how do we know

[Elsa.G]

what it is like to feel female if we have never been female before? Most gender roles are implemented at birth if you are born male they usually give you a blue blanket, if female a pink blanket. Is it because we are attracted to barbie dolls and dresses or trucks and trains? Ive always felt female but i could never understand how or why? since i was never actually a girl... Usually people feel their gender because of their life experience- girls are conditioned as girls and boys as boys... if ive been conditioned as a boy almost all of my life than how can i ever understand what it feels like to be female? i have never been able to answer this question even for my own feelings its just a matter of "i just feel like a female" could it be more that i think i feel female? maybe because i like dresses and the girl stuff i attribute that like as a female feeling, but then again not all females like dresses and flowers, just like  not all guys are tough and into sports. This question just blows my mind, but it doesnt change the fact that i want to transition.... but i realize that if i stopped taking hormones tomorrow and stuff i would just go back to being a normal male..... im having a hard time coping with this

[kelly_aus]

Despite all the social conditioning, I just knew being a man wasn't me - no matter how much I tried to make it so.. And saying that 'I'm a woman!' just felt right..

[Cindy]

I think you  need to be a little cautious about social conditioning. Difficult experiments to do for all sorts of ethical reasons, but just watch boys and girls grow up. I'm watching two friends first born's growing at the moment. I love them both to bits, one is a 2 yr old girl, the other a 2 yr old boy. The boy does boy stuff the girl does girl stuff, neither of them has been placed into a girlie.boyie environment. Both parents are highly educated and just go with the flow as their kids grow. They both play and get dirty and the girl comes up to Mum to have a wash, she doesn't like being dirty, the boy loves it. You scrape the mud off.  They wear very similar clothes, shorts and a Tee.  They have gender neutral toys, the girl is starting to pick up dolls at kindy, the boy isn't.

I'm pretty damn sure that there is a lot of biology in our gender ID.

I was brought up as a boy, very much so. I knew very early that I wasn't. I wasn't sure what I was but I knew I wasn't the same as the other boys in the room.

Cindy

[pebbles]

I wasn't sure either... I had this exact same dilemma that you had. I personally reasoned it the same way.

I also want to be a biological scientist... I've never been an employed scientist yet I want to be one. Why? how? It dosen't make any sense but that's how it is.

[annette]

However the conditioning was, living as a boy was hell.
I couldn't understand other boys, their interests was not mine, their way of talking and perspective was not mine.
it's the feeling that you're living in a place what's not your house.
Very awkwardly, just staying there and no idea where the refrigerator is or something.
And than.......therapy, hrt, rle, it was like coming home, stepping in a warm bath, hey...I found the refrigerator.
For me, there were no questions left.

Annette

[justmeinoz]

It's a bit like the question, "how do you know you are gay?"
My answer is, "well, how do you know you are straight?"
You just do. It's hard wired into our hypothalamus apparently.  There is room for variation, but not a reversal.

Karen.

[8888]

If you feel like an outcast around your male friends and are much more in harmony with girls, chances are your brain is more female than male and hence you would feel female as a result of general interaction with both genders. Social conditioning is only around 20% of what you are, otherwise you wouldn't claim to be/feel female given that you were "socially conditioned" into a man.

[AbraCadabra]

Despite all the social conditioning, I just knew being a man wasn't me - no matter how much I tried to make it so.. And saying that 'I'm a woman!' just felt right..

Pithy and well said. Just my notions, nothing needs adding.

Axélle

[mixie]

However the conditioning was, living as a boy was hell.
I couldn't understand other boys, their interests was not mine, their way of talking and perspective was not mine.
it's the feeling that you're living in a place what's not your house.
Very awkwardly, just staying there and no idea where the refrigerator is or something.
And than.......therapy, hrt, rle, it was like coming home, stepping in a warm bath, hey...I found the refrigerator.
For me, there were no questions left.

Annette

I think that's it right there.  I have three sons and they are all very different.  I never allowed any of my kids to play with guns. Ever. Yet all of them are interested in gun games on PS3.  My kids are older 18, 16 and 11 is the youngest.  My youngest went through stages of wanting to wear pink all the time.  I had a big fight with my hubby once because my son loved Dora the Explorer and wanted these pink flashing light up shoes.  I bought it for him. I didn't care. I figured they would get dirty soon enough and he was only 4.   I have dressed all three of my sons as girls and put them in dresses with "pretty girl looks" when they were babies.  They totally didn't care.  My youngest actually preferred wearing dresses up until he was about 8 years old just because they were more comfortable.  He didn't like how tight the pants were.  My son also has a massive gut, even though he's not fat, he's half Greek.

