Female vs Feminine

[lady amarant]

I just finished reading "She's not There" by Jennifer Boylan. Amazing book - read it!

I was particularly touched by one of the last chapters "Conundrum, The Sick Arab" in which Jenny talks about what it really means to be a woman, TS or GG.

I think a lot of us get so caught up in being as perfectly feminine (or masculine, for FtM's) as possible so we'll pass, fit in, blend away, that we tend to forget that all of us are unique, and that most genetic girls don't walk like models either (nor do all guys look or sound like Vin Diesel... *sigh*). I know I've been guilty of this - being so scared of being recognised as a transsexual that I became totally caught up in this whole being perfectly feminine thing.

But I'm me, and like the author says, we all have qualities, masculine and feminine, that make us unique. While it's important for transsexuals to unlearn and relearn alot, it's just as important that we don't turn into scary pre-feminist Stepford Wives... UNLESS WE WANT TO. I want a female voice - my male voice, though I'm often told that it's very androgynous, grates at me, but I want to change it for me.

Even though it has been in the wrong gender, there are many things about myself that I am proud to have achieved, proud to be, and it makes no sense to throw that all away simply because it's perceived as not totally girly. So while the voice is non-negotiable, and I really do like pink, the fact that I can kick a used-car salesman's butt, or that I'm not too shabby on a mountain-bike... well, that's just who I am.

Simone

[Rashelle]

I agree a lot of us do get caught up in the femininity/masculinity loop. Forgetting that gg's have some masculine traits and gm's do also have some feminine ones. Maybe we should start a club for those who can kick used cars salesmens bottums?
Rashelle

[deviousxen]

This is why I hate it. Your cause doesn't seem very convincing if you don't act overly feminine in the first place. I have my feminine qualities though, but I still swear and curse like no tomorrow. I'm either pretty quiet or I'm obnoxious.
I have a certain style that fits me that I'm starting to get a feel for. I like Blue, Purple, Black, and other stuff. I mean...I'll find things every now and then from either genders wardrobe, and just not have much to match it with.

I don't want to walk un naturally, I just want to walk normally for whatever I have. I do kind of bounce when I'm in a good mood, but thats about all...

I'm not like all "junk in the trunk" gung-ho about it.

I would like a more feminine voice as well, or for it to at least stop masculinizing....


Once again, its the body I don't feel right with, not necessarily every thing about me. 

[lady amarant]

Once again, its the body I don't feel right with, not necessarily every thing about me. 

Exactly. Because we are transsexual girls instead of genetic ones, we get held to this absolute perfect standard, that if we don't act perfectly feminine, we are mistaken in regarding ourselves as transsexuals. I think that it's ridiculous, but on the other hand, there is the question of passing by offsetting the overtly male characteristics that we do have, especially when passing boils down to job security, safety and that kind of thing.

So what's a girl to do, really? Be yourself and potentially have a greater chance of being read, or become a Stepford wife and swap the wrong body for a scary mindset?

[ssindysmith]

I feel into the same trap, without even knowing it. Something I have discovered is that as I strove to become more female it was easier to be my feminine self, and of course there were certain male traits that just sort of faded away. One example is I am pretty handy under the hood of a car, at one time I made a pretty good living at it, but I just couldn't imagine doing it now, my upper body strength is almost nil and I could break a nail, so becoming female and being feminine, in my case, are almost hand in hand. But I do understand what your saying, there was a time I wouldn't be seen without makeup, hair clothes just being perfect, today I just do whatever, go to the grocery store hair pulled back some eyeliner mascara and a wind suit, but I am comfortable with myself, so I think that might have something to do with it as well.

[NicholeW.]

I think we have to look at who does the holding, Amarant. 

we get held to this absolute perfect standard

Most of the time I think that we, as individuals, do that. And in many ways it's a very understandable thing. Most of us have had to fight not only GID, but the perceptions of ourselves as 'not really' from others: from parents and teachers to friends, casual acquaintances, SOs of all types, and total strangers who have never met us and prolly never will: those nasty ole Focus on the Family people, for instance. 

Yet, when it comes to presentation we, I think, mostly make the 'rules.' I'm not suggesting that someone not wish to 'present' herself as female or male, just that I have found most of the pressure toward 'perfection' to be self-imposed.

What is that perfection anyhow? Must I be in all ways some sort of 'ideal woman' in order to have people and myself perceive myself as 'woman?' Apparently not as it occurs around 100% of the time, even in ratty 'work-around-the-house' clothes and not much if anything done to try and make an impression on anyone. So, where does this idea of perfection live? I think it's in me and that is where the work must be done.

