Gender as Two Overlapping Experiences

[stavraki]

I've been wondering something and wanted to hear from people if I'm alone on this one, or is this others' experience.

I experience myself as mostly male and part female, but the 'numbers' of each in a dual-mix vary by the role I'm in, by the place I 'occupy' in my internal world, depending on what I'm processing, experiencing and how I'm feeling.  When I'm battling internal feelings of threat, I find that I call on male identity concepts more to get through.  When I'm rearing or caring for vulnerable things, children and animals, the identity concepts are stereotypically more female.  When I'm admiring fashion, I find myself feeling envy for all the beautiful clothes women wear that I can't.  And especially around childbirth.  Freud had it wrong *smiles*, men have womb envy.  Definitely, my female concepts peak around pregnancy and birth peak.  I'm anywhere between 50:50 m/f to 90:10 m/f

And one more--prominent.  When I'm around hyper-masculine testosteronic, strongly gendertyped heterosexual males, I feel ashamed and my female self is amplified.

Does anyone else have these moment?

cheers
stav

[Sammy]

I can relate to this , but I do believe there are no 100% males or females. And that is good, probably . When I was a kid I think I identified myself as 95% girl / 5% boy. It shifted towards male proportions when I started to get more confused and reached about 70% female / 30% male during puberty. When my puberty was over and I realised that I am in trouble now, I went into denial and rejected everything feminine inswhen ide of me, so I was at about 99% malev/ 1% female . Acknowledging myself shifted the balance and it went from 50/50 to current ~ 85% feminine / 15% male . But I do find that when I am in danger, I am allowing my male side to rise to protect me - I hoped that "he" is dead now, but he still endures and maybe that is not bad at all . He is ready to protect me and will now go away when his presence is not needed anymore... . And when I am in the presence of hypermasculine alpha-males I feel very amused now - to the extent that I want to smile and chuckle - I know that deep inside they are insecure, vulnerable and sensitive .

[Arch]

ETA: Sorry, should have opened with "@ Emily."

Are you talking about identity or stereotyped feelings and behaviors (and maybe roles)? Male/female or masculine/feminine? Because anytime a man shows kindness or a woman acts tough, some people will say that the person is crossing gender boundaries. But I certainly wouldn't suddenly say that the tough woman is 10% male or the gentle man is 23% female. I might say that our stereotypes are limiting and unrealistic and generally f***ed up. A man isn't a woman, even partly so, just because he holds the door open for someone.

My identity, my self, is in fact 100% male. I'm all the way at one end of the scale. This doesn't mean that I can't enjoy an occasional chick flick (though usually not) or notice when a woman's earrings match her purse or exhibit any kind of compassion. If you want to call me part female because of that, I would argue vehemently against you, and I would get quite angry. My identity is not for someone else to dictate.

[Edge]

I agree with Arch.

[stavraki]

Are you talking about identity or stereotyped feelings and behaviors (and maybe roles)? Male/female or masculine/feminine? Because anytime a man shows kindness or a woman acts tough, some people will say that the person is crossing gender boundaries. But I certainly wouldn't suddenly say that the tough woman is 10% male or the gentle man is 23% female. I might say that our stereotypes are limiting and unrealistic and generally f***ed up. A man isn't a woman, even partly so, just because he holds the door open for someone.

My identity, my self, is in fact 100% male. I'm all the way at one end of the scale. This doesn't mean that I can't enjoy an occasional chick flick (though usually not) or notice when a woman's earrings match her purse or exhibit any kind of compassion. If you want to call me part female because of that, I would argue vehemently against you, and I would get quite angry. My identity is not for someone else to dictate.

No that's not what I'm saying.  I'm a very kind human being and would never presume to speak for a person's personal take on gender roles? concepts? experience, I think is the best word.  That's why I love Susan's Place so much.  I have never felt so at peace about not having genitals until I came here.  I have had to face great shame about what was done to my body and I'm trying to put myself back together again.  I also carry some gender-role shame from what, also was done to me as a child, was done to you.  My post speaks about the shame that has emerged in my life, at times when I have been told, that "I'm not man enough" in fact or "too much like a woman".

Are you saying that people who experience themselves as both genders are wrong to?

