Having a really difficult time with some areas of life as a woman

[katieelizabeth]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Katie, I'm 36 years old, and I'm a transwoman. I've been taking hormones for ~1.5 years and I have been living as a woman for most of that time.

During the first 10 or 11 months of my transition, I was incredibly happy. I found that society - at least here in Toronto, Canada - was really accepting. I could basically go out in public, not initially passing, and I really didn't get too much trouble from people. My workplace was also really supportive and accepting too - the exec team was really awesome.

So... my transition has gone really well. Despite taking the hormones at a late age, I was passing pretty well after 8 months on the hormones, and today, I have no trouble passing at all, even without make-up (to which I don't even use that much). I've been told by many that I am quite striking, beautiful, whatever.

While this transformation - and the entire process really - has made me so happy, it wasn't until 6 or so months ago where I actually started having problems, and frankly, it's just getting worse and worse. I would say the really rough started and hasn't stopped now - during a time I would have never guessed.

Basically, I get harassed by men routinely - not because I am trans, but just because I'm am attractive woman. At first it came as quite a shock, but now I've had it happen so often on public transit and what not that my anxiety levels are through the roof. I've had cases of gropping, or men grabbing my shoulder or arm as I tried to get away from them. I've had men stalk me on the bus, waiting for me to get off at stops so they could follow me. Many times, I've stood next to the bus driver, waited for them to get off eventually, basically taking massive loops around the bus route before I actually went to where I needed to go. Fortunately, I haven't been raped or anything - but I am still extremely scared. I feel unsafe all of the time.

Outside of work, when running errands or whatever, I get hit on routinely - probably ~once an hour. If not hit on, whistled down or some other thing. I find this incredibly annoying and unwanted. Honestly, it wouldn't be bad if these men were nice and tried to make your day a better one, but they don't. A fair majority of them are ass holes. They are aggressive, arrogant, have an attitude problem, are creeps, etc. I can't even believe they approach like this and expect it will work. And it seems like 10% of them seem like real safety issues. It doesn't take many of them to make a woman feel anxious everywhere she goes.

I do prefer women over men when it comes to sex/romance, but in theory, I'm bisexual. Because I had so much trouble finding women to date, I dated men for a very short period. Despite trying to be enormously picky and only dating incredibly high matches, I had terrible experiences. I've had men literally tell me - 10 or 15 minutes into the date - what they wanted to do sexually with me. They would describe in vivid detail. We hadn't even ordered our food yet. I've had guys not tell me they were married until the date started. I haven't went on too many dates with men - it didn't take much to get me to stop dating men and blocking them on-line 100% on OKCupid. Being a transwoman means your basically a sex object to these men, and it's all they seem to care about. I find it incredibly abusive and disgusting. In one case, he was so aggressive, I had to bail out of the restaurant, run to the subway and hope he didn't follow me. I never did pay for my food.

In every day life, men in general treat me differently in all sorts of situations - usually not for the better. They often cut me off, don't take me seriously, don't listen to what I am saying, etc. It's bit alarming since I'm very bright - my IQ is very high. I have a lot of skills, knowledge and accomplishments. I am a software architect. So it doesn't even really make any objective sense for people to treat me like this, but they do.

It's not THAT bad - it's not "EVERY" man or anything - but it's still really annoying when all of harassment and sexual abuse has happened. I can't separate it any more. It's just all starting to get clumped together honestly, so that even minor things or even innocent things really get to me. I'm starting to associate men with "evil" - I can't even stand being around most men now (minus a few safe exceptions). I'm very unlikely to give any man a chance now. I just don't think I can tolerate it.

Right now, every time I go outside, I feel so much anxiety. I am expecting some kind of episode to happen. I haven't really went anywhere in months. I get my groceries delivered to my condo each week. I use Uber every chance I get rather than use public transit. I asked my work to let me work from home a few days a week just to give me a respite. I have had to completely change my life around just to deal with it.

Honestly, I'm really scared and I don't like the direction that my life is going in. I don't regret my transition in the slightest - I love being able to live as a woman - but this other stuff... I just don't even know where to begin to deal with it.

On top of this, I still don't have any friends in Toronto - I'm really lonely honestly. I also haven't been able to date or anything like that - women don't seem to want to date a transgendered woman I guess. I've dated 1 woman in the last year total. Men want to date however - tons of them do - but this loneliness and isolation and anxiety is literally destroying me now. I spend a few days a week crying a lot. I am totally stressed. My hair is starting to fall out way more easily - so much for Finasteride.