We like to kick and scream a lot about 'gate-keepers' and others who 'want to force me into a particular mold,' but, outside of 'the community' itself I find very few, (The Clarke? they are just passe) I cannot think of one, people who do that to me. My internal reactions to who I was perceived to be, who others demanded I be when I was young, and after transition to 'what I thought others might think' seems to me to be the driving force behind a lot of that.

My therapists have never insisted that I 'meet some standard definition.' Although there were times when I demanded that of myself. Problem with that is 'what is that definition?' A lot of times I think it was my own feelings that I really had to overcome. I have honestly decided that, really, no one cares that much except as an intellectual, political or religious exercise in inventing straw-dogs for arguments that are based on their own 'morality.'

As has been pointed out 'femininity' and 'female' cover a very wide range. Yet, if I cannot find some ease with myself in that range, the difficulty is beyond fixing.

Nichole   

[Kate]

I always thought of this Female vs Feminine thing as the difference between CDs and TSs:

- CDs are motivated by a need to be feminine, and sometimes see (or confuse) being female as a means to that end

- TSs are motivated by a need to be female, and sometimes see (or confuse) being feminine as a means to that end

IMHO and all that...

~Kate~

[deviousxen]

I always thought of this Female vs Feminine thing as the difference between CDs and TSs:

- CDs are motivated by a need to be feminine, and sometimes see (or confuse) being female as a means to that end

- TSs are motivated by a need to be female, and sometimes see (or confuse) being feminine as a means to that end

IMHO and all that...

~Kate~

That is interesting and a bit more reassuring to me.

[Traverse]

I'm not going too far into the 'feminine' other than what feels natural. And I don't think dresses and pink is natural for me. However, other aspects are.

So, soft butch.

[Zack]

The whole thing has caused me so much grief. I'm still hidden to the world of what I really am, but I have come out to my mother about being transgendered, knowing that my mind if of a man's. Her response is always, "you do too many feminine things to be a guy." Yet, that is just who I am. There are plenty of feminine men. I am also not very feminine at the same time. My mother just seems to pick out the few things that would be considered feminine. Heck, sometimes my step father is more feminine than me and yet my mother is married to him. Being feminine or masculine doesn't define your gender in my opinion.

[deviousxen]

I'm almost compelled to not even care anymore about being perfectly over the line. Walls seem a primitive notion in everything now, when its all like 2 sides of the same coin to me in everything done, said or thought to me anymore. Its like... I don't really care if the said coin is bent and warped. That makes it a more interesting case anyway.


Enough of this for now... Heh

[Simone Louise]

I am definitely a newbie, 67 years old, but still trying to understand myself, still wondering who I will be when I grow up. The Androgyne Forum has been quiet lately so I've been reading. Reading the forums, I've learned learned about different sexes, genders, and orientations. Is femininity/masculinity a fourth classification?

I've always known that I wasn't a proper boy/man inside, but that my close friends/lovers were female (Not til coming to Susan's Place did I fully realize the two should be separated). Sooner or later, someone would find me out as inevitably I would be caught the few times I crossdressed. So, I've forged a pretty successful life alternately hiding and expressing my self. The name I use came to me in my youth, but I never used it publicly nor talked openly and at length about gender issues before. From reading other topics of this forum, I gather some will never consider me a transsexual.

What brought me to Susan's are the pills I'm taking (Some of you have read this: sorry to repeat). My doctor prescribed 5 mg of finasteride. Since taking these little blue pills, my chest has begun changing. I'd read that happens to 0.5% of men during the first year. My reaction caught me by surprise. I haven't been as pleased and excited about anything in a long while. It's like a second puberty. I look at them in the mirror as often and as long a I dare (even though there's not much to look at yet). I worry they may stop growing or my body my re-absorb them. My wife and I are having more frequent sex because they are so sensitive to being carressed.

On the other hand, what do I do if they grow large enough to be noticed (something I dream about). No amount of surgery will make my legs and hands feminine. Makeup and jewelry hold little attraction. I've read enough of the posting of many who responded on this topic to develop a respect and love for you, so I ask a couple of questions that are stuck in my mind like a song heard on the radio. How feminine must M be to successfully transition to F? And at what age is it silly to pursue such dreams?

Like any self-centered teen,
Simone

[Rachael]

'Ts are motivated by the need to be female' i thought that was CDs?

TS ARE female.... iirc were motivated by the need to look like us....

this topic will come up as long as there is a Trans community....
females can be masculine or feminine.... feminine just is a way of acting. its like trying to compare a toaster and bread over which is more important....
R >

[deviousxen]

Well... Until they fully understand every working of those parts of the brain entirely and conclusively, I don't really see enough constants in how we define female/male. So... Whatever.

I just say don't draw lines so boldly. I don't really see myself as, "Female", because I don't just take into consideration what I believe in my mind about myself versus the whole picture. I'm going from the point of view that I will look at myself objectively to see if I am female/male according to the world we live in, and then say what I am at the moment. That doesn't mean I want to be that. Obviously not. Why else would I be on here?


