Susan's Place Transgender Resources

So, my group therapist asks, "so why are you not just a feminine male?"
Gets me thinking. My habits, mannerisms, desires are not the big thing. In learning psychotherapy, the old rule is go for the affect. The affect, the big enchilada. Where that's at is my self-image.. what do I see when I look in the mirror? I have never been able to look at myself in the mirror. Ever. What I see there has no correlation at all with what is inside me. I have always held myself to be grotesquely deformed, since I was very very young, even though I look normal in reality, not ugly, and in some ways, quite nice-looking. But that isn't how I see myself. When I look at myself in the mirror nowadays, I fragment it.. I can see a section of face to shave, hair to comb. But to look at my face, my body shoots anguish and very physical pain through me. It has somewhat calmed the past few years. Now, at best, the phrase goes through my head, "Oh God! Not him!"
When I was small, I would masquerade as a girl, put towels on to mimic a dress or long hair. I'm sure many of you have done this. Dressing as a woman, as an adult, I could stare at myself for hours. "So that's what I look like!" I'm fully cognizant of how grotesque I must look dressed as a woman, how much I don't pass. But there is a deep recognition, a relief. Not erotic, but a peace that shows to me how much effort I put in every moment to suppress how I truly am.. how twisted and deformed I have truly become in an attempt to pass as a normal American male.
I would sincerely appreciate your feedback, thoughts, and feelings. I do appreciate all of you, so much.
Namaste, Tara

I definitely have self image disassociation.  Dressing helps, but in my mind it was always one step closer, but so many steps far away. 

I keep telling myself that of course I look like a man.  All the pieces of me I see in the mirror, broad shoulders, beard stubble, hairy chest, they all belong to a normal looking male.  So in reality I look the way I was born to look.  I know it stinks that I don't look the way I should, but it can't be helped right now.
And I figure it could be worse...I could have been born without arms or legs.  Then I would really be in trouble.

i would say that all you need to worry about is how you identify yourself. The only thing that really matters is how we see ourselves. I am not big fan of having people telling me how I should feel about me. :)

Ranae, I don't get it. You always speak as if you were the product of no culture, no environnement. What you think of yourself is in great part dependant of many things that you've unconsciously integrated. Nobody's an island. Your self-image was built in constant interaction with the outside world, its a mirror of you, and it is mirror within you.

If you identify yourself as a woman, but nobody on earth does, I think we all know that won''t work since that's the place we all start from.

So, what others think you are does matter to a point.

In society, we have to balance self-image with the image we project to others, may it your group of friends, our community, or the world at large.

Quote from: Keira on June 11, 2007, 09:33:56 PM

Ranae, I don't get it. You always speak as if you were the product of no culture, no environnement. What you think of yourself is in great part dependant of many things that you've unconsciously integrated. Nobody's an island. Your self-image was built in constant interaction with the outside world, its a mirror of you, and it is mirror within you.

If you identify yourself as a woman, but nobody on earth does, I think we all know that won''t work since that's the place we all start from.

So, what others think you are does matter to a point.

In society, we have to balance self-image with the image we project to others, may it your group of friends, our community, or the world at large.

I do identify as a woman and one point in time people didn't quite see it that way. When they pressed the button by outing me to over 100 people, I proved i was by progressing forward in my preferred gender role. So if it did matter in the least bit it only mattered for the fact of me proving them wrong and showing the world who i am. My friends, co-workers, family, and people I meet, do not like me for some public portrayal of what I think I want them to see. I am myself and they know that.

Next time you want to analyze my station in life please refer to the rules


15. You may challenge the issue, but never the person.

Quote from: Tara on June 11, 2007, 06:16:40 PM
So, my group therapist asks, "so why are you not just a feminine male?"

Namaste, Tara

    I was asked that and I got angry at being called male. It was funny, I never get angry. Unless you call me that, I guess.
    I have the same issues with mirrors that you have. I feel okay when I don't have to look at myself so I try to avoid it.

Quote from: Mattie on June 11, 2007, 08:55:10 PM
I know it stinks that I don't look the way I should, but it can't be helped right now.
And I figure it could be worse...I could have been born without arms or legs.  Then I would really be in trouble.

Me too. Having a male body is a birth defect (considering the mind that inhabits this body), but in the end it is not even close to the worst possibilities.

  Nfr

Sometimes I get overly critical of how I look. But I'm a lot better now than I used to be.  I feel confident in presenting myself as me.  I know I'm not perfect.  And that I never will be.  But I won't be defined by where I may come up short in other people's opinions.  I mean, yeah, I'll see some part of me in the mirror and just think it's terrible.  A smile and confidence covers a littany of problems though.  I think for me though, what gets me out the door is that in spite of my flaws, I know I am a woman, and I am also trans, and I don't don't let either of those things make me feel bad about myself.  And so far that's worked.  People kind of treat me on my own terms.  I mean, now I would say 90 percent of the time I pass a mirror it's a nice experience.

I mean, yeah so what we were all born having to hide behind the wrong gender, just thanks to some biological quirks.  But we don't have to now.  Being trans is pretty special, and I think all the worries about passing and fitting the ideals of a sexually repressed patriarchal society are not that well founded.  I'm not living my life to be a fugitive to myself.  I've always been the girl I am now, it's just now I'm letting people see it.

