Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm just curious about this...

Basically, socially, and by all measures of the imagination, my transition is over. I've legally changed everything, and to top it all off, I'm passing. I haven't been gendered male in over 3 months now. And even on some of my absolute worst days, I'm still having moments worthy of the "You Know You Pass When..." topic.

So why can I still not accept it? Why am I still feeling unpassable? Why is my #1 concern still "Am I passing?" every single time I get dressed in the morning? Why am I still looking around every single time I'm outside, feeling like everyone must be staring at me? Unable to relax, closely-guarding my mannerisms and voice and feeling so tensed up and nervous all the damned time, as if I'm afraid that if I make one wrong move they'll know? Why, when I look in the mirror, am I still feeling inadequate, feeling like I seriously don't deserve to be gendered female, feel like my passability is this fragile thing where one slip-up and I'll be gendered male again, one hair out of place or one bad skin day and everyone will be seeing a guy when they look at me? And I'm still feeling like my femaleness isn't innate. I'm tired of constantly worrying, and constantly feeling inadequate. And I'm having a really hard time accepting that I actually am female now. I still feel like an "other," someone who barely qualifies under the "female" label, someone who's barely overcoming all of her masculine body/facial features. And frankly I'm basically still in the mindset of letting out a sigh of relief every time I'm gendered female, because it proves to me that I'm wrong about myself.

Advice?

Is this something that goes away with time? Who else dealt with these feelings immediately post-transition, and how did you deal with them? How long did it take before you finally really started accepting yourself as an actual legitimate member of your identity gender, and finally started being able to just relax and live life?

Just brief,

Confidence in your self and the ell with others. 99% of people have no clue or care. and the 1% are not worth the effort.

Just stay true to yourself and yes time will wash so much of the worries away.

Isabell

Sounds like habit, you got used to that constant fear of not passing, and you're still in shock over finally being completed, must feel like a dream, that you are going to wake any moment and it won't be true. I think when I get there, that's what will hit me. Is it real, am I really here? I don't think I could ever stop looking at myself down there once it happens, or at least it'd take a long while for the awe to wear off. I'm happy for you. I'm coming along right behind you (make take me a while though).

^The funny thing is, I actually am having nightmares about it.

I had one nightmare where I got sunburned, and somehow the sun exposure eliminated my smooth skin, making it look thicker and darker and more masculine again, and I looked in the mirror and I looked like a guy again. And I just cried. That one was awful.

Then I also had a nightmare where I got gendered male again for the first time in 3 months, and in my mind I was like "NOOOO! My streak is over!!! I still look like a guy!!! DAMN IT!!! .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·."

So, you're 100% right, I am scared. Very scared. I'm terrified of looking male. And every time I see even a hint of it in the mirror... ugh...

The mirror is a harsh mistress  >:-) Other reason is we know the before.But if i look at your picture i doubt that anything but voice and behavior can give you away.so just  :angel:

It's as said before confidence. To be honest most of the time I even forget I used to try to be a guy.

You asked for advice, so here's mine.

I'm sort of in your situation. I'm a year full-time (well tomorrow would be my anniversary) and I still have that issue. It's important to me to pass, and I still feel like I would be most unhappy if I didn't. Electrolysis treatments have tempered this somewhat. Walking around with 3 days stubble makes it impossible to pass, so I get used to being clocked. It's not so bad.

Anyway, my advice is to be wherever you are.

If you are concerned about passing, let yourself be concerned. It's an OK and understandable place to be. For many of us (myself included), how people view us is very important.

Don't let anyone tell you not to be that way. It's an ok way to be. I promise.

There's a lot of pressure in this site and other places to "not care what people think".

Yeah, that's OK for people who don't care what people think. It doesn't work for me. I care, because that's who I am, damn it, and that's what works for me. Rather than stressing about it, I accept myself as I am - someone who wants to make a FEMALE impression.

These days, I get an attitude when people tell me that's not OK, that I should stop worrying about what people think.

Carrie, your concerns are your concerns. Own them and love them the way you love the other things that make you special.

I hope this helps.

