confusion there i suppose! seeing as the clothes are tailored for dmab bodies hhmmm
well i guess what id ask is if he sees himself as his alter-ego all the time? or is he definitely himself, playing this magpie character who is a separate entity from himself tho an integral part of him?
dont worry tho bc i have a character sorta like that (theyre dmab nonbinary but masquerade as a man who has a separate name and persona all to his own that they use as a means to buy themselves more freedom in the 1920s setting so i get confused by their gender a lot omg). this shits confusing even in fiction omg
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He definitely sees Magpie as separate from himself. She's literally a role he plays, and while she has parts of her that are built around aspects of Ashley, she's not him. Okay, I guess that does help a lot! Thank you! I never considered it from that angle before haha
God I love your nonbinary characters so much. Are you talking about the McSweeneys, or do you have other characters in that timeline?
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yeah! like that kinda seems reminiscent of drag queens to me, at least, since ive read a lot of them consider their female personas to be just characters, a role they take part in and act as despite still being themself
also fUCK I MEAN DFAB not dmab wow im chatting in two separate gender convos rn so im getting all mixed up lmao. but no uhh im talkin about esther, the serial killer one n her persona is named eli. tho i suppose the mcweenie twins could count too, bc melanie is a cis woman who presents masculinely especially to match her twin for trickery reasons in their line of work n stuff, tho she doesnt identify as someone who is male, she at the same time would not bother correcting people who call her male and such
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Yeah, I can't say I know many queens, but I'm friends with an entire drag king troupe in my city and they're all awesome haha
OH ESTHER yes okay I forgot about them lol. You have so many amazing characters ahhhhh
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ahh tbh ive never been familiar w any queens or kings, but i bet being pals with a whole troupe is a blast ;o;
YEAH omg thank you wahh. tiny bird smooch
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Of course it's possible. Frankly, I think it's weird that people like transvestites and drag queens (I don't think I've seen a graphic with kings) on it are considered under the transgender umbrella. Unless they identify as not-male (because let's face it, transvestites is usually referring to men in women's clothing), I don't see how they're not-cis. If it's okay for female-designated people to wear pants and men's cut clothing, I don't see why it's a problem for men to do the same.
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I swear drag kings are king of just... totally forgotten about. And there are trans guys and genderqueers in the drag king troupe I hang out with in my city, and a few of the queens are gender variants, so there is that. Not saying that's the norm by any means, and I don't think drag should be under the gender category at all since it's first and foremost entertainment.
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The most popular drag king in my city is a trans* boy (who I've teased as being a cheater). There are certainly people who don't identify as the opposite sex they are playing as, but like you said, it's entertainment. I mean, Robin Williams has dressed as a woman how often? ;)
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The most popular drag king in my city is a trans guy so he's literally already a man xD But he does it to spread trans awareness, so it's all good haha
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It's totally okay for a cisgender person to have any gender expression they want. If he's MAAB and identifies as a man, he's cis, no matter what he's wearing.
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I got confused due to him considering his Magpie persona as female, but as R-Wolfe pointed out, that's really no different from drag queens and he can still identify as cis since Magpie is separate from himself.
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Yknow, you could always have HIM be confused. I mean, he was living on the streets, right? That's not exactly the best place to be educated on the gender spectrum. And sometimes even people who are aware of it don't have themselves figured out for years.
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....point. And probably the most realistic depiction. Good lord his talks with Ian and Jay just got about a billion times more confusing :I
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Identity and presentation are too completely different things, as such clothes do not decide gender, so he would be just that, a dude presenting as the opposite gender. Kind of like how drag queens are woman any more than drag kings are men, the whole point is them presenting in a way they do not identify.
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^Aren't woman, typo lol
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I was more trying to figure out if he was genderfluid or not, I think. Mainly because I know some genderfluid/gender variant people who dress more feminine when they're feeling more feminine, and more masculine when they're feeling more masculine, as well as sometimes act in a different manner depending which end of the scale they're on. But that's of course not a question anyone but me can answer, since he's my character.
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I think you hit the nail on the head there! The question comes down to what does the clothing and the purpose of presenting as such mean to him? And why does he chose to do it :o
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I guess he sees women as role models, and being raised by sex workers he would've seen a lot of different fashion and ways that women are strong. I imagine he would have played dress up as a kid and it just carried on as he grew older. Not having to deal with judgemental peers or male figures in his life, he wouldn't have been shamed for what he wore. I imagine the johns that he interacted with probably heckled him so he'd have grown a thick skin. So by the time he was a teenager and he was introduced to people his own age, he'd be able to stand up to their teasing. That and he learns self defense because his adopted parents insist.
As for when he actually starts dressing and presenting as a woman, as Magpie, that's so there's a greatly reduced risk of Magpie and her antics being traced back to him. That and, once more, he doesn't see women as the weaker sex. He grew up watching the struggles the sex workers lived with each and every day after all.
...not that you wanted to know any of that. Thinking out loud eheh.
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No worries at all! Brainstorming and character/world building are some of my favorite things, so I love reading this stuff!
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In my mind, aesthetics do not define gender~
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Same, I was just torn on whether Ashley saw himself as a woman sometimes or if it was only a persona. Thanks to everyone who commented, I've figured out that he's cisgender but has a persona not unlike a drag queen :)
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If the persona/alter ego is a character, and that's how he feels about Magpie, then he's cisgendered. At least that's my understanding. A similar (sort of) comparison would be to Drag Queens. Being a drag queen does not automatically make you non-cisgendered.
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I definitely know about how you can be a cis in drag, as I know plenty of drag kings and a couple queens, and while the majority of them actually identify as genderqueer, there are some cisgender ones. But yeah, comparing it to drag queens definitely solidified the answer in my mind, so I'm glad so many drew the connection, because I apparently didn't lol
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VCR-WOLFE
i think that its possible
clothing, while an integral part of physical gender expression, isnt exactly an end all be all either. thing is over time historically mens wear has been regarded as both masculine and gender neutral whereas womens wear is still overtly feminine(i dont agree w that since i feel all clothing can be inherently gender neutral). women wearing ""masculine"" clothes(slacks or suits) arent considered crossdressing anymore these days, tho maybe some are, you have drag queens and kings after all. i suppose the same could go for a man who wears womens clothing?
omg im sorry if this rambling makes no sense