Musing on my gender: Anyone else feel like a Secret Agent?

[suzifrommd]

It's now been a year since I last wrote about my gender, so I figure I'm permitted an update. I'm putting it here instead of in my blog because there might be non-binary people who don't follow my blog, but might relate.

When starting my journey of discovery, I obsessed over my gender daily on the pages of these forums. I expressed concerns that I don't "feel" female. I thought it meant I wasn't really a transgender woman. Some women here told of feeling like that initially but gradually feeling more female.

TL;DR: That didn't happen.

I've been happily living fulltime as a woman for more than a year and a half. But during that time my sense of my own gender has been remarkably stable. I still feel male. Yes, I'm thrilled to be living as a female. Yes I love learning what it is to be a woman. But at the end of the day, I feel like a male playing the role of a lifetime.

It's like I'm a secret agent on an exciting adventure, where I've been sent to report back on some remote native culture. Instantly upon arriving (or long before that) I realize this culture much better fits me than my home situation and I've fallen in love with my new surroundings. Every day is strange and exciting as I start by dressing up as if I'm one of the locals, and engage in their rituals. The natives all know I wasn't originally one of them, but I've internalized their language and customs so effectively that they forget my origins and treat me like I've always been among them. I know I'll never go back to my home country, but I'll never truly be one of the natives either. It's an exciting assignment. I learn something new every day and it's wonderful how well I, normally inept and socially clueless, can assimilate myself. I can't forget where I came from, but I'm still thrilled when I'm accepted as one of the locals.

Have others looked at their transitions that way?

[cassieohpia]

I'm quite far behind you Suzi on my own journey of discovery but I just want to say that I love this idea. And I always enjoy reading your updates and comments.
Keep on Suzi-ing!
X

[enigmaticrorschach]

i feel like a double agent and a secret spy o:

[Aubrey1day]

I'm still so very early in my journey, that for me it sort of feels like the movie Face Off. I look in a mirror and who I see is familiar but doesn't seem right. Terrifying at times, that person just isn't me. It leaves me feeling a bit on edge (dysphoric). I'll be home someday but it will be a while still before I get to go there.

On a side note your way of wording it paints quite the exciting picture!

[Dee Marshall]

I sometimes feel that way. Funny thing is, it doesn't matter what gender I'm presenting. Sometimes I feel like a male spy, sometimes a female spy, mostly I just feel like me and "me" isn't very masculine at all.

A few weeks after I admitted to myself I'm trans, Sweetie and I were bantering. She came out with one of those female talking to male sexist statements. I told her that that was it, I was defecting in the war between the sexes. She took it as a joke but it was the closest I could come to coming out to her before I finally did.

[Aazhie]

I do feel like a spy sometimes, I love the way you phrase it though.  Adventure, rather than worrying too much about passing/worrying about my looks is how I am trying to approach things!! Its a much healthier approach than what I was trying to do, and I think it's great you get so much happiness from living as a woman.  I can't say I've ever felt all that female, but I definietly have a pretty side and a macho side and now that they don't have to fight so much with each other life has been much nicer ^^ It's kind of like the spy movie with the bond agent and the Vin diesel "punch everyone in the face" spy realize they can work together instead of one or the other having to hog the spotlight... or shadows, I guess since steath/spies, ha ha ha

[stephaniec]

my problem is I've never felt male and I had great conflict all my life pretending to be male out of fear of discovery that I wasn't male,. I never ever felt I belonged in the male role. I had a sexual attraction to men that I always feared would be found out by friends and acquaintances . In high school I was in constant fear of being found out. I never belong in the male role and it's been this way for me since my earliest memory. A secret agent in the sense of spying on the male world and hoping not to be caught.

[mmmmm]

This is very foreign to me and impossible to understand, but I'm curious... As you are biologically male, and you felt and still feel male, how would you describe yourself; a crossdresser who transitioned to live full-time as female, or any other transgender variation. You mentioned non-binary people, but if you feel male, that wouldn't mean you are actually non-binary, or it would? I have met a couple non-binary people, and they all described it to me that the main psychological characteristic is persistent gender dysphoria which is only attached to binary gender role, but not to ones physical characteristics and hatred&disgust towards physical body, which requires medical/surgical interventions as in a case of transsexual people.

[suzifrommd]

This is very foreign to me and impossible to understand, but I'm curious... As you are biologically male, and you felt and still feel male, how would you describe yourself; a crossdresser who transitioned to live full-time as female, or any other transgender variation. You mentioned non-binary people, but if you feel male, that wouldn't mean you are actually non-binary, or it would? I have met a couple non-binary people, and they all described it to me that the main psychological characteristic is persistent gender dysphoria which is only attached to binary gender role, but not to ones physical characteristics and hatred&disgust towards physical body, which requires medical/surgical interventions as in a case of transsexual people.

I identify as a non-binary trans woman.

My definition of non-binary is someone whose identity is neither completely male nor completely female.

That leaves a WHOLE lot of ways that someone can be non-binary. The beauty of the term is that it describes what someone is not, instead of what they are, so it doesn't constrain who can be non-binary.

Does that answer your question?

[mmmmm]

Yes, this is a lot easier to understand now, as to where before I understood you actually feel male (and only male), which was the part that was confusing to me.