[stavraki]

I've spent the last 13 years of my life working with people who have had various kinds of abuse pinned on them--the abuse of stereotypes and the damage done.  My job, in a very real sense, is about helping human beings to see past the harm they've taken by abusive stereotyping of them.

I am only curious about how people see their own journey, as I am just loving the discovery of peoples' expression here in the diversity of how they experience themselves.  And I'm opening up about my own gender shame.  This is the first time in my life I ever have so publicly.  I need your help and your kindness.  I'd have hoped that from my words here and at least, attempts at empathy, for others, that people know I'm just a kind man.  Mostly, not always, man? woman?.  Not kind, 100% of the time.  I err.  Sometimes, but I don't know what, exactly that means.

Sharing with me your stories about your journey would help me to grow, and to learn about what the world looks like for others.  I don't feel like either man or woman and I feel like both in different proportions at different times.  That's my identity.  There's a love of being both within me.  The experience, I feel, comes from a place of love.

Kind regards
stav

[stavraki]

I can relate to this , but I do believe there are no 100% males or females. And that is good, probably . When I was a kid I think I identified myself as 95% girl / 5% boy. It shifted towards male proportions when I started to get more confused and reached about 70% female / 30% male during puberty. When my puberty was over and I realised that I am in trouble now, I went into denial and rejected everything feminine inswhen ide of me, so I was at about 99% malev/ 1% female . Acknowledging myself shifted the balance and it went from 50/50 to current ~ 85% feminine / 15% male . But I do find that when I am in danger, I am allowing my male side to rise to protect me - I hoped that "he" is dead now, but he still endures and maybe that is not bad at all . He is ready to protect me and will now go away when his presence is not needed anymore... . And when I am in the presence of hypermasculine alpha-males I feel very amused now - to the extent that I want to smile and chuckle - I know that deep inside they are insecure, vulnerable and sensitive .

Hi there matey, thank you so very much for being so kind about how you brought your experiences of yourself to me.  I loved reading your post.

You seem like a really great human being to me.

Denial.....ahh, I hear you.  I have been trying to figure out which parts of myself I have rejected and why, for many years, and what on earth, I mean by 'burying a part of my gender'.  Gender, to me is also a word--concept?  Concepts, as a psych are a warning  that there's a disconnect with 'experience'.  I'm trying to fathom what gender actually *is* as an *experience*.

warm regards to you

stav

[Sammy]

Thank You for Your kind words . After our dear and beloved FtMs intervened with their short, strict and uncompromising statements (which sounded very male to me by the way - hats off gents) I almost felt like I should better shut up and keep quiet . No, really .
Going back to the notion of gender - I find myself thinking about that recently as well. Is it a concept, mental conditioning, brain-wiring, something else? What makes us feel (or rather believe feeling?) that we are x% male and/or x% female? Or rather man and woman? The more I think about it, the more confused I get and I know that I will never find a definite answer, but at least I it keep my curious mind thinking about something else and brings some sort of internal peace for me. And if I can find that other people too are interested in the same topics and relate and share their experiences – what can be better? 
Seeing as this topic has come back to life, I am looking forward to posting some of my thoughts here soon.
Just a short final remark - I really think that Yin-Yang concept has a lot of wisdom in it - even a tiny bit of Yang in each Yin and vice versa... There is no purity, we are all tainted - purists gonna hate .

[stavraki]

Thank You for Your kind words . After our dear and beloved FtMs intervened with their short, strict and uncompromising statements (which sounded very male to me by the way - hats off gents) I almost felt like I should better shut up and keep quiet . No, really .
Going back to the notion of gender - I find myself thinking about that recently as well. Is it a concept, mental conditioning, brain-wiring, something else? What makes us feel (or rather believe feeling?) that we are x% male and/or x% female? Or rather man and woman? The more I think about it, the more confused I get and I know that I will never find a definite answer, but at least I it keep my curious mind thinking about something else and brings some sort of internal peace for me. And if I can find that other people too are interested in the same topics and relate and share their experiences – what can be better? 
Seeing as this topic has come back to life, I am looking forward to posting some of my thoughts here soon.
Just a short final remark - I really think that Yin-Yang concept has a lot of wisdom in it - even a tiny bit of Yang in each Yin and vice versa... There is no purity, we are all tainted - purists gonna hate .

anytime.  I appreciate your perspective--I took a good two hours after reading some of the posts to figure out how to come back online after my CPU was knocked out.  I haven't been here long enough to know how to respond to some of the energetics that I experience when I read certain prose.