All of these things and none of them identify as a girl.  Also I have constantly told my sons that if they grow up and get married to a man or a woman or a woman or a man. I've switched it around.  I've been conscientious about it because I wanted to have them be open to gay marriage and who knows.  Maybe they are gay.

Well none of my sons are gay.  I can tell you know even with my 11 year old.  They've been gender identified on their own since about 4 years old and then it got stronger and stronger as they got older.  Now when I say "if you grow up and marry a man or a woman," they all roll their eyes and tell me they are not gay.

AND YES I KNOW THAT BEING GAY IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT>  JUST WANTED TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA HOW THEY WERE RAISED>

So my advice is not really from the inside out but more the outside in.  I'm cis.  I can immediately see the difference with the transgender people I have met.   Now with me also I do not generally tend to get along with women.   I am extraordinarily supportive of my female friends.  But my personality type is an INTP  And so I think a lot more like a man does.  I tend to be logical instead of emotional.  This can cause me to be the lean to for many of my female friends and I don't feel that I can lean back.  I have one or two friends I can turn to.  For the rest they lean on me.  Most of my friends are men. I get along better with men. I  am respected by men.

So it's not just about who you feel comfortable with or socialize with better.  Part of my gender identity confusions have been based on feeling like an outside with women.

However I would never in a million years want to be a man. I love being a woman.   As I've gotten older I've loved it even more.  Even though I was a much hotter commodity when I was younger.  I prefer myself now as I am older.

So to me that would be the clue.  It's also one of the diagnosis clues for GID.   It is an increasing and persistent identification with the opposite gender or neither or both.  Just something is off.  The outside doesn't match where you want to go.

[Beth Andrea]

How do I know I'm a woman?

Because I never fit in with the guys. Guys always look at me like I'm a sissy, or weak, or whatever...and they remind me (nag me?) that behaviors like how I stand, how I talk/listen, how I walk, how I think, how I think of others, even how I fart, is how a woman does things.

I can put on an act like a guy--I have learned some tidbits over the years--but it is just that, an act (and I always knew it was an act). Once I figured out I was MTF, I ditched the act and just started being me...the men are a bit older now, and somewhat less likely to actually say anything about me, but I know what they're thinking by the way they have become stand-off-ish.

[Kelly J. P.]

 I don't really know that I'm female, to be honest. I get along with some guys, some girls... I feel a little more comfortable around guys, though this may be because the girls that I have felt safe with are in the minority. A matter of experiences, I guess.

Maybe I think like a guy. I make a pretty terrible empathizer, and I can be pretty immature at times. But my sister is the same way.

So, I don't know if I'm female or not. What I do know is that I prefer to be that way - to be seen as such, to express myself as such, and to look as such. Whatever all that entails. And that's why I'm transitioning... because it makes me happy. The rest is details.

[Alyx.]

I don't really know that I'm female, to be honest. I get along with some guys, some girls... I feel a little more comfortable around guys, though this may be because the girls that I have felt safe with are in the minority. A matter of experiences, I guess.

Maybe I think like a guy. I make a pretty terrible empathizer, and I can be pretty immature at times. But my sister is the same way.

So, I don't know if I'm female or not. What I do know is that I prefer to be that way - to be seen as such, to express myself as such, and to look as such. Whatever all that entails. And that's why I'm transitioning... because it makes me happy. The rest is details.

This. Same for me. Although for some reason I THINK I feel like a girl, it doesn't really matter if I do or don't.

[A]

This question is what scientists are trying to answer. When they do, there will be a lot more knowledge and understanding of our very mysterious condition. It might even be a step into finding a way to prevent ->-bleeped-<-, which would be amazing.

I know some people regard transsexualism and related issues as an expression of being special, an add to the species' diversity or some kind of spiritual awareness or superiority, but I don't agree. For me, it's as useful and desirable as having your left hand and right leg inverted.

If they could ever find a way to diagnose fetuses with GID and inject hormones to either make the body develop in the opposite gender or make the brain develop in the body's gender, it would solve the greatest part of the problem.

I'm going off track, but still. It remains that this question is probably one of the most important keys to transsexualism... And I don't think we can accurately answer it.

[Laura26]

• How do you know that you experience happiness in the same way I do?
• How do you know that you experience {x} in the same way I do?
• How does girl1 know that she experiences femaleness in the same way as girl2?

