Before transitioning: Were you the fem gay type or masculine?

[Northern Star Girl]

I was a late blooming male that wished she could keep his "baby face". Grew to be way to tall and with broad shoulders. Always masculine that wished she could be female. In fact several girlfriends said my inner soul was girl!

@Ericalaine
Dear Ericalaine:
     I am so very happy to see that you have become a member Susan's Place and now have posted for the first time here on the Forums.

    As you post here on the forums you will be able to exchange thoughts and comments with others that are experiencing many of the same things that you are.

    This is the right place for you to be to find out what others may have to say that may have been in your circumstances and with your questions and concerns.
    There are a lot of members here that will be able to identify with your situation as you continue to feel free to share it.

    I also want to warmly WELCOME you to Susan's Place. 
You will find this a safe and friendly place to share with others and to read about others similar trials, tribulations, and successes.

    As you are certainly aware you can share with others and involve yourself with some give and take with other like-minded members.  When frustrated or if you have successes you can share it here if you wish and receive support from others and offer support to others. ....
     ***There is a very good chance that you might find that you will make some new like-minded friends here. 

    Please come in and continue to be involved at your own pace.
   
    I have attached important and informative LINKS that will help you to navigate around the Forums and will allow you to enjoy the features here.     
Please look closely at the LINKS in RED, answers are there to many questions that new members ask.

Again, Welcome to Susan's Place.
Danielle

Here are some links to the site rules and stuff that all new members should be familiar with:
 

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)	Cautionary Note
Reputation rules	News posting & quoting guidelines	Photo, avatars, & signature images policy	Membership Agreement

[/quote]

[Northern Star Girl]

@Ericalaine
Oh, and another thing Ericalaine...
Please plan to find your way to the Introductions Forum to tell more about yourself so that more members will be aware of your arrival.
     
Thank you again for joining Susan's Place and being involved in the Forums here.
Best wishes to you,
Danielle
NOTE:  Now I will let everyone have the thread back so you can continue to pursue the conversations that you were having.

[blackcat]

FTM, always failed at being a girl. My presentation was always "art student," super androgynous. Lydia from Beetlejuice, Emily the Strange. 

I never fit in with the girls, and the few that were my friends remained friends with me DESPITE the fact I didn't do girly things. I always hung out with nerdy/artsy boys - I think I preferred intellectual expressions of masculinity because I wasn't hindered by my body in competition with other men.

People were shocked when I came out because I didn't fit into their image of the rugged butch lesbian stereotype. (Because we all know being transgender is just a case of extreme homosexuality.  )

Right before I cracked, I had a brief phase where I was determined to "get in touch with my feminine energy," wore only dresses, and went to beauty school... which actually made me realize I will never fit in with women, as a woman. I am neurologically incapable.

Post transition... I'm still doing the art student thing, just a little more masc, and this time, it feels right. My best friend (a gay man) and my therapist both warned me that I am going to come off as incredibly gay, but considering I'm attracted to men and built my career in the beauty industry, it might just work to my advantage.  I have idolized glittery, gender-bending electro-pop stars since I was a kid, so, god, please, let me live my dreams.

Ironically, I get along with women so much better now. I think it was the incongruence between my looks and mannerisms that signaled to them something was weird with me: I looked like them, but when I talked, it was obvious my brain computed in a completely different way. Now I'm not expected to be "one of them," so it's not off-putting when something completely different or unexpected comes out of my mouth. I also feel more relaxed now that the pressure to perform an impossible task is no longer on my shoulders. My behavior reads so much more normal if I am being read as a guy.

[GingerVicki]

I was always clocked as a straight acting gay-guy.

[Michelle_P]

I was the cranky older introvert that nobody wanted to interact with. 

Femme gay?  Hardly. 

Masculine, as in football watching, "Hold my beer and watch THIS" sort of stuff?  Not really.  I did wrench on a car, but it was a Miata.   I was told that if I kept driving that Miata I would have to turn my Man Card in, so I did...

[Lexi Nexi]

Having tech problems with the site sorry this will be deleted once its fixed

[Samij]

I also was fairly masculine. Wife, kid, built a house myself, male dominated profession. In fact I did everything I could to be a perfect "male" and that's what made my disphoria so bad because I was maintaining such a high level of masculinity that once I was alone and no one could see me I would crash.

[Allison S]

Lol oh people knew. I could be sitting there like a statue and you could see right through me. I just embrace it now because those "vibes" I always had and was called out on are probably what help me get by day to day. I don't get misgendered and it's a relief.
But as far as coming off feminine, I really had no idea. I think I avoided thinking about it for so long because then it couldn't be real. Well, it definitely all caught up to me. You can only hide for so long before realizing you're only fooling yourself.