I don't really like the idea of saying that I was born with a birth defect.  It feels too much like I'm asking for pity, when I've really been given a gift. 

I don't mean it like asking for pity, either; quite the opposite. It's something that happened, and while certain aspects of it are very annoying it's also something I have to (and have been able to) live with. It's also something that has had a great deal of influence in my growing up as I did, and all in all I have to admit to being pretty satisfied with the results so far. Even the annoying aspects are in the end relatively mild, if you consider the worst that could have happened at birth.

  Nfr

I get pissed when people call me a female. CAN YOU SEE ME? I HAVE FACIAL HAIR AND NO CHEST. QUIT REFERRING TO MY GENITALS.

When I look in the mirror I no longer see a girl..thank god..I see a man. I still don't agree that its my body though..its not..cuz underneath the tape and packing there's another's body..and its sure as hell not mine. When my therapist asked why I self harm..I said cuz its not my body and I don't care. I'm trying to make it irrecognizable as..female...which its not..

I guess I disassociate from my body alot by denying its not mine.

-Matt

I think my body disassociates from me. It never does what i want it to, i quite like it - wish it had a nice girly waist, a flat stomach, but generally A-OK....but it hates me. Meanie.

Quote from: Tara on June 11, 2007, 06:16:40 PM
So, my group therapist asks, "so why are you not just a feminine male?"

Because it doesn't match my self-identity?  When I first came out to my son (he was 12 at the time), he asked me very much the same question.  "How do you know you aren't just a guy who likes girl's things?"  The only answer I could give him is the same as I would tell anyone else.  "I don't know how I know.  It's just how I feel inside."

At a certain level your therapist is talking about the psychological concept of gender identity development.  Unfortunately, most practicing therapists, until very recently, were taught the cognitive and socialization theories of Kohlberg, Bem, and Bandura.  So they are not working from the understanding that we are born with the knowledge of what gender we are supposed to be.  They are operating with the idea that your experience shapes your gender identity, and that there must be an experiencial "why" you feel the way you do.

Perhaps there is a way to turn the question to your advantage, though, by transforming it into the sociological concept of identity negotiation.  Instead of answering their question, start a conversation exploring what it would take for people to start acknowledging that you are correct when you say you are a woman.

Quote from: Tara on June 11, 2007, 06:16:40 PM
... I have never been able to look at myself in the mirror. Ever. What I see there has no correlation at all with what is inside me. I have always held myself to be grotesquely deformed, since I was very very young, even though I look normal in reality, not ugly, and in some ways, quite nice-looking. But that isn't how I see myself.

That's pretty close to how I feel. I loathe and detest what I see in mirrors. Shopping is a nightmare because the shops all have mirrors and catching sight of myself unexpectedly is enough to ruin my mood.

I dislike what I see in the mirror as well. Due to that and a few other things, I do not allow photos to be taken. I managed to be a big part of a wedding ceremony last year and managed to avoid being on film or card except for a 10 second clip when I was timing the parties for their walk to the altar.

However, I have had many people tell me that I am foolish because I am pretty, attractive, or not that bad looking. A few others have agreed with how I feel. But I have never been able to overcome the blahs I feel when I look into the mirror most of the time. There are days where I think I look pretty good but they are few and far between.

Quote from: LostInTime on June 14, 2007, 02:43:40 PM
I dislike what I see in the mirror as well. Due to that and a few other things, I do not allow photos to be taken.

Me too, though I forced myself to post those before/after pics to try and get over it. I don't see myself as "deformed," but really moreso just ugly and weird-looking. Intellectually, I know that's not entirely true - I was just another guy. But even now, I can't help but feel embarassed and ashamed of how I look, irrational or not. I don't know why exactly, it's just always been that way.

Now, I honestly AM weird-looking, being a strange hybrid of female and male features from ten months of HRT.

~Kate~

I avoided mirrors for 25 years. From puberty onward!!!!
You can imagine how disheveled I looked like most of the time...

Lately, its the opposite, I can't tear myself away from mirrors.
I can't believe what I see. I like is so much. I smile.
I never felt satisfied with how I looked till now.

Quote from: Keira on June 14, 2007, 03:35:21 PM
Lately, its the opposite, I can't tear myself away from mirrors.
I can't believe what I see. I like is so much. I smile.
I never felt satisfied with how I looked till now.

Awl, that's so sweet to hear ;)

Did you find yourself at a really frustrating stage at one point? I look good enough from SOME angles, in some lighting, that I think, "Wow! FINALLY! I can't believe this! I'm a girl!"

But then I turn my head an inch and, "DARN it already... there HE is again. I knew he was hiding there somewhere. Go AWAY, will you?!?"

Repeat tease/torture every few hours ;)

~Kate~

Quote from: Fiona on June 14, 2007, 02:15:19 PM
That's pretty close to how I feel. I loathe and detest what I see in mirrors. Shopping is a nightmare because the shops all have mirrors and catching sight of myself unexpectedly is enough to ruin my mood.

