Susan's Place Transgender Resources

When the woman in you is out/playing/showing/dominant, how are you different than when the man in you is out?
Do you ever have times when they're both out? When they're both asleep?

I'm a physiologically a woman and was socialized as a woman, but that's as far as it goes for me. I don't feel like a woman. But I also don't feel like a man. In many ways, it seems like my woman and man sides are both asleep all the time.

So I was wondering about those of you who do feel like a woman and/or man: What is it to be a woman? What is it to be a man?

-- Sue

I'm physiologically a man, sort of socialised as a man but I do not feel like one, nor a woman.

Allow an extended metaphor if you could.

I think I would describe it that my 'soul' (not a concept I ontologically believe in, but a very good model) is a very bright light. If you were to put a prism against it you would get a multitude of colours, just as white light is made of all colours, then my 'soul' is made up of lots of different things that can be separated if must. This white light is 'me'.

However a pure soul can not interact with the world, it is too bright, it  needs gels on it to filter it. Without a colour it is unintelligible. These filters are often crude versions of the colour spectrum that can be seen when the light is split. It is possible to mix filters and create shades, never to the extent of the split light, but well enough.

Male and female could be seen as the infra-red and ultraviolet, all the other colours fit somewhere on this spectrum. People tend to pick one side and work more with those palettes. Most people are slightly left or right of centre.


This is probably where the metaphor breaks down... but basically I feel a bit of everything and I select the ways I want to be, based on what I have available. My gender quest is to gain more filters, especially towards the infra-red (female) end of the spectrum to balance out the ultra-violet (male) filters I've already been given. I also would like to be able to flash the odd bright or intense ultra-violet or infra-red without social retribution.


I feel my male spectrum is about freedom and independence, which leads to insularity and loneliness.
My female spectrum is about connection and society, which leads to routine and trapped-ness.

I suppose balance is key...and I am too insular and unsocial nowadays

Well put pica, I can really relate to most of what you said.

To respond to the original topic, I can attest that there does seem to be times when the female side of me is out, or more dominant than the male, and vice versa. However my upbringing could be a big contributer to why I feel like I belong to both sides of the spectrum. I played with toys and did things when I was little that both girls and boys were "supposed" to do, but I was never ever reprimanded for doing something outside of my "spectrum". As I grew, things changed a little as far as treatment goes, but everything pretty much stayed the same. (But I don't blame or hate anyone who contributed to this while I was growing up. Once you have these things ingrained within you, it's incredibly hard to get rid of them, but I feel like I over-ruled this by remaining objective about myself.)

However, I don't feel like I'm only a woman, or only a man. I look at myself subjectively as a blend of characteristics from both genders, but how these characteristics manifest depends on my mood and my surroundings. I feel like I'm rather balanced in these characteristics right now.

I can't define what it would really mean to be a "woman" or a "man" because either of those is subject to each individual's definition. However the downfall occurs when a definition made by society as a whole is forced upon the rest of the collective.

Which is the whole root cause. :-\

The feeling of off, yes... I appreciate that.

I am biologically male, raised male. I believe I'm MTF TG (And lord, how I hate that label. The label itself, not the existence.) But I feel very turned off. Both male and female titles feel really odd. Male because I don't feel like a man at all, I suppose. Female, probably just because I'm so unused to hearing them.

But turned off. When I registered here, I was at such a point with my dysphoria that it was driving me up the wall. Just when it felt like the bubble was going to burst, I fell for a girl and pulled everything back. The relentless, driving feeling of needing to rip my false skin off (ed note: not a cutter) went away. And has stayed away, though the reason I repressed it went away some time ago. I don't want to remain a man. I want to be a woman. My thoughts haven't changed, my wants haven't changed, but it feels almost like being at peace regardless.

Yesterday I had the epiphany that this peace is probably just the calm before the storm.

This is the topic I plan to write about tomorrow in my blog. Was going to write about it yesterday, but got sidetracked by another topic.

Wow.  Great topic - wonderful ideas.  I like the way you put it with the metaphor Pica.  (I'm going to borrow that and see if I can refine it somewhat.)  I agree with the concept of not feeling like either, but feeling like both.  Kind of like Kate Bornsteins "I know I'm not a man, but I'm not a woman either" statement.  (She then goes on to say, trouble is, we live in a society that...)

And that's where the real kicker comes in. I can appreciate being TG'ed (sorry for the lame use of a tired acronym) in the sense that I don't identify as male, nor as female.  I'm not intersex, nor am I third sex'ed -- so what (and why) do I have to label myself.  Can't I just be that color on the spectrum I can point to today.

Then tomorrow I might point to a totally differerent spot in the spectrum -- but it's still me.

Dee Ann

If you could refine the metaphor, great. 'Cos I was just noodling and a little incoherent.

Reject labels.
Reject identities.
Reject conformity.
Reject convention.
Reject definitions.
Reject names.

- Deng Ming-Dao

reject labels and you get confusion
reject identities and you are no-one
reject conformity and you are alone
reject convention and you make no sense
reject definition and you are impossible to grasp
reject names and you get no letters.

- Pica Pica

Not true, Pica. :) If you reject every label society tries to place on you, and every label you try to place on yourself, wouldn't that make you truly free to be yourself?

Sue asked a question on what it is to be a man and a woman...

In here, in this place, with you people..... does it matter? 

Your identity is in part forged by society, identity does not exist in a vacuum. It mirrors us and we mirror it. I think to eschew any label is not to be free because freedom doesn't exist against a blank wall; the freedom to run free means nothing if its on an empty stage, society is a big part of who we are. The gregarious instinct is powerfull.

Quote from: nathan on June 06, 2007, 11:52:36 PM
If you reject every label society tries to place on you, and every label you try to place on yourself, wouldn't that make you truly free to be yourself?

Well, yes, in the sense that a chicken (species chosen as a courtesy to the thread on the philosophy forum :) ) is free to be itself. That is, labels of some sort are necessary if you want to have any sort of abstract thought regarding yourself (or your self); and if you want to share those thoughts with anyone else you'll also need to be aware of the labels (and concepts) other people use. Just rejecting everything is not the answer: if you keep doing that you'll have to consider yourself 'not anything', which gets boring pretty soon.

  Nfr

Also a chicken still has the label 'chicken', which leads us to other labels such as 'as clever as NASCAR divers'.

Also, also - I think freedom is the freedom to choose labels and change labels, not the freedom to have none at all. I used to work in a supermarket, and any tin without a label was thrown.

Yes. Do not just reject every label but rather be prepared to reject any label, idealy in favour for a better one.

  Nfr

Quote from: nathan on June 06, 2007, 11:52:36 PM
Sue asked a question on what it is to be a man and a woman...

In here, in this place, with you people..... does it matter? 

I enjoy looking in on other worlds. To me, being a man or being a woman is another world. So, no, it Doesn't Matter, especially here in this place (which was probably the wrong place to ask such a question). But yes, it matters, if only on some level of personal curiosity.

-- Sue

Being a man sucks

Being a woman is amazing

I have never had both showing at the same time, I have been a woman in a mans body as far back as I can remember, I am just now finding comfort matching my female brain to my female body.

Personaly i don't know.
Man??? woman???

Good question. Although physiologically male, I'm really pretty clueless as to how to be or act like a man, that role has never fit for my entire life. I didn't choose to continue to transition fully to woman, although I did the RLT for over a year, so I'm not sure I know that answer either. That's why I believe I'm androgyne, it makes more sense to me to consider myself as neither or non of the above.

zythyra