What It Means When I Say 'I've Always Felt Like a Woman'

[stephaniec]

What It Means When I Say 'I've Always Felt Like a Woman'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/what-it-means-when-i-say_b_8618664.html?utm_hp_ref=transgender

The Huffington Post/By Quora    Posted:  11/21/2015 5:13 pm EST    Updated:  11/21/2015 5:59 pm EST

"What do transgender people mean, exactly, when they say "I've always felt like a man/woman?" originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question.

Answer by Jae Alexis Lee, MTF Lesbian Feminist, on Quora:

What does it mean to feel like you're something other than the gender you were identified as at birth? I can only answer for me.

When I was 3-4 years old, I wondered why I couldn't play with the other girls at day care. At a young age, I genuinely didn't understand why I was different from the rest of the girls."

[Elsa Delyth]

What it means for me is solidarity. To intuitively, or instinctively subsume yourself under the category.

[suzifrommd]

I really, really, really wish I could relate to this. Unfortunately, even after two and a half years of full time living, I still don't "feel" like a female. I want all the things that the author of this article wants, but I don't have an experience like hers.

Maybe I'm just the slow kid in the class, the one who can't seem to get what the other kids think is obvious.

[Dee Marshall]

I'm with you, Suzi. I can remember, now, having thoughts like that and repressing them strongly. I remember playing in the playhouse our kindergarten had with the girls. I don't remember ever thinking "I'm one of the girls" OR "I'm one of the boys". I remember not fitting in well. I do remember being so depressed for no observable reason between kindergarten and middle school that I contemplated suicide almost daily. When I began this journey almost two years ago my therapist said I would probably begin to remember my nearly forgotten childhood. It's bittersweet that she was right. It's pointless to cry over events fifty years in the past and yet I do.

Is it worse to know that everyone is wrong about your gender from an early age or to refuse to admit that this is so, even to yourself, for just as long?

[Maybebaby56]

I really, really, really wish I could relate to this. Unfortunately, even after two and a half years of full time living, I still don't "feel" like a female. I want all the things that the author of this article wants, but I don't have an experience like hers.

Maybe I'm just the slow kid in the class, the one who can't seem to get what the other kids think is obvious.

I'm with you, Suzi.  I wish I had a personal narrative like the person in that article.  Things would make so much more sense.  My dysphoria came from knowing I wasn't female. I have had a desire to change my physical sex since I was about 8 or 9, and all that brought me was intense shame and self-loathing for being some kind of pervert.

Now that I have finally started my transition, I worry that it won't be enough.  I won't be female enough. Not so much lacking in feminine spirit, but in life experience and not having a womb.  Women can still notice things and interpret things that I can't.  My sense is that "thinking like a woman" is from inherent biological differences in the brain (bi-hemispherical language processing, thicker corpus colossum, etc.), and life-long practice from picking up nuances in people's facial expression and behavior. Can this change over time under the influence of hormones?  Who knows? All I know is when I am with women, I feel like them, but not one of them.

I still deal with fear. I don't care that much about giving up male privilege, since I am near the end of my professional career, but the possibility of losing my children to my quixotic quest gives me enormous angst. How to transition at work is also still a difficult concept for me.

Before I even started, I intellectually accepted that transition does not guarantee happiness. But not to transition was to resign myself to being unhappy the rest of my life, "for the sake of my children", or whatever scary loss one would care to put in there.  Transition still equals hope, however imperfect.  It represents moving forward, to whatever fate awaits me.   That is the essence of life, isn't it?