Gender as Two Overlapping Experiences

[stavraki]

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.

Hi there thank you for the wonderful post.  I have found that I learn a great deal by reading words put down by people who use language differently to me.  So, when I read through your materials, I have some new insights about the whole area.

Thank you for taking the time to write something down.  I really liked reading the ideas about numbers and points that society gives for gender-typed behaviours, and then shame about deviation from the norm.

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

I need to really limit what I say about my ideas of a relationship between sexual arousal and gender identity here as I'd need to post a full response in the sexuality forum.  But thank you for your thoughts, and I would say here that mother nature has her way of bringing us amazing combinations of different facets of sexuality, gender and biology, and that they are all natural variations of the human condition.  Thank you for your thoughts.

@Jess42

As what you wrote was at another poster, I thought I'd just say 'hi' but leave you to it.

Kind Regards
stav

[Stella Stanhope]

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?

Yep! I must say Stavraki, there is alot of what you say that strikes a chord. This is one such sentence and topic.

When I'm around my masculine male friends, I enjoy feeling different to them, and increasingly I don't mind being the more bubbly, sweet and feminine person, which I feel is part of my personality. I'm not attempting to stereotype the role of women and how they should act around men, of course. It's just how I am as a person, I like being the more cutsey one, whilst I like being around chaps who are more serious & gently grumpy. It's fun to try and make them laugh as well, a challenge!

The femininity feels amplified, but perhaps only in comparison to the other guys' strict masculinity. However, I automatically switch to full-masculine mode if I'm attracted to a straight girl though, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to attract them. When I'm generally around my female friends though (if we're all meeting up), then I'll usually feel this pressure to be more masculine, some of it coming from within and some of it being expected of me by my friends. I feel stupid being chirpy & sweeter around women anyway though, as when they are chirpy etc, they seem charming, but I feel I would just come across as creepy and false. Men can't really pull off the happy whimsical look like women can, and pulling faces as a man just makes you look eccentric and weird, as opposed to women who usually look cute when they pull faces & smile. 

I don't feel ashamed by my femininity as such, however, its more that I recognise that I don't fit that default male personality, and as I don't need to compete with it (to try and match-up with the other guys), I can thus be how I want to be. There is however, a niggling feeling that  onlookers may assume I'm a poor effeminate excuse of a man, and so I'll throw in some serious moments, my deep voice and some desert-dry humour every so often to address that balance, throw their opinions off and retain at least some air or responsible masculinity.

Does this ring any bells with yourself Stavraki? Or anyone else, for that matter? 

[Jess42]

Does this ring any bells with yourself Stavraki? Or anyone else, for that matter? 

Deifinately.

[E-Brennan]

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?

Oh my god, yes!  I work with some very manly men on occasion, and when around them it's almost like I'm female.  Not just because they're so much more manly than me and I happen look more feminine in comparison, but I feel like I'm actually switching to serious female mode around them, acting more feminine, feeling more feminine, and generally wishing that I was a real life girl.

It's extremely odd!

[airamyb]

Having just had a weekend hanging out with my crew from high school, I've noticed my gender balance vacilates depending upon with who or what I am doing. I tend to fall into my masculine patterns of behavior around my friends, during hobbies, work and around family, but the pink fog always lurks on the horizon. I try not to make any remarks about seeing a cute outfit, or cry when I experience intense moments of joy or sorrow.  For the most part the masculine role fits and on the flightline has some advantages. It helps though I never went through a hyper-masculine phase to bury my gender conflict, most of what I did in my life I probably would have done otherwise.

I don't have any friends I can act girly with, most of my girl time is spent alone. However, I get sporadic thoughts and  wonder how the people closest to me would change if I started living or outwardly expressing my feminity or react if or when HRT starts sculpting my mind and body towards the feminine form I would like. Right now, I find myself enjoying both worlds, but every step I take tilts the scales towards feminity.

Presently, when I'm with guys, I don't mind acting like and being treated like a guy, but with women, I would so love to be seen as one of the girls. The lesson for this nascent gender explorer is my gender how I feel in the moment, and how I want people to perceive me for the time being. That is how I understand overlapping gender experiences.

