Doll version of yourself as the other gender or genderless

I'm trans, and this does not offend me. I find it's ok to explore gender in ways like this or even with like table top RPGs. If it helps you in any way understand a part of yourself then it's a good thing. I don't see this as weird at all I role play, and I always was drawn to characters in things like books and anime that could change their genders. It took me a long time to realize I was male, and a lot of that time I'd make male RP characters to explore gender identity.

I actually have a BJD doll that is a superhero/villain world setting version of me. This doll was gotten before I started my transition. He has slowly transitioned as I have, he started on a large bust body, and he is now on his second body, it's still a female body, but with smaller bust. Also now that I have had top surgery I plan to mod him and sand off his bust. So I think this is a perfectly valid way to explore gender, dolls and play can be a safe space for things like this.

 

While my dolls are not physical representations of myself (and I never plan to have a project like that -- I just personally do not like the thought of it), I have two characters that can freely switch genders physically. It's a thought experiment regarding the nature of their relationship and more philosophical things, but I won't elaborate cos I would just ramble on and on about it.

Spoiler: Adhara

Jinbaori 01 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr


Genderbent Adhara Grunge by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

Spoiler: Guórén

Guórén Revamped Scars by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr


Dark Erhu Female 2 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

 

This is something I have thought about as a gender fluid individual. Using a doll in this way helps to mentally unfold these thoughts and look at it from a outside point of view. It is very interesting and may be helpful for those who are still finding themselves.

 

I mean kudos to people that find it healing, helpful or even just fun but I think just wearing pieces of men's clothing irl is about as far as I personally feel is what I need, so I guess not. I have considered doing a genderswapped Giselle oddly but it's more of a passive thought than an active one.

 

I am female, I was born female, and I don't really feel any particular way about it -- I'm pretty androgenous looking IRL, and flat/scrawny as a flat piece of wood, so maybe that's why I don't mind it so much. Although I did experience meddlesome comments from strangers when I was younger, for no reason whatsoever. I would have much preferred to have been born a male, but that would mean a short one, since both my parents are short. The type of weirdo that I am, I would probably hate myself if I had been born a short male. Having said that, I do sometimes fantasize about "what it would have been like," if I had been born a perfect male version of myself (my ideal version of one, not whatever the world or humanity feels is perfect, I am weirdo!). However, I never would create a doll based on me, even if it were a highly idealized, fictional version of myself. That would probably be more trauma inducing for me, than a thing I would enjoy. I collect dolls for my own personal enjoyment, as things I find beautiful or cool. So, I rather recrate character dolls based on mostly male characters I already love, if I am going to put the effort to customize a doll. They are far away and removed from me, and I don't feel any of them relate to me, most of them are from fantasy worlds that could never be human anyway. I don't feel like they would make representations of me in anyway, even in fantasies. Although I do more than occasionally wonder what it would be like, I know it's not possible and a doll is not going to make it a reality, so I rather not have one (to represent a male version of myself). I collect a lot of dolls of any gender, so it's not really something that I am fixated on "only collecting male dolls," at any level. A magic genie lamp would be appreciated on the other hand, I would take that no questions asked. (;

 

While I was assigned female at birth, present fairly femininely, and am comfortable with gendered language, I consider myself agender. My personal relationship with my gender identity is that gender is a performance I put on for special occasions, weddings, and funerals, but is not something I feel is intrinsic to me or who I am as a person.

All of my dolls' characters contain personality traits of mine in some form or fashion. I've never intentionally set out to create a doll to be a mini-me of sorts, even one of a different sex/gender, but, like all artists, I tend to leech into the final iterations of all of my projects whether I mean to or not. Eden, for example, has my obsessive streak taken to an extreme, unhealthy degree and has a similarly lukewarm relationship with the human concept of gender.

If playing with dolls and characters helps you explore your relationship with gender, I don't see any harm in it. In fact, I think more people should question their gender, even if they come to the conclusion that they're perfectly comfortable with the one assigned to them at birth. I think it helps people learn to shirk off the societal expectations associated with a gender when they've had a chance to play around with it and define it for themselves.

