My name is Sam. Not legally, and it probably never will be legally, but it’s the name I go by and the name I feel comfortable with. My birth name is Leana, it’s the name I use when I introduce myself to new people. It’s an odd name, I know. There aren’t many Leanas out there, or if there are I’ve just never met them. I chose to stop going by Leana with my close friends in June of 2015, if I’m remembering correctly. At that time in my life it just didn’t feel right, it felt too feminine. I enlisted the help of a friend and we started the search for gender-neutral names. I don’t remember much of that process, but we ended up with Sam. And now that’s me. I changed my name, and then I changed my pronouns. Those two things were the easiest parts of coming to terms with my gender identity. The hardest part was figuring out what my gender identity actually was.

An important thing to know before going forward is the difference between sex and gender. Sex is, to put it bluntly, what is in your pants. It is what you were identified as when you were born. Gender is how a person identifies themselves and it has nothing to do with genitalia. There are many types of genders, the one most people know about is cisgender. Cisgender is when people identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Then there’s transgender, which is when someone identifies opposite of what they were assigned at birth. Agender is when someone does not identify as male or female, they don’t have a specified gender. Bigender is when someone fluctuates between two genders, whether it be between male and female or male and agender, any combination of two genders. And finally genderfluid is when someone’s identity fluctuates between more than two genders. A huge thing about gender identity is that a person can present themselves in anyway. If they identify as male, they can still wear dresses and makeup, and that does not make their identity any less valid. If someone is agender, they can still present themselves as either masculine or feminine. Because it’s fashion and people can dress however their heart desires, and clothes don’t have gender, they are just pieces of fabric we use to cover ourselves. 

Back to the main point of this article, me. I have been exploring my gender identity for a little over two years now. I first started questioning my gender one morning in German class my freshman year of high school. Every morning at the beginning of class the teacher would have someone stand in front of the class, and she would ask the others questions. Like what’s her or his name, how old are they, things about the person. That one day I was the one standing in front of everyone. The teacher asked the other students what my name was and they all said “Her name is Leana,” and I remember saying in my head “his”. Which was odd, I had never considered myself as a he before, but in that moment it just felt wrong for them to address me as a girl. And just like that, I started going through an existential crisis. 

I had been going to a school club called the Gay/Straight/Transgender Alliance for the whole school year, so I had a basic understanding of gender. I wasn’t as educated as I could have been, so I went to GSTA and asked the student who was sort of the leader for advice. For the sake of privacy I’m going to call them Alex, a fairly gender neutral name. Alex taught me everything I know about gender. They helped me come to the not-so-final conclusion that I was genderfluid. It was a label I felt comfortable with, I liked it and I felt safe with it. After I figured that out, I started dressing differently each day depending on how masculine or feminine I felt, because dressing to match how I felt made me feel more comfortable in my body. When I made the decision that I wanted a chest binder, to flatten my chest on more masculine days, I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy it on my own and have it delivered to my house. You see, my mother isn’t very accepting of me not being a cisgender female, so what happened was I told Alex my situation and they bought it for me. To this day, I still cannot express how thankful I am for Alex. They were an amazing person that I felt completely comfortable going to with my gender and sexuality problems (We’ll get into my sexuality another day). Alex helped me come to the conclusion that I was genderfluid in June of 2015, but that conclusion was far from final.

January of 2017, this year,  I started questioning my gender again. I was seeing people in the media come out as transgender. In February a YouTuber I watch, formerly known as AmandasChronicles and now known as MilesChronicles, came out as a female-to-male trans guy. The video he made hit close to home, and it made me start to question everything again. I was like, “Seriously Sam? You’ve had a solid identity for almost two years, and you’re just realizing now that maybe it isn’t the right identity?” I thought about being trans, I looked at a bunch of super cute trans guys on Tumblr, I looked into the process of transitioning. I wanted those people to be me. I started to feel like maybe I was actually transgender. So I came out to a few friends, asked them to start using he/him pronouns. I stuck with that identity for a few months, but again it wasn’t my final decision. 

Now, here we are at my current day struggle. I don’t think I’m transgender, I don’t think I’m male. I feel completely comfortable and safe with they/them pronouns. I’m currently feeling like agender is a good label for me. It sounds fitting to me. It feels like me. It is I, Sam the Agender. I know that this might not be a solid decision, things may change again. But I know that right now I’m happy with my identity. I’m not quite happy with me in general, but again, that’s for another day. This is just a sort of intro to me. Hi, I’m Sam and I’m unsure about everything but I’m okay with it. It’s nice to meet you.