Do you still maintain your "male-interpreter" or did you dump it?

[AbraCadabra]

To explain. "Male-Interpreter" is that brain-software that used to constantly run in the background checking if what we were doing and saying was OK for presenting as a cismale.

It's the ho, ho, or hahaha in place of the hee-hees. It's the grumpy baritone when feeling wronged. It's the "boys don't cry". The presenting as ever so resilient and tough, having-all-under-control act. It's ever so present when presenting at a job interview. It's not really being able to dance (that's for girls, hey), or even watch a ballet, etc. etc. etc.

Once we transition IME it is one of those GREAT relieves to just giggle as it comes, maybe say something girly, be much more physical and essentially just be who we REALLY are, without running this dang "interpreter" constantly to figure what be OK now (cismale wise) and what be not.

When I needed, during this last year RLE, switch to guy-mode for identification purposes I put on boy-guise (drab) but wouldn't/couldn't switch on my "interpreter".
I just though "stuff it" let them think I'm some old Queen - I JUST COULD NOT CARE TWO STRAWS... because I know I'm a woman. To hell what THEY may think.

So how are you getting on with your "male-interpreter"?
Axelle

[cynthialee]

I haven't played the male part in a long time.

I do however find myself ussing male social tools when dealing with my brother. He reponds to it so well and it gets me what I want.

[Kelly J. P.]

To explain. "Male-Interpreter" is that brain-software that used to constantly run in the background checking if what we were doing and saying was OK for presenting as a cismale.

(/snip)

So how are you getting on with your "male-interpreter"?
Axelle

Male-interpreter?

*dramatic flashback to 10th grade*

Holy crow.

Actually, these days I've pretty much forgotten where I put that thing. The interpreter... I probably lost it with my WoW authenticator. Which is just as well, because I just don't feel like gaming anymore. However... I have used it recently. About a month ago, I had a job interview, where I had to go male-mode because my application and reference were several months old - not sure why I was called, but I'm not going to question a blessing. Anywho, I tried to butch it up. I wore black pants, blue shirt, and a black button-up shirt overtop of that blue shirt. My hair was out of the way, but I still had some bangs because I hate my forehead, and I lowered my voice. I remember reminding myself not to get too enthusiastic, or understanding, or happy. I was supposed to be "cool" and "professional". And it worked... I got the job. I felt like a crossdresser, and I lol'd at the lower voice - because it wasn't a guy voice, but really just a lowered "my" voice - but I passed fine.

.. And then I came out two weeks later, he asked me why I didn't go to the interview as female, and I was surprised. I've since lost the Interpreter, as I don't really have any more use for it.

And there there's high school... To get along as a guy was easy. All the cool kids were like "My [something] is ten inches long," and if anyone looked at them weird they said, "You're gay!" I'm not proud of my choices, but those two phrases did help me blend in. I was practically a ghost... totally unnoticed. And then I got fed up with myself and became, as someone called me, "flamboyant" in 11th and 12th grades. I learned the Interpreter is unnecessary. There are fem guys - people just assume that those guys date other guys. If being gay is a problem where you are, then the interpreter is probably useful, but where I live... a small, conservative, but Canadian town, it was fine.

There are a couple of things that I still do, though, that are on your list. I don't cry in front of other people very often... My mom and sister are the same way. Likewise for the resillient presentation. I don't think that being resillient, tough, or not crying in front of people are male traits. Strength is not a male trait - it's a trait that anyone that has been through terrible situations, or times, has learned. I would say that women are very strong... and definitely at least as strong as men are. The women in my family are very strong, and I am proud to be a part of that. Frailty is not a feminine trait - it's just stereotyped to be that way.

Going full-time has a way of sorting out what's you, and what isn't. Perhaps I still have masculine personality traits - I know that if I do, they're a part of me. And that doesn't bother me. I mean, transition is a journey for freedom. If I eliminate the "act", whatever's left is something to hold onto. The Interpreter isn't there anymore... Its loss allowed me to become someone I'm proud of. Now, I'm "just" me. Plain ol' bouncy, happy, incredibly strong me.


Best wishes.