[Taka]

overlapping experiences? i'm not too sure about that...

binary gender will some times surprise me, and it's a weird feeling to know that i am only that one gender. no overlap, that other person seems to have disappeared completely. other times they're both there at the same time, and i could spend a whole day arguing with myself over what clothes to wear that day because they're both insisting on perfect conformity. and other times they blend together in a comfortably harmony where they actually managed to agree, or they can both disappear completely. i like it best when i have both, just not all of both for that's exhausting. being 100% female and 100% male makes a little more than just one person, and that can result in some really odd conflicts within myself. my female self will panic if the male disappears, and my male self will just start hating my body and end up missing the female because she handled that part of it so much better.

ok, so they do overlap at times. just in a different sense in my experience.

as for those gender roles, i'm really not too sure what to say. try guessing which of my genders loves kids the most, or who'd be the most dangerous when i feel threatened.
or maybe i should tell the story of the woman who saw a kid nearly get crushed under a car, and lifted it with one hand dragging the child out with the other (without thinking about the consequences for her, it broke her body). a very manly thing to do, but i'm pretty sure she did it because she was a woman. men do the same though, only they lift tractors instead of cars (bigger muscles make a difference, but only in weight).

[Arch]

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.

Hi, Jess. I tend to have one really big button that people can push (and probably little ones as well, but that's neither here nor there). If you ever want to see me assert my identity with absolute certainty and guns blazing, then tell me that I don't have the right to decide who I am. Or tell someone else that he or she does not have the right to self-identify. That's sort of what your post looked like to me. THANK YOU for clarifying and not smacking me.

I hate that so many of our best human qualities are downgraded as "feminine" qualities. My therapist, for example, is one of the most supportive and nurturing human beings I have ever met, yet I don't think of him as feminine in the least. He is simply a very caring man. But when a man shows his "softer" emotions, especially in public, people all too often get embarrassed or even suspicious, or they make excuses for him. Case in point: I have a strong aversion to seeing certain emotions aired. I hate it when women cry. But when a man does it, holy Ned!!! I started looking very differently at my then-partner after I saw him break down in front of me. I never looked at him in quite the same way. The second time he did it, a little voice inside me sniffed in disdain and sneered, "Not this again. Typical!" I am ashamed of thinking that way. It means that I was caving in to the stereotypes and judging my partner for being a person.

I do have some of these "feminine" qualities myself, but I don't really look at them that way anymore. They are just a part of me, the whole human being, the whole picture. Maybe that's how I have to look at myself to be able to say that I am a man and don't feel any allegiance to my past or to femaleness. However, I don't think it's that way at all. I've never really identified as a woman, and I always felt weird referring to myself with that label. And in most ways, I've always been very masculine--even more so now that testosterone has taken over my brain and I'm no longer stigmatized for behaving in an unfeminine way.

So I am very curious about people who see themselves as not completely male or not completely female and who throw some of these stereotypical characteristics into the mix. I wonder how much is gender identification and how much is a way of compensating for not being able to act the way we feel and not be stigmatized or judged.

[Sammy]

So I am very curious about people who see themselves as not completely male or not completely female and who throw some of these stereotypical characteristics into the mix. I wonder how much is gender identification and how much is a way of compensating for not being able to act the way we feel and not be stigmatized or judged.

From my perspective, I cant imagine how with a life-long experience of socialisation and conditioning of Your birth assigned gender - even if one did not associate her/himself with that as of very early age - how one cannot pick up its characteristics and qualities and totally flip a new page in her/his life by starting the E or T therapy. I just cant imagine this kind of thing, unless some extensive brainwashing/amnesia and hypnosis is involved.

[stavraki]

Hi there everyone - convalescing in my hospital bed after stage 1 phallo - and they're releasing me today.  everything went well.

Having just had a weekend hanging out with my crew from high school, I've noticed my gender balance vacilates depending upon with who or what I am doing. I tend to fall into my masculine patterns of behavior around my friends, during hobbies, work and around family, but the pink fog always lurks on the horizon. I try not to make any remarks about seeing a cute outfit, or cry when I experience intense moments of joy or sorrow.  For the most part the masculine role fits and on the flightline has some advantages. It helps though I never went through a hyper-masculine phase to bury my gender conflict, most of what I did in my life I probably would have done otherwise.