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk

Ok so I wrote this a while ago.. I'm still the same and I would even be ma'amed on the phone before transitioning. Well, now I'm realizing that I'm actually 75% feminine and the rest is a mix of neutral or masculine.  I'm good at being assertive, setting boundaries and limits. When I'm in a situation that I need to be this way- I don't feel feminine. 

Also, when I'm comfortable and having a conversation my voice definitely drops a bit depending on who I'm talking to and the context.

Although my expressions have and do change from time to time, my sexuality hasn't.  I like to be a woman in a sexual relationship with someone who identifies as a man.  But, when push comes to shove I'm not all that submissive (especially when I feel threatened, undermined or disrespected).

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk

[Peach]

To be honest, I was always the odd emo thing in the playground or the library. I repudiated the idea of ​​wearing clothes with which I did not feel "me". I preferred to dress in a perhaps more striking way, to be associated with a genre that I am not .. 

[F_P_M]

I was very much that rough and tumble climbing trees and scraping knees pink hating tomboy.
I like dinosaurs and volcanos and mud and insects and science and stuff.
My parents used to take me to go watch the hydro electric dam open so I could watch the turbines and the roar of water! that was my idea of fun! lol.

I never understood girls, at all. Always struggled with female relationships and it wasn't till my teen years when a catastrophic falling out with literally every girl in my year (eugh, they rounded on my like a pack of wolves) meant I had to turn to the boys for social interaction and found omg... I actually felt SO MUCH more comfortable and myself around them. So much less judged, so much less like I was acting or trying to understand some secret language I didn't really comprehend.

I never looked back after that. Heck, even my chief "bridesmaid" at my wedding was a guy. I just DO NOT have any close female friends, never had any desire for them either. honestly female interaction kinda just.. bewilders me.

I always joked I was a male brain in a girl's body without really understanding what that meant.

I was the loud, ridiculous, geeky wierdo who'd drink shots and eat chillis to out man the guys.

I went through a phase of being kinda sexy but it was really ultimately just a way to get attention from the boys. If you have boobs and a tight top they totally pay attention to you and I liked that attention.

I mean i'm probably gonna come across as suuuuuper gay when I transition but i'm cool with that. I have some traditionally feminine hobbies (I collect dolls for example) but also a lot of typically masculine ones (I love sci fi and D&D and stuff) but my husband and I balance eachother out pretty well becuase he's honestly pretty effeminate for a cis guy and secure enough in his masculinity to indulge his feminine side. For the ten years we've been married we've often joked that he's the "girl" in the relationship and i'm the guy hahaha. I'm way shorter than him and i'm still the big spoon!

I mean ultimately, at the end of the day, I think gender roles are stupid and the social nonsense that comes with gendered everything is just tiresome. Why can't a guy like pink or dolls? Why can't a girl like rockets and dinosaurs?
And transitioning won't change that.
I just go from being a girl who was super into dinosaurs to a guy who's super into dolls and that's AOK lol.
If anything, once i'm more secure in my gender identity, I think i'll be more happy about really pushing those boundries and making a point about needlessly narrow gender roles and presentations.

I WILL wear skirts, I WILL enjoy "girly" stuff. That doesn't make me less of a man. Just right now because i'm still trying to get comfy I feel less able to indulge in some of that stuff without undermining my identity.
bah.

But yeah, I was a pretty boyish geek girl. Certainly husband wasn't that surprised when I came out to him and I expect a fair few of my friends won't be either. I've NEVER been good at the whole "being a girl" thing and never been at all secretive about my disdain and bewilderment toward the whole thing.

[Kylo]

I have no idea how I come off to others and I probably never will. Truth is I have many qualities in there, a lot of duality that somehow exists in harmony on different levels but not conflicting. I used to think of myself as hardly feminine, but I know I have grace in how I move compared to guys who usually lumber about all over the place and are clumsy as hell. I'm not. My movements are precise and efficient compared to most of theirs. I can tell not just by looking but by the fact I've never broken a limb bone or scarred myself in some of the daft ways the guys I know have. I approach things with the caution of a female, who is cognizant of physical limitations and risks, because I'm aware of mine and I don't want to Darwin myself out of existence too early. I have a lot of traits that spring from my origins, they just don't extend beyond any logical requirement for them into the realm of "display", which a lot of female behavior seems to incorporate...

So I like my long baths and looking after myself, etc. but it's all just for me, rather than as part of any outward expression. I don't actually express much at all outwardly and physically, I suppose. I'm an internal type.