It's impossible to answer these questions definitively which is why social science is a bit dodgy   The best we seem to be able to do right now is to ask people to articulate their experiences as best they can and compare notes.

My family grilled me a fair bit as to why I identify as female, but our discussions always ended in the "but why?" game - where they'd always want to deconstruct aspects of my life further.  It's funny because cis-peeps get away with just saying "I just am" or using the natural argument whereas they expect us to answer questions they can't even answer in themselves. 

Part of your post seems to be about expressing regret for having missed out on a typical female childhood.  I share that regret but all we can do is live our futures correctly.  Besides, I figure a few years post-transition I'll have been exposed to all of this female social conditioning - whether I want it or not!

Also if you stopped taking hormones you wouldn't simply go back to being male.  You'd still be you

[Kim 526]

Mixie, what does someone's nationality have with their physiology? I'm half Greek and kinda proud of it. -1

[Assoluta]

Define "feeling like a female"...a pretty loaded question...

[Tazia of the Omineca]

My mother was always very accommodating. I was always inclined to wear dresses, I bawled my eyes out when I got my first hair cut (5 years of growing it).
I've liked to play in the forest, and I've always liked role play (I was always a girl character), and digging in the dirt was always really fun.
I have just always wanted to be a girl, I told people this when I was 5, nobody liked that idea and they always told me "You're not a girl! Don't act like one!"
That kind of hurt my feelings a lot... because they weren't understanding and they were my family. I was ashamed for a long time.
I tried to kill myself once because of the way I felt and the way I was treated for wearing dresses. After that experience of almost dying I decided I would finally ask about HRT.

Now I'm not usually afraid to tell people I feel like a girl and want to be a girl, I told my neighbors because I visit them a lot, one of them likes me (semi-romantically) as a girl.
Things are turning out alright, really the feeling is the only thing that matters in the end, just as it is your opinion that matters in the end.

[mixie]

Mixie, what does someone's nationality have with their physiology? I'm half Greek and kinda proud of it. -1

Um it was a joke.   Lighten up.   Sheesh. -1 to you missing the bigger more important part to focus on something so petty.

[Noah James]

How do we know? I'm not entirely sure... I'm FtM, but I figure the feelings are parallel and the reasons related; I mean, how different can we really be in terms of biology - brothers and sisters under a trans umbrella?

I guess the best way I could explain it (in my point of view) is the identification with my dad. When I was younger, it was always me and him against the world. No question that I'd grow up to be just like him, at least, until I realized things just don't work like that. I mean, I've always felt... different as a kid. I couldn't exactly pinpoint what separated me from the rest, but I distinctly remember the feeling. Didn't want to play with the girls and the boys didn't want to play with me, so I just kinda did my own thing. Made friends with a few girls later on, but we never played any gender specified games. They were there because they felt bad for me, initially, but grew close over the years. The lot of us were tomboys, I guess you could say, but the problem was that once we all reached puberty, they grew out of it and I... didn't. Suddenly, they weren't just my friends who were girls, they were GIRLS who were my friends.

It was around this time that I began to regress, and fought growing up as hard as I could. I hated the idea of my body maturing like the other girls and it was almost torture to see my female friends go through puberty first and think "That won't happen to me, right?" It was only months before I caught up with them, and longed for the pre-pubescent days. I went through a brief stage of regression during that time, finding all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't grow up, while also finding reasons to believe that I was actually a guy. "Got over it" around the age of fifteen after my parents demanded that I learn some responsibility, and so began my "girl phase" where I tried to fit in. That didn't really go over well, since I was torn half the time. Being generally secluded made any social gatherings particularly exciting, but the prospect of wearing clothes I detested made me stay home more often than not. Around last year, I picked up a sort of "who cares" attitude when it came to my appearance, and also got into writing and role playing. It was through writing that I came to terms with myself and came up with the easiest explanation for why I feel like I'm a guy:

When I wrote for a girl character, I always wrote in the third person, which focused more on detail in surroundings and events rather than thought. When I wrote for a guy character, I wrote in the first person and just let my thoughts fill up the page. The detail was still there, but the writing felt more... personal. More me.

[valyn_faer]

• How do you know that you experience happiness in the same way I do?
• How do you know that you experience {x} in the same way I do?
• How does girl1 know that she experiences femaleness in the same way as girl2?

It's impossible to answer these questions definitively which is why social science is a bit dodgy  

You obviously don't understand what social science is or what types of questions we answer. These are philosophical questions, not social science questions. I'm a sociology major. We DO NOT seek to answer questions like this in sociology. Please don't spread misunderstanding of what social science or sociology is.