- can't help but thinking that it is their overall mental and emotional issues that cause the dysphoria, not some innate gender identity.

That is a very profound hypothesis, and one that certainly deserves much more attention in psychological research.

Who am I to judge this? Also I am open to the fact that I do not know the truth, that there might be more to this than I am able to see right now.

Such pragmatism is very honourable, and it is an approach that I wish more people in the LGBTQ community shared.

It's a scary thought when you put it that way. I've heard of cases where people instantly come to the realization that they are trans after browsing through /r/egg_irl even though some of the memes posted on that sub are so generic that they could resonate with just about any a teenager that is going through an identity crisis. But that doesn't mean they are an entirely different gender. In most cases it's called adolescence.

Now it's like we're supposed to state to people how they're meant to see us?

Excellent point. That goes hand in hand with the the tendency to outright ignore or discount how other people see us, which is also a bit fake. I mentioned that in another post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/e6s8pw/is_anyone_else_bothered_that_trans_people_keep/f9tdkao/

Heck, I was banned from that sub just for asking why gender nonconforming people cannot be part of the LGBT community since they suffer prejudice not unlike trans people. When I responded to the ban notification politely asking for an explanation, I was muted for 72 hours from contacting the moderators.

we can mix masculinity and femininity freely. It's that simple.

That has not been my experience.

1. I was banned from our local shopping mall after buying $65 in clothes from Kohls because the security guard was offended that I wear women's clothes. He accused me of being "abnormal" for crossdressing, then he called the police to serve me with a No Trespassing Order.
2. One day my gay boss told me, "Leslie, if some day you are found bludgeoned to death in a city park you can tell them I did it!" I'm also the lowest paid hourly employee on staff, despite having seniority. He refuses to give me a raise because he objects to my feminine "lifestyle".
3. At my other job, the general manager often makes snarky remarks about my feminine appearance like "You should be arrested for dressing like that!" He's also grabbed my crotch and made sexually suggestive remarks even in the presence of other employees and customers.
4. Ten years ago, I was beaten in a city park by a college student. He shouted "I hate fags like you!" and "I'm going to kill you" as he threw me onto the gravel and ripped the purse from my shoulders. Passersby simply watched and laughed as they saw me being brutally attacked.
5. I routinely feel uneasy when using the men's restroom. Parents glare at me, fathers sometimes pull their kids away in disgust. I've been groped and sexually harassed by perverted men. I've also had security called on me multiple times because it was assumed I don't belong there.
6. I'm fearful of going outdoors when middle school and high school students are dismissed, because kids will often point fingers and break out in laughter. Sometimes they have even followed me down the sidewalk, taunting and teasing me because of my feminine appearance.
7. A group of parents ganged up on me at a Chicago park on pride weekend. They were afraid since I was wearing a Hello Kitty dress and sitting on the swings. A father walked over and said "Can you please just LEAVE! I don't want you here, and these other parents don't either!"
8. When I go out to restaurants like Taco Bell, Burger King, or McDonald's, staff will often whisper and stare because I'm dressed girly. It makes me feel so humiliated, I wish I could just disappear. I've also had teens run up to me and make cruel remarks like "OMG! What are you?!"
9. It's always terrifying walking through campustown fully dressed up, particularly after dark. I've had frat guys shout from their cars "Die faggot!" and "Holy f&$k!" and "HEY FREAK!". Leaving the house each day I have to mentally prepare for the likelihood of being verbally harassed.
10. I have come to accept that I will rarely ever see people like me represented in mainstream movies, TV shows, magazines, newspaper articles, or any other popular media. And if I go to any public places dressed as my true self, I'm unlikely to encounter other males that are like me.
11. When I speak to people on the telephone, they are frequently confused by my masculine sounding voice, even though my name is "Leslie". They switch awkwardly between "Ma'am" and "Sir". I'm afraid to correct them since gendered honourifics make me feel uncomfortable.
12. Several years ago I was taken to the ER by ambulance. The paramedic asked for my name. When I told him "Leslie", he got flustered and said "Do you have another name?" I told him I used to go by Randall, but it was changed. So he signed all of the paperwork with my dead name.
13. When I was admitted to the hospital, they gave me a wristband with "Randall" printed on it. Later they brought my meds and food all labelled "Randall". Nurses and doctors refused to address me by my legal name since they didn't believe that a male could actually be named "Leslie".
14. My gay boss enjoys joking with staff about the fact I have been anally raped multiple times. He frequently interjects "Leslie, if you were raped then it was for a reason!" Most of the employees think it is hilarious, and agree that I deserved to be molested since I look and act feminine.
15. During a company meeting at the bar where I work, my gay boss was mocking and ridiculing my name change, telling staff that "Leslie" is something you would expect from "a senile old hag in a nursing home." He enjoys publicly belittling and shaming me in any way possible.
16. A coworker was making fun of my name change to sales clerks while we were out shopping for bar supplies, saying "Can you believe he changed his name to Leslie?" He routinely harasses and humiliates me with other staff, playing practical jokes and pranks for his own amusement.
17. My mother still refers to me by my dead name, and always introduces me to friends and colleagues as "Randall", She says that since nobody would understand that I am gender nonconforming, she doesn't want to have to explain it. Basically she's embarrassed by who I am.
18. When I go shopping for clothes, I must accept that almost nothing will be designed for people like me. I must resort to continual trial and error (if staff allow me to use fitting rooms, since I'm male) to determine what sizing of women's shirts and pants fit my masculine frame.
19. I have attempted suicide and self-harm on many occasions since coming out of the closet in 1999, as a result of feeling inadequate and inferior due to lack of visibility and acceptance in society. I receive weekly psychotherapy to overcome my struggles with gender-related prejudice.
20. I've been called a pervert, a pedophile, a sicko, a weirdo, a freak, etc. in online forums by religious zealots because I'm violating God's commandments. Apparently I'm also going to burn in hell, and I must seek redemption and accept being a "real man" as the Lord hath made me.

