The trait that bugs you most (one of yours that is)

[Lesley_Roberta]

Ok we will just start by saying that it's obvious guys are not born with breasts and girls are. You either wish you had them, or wish you didn't.

Sex organs, odds are they are a real nuisance as they likely work just fine, but you want the other kind.

But there are other traits that can really frustrate us, I know I have some.

My main vexation is seated posture.

After 50 years I am not even sure I can sit like a proper lady. My lower back frequently aches and my knees are rarely quiet. So the idea of sitting properly as in how you would need to sit in a skirt of dress is something that likely would make me mostly insane trying and likely failing.

I like to think 'well men sit like this because of that damned thing and his buddies', but I am not sure that's true.
I wonder if it is just too many years of not being told by my mother to sit properly. Lesley, young ladies don't sit like that.

So here I am, and if I ever get that magical dream of putting on panties and a skirt, will I be cursed to be in considerable discomfort so that my undies are being brazenly displayed?

I try and sit like the women I see in the coffee shop, and I just can't fathom how they do it. Sitting cross legged looks like it would send me into a dire need of a long hot soak and numerous pain killers.

I can fix being flat chested easily with artificial means and a wig is simple, you put it on. Make up is just a matter of learned skill. And learning what looks good in clothing is really not that daunting.

But correcting something my body has been doing for 50 years, I can't think of anything more vexing.

What is it that truly freaks you out about your other self's conditioning?

[Pica Pica]

Being andro, my quest is a little different and I don't have an other self as such to be worked for, more an existent self to be realised and made more comfortable.

Also being andro, my most irritating trait to myself is one that would annoy were I any gender - and that is my inability to sit down and get things done, even the things I enjoy or set great importance by. Were I less distracted so often, I reckon I could more sooner bring to pass the ambitions and wishes I have.

As for gendered traits, I find them all equally absurd in myself and I grasp my absurdities with two hands, as Nolly Goldsmith said;

"I may sit down and laugh at the world, and at myself - the most ridiculous object in it."

[Emily Aster]

I would say something very similar, but I can't put my finger on it. There is something about my posture that just screams "dude in a dress" and I can't figure out what it is. I know I slouch and have the hunched shoulders thing going, but even when I correct them, I still see something distinctly masculine in the way I look when I'm on my feet. I just wish I knew what it was to get rid of it. I'm planning on getting a video recorder into a corner of my place and just recording myself walking around, then comparing that to women to see if I can pinpoint it.

My voice is another big one. I had sort of a delayed puberty. It took about 35 years for it to hit me. I was a high tenor, almost alto my entire life. Then suddenly my voice started dropping. Now it's not only deeper, but it's excessively deeper. It's like a bellowing fill the room type of deep. I looked up the voice training and found that 'a' just short of middle-c that's supposed to be my target. I remember thinking that should be easy because I used to be able to hit the 'f' past middle-c. Heh, not so anymore. Hitting just that 'a' makes me sound like Mickey Mouse, which turns out that also means I'm hitting a falsetto range that's too high for me. My voice may always get me clocked at this point. I'll be paying a specialist to help with my voice, but I'm not very hopeful that they'll be able to get that range back for me.

[Jason_S]

Hi there, everything you've said is something I can really relate to. Except even though I'm male I can't help  but sit with at least the bottom half of my legs crossed. I can never sit with my legs apart, its almost physically impossible for me.

But the one thing which annoys me more thann anything else would be my height. I love being 6ft 3 but its the way my body is proportioned. I have extremely long legs but a short upper body. Which makes wearing clothes like a dress or just tops a breeze. But finding somewhere which will do trousers long enough is a living nightmare.

I only really have like 5 pairs of casual trousers as I haven't been able to get any others which fit my leg length and don't disturb my extra sensitive skin.

[ShannonD]

I've been crossing my legs for years. At first it was to mimic a girl I had a crush on in 6th grade, then I found it to be actually quite comfortable! At first though, it was wholly unpleasant; literally painful. It takes a little breaking in I suppose?

My gripe at the moment is my legs. For as long as I can remember my mom's been telling me I have very handsome legs. I certainly don't think so. I've got these great big Scandinavian swimmers legs that seem to resemble more exaggerated cartoony drumsticks than legs. I hate them so much I've been hiding them in khaki slacks for 10 years now.
That being said I'm pre-HRT, so who knows what's going to happen then.

[spacial]

This may not be quite what you're getting at, but by a long way, the trait in myself, which bothers me the most is my inability to manage to control my emotions.