 

As a nonbinary individual, I've never felt the need to make any doll of myself simply because...well, if I wanted to look at myself I have a mirror, lol. But I can absolutely see dolls and customization as a way of self-reflection. I do wanna note one thing, however, as someone who previously identified as a cis person who would think "man, I wish I was a male/trans, that seems like it would be cool": a symptom of being trans/nonbinary/agender is wishing you were trans/nonbinary/agender. Chase whatever gives you euphoria!

 

I actually have somewhat of the opposite feeling. I'm trans masc and can't even have a female doll with my same eye/hair color without it making me feel a little dysphoric. If it looks like how I used to look, it makes me uncomfortable. I do enjoy having a mini-me though of my "ideal" self in doll form though.

 

A lot of trans people see themselves as having been the gender they are now their whole lives, while others took a while to explore things before figuring things out. I'm the latter. I was nonbinary for almost ten years before I allowed myself to explore masculinity and realized not being able to have been born a boy and be a man was why I've felt so bad my whole life. At the same time, as a child I wasn't cognizant of gender the way I am now and still consider myself as having been a little girl. So while I've been a boy my whole life, I navigated childhood as a girl, if that makes sense. Anyway.

One of my dolls, an Asleep Eidolon Ding Dang is sort of based on how I navigated the world when I was little (up to my teens) and I've been using her to get back in touch with my inner child. She's not cis, tho, because she is her own character rather than a mini-me. (Don't feel comfortable with mini-me's tbh.) Instead she's genderless while preferring she/her pronouns and being feminine. Annnnd she's been great fun to dress up and find clothes for! She's the girliest doll I have in a modern setting, so I've been having fun shopping for her.

 

Dolls are a great way to experiment with gender expression within a safe space, I think it's one of the best perks of the hobby! It's not weird or rare at all

I'm nonbinary and dress in gender-neutral way. While none of my dolls are really visions of myself, I love the fact that I can also dab into more feminine fashion with them without the fear of the dysphoria if I had styled myself similarly. I'm really grateful that I still have a way of enjoying fashion that'd would feel weird to wear.

 

I am just happy there are so many lovely people in this world and except for the murder type and devout haters of this world ..those who live for war.
I am happy everyone is here..the world needs us.
annnnd the fact that there are dolls in so many versions..colors ,styles to suit us all and how we might want to see ourselves..

to make myself in doll form ..hmmm, heck, I dont know who I am or could have been in this life .just a wife and mother coming to the end of my life now so maybe when I was younger I could have liked to see myself in another way .
so imagine and be what you like now..even doll form ..its all good

 

Here’s another trans take on the gender bending! I’m hyperfemme, in a fun gothy kinda way, most comfortable in dresses and I love makeup, but in my personal life I use he/him pronouns. The more feminine I am, the more calling me he feels good, because it feels like acknowledging that any performance I have of femininity isn’t about being a woman. And I have a character that I used to explore my own gender that I have a doll of, who is hyper femme and he/him and even shares my hair colour, because my hair is an integral part of my gender.

So a genderbent version of me is hypermasc, in a kinda gothy way, but uses she/her pronouns to emphasize how her performance of masculinity doesn’t make her a man. She also definitely has a beard, because beards are incredibly hot, and it’s unfortunate as a lesbian, that most of my prospective partners are beardless. I’ve never thought of having a doll like her. I have a lot of different genders of dolls, both cis and trans, but she was never an idea. Maybe now she should be. It would be cool to create the opposite of me, gender wise, and I can think of some cool things I’d do to customize her, like giving her an elaborately designed shaved head, because my opposite would have to have very short hair. She’d also keep her very masculine name, because I have a very feminine name.

this was a cool thought experiment! I’d never thought about flipping my gender before, let alone as a doll.

 

An elf version of me? Absolutely! It might be my floating heads...or the dolls I haven't labeled with a Tolkien name. I like being able to dress them all in clothes I cannot wear in real life.

I did do the whole mini-me in the 90s with American Girl Doll and I still have her.

 

None of my dolls are really 'me', but when I first got into doll collecting, LONG before transitioning or even really knowing I was trans, I knew I wanted a boy doll to explore fashion with. Vince's style is not at all gendered-- most of what he wears is shorts and tee shirts, but those shirts range from loose and boxy with superheroes to fitted pink leopard print, and he has LOTS of jewelry, some more femme and some more gender neutral.

