apart from identifying gender, because we know gender and sex are different, but does your genetic sex stay on your mind? if you are not intersex that is
My genetic sex has left numerous marks on me. It is very difficult to forget it, and often a source of debilitating depression. I am very unhappy with my appearance, and even when I do fix my appearance with the aid of completely unnatural surgery, I will never be able to reproduce as a woman... and my genitals can only be unnaturally remade into a close approximation of what a biological female has.
Add to this the simple fact that the experience of being male for my entire childhood deprives me of countless potential positive experiences, while at the same time being a central factor in countless negative ones. Because of this, I will never be able to take my gender for granted like the 99.95% do. At best, there will always be a small barrier between me and cis men and women... and at worst, I may never be able to socialize properly. This is up to probability to decide at this point in my life.
The sum of the above leaves scars, as well. These things have made me a bit jaded, and grim; a little dark, and my hope is a shadow of what it once was. Because of my physical characteristics, and the necessity of a journey to overcome them, my self-esteem is likely to be permanently damages, and because of the experiences I have and the ones I don't... I will never know in certainty whether I really am female, or just a sad boy that wished to be female.
... So, yes. I do think about it from time to time.
Me and my crushed spirit.
I do not have super big problems about my genetalia.. But my body in general is something that I hate, especially my face because it is too masculine to ever be passable I think :(. It is a sad fact but I try to think that it could be worse.
Of course I would love to have a vagina instead and so on but I just have to make what I can from what I was given even if it sucks.
And.... I miss growing up as a girl, the act I had to put up has messed me up in so many ways I am afraid.
Not really, no. I only think about it if something makes me aware of it. Mostly because the most important parts of me, including my mind, aren't my genetic sex, and never will be. So it doesn't really stay on my mind until such time as either a bout of dysphoria kicks in, or someone else makes it an issue in some way. Then it's like getting hit with a mental baseball bat. But eventually (usually with the aid of introspective techniques) that goes away and I go back to using my mind the way it works best, and being myself. I learned a long time ago that genetics isn't something I can do a whole lot about - I'll be XY until the day I die, or until they create some sci-fi way to change it... and things lost or never had aren't going to come back or appear through wishing it were so, so it's probably best for my sanity to just get on with it and make the best of the situation. There's a lot I can still do and offer to the world, dispite being hampered with a dyslexic... whatever, the thing which got the letters mixed up when I was born. I might not be able to change my genes, but I can do a bit of tailoring in order that they fit me better.
Kind of honestly, It's hard to really say sometimes what role my gender discomfort has played in my life and how separate that is or was from my tendency to alienate myself as I grew up. It does bother me to the extent that I feel depressed about it often times, but it's not like I would prefer being dead if that was the only other choice.
The amount that it bothers me probably won't magically get better as I transition, but I do hope that I can add a counter weight of feeling better about myself and the future.
Of course I do think there are at least a list of things I take for granted about having grown up a boy that I don't realize (One I know is that the odds of me having my best friend would probably be lower if I was a girl), and that I am the sum of my experiences and that good or bad, and no matter how much it bothers me, I can only hope to change the future and not the past.
But it does bother me, As much as I want to look towards the future, most of my nagging regrets are things I missed out on or didn't do, but I can't let myself be absorbed fully in my own real or imagined short-comings
*agrees with Sephirah*
The only real thing that bothers me, is the fact "it" is still there. If I don't see it, I forget that it is there. My orchidectomy helped a lot, but there are those moments that I am reminded.
My entire life I have mostly sat when I went to the bathroom, and most of the time I only see the way I was meant to be. Yes, I have children so I had to use it, but I never really enjoyed sex. It was a necessary evil. I was raised to be a "man." But I always knew I wasn't.
I look forward to the day that I am the way I am suppose to be.
Quote from: Elsa.G on June 10, 2012, 10:16:36 AM
apart from identifying gender, because we know gender and sex are different, but does your genetic sex stay on your mind? if you are not intersex that is
Only when I think about it ;)
I despise being male! I am pretty much "disconnected" from my boy parts which has made relationships over the years awkward at best.
I also dont mind my body really as being tall/thin with ok legs has been fine with me...but over all these years countless times I sobbed myself to sleep wishing I good wake up with perky boobs, girl parts and beautiful hair!! only to wake up and see a male face in the mirror that was attractive for a guy...but a disaster for being the female I feel I always should have been!!!
I deal with it though and do the best I can with what I have to work with, at least I am "out" a little bit and can be myself around the ranch here at home...that helps alot :)
It was my genetic sex that prevented me from going through 'female rites of passage' as I just stated in another post with this title.
My chromosomes XY / genetic male sex condition is something that will be with me - for ever.
Never mind all the body fixes we do go through. The 'feedback' from this 'body condition' is not to be underestimated. It prevents - at least this far - a complete normalization or groundedness, I feel lacking most when awake during the night.
During early transition this was less apparent because so much still had to be done. Now all is done - more or less - save maybe a face lift?
