Trans jealousy; what is a fair self-image?

[JJ]

Comparing myself to other girls cis or not generally makes me feel like total crap.
Looking at my closest female relatives is even worse, they are totally gorgeous and stunning, and I just look like an ugly male version cos testosterone has ruined me 
Im trying hard now to have a healthier attitude towards all that before it totally destroys me.

I feel exactly the same way, Siobhan. It's easy to say 'just be yourself' and 'what's inside is important' but not so easy to actually put those attitudes into practice.

[Alexis]

In direct response to the OP's question, I'm not even sure what one could possibly use as a standard for cis-gendered or trans-gendered women. There's just way too much variation. I think it is perfectly fair for any member of the trans community to feel sad about their body, regardless of wether they pass or not since the two really have nothing to do with each other.

I understand that this thread is about appearance and how it relates to self-image, but keep in mind that self-image is so much more than just that. While there are plenty of measurable aspects that make up self-image like height, weight, etc. there are also those all those intangible aspects too. It's not only about what you look like, but how you truly see yourself, your personality, what kind of person you think you are, and how much you think of yourself. I realize that this is really the ideas of self-concept, but its important.

My opinion is that there isn't any one standard that we should judge ourselves by. What works for me probably doesn't work for everyone. While a yardstick may give us a direct way to compare ourself to others, there is so much that is lost reducing your image into that standard. What works for me as far as judging myself is really wether or not I am living to my morality and personal values, not my appearance. I won't pretend that I'm not comfortable with my appearance now, but I wasn't always and I actually adopted this mindset well before transitioning and I was incredibly upset about my appearance. It's your self image though, use whatever standard works for you, and by works I really mean something that at the end of the day you can use to bring yourself up, not take yourself down. You have to be ok with being you, especially if you want others to be ok with it

[peky]

Very well said Dale!

My "Standard" for judging myself, that I share with others, is to look around you the next time you are waiting in line at the grocery store. That is where "Real" women are found.

It may be a trans platitude but I do believe passing is 90% attitude, a good part of which comes with self confidence.

Not platitude at all, you are right on Joanne !!!

I call "changing your attitude," "Releasing you inner female." What I meant by that is -at its essence-  think "I am a female," feel "I am a female," the magic then happens thinking-plus-feeling female makes you "project" your self as a female; your demeanor and the "energy" you send is female. This "attitude" is very powerful, it makes other people override their own physical perception. For example, they may see your male physic, but your attitude is so female that they unconsciously override their own eyes and accept you as a female.

[barbie]

Many cis-girls use the "Barbie" standard of beauty, and they pay the price for it.

Yes. Me, too!

Barbie~~

[barbie]

I don't compare my body to those of cisgirls because it is an unreachable standard.
As irrational as it may sound, a dark part of me is terribly jealous of transgirls who have a convincing appearance, especially the young transitioners because they can make a fresh start in which neither past or looks will hinder them. Looking in the mirror then makes me feel very depressed and hateful towards myself for not starting at a younger age.

One positive thing of me, as transgender or transsexual whaterever, is that I am still very interested in fashion and outer appearance. Most of women at my age (late 40s) do not care so much for their outer appearance, including proper etiquette. Especially in this country, they are jokingly called "the third sex" as they are more aggressive than men.

Young cis women are just for my reference, not for my standard. I learn fashion trends and tips from beautiful women in the street, but I am not so much jealous of them. Here my height alone attract their attention, and most of my female colleagues and friends openly praise my body shape. For example, today I go shopping just after running exercising, wearing athletic tights. I could feel the jealous eyes of women regardless of their age.

I am just jealous of women, simply because they are biolgical women. I can look more beautiful than most of them, but I am any way a biological man, which can not be negated even by SRS. That is the most painful fact to me. But I do not wish to be born woman, because the society is still patriarchical and women should live with unfair treatments. As others said, I just to enjoy my unique appearance and inner mind set. My colleagues and friends are generally supportive of me, and I think I am a lucky person.

Barbie~~

[peky]

One positive thing of me, as transgender or transsexual whatever, is that I am still very interested in fashion and outer appearance. Most of women at my age (late 40s) do not care so much for their outer appearance, including proper etiquette. Especially in this country, they are jokingly called "the third sex" as they are more aggressive than men.

Young cis women are just for my reference, not for my standard. I learn fashion trends and tips from beautiful women in the street, but I am not so much jealous of them. Here my height alone attract their attention, and most of my female colleagues and friends openly praise my body shape. For example, today I go shopping just after running exercising, wearing athletic tights. I could feel the jealous eyes of women regardless of their age.