Billy and Marigold both have my hair/eye color, one being male and one being female, but neither is 'me'. Jack is based on my beloved former D&D character, who I was playing as WHILE early in my nonbinary-to-male transition...

I'm looking at getting another girl that I can really explore FASHION with, since the girls I have are all hard to dress for various reasons, but she won't really be me, either.

None of my dolls represent me as a whole, but ALL of them, male and female, represent aspects of me or are vehicles for self expression, and they're all ways that I can play with gender and gender presentation-- Vince's genderless embracing of whatever is fun, Pete being super femme, Deanna being the tomboy (but a drop dead gorgeous one)... playing around with them lets me express things that I might not want to try out with myself, or might not be ready to, or might have moved away from but still want to enjoy in some way.

 

Totally!
I have one male doll whose character/fashion plan originally was 'a male version of myself'. Nowadays, it's grown into its own character. But then I got a girl who was supposed to be a female version of that doll in turn. And then I split the girl's personality and now I have two girls who serve the purpose: one is an ftm crossdresser (of which I am very proud, because it's rare in the hobby and my special-snowflake syndrome kicks in) and the other is a very feminine but femme-fatale type of a girl. Meanwhile, I have a boy who is an mtf crossdresser (and sometimes I swap his head and put it on a female body altogehter, but then he remains character-less and is just a pure/mere fashion doll). He has the male version of my name though. So, in some way, each of my dolls is an extension of myself, very often including the play with gender conventions.

As for representing myself through my dolls, I identify as a female-bodied and male-brained individual. I have learnt to put up with my body and be thankful for it as is - it's a mere vessel/shell. Been through psychotherapy, which left me accept it without forcing myself to go hrt + op. So "living through" my dolls helps.

 

I think its very normal and human to imagine what you would be like as "someone else", that's how you develop basic empathy after all It's fun to explore possibilities outside of gender, even if it's a fictional species. Of course the limitations are that you can only ever explore on a physical level, which is typically idealized, and filtered through the biases of the sculptor and the owner. I'm not entirely sure if that's healthy lol It's good to make friendships with lots of different kinds of people if you really want to broaden your perspectives on what life can look like for someone else! But that's besides the point. I feel like it'd be pretty typical to embed some aspects of yourself into your dolls, they have to have some inherent appeal after all, otherwise there would be no purpose in buying them. Both my boy and girl dolls are inevitably "parts" of me but as a 1:1 alternate representation, I don't think my mind can go that far lol But in short no I don't think that mindset is weird at all.

 

Somebody else I knew customized a girl doll inspire by her husbands appearance. She said the doll was like a small version of him in a sense.
I don't need to see myself as a man.

 

Well, I hadn't thought of doing this before... I did come up with a boy version of myself several years ago (and then kinda dropped it)... On the other hand, dolls for me are mainly about fashion, and I just don't find "male" fashion that interesting! Unless it's perhaps historical fashion... Ok, I guess I have some stuff to think about!

I do find myself identifying with trans women a lot, but I don't know what that could possibly imply, as I am already a cis woman

 

I have always said that by telling the stories of my dolls, I tell the story of myself…and it’s true. From the very beginning I found myself creating characters for my dolls from my own life experiences, both good and bad, expressed in a fairytale-like way. By setting my dolliverse in a fantasy setting, it allowed me the freedom to create something akin to a life journal (expressed through dolls and their displays rather than through simple words on paper, which was way more safe, fun, and creative to me.) What an amazing journey it’s been…and quite healthy and healing too.

I’m a cis woman and have never had any issues with my femininity, but because my collection was set in my own fantasy world of imagination (looking something like a Tim Burton’s movie “Alice”) I felt free to collect any size, any species, and any gender to express what I was trying to say. If I felt the character born of one of my life experiences could best be expressed as a male, I didn’t hesitate to do that. And if it worked out best as genderless character, I did that too…it was fun and quite freeing, and I’ve really enjoyed my journey.

