A look at gender fluidity

Melissa De Pineres

For some people, having both male and female energies at once is completely normal. It is like being stuck in the middle of both genders. There are days in which one can wake up and feel different, in the case of gender fluidity, feel more feminine even if one was born a man or vice-versa.

Fernanda Trevino, 24, an architecture student, sometimes feels like wearing a flowered dress and colored tights to school; but there are also days when she wakes up and feels like not wearing makeup, feeling a bit more masculine than usual.

“I realized that I was gender fluid when I was comfortable wearing my brother’s clothes and the thought of having to be just ‘girly’ or ‘manly’ gave me dysphoria,” Trevino said.

Biological sex is assigned to a person when he or she is born, gender is the identity a person associates with. According to transstudent.org, 43 percent of young people identify themselves as “gender fluid”, which is the flexibility of gender expression.

People that identify themselves as gender fluid are not confined by stereotypical traits of men or women and extend their interests and behavior to a broad mix of both gender traits.

“I don’t believe in gender, I believe in science. Gender is a cultural construct. However, I do feel more comfortable being somewhat feminine aesthetically that is,” music student Damian Fletcher said.

Both Fletcher and Trevino are gender fluid and do not identify with either male or female gender, they both feel they acquired traits from both genders.

Most of the people asked about “gender fluidity” for this story at San Diego City College confused the term with bisexuality, a sexual orientation for both men and women according to genderdiversity.org. But gender fluidity has to do with self-identification rather than a sexual orientation.

Although these terms have existed for a long time, many people are getting to know these identifications through celebrities who claim to be gender binary. musicians like Miley Cyrus and Gerard Way, as well as actors Ruby Rose and Jaden Smith, are only a few celebrities that identify with gender fluidity.

“As a musician, people accept my weird ways of transitioning into different genders on and off stage. I’m not sure what it would be as a lawyer or a cop,” Fletcher said.

The Center San Diego LGBT Community Center has behavioral health services that offer counseling programs for individuals that are struggling with these concerns. The LGBT Center did not respond to a interview request.

“I was born a girl, but there are days I feel like a man. It changes every day. My family has never been used to it or been able to accept it,” Trevino said.