I hope this was a place I could ask for help. I really need help. I want to be happy and at peace.

Katie

[Jacqueline]

Katie,

I am so sorry you are experiencing this. I remember a discussion or two about 3-4 months ago saying very similar things. I am too early in my journey to pass 100% and may never. I can only empathize with what your issues. There are many threads here of how women are treated by men. You are not alone. We have a lot of members with large amounts of experience and support.

I also wanted to welcome you to the site. I am passing along some links we try to get to all our newly posting members. It is mostly welcome information and the rules that govern the site. If you have not looked through them, please take a moment to do so:

Things that you should read

Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By	Standard Terms & Definitions	Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar)
Reputation rules	News posting & quoting guidelines	Photo, avatars, & signature images policy

Once again, welcome to Susans.

I hope you can find a way to be as comfortable in your life and city as in your skin.

With warmth,

Joanna

[Ms Grace]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Very sorry to hear what you are going through, having been hit on and followed a few times myself I can appreciate that it is annoying and uncomfortable (and on one occasion, downright terrifying). Sadly that kind of harassment is so very common in the life of women, and the more attractive they are usually the worse it is. For some women, trans or cis, it can totally ruin their sense of self and their enjoyment of life. Have you considered wearing a wedding ring on the appropriate finger? It can act as a disincentive to harassment, as sad as that sounds.

[JoanneB]

An engagement ring & wedding ring helps for sure. But guys are guys. It's what they do. Sometimes a ring is a signal to them the screams "Non-Committal Sex". Being a chameleon most of my life I have way too much insight into how real guys think.

I haven't been hit on in a scary situation. When I have been it's like OMG, I made it! Then the shear panic of reminding myself not to say "My wife...." when it's obvious I am married.

[Asche]

I can't speak from personal experience and probably never will be able to (I'll be 63 when I go full-time), but what you describe sounds an awful lot like what women your age and younger on the feminist blogs I read describe happening to them all the time.  If you're male, you don't generally hear about it because women have learned that most men aren't interested in things that primarily impact women and not men.

FWIW, there is a site (or series of sites) called "hollaback" where women post cell-phone photos of their most egregious harrassers.

[katieelizabeth]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Very sorry to hear what you are going through, having been hit on and followed a few times myself I can appreciate that it is annoying and uncomfortable (and on one occasion, downright terrifying). Sadly that kind of harassment is so very common in the life of women, and the more attractive they are usually the worse it is. For some women, trans or cis, it can totally ruin their sense of self and their enjoyment of life. Have you considered wearing a wedding ring on the appropriate finger? It can act as a disincentive to harassment, as sad as that sounds.

Thanks. I guess I could wear a ring at time where I am running errands. I am not sure if some of these men are even intelligent/savy enough to even look at my hand before they approach. Do they do that? I wouldn't know - I wasn't much of the 'pursuer' when presenting as male.

I really do think that this ruins my sense of self and my freedom, as you say. I enjoyed the beginning of my transition a lot because it just seemed like people accepted it. I didn't really run into many problems. Sure, an old hag on the street would say, "Buddy, are you okay?!?" But nothing that was really that big of a deal. I was *free*. Now, I feel like the entire world is a minefield, but the mines are random men, and it's preventing me from doing what I would otherwise do if this wasn't a problem.

[katieelizabeth]

I can't speak from personal experience and probably never will be able to (I'll be 63 when I go full-time), but what you describe sounds an awful lot like what women your age and younger on the feminist blogs I read describe happening to them all the time.  If you're male, you don't generally hear about it because women have learned that most men aren't interested in things that primarily impact women and not men.

FWIW, there is a site (or series of sites) called "hollaback" where women post cell-phone photos of their most egregious harrassers.

You know what's interesting? I was never anti-feminist, but they always rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of the public ones seem very aggressive, and actually wanted to use political means to enforce their ideas. And this sort of put them into one of the many aggressive camps that only cared about their group and didn't care about the rights of other innocents. I can't say I like groups like that, even now. That really bothered me about the very vocal, public feminists - and they do distort and get their facts wrong, which furthers made me not take too much look into what they were saying.

But honestly, I can totally see how someone can go to becoming a feminist very quickly - and perhaps make some snap judgements and errors along the way, getting the whole feminist package deal.

