Doesn't everyone?

[alan1219]

As a male, I wouldnt judge anyone based on their choices, everyone has a right to feel beautiful and it should be the way anyone wants it to be.

[Kylo]

To the OP: Yes, yes and yes.

When I was younger, I was absolutely convinced that everyone wanted to be male by default and some people just got stuck as women. I assumed everyone looked at those huge 6'4", 300lb, muscle-laden, beard-sporting, larger-than-life men with as much intense inner jealousy as myself.
And, because I never really talked to anyone about it apart from my fiancée, I held those assumptions well into my late teens. It wasn't until I mentioned it one day off-handedly that she stopped me with a shocked look on her face and said something along the lines of, "What? Uh... so, I love being a woman...".
Something shifted in my head at that very moment and, for the first time, confusion set in. We had a very long chat about gender in general and she told me she never questioned being a woman or even thought about it until I brought it up. I honestly thought everyone did.

I'll never forget the sensation of realizing that I was the anomaly.

On a basic level I couldn't understand why anyone would want to be weaker than someone else, or want to be dependent on someone else... I guess that counts a little if we assume most women are smaller. That's just rational to me though. Being dependent is dangerous and so was being weaker. What I didn't understand at the time - because I didn't "think" like a woman at all - was that as a woman people don't seek to physically dominate you all the time, or to fight you, or even see you as a threat. My brain never processed that; I assumed I was going to have to defend myself from all comers.

So I thought most people would probably prefer to be strong, if they had the choice... and would prefer to be independent. I think that's true, because most women do like to be independent these days, and if they could alter their strength without altering their body shape I bet they would - we see it in action/fantasy movies where they have these heroines who can take on any number of meatheads. It seems to be a general fantasy people enjoy playing out in film, TV and books.

But I never got the vibe most women wanted to be men or thought like me. Mainly because in my family I was surrounded by women whose favorite hobby seemed to be putting down their husbands, or fathers, and just generally ragging on the men that brought the paycheck home. My friends that happened to be girls never expressed a desire to be men either. Neither did I - I didn't see that much advantage in being a man, it seemed pretty crap actually considering how they have to take more punishment... but it wasn't a desire of mine, it just was what I was. Even now I don't wish to be a man, I just know that being stuck with this role and this body has always been like pulling teeth and male is just what is, under that skin.

[BirlPower]

I always assumed everyone felt a mix of male and female but it was a different mix for everybody. But then I'm a little queer.

B

[Kylo]

In reality people are but I don't think most of them feel they are. It never crosses the minds of most people beyond avoiding the behaviors that make other people criticize them for being 'girly' or 'mannish'.

[SpeakYourMind]

I was having a conversation with my wife and she told me about an article she read by a woman describing her experience with her transgender husband before his transition.  This woman was somewhat taken aback by his assertion that "any woman would want to be a man, right?"  The woman found this statement to be odd at the time, and probably an indication. 

My wife mentioned a similar conversation that we had years ago, when I asserted that "what man wouldn't want to become a woman, given the chance?"  Funny how I went through this evolution of thinking that everyone was like me, to thinking I was completely different, to ultimately realizing that we're all different and in some ways all the same. 

Did you ever feel like your thoughts, desires and needs regarding gender were just the same ones everyone must have?

Erin

I always thought i was different but i thought there was very "Few" people like me
so sorta?

[Sofie L]

CIS people, apparently, never even think about gender.  This is what finally convinced my wife that I was indeed doing the only possible to survive. 
I thought about my gender ALL THE TIME,

Yes, cis people can't fathom that trans people think about their gender relentlessly. When I told my wife that unless I was actively thinking of something else, I was thinking about my gender, she was gobsmacked. She couldn't imagine such unending thoughts about one subject. I think that it was one of the things that turned the tide and made her realize that I NEEDED to transition. When I made the same statement to my gender therapist, she nodded in understanding. She said it was an almost universal admission of every trans patient who walked through her door.

[November Fox]

Good question - definitely.

I thought that all women were awkward and uncomfortable in their bodies. I thought none of them liked having breasts, for example. If I had known that most women are okay with their breasts and even like them, I would have started to question myself a lot sooner, I think.

The thing is, I could not understand that women liked themselves - because they were actually women and I was not. I had not quite made that connection yet.

[Satinjoy]

No.

I was born different.

Its been a lonely walk even in a crowd.

[meatwagon]

i'm another one who grew up being made to feel different and wrong for liking things that weren't considered typical of my gender--at least once i passed a certain age. 
when i was a little kid, playing with bugs and dinosaurs was the norm.  i guess, looking back, me doing "boy things" was accepted because i still seemed to like "girl things".  as long as i wore dresses to sunday school and played with barbie dolls (nobody had to know i was actually just feeding them to the plastic shark), no one batted an eye if i wanted to wrestle my cousins or play in the mud.  being told that something was for boys was confusing, but for the most part it didn't come up often and i didn't give it much thought.  when the boys and girls got separate party favors at my birthday, we all just ended up trading with each other anyway.  i wanted cats and dinosaurs.  i got cats and dinosaurs one way or another, so i was happy.  i usually liked the girl stuff i was given anyway, and was too polite to ask for anything different.  i still got bugs and science, and if i didn't get what i wanted, i had some male friends and relatives whose things i could play with just as well. 
and i guess those were things i did take for granted, because i was pretty baffled when, from "preteen" onward, everything was all about how i wasn't feminine enough.  i couldn't wear baggy clothes.  i had to start wearing makeup and plucking my eyebrows.  i couldn't slouch.  nothing was ever pretty enough, and i was always having things like body spray and lip gloss and pink clothes (even so i constantly complained that i hated pink) being shoved on me.  and it was then that i realized just how much of the stuff i like was "boy stuff" and not just "everyone stuff"--at least from my family's point of view, anyway.

i'd love to give input on whether or not i ever thought everyone wanted to be the opposite gender, but i don't think i ever really considered that at all beyond "i'm sure everyone would try it for a day if they could, just to see what it's like".  i tended to assume most people wouldn't want to be stuck that way permanently, and for a very long time i tried to convince myself that neither would i. 

[TomTuttle]

I never really understood why one would be so happy about being a woman. Feminine women made me confused about why they do the things they do. And butch women who talk about loving being women also confuse me and have me sitting there wondering if that's what I'm supposed to say because I don't get it. Ive never thought that everyone would want to be a man, it's just when someone is super feminine, or loudly goes on about how much they love womanhood, I am really confused.

[LizK]

I never really understood why one would be so happy about being a woman. Feminine women made me confused about why they do the things they do. And butch women who talk about loving being women also confuse me and have me sitting there wondering if that's what I'm supposed to say because I don't get it. Ive never thought that everyone would want to be a man, it's just when someone is super feminine, or loudly goes on about how much they love womanhood, I am really confused.

I never understood why anyone would choose to be a guy...Not surprising considering I am trans woman and not one. 

Liz

[Draculess]

yeah lolomg I remember when Laura Jane first came out I was talking to my friends (all hetero cis guys) about it because we were all into Against Me! I was like, "wouldn't it be great to be in a lesbian relationship with your wife?" or words to similar effect and they just kind of looked at me like, "uh no, not really..." one of those earlier signs that makes me laugh now.