Am I flamboyant? No, that's usually done by guys wanting to signal their "gayness" to others, and I feel no need to do that. Am I macho? No. Machismo is for impressing people and I don't need to impress anybody. The biggest practicers of that are insecure wannabes. I like what I like and it doesn't matter what anybody thinks about it, but they'll probably never find out anyway. I'm quite "private" about most things in real life. Not much of an open book. Transition has only made me even more private about these things, and about personal expression, not to mention the way things are going politically. I think I'll express even less of myself in the future, probably just become the "grey man" as they say.

I realized I show my true self (which is very expressive) to very, very few people. I can count those on half a hand at the moment. If a person does get in there, they'll see that I'm actually a passionate individual, but it only seems worth sharing any of that with someone who appreciates it properly. 

[Swanson777]

For me it is very bipolar.
I embody qualities that are very masculine or very feminine. I define masculine as strong and assertive. I define feminine as open-minded and beautiful. So for me its embodying these two extremes on opposite ends of the spectrum.
I find a middle ground to be a major turn-off and kind of repulsive. So to be honest, I have a very binary view of gender and my failure to be masculine enough as a man has made me swing completely over in the other direction where if I can't be an assertive alpha, then at least I can be an untouchably beautiful female.
I know this viewpoint might be uncommon and even offensive here, but I just have to be honest about how it is for me.

[Lexi Nexi]

I also was fairly masculine. Wife, kid, built a house myself, male dominated profession. In fact I did everything I could to be a perfect "male" and that's what made my disphoria so bad because I was maintaining such a high level of masculinity that once I was alone and no one could see me I would crash.

I have a friend who transitioned at 75. She described the same thing, even growing a beard that she described, "my whole life I was hiding behind the beard. Now the beard is gone and I can be me"

As a teen ager I used to be overly aggressive and sexually promiscuous to make the trans felling go away. I used to say "Look I have two girl friend both are really hot how could I do that if I was a women?" "I was never a homophobe but the act of gay sex weirds me out still does even though I have done it several times. The only time I got an erection from it was when I was dressed as a girl. I met a guy who said he was straight but had a "thing for trans girls but had never been with a white one". He said he wasn't sure if I was, he was my uber driver and uber uses my male name which confuses the hell out of the drivers as they drive past. So I brought him up to my bed room but then I told him I had to shower shave and paint my nails before we did anything (I just got out of the hospital and I have to have perfect clean smooth legs and feet, I have a leg /feet fetish for girls feet and my own, I have no attraction for guys feet, but like it when they play with mine, or I can jerk them off with my toes... could be because that's the one part of me that's absolutely perfectly feminine, I don't even let my feet touch the floor unless I'm getting out of the shower) He said he didn't care if I wasn't shaven, I though about it for a second, but no way I couldn't do it so I kicked him out and told him to come back after I shower. It was the weirdest hook up, I guess because to him I was just a "fetish" or object which is kind of a turn on of mine as a submissive, a feminists nightmare

[Lexi Nexi]

For me it is very bipolar.
I embody qualities that are very masculine or very feminine. I define masculine as strong and assertive. I define feminine as open-minded and beautiful. So for me its embodying these two extremes on opposite ends of the spectrum.
I find a middle ground to be a major turn-off and kind of repulsive. So to be honest, I have a very binary view of gender and my failure to be masculine enough as a man has made me swing completely over in the other direction where if I can't be an assertive alpha, then at least I can be an untouchably beautiful female.
I know this viewpoint might be uncommon and even offensive here, but I just have to be honest about how it is for me.

[Lexi Nexi]

For me it is very bipolar.
I embody qualities that are very masculine or very feminine. I define masculine as strong and assertive. I define feminine as open-minded and beautiful. So for me its embodying these two extremes on opposite ends of the spectrum.
I find a middle ground to be a major turn-off and kind of repulsive. So to be honest, I have a very binary view of gender and my failure to be masculine enough as a man has made me swing completely over in the other direction where if I can't be an assertive alpha, then at least I can be an untouchably beautiful female.
I know this viewpoint might be uncommon and even offensive here, but I just have to be honest about how it is for me.

I  totally agree with that. Often as during my professional and work life I was a true alpha, people looked up to me and when problem had to be solved and solution needed people turned to me. It was always Ask "'real male name' instead" he will know. I used to be big an strong I took test did MMA lifted weights battled people physically intellectually for fun and intellectually for profit at work, or at least professionally, really was I tied to one company. But who am I really? I little sissy girl who doesn't like to get her hands dirty who when scared she wants to jump up in his arms, likes pink and all things girly. Total submissive who got tired of always being the boss figuring out solutions under pressure now she just wants to be a submissive house wife who need to tend to the needs of a man. The middle is repulsive, I lived one extreme now I'm living the other, and I feel much freer here. I have become so secure and confident in my decision making I am willing to give all control to someone else.Very few are brave enough to give it all away, lose control, be free. When I am collared and caged and owned by my master I am truly free, free of all the responsibility of life.