Oh god, I can so relate to that, Fiona. :'(

i normally see a beautiful woman from the waist up; the rest is just hideous :(

Quote from: Katia on June 14, 2007, 06:48:54 PM
i normally see a beautiful woman from the waist up; the rest is just hideous :(

I'm exactly the opposite: I've always seen a pubescent girl from the neck down (I don't really notice the genitals)... it's the FACE that makes me cry :(

~Kate~

Kate,
If you want to know how you look like to others
and not some modification of your mind,
try this.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, or in the morning,
while groggy (night is better) look in the mirror for a second (not more),
then look away and go away from the mirror.

The image you see for that second,
before your brain clicks on and try to pick it apart, is what other see.
I'd bet that its NOT a male image at all no matter what angle you look
at yourself.

Yes, there is a transitional state where you see your "male image" occasionally in the mirror, up to 2-3 months ago, I sort of saw my male self in the mirror sometimes, especially in the frontal view (the one that has changed the least from before).

But, now, I'm starting to even forget how I looked like. I just haven't fully integrated my new look in my psyche, especially when I'm facing men. I think your on the cusp of not seeing it at all from any angle (now its more in your head, than in reality anyway).

I was told by my therapist that the moment you dream of yourself in your preferred gender is when "things" are falling into place.  As I said on another thread, the more feminized my body became, the more unhappy I turned because the contrast between my male genitals and my female body was just too much for me to bear.

tink :icon_chick:

Quote from: Tink on June 14, 2007, 11:33:45 PM
I was told by my therapist that the moment you dream of yourself in your preferred gender is when "things" are falling into place...

I was thinking about this on my way home today... about why I don't seem to dream in ANY gender lately.

And you know what? It's odd, but I'm not really aware of my gender now. I mean before, the awareness that I was a boy was a 24/7 kinda neon sign burning my soul every second, but now... I don't really think about it aside from still getting used to new situations a bit. That caged feeling is gone, that awful feeling of looking at the world through a pair of broken glasses, of trying to touch it through rawhide gloves...

I dunno, just Sand In The Wind as a good friend of mine might say ;)

~Kate~

Quote from: Kate on June 14, 2007, 11:47:15 PM

Quote from: Tink on June 14, 2007, 11:33:45 PM
I was told by my therapist that the moment you dream of yourself in your preferred gender is when "things" are falling into place...

I was thinking about this on my way home today... about why I don't seem to dream in ANY gender lately.

And you know what? It's odd, but I'm not really aware of my gender now. I mean before, the awareness that I was a boy was a 24/7 kinda neon sign burning my soul every second, but now... I don't really think about it aside from still getting used to new situations a bit. That caged feeling is gone, that awful feeling of looking at the world through a pair of broken glasses, of trying to touch it through rawhide gloves...

I dunno, just Sand In The Wind as a good friend of mine might say ;)

~Kate~

Well, she also mentioned that dreaming of yourself as a genderless entity is a sign of progress (transition wise)  Apparently, it means that your subconscious mind is beginning to shape itself all over again in the gender you identify with.  :)

tink :icon_chick:

Quote from: Kate on June 14, 2007, 11:47:15 PM

Quote from: Tink on June 14, 2007, 11:33:45 PM
I was told by my therapist that the moment you dream of yourself in your preferred gender is when "things" are falling into place...

I was thinking about this on my way home today... about why I don't seem to dream in ANY gender lately.

And you know what? It's odd, but I'm not really aware of my gender now. I mean before, the awareness that I was a boy was a 24/7 kinda neon sign burning my soul every second, but now... I don't really think about it aside from still getting used to new situations a bit. That caged feeling is gone, that awful feeling of looking at the world through a pair of broken glasses, of trying to touch it through rawhide gloves...

I dunno, just Sand In The Wind as a good friend of mine might say ;)

~Kate~

Kate Bornstein wrote that when one goes through a gender change (which includes changing the way you present yourself, even if you feel the same way you did before) first one has to get to a point of no gender, before building up the new one.  From what you say, that could be happening to you now, so I think it's a sign of progress.

I know this may sound odd.  But I never dreamed of myself in my birth sex.  I either dreamed of myself as a genderless being (not very often though), or female (most of the time). 

The thing is I dreamt this way since I could remember, even when I was very little. 

Is this odd.  Or is this why that where my dissassociation lies?

Is this why I felt so detached?
I escaped to my dreams and daydreams so much when I was younger.  It was a refuge.  It seemed things were right in them.

I think from a transsexual point of view I always wanted to look as female as humanly possible. I wasn't interested in clothes or make up or any of the stereo - type traits but I just wanted and still do to look as physically female as possible.

I'm lucky in the fact that I am percieved as female and I still haven't had any treatment yet. Even more so when I was younger and I didn't ever try to conform in any male type role. If I look female in a boiler suit or overalls it's working.

I think we all have doubts on our self image and where we would like to be and I find bits I don't like and the fact that hormones haven't really worked on me in 7 years. I can't seem to get any reasonable hip fat development, breast development or fat re-distribution. I've tried everything, so even though my face is quite feminine my body lets me down.

Kim