I don't know... I may seem repetitive, but I just don't really see any lines anymore other than the ones you'd rather draw yourself.

My brains getting tangled... I imagine one could go on for hours with no result talking about this.

[Rachael]

well if you dont see yourself as male or female, your transgender, or androgyne...
transsexuals are either male or female... So far the genderfluid crown have left our sexes intact... (for now)

I AM female, i dont care how others feel, its one certainty, one constant, who i am, is a girl.
I wouldnt transition if couldnt be female outwardly...
i have no gender confusion, im very confident in my knowlage of myself.
afterall, ive been me for 20 years
if i didnt know who i was by now, id be worried... ive been certain in the fact of me from about 12



i see it as VERY clearcut, very simple, and very line drawable.
R

[Rachael]

sorry to burst the happy happy party bubble. but it does actually matter...
if your not in the remotest bit feminine... your going to have an absolute nightmare transitioning... and theres a link here with both female and feminine, sure females get to be unfeminine, or even masculine if they wish, but there is a core femininity in FEMALE. even in the hardest wymyn or butchest lesbians...
ask yourself, why do you want to transition?

does your life suck? do you think it would be better as a female?
think youd get more partners if you had boobs?
want to be lazy and doted on by men?
hell, are you doing it to get men?
if your not wanting to transition because you're female, dont do it.
R

[Rachael]

didnt i say that?
R >

[Seshatneferw]

sorry to burst the happy happy party bubble. but it does actually matter...
if your not in the remotest bit feminine... your going to have an absolute nightmare transitioning...

You're absolutely right. Then again, to make it more fun, Renate is also right:

You don't have to be feminine at all to transition.
You just have to be sure in your own mind that you'd be happier living the balance of your life as a female.

The key here is that one has to be reasonably sure about being happier after transition than before, but (except for the more severe end of the GID scale) this isn't always easy to figure out. As I see it, the real bummer is that transition is almost purely a matter of  social gender, while the ultimate causes of GID have to do with physiology: the discrepancy between the mind (and the underlying brain structure) and (the rest of) the body. Unfortunately, there are a lot of social things which are determined by physical sex, so it's hard to change social gender while keeping physical sex, and still much harder to do the opposite.

ask yourself, why do you want to transition?

Right on. In the end, this is the key question.

  Nfr

[lady amarant]

...there is a core femininity in FEMALE. even in the hardest wymyn or butchest lesbians...

...

if your not wanting to transition because you're female, dont do it.
R

Absolutely. At the end of the day, it is about IDENTITY. Not love, not sex, not social position, not anything else. In fact, most of us end up giving all of those up for the sake of identity, and only later, if we're lucky, manage to rebuild it. And if you don't have a female identity, then you will never have that "core femininity", and transition will be a disaster for you, and most likely for other trans-people as well, ala that Aussie suing his surgeons.

By the same token, if you are truly gender dysphoric, then I believe that that core does exist in there somewhere, even if buried by decades of hiding and conformance. Find it again, and you will start being perceived as female despite masculine features.

One thing I've always been keenly aware of is the difference in how women react to women, vs. women to men. Even male family or friends are always kept at a ... distance, for lack of a better word. I've only been on anti-androgens, no oestrogen yet, but since I accepted myself and just started being me, I've noticed that that attitude towards me has shifted noticibly. Meanwhile, especially at the office where I work, the men have started seeming distinctly uncomfortable around me, and I'm at a loss to explain it. I'm ... big, having done the whole " I'm a body-builder, I'm so male! Raaaargh!" thing from high-school until a few years ago, and while the AA has taken some of the bulk off, I still present clearly as a male and haven't changed my behaviour, so all I can think is that the subcoscious queues I give off are confusing other people's perception of me.

I know it must sound silly, and maybe I'm misinterpreting stuff, but I firmly believe that those unconscious things have a lot to do with passing. There are plenty of body-building women and swimmers out there with broader backs than I have.

In the end, this is not something to do on a whim. You need to be sure of your inside before you go changing the outside.

[Rachael]

tru dat....
the key here is FAR too many transition for the wrong reasons.... it might make them happy. but there is more than one way to skin a cat...
HAPPY doesnt cut it...
you can find other ways to fix that little ache inside that your not loved, not who your meant to be....
who your meant to be doesnt always mean gender....
job, social circles, things you want to do in life....
this is going to sound rude, but there are some transwomen who have NO IDEA about being female... something that even the most unpassable ACTUAL transwoman has... that little girl in thier head that fills in the social blanks... the 'YES THIS IS RIGHT' feeling after transition....
If you are not female to start with, you CANNOT become female simply by transitioning.
males cannot become female, PERIOD.

but hey, if you are, go right ahead!