I am just jealous of women, simply because they are biological women. I can look more beautiful than most of them, but I am any way a biological man, which can not be negated even by SRS. That is the most painful fact to me. But I do not wish to be born woman, because the society is still patriarchal and women should live with unfair treatments. As others said, I just to enjoy my unique appearance and inner mind set. My colleagues and friends are generally supportive of me, and I think I am a lucky person.

Barbie~~

Very poignant and truthful post Barbie. I can see you are a real Lady. I am in my 50's and like you, I am constantly keeping with the high fashion. I do not see any female (genetic or not) as superior or better than me in any way because i simply do not compare with anybody including the males. I just go on with my life, and let other people draw their own conclusion as to who I am.

Personally, I do not care what other think of me, after all your "reputation" is just what other believe they know about you...

...and the end, your honor -which is what really matters- is but "a little gift you give yourself"

[pretty]

A lot of interesting opinions...

Maybe it's that us younger girls are more concerned with fitting in and finding "a place." There's a lot of pressure with cis girls who are just coming fresh out of a teenage girl lifestyle and us being in the same place socially but not having that, and also not having yet had the time and support and resources to perfect our look and really explore what styles we love on ourselves.

Whereas the older girls already have a social and maybe even professional place, they're just trying to be more of themselves within it.

It probably does have a lot to do with age... even if we pass better we may just naturally be more self-conscious about how we compare to other girls. 

That was the trend I was picking up on, anyway, with myself included 

[Violet Bloom]

I believe all humans are insecure and the ones that are the most have been the ones striking out at humble little me (and others like me) trying to convince me that I AM actually the one with the problem.  It took me 30 years to figure out that I like myself in most respects and always did while at the same time realising just how much many supposedly confident, everyday people hate themselves and their appearance.  It also took me that long to stop being consumed by self-consciousness including looking at everyone I walked past on the street to see if they thought I was presenting anything to criticize.  And this was all as a genetic male.  Upon looking back over my life I took comfort in discovering my tg at 35 because I had to achieve this peace with myself first.  I also can't imagine having transitioned as a shy child and made it alive through the torture-test of school peers and the craziness of pubescent females, all while carrying secret male parts.  My puberty was tough enough as is.

I find it facinating that women are jealous of me for my slender, non-curvy figure/high metabolism and long eyelashes even though these are not really typically feminine traits (and also don't make them sexually attracted to me).  It's a really weird feeling to be complimented as a man on an ideal that they actually want for themselves especially when it seems to be at odds with thousands of years of natural selection by genetics and men's partnering preferences.  By this experience it appears at the same time that many transwomen aspire to an ideal that cis women are trying to throw away.  It causes me great confusion that many cis women feel they will be more feminine by becoming more androgynous like me and many transwomen feel they will become more feminine by attaining a cartoon extreme that most cis women are naturally not.

Everyone has their own idea of personal beauty and also what makes others beautiful.  Chances are pretty good that most of us will be our own harshest critics.  Personally I dislike the (few) parts of me that are typically male because I never aspired to the normal masculine ideal.  I really would have liked to have been accepted by the world as just a different 'flavour' of male but have come to understand that I'm actually not much male anyway and that I won't be accepted or understood in general in that role.  In accepting my body and my personality for what it is, completely ignoring definitions, I realised that I would fit into the societal structure best as a woman.  In my case I value my androgynous/feminine-leaning traits and am attracted to androgynous/masculine-leaning women.  I will be content with my appearance so long as I don't appear as a totally obvious 'fake' to the general population.  I think my genuineness and comfort in personality will matter far more in this respect than how 'feminine' any one person may judge me, trans or otherwise.  I am very lucky for the 'unusual' and somewhat neutral beauty I have and it would pain me if anyone was overly jealous of that.  For any of you that have had even one successful/intimate relationship in your life at any stage, I would sell my soul to be you.  Don't ever forget for one second how precious that is over anything you might look like.

A little playful jealousy on this forum is no problem.  I revel in the symmetry between this and overheard conversations amongst genetic females.  Congradulations - you're all women!!!

[Hell_Girl]

no matter when you transitioned you will always envy others if it's part of your personality to do so.

Hi Five!


Now lets play a game of spot the woman who's name used to be Bob! I bet it's not the one you think it is.

And don't worry, I have permission to use the photo that of the young woman in question who's name used to be Bob!

contestant number 1


contestant number 2


contestant number 3


contestant number 4


contestant number 5


contestant number 6

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Hmmmmmmmmmm.    Well Hell_Girl, For some reason number 4 looks familiar.  Gee I wonder where I have seen her.