Normalcy wants to establish, and normalcy keeps telling me I AM not quite normal... in fact will never be. Not in a 'normal' binary female sense.
I guess one will eventually get used to it, but having been saddled with a 'birth defect' - corrected fair enough - still leaves one with a history.
It is not depressing or any of this sort of thing - BUT it is ALWAYS present. It is present when called the right pronoun and feeling good about it, as it is when one attracts some looks of just a few seconds longer then this ever was the case pre-transition.
So, yes it does bother. Sometimes more, most of the time less, but it is just ever present even post-op with no more 'extra' reminder of our condition.
We are who we are...
Axélle
Most of the time I can ignore the parts.
But, if I look down while clothed, I see that disturbing bulge, and if I can, I'll "tuck" within minutes, lest I become home-bound due to depression. Once tucked, I tend to be ok.
But yes, if I could paint my body with invisible paint I surely would.
In a word..........YYYEEESSS!!! I hate what lies between my legs and though I can change it, it will never be the same. But I refuse to let this ruin the exciting transformation I am going through now. I am woman....Hear me roar! LOL
I have some days I hate the feeling of my genitalia , and yet some days it is ok , it's really damn confusing though because I do enjoy pleasuring myself, I just keep going through waves of phases where everything seems wrong and then for a while its just ok.
To be honest I am scared of the idea of loosing my parts , and yet I don't like the idea of continuing to feel all wabber jabbered about how I look and the discomfort of having to deal with it.
I've never hated my penis. There have been times where I've wished I had a vagina, but 99.9% of the time I don't think about it. As genderqueer, I never really questioned my genetic sex as a child, as it was always acceptable to me. Around the start of puberty was when I first noticed I was different, but I was unable to pinpoint what the feeling was.
Through the years, I went from not caring about my body, to wanting to master my genetic sex (male), I wanted to work out and have a good body as well as be a "manly man". But I've always had the opposite side as well. The feminine part of me also wants to come out. When I look back, though, it seems that my goal look was an attractive feminine guy.
Now that I'm on hormones, I often look into the mirror for 5-10 minutes. Sometimes I see a guy looking back, sometimes I see a girl. It makes me happy to see the girl staring back at me.
Quote from: ShawnToShawn on June 11, 2012, 12:16:15 AM
I have some days I hate the feeling of my genitalia , and yet some days it is ok , it's really damn confusing though because I do enjoy pleasuring myself, I just keep going through waves of phases where everything seems wrong and then for a while its just ok.
To be honest I am scared of the idea of loosing my parts , and yet I don't like the idea of continuing to feel all wabber jabbered about how I look and the discomfort of having to deal with it.
if youre scared of loosing your parts just feminize yourself without getting ffs . theres no golden rule about how you should or shouldnt transition/ and in what way you should
srs * not ffs , damn i must want ffs bad if i just automatically type that when explaining something else
QuoteAs genderqueer
Ok what exactly does this mean in a nutshell? Is that related to being Androgynous?
Quoteif youre scared of loosing your parts just feminize yourself without getting srs . theres no golden rule about how you should or shouldnt transition/ and in what way you should
*fixed the srs/ffs thing for ya ;D*
Well, that is true, and that is where I am going to start, my goal is to see where I really should be along the spectrum, still though I don't know if I would like having to keep dealing with what is down there, as it's usually uncomfortable most of the time now.
If it didn't I guess I would still have my old name and be living as a bloke, but I am not in a frenzy about it either.
HRT is working it's magic slowly and SRS in the mid future will tidy things up. I am patient enough to cope with the way things are going.
Karen.
"In a nutshell" means "to sum it up". I think.
Yes, but I've come to accept that as how I was born, and history is very hard to change.
Quote from: Elsa.G on June 10, 2012, 10:16:36 AM
apart from identifying gender, because we know gender and sex are different, but does your genetic sex stay on your mind? if you are not intersex that is
No. Only when other people rub it in my face which they do at every opportunity.
Nope biology doesn't bend to our will so easily so I'm fine being a biological male. It's important not to lose track of that and at the end of the day I'm just a pretty male. I guess that makes mea bad ->-bleeped-<- lol.
Yes, I am bothered so much I hate my body and male parts. Hate the wide shoulders, thick chest, damn pecs and bullock neck. Absolutely detest down below and stupid body and facial hair. Bothered? I sure am.
QuoteDoes your genetic sex bother you?
Yes, but it is what it is.
Quote from: ShawnToShawn on June 11, 2012, 04:20:36 AM
Ok what exactly does this mean in a nutshell? Is that related to being Androgynous?
Genderqueer can have multiple definitions. Identifying as both male and female, or neither male nor female. I am both male and female. Many genderqueer people do decide to look androgynous, but I do not know yet exactly how I want to present myself in the future. Ultimately I want to be able to pass as both genders whenever I want, but my magic powers for that are very limited, so I have to deal with what i've got and let HRT work its magic.
Simply put, my genetic sex sux.
Really, it's the hair that bothers me the most. I shave my arms, legs, chest, face... It's time-consuming, and I keep cutting myself!