 

At almost 60 I don't even know what is me. Have been changing the whole time. I never deeply cared one way or another. I think only eye colour has stayed the same (no colourful contacts for me).
As for the dolls I build them up first in my mind, around 1 feature first, then ad and ad, features from my myself, my friends, even pets. So far I have mental images of 5 characters and 2 of those are slowly coming into existence, got 2 bodies, 3 heads, a handful of eyes, some hair to make wigs, a box of paints, their first clothes. Maybe I'm trying to build a person without my own flaws?

 

Well, this is quite an interesting topic, so I hope I'm allowed to add my two cents to it. In my case, I've never doubted my gender (I think it has a lot to do with being raised in an environment where being a girl didn't mean a single different thing from being a boy) but still, as a writer, I've sometimes explored aspects of myself through the eyes of a masculine or even asexual character.
It's only natural, I think, and even therapeutic, to explore different gender ideas as well as we explore trauma, or learn to socialize better, or other types of experiences through dolls / books / games or any other controlled environment, be it of our own creation or not. Going through those same topics in the real world could be painful, but within that imaginary space we feel secure.

 

A very common, shared experience in the trans community is exploring gender through video game characters. I know I started that way! It's an incredibly safe method to discover things about yourself and gain insight into what makes you comfortable. Exploring gender through dolls? Same thing, different hobby! I honestly think everyone, whether staunchly cis or suspected trans, would benefit from this type of exercise. It's perfectly valid to explore and go "yup, still definitely cis!" because at the end of it you've just found out even more about yourself - which is really cool! And a lot of times it can give insight into other people, and why they do what they do. Which only leads to more empathy, and that's a net positive all around.

 

I haven't thought of making a boy version of a doll before, I'm a cis woman, but I was questioning my gender for awhile and I thought I was a trans man, I only socially transitioned, but I realized I'm a cis woman and not trans.

I think the idea of making a doll that's the opposite gender is ok and there's nothing wrong with exploring through dolls, I dress my girl dolls in cute clothes I wouldn't wear in real life haha.

 

There's nothing strange about it. Although I never doubted my gender in real life, I've created dragon versions, historical versions, fantasy versions, and occasionally, male versions of myself. Because it's fun!

Playing with dolls is an exercise of the imagination, and doesn't mean anything unless you like it enough that you want to make it a part of your real life.

 

I am actually planning on making an intergendered doll, probably next year as two dolls are my wish list before her and I will be ordering them this week.

I want the doll to look similar to me as I was born XXY. I already picked out the doll Makscat Yael, because she has eyes very close to mine and the face shape, as well the mouth. I also like that the Makscat bodies are very flat chested, so they can easily wear gender neutral clothes and look the part.

The character when it enters my story isn't going to be that much like me, but there will be similarities.. I think I would feel too exposed if I were to do the character exactly like myself. But there will be issues with the character being intersex that I am looking forward to exploring in her storyline. I think people born intersex are often overlooked in media and I am looking forward to bringing that into my webcomic.

I also like the idea of have a pseudo minime bjd around. We will have to have at least one matching outfit!

I think exploring a storyline where the character has always known what they are will be interesting for me. A sort of confirmation of my own identity.

 

I haven't considered making an opposite gender doll version of myself, but now I think it's a pretty interesting idea! I'm very much a cis male myself. Any transgender inclinations I thought I might've had became satisfied when I got into dolls. Dressing up as female never felt right for me, but I was always interested in it nonetheless. Having the opportunity to play with female fashion with dolls was exactly the outlet I needed. Still, I sometimes wonder how I would feel if I was born female or suddenly transformed into female. I think I would embrace it, like Hazumu from the anime/manga Kashimashi. So, having a doll specifically that would exemplify what I would wear if I were female might be a fantastic practical thought experiment. If the doll would be a mature adult sculpt, I think the clothes I'd get for "myself" would be a lot different from what I enjoy in the dolls that I already have. I think I'd like to wear clothes styled like you'd find from companies like ModCloth.

Regarding sexless dolls, doesn't Volks do a sexless "angel" sort of doll? I know it's come up in conversation at doll meets for me. For example, while I appreciate and sometimes even enjoy the anatomical correctness of my mature sculpts, I really, really don't need my little girls to have detailed parts

And no, I don't think you're weird