I don't have any friends I can act girly with, most of my girl time is spent alone. However, I get sporadic thoughts and  wonder how the people closest to me would change if I started living or outwardly expressing my feminity or react if or when HRT starts sculpting my mind and body towards the feminine form I would like. Right now, I find myself enjoying both worlds, but every step I take tilts the scales towards feminity.

Presently, when I'm with guys, I don't mind acting like and being treated like a guy, but with women, I would so love to be seen as one of the girls. The lesson for this nascent gender explorer is my gender how I feel in the moment, and how I want people to perceive me for the time being. That is how I understand overlapping gender experiences.

I identify somewhat with this response--though when I'm with men and notice I'm putting on a stronger, stereotypically 'male' Australian bent, it's because I'm not feeling very safe, and am trying to blend.  When I'm in my element, or with friends and feeling safe, with good self-esteem--I have a really varied outward demeanour.  From soft, gentle all the way thru to brutally frank or hard-nosed.



Say, does anyone know how to make the paypal thing work with a credit card.  The site doesn't accept my visa debit card....

[stavraki]

....I hate that so many of our best human qualities are downgraded as "feminine" qualities. My therapist, for example, is one of the most supportive and nurturing human beings I have ever met, yet I don't think of him as feminine in the least....

This I really 'get'.  Particularly as I work in the field where supportive, nurturance and empathy are so important for engaging and working with clients.

Thinking out loud:

Some part of the stereotyping/socialisation process causes emergence of ideas about gender that get fused with shame.  That, for example, pressure to conform to stereotypes that 'male' means 'hard' or 'strong' and the opposite for female.  And shame for bearing the characteristics of gender-role divisions in their opposed configurations.

The boy who sews, skips rope doesn't like football and gets badly teased by 'males' for this, and the girl labelled 'butch' who kicks a footy with the boys at lunch time rather than crochet and prepare food in the kitchen all day.

There's been some relenting on the polarisation that I can see over the last 30 years where the shame of 'crossing traditional gender role boundaries' is less pervasive: e.g. the parents who encourage their son to enjoy and be exactly who he wants to be, without pressuring the kid to conform to social norms.  Teachers and schools with active policies to challenge stereotypes and encourage children to play and be as they want......

cheers
stav

[Sammy]

Say, does anyone know how to make the paypal thing work with a credit card.  The site doesn't accept my visa debit card....

You need to register and verify that card via internet-banking. I can send You PM with details - and IIRC Paypal does not work with debit cards .

[stavraki]

@Emily

Thanx Emily I've written to the team here to see if there is another means of making a payment.

@All

I've read through the responses again.  There's a big range of responses here.  Thank you everyone for the comments and participation.  Muchly appreciated.  I can see everything from dimensionality and overlap in two, to unipolarity in how people see things from their unique and wonderful points of views.  And one response that was more like 'two flashing lights', one light for each experienced male/female: sometimes one light was on, sometimes the other, and sometimes both.

I've just had a flash--'the inimical self'--and I'm pondering this, closely.  Which is about facets of ourselves, beyond gender really, where we think 'I can have that part of me, but not the other' and when "I have the other part of me, I can't have that part".  E.g. 'single' and 'partnered', or 'rebel' and 'conformist' or 'law abiding' and 'rebel'.

words to describe the self, that are antonyms, or perceived as antonyms.....

I have inimical facets, it's just dawned on me......

[vegie271]

I have met and understood that other people have these feelings I think I can empathize with them - but I don't have the same ones - I personally feel 100% female internally - I can do certain things that are "masculine" behaviors like repair my bicycle like I did tonight (I turned a few screws  on it) and I did install the lights on it and I have repaired my own flats - those sorts of things - but that does not make me 20% male and 80% female I can still be 100% female it just makes me a bit of a butch lesbian (even though I am pretty femme)

[stavraki]

Yep! I must say Stavraki, there is alot of what you say that strikes a chord. This is one such sentence and topic.