For the majority of people, gender is policed first and foremost in accordance with norms and expectations of gender expression. As a result many gender nonconforming people (like myself) are more likely to feel unsafe or insecure for being perceived in defiance of gender normative behaviors, appearance, mannerisms, etc.

The Human Rights Campaign's 2012 survey Supporting and Caring for our Gender-Expansive Youth confirms this to be true: "Gender expression is the initial, often primary, source of harassment, discrimination, and violence that confronts many of our youth. Quite simply, children and youth perceived to be different in their gender are often targeted by their peers. While lesbian, gay, bisexual youth experience significant levels of harassment and bullying related to their sexual orientation, the levels are even higher for those who defy gender conventions and expectations.

In 2017, The Williams Institute conducted the first comprehensive survey of gender nonconforming youth in California. The study determined that high school students perceived by their peers to be noticeably gender nonconforming or androgynous experienced over double the average levels of psychological distress than their peers (18% versus 7%).

According to a study by JAMA Pediatrics of 6,082 high school students, gender nonconforming females were at 22 percent higher than average risk of mental illness but gender nonconforming males were at an astonishing 55 percent higher than average risk of mental illness. And it doesn't end there. Gender nonconforming females were 52 percent more likely to plan for suicide whereas gender nonconforming males were 79 percent more likely to plan for suicide and also twice as likely as their female counterparts to attempt suicide. These are frightening statistics for people that are supposedly "cisgender privileged".

In addition, the 2017 GLSEN School Climate survey found that atypical gender expression amongst males resulted in increased victimization and diminished sense of safety compared to that of females with atypical gender expression, despite not being transgender.

I have also read numerous stories from gender nonconforming teens online (predominantly feminine boys) sharing their anxiety and distress about coming to terms with their feminine nature. They admit to bottling up their emotions and hiding their authentic self for fear of ridicule by family, friends, and classmates. Being stigmatized for being different really isn't what I would consider freedom.

