I don't fit into either gender
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Questioning gender
The first thing to do is to take a deep breath and then realize that there are many other folks out there who are also questioning their compatiblity with the two socially predefined genders (man or woman). More plainly, you are not alone.
Perhaps you feel that when you hang out with "the guys" you don't fit in with them, but when you hang out with "the girls" you don't fit there either. Or perhaps you feel androgynous, walking a gender-neutral path between the two social norms. Or perhaps you feel that you embody characteristics of both genders and don't want to be forced to choose one set over the other.
All of these perceptions of gender, and more, are ways that people see the world from outside of the binary gender system. At first, this can be a scary place from which to see the world, when everyone is telling you you're wrong: "Everyone tells me I have to be a girl/boy; there are no other choices!" Just remember: the best person to determine your real gender is you. And that determination can be fun, scary, wild and wonderful, a journey that takes your whole life.
The binary gender system
Most of us start from a place within the binary gender system, that is, from a place where we have been told and we believe that there are only two genders. You're either a man, or you're a woman. In rare cases, people might "assign" you the wrong gender at birth based on biological considerations, but if you were fortunate, you got to change your gender and often your sex, often using hormone therapy and various medical procedures to assist physical changes.
Gender identity is often conflated with sexual identity, which doesn't help matters any. If you have a penis, you must be a boy; if you have a clitoris, you must be a girl. Fortunately, some folks with penises are now acknowledged by most folks to be women, and some folks with clitorises are acknowledged to be men, if only because they adopt the gender presentation of their true gender identity and are accepted as such by folks around them who neither see nor know what genitalia they may have. (When is the last time you checked to see that everyone around you who you presume to be a guy actually has a penis? Maybe they don't. How can you tell? Why should it matter?)
As the particular body parts a person has become less connected to the recogniztion of a person's gender, this also opens up room for dialogue around and social recognition of the idea of more than two genders.
Is gender biologically or socially determined?
We don't know. Some studies talk about biological factors, like the level of testosterone in the womb influencing the gender identity of females later in life; other folks have done hard work researching gender as a social construct. One thing we know is that we treat gender as very near the core of who we are, with a very visceral reaction when someone or something transgresses our ideas of acceptable gender norms.
Certainly, some people feel safer making the argument that gender is fixed by as yet unknown biological factors, so that people who are gender-variant aren't seen as choosing an immoral lifestyle, similar to discussions in the queer community about choice vs. biology in determining sexual orientation. Others feel that the only way to really deconstruct the existing binary gender system and its accompanying poor power dynamics is to go after the idea of gender itself, showing that it is fluid, chameleon-like in nature, and when you examine it for too long it simply morphs to take on the nature of its surroundings.
Some people's sense of their gender identity changes over time. Is this because they choose their identity differently as time goes by? Or is it because they become more aware of who they are, as they begin to express previously hidden parts of themselves? Or is it some combination of the above? We don't have the answers to these questions, but fortunately, we don't have to have them before embarking on the journey of gender discovery.
Breaking the "rules"
One thing that most everyone can agree on is that rules about how one should behave based on one's socially recognized gender are often used to limit a group's power or opportunities. For example, "women shouldn't be aggressive because it's just not feminine" translates to women being submissive at home and in the workplace. Other rules come out of homophobia or related issues; "Men don't wear skirts or blouses" is one of those rules, strictly enforced by physical assault in some cases. If you are troubled by a rule about gender that you aren't sure about, well... some rules are meant to be broken! We are all pioneers in this field; pioneers make their own rules for future generations to judge.
Embracing gender diversity
Imagine if we walked in a world where there were only two kinds of flowers: roses and tulips. OK, they are nice enough, and they come in different shapes and sizes and colours, but think how much we'd be missing. Now imagine the world that could be, if we knew as many genders as there are flowers, where gender expression was all over the map, where every encounter with another person might bring a gender new and fabulous. Show your gender to the world, and let a thousand genders bloom!
