you say either

To categorise by elimination is an easy process, especially when one is taught that gender exists in only two distinct categories-male and female. I first discovered that I am engendered female by learning that I was not the same as my brother. Despite being equally difficult children, we both would go to different aisles at the toy store and he could change into his uniform carelessly while I had to shut myself in a room. These differences became more and more pronounced as we grew older, more self-aware and interacted with our respective genders. With my peers, I understood the expectations in society that characterize the female gender and I became engendered as I developed/conformed myself in the direction in which these expectations are fulfilled even if I doubted them at times. Entering adolescence, when self-consciousness of body hair dictates one’s attire or one’s choice in music or colours is enough to label one as a tomboy, is a period when I felt discomfort with being presumptuously gendered and realised how little freedom there is to meander between genders as I would at times. I guess I was engendered female without realising it, owing to my comfort in being one and how readily I chose to be accepted as one in society . Today, I may struggle as I develop from a girl into a woman but consider myself a female comfortable with fluidity between genders.