I was thinking the Yin and Yang Eastern-isation of the experience also, as I put my post together, in the opening post.  States of mind, energy flows, or experience of being thru the Yin Yang, has always sat well with me.  In psychology, we talk, thru Carl Jung's work (tho 100 years old, or nearly, they still wheel it out on a trolley in undergraduate studies), who spoke of the Anima and Animus, as part of the collective unconscious, and of people as different expressions, to different degrees of some primal, or existential underlying capacity or potential in the human being.  Definitely not 'stereotypes', (dare the word get mentioned).

I found another post topic today...I'll be back.  There were new ideas and means of looking at this, that I found really interesting.....

[Soren]

Anima and Animus

They're archetypes, by the way. Stereotypes that have been prevalent throughout history with no cultural bounds. (Things like Hero, Mentor, and Trickster are also archetypes)

[stavraki]

They're archetypes, by the way. Stereotypes that have been prevalent throughout history with no cultural bounds. (Things like Hero, Mentor, and Trickster are also archetypes)

Yes, I love Jung's archetypes.....Jung was initially a student of Freud - rebelled - I have to say, I think Freud had it wrong - it ain't penis envy, I rather like the idea of 'womb envy'

[stavraki]

They're archetypes, by the way. Stereotypes that have been prevalent throughout history with no cultural bounds. (Things like Hero, Mentor, and Trickster are also archetypes)

ps - i'd luv to hear ur thoughts on the difference between a stereotype and an archetype - and how u experience gender.....

kind regards
stav

[Jess42]

Yes stavraki. I have always felt the same way. I think what you feel is perfectly normal and I do believe everyone else on the merry-go-round we call earth feels the same way. Whether or not they will admit to it is another story.

"When I'm around hyper-masculine testosteronic, strongly gendertyped heterosexual males, I feel ashamed and my female self is amplified." I can definately identify but I used to be right along in there with them. Acting like that actually caused me more shame as that wasn't who I really was or am. Now I just laugh to myself because it is just another amplified stereotype, show indifference to whatever the subject is because usually I really don't care, add my two cents only if asked, no bragging about talents or skills and find the first chance I can to get away from it. Its ironic in that the way I act around people like this, they see me as a more confident male even if I'm somewhat girly looking with long curly hair in a land where every male has extrememly short hair if any at all and facial hair. I just find it funny that acting psychologically like a female, not body language though, reinforces a false male persona regardless of looks. I guess I'll never get this "people thing" figured out.

[Arch]

I do believe everyone else on the merry-go-round we call earth feels the same way. Whether or not they will admit to it is another story.

Let's turn this around: "No, I don't think ANYONE really feels this way, even if they aren't willing to admit the truth. I believe that EVERYONE feels 100% female or 100% male, no matter what they say."

Do you see how obnoxious this is? Whenever you make such blanket statements, you presume to know someone else's experience, and you call a lot of honest people liars. Why don't we avoid the universal generalizations and just accept that some people feel one way and some feel another and it's unlikely that anyone feels just as someone else does. Sure, a few people will say one thing and feel another, but don't you think it's a little presumptuous to decide that EVERYONE feels the same way and that anyone who claims a different experience simply isn't willing to admit the truth? I find Stav's comments interesting precisely because I DON'T feel the way he is talking about. But you come along and say that I do. Thank you for clarifying my private feelings for me. You may believe whatever you like, but that don't make it so.

And for the record, I really screwed up in my previous post in this thread. I was responding to Emily and didn't make that clear. My apologies, Stav. I am sorry if I caused you any distress.

[stavraki]

I've had the opportunity to explore what I am by the impacts of losing my genitals.  How much of a sense of 'male-ness' has that involved?  Having had a phallus, and a nice one, and then losing the thing, this then is me as a living, walking experiment about what 'maleness' means -- for me.