Quote from: Cindy on June 12, 2014, 03:18:38 AM
It's as said before confidence. To be honest most of the time I even forget I used to try to be a guy.

Confidence is key..

Carrie, this is probably one of the most well articulated and thoughtful posts I've read here.  I am right on the threshold of starting HRT, and upon reading your post I could take two paths:  1) Jeez, do I really want to do this (as it reflects my own thoughts when I am not feeling confident) and end up here?  OR 2) Wow, here is an exceptionally strong person who not only went against society based pressure and prejudice and followed her true path, but reaches out when she knows she needs it.  So it is an overwhelming 2 for me.  When first coming onto this site I went way back to read old posts, so I have followed your progress amongst others from the beginning, and I am constantly amazed at the personal strength shown here.  Even though you feel down right now you continue to be an inspiration to me.  Dani

More than 3 years after full transition I still haven't reached it. I was close for a time, but I know it is deeply affected by severe clinical depression (28 months of that) and regret about SRS that resulted in dysphoria.

Mostly it does takes time. I have been on HT a bit longer and transitioned much longer ago that you. (Feb 5 2013 was the official day of RLE.) I can't claim to not have been misgendered like you have, I have hostile family members that purposefully will always misgender me, as well as slips by other individuals all too regularly.
I have stated before I'm pretty satisfied with the way I look. I used to ponder FFS, but I did outgrow that. I have no routine for auditing my look other than brush my hair and make sure my top and bottom don't clash.

I have met in person with members of this forum and they could certainly vouch for my day to day activity and behavior.

i mostly forget about that stuff when I get engrossed in something else. I'm working, travelling and socialising so much that other things preoccupy me.

I myself am at the 2 month mark full-time tomorrow now that I think about it and i used to worry about this is as well. Being a Canadian girl I recently used my newly minted passport all name and gender correct to travel to Chicago and back. It really became a simple matter of just being the real me and at no time did i ever have an issue and i spent most of it alone with out company during my outings and such. I was at least expecting something at customs in either direction and not a smgle hick up. I really believe it is in our heads and you just need to believe it and own it and the rest takes care of its self.  No one else can instil confidence you have to find it and believe in it. How many positives make confidence go to a hundred or another way how many negatives to drop it to zero.? I bet the ratio is not proportional in the extreme.

On the flight back late at night certainly not at my best for many reasons i am certain the lady beside me knew so  I asked her if I was the first trans person she has met and she said yes. I did not have to do this but it was felt okay  at the time. We had a great a conversation about allot of stuff so even if they do know I find it does not matter it only matters how we choose to deal with it. We ended up sharing a ride home which was cool and unexpected as we lived in the same part of town.

I am finding so many other normal life issues are just happening which by default nulls out the other gender stuff and because I cannot walk and chew gum at the same time it kind of goes away!

You made it this far you are a strong girl who knows who she is keep that as your compass north and you will do fine. There is allot of people in life with other challenges physical and or mental that all need to get to the same place of self acceptance so this is just not a gender unique problem so we have allot in common with many people in different ways it is just part of life.

Guess one of my issues might just be that I still don't have a job then. It's hard to not constantly worry about gender and worry about "passing" when it could be the difference between getting a job and getting snubbed from the interview as soon as they see me. Plus the fact that being unemployed means that I basically have no daily routine, and thus can't just mentally get lost in it.

The experience you described is normal for a lot of people a lot of the time. I was start-and-stop with transition over the years, occasionally going back into the closet. I transitioned to male for good starting in 2008, and was read consistently as male by others after mid-2010 or so. The only people who ever misgender me are those who read my medical or social services paperwork and know that I'm trans and don't like it.

So almost nobody ever calls me maam or lady, and when they do it's out of meanness, but still I'm startled sometimes to hear sir and mister. Even "he" feels odd sometimes, like I'm getting away with something.

When people think I'm into girls, I usually don't tell them that I'm gay, because I have this fear in the back of my mind that they'll view that as dishonesty. Instead I just say that I'm not straight, which feels like it can't be argued with by anybody. I am gay, but it's hard to let go of the idea that others might think I'm not really a real man.

