Are you perplexed by MTF motivations?

[amandam]

Hear me out here. I like to search for before and after pics. I have seen some very beautiful women who became men. The first thing that pops into my head is, omg, how can you give that up, you are so perfect, omg. Do you think that sometimes about guys who transition into females? Do you get like, geez, you're John Wayne, what the heck is wrong with you?

[AnonyMs]

I'm perplexed when I think about it emotionally. Logically I can understand it since I feel the same the other way around. Only thing is, I'm a bit perplexed why I want to be a women. Logically it makes no sense at all. Plenty of disadvantages in doing that. Its all very confusing.

[PollyQMcLovely]

That's a really interesting question. I never considered the idea that a MTF's  male face pre HRT could be more attractive than a MTF's post HRT female face. Huh. I kinda wanna go through my files and files of before and after transitions but I can't because it feels kinda mean even though nobody would know but you and me and you'd never tell would you. Hmm, you could go on Pinterest and take a look. There are some boards with near 1k transition timeline pics.

Edit: Here's one with almost 300 pins: https://pin.it/bsg26p72fz4ugi

[amandam]

Lots of amazing transformations there, thanks. If I was a girl, and wanted to be a guy, I might think MTF's are giving up the best thing in the world. Maybe FTM's think this way, maybe it's just me. 

[Janes Groove]

I totally get what you're saying, but I think that being transgender is a spiritual thing.
i.e.my soul is female and that's why I want to be/am a woman.
I think it's the same for guys.

The surface appearance is just that. Superficial.
Hinduism even has a word for it. Maya. The veil of illusion.

[Allison S]

It's really weird seeing before and after's. Usually it looks like 2 different people. My fear and hesitance is for myself when I think "can I really change that much?". It's scary because it's confusing/unknown. Hormones are crazy if you ask me. And the difference between estrogen and testosterone is striking... 

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[Northern Star Girl]

It's really weird seeing before and after's. Usually it looks like 2 different people. My fear and hesitance is for myself when I think "can I really change that much?". It's scary because it's confusing/unknown. Hormones are crazy if you ask me. And the difference between estrogen and testosterone is striking... 

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@ Allison S: Obviously Hormone Replacement can make dramatic and sometimes drastic body and mind changes. 

Regarding the "before and after pictures"... I think that the reason we see such radical changes in the MTF category is that the before male photo is usually of a guy wearing sloppy clothes, with poor posture, hair uncombed and a 5 O'clock shadow... and then the after picture is the female version, with feminized face and body, nice makeup, hair fixed up and nice looking and sometimes revealing outfits.   What's not to like???  LOL

[Kylo]

What are they giving up, exactly? They're the same person. Just presenting and living differently.

You might wonder why I 'gave up' looking like this:

https://i.imgur.com/L4Lxkg5.jpg

That's about the only photo I've ever taken (2008) where I took it wondering if I would make a good looking female. I'm not actually wearing any make up except an eye liner which I used once to see the effect and it hasn't been doctored, it was just taken with the sun shining behind. Some say that's a good looking woman. I wouldn't say I was bad looking there, but I'm not sorry to see it go. Never was a choice, it's not about looks. That comes into it a bit I guess because nobody wants to look bad, but behind those eyes there was no happiness, believe me. I couldn't do anything with my looks, it's not in my nature to use any of it. It was wasted, and I had no idea what I was doing with it anyway. I mean look what I'm wearing there, lol.

If the heart and soul isn't there, it's all wasted. I could have carried on living like that and getting no pleasure out of any of it and at the end of the day what I looked like and what I could get out of looking like that wasn't important to me, it didn't give me anything I could live without.

Not perplexed at others at all. Those MTFs aren't me, so why would they think like me and have the same motivations? Everyone has their own carrots and sticks when it comes to motivation. I don't believe in perfection, nobody's perfect. It just sucks that the translation from male to female or female to male isn't always smooth unless you have an androgynous form to begin with. Looking the way I do, I make a rather "cute" man, which isn't really ideal. People think I wear mascara due to having naturally long and dark eye lashes, and I'm not going to yank them out just so people will stop. We all just have to work with what we've got.

If some guy I knew who had looks other guys would kill for, as well as the ladies, transitions because she is a woman, I just try not to think about it. What that person would be dealing with is unknown to me. Some people would say "what a waste" but that sounds so possessive to me. Like, you remember when Angelina Jolie has chest surgery to prevent cancer, and so many people online were so worked up about it. As if her image was more important than her wellbeing or survival or something? I have to disengage from that kinda thinking.