Given so many social obstacles, including lack of support and awareness, it is seems evident that mixing masculinity and femininity is not simple for many people.

There really needs to be better accounting for the incidence of gender nonconformity. The statistics are woefully lacking which has caused me great consternation. Usually the only time that gender nonconforming people are surveyed is as part of research studies centering transgender people. Yet not all gender nonconforming people even consider themselves to be LGBT, so the results of such reports (like the NTDS, for example) are artificially skewed.

That's my thought as well. When I grew up we didn't have access to that kind of information. It meant going to a library. At least books were more credible than online blogs and forums.

Adolescence is hard. That's part of growing up. I remember being bullied and teased, but I learned coping skills to get through school. Nowadays kids seem to be so coddled by parents, they need to be constantly reassured they are perfect and they can be anything, including transitioning to imaginary genders, and society is supposed to bend over backwards at all times to validate them because they are unable to face up to life's challenges.

People can do whatever they want, but that doesn't fundamentally change other people's interpretations. Denying something doesn't affect reality. I can wear a dress and heels, but people will judge me for it in a gendered context whether or not I think it should not be gendered.

Indeed, Riki Wilchins on several occasions had expressed contention with the transgender rights movement which had become increasingly polarized, and her eventual decision to focus more on issues of gender nonconformity led to a number of disputes with various trans activists. Some of my favourite quotations:

• "While I recognize how important it is to produce histories and sociologies of transpeople, I am wary of anything that might cement that category more firmly in place."
• "A transgender struggle is an important thing, but it is not my fight. In fact I personally have no interest in being transexual or transgender… What I am interested in is the original cultural gesture to regulate what your body and mine can mean, or say, or do."
• "Studying transgender by itself risks essentializing the category and, at the same time, naturalizing the gender regimese that install it and the normal gender displays that go unregulated."
• "If feminine behavior is a learned cultural performance of hair, clothing, voice, gesture, and stance so one is perceived as a female, then by presenting yourself as a woman it is you who have been co-opted into traditional sex roles, you who serve their institutions, and you who are performing here."
• "I have no interest in being part of a transgender or transexual movement whose sole purpose is to belly up to the Big Table and help ourselves to yet another serving of identity Pie, leaving in our wake some other, more marginalized group to carry on its own struggle alone."

Wichins has also stated that no political movement should be based on an identity but rather on an issue, and that gender is not something we are but rather something we do. Ironically, these two points are at direct odds with modern trans ideology which holds that identities come before issues, and gender is first and foremost about being, not doing.

Thanks for the advice, but words and ideas cannot be copyrighted. I coined the word freedressing in 2004. I coined the word ambiphobia in 2017. I've been using ambigender as a synonym for gender nonconformity since 1999. Dr. Ehrensaft is attributed as coining the word "gender creative" on both my website and Facebook pages. The concepts described in this graphic have been publicized on various social media since 2014. And yes, I personally devised the model of gender variance described in this graphic of my own accord (the dual spectrums of ambiguity vs. ambivalence), the idea for an awareness day (in 2013), the design for a pride flag (in 2015), the design for a community symbol (in 2013), and the manifesto (in 2013).

I am also pro-trans rights. In fact, I legally changed my name to Leslie, as an homage to transgender pioneer Leslie Feinberg. What I oppose is the continual SJW gatekeeping and identity-policing and respectability politics that have become an epidemic within many trans spaces, in particular the widespread redefinition of the word "transgender" to eliminate gender expression, which undermines the core principles of diversity and inclusion that Leslie Feinberg and Holly Boswell had envisioned of the original transgender umbrella. Transgender people have also stated on many occasions to me that they disprove of cisgender gender nonconforming people being associated with the transgender community. That is the ideology that compelled me to create a new movement, so as to mitigate the likelihood of such conflict. My response is to acknowledge the wishes of transgender people themselves. Hope that clarifies.