Curious about being trans -v- being gay....

[spacial]

Oh most definitely, I believe my ->-bleeped-<- is innate. I'm just saying the social issues I have are nurture. Partly anyway. I also believe this is why the girls acted the way they did. Because I had no 'gender variant' appearance. I didn't try to look like a boy or butch or anything. I did nothing to my hair, just left it long. And even trying to wear makeup and 'style my hair' made no difference. Girls still hated me. It was just my personality, my behavior, my being that offended them so. I was a 'hairy man'.

So, yeah females have nothing to do with my being trans. But they are the most likely cause of many of my other issues. I wasn't bullied or abused by males, so it's about the girls/women. And I was never abused sexually or otherwise, so there's no big cause why I'm like this.
I just think I would have developed differently, and probably been a different person with (nonrelative) females in my life. From what I read, this is common in cis men with severe social problems. Lack of positive experiences with females takes its toll.

I'm not bitter about it. It is what it is.

I understand what you're saying.  It really is quite spooky how similar that socialisation experience was.

I did often wonder to what extent I was choosing to be effeminate.

I also didn't look particularly effeminate, at least I don't think I did. I certainly didn't have much choice over my hair style or my clothes. My hair was short and my clothes were rough and smelly.

But I was aware that my personality less competitive, somewhat more intrusive if you like. Boys just seemed to see it as a bit weird, while girls tended to see it as over friendly as if I was taking liberities, assuming I was after physical intimacy.

As I said, I wondered, but for the life of me, couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing.

[Elspeth]

But I was aware that my personality less competitive, somewhat more intrusive if you like. Boys just seemed to see it as a bit weird, while girls tended to see it as over friendly as if I was taking liberities, assuming I was after physical intimacy.

I suppose I was very fortunate in that my mom (who did my hair throughout my teens) was not judgmental, and after a little bit of family friction I was wearing mine shoulder length and blow-dried from mid-teens onward, at least. I was also very prissy about clothes, and rarely if ever wore jeans. There's little doubt in my mind that most people saw me as effeminate, though now I try to use the word "feminine" rather than accept the value judgments implicit in that other word.

I tend to think that the likelihood that most of my female friends assumed I was gay had a lot to do with being able to interact with most of them with little or no sexual tension entering much into our interactions. I actually was sexually interested in several of them, but when I read accounts from lesbians describing their teens, my experience seems to resemble theirs in many cases, though I suspect, had I been cislesbian, some of those friendships might have become more intimate and sexual.

[JenSquid]

For me, it's that once I started thinking of myself as a woman with soft hairless skin, breasts, non-muscular, etc., then the idea of a muscular, hairy, bulky guy making love to me didn't seem so yucky or strange.

I should note that this happened BEFORE I took my first hormone pill. It was brought about by changes in the way I see myself.

All that being said, I have yet to find hairiness, muscles, bulk, or male genitalia in the slightest bit attractive. It's still the female form that I notice.

I can totally identify with this, as I feel the same way. When thinking about myself in girl mode, I can see myself returning male affection even if I can't see myself seeking it out.

[Elspeth]

I can totally identify with this, as I feel the same way. When thinking about myself in girl mode, I can see myself returning male affection even if I can't see myself seeking it out.

I guess, whatever outward appearances might have been (and I was never muscular or hairy, apart from wearing hair long) that I never really saw myself in "boy mode." But in any case, this describes my experience fairly well. I've returned affections when they've been offered politely. I felt like I mastered a kind of dismissive stare that I also seemed to feel many girls used to deflect those attentions that were less than polite or respectful. I assumed these were probably meant to humiliate, though I did often wonder whether at least a few of them, especially those from some of the more insecure jocks, were not actually simply very badly expressed statements of actual desire. I never did, and never expect I will seek out attention from men, and I'm leaving any definite statements aside on this until the day (if it ever happens) that I feel I am being read as clearly female.

Part of me wonders whether that won't be in another lifetime (I did once do a past lives regression thing that had me fairly convinced that this is either my first or one of very few incarnations in a male body).  I'm usually not much into that, and I am a skeptic, so if anyone feels compelled to say something dismissive, please save yourself the effort.

[Elspeth]

A further reflection... I think one of the main things that drove me and my ex apart, at least in terms of miscommunications, and something that led to me shutting down emotionally, expressively, was her automatic dismissal of things when I would try to express some of this.

For her, it might have been the mis-impression that by talking about my experience of having men come onto me, it activated insecurities that she would not voice directly, for instance, the assumption that because I wanted her to understand that part of my experience, I might be suggesting either that I wanted a guy, or wanted to open the marriage up to include sex with men, when what I was seeking was just a recognition that this was, had been, and still was a part of my experience. (One of the triggers for my depression, the one that led to Celexa and a hospitalization for several weeks) was that once I was at a more attractive weight, I was starting, again, to get flirting looks from men on a regular basis, looks I'm fairly sure were expressions of sexual interest, or perhaps guys wondering what I was doing with a woman.

She was also insecure about her own attractiveness, admitted that being as assertive as she was, as blatantly flirty, that up until we got together her experience had been that men would be friends, or act like big brothers (she was a little sister to one of the more "Animal House" frats (in fact they were the Delta somethings) during college -- anyway, until we met (She 21, me 24) none of her flirtations had become sexual, with the impression that this was not by her choice.

Not sure what I'm even getting at with this, except that personal histories can be funny in un-funny ways, and partners can sometimes respond in ways that are more than a little frustrating. Granted, I must have sensed this would be a hot button issue for her, or I wouldn't have avoided bringing it up for more than 16 years of our time together.

But I brought it up because I wanted to be seen for my own history, and the reaction, rejection and re-interpretations were something that left me stunned in some ways, and also led to a huge drop in my conviction that we were able to communicate clearly about almost anything.  This kind of dynamic was something, in the later years of the relationship, that had a big part in my tendency to shut down... it also was made worse in some ways by therapy, where I was talking about these things in depth and detail, and gradually making myself clearer, but I was doing it with the wrong person.

My ex had found the therapist I was going to, and towards the end she began to say things that left me thinking that she thought I was attracted to him, when I would only be mentioning him in context as I tried to bring up things with her that I wanted to have in the open. My therapist was not much of a fan of openness, and frankly did not seem to get the fact that I needed to be seen on my terms, or at least have my sense of identity out in the open... pretty odd when you consider he was a gay man in a very long-term, publicly visible relationship with his partner that was, apart from children, no less a marriage than mine.