More thinking about gender led me to the next video by Renee on Kink Academy. Her newest video discussed a little more about the 6 levels of gender identity. In watching this video I went through the exercise with her and it helped me understand the difference between birth gender, inner identity and gender roles.

I often hear talk of the gender identity, but not realizing how complex it is and how many layers it encompasses. I admit to being of the assumption that outward expression is pretty much the bulk of it.

_My birth gender is female.
_My inner identity, my energy- well, I admit to often thinking like a man. If I assume the traditional stereotypes, then I am not totally girly. I am pretty level headed when it comes to my ideas about sex and such. I used to think that was masculine thinking, but having entered into the kinky lifestyle, maybe that way of thinking is not masculine, just on a different and less rigid level. Traditional stererotypes say that as a female, I like all things pink, with ribbons. Ok, as a grown up… a love of shoes, purses, jewelry. Well, if you know me, you know that isn’t me. Not entirely. I’m not a girly girl. Feminine, but not at all girly.

_My outward expression is female. I wear my hair long and curly, but by default, it IS long and curly. I don’t do much to it. I wear makeup when the mood strikes me. I don’t wear dresses- and can often be found in the scrub pants I wear every day to work and a some sort of t-shirt. Not androgenous, but not overly feminine either.

_My gender role, again looking at traditional stereotypes, is more masculine. I am the breadwinner. In general I don’t cook or do the housework, and I admit that on average the child rearing is a bit more 60/40. With 40% being mine.

_I’m attracted equally to men and women, however;

_I would say that my sexual orientation is more straight than bisexual. If bisexual was at 50% of the scale between gay at 0% and straight at 100% , I’d put myself at around 75%. I lean more to the straight side with strong bisexual tendencies.

So where does this put me? I’m a non girly scrub and croq wearing female who has the traditionally male role in her family and likes boys and girls equally, but  kisses girls when I want to.

Even for someone as simple as me, that isn’t something that can be identified sufficiently with ‘bisexual’. While I don’t think it’s important for me, or anyone to wear tshirt with a “this is my gender identity-graph” on it, as I am getting to know people in this very broad community and learning more about my friends who have different roles and identities, it’s good to be able to identify the different layers and not just lump people into one box.