[Northern Star Girl]

What are they giving up, exactly? They're the same person. They are just presenting and living differently.

@ Kylo:  If you don't think that they are giving up anything, I AGREE WITH YOU.  It is the very same person inside that feels like the other gender and they want to be who they are in real life instead of just in their thoughts and dreams....

[DawnOday]

I don't know what is motivating everyone else but speaking to that little voice inside that tells me not to protest because this was all predetermined by measures beyond my control. I know the self hate I've had all these years is turning into self love. It's not a fad. It's not a choice, It's not a fantasy, It's living real life the way I was supposed to be. I want the world to evolve to the point we do not have to explain. We do not have to pass. We can just be.

[Brooke]

I don't know if I would call it feeling perplexed, I don't think that's a good description. I do often feel the universe has a cruel sense of irony though.

Body switching pops in my head a lot. I keep thinking that it's a damn shame that the strongest prison known to mankind (see what I did there) is one's own body. I find it frustrating and sad that we can't just have brain transplants with someone on the other side of this equation. It's the ultimate "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence " and no matter how much we put into our lawn, the best we can hope for is some very convincing AstroTurf.

I would also add that gender identity and gender privilege are two very different things. If you're not comfortable going through the world and you're life in your birth gender role how can you be expected to take full advantage of what that social role's benefits are, when all of those benefits no matter how great can't hold a flame to the fire of misery you feel being trapped in a body and social role that is in the most visceral and fundamental ways- Just Wrong?


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[nightingale95]

I'm more perplexed that anyone would want testosterone in their system.

Being MTF I think it's insane because testosterone made me feel so freaking awful, I was glad to nip puberty at the head before it got any worse, I can't think of anyone wanting to have an amped up sex drive and an inability to cry and muted affect... but then again, that's probably all because I'm MTF and of course T is gonna feel wretched to me. A trans man I know said he felt the same way with estrogen in his system.

So I just thank my lucky stars I'm not on T lol

[BT04]

No.

It's the same thing, just going the other way. I look at pre-everything trans women sometimes and go DAMN, wish I could trade you lol. Though not really; my body is pretty masculinized as it is from the PCOS.

Perplexed, though? No. There are a lot of things in this world I haven't felt for myself that I sympathize with, and a lot of things I have neither felt nor understand that I accept as valid. I don't need to be somebody to know that their emotions are real.

[Kylo]

I can't think of anyone wanting to have an amped up sex drive and an inability to cry and muted affect... but then again, that's probably all because I'm MTF and of course T is gonna feel wretched to me. A trans man I know said he felt the same way with estrogen in his system.

Yep, an inability to control crying is bad from our point of view often enough. It seems like the most pointless thing in the world if it's not cathartic. I suppose that would make sense to anyone with a male brain; when men cry people often just look uncomfortable. When women cry, people usually ask what's wrong and want to help them. For men crying doesn't have much in the way of positives, just makes people think you're weak and embarrassing. Which is how I tend to view it when I do it, which since T is... well, never. Which is great.

Other people crying doesn't bother me, they can do it all day long if they want. I don't miss it at all. As long as I'm in control of myself, other people's emotionality doesn't disturb me. 

Estrogen definitely isn't good for people like me. It makes you more highly strung, stressed and upsettable. Everything about having male tendencies or a male mind is better served by not being easily stressed. Even down to how women expect us to act, as well as men, which is not to be unstable. Guys like me aren't out of touch with our feelings or emotions at all, we just tend to like the ability to control when/if it shows and how much it affects us. On estrogen you get very little control.

This makes it all sound like it's some conscious choice but I'm sure it isn't. I never decided it wasn't cool to cry and nobody ever jumped down my neck about doing it, obviously. But it's in there somewhere that not being in control of all that stuff is instinctively bad.

T is great in my system. I'm not as jumpy and narky as I used to be, and definitely less angry. Not oversexed either. Which goes to show, it's not that T itself makes someone aggressive or uncontrollable, it's how the hormone interacts with the kind of brain you have. Some of it could be because my experience before on estrogen was horrible and T is comparatively sedative. But just on its own without any of that it takes the edge off an uncomfortable level of stress. 