When I'm around my masculine male friends, I enjoy feeling different to them, and increasingly I don't mind being the more bubbly, sweet and feminine person, which I feel is part of my personality. I'm not attempting to stereotype the role of women and how they should act around men, of course. It's just how I am as a person, I like being the more cutsey one, whilst I like being around chaps who are more serious & gently grumpy. It's fun to try and make them laugh as well, a challenge!

The femininity feels amplified, but perhaps only in comparison to the other guys' strict masculinity. However, I automatically switch to full-masculine mode if I'm attracted to a straight girl though, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to attract them. When I'm generally around my female friends though (if we're all meeting up), then I'll usually feel this pressure to be more masculine, some of it coming from within and some of it being expected of me by my friends. I feel stupid being chirpy & sweeter around women anyway though, as when they are chirpy etc, they seem charming, but I feel I would just come across as creepy and false. Men can't really pull off the happy whimsical look like women can, and pulling faces as a man just makes you look eccentric and weird, as opposed to women who usually look cute when they pull faces & smile. 

I don't feel ashamed by my femininity as such, however, its more that I recognise that I don't fit that default male personality, and as I don't need to compete with it (to try and match-up with the other guys), I can thus be how I want to be. There is however, a niggling feeling that  onlookers may assume I'm a poor effeminate excuse of a man, and so I'll throw in some serious moments, my deep voice and some desert-dry humour every so often to address that balance, throw their opinions off and retain at least some air or responsible masculinity.

Does this ring any bells with yourself Stavraki? Or anyone else, for that matter? 

thank u stella - I mentioned upstream two posts up in a general response.  But I just only now saw the question.  Yes, I very much feel like you do about this one.  There are parts of my gender identity that I suppress--I think that's what I'm unearthing here--when I'm around certain kinds/groups of people.

I mentioned in the response a new thought/idea 'the inimical self': where I have shame about a facet of my gender identity around where the shame is amplified by particular hyper-masculanised environments, that are also gender-prejudiced environments (ie what Arch noted about gender-role divisions as stereotyped behaviours not permitted in opposite-sex (not gender) body forms--the 'man' being less 'manly' for wearing pink).

nice to meet u and kind regards

[stavraki]

I have met and understood that other people have these feelings I think I can empathize with them - but I don't have the same ones - I personally feel 100% female internally - I can do certain things that are "masculine" behaviors like repair my bicycle like I did tonight (I turned a few screws  on it) and I did install the lights on it and I have repaired my own flats - those sorts of things - but that does not make me 20% male and 80% female I can still be 100% female it just makes me a bit of a butch lesbian (even though I am pretty femme)

Thank u Georgia

I wrote upstream about a new thing I've fathomed, the 'inimical self'.  This new idea, I have realised, is a way to appreciate where you're coming from--u don't have inimical gender-identity facets, but are strongly feminine in gender identity........so, have and do access a full spectrum of human behaviour...

[JillSter]

Yep! I must say Stavraki, there is alot of what you say that strikes a chord. This is one such sentence and topic.

When I'm around my masculine male friends, I enjoy feeling different to them, and increasingly I don't mind being the more bubbly, sweet and feminine person, which I feel is part of my personality. I'm not attempting to stereotype the role of women and how they should act around men, of course. It's just how I am as a person, I like being the more cutsey one, whilst I like being around chaps who are more serious & gently grumpy. It's fun to try and make them laugh as well, a challenge!

The femininity feels amplified, but perhaps only in comparison to the other guys' strict masculinity. However, I automatically switch to full-masculine mode if I'm attracted to a straight girl though, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to attract them. When I'm generally around my female friends though (if we're all meeting up), then I'll usually feel this pressure to be more masculine, some of it coming from within and some of it being expected of me by my friends. I feel stupid being chirpy & sweeter around women anyway though, as when they are chirpy etc, they seem charming, but I feel I would just come across as creepy and false. Men can't really pull off the happy whimsical look like women can, and pulling faces as a man just makes you look eccentric and weird, as opposed to women who usually look cute when they pull faces & smile. 

I don't feel ashamed by my femininity as such, however, its more that I recognise that I don't fit that default male personality, and as I don't need to compete with it (to try and match-up with the other guys), I can thus be how I want to be. There is however, a niggling feeling that  onlookers may assume I'm a poor effeminate excuse of a man, and so I'll throw in some serious moments, my deep voice and some desert-dry humour every so often to address that balance, throw their opinions off and retain at least some air or responsible masculinity.