I'm relatively okay shaving my legs; it's not unusual in the least for girls to do that- same with armpits, and since I usually wear pants and a shirt, I'm not foced to see it that much. But when I do have to see it, like in the shower, it bothers me a lot.
I shave my arms every day so I can wear short sleeves (until I started shaving, I had to wear long sleeves, like a sweater, regardless of how hot it was), but I'll frequently find a patch of hair (usually on the knuckles or near the wrist) that I missed. Then I'll kick myself, but put it out of my mind and get on with my day. The fact that I can't get rid of my beard shadow (is that what it's called?) forces me to look away from any reflective surfaces unless I cover my face first.
I don't mind my genitals quite so much, partly because I don't spend a lot of time looking at them. Unless I'm in the shower, in which case I try not to look. In reality, I don't mind the penis- I don't like it, but it doesn't drive me mad the way my testicles do; I absolutely despise them, even just the word makes me cringe.
I'm boyish enough in nature that I don't mind being raised a boy the way some of you might, but do hate not being able to relate to girls biologically- whenever I hear an anecdote about a girl's period, I feel like I'm supposed to be able to relate, and it frustrates me that I can't.
Most days I can overlook my sex- I've spent my whole life trying to overlook my various physical defects- but I can usually put it out of my mind and just focus on how I feel- until I pass a mirror.
It's bothered me my entire life. I will be 42 in September, and happy that at least I'm doing something about it (HRT). Though I may never get SRS, I'm happy the the T-blockers at doing their job because it's much easier to tuck when I have to.
As with most of us that developed fully male, I too am not happy with broad shoulders, big upper body, facial hair, and feet a size to large to easily find shoes. But it could be worse. I could've been dead had I decided to take the easy way out. So now my life has purpose and I'm determined to make the changes needed to live my life as I please.
As a child my family were mostly doers and not thinkers. My parents were masters of making unmemorable small talk. My dad was friendly and outgoing and this made him an excellent car salesman. The point, up until I was thirteen and male hormones kicked in I didn't much think about rather I was male or female. Mostly I was a tomboy from what I can figure now. There were always just a few kids that lived around our house and the boys and girls played outside together. Neither of my parents left there cloths laying around and my parent bed room was strictly off limits at all times. I remember once finding a dress in our walk in closet which I tried on and really really liked it.
When I was 13 in 1959 and male hormones started changing my life my father was in the hospital with cancer and would only come home to live for about a month before he died.
This is when my body said male, but my heart said female. But there was nothing I could do but try the guy thing. In those days girls were not born with boys' bodies. If you had a male body, you had to grow up to be a man. Neither side of the male female line would accept you in small town rural Dakota, unless you had exceptional circumstances and nobody that I was aware of did.
It did not matter if I was a girl in a boy's body, I felt that I had no choice but to go down that rode which did lead to marriage and children and eventually grand children. What I could do was day dream and have fantasies about circumstances in which I magically morphed into a beautiful woman, but it didn't happen. So I worked hard without any male feelings of accomplishment, worked in a female environment of teaching elementary school, changed diapers and bottle fed my children and raised five of them. I washed the clothes so when my ex threw something out or filled the bag for the thrift shop I would gradually collect one or two dresses, pantyhose, and underwear. I struggled on until my middle fifties when it all fell apart. I didn't drink, cheat, wasn't abusive, or controlling but my ex wanted her own life and left with the 14 year old in a fit of anger.
Michelle hatched from her shell of obscurity. I wasn't out openly, just at home, but the male underwear were gone. Everything that I feared would happen if, Michelle would have come out of her shell was happening anyway. After two years alone I found someone who would accept me at least as a cross dresser, even though I wasn't. Neither one of us were doing well alone, but together we straightened out our lives. until four years ago when the job world disappeared and I reached the age I could get Social Security so I went 24/7/365.
What could I loose now that I had not already lost. But the sky didn't fall. I wasn't stoned or bullied. I go shopping for dresses with my spouse and the kids. I regret not giving up my fears earlier. I feel that the circle of life came around and I may well have ended up where I am now only younger when I had a full head of hair. If I wear a pony tail the bald spots are faintly visible. I am finding my self becoming more and more effeminate even with out hormones. I am out to the world on Facebook and MySpace and my past students and friend have not run away. I live thousands of miles from what's left of my birth family but they have seen me on Facebook. My older children live on the west coast while I am on the east but they also see me on Facebook. My two older sons may have problems with it, but they shut me out of their private lives back when my marriage broke up 13 years ago.
What I am trying to say in around about way is that some of our choices and decisions may not matter because in the end what we fear most happens for other reasons and we still end up dealing with our transitions. But when we transition at a older age most of our past life and history is in another gender. If we don't want to cut ourselves off from our past at the most we will always be transgender males or females and even if we are accepted as totally male or female by those around us, there will be reminders such as when a kid shows up and says, "Hi. Dad!" Then those in the darkness about our pasts will be wondering how a woman fathered a son. But that's life.