Today, I would totally consider myself a feminist in a sort - like I definitely see and experience where the inequality of treatment as a result of being female and the level of harassment we get just isn't right - but, at the same time, I have zero political ambitions to make the government change things above and beyond what they should already be doing for everyone - protecting our rights. But with respect to why they feel the way they do, and even the anger, I can totally empathize with it now. I have grown quite angry, bitter, etc. I just cannot stand a lot of men's aggression, their desire to dominate you (usually sexually, but not always - and they often create these narcissistic win/lose scenarios for women), their sense of entitlement - which is unearned much of the time - and how they get passes so, so easily - even the creeps, and chief idiots among them. This is all true, and it's all stuff transwoman are have to deal with I guess.

This lack of freedom is basically killing my enjoyment of life. It's like I removed all of the problems with dysphoria, but gained a whole new sets of problems. Both inhibit my freedom, so in a way, nothing has really changed. I'm just a pretty girl who now hides in her condo instead of a fat, invisible dude who in his condo. It's sad.

[katieelizabeth]

Other than the ring, is there something I can do to my looks to discourage it? I'm thinking probably not. The last I want to do as well is present myself badly for a potential date of the female gender also. I'm the femme one after all. Such a frustrating place to be in.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1l7b3q10umsyoe6/2016-05-14%2013.06.53.jpg?dl=0

[SueNZ]

Other than the ring, is there something I can do to my looks to discourage it? I'm thinking probably not. The last I want to do as well is present myself badly for a potential date of the female gender also. I'm the femme one after all. Such a frustrating place to be in.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1l7b3q10umsyoe6/2016-05-14%2013.06.53.jpg?dl=0

Hi Katie,
Its a shame that you would need to think about modifying your looks to be less attractive. You have worked hard to get where you are and you should not have to regress to go forward.
I would love to be able to present myself with the looks you have.

I am wondering if there are common interest groups that you could join into to make friends?

I know this may sound drastic, but is the area you live in not that safe and maybe moving somewhere else may work?
The last time I was in Toronto was 1993 so I am totally uneducated in the cities boundaries etc so can't offer much help in where.

I do feel for your situation and it is a shame because there are many more nice people than mongrels out there. It's just the idiots are like pimples, they stick out.

[SonadoraXVX]

Hi Katieelizabeth,

I used to know a lady in passing like what your describing, in L.A. of course, not in your neck of the woods, in my prior life. Whats so funny, is that in hindsight, I got the impression, she just attracted the wrong people. Anyway, she lived in my apt complex, sans 2004-2008, when I first met her, she was just a regular looking gg lady, jeans, older used car, tennis shoes, we would meet in the elevator, with a hi/bye kind of thing, then one day, she struck a conversation about my new car(ie.2004, I also blew her off then for her frumpiness  ), and I didn't give it any thought, she was a decent looking lady(ie.I was already going out with another gg), speed up to 2008. One day, I see this new lady in the parking garage in my apt complex, a beautiful made up lady, new car,and I realize it was the same lady as before, but she got a make over, I was truly shocked, to see her(gorgeous she was now). She eventually got a promotion to the better side of town, working in the hospitality industry, with her new graduate degree and she moved out. My point, I could sense she had men trouble due to her new look, after the make over, and new car, she was way more aware of her surroundings, I sensed. Maybe you may need to tone down in how your made up and what you were, taking alot more preventive security, driving a car, instead of public transportation, making female frineds for the time being, and have your female friends refer you to good guys/ladies.

P.S. I noticed since I've been on hrt too, I'm way more vulnerable, in that guys hit on me from out of nowhere, at times, or else you got to take preventive security from now on.

[Ms Grace]

Thanks. I guess I could wear a ring at time where I am running errands. I am not sure if some of these men are even intelligent/savy enough to even look at my hand before they approach. Do they do that?

It will discourage some. It's worth a try at least!

Its a shame that you would need to think about modifying your looks to be less attractive. You have worked hard to get where you are and you should not have to regress to go forward.

I have to agree with this... however, that said, I know many genetic women do try to modify their appearance. Extreme facial piercings, extreme hair styles, extreme make up and clothing etc. I'm not saying every woman who does those things are doing it to make themselves "less attractive" but I know of some women who have for that purpose (or at least have considered it). Others just wear very "dull" clothes with no makeup and no hairstyling, etc.

Keep in mind it might put off some men but a lot are just real jerks - if they think they've got a a chance they're going to have a go regardless.