I can understand several of them, but during various periods, I find some akin to a box. I cannot see nor understand outside that box.

Depression in particular. I'm generally terrified, incapable of communication, lacking insight, wit, intelegence, thought, even empathy.

I can describe things quite well now, for example, but these descriptions are meaningless. Though my experience is that few of those claiming to have experteese in that fiend, seem to have any comprehension either. Asking, for example, What are you depressed about!

[Nero]

Also being andro, my most irritating trait to myself is one that would annoy were I any gender - and that is my inability to sit down and get things done, even the things I enjoy or set great importance by. Were I less distracted so often, I reckon I could more sooner bring to pass the ambitions and wishes I have.

Mine too. Other than that, I just wish I looked better in pics. I can stand my face in the mirror, but nowhere else.

Before transition, I suppose it could only have been my tits. Never had a whole hell of a lot of body dysphoria.

[Simon]

I hate that I'm a master procrastinator. Seriously, people end up getting ticked off with me because I have the best of intentions, I do what I say I will do, but it's always on "Simon time". Don't expect it before or after then.

[eli77]

My anxiety. Or to be less euphemistic, my fear. I'm white-knuckle terrified a lot of the time for not much reason, other than I'm just used to being scared because I have been for so long. I fight back these days, and I think it has slowly been getting better, but it's still a constant battle of will to force myself to do certain things and to keep it from exploding and ripping my relationships to shreds like so much tissue paper.

It's pretty exhausting. Some days I just want to curl up in a ball and shut out the world.

[BunnyBee]

My height.  Not exactly that it isn't feminine, though it isn't, but because everything is too small, too low, too cramped, and talking to a short person feels so awkward - do I lean over, do I look down on them like a Macy's Day Balloon?  Which I often feel like as I lope, head gently bobbing down the street.  I'm a fireworks display, oo and ahh, just don't crook your neck.

I've been coming to grips with it slowly but surely though.  And all of that was very overdramatic I realize, I do feel like that sometimes though.  It could be worse I suppose, I do run into other women taller than me from time to time.  We always pass looks of solidarity lol.

[Beth Andrea]

One of my really, REALLY exasperating traits is being curious about why people believe what they do...I ask questions, challenge the answers (isnce 99% of the time they're either just regurgitated drivel, or not clear in and of themselves), and try to understand further by "comparing and contrasting"...

Because of this, I've been called everything from "ni**er lover" to "damn nazi.'

It's not that people are THAT stupid...but dammit I want to understand, and no one is willing to teach me!

Sometimes I just want to go to my room and play with my balls...while I still  have them. (I wonder what a female equivalent pun-expression would be...?)

[Lesley_Roberta]

Hmmm a lot of the comments completely took me off guard as I had not really given it a lot of thought that it might be very easy to be very annoyed with essentially non physical traits.

I have spent a lifetime with a few of those too (non physical traits).

In my youth I fell in love with text books. Too much perhaps (not sure if that is possible). But either way I skipped class to go to the library to read text books. I think the teachers had less inclination to come put me back in class as unlike most I wasn't somewhere smoking or just plain goofing off. That's a guess, I really don't know. The downside though, is I went from 15 to 25 not without an interest in sex, but too busy in a book to notice everyone else was having sex. I was a virgin on my wedding night Additionally, a downside, is I tend to intimidate. It's not easy saying this, but odds are I AM a great deal more educated than most people you will know. Keep in mind, education is knowledge, it doesn't imply I'm bright or smart, just that chances are playing a game of trivia with me is a losing prospect for you. That and I have no real need of Google for answers to quite a lot of things.

Sadly I never encountered literature on gender issues. I am totally out of my depth in this area.

But being so utterly educated is a problem. Yes it can actually be annoying always having the answer. No one likes it.
I have actually been told, in response to the popular question 'in a dire situation, like an end of the world scenario, what do you grab?' that grabbing me is a good idea, I am not strong, nor am I in great health, but you'd want all the stuff in my head. I make a great survival manual.

I think my brother made the right choice as a teen. He played football, was a super jock, knew every sport, and likely 'knew' more daughters in his grade than any other boy in that year. He probably sleeps better than me too.

My knowledge has also created one of my other current problem traits. Hate.
No I don't have cliche hate. I have across the board all inclusive systematic hate of the entire male gender backed by 2000 years of accumulated history in brutally comprehensive detail.
I'm trying to turn it off, and it seems futile.