I have to say, that the whole 'changerooms' thing is where I feel the loss most poignantly.  While, cognitively, there is a cerebral appreciation that 'there's no need to feel shame', shame is not wholly responsive to 'logic'.  I'm not sure any emotion really is.

I just don't want to see the looks of sympathy, terror, or horror, or what - shock on the faces of people around me.  It's seeing the self through the eyes of onlookers that is associated with shame. Why, exactly is this the case.

I'm not exactly sure.  But what I have intuited is two things:

1. What's left of abusive stereotyping of me by my culture has meant that 'oh aren't I a big boi, and aren't I a man'.  Smug, wasn't I.  Or was it proud.  Or superior.  And to be honest, losing the phallus has given me cause to learn how to truly outgrow a primitive, or childish part of myself.

I am not a 'man' because I 'had' a c***.  I just thought I was.  I have developed a realisation that the way I represented my own 'manliness' to myself involved external visual cues.  And the admiring stares of sexual partners who grew avid and ravished me for what I had, in part, only for my 'body assets'.

2. It was the appraisers/society of my phallus, wasn't it, who so happily and unthinkingly reaffirmed that appreciation of body assets.  Greedy eyes on me.  And so, there I stand in the change rooms, now pulling down a long shirt, or turning away and quickly putting on my gym shorts, to cover the absence of genitals.

Pride turned to shame.

But then I found Susan's Place.  I have been inspired by an amazing community of extraordinary human beings who are superb exemplars of those beings who go on an inner-journey to unearth the truth of the human spirit, of discovery and of being.

And when I am truly honest with myself (and this post is not about anyone else.  This is just my truth.  I'm curious to hear your feelings and journey about how you resolved your own genital shame as transgendered folk)--but if I'm truly honest with myself, really, I'm also ashamed of myself, or ashamed of who I was, and not really ashamed at all about who I have and am becoming.  I have had three rapid periods of mental growth in my life.  This is one of them, and I would never trade the experience of losing my genitals for anything, now that I see what I missed.  During phases of rapid growth, I also have found myself vulnerable to shame, because the new self is not yet 'firm' in particular areas where the growth has occurred.

Phallus assets as a male: my highest truth now, is that my 'male-ness' and 'female-ness'--what gender identity?  Experience of gender?  What the heck--I dunno--are being healed.

Healing is the best word.  I know how to spot the affect that goes with that: tears of grace, compassion and a deep stillness within as things that were riddles a long time, or things not seen, long in the darkness are seen, registered deep within in a clarity of sight or 'experience' that somehow transcends any external reality.

So--am I male of female--wtf--I have no idea, really.

So, I'm heading over to Serbia soon to get a replacement model The whole 'size' question returns.  I'll be 'hung' again and, what, 'more manly'?  No, I don't think so.  I don't think I can ever again return to what I was.  I don't want to and can't.  Impossible to unmake wisdom.  What I am, then, is already restored, now.  And I see the body as the 'shell' and last piece in the healing journey.  My mind and spirit first, or attended to first.  And 'make the shape of ur shell to reflect the inward whole, self-accepting state of my being--' and part of that being, being 'male' is restoring male genitals.

So--full circle I come.  But though I will look the man I was, that no longer matters.  Because I'm already beyond the man I was, within and a much better man.  And this man also has a woman's presence within.  She's the part of me that got me through.  I don't think I would have survived my trauma  had I not had her radiant, bright, loving presence and experience of her smiling within me, holding me together, while the man I was fell to pieces.  She was the one who held the lanterns and signposts calling me 'this way stav.  Look this way.  Follow me Home within you, I am your tears'.

And a lot of those I have cried.  Again and again.  Over and over they washed the shame away  and made the experience of being brutalised bearable.

She's also the one who sings and laughs and encourages when the man I am says 'I'm coming back with a bionic schlong, and this time the darned thing's gunna do what I say.  I don't miss the old one that much.  Organic though it was--meh--hard when uninvited, soft when needed, unappreciative, blind to other kinds of genital beauty and just dumb.  Good riddance!  Begone with you and welcome and hail bionic schlongs!'  I am going to be able to relax more with my partners, enjoy the journey and tune into the body, mind and energy of the other more easily.  So, I give thanks for my maiming, for from it came many wonderful things.  I'd never have known any of you and what a great, great loss that would have been.

