i'm unsure what you mean by feeling ambivalent about gender. i got some ideas:
ambivalent regarding the concept of gender: the existence of agenders has already been pointed out. even aside from agenders, people can dislike the societal system of gender, think it's "made up"1, annoying or the like, and still wish to place themselves in the binary. it took me long to accept myself as trans bc of this ambivalence, but i hate being seen as a man more than beeing seen as a woman. (i'm a little bit of an enby maybe.) also theres gender fluid people for whom the supposed constance/persistence of gender identity may not make that much sense.
ambivalent regarding their own gender identity: if someone feels like they are unsure what they are, not this but also not really that. it might be that they are still not allowing themselves to fully feel in this or that way. repression made it hard for me to even see that there is a big part of me, that wants femininity. it could also be that they are gender fluid, enby or agender, and thats why they don't have an "unambiguous"2 feeling of identity.
1 well i see the fun in being polemic, but english is also a societal construct much like gender: the signs and rules are arbitrary, highly conventional, and it has no individual architect. yet it is there, we can use it to communicate, enjoy, confuse, etc. ... 'made up' implies that it is easily dissmissed from the conversation and that's not the case i guess. sure there are different languages of gender culturally, but still. tgey exist and affect us.
2 that's a bad word right from the terminology and expectations of cis people. enbys, agenders and gender fluid persons are not beeing ambiguous when telling what they are. the predominant system of gender just doesn't know what to do.
i eventually came to a point at which i care about making appointments with the dentist regularly. (not good care, but you know). it was a long way since i started the process of "ok let's try this living for a while, what needs to change to make it viable?"
of course this didn't look nearly as optimistic in the beginning. it was rather doomy. but there is a place for all of us, and there are people that can help finding it. my anxiety is still with me but i can manage it better, i feel. i'm glad you got on the way. :)
ja. das wäre, da ja nun jedes stück software 'app' heißt, durchaus eine akzeptabele existenzweise des dienstes. und letztes mal als ich nachgeschaut habe funktionierten websites auch auf dem handy! das könnte man dem chef dort vielleicht mal flüstern. :))
while i wrote this i got a new idea to search for the name in #4. (i am out of the field and don't have access to the big corpora anymore). at least i got a lead. :))
hmmm, danke! ich suche eh nach ner bank, die digital okay ist.
(was hat ING als 2FA optionen für ihr online banking? ich suche konkret nach dingen die ich eh schon nutze: OTP, key files ... nicht einen extra TAN generator, den ich mitschleppen müsste.)
i entertain this idea, too. in your expierience, did people adapt well? i am worrying that they will just use my name and 'forget' that things are different now. that they can more easily keep up the he/him stuff?
my fem version would be pronounced basically the same (a bit depending on the speakers main language) so i fear my great legal coming out would slip below a lot of people's radars ...
'add an e to my given name': would be pronounced the same (at least with a 'good' french pronounciation), would be easy, not to much of a decision and basically okay. maybe it would be too easy for ppl to keep old habits, though?
'pick the name my parents had in mind for me as a girl': not to much of a decision. unfortunately i know a person of that name. would be weird to steal the name.
'pick the name of a distant person you venerate': i got one (1) idea. i am into it. but i again know a person of that name. would be weird.
i had a 'council of (two) friends' come up with a suggestion for naming me: would technically still be a given name. 🙂 they had an idea that i basically like. but the overthinking hits. they came up with a shortened version as a name that could stem from at least two diffrent greek names. i'd be staling the long form for my passport from my greek teach! but i wouldn't want to transscribe the modern pronounciation, rather a classical one (sounds better in german majority contexts, i think). here's the real problem: i couldn't find an instance of that name in classical greek texts. 😟 now i am a sad philologist.
maybe it's version one then. since i don't really like having a shortened name as my legal name. that's for friends and family.
i second that. but in phone calls from colleages i hate the "hey, got a moment?" too. i wouldn't have answered otherwise, or i might have told you i would call you back in a few minutes within my first line?
I know you mentioned you felt you hadn't done your homework, and I think this communicates both that you feel overwhelmed and like you've started this process that demands so much more knowledge than you feel you have, but also that you might feel like you don't have the level of certainty or clarity about your own dysphoria or needs to direct the transition.
im crying. thank you for caring so much and for your reccommendations!
i'd like to add: the gross glibberishness eggs give to mayo is in fact gross.