[Asche]

I have met a couple non-binary people, and they all described it to me that the main psychological characteristic is persistent gender dysphoria which is only attached to binary gender role...

This pretty much describes me.  As far back as I can remember, I hated the "boys have to be X and can't be Y, girls have to be Y and can't be X" garbage and would insist that any gender-based expectations were stupid and a human rights violation.  I was a radical feminist long before I'd ever heard the term.

, but not to ones physical characteristics and hatred&disgust towards physical body, ...

Well, I do have a kind of body dysphoria.  Whether due to some sort of inborn transgender nature or due to my parents' obvious preference for girls, I have always felt that male bodies were ugly and a little disgusting due to being male, and that my body in particular was ugly and disgusting.  I always felt that I and my life would have been much better if I'd been born a girl.  It isn't a huge conscious dysphoria, I think because I deal with it the way I've always dealt with painful things that I can't change: I just don't think about it and pretend it isn't there.

I haven't been through transition yet (just made my first electrolysis appointment yesterday -- finally!), but I can't iimagine ever feeling that I'm a real woman (whatever that is.)  If I'm real lucky, maybe I'll be able to fool people some of the time, and maybe some women will accept me as one of them despite my lowly origins    Suzi's label "woman wannabee" is as close as I think I'll ever come.

[Sisyphus]

I feel like a secret agent, but more a way of someone pretending to be something I'm not amid a sea of binary culture expressing people, because to do otherwise would be incredibly unsafe for me. Or at least thats how I feel - unsafe with the judgement and the resulting damage on my life they can create.  But then, I live with a lot of fear of being found out for what I am.

[Vanny]

I feel most like flat stanly.  On fire...  Secret agent nope.  I wish.  Good post.  Gets me thinking.  Thanks. 


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[Tysilio]

I felt very much like that before transitioning. I had a profound sense of being Other, to the point that when I was younger (well into my twenties, at least), I had a fantasy that I was an alien, a sort of spy from another planet, here to help but mostly to observe the strange people who inhabit this world.  That fantasy went away with age -- I think most fantasies do as we're confronted with real life -- but I never lost the feeling of being a stranger and an onlooker.

Now I'm far enough along in my transition to be read as male pretty much all the time, it's very different. I can be present with people without hiding from or confusing them, and they see the real me. It feels completely amazing to be this comfortable in the world and to be seen as who I am.

Far from feeling like a spy or an imposter, I'm starting to engage with people in a much more genuine and open way. I love it.

[suzifrommd]

I can be present with people without hiding from or confusing them, and they see the real me. It feels completely amazing to be this comfortable in the world and to be seen as who I am.

Oddly, I feel this way also, especially when I'm in the company of other women. I feel totally me. It blows my mind how natural it feels to be around women, among women, and to be accepted as a woman. That's actually part of the adventure.

[Dodie]

Well Girl,
I felt like a secrete agent as a dude.. now I feel I am me.. a chick.. totally .. I have no male left period... love guys now..get crushes on them.... damn it.. its weird.. but true.
If I still felt like a dude I would be a dude.. it was much easier than being blue eyed blond..
Makeup, hair nails the pain from losing the beard, omg.. body shaping I will do this summer.. not to mention GRS coming soon..
So no I don't feel like a dude at all.. wish to hell i did though.
Dodie

[suzifrommd]

So no I don't feel like a dude at all.. wish to hell i did though.

Why do you wish you did? I'd love to get rid of my male identity. I'm always so jealous of the binary trans women who are sure of their gender.

[VeronicaLynn]

I tend to look at it more as an alter ego like a superhero. Superman is still Superman when he's Clark Kent, though he acts differently, and has his costume underneath his suit. I'm quite a bit like Clark Kent around the office, though the the costume I wear under my business casual outfit is a bit sexier, and doesn't include a cape. Also, I don't have any super powers, unfortunately...

[Tessa James]

I felt very much like that before transitioning. I had a profound sense of being Other, to the point that when I was younger (well into my twenties, at least), I had a fantasy that I was an alien, a sort of spy from another planet, here to help but mostly to observe the strange people who inhabit this world.  That fantasy went away with age -- I think most fantasies do as we're confronted with real life -- but I never lost the feeling of being a stranger and an onlooker.

Now I'm far enough along in my transition to be read as male pretty much all the time, it's very different. I can be present with people without hiding from or confusing them, and they see the real me. It feels completely amazing to be this comfortable in the world and to be seen as who I am.

Far from feeling like a spy or an imposter, I'm starting to engage with people in a much more genuine and open way. I love it.

I love it too and love how our experience is so similar, word for word, tho we are apart in age and current gender expression.  Amazing that years ago I was certain (and wrong) that nobody could possibly feel the way I did.  Coming out into the sunshine provides huge relief, sense of freedom and solidarity with others.

Yes, my past coping method included the consideration that i could be that agent from another dimension or planet that was simply recording but not part of the world we inhabit.  Sheesh, talk about dissociating!

[Tysilio]

I love that you were another alien, Tessa!  Isn't it nice to feel like a human?

(Yah, our gender expression is different, but I'm not so sure that we're that far apart in age -- didn't you write in the Bruce Jenner thread that you were pretty much of an age with him?  Me too. )