Love to all of u
stav

[Arch]

Stav, you are exactly who you think you are. Only you get to decide that. As you must know, I do not define people by what is between their legs. I might decide whom to sleep with because of their anatomy, but that's an entirely different thing.

I used to lead an extremely active fantasy life in which I was an anatomically correct male--in fact, I became several different people in my head. These fantasies kept me from going mad, and I believe that they saved my life. When I went inside my head, I seamlessly slipped into a world where I had the anatomy that I considered to be right and proper for me. I could feel my external parts as if they were really there. Maybe I didn't imagine them as a regular guy would experience them, but I experienced them in my own way.

And then I lost the ability to fantasize in this way. I guess a part of me decided that it was time to live in the real world, go through therapy, and begin my transition. These past five years--but less and less keenly--I have mourned the loss of my genitals. The pain of that loss is very real, yet it cannot come close to what you have experienced. So I'm thinking, if it has been this hard for me, what must it be like for a man to lose what he actually, physically had?

Honestly, I cannot even imagine it.

[stavraki]

I really identify with that last post.  Thank you so much for the expression and there is a comfort I have from reading.  The part about mourning, especially, I identify with.

When I was mutilated, I honestly gave long consideration to the question: 'stav.  If you want to change your body to make urself female, now is the time'.  I rather like the idea of exploring the heterosexual male experience in romantic partners!  You know, there's not a big margin in my decision to restore a male body.  Really, if I'm really honest with myself, there's quite some 'touch and go' with this one.

--but--bottom line.  "straight woman in a gay guy's body" versus "same-sex attracted, male".  The latter one wins that race--but it's a photo finish.  I think though, the mare that came second decided she gave the race to the stallion, by choice, but I think she has the stronger run over the distance.  She has always, suddenly, put on a massive sprint, at those times in my life I've needed her strength and courage, when the male was crippled.

The force that gives her the sudden bursts of power does not come from my male physique.  His physical strength has saved her life, once in the Himalayas, when body vigour was needed.  She has a special 'reserve power' that he doesn't.  She can only access the latent power when in life and death situations.  She is the womb of the mother, experienced spiritually, and accessed by Faith, when for love of a child, lift a car to save the child, where she couldn't lift half his weight, normally.

[curiousandconsideringit]

I, By all accounts seem like a typical hetero male most of the time in my life but I have urges to were female clothing and I am extremely turned on by the thought of taking  on a female role in sex

[Jess42]

Let's turn this around: "No, I don't think ANYONE really feels this way, even if they aren't willing to admit the truth. I believe that EVERYONE feels 100% female or 100% male, no matter what they say."

Do you see how obnoxious this is? Whenever you make such blanket statements, you presume to know someone else's experience, and you call a lot of honest people liars. Why don't we avoid the universal generalizations and just accept that some people feel one way and some feel another and it's unlikely that anyone feels just as someone else does. Sure, a few people will say one thing and feel another, but don't you think it's a little presumptuous to decide that EVERYONE feels the same way and that anyone who claims a different experience simply isn't willing to admit the truth? I find Stav's comments interesting precisely because I DON'T feel the way he is talking about. But you come along and say that I do. Thank you for clarifying my private feelings for me. You may believe whatever you like, but that don't make it so.

And for the record, I really screwed up in my previous post in this thread. I was responding to Emily and didn't make that clear. My apologies, Stav. I am sorry if I caused you any distress.

Arch, I didn't mean to offend you with that first statement. I was trying to relay that the gender stereotypes are mixed and matched all the time. That males can feel the nurturing aspects when it come to what stravaki was writing about with the children and pets and that females can feel and actually be the breadwinners and caretakers of the family nurturing aside. When it comes to admitting these things, I know quite a few guys that won't admit to the nurturing side of themsleves and talk about shooting dogs that get in the trash and so on. But somehow those same dogs that they would supposedly shoot end up sleeping on the floor of their bedroom. Same with the females, a lot won't openly admit or like to that they make more money than their husbands. I should have used the term a lot of people feel this way. Again I apologize.

