Girlmode
Presenting as a woman some of the time, usually before or during early transition.
Girlmode describes presenting as a woman on some occasions and not others, most often at an early stage when doing it full-time is not yet possible or not yet wanted. Boymode is the counterpart, and the words are used mostly by trans women about themselves.
The reasons for switching are practical far more often than they are about identity: work, family, housing, safety, money, a lease, a country. Someone in boymode is usually not less certain about their gender; they are in a room where presenting it has a cost.
The words carry a certain fondness inside trans communities and land badly outside them, because they can be heard as describing a costume. The person using it about themselves is not saying it is a costume.
They are also not stages with an expected duration. Some people are in boymode for a fortnight and some for a decade, and the length is usually decided by circumstances rather than by readiness.
Boymode is not evidence of doubt
Someone presenting as their assigned gender in certain rooms gets read as unsure, which reverses the actual situation: the certainty is usually what makes the switching painful.
The reasons are almost always external. Reading them as internal turns a housing problem or a job into a question about whether someone means it.
Saying it well
Say this
- Girlmode at the weekend.
- Boymode at work, for now.
- Not a costume, a schedule.
- Girlmode, which is just me with less to lose that day.
Not this
- So you dress up sometimes
- Which one is the real you?
- Pick a mode
- So you are not really trans yet
Questions people actually ask
What does girlmode mean?
Presenting as a woman on some occasions and not others, usually in early or partial transition.
What is boymode?
The counterpart: presenting as a man, usually as the assigned gender, in rooms where presenting otherwise carries a cost.
Does boymode mean someone is unsure?
No. The reasons are usually external, such as work, housing or safety.
Is it a costume?
No. It is a schedule imposed by circumstances rather than a performance.