[Lisbeth]

To explain. "Male-Interpreter" is that brain-software that used to constantly run in the background checking if what we were doing and saying was OK for presenting as a cismale.

I never had one of those. I suppose that's why I got into so much trouble.

[Luna!]

Mine still runs, it's just not usually taken into account anymore. I also had to re-configure it a few times after I learned I could get away with things which it was telling me weren't very masculine.

I remember fighting with it in highschool too - it was like trying to do something on a computer with 3/4 of its functions locked out, always going "that command cannot be executed". Strangely enough, I never got any suggestions as to what would work better; it was always just "you can't do that". So I never actually acted masculine - I just acted non-feminine. Having been mostly freed from its incessant whining, I'm probably now more masculine at times than I ever was with it locking out everything.

I'm more andro than MtF (or cis, for that matter), but it's the same idea - not caring about being some stereotype frees you up to be who you are. It just so happens that part of 'who I am' coincides with that without really meaning to.

[justmeinoz]

Mine was defective from the start, the connection to the CPU would fail intermittently, but apparently there was no chance of a warranty repair. 
I tried all the manuals I could find but none of them helped much.  I  put it in the bin with the last of my guy clothes a few month's back.  No point in hoarding things you don't want any longer.
Karen.

[AbraCadabra]

Karen honey, you so FUNNY... must have had to much wino with my lunch? OMG can't stop laughing :-) Giggle

Love you all,
Axelle
PS: Used to be IT consultant so that could be why?
No warranty, CPU connection shot, software kaput, oh my :-) :-)

[JennX]

I fired him years ago... there a nice happy outgoing girl doing that job now.

[Jayne]

I had to work really hard on my male enterpreter as a teenager, I thought I had the male thing down to a fine art but when I was about 17 a friend at work told me out of the blue that if I ever told him that I was going to have a sex change then he's put me in hospital, unfortunately he was more than capable of doing it as he was trained in ninjitsu & tae kwondo, he also had a reputation of carrying out these threats so I worked to become extra male (if such a thing exists).
I started heavy drinking & fighting to show the world how male I was & I hated myself for it, after a fight I would disappear to get the crying out of the way without anyone noticing.

Now that i've come out my male enterpreter is gradually being phased out, whilst the men at work letch over the women in the mens mags we send out I find myself looking at the fashion mags or some of the tasty male models in some mags.
I also allow myself to walk in a more feminen way instead of the male stomp as I call it, I hope one day I can retire the enterpreter permenantly

[A]

Uhm, luckily, I don't think I ever had a strong thing like that. There were many times when I doubted that I was a MTF transsexual, but I never doubted that I was not male, or, at least, that I was "not like them" or "better than them" (yes, I have a tendency to consider masculinity as inferior to feminity, and I don't think I will be able to fully get rid of that impression until I don't live the bad sides of the former every day) regarding males. This hasn't gotten me a lot of social relationships or abilities, but at least, in many respects, I have always acted as female as I could to make me feel better.

[AbraCadabra]

Hi A,
you're 20, and I can see you can say what you say.
Looking at the baby-boomer-generation i.e. post WWII: THERE WAS BUT NO WAY TO PULL THAT OFF! You HAD to have a male-interpreter... being MtF.

Lucky enough for the more recent generation one could try and be a lot more who we are.

Post WWII they still e.g. locked gay males up in prison! In Germany it was paragraph 175 of the "Strafgesetzbuch". Any male person just looking a bit femme was immediately called a 175er.

This was so in the 50s and still 60s.

Just try and imagine that.
Cross dressers got also locked up together with prostitutes in NY city, and not just there.

Now try and think how to "come out" as a transsexual then.
There is a pretty well documents film " Candy Darling", it give one a pretty good idea about all that.

Sorry for the history stuff, but it's were we older girls grew up in. No wonder it took some of us so long to come out.
Once your "interpreter" is established you pretty well fool yourself quite well, as much as most others.
Axelle

[Sunnynight]

Sometimes it pops up in the back of my mind and then I'm like HAHA I don't need YOU anymore, and then it shuts up.

[JessicaH]

This thread reminded me of a joke so I had to look it up and post it, lol.

Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system>activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, and Racing 3.6 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.

I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help!
Thanks,
A Troubled User. (KEEP READING)
______________________________________

REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.
Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.
You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.
The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.
Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2. However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag, Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0! WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support


Read more:  http://www.ajokeaday.com/Clasificacion.asp?ID=54#ixzz1T8ykR0uG

[A]

Axélle: Oh, well, the world was hell on Earth at that time, so I don't see a point in wondering how life would have been back then. It's sad that people went through sad things, but the best we can do is ensure that people don't have to cope with it anymore.

So I never actually acted masculine - I just acted non-feminine.

Well said. It feels like me.

And uh, if you really want to know how I would have acted 50+ years ago... Hmm... I'm pretty good at being clueless and looking innocent, so I would have either ended up in a psychiatric hospital until they find what the heck my problem is, committed suicide or have ended up pretty much unhappy as a single, weird man. Though as I was never inclined to sex or crossdressing, I don't think I would have been victimized for something other than not being enough of a man.

I also want to emphasize the fact that I never wanted to provoke you.

JessicaH: Funny!

[Amazon D]

For me its kinda the opposite. I spent 13 yrs living as a woman and now i am dressing in guys clothes and trying to pass as ftm male in most cases but i keep sounding female especially over the phone. I have to keep remembering i am trying to be a non op FTM which gets confusing since i am a 14 yr post op mtf 

[JungianZoe]

I never had one of those. I suppose that's why I got into so much trouble.

You and me both!

My ex-wife told me the other day that she never appreciated how easy it always was to talk to me.  That I not only listened to what she said, but understood her and provided meaningful responses.  She says she never noticed it when we were together (how different I was from guys she'd been with before) but she really noticed it when she started dating after our divorce.  She realized only then that I communicated and heard things like no other guy.

She never knew I wasn't exactly a guy in the first place...   Not until I came out, three years after the divorce.

[JessicaH]

You and me both!

My ex-wife told me the other day that she never appreciated how easy it always was to talk to me.  That I not only listened to what she said, but understood her and provided meaningful responses.  She says she never noticed it when we were together (how different I was from guys she'd been with before) but she really noticed it when she started dating after our divorce.  She realized only then that I communicated and heard things like no other guy.

She never knew I wasn't exactly a guy in the first place...   Not until I came out, three years after the divorce.

I think my wife will be in for a surprise if she ever dates or lives with another guy. She will be in for a SHOCK!

[JungianZoe]

I think my wife will be in for a surprise if she ever dates or lives with another guy. She will be in for a SHOCK!

It's true!  So many of us DO talk differently.  It never even occurred to me how different I was until a friend of mine said "I know you're really a girl because you fight like one" after we had a verbal argument.   Then there was the comment that my ex made, and a stark realization a few weeks ago that one of my male friends didn't get a thing I was saying and it frustrated me to no end.  His girlfriend knew I was frustrated too because she told me she feels the same way at times.

[Maddie Secutura]

I was a complete dick prior to transition.  I was standoffish and generally not nice.  It wasn't so much having a male interpreter as a wall built around me.  I had this fortress of masculinity.  I did sports, worked construction, and figured I'd be as manly as possible.

Now that I don't have to do that it's great.  It's strange though, I have this paranoia that the people I work with will find out my history so I make it a point to work just as hard as the guys do.  All that is in the hopes that I'll have earned enough respect that it won't make much of a difference to them.

[Dana_H]

My "male-interpreter" has been on the fritz since the day I was born.  I think the other kids could sense this during my youth as I was a constant target of bullying.  I just could never get the hang of interacting as a male, even though I knew that is what I was "supposed to be".  The one part that always seemed to work well was the part that says "boys don't cry...ever!"  It kept me from losing even more status with the bullies, but it also frequently kept me from obtaining the emotional release I craved. I still fight with that bit.  It really stinks to want a good cry more than anything and not be able to get it to come out.  (I'm hoping E will help overcome that.)

When I finally "woke up" around 40, it suddenly made sense why that sucker never worked right for me; it's not the right attachment for this unit.