Topic: The More I Have To Do “Male” ...

[NancyBalik]

I’m in a situation where I’ve had to do a lot of “handyman” tasks over the last few weeks: making home repairs, using power tools, etc. I have some skills in this area and would rather do it myself than pay to get it done (and my wife “expects” me to do it). What I have been finding is that as I am measuring, cutting, drilling, etc. I feel increasingly dysphoric. I feel trapped in this role and in the clothes required for the work. Underneath my jeans I’ve been wearing my most feminine panties, wearing a cami, or a bra on cooler days when I can cover it with a jean shirt. That helps, but the larger point is that I’m realizing that the more I do what I guess I’ve internalized as “men’s work,” the more dysphoric I feel and the more I fantasize about being a woman. Anybody else experience this? Nancy

[Allie Jayne]

Nancy, it happens to me all the time. I am expected to still do the maintenance things at home and even at my daughters home. I was a mechanic for 35 years and I refuse to work on my own car because of the way in makes me feel, but I do basic plumbing, electrical and carpentry around my house to save money. I stripped and renovated my daughters bathroom as a present, but it did trigger my dysphoria some.

I was in the middle of cooking a stir fry tonight, and me recently ex wife wanted me to come fix the line trimmer as I wouldn't start. I said not with my long and freshly painted nails! My dysphoria is quite high lately due to lack of development, so I have to avoid triggers for things which can make it worse. So no doing anything typical manly until I can improve my situation. I had a surgical exam yesterday and my surgeon had to manipulate my bits below, and I couldn't look.

A lot of trans women love doing the handy person stuff, but they have their dysphoria triggers in check. I guess I will do more once my dysphoria is under control.

Hugs,

Allie

[Maid Marion]

For me, I've never recognized the line between women and men's work.  I'd do either from a young age.  Which is really great, since I can type really fast!  I took typing when few guys did that.

Marion

[JaimeL71]

You could always buy women's jeans/shorts/tees for doing handy work.  Watch any of the shows on DIY or something.  The women on these shows aren't exactly dressed to the nines when they are demo'ing a house.   

I've been wearing relaxed fit women's jeans and women's sneakers for awhile and no one has been the wiser. 

[Ellie_Arroway]

I don't get it at all.

1. I am still the same person that I always was. The time before I knew I was trans, I was still trans; I just didn't know it at that time.

2. I have learnt lots of useful skills. I'm not going to give them up just because I'm becoming a woman.

3. It's only a society thing that sees men doing most DIY tasks. There is nothing inherently masculine about the activities themselves.

4. I think I often do a better job than a contractor would, anyway. If I'm doing things to my own house, I take care to make sure I do them right.

5. I usually wear women's clothes when I'm doing DIY, but nothing fancy. If I have to wear steel-toe boots, the mere fact that the ones I have were intended for men doesn't stop me from wearing them. Same with overalls. I don't think a ciswoman would be any different.

I hope this helps you in some way. It may be just that my level of dysphoria is low enough that DIY is not affected, and I'm not ultra-feminine by nature, more really I would say somewhere in the middle between ultra-feminine and tomboy. You may be more feminine than me, and in that case, perhaps it wouldn't help.

[randim]

Is this the place to say I've sometimes dreamed of looking like Courteney Cox in a flannel shirt and jeans doing woodworking? It'll be a better world when picking up a hammer and ironing a shirt aren't gendered.

[Allie Jayne]

I don't get it at all.

1. I am still the same person that I always was. The time before I knew I was trans, I was still trans; I just didn't know it at that time.

2. I have learnt lots of useful skills. I'm not going to give them up just because I'm becoming a woman.

3. It's only a society thing that sees men doing most DIY tasks. There is nothing inherently masculine about the activities themselves.

4. I think I often do a better job than a contractor would, anyway. If I'm doing things to my own house, I take care to make sure I do them right.

5. I usually wear women's clothes when I'm doing DIY, but nothing fancy. If I have to wear steel-toe boots, the mere fact that the ones I have were intended for men doesn't stop me from wearing them. Same with overalls. I don't think a ciswoman would be any different.

I hope this helps you in some way. It may be just that my level of dysphoria is low enough that DIY is not affected, and I'm not ultra-feminine by nature, more really I would say somewhere in the middle between ultra-feminine and tomboy. You may be more feminine than me, and in that case, perhaps it wouldn't help.

Ellie,
          We are all different as are our dysphoria triggers. I spent my working life in overalls, but for the last few years, my rising dysphoria levels made working in that testosterone filled environment hell. Every day I felt so wrong, until I just could not do it any more. The years of associating the work I did with the agony I felt come flooding back every time I pull on overalls, so now I simply don’t. Yes, I too am the same person I was, and I remember how painful it was.

Being expected to carry out maintenance work by my daughter and ex wife tells me they see me as the person I was still. They don’t want to do that work because it is dirty, requires mechanical aptitude, or involves operating scary machinery, and they see themselves as women, who don’t like that sort of work and their femininity is enhanced when they can get a man to do it for them. Not all women are like this, but look around and you will find most are. This is where typical male and female roles come from, and, though it’s not pc to assign those roles, the bulk of the population still live by them.

Hugs,

Allie

[Carla68]

Sorry all,

I don't get it if a job needs doing and I'm good at it I do it if not I ask a friend or pay someone else

Or we do it together badly lol

being transgender has made no difference to this

Carla

[Ellie_Arroway]

Ellie,
          We are all different as are our dysphoria triggers. I spent my working life in overalls, but for the last few years, my rising dysphoria levels made working in that testosterone filled environment hell. Every day I felt so wrong, until I just could not do it any more. The years of associating the work I did with the agony I felt come flooding back every time I pull on overalls, so now I simply don’t. Yes, I too am the same person I was, and I remember how painful it was.