I think that how well you are read as your target gender often doesn't correlate with how you feel in social situations.

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I think that how well you are read as your target gender often doesn't correlate with how you feel in social situations.
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I think this is so true, I think everyone I meet knows I'm a trans woman but I don't care, having too much fun being alive!

As for old acquaintances much the same, most have been lovely, some disappeared, that is their loss - and my gain!

I think some of it will never go away. I have and always had this problem where I am just too concious of myself and sensitive to what people might think of me. It costs a lot of energy aswell

A large part is in your head and your head only. Most people just take a glance at others and are oblivious to all the details and fears you have.

Just a quick update to this topic:

I just had a talk with my therapist about this last week, and she said that she noticed something about me... I never just referred to myself as a woman, I always referred to myself as "trans."

So she says the solution is just letting go of the label of "trans." Quit mentally seeing myself as a different category than cis-women. That is what was leading to my feelings of inadequacy, is that I was always focusing on what's different between me and cis-women. She said, start telling myself that I am a woman. Not just a "trans woman," but a woman, one just as deserving of that label as any other. And she also said to quit focusing on all of the parts of me that I feel like invalidate my femininity. Yes, my voice isn't perfect. That doesn't matter. I'm still a woman. Yes, I have wider shoulders. It doesn't matter. I'm still a woman. And yes, I haven't had SRS yet. It doesn't matter. I'm still a woman. Quit using my inadequacies to constantly tell myself that I'm not, or that I don't deserve that label or my name because I somehow haven't earned them yet.

I'm still working on it, because old habits are hard to break, but yeah, I think she hit the nail on the head.

So many women, so many flavours

You're not alone in your struggle with this, for what it's worth

I wrote a little poem some time ago for when I struggle with it

~Just Be (A Woman)~

I'll be just a woman
Not THE woman
Nor the prettiest
Smartest
Kindest
Or classiest
Just me, some woman

Sometimes I need some time to cool off and wouldn't believe a word of that but I always bounce back and think "Yes, I could live with that"

Quote from: Carrie Liz on July 18, 2014, 01:48:48 PM
Just a quick update to this topic:

I just had a talk with my therapist about this last week, and she said that she noticed something about me... I never just referred to myself as a woman, I always referred to myself as "trans."

Yes, that. My internal dialog is, "I'm a guy. I've always been a guy. I don't have to pretend to be a girl any more." The word trans does not enter into the conversation. 

You are a woman, and a pretty one at that. :)

Habits do have a lot to do with it, both in how you feel stuck in the old, and how you get to the new. It gets better. I came to think of it as two forms of "other:" one private and personal, one public. I think the disbelief is part worrying about how you are seen because you are not sure how to measure it, and feeling overwhelmed in the day to day expectations. It stops being new quickly. You have to get over "othering" yourself before others can entirely.

For me, I felt trapped labelled "trans" and not female, even if I felt female and looked it.  Some of the problem was lack of confidence, no matter what anyone said about how I looked. I had a notion about how I wanted to be seen, and had no idea if I was anywhere close to it.  One grows into an identity in life, reinforced by daily interaction with others. You are messing about with that in all sorts of ways, mostly good, reshaping it in an amazing brief time. Generally, you really don't now what it is you are doing or how, you just do. Some of it is passive or internalizing. Growing up, you take all sorts of hints from others about where you fit in and how you look compared to others, especially through puberty. You are taking all that and compressing it into a few years, but without the schoolyard games and cliques.

It took a while before I saw "woman" in the mirror even after FFS. But it DOES happen. I found that it partly takes developing a new set of habits in your daily life, either intentionally or by necessity. That's completely you and yourself alone, it's not part of your interactions with the world.  For example, HAVING to do all the maintenance that other women do quickly stops being unusual in your mind and becomes a necessary chore. You are no longer "different" when you are confronted with a face in the mirror that needs "enhancing" like any other woman. You figure out how, and it works, and you walk out the door. Sometimes looking at models and celebrities without makeup reminds you that most of what you think sets you apart as T isn't really true. They look just as dreadful.  You figure out what your expression of yourself is, and you develop a routine around that. You also learn to do it with as little bother as possible. You stop "othering" yourself. You pass as you, not some other woman, which is the point I suppose and was true all along. You are setting you free again. It's not so much being confident (but you want that anyway in life) it's about being comfortable in your skin to the point it's just your skin again. Normalcy.