Does this ring any bells with yourself Stavraki? Or anyone else, for that matter? 

It's really interesting to read other people's experiences with situations that so many of us share, but respond to in such different ways.

My own experience with being around "manly" men, with the guy talk and the bravado and all that: I would find myself getting agitated. It doesn't bring out my femininity at all. In fact, it seems to cut it off and leave me feeling isolated as a man who can't be a man. It makes me feel like an imposter. I would often find myself reflecting that feeling back onto my friends and treating them with contempt for what I percieved in them to be fake bravado; forced male posturing.

In my late teens/early twenties I started treating my friends like enemies, I think because they were a constant reminder of my own internal struggle (I hadn't yet figured myself out at that age) and I had developed an aversion to fakeness. I was entirely too judgmental, of men especially. I think I started hating men in general, probably because I felt incapable of fulfilling my own "duty" to be a man.

I couldn't relate to my male friends, and even though I cherished the time I spent with my female friends I couldn't relate to them either. Hanging out with the girls sort of nourished my own starving inner-girl, but again made me feel like an imposter. No matter how much I wanted to, I could never be one of them. I felt like there were two tribes in the world, and I was the lone wanderer. Both tribes tolerated me, but neither would accept me as one of their own. (That's how it felt. In reality I was the one who couldn't accept myself in the company of my friends. Nobody ever rejected me. I rejected them... because I rejected myself.)

You mentioned feeling like onlookers might be judging you. That, I think, has always been my biggest hurdle – one I'm still trying to get over. I literally hid from the world for years because I couldn't stand to let people see me as I am. I've since gotten past that extreme, but I still feel eyes on me where ever I go (even when there are none.) Only now, instead of trying to look tough and manly, I allow myself to smile and be friendly. Sometimes my expressions are a little effeminate (in high school my friends joked that I look like a cat, which is generally considered a feminine trait) but if someone judges me for it, I consider that their issue; not mine.

It's a long, slow process trying to shed the sufficating skin of nurture to allow your nature to breathe once again. But I'm working on it, one day at a time.


Sorry if I got off-topic. I tend to ramble.

[stavraki]

It's really interesting to read other people's experiences with situations that so many of us share, but respond to in such different ways.

My own experience with being around "manly" men, with the guy talk and the bravado and all that: I would find myself getting agitated. It doesn't bring out my femininity at all. In fact, it seems to cut it off and leave me feeling isolated as a man who can't be a man. It makes me feel like an imposter. I would often find myself reflecting that feeling back onto my friends and treating them with contempt for what I percieved in them to be fake bravado; forced male posturing.

In my late teens/early twenties I started treating my friends like enemies, I think because they were a constant reminder of my own internal struggle (I hadn't yet figured myself out at that age) and I had developed an aversion to fakeness. I was entirely too judgmental, of men especially. I think I started hating men in general, probably because I felt incapable of fulfilling my own "duty" to be a man.

I couldn't relate to my male friends, and even though I cherished the time I spent with my female friends I couldn't relate to them either. Hanging out with the girls sort of nourished my own starving inner-girl, but again made me feel like an imposter. No matter how much I wanted to, I could never be one of them. I felt like there were two tribes in the world, and I was the lone wanderer. Both tribes tolerated me, but neither would accept me as one of their own. (That's how it felt. In reality I was the one who couldn't accept myself in the company of my friends. Nobody ever rejected me. I rejected them... because I rejected myself.)

You mentioned feeling like onlookers might be judging you. That, I think, has always been my biggest hurdle – one I'm still trying to get over. I literally hid from the world for years because I couldn't stand to let people see me as I am. I've since gotten past that extreme, but I still feel eyes on me where ever I go (even when there are none.) Only now, instead of trying to look tough and manly, I allow myself to smile and be friendly. Sometimes my expressions are a little effeminate (in high school my friends joked that I look like a cat, which is generally considered a feminine trait) but if someone judges me for it, I consider that their issue; not mine.

It's a long, slow process trying to shed the sufficating skin of nurture to allow your nature to breathe once again. But I'm working on it, one day at a time.