[Julia1996]

I've seen before pictures of trans guys before transition who were beautiful and I've thought it was a shame but I've never had a problem understanding why they transitioned. Though it's the opposite of how I feel, I know that a transguy is feeling just as much pain and hatred for his female  body as I do over my male characteristics.  The question of why would anyone give up being a beautiful woman or hot guy is pretty meaningless. It doesn't matter how good someone might look, if they are miserable then what does it matter how they look. My mom used to tell me I was insane to want to give up being a guy. In my case it wasn't an issue of giving up being a hot guy, I most certainly wasn't a hot guy. I was a small, scrawny very sad imitation of a boy. What she was talking about was giving up male privilege. She's was always extremely resentful of male privilege.  She didn't understand that I never had any male privilege , I was pretty much a pariah among guys my own age,  but even if I had had male privilege , what good is it if you're miserable.

[Morgan78]

I had someone horrified for me that I would lose my breasts when she found out I was transitioning. In fairness, many women would pay lots of money to have boobs like mine. But, it's about so much more than appearance. In just a week on T, I can already tell it's the right hormone for my body. There's no doubt it's the right decision for me.

The ability to love yourself and live as the person you truly are is worth so much more than 'losing' a beautiful face or what society deems to be perfectly proportioned body parts. To value appearance over self worth is really shallow. The applies to be MTF and FTM (since I can't tell which you're actually talking about between your title and your post).

[Julia1996]

I had someone horrified for me that I would lose my breasts when she found out I was transitioning. In fairness, many women would pay lots of money to have boobs like mine. But, it's about so much more than appearance. In just a week on T, I can already tell it's the right hormone for my body. There's no doubt it's the right decision for me.

The ability to love yourself and live as the person you truly are is worth so much more than 'losing' a beautiful face or what society deems to be perfectly proportioned body parts. To value appearance over self worth is really shallow. The applies to be MTF and FTM (since I can't tell which you're actually talking about between your title and your post).

I think that's common among Cis people. My brother is totally accepting of me and he knows I need surgery but the thought of it used to freak him out. I think most guys would rather lose a limb than lose their dick. I think it's the same thing with women and breasts.

[Morgan78]

I'm more perplexed that anyone would want testosterone in their system.

Being MTF I think it's insane because testosterone made me feel so freaking awful, I was glad to nip puberty at the head before it got any worse, I can't think of anyone wanting to have an amped up sex drive and an inability to cry and muted affect... but then again, that's probably all because I'm MTF and of course T is gonna feel wretched to me. A trans man I know said he felt the same way with estrogen in his system.

So I just thank my lucky stars I'm not on T lol

Somehow I missed this comment my first time through this thread. Hormones are crazy little buggers. I've cried more and just felt more emotional overall since starting T than ever before. My miscarriage 4 years ago was the last time I cried before the night I decided to transition just over a month ago. I've felt truly empathetic towards people for the first time ever this past week, rather than forcing out some empathetic statement and hoping I sound sincere like I learned to do when I worked in a call center. It's like I'm a whole new person; I'm not angry and stressed at every little thing anymore. They say you know when you're on the right hormone for your body, and I wholeheartedly believe it. I'll take the insatiable sex drive if that's what it takes for me to feel like a real person. 

I think that's common among Cis people. My brother is totally accepting of me and he knows I need surgery but the thought of it used to freak him out. I think most guys would rather lose a limb than lose their dick. I think it's the same thing with women and breasts.

I completely understand this. I'm just rather shocked to see such a question on a trans* support board from a presumably trans* person.

[amandam]

I guess it's just me then! I'm shallow. I admit it. 

Edit: I'm a trans newby so I've just begun exploring this. Maybe I shouldn't have said perplexed. Sometimes I'm just taken aback by someone giving up everything I hope and dream for. It was a mental thought I noticed, not that I thought they were crazy or something. I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly.

It's probably why I have Cocinelle as my avatar. She's the goal in my mind. I can never reach her level but she's a hero to me.

Edit again: I think I'm still stuck in the mode of being jealous of women I see. I haven't made the mental transition of self-acceptance and wanting to be "me" as a woman.

[Mr.X]

Perplexed, yes. But with an understanding.

Deep down, our feelings are the same. We experience unhappiness with our bodies and perceived gender. We try to fix it. Those emotions are the same for both FtM and MtF.

But the thing that baffles me the most is....why on earth would you want a vagina? To me, having the thing was disgusting, and I wanted it gone. Having a penis was just so much more efficient. Something sticking out of your body instead of going inside. Easy to clean and all that. Now that I had surgery, I'm so happy everything is right down there, and I can't comprehend anyone wanting to have, or create, an extra hole down there.

But that's just my manbrain talking. I'm sure our dear MtF's can't imagine actually wanting a penis.