Can we really understand each other completely?

[michelle]

I guess, that I can only speak for my self, but in growing up as a women in a man's body in the Dakota prairies I found that trying to live up to the male expectations of competition of trying to be the strongest, consume the most booze, being able to fix everything, to jump tall buildings with a single bound, were too much for me, to lie to girls to get my sexual needs meant at the expense of their sense of well being, etc were too much for me.

When I competed with guys rather it was in ping pong or wrestling and I pickup the vibes that they had to win or they would be crushed my heart was not in it, like any good little girl, and I choked and they won.   Of course this was with everyone except my younger brother who was just about 16 months younger than me.   Him I had to beat at all costs.    This always upset him,  but maybe he sensed that the female was strong within me,  I don't know.

Being more submissive or just not having to be the physically and strongest personality is not my style.   It's not that I want to be dominated,   I just don't want to dominate or I want to be treated more like an equal,  which hasn't turned out for me very well because seeing my male body other females want to put me in charge at times, then sensing that I am just an other one of the girls, they don't want to listen to me at all.  Like they are the number one hen and I am one of their maid servants.   

Being a female is not really any easier then being a male, but being a female fits my temperament more.   I wine and bitch back like any other hen in the flock.    There is no rooster in our hen house.   Nor does my significant other really want one.    She wants to be the one to define our relationship, so I really don't know where I am most of the time.    Yes, I did do the male duty of father in our son, because physically I had the male parts and she had the female parts.    No, I do not consider myself a she-male,  I really consider myself all woman. 

Now maybe I don't consider the female expectations a burden because I was not born into them and did not live most of my life struggling to full fill them,   but I really my temperament is more feminine than masculine.    I would rather deal with make up and panties and bras and female squabbles and emotions, than the male life of wine, sex, and physical competition and physical and emotional  brutality  to dominate and sake out my turf in the world.   

I know that women many times are considered a man's property and ciswomen have had to deal with this all of their lives.   That I have basically escaped this because I have never been a man's bitch.   I have basically lived in lesbian relationships all of my life being the bitch who was kicked out into the world to bring back the bacon, while the home being the domain of my cisgendered spouse.   This is not totally accurate,  my first cisgendered spouse live for working outside the house as well as for being the dominate female at home.   Me, being retired now, both my second spouse and I are both house hens, but all of the money comes from my Social Security, but she is "First Hen," and all of the money is household money.   

With me not having a male ego,  I have never really been the dominate male in the relationship,  most of my family life I has been an emotional struggle between two females with neither of my spouses wanting a dominating male, unless it was to get the car out of the ditch on a 40 below wintry Dakota prairie day or to deal with something which needed fixing which I struggled with but never got any satisfaction out of, only feeling relief,  that I had not messed things up more than I could of.    This even with my current cisgendered spouse includes mending my dresses and spit seams and sowing on buttons.

I guess here, I have just sharing my emotional struggles.    I can well understand that trans men find that they can not live within the confines of the female role in the communities they live in and that they really feel that emotionally they have more in common with male emotional struggles.   They struggle with letting their emotional penis bulge out, while I struggle to turn my penis into a vagina and keep it tucked in all the time.   Both struggles can lead to some funny and embarrassing moments.   One fearing that the their penis might fall down their pants leg, and me fearing that embarrassing bulge in my pantie hose or tight skirt.  Or that when I bend over in my padded bra, that all someone will see is empty space and an embarrassing hair I missed.

This is the strange world of being transgendered.  We are who we are, and we have just as much right to life and happiness as any one else.

[Kupcake]

I think the two groups have a lot in common.

Yeah, if you really wanted to, you could point out a lot of differences.  In terms of understanding broad experience, perhaps things are very different.  Also, when looking at some specific pragmatic issues, there are also large disconnects.  How easy is it to superficially pass (clothes on)?  What about during intimacy?  How costly and cosmetically effective is surgery?  How much behavioral training does one need to go through?  And certainly, the emotional and mental journeys accompanying HRT are very different for people on "opposite sides" of this fence.

But really, there are also some things which are very much the same.

To start with, we all share a sense of physical vulnerability.  There's a relatively high rate of violence against transgendered people.  Compared to the general population, we have a very high suicide attempt rate.  We have a much higher rate of being the victims of physical assault, as well.  And on top of that, we suffer from disproportionately high rates of unfair employment termination, harassment in the workplace, unfair evictions from our housing, and more.  Yes, the rates of these problems do not break down as an even 50/50 when comparing MtF and FtM, but they do happen to all of us, and we all fear them.

We also live with a sense of repression.  We have secrets, and very often we fear, sometimes rightfully so, that the people close to us or in positions of power over us (employers, landlords, teachers, parents) will simply not accept us, were they to know the truth.  Many of us live long periods where we take that part of ourselves and hide it away, both from others and ourselves.

We all live with profound doubts.  When to comes to living in practice rather than in theory, will I be able to happily live as the opposite gender?  How will I navigate the new sexual terrain I'll be dealing with, after I transition?  How about the dating scene?  How will I find love?  How will I learn to deal with the different expectations and treatment that will come as a consequence of living as a different gender?  Will I ever arrive at a point where I'm happy with myself?  These are profound and deeply troubling questions which both MtF and FtM individuals have trouble tackling.

And many of us eventually have to make a leap of faith and leave our former selves (sometimes our former lives as a whole) behind.  It's a profound sense of loss and grief, not only for those other people we live behind, but for our former selves.  It's hard to deal with, no matter what flavor of sex hormones are coursing through your veins.

So personally, I think a few specific trans issues are very different.  I also think day-to-day life offers very different challenges for the two groups.

But on the whole, I think we really do understand each other.  We might not get all the nitty-gritty, but I think all of us very much have insight into the big picture of what the trans community as a whole goes through.  We just have so much in common.  And honestly, that's only even MtF and FtM.  Even when you add in intersexed individuals struggling to understand their gender identity, people whose chosen identity is gender ambigious, and other similar groups, they also go through the same struggles listed above and experience the same feelings we do.

[spacial]

michelle

I have just read your account #21.

You put it all so perfectly and so clearly.

Thank you and I really enjoyed reading it. Apologies for not paying closer attention to your other contributions.