Sorry if I got off-topic. I tend to ramble.

When I read posts like this I think there's hope for the human race.  The insight is beautiful

[Jess42]

Hi, Jess. I tend to have one really big button that people can push (and probably little ones as well, but that's neither here nor there). If you ever want to see me assert my identity with absolute certainty and guns blazing, then tell me that I don't have the right to decide who I am. Or tell someone else that he or she does not have the right to self-identify. That's sort of what your post looked like to me. THANK YOU for clarifying and not smacking me.

I hate that so many of our best human qualities are downgraded as "feminine" qualities. My therapist, for example, is one of the most supportive and nurturing human beings I have ever met, yet I don't think of him as feminine in the least. He is simply a very caring man. But when a man shows his "softer" emotions, especially in public, people all too often get embarrassed or even suspicious, or they make excuses for him. Case in point: I have a strong aversion to seeing certain emotions aired. I hate it when women cry. But when a man does it, holy Ned!!! I started looking very differently at my then-partner after I saw him break down in front of me. I never looked at him in quite the same way. The second time he did it, a little voice inside me sniffed in disdain and sneered, "Not this again. Typical!" I am ashamed of thinking that way. It means that I was caving in to the stereotypes and judging my partner for being a person.

I do have some of these "feminine" qualities myself, but I don't really look at them that way anymore. They are just a part of me, the whole human being, the whole picture. Maybe that's how I have to look at myself to be able to say that I am a man and don't feel any allegiance to my past or to femaleness. However, I don't think it's that way at all. I've never really identified as a woman, and I always felt weird referring to myself with that label. And in most ways, I've always been very masculine--even more so now that testosterone has taken over my brain and I'm no longer stigmatized for behaving in an unfeminine way.

So I am very curious about people who see themselves as not completely male or not completely female and who throw some of these stereotypical characteristics into the mix. I wonder how much is gender identification and how much is a way of compensating for not being able to act the way we feel and not be stigmatized or judged.

I would never smack anyone Arch. I would get smacked back and I really hate pain. It is hard sometimes writing things a certain way without any clarification on what you really mean. It all gets written without someone being able to ask exaclty what you mean in the beginning. I am one of the biggest advocates for self expression that I know. God knows I express myself to the point that confuses 90% of the human race with no regrets.

Speaking for the last statement though Arch. One thing that I have found is that stereotypes are pretty much concreted in societie's view of how the genders should be. I'm 90/10 mentally female to male regardless of what I'm wearing clothingwise. It has been that some of the behavior, actions and so on have been totally sterotypical genderwise. Stereotypes never played a role with gender identity in my mind but in a lot of instances my actions, thought patterns and likes/dislikes could be misconstrued as stereotypical. I like pink. Not because its girly but I truly like the color pink. I cry during sad movies. Not because other women do but to me it feels good as an emotional release. I like having long hair, not just because its stereotypically femme but I like playing with it and like the way it feels when it swings and bounces and so on. I shave and in the very beginning (the first time) it felt femme and really good but I realized it made me feel much cleaner throughout the day and when I would sweat and definately smelled better when I peeled off sweaty clothes. These things could be stereotypical female but in reality these few things are truly me. There are many more but I won't go into that. These things have been a part of me for all of my life without the thought of them being stereotypes of femininity. So the big question is am I subconsciously using stereotypes as a means of being/feeling feminine or are these stereotypes a discription of who I am and/or what mental gender I am? I guess stereotypical can pretty much describe me but I have never let it dictate who I am.

As for being stigmatized or judged or not being able to act the way I want in public, I don't worry about it. I could care less about how society sees or percieves me. In society, I would rather be on the outer perimeters looking in and defining myself instead of smack dab in the middle of society letting it define me. Plus there are way more interesting people where I am instead of all the Jonses trying to keep up with one another with fads, homes, cars, trends, TV shows and so on. That's just me though and I ain't never claimed "normalcy".

[JillSter]

When I read posts like this I think there's hope for the human race.  The insight is beautiful

Oh wow! Really?