[pretty]

Hmmmmmmmmmm.    Well Hell_Girl, For some reason number 4 looks familiar.  Gee I wonder where I have seen her.

Yeah unfortunately it doesn't really work for me since I've at least been around here that long 

[LilDevilOfPrada]

Xell since i joined Susans a year or more ago i learnt a lot and realised i can't help but only compare myself to cis girls and that most of the girls here do the same for the most part

[Hell_Girl]

Yeah unfortunately it doesn't really work for me since I've at least been around here that long 

She does doesn't she

Anyway the point I was making was that there's no point living a life measuring yourself against a percieved notion of bueaty...tis a wast of a life better spent living. And that women come in all shapes and sizes and that a lot of what many T folk take to be soley masculine features are the result of genetics not the action of hormones.

[Naturally Blonde]

Number 1? something about the forehead but I might be wrong?

[JJ]

You can't see the faces in 4 and 5 properly so it's impossible to say which one out of 6, if indeed it is just one.

[JoanneB]

Maybe it's that us younger girls are more concerned with fitting in and finding "a place." There's a lot of pressure with cis girls who are just coming fresh out of a teenage girl lifestyle and us being in the same place socially but not having that, and also not having yet had the time and support and resources to perfect our look and really explore what styles we love on ourselves.

I can personally affirm that trying to compare myself to other 20ish women when I was in my 20's was a sure way to derail transition, twice. It totally killed what little self confidence I was able to muster up venturing out into the real world.

There was sort of a positive aspect, and a totally questionable one at that, that came from those two aborted attempts. It helped to reinforce my denial of being a TS. I had a firm belief that I could never make it out in the real world without furthering a life filled with abuse for being different. I settled on being just the occasional CD for stress relief. For 30 years that was my "Normal" life preserver or reality check when thoughts wondered towards The Dark Side.

Without that unyielding belief all the other diversions and distractions I filled my life with would not have been anywhere near effective in my quest to lead a somewhat successful and normal male life. However, it was one hell of a kick in the emotional ass lasting several months when I realized just the opposite is now very very true.

[peky]

# 2 ?

[kelly_aus]

I suspect I have a slightly different aim from many others, at least as far as my looks go.. All I want is to look like a female member of my family.. And given that genetics have not been all that kind to my family, that's not as hard as I thought it would be.. Somewhere along the way I've realised that I am actually attractive, at least to some.

I'm a great people watcher and something I've realised from my observations is that women come in all sorts of shapes, colours, etc etc.. Am I better looking than some women? Sure.. But there are also a bunch that are better looking than I am.

Quote from: JoanneB on Yesterday at 07:47:44 am

It may be a trans platitude but I do believe passing is 90% attitude, a good part of which comes with self confidence.

I agree 100%, Joanne..

[barbie]

Very poignant and truthful post Barbie. I can see you are a real Lady. I am in my 50's and like you, I am constantly keeping with the high fashion. I do not see any female (genetic or not) as superior or better than me in any way because i simply do not compare with anybody including the males. I just go on with my life, and let other people draw their own conclusion as to who I am.

Personally, I do not care what other think of me, after all your "reputation" is just what other believe they know about you...

...and the end, your honor -which is what really matters- is but "a little gift you give yourself"

Yes, Peky. It is poignant, but all of human lives have been. Even the Chinese king, Qin Shi Huang, desperately seeked the elixir of life, after conquering all of the mainland China. At that ancient time, he was the most powerful and rich person in the world, but still he could not be satisfied with his life.

We are imperfect and mortal, and I believe TS is just an example of our imperfection.

My preferred fashion style is juniors' or 20's. In big cities like Seoul, I can easily find women with grace and fashion sense, and I learn from them. Their actual height is not so tall, but they can make it look tall and slim. Also, their wearing makeup is adorable. Korean college girls are infamous for their wearing makeup and spike heels like professional entertainers in TV. A problem is that nearly all college girls now try to catch up TV stars. Nowadays, hot pants and gladiator heels have been a trend.

What if a girl of 200 pound weight and 5'2" height is wearing gladiator heels? At my college, located in a small city, there are bunch of teenager girls.  Frankly speaking, I am sick of watching thick and short legs of those girls in the campus. I just wish the fashion trend will change to long pants next year.

However, I sometimes chat with those college sutdents on beauty and makeup.

Barbie~~

[Olivia-Anne]

Hi Five!


Now lets play a game of spot the woman who's name used to be Bob! I bet it's not the one you think it is.

And don't worry, I have permission to use the photo that of the young woman in question who's name used to be Bob!

/snip

Welcome back Alice! Hope things are going well!

<3 Liv