yeah, to me "gender non-conforming" was the broad phrase for butch women and drag queen type men - people who barely exist anymore because they're usually considered to be trans now. I dated a woman years ago who used to be considered soft butch - who always got her hair cut at the local barber shop, usually a 2 in the back and 5 on top, wore mostly men's clothes but would check the women's sections in certain stores for nicer cuts back when everything wasn't insanely tight, liked to wear docs but had a big collection of different style boots and some lower cut shoes (but all comfortable), liked big dogs, beer, barbecues, hanging out at bars and watching football.. She was always a woman and there was a lot more to her of course but the first impression a person would get would fit into a more stereotypical notion of lesbian, the kind that men aren't fantasizing about. I would probably call her GNC now since "butch" seems to have gone by the wayside.

I don't think talking about gender means you are embracing a strict idea of gender presentation, and certainly not of gender identity. You could conceivably have a world where everyone recognizes their biological sex, and then plays with their gender presentation as they see fit, while still having a notion of "butch" and "femme" as extremes, with a lot of us being more in the middle. Some women are really femme and some are really butch, and same with men, but a lot are just kinda, regular folk...

But more important, you can recognize that that's just personality traits and behavior - it's not an inner soul that erases your material reality, it can change over time without you needing to announce anything or change your name, it doesn't make you a man or a woman, and it doesn't happen because you say so. If you want to cut your hair or buy more boots, good for you, have at it. People might start thinking of you as more butch, they might not, but do what feels right to you and don't worry about it. But don't tell them how to think of you - be the way you want to be and let them respond.