I am not sure how the shrink is going to cure me.
My oldest closet friend is positive my wanting to be a girl is chemical imbalance. He's basically, you don't suddenly want to be a girl for no good reason. That, and he recently experienced his wife going a bit weird on him, and it WAS chemical imbalance, which he was able to fix when he refused to take no from the medical community and got her sorted out. He had a happy ending to his situation. Thus, it was understandable when I first told him about my own circumstances. I decided to just drop the matter, as I only see him when lucky, maybe twice a year when I really try (used to live in same town, we were always together, worked with him for a number of years in my 30s). Now distance gets in our way.

The thing is, a lot of my wanting to be female is just basically I despise my gender. I don't merely want to be a girl, because of looks or some of my behaviour, I want to not be anything connected to the gender I loathe. I have wondered if the usual chemical therapy might be the best route to curing my hate and my depression by simply making me happier about being a lot less male.

But there is still a lot I am not informed of concerning transgender life. This forum has been one of the main reasons I entered 2013 less suicidal than I might be otherwise. I'd sure wish the damned shrink would contact me. I am not going to wait further than Feb 01. After that, I am getting in some one's face about it.

My heart goes out to you of height challenge. I'm short at only 5'7". I have nothing to worry about putting on 2" heels other than wearing 2 inch heels will be as bad for my feet as they have been for women since women have been wearing heels (and all so your ass looks nicer).

I wish my voice was feminine too of course. I also wish my neck size wasn't similar to that found on a 6'3" 300 pound football linebacker. I have no idea why I have such an incredible neck size. I have spent an entire life not knowing what it feels like to wear shirts buttoned up.

[Anna++]

I'm going to have to say voice for me since that's what I seem to work on the most.  I can get it a bit higher and softer, but when I hear it recorded it still sounds male to me.  I've only been working on it for a few months and I know it takes a lot of practice but I still wish it sounded more female.

I also wish I was more outgoing and less of a loner.  I'm not really sure how to work on that one .

[suzifrommd]

What is it that truly freaks you out about your other self's conditioning?

Selfishness.

I have the male tendency to make everything about me and take for granted the support offered by the people around me

[bethany]

What a great topic. The three traits that bother me are all physical the first being the crown of my head is bald though I put my hair up in either a bun or pony tail and its covered so I guess I'm lucky I can do that.

The second is my voice. Of course I wish it was more in the feminine timbre. I have been told that I sound like a seventeen year old male.

The third is having Muscular Dystrophy. Being confined to a wheelchair makes walking in high heels nothing but a pipe dream.

Hugs
Bethany

[Lesley_Roberta]

I would not call your MS a trait so much as a barrier  Bethany.

It's like my fybromyalgia is not a trait, it just gets in my way.

Perspective is everything though. On the one hand the wheel chair robs you of high heels, but on the other hand, being in a wheel chair means you are not required to wear high heels either.

To be honest, while I can wear high heels and not be made too preposterously tall in the process, the fact is I hate high heels and what they mean to my feet. I hate that in order to look proper and appropriate, I'd be required to wear high heels in a variety of outfits.

So take heart, while you might not have the choice, it might just be you'd rather not want the choice either to some extent.

Part or me wishes I had a need for a bra, and part of me is 'are you nuts?, women complain about them all summer for good reason'.

[Kevin Peña]

My inability to keep things to myself. If I disagree, I must say something.   

[Brooke777]

One of my really, REALLY exasperating traits is being curious about why people believe what they do...I ask questions, challenge the answers (isnce 99% of the time they're either just regurgitated drivel, or not clear in and of themselves), and try to understand further by "comparing and contrasting"...

Because of this, I've been called everything from "ni**er lover" to "damn nazi.'

It's not that people are THAT stupid...but dammit I want to understand, and no one is willing to teach me!

Sometimes I just want to go to my room and play with my balls...while I still  have them. (I wonder what a female equivalent pun-expression would be...?)

I have never minded discussing my beliefs with you. Sure, you ask a lot of questions but you have never put me down for what I believe.

[Brooke777]

I don't like the fact that I can't seem to walk up and start a conversation with a stranger. If someone starts one, I have no problem continuing it. But, I can never start one myself.

[hazel]

I don't like the fact that I can't seem to walk up and start a conversation with a stranger. If someone starts one, I have no problem continuing it. But, I can never start one myself.

Oh god this, I have some very outgoing friends who effortlessly engage complete strangers in conversation all the time and I can't fathom how they do it