[Natkat]

I've been wondering something and wanted to hear from people if I'm alone on this one, or is this others' experience.

I experience myself as mostly male and part female, but the 'numbers' of each in a dual-mix vary by the role I'm in, by the place I 'occupy' in my internal world, depending on what I'm processing, experiencing and how I'm feeling.  When I'm battling internal feelings of threat, I find that I call on male identity concepts more to get through.  When I'm rearing or caring for vulnerable things, children and animals, the identity concepts are stereotypically more female.  When I'm admiring fashion, I find myself feeling envy for all the beautiful clothes women wear that I can't.  And especially around childbirth.  Freud had it wrong *smiles*, men have womb envy.  Definitely, my female concepts peak around pregnancy and birth peak.  I'm anywhere between 50:50 m/f to 90:10 m/f

And one more--prominent.  When I'm around hyper-masculine testosteronic, strongly gendertyped heterosexual males, I feel ashamed and my female self is amplified.

Does anyone else have these moment?

cheers
stav

I have no easy way to answer this, but try to get my view.
-
when I where younger I lived in the pretty typical world, boys being boys girls being girls. I didn't knew transgender existed, and nobody seamed to know much about them either, even if they did they didnt knew it could be your children. already as young I started transition even when it was agenst my time in some ways. sure I wanted to be accepted as a boy, I wanted to be as masuline as they where I where competing with them and all the traditional things guys do, when your trans it somehow even harder to prove your a guy or a girl because people dont get it, you its like your penis having 10 points for being a boy and vegina has 10 for being a girl, and you can get up on those 10 points if you do enough masuline things so you end up hitting 10 or higher, getting 1 masuline point for every boyish behaviour you have and -2 for every girly thing.
it goes the same for cisgenders, it just a simply way to adapting to the cis-normative culture where transgender do not exist as a normal fact. ->-bleeped-<- is taboo in most cultures, I dont know why actually, I belive the urge to categoriese people are reason for alot of it, and looking down on whats diffrent or unusual.

now back then all this where normal, I didnt knew anyone trans beside myself, I didnt knew any gay lesbians, and in generel there where alot I didnt knew, my area, my culture and the surounding where all I ever had learned and all I ever knew it wasnt to question that just how life is how I belive it been untill I learned life can be more more.

I learned cause I got the chance to se exemples on diffrent sexualety, gender expression and gender identety, and I got to look up on diffrent cultures, on gender and animals, gender and sciense.
when I look into all this I see how various we are which build my belife today that we are all diffrent and varitations.
I had this chance because im transgender and by that got to meet other transgender people, and people with minor sexualety, I am happy for knowing this, I am happy for having got the chance of learning everything I know and getting to know all those interesting people I know or have knowed. it infects me for sure because it also make me see things I bet other straight refuse.

if a guy never been to a fashionshow cause boys shouldn do that, then how would he know if he liked it or not?
if  girl never played soccer, she might think she wont think its funny?

but if a guy go to the show he will get the chance to buy a ticket for the next one, or the girl might get the option to continue to play or not?
maybe it would be the best experience of there life?, if they reject it they had never got that experience
but having it
this new options are both blessing and horror.
cause there not accepted or understood, if they choose to continue. 90% of people still got this view I had when i where a kid, they still dont belive of a binary world and everything diffrent to there belife is wrong or strange. I belive our shaming is a natural part, I still feel shame even when I keep telling im okay. I know that the ignorance I get is due to unknowlegde, because people did not have the same chance as I had to understand something I understand so therefore its difficult, but sure it still unpleasent to always be looked diffrently to.

I think you feel diffrent and somethimes ashamed because you allow yourself in a level many people do not allow themself to be or never had been, and that dosent make you "one of them" part of the group anymore cause they cant understand.

its one of the pretty fightning moments for many people. one of my old friends is bisexual, he was in the closet in a long time, I asked him why he didnt came out, he was a grown man, he didnt had any problems with many lgbt people neither had his friends, so why was he afraid?
he said he was afraid to be diffrent, to not be apart of the normal anymore and he felt great shame even when he came out nobody cared.

I dont know if it even made sense, short term is I belive alot of people who get the chance to se things from another part than they grew up with experience this in one way or another.