What do you think makes the Female

[Kate]

It's what you define yourself to be.  If you define yourself as a woman, then you are one.

I like that. A whole lot

This way we can have women who express/portray/define "femaleness" in a myriad of ways, all perfectly valid in their own right. Even Janet Reno

I worry though about someone who seems male in *everything* they say, think, and do... I mean if there's no difference *except* for our claimed self-identity, then doesn't the identity become meaningless (she asks herself, musing)? Which of course contradicts what I said about identity existing independent of traits. Ghosts again.

One of the validations I do allow myself is to notice how other people treat me. It's impossible to quantify, as we're talking trends and averages here, but on the whole, people treat me as if I am female. Well, OK, as if I'm a woman who looks remarkably similiar to a 6'2" man with a penis. But the poor things do their best, much to both of our confusions. I never really thought about it until my wife pointed it out, and now it's a source of validation and amusement for me. I'm not suggesting I pass - I really am a guy otherwise, not effeminate, not particularly feminine-looking - and yet there's SOME ineffable quality that draws out the same instinctual responses that women generally create. *I* don't even know what IT is, and to be honest, it makes me self-conscious as heck sometimes wondering what I'm doing "wrong" for my birth sex.

So in a way, that feedback, that constant expectation of gender, against all physical evidence, has nurtured my identity as much as my own self-definition.

[Hazumu]

Hey, Kate;

I really like your recent post on identity/physical/legal.  When I first accepted my transsexuality and with that, realized I need to transition, I too searched for the universal things that made one female or feminine.  I tried to learn 'the walk', tried to do the knee-over-knee crossing the legs (rather than the male figure-four,) etc.

Then I realized a lot of Natal females didn't walk in any particular manner and, when not wearing a skirt (which is actually kind of rare these days,) would cross their legs figure-four style.

Yet, there's still some 'essence' of femaleness that comes through.

A few months ago I bought the Denae Doyle videos.  I found they were only narrowly useful -- say, if I was going to attend a formal ball or other event where I had to behave in a highly stylized female manner, but kinda' useless for everyday mannerisms.

I think the biggest difference that happened was upon truly accepting myself I stopped monitoring my mannerisms and censoring anything that wasn't 'masculine'.  Now I stand/walk/sit the way I feel like.  The old me still sometimes wells up and tries to say "Stop That!", but I just smile to myself and let it happen.

Somewhere else was a topic on what to wear to a support group meeting.  My answer to me is, 'Wear what you feel comfortable with.'  With my therapists' concurrence, I'm actually playing a mental game with myself wherein I'm a female who is -- "deep stealth" style --  presenting as a guy (or trying to  )  As my hair grows out longer, as electrolysis steadily erodes my facial hair, as HRT causes my breasts to develop further, redistributes body fat, and softens body hair and skin, and more importantly, the mental attitues & such become more profoundly changed, it'll be harder and harder to present as a guy.  When strangers begin to refer to me as female, I'll know that Karen's undercover assignment to spy on the other team is coming to an end.

Now all the above really does for me is take the pressure off to 'behave' in a 'feminine' manner, and just behave as me.  The female-ness will still shine through and, over time, will only become stronger.

Still, that doesn't answer the topic question.  What makes 'Female'?  An appreciation for the quality of 'cute'?  An empathetic sense of what others might be feeling?  I find there's a feeling that's hard to put into words -- I can only describe facets of it.  I can tap into this feeling and use it when making videos to fine-tune the emotional undercurrent, enhancing the videos' effectiveness.  I can't explain why I did it that way, but somehow I just -- know...

Sorry for the vague and amorphous post.  I hope it somehow adds to this discussion.

Karen

[Bmore]

What makes a Female? It's the shoes hon... just kidding. 
I'm reading Gender Outlaw too,it really has me thinking. Specifically,why is gender seen in dualistic and oppositional terms? Perhaps gender is the artifact of our own divided and opposed culture bias in the same way that Eskimos have 27 words to describe snow, while we have what, 2 or 3? For that matter the pagan religions have a Pantheon of Gods(read psychological stances)while monotheism has again one, maybe two if you include the devil.Perhaps what we call male and female are just prodigiously simplistic descriptions that have reduced a whole ecology of human elements into a grossly impoverished monosystem of being, a place where only two withered stalks remain, in what was once a lush rainforest of gender expression.
You know, sometimes I really wish I could shed my gender the way a snake sheds it's skin, or the moon sheds it's shadow, simply, rhythmically, from season to season, as the mood suits. When I ask myself what sex I am, I always come back to the question, "Well, what sex are angels? Isn't that what we are at our deepest core?" I suppose it's where one puts their emphasis and what the comittees all agree on that takes it from there. Ah well, I hope no one accuses me of contienental thread drift, this whole subject has me musing, but I simply can't find any simple or easy answers to this question.

[Teri Anne]

Hi, Bmore,
You said, "I always come back to the question, "Well, what sex are angels? Isn't that what we are at our deepest core?"

I agree totally.  In fact, my 1999 Christmas "coming out" card posed the same question:  "If we are essentially SPIRITS, then why should it matter to anyone what we look like on earth?"

Teri Anne

[Bmore]

Right on Terri, if we see with the vision of our spirit, then all the divisons the mind likes to make, just fall away. I was talking with a friend about this, about times we feel most like our true selves when our inner dialogue just falls away. You know those mildly euphoric states where there are no words, just the joy of being. For me they come when I walk with my feet touching the tide line down here in the Gulf surf, or when I would loose myself in the spirit of the trees in the forest by my door or again all stretched into the wind on the back of my bike. I call them oceanic moments when we loose the idea of ourselves and just move like a fish in the seas of life. I love these moments, they are my own particular passage to Grace.
I'll bet you have your own way of getting there too. BTW, I enjoy your posts, a lot of your spirit comes through in them. I'm glad we can chat together.
~Leigh G. Rivers

[Bmore]

Listening to NPR few weeks ago they were talking about how there was an "alarming" increase in youg girls mutilating and burning their Barbies in England. Can't even imagine what they did to Ken. Well least they're rebelling against perfection at an early age.
~Leigh

[CarolC Oz Girl]

Hi Girls have not made a post in a while so I thought I would add my thoughts.

I do not think there any right or wrong answers to this one, it hard to define.


Like Melissa I like to feel pretty and yes we do have the opportunity to express our feeling openly without being looked down on.

In some way its like somebody asking me what its like to be Australian, apart from the usual socially acceptable answer, I could not answer that one either.

I chose to begin this journey to correct what my mind felt and body did not reflect, I guess its all a matter in the mind.

In short what make me a female its me.


Caroline