Jake Dillon likes to people-watch during his daily BART commute, taking in how other people see him. With his short dark brown hair, manicured sideburns and black wire-rimmed eyeglasses, he looks like any other cool young hipster on his way to work.

Commuters don’t know that he works with mentally disabled adults, a job he finds crazy-stressful yet rewarding. They might not know that he’s a Scorpio and a smoker with a penchant for dropping the f-bomb during conversation.

But they would never guess that there was a time in Dillon’s life when he didn’t have an answer to the question of whether he was a girl or a boy. Being genderqueer was a big part of Dillon’s transition. In the past Dillon once identified as a female but he now know his true identity: a transgender guy (female to male or ftm) and he doesn’t mind if others are curious.

“Genderqueer is someone who chooses to defy standard gender definitions,” explains Steve Toby, a licensed marriage and family therapist who identifies as a trans-man.

According to Toby, a person who identifies as genderqueer can be a biological male, female or be intersexed (those who have both the male and female genitalia). The person may continue using the term genderqueer to define themselves while others like Dillon used it as a gateway term towards becoming transgender.

The genderqueer term is relatively new in the trans-community and is helping youth describe what they have felt their gender is, which before didn’t have a term.

“I don’t think they [older people who identify as transgender] have even heard of the term genderqueer…it’s a relatively young group that uses that term,” says Lin Frasier, a San Francisco based therapist with 30 years experience working with transgender patients.

Identifying as genderqueer was Dillon’s personal choice as he became more comfortable in his own skin. “I was like, I’m genderqueer and I have no preference of anything. I just felt that fit me better,” he says.

The range of young people identifying as genderqueer varies from 18 to 30 years old. Some of the characteristics include the refusal to use masculine or feminine pronouns like him or her. “They feel gender should be fluid, not fixed,” says Toby.

In some instances a person who is female-bodied may prefer to be called ‘he’ without resorting to physical changes such as taking testosterone or having surgery. For this reason, the term genderqueer is also loaded with political meaning.

“The political part of genderqueer is ‘I should be able to identify and label myself without changing my outside appearance and society and my mother or my father or my boss or my best friend should respect my identity no matter what my body looks like,’ ” says Koen Baum, a licensed family therapist and senior gender specialist.

As a child Dillon always felt different. “I was always really boyish…I never felt like I looked right in girl clothes,” he says. Once puberty struck at age 12 he didn’t like the physical changes taking place in his body. He had boyfriends in high school and he had girlfriends on the side, but by senior year Dillon cut off dating boys completely, preferring to date girls.

Dillon grew up in Orange County, a place with “snobby rich kids with too much money and nothing to do.” He admits to being one of those kids, but it wasn’t until he came to San Francisco that he felt like he was home.

“One night my friend and I were chilling in L.A. and we were like ‘let’s go to San Francisco,’” Dillon explains.

The decision changed his life.

“When I was here like I felt so comfortable,” he says. “Like I could walk down the street holding a girl’s hand and people would be like ‘oh you’re cute’ instead of like ‘ew look at that’ in a negative manner.”

The large number of genderqueer people and transsexuals living in San Francisco and the Bay Area is unusual, according to Baum.

“That doesn’t mean there’s no genderqueer folks outside the Bay Area, it’s just a phenomenon that so many people live here because of the political climate and acceptance,” says Baum.

Acceptance from some family members is still work in progress. Dillon, however, has accepted himself.

“Ever since I’ve lived up here I’ve never been so happy” he says. “I wouldn’t regret anything….living life with regrets is a shameful life.”