Being expected to carry out maintenance work by my daughter and ex wife tells me they see me as the person I was still. They don’t want to do that work because it is dirty, requires mechanical aptitude, or involves operating scary machinery, and they see themselves as women, who don’t like that sort of work and their femininity is enhanced when they can get a man to do it for them. Not all women are like this, but look around and you will find most are. This is where typical male and female roles come from, and, though it’s not pc to assign those roles, the bulk of the population still live by them.

I know where you're coming from, and I do understand.

I'm a very slight person. I'm not particularly strong. I think that's one of the things that has fed into my dysphoria. I don't ever see myself doing, let's say, what a labourer would do. I wouldn't be good at it; I wouldn't enjoy it; and I'm one of those people who finds it particularly hard to put on muscle.

What I will say is that for me, this journey is not about becoming a woman. This journey is about becoming me. Some aspects of me, I am fine with. I never did conform to the male gender stereotype. For me to be happy does not mean that I have to conform completely to the female gender stereotype either; in fact, I clearly shouldn't do this to be truly authentic.

Whatever your situation, you do you. If DIY tasks make you unhappy and you can get somebody else to do them, let that happen. Just bear in mind that the person may not be male. I remember having BT Home Highway fitted (a form of ISDN) and that was fitted by a woman. My only concern was that she did a good job, and she did. It's the same concern I would have had if a man had come to install it.

The journey we are taking is all about being authentic to ourselves, which is, ultimately, what makes us happy. - E

[Lyric]

Ah, a problem I can solve! Start watching my girl April Wilkerson's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/AprilWilkersonDIY/videos. She's cute, feminine and has the biggest home workshop I've ever seen.

[Julielynn]

Nothing changed for me in that area.   I renovate houses for rentals so I'm regularly covered in paint, drywall dust, sawdust, or whatever.   I just have purple steel toes.    I still work on my own cars as well.  Granted, tapping a boob hurts a bit more than it used to and is a lot easier to do, but eh I'm getting used to it.  Girls like to get dirty too. 

[Maid Marion]

I'm small but I can do lots of difficult gardening chores because I'm patient and have learned how to plan ahead.
If you can afford power tools they are a great equalizer.   

[graspthesanity]

On the other side... I can't cook myself because it was so shoved into my throat that I can't, it's a massive cause for dysphoria and memories I'd rather not visit. Also playing guitar was prohibited for me because it's not feminine... Took me a long while to cut her off.

[randim]

Re: guitar

Dang, that's strict.  Julie Andrews played guitar in The Sound of Music, and that's about as traditional as you get.

[NancyBalik]

Sometimes I write unclear posts...probably mostly because my feelings are not entirely clear to me. I was not trying to convey that I was unhappy per se, or that I wanted someone to do my work for me, and certainly was not suggesting that I am not supportive of women in a variety of work roles. What I was trying to describe was a dysphoria trigger being activated by my own internalized male role expectations.

Although I am able to do some of these things, I realize that (in my particular relationship) my being expected to do them is because of my “maleness.” Not all of you know that I am in a marriage where my wife knows that I consider myself trans, but she refuses to acknowledge it or discuss it. So, for me, when I’m doing these traditionally male tasks around the house (as I feel she expects me to do), it triggers my dysphoria.

And, as I’m not leaving (we’ve been together over 40 years), I sooth myself by wearing particularly feminine underclothes and/or my more girly pajamas that night (and yes, she knows about those things — of course she sees them). My post was more a statement of something that I experience than a request for advice — I do know that a couple of you “got it.” (Thanks, Allie!) Nancy

[SarahEL]

I get this, it's the 'expectation' that you will do it not the ability to do it. That expectation is gendered from the person doing the expecting. It cuts right to the heart of us with GD and shoves 'you're different to me' in our faces when it is asked of us.
Recently, my wife's car tyre had lost some air - She asked me twice to pump it up. I now have longish, painted nails and to be honest, it is an easy job. So the next time she asked I asked 'why do you need me to do it?' - it perplexed her for a bit and she came back with 'you've always done it?' -  I showed her my nails and she decided she could do it.

However, she plugged the pump into the car, attached the hose and turned it on. It started pumping for a little while, until she drained the battery completely (she forgot to start the engine!). So, I get the GD trigger but then also there is life experiences that we have and at some things it simply makes sense to do them - and that is not gendered just the best 'person' for the job.

[NancyBalik]

Yes Sarah! 100% Exactly! Thank you! Nancy

[jaysonderulo]

isn't it funny how resistance works?

[Dweia]

One of the thing I've noticed about these "male things" to do....

I'm single and not very actively looking up new relationship, I've noticed that when women starts to talk about what kind of man they want to have, quite many of them want to have a man who can "repair things or do some fixing".

It's make me sad as I'm not searching a woman who can clean, make meal for me.. If you know what I mean 
It's frustrating thing to notice that it is assumed that of course men can do it and is willing to do it because he is man.
Where is our male equal rights to resist those assumptions and generalization?

[Jessica_Rose]

There are some tasks which trigger dysphoria for me, the worst one is shaving my face and chest. Luckily electrolysis has significantly reduced the need for this activity, but even just once a week bothers me. If it's something a single woman would occasionally need to do, like mowing the yard, it's OK because I can rationalize it.

My wife has started occasionally doing some of the things she always assumed I would do, including mowing the yard. She still leaves the power tools to me, but that OK because I leave the kitchen to her!