*preen*

I've just had a flash--'the inimical self'--and I'm pondering this, closely.  Which is about facets of ourselves, beyond gender really, where we think 'I can have that part of me, but not the other' and when "I have the other part of me, I can't have that part".  E.g. 'single' and 'partnered', or 'rebel' and 'conformist' or 'law abiding' and 'rebel'.

words to describe the self, that are antonyms, or perceived as antonyms.....

Inimical! Not just contradicting aspects, but self-defeating ones? I definitely recognize that feeling.

When I was 11 or 12 I wanted so badly to be popular. I had always been a very individualistic kid (I was cool like that ) but at that age I traded in my individualism for more comforming interests/style/"personality" and the result was poisonous to me. At 13 I did it again, only in reverse -- a sort of revenge for what I decided felt like whoring myself for the approval of others. I refused to follow anyone, to the extent that I actively sought to contradict my friends' style. They all started to become punk in their early teens, so to me punk became synonymous with conformity. (I still believe that -- the punk paradox -- but that's another discussion.)

This went on all through high school and well into my adult life. I couldn't seem to balance self-expression with sociality. As if being myself required shunning any and all influence, which tbh was BS. I was just as easily influenced as anyone else at that age. I just refused to admit it.

But the point is it was/has been very much a counterproductive struggle. These two things I insisted on believing were contrary to one another have probably caused me more frustration than I needed, or deserved. My therapist tells me I have an unhealthy concept of freedom. I apparently regard anything that isn't my choice or on my own terms as supression. There's some truth to that, I suppose. I think it's self-inflicted though. The result of a lifetime of chasing my own tail; trying to figure out who and what I am, and why I always felt different. And apparently needing to own that feeling and make it my identity. The irony, of course, is that my identity was the source of the frustration to begin with.

I think it's still a part of who I am. These days it manifests more as standing out vs blending in. I don't like drawing attention to myself, but I have this innate need to do just that.

Anyway, I really like the concept of "the inimical self." I think we all have it to an extent. Some more than others maybe?

[Arch]

From my perspective, I cant imagine how with a life-long experience of socialisation and conditioning of Your birth assigned gender - even if one did not associate her/himself with that as of very early age - how one cannot pick up its characteristics and qualities and totally flip a new page in her/his life by starting the E or T therapy. I just cant imagine this kind of thing, unless some extensive brainwashing/amnesia and hypnosis is involved.

I think that in my case, I resisted a great deal so that even my "assimilation" period was a pretty pathetic attempt at acting like a girl. But I also had a dual life in my head and lived in worlds where I was totally male. That practice seems to have gone a long way toward allowing me to "flip." It all happened so fast that I was completely destabilized by it. I kept saying, "It can't be this easy. Can it?" I was lucky because it really was that easy; I just had to learn to trust it. Even now, I sometimes marvel at how relatively easy the shift has been. My therapist says it's because I was a boy all along, and he is pretty much right. Conditioning is powerful, but I never let it permanently erase who I truly was. I expect that the same thing is true for lots of other trans people. If the conditioning were truly that powerful, we might be able to live in our assigned gender instead of needing to transition.

I'm not saying that I haven't had to struggle with any of my conditioning--I have--and I'm sure that some of it is with me for life, but a lot of it seemed to simply melted away quickly like a bad dream. And before, I had to try to control or hide attitudes and thought patterns that other people found inappropriate in a woman. Now I have stopped fighting these thoughts and attitudes, and I consequently fit in great with other guys. So other people's responses to me have shifted from "How can you say that!" to "Just like a man."

Another point in my favor is that some of my childhood conditioning actually mimicked what the boys got--sometimes because of how I acted and what I was good at, and sometimes because my family was so emotionally austere. One of my big struggles has been to learn how to feel and express emotions, for example. I occasionally am fairly explicit about a feeling that I have, and people notice it and praise me for it, but they do not praise women for being the same way. If those people found out that I am trans, they might say, "No wonder he is able to talk about how he feels; he was raised as a girl." Wrong. I have had to teach myself how to be that open--it's a recent and hard-won skill--and I'm actually not nearly as open as people think I am. It's just that men are conditioned so severely that any little deviation from that truly stands out. I was never this open before, and that's one reason people were suspicious of me back then. I didn't socialize as women tend to do, and I didn't relate to others as women tend to do.

And then the T came along and messed with my brain some more...