At the same time, the way my transition evolved didn't help erase my sense of "other" regarding the rest of humanity (or the ones I interacted with) and my anxiety about fitting in.  I had a very public transition locally. I was older and fairly well known in my community.  People knew, and 99% of the time it wasn't an issue (I have one neighbour who still refuses to use the correct pronoun after three years, but that's about the only one who is malicious). Life went on as before. However, that meant that there was not a lot of stealth and it was twice as hard as I had to be "on my game" all the time. It wasn't as bad as schoolyard pecking orders, but I felt under the microscope for a while.  I knew women were watching me to see if I knew what I was doing from makeup to clothes -- which they do anyway to other women. The men had to rethink how they interacted because others were watching THEM as well as me, and they were insecure. It also meant that at the start, there was some ongoing curiosity and I could be sure if I met someone in a social situation, especially a man, someone else would say: "did you know about her?"  I didn't stick out particularly, as I am pretty together, it was just local people wanting to gossip. It was hurtful, especially if someone flirted with me in front of others and then heard more about me later. Sometimes it made the transition hard to forget. And I really wanted to forget. In time, it all became background. Since so many knew me before, pronouns still slip time to time, but that's the price of knowing people 20 years or so and being involved. It was hard to shed the "T" internally when you could not escape externally, even if you passed well. But that wore off as I was no longer a novelty and people got used to seeing me as female. Their reality was me as I am, not as I was. That reinforces your confidence. Oddly, when I first noticed being discriminated against, it wasn't as T it was as F.

During that time, when I was in places no one knew me, I was acutely aware I was testing myself.  I really felt the same dialogue of doubt you describe. I was on my guard, worried about my voice, and worried about eye contact. All three are killers.  A lot of it is just shedding the idea of being "different." If you act as if you are different, then others pick up on that. Don't. You set that tone.  Eventually, you refine and fall into a routine that works effortlessly just like your maintenance, which is your new norm 24/7.  Where once you walk through an airport convinced everyone notices you and clocks you, you end up being part of the crowd, another woman on her way to somewhere else just crossing paths and only getting noticed because of what you are wearing, or because you just catch an eye (good notice!). I think you go from worrying about being noticed for the wrong reasons to wondering if you are really THAT plain. There are people here who say, just let go and be, I think that's exactly right. If you are natural and everyday about it all, no one else thinks otherwise. That said, it's not an overnight event.

I did find that for those I knew before transition, I had to put them at ease by reaching out as normally as I could. They don't know what to do or if they SHOULD do anything. They don't know if they should congratulate, compliment, or ignore what you have gone through. For some, it's a lot like trying to figure out how to acknowledge a death -- what's the right thing to do and will I hurt their feelings? Sometimes they just don't say anything as the least problematic path.  The women at least know the language of compliments -- and it's like exchanging symbolic ceremonial gifts as you reciprocate.  The men are trapped between panic (I don't want to look like I am flirting!) and awkward almost compliments (I'd never know! You do it so well!) All I can say is smile and accept in the spirit offered. Then resume being as typical and normal as the next woman at the party.

While still worrying about the voice, that is...

Quote from: Carrie Liz on June 11, 2014, 08:25:19 PM
How long did it take before you finally really started accepting yourself as an actual legitimate member of your identity gender, and finally started being able to just relax and live life?

About a year. It may have been prolonged by circumstances, while the absence of other circumstances (ie. if I lived in a small community where everyone had known me since childhood) probably made it shorter than it could have been. The first few months were hellish and very surreal. Over time, the proportion of time spent in that mindset would decrease with a few random spikes every so often, but eventually it took moving to a new city where zero people knew me for a true sense of freedom to be possible. A freedom that I wasn't sure I wanted at first, but now I'm sure I do.

Hang in there, you'll be alright.