No long explenations. If you had to answer this question to someone, how would you answer them in short? For many cis people it is the genital that says it, what is it for you?
I got an answer ready I just first would like to see some others :P.
It's who you are on in the inside. It's not the sexual origins or the secondary and primary sex characteristics. I'm nor saying those sex characteristics are not important to me, but I'm saying it doesn't make you anymore or less a man or woman.
Mariah
Really complicated question.
In contrast to a lot of people, I think gender is very, very complex. It's a combination of how you see yourself, how the world sees you, your socialization, your body, your experiences, your outlook, and your personal characteristics.
People whose gender identity matches their physical body don't have have this issue.
For people like me, who clearly saw myself as a man a few years ago, but am now living fulltime as a woman, the answer is much more complicated than "you were always a woman, you just never knew it." True I have a brain structure somewhere deep inside my cortex that wants me to be female. That's what makes me trans. But the rest of my brain, body, socialization, and experiences were decidedly male. I saw myself as a male, as did everyone else in my life.
I think it's VERY far fetched to say I was a woman back then.
So when did I become a woman? I honestly don't know. There was no point at which I made the irrevocable decision to change genders. I got my feet wet a little at a time. By the time I had SRS this June, everyone in my life saw me as a woman, and I was living and presenting 100% as a female. But there was no defining moment in between when I made my transition. The day that I went fulltime is a candidate. Maybe I went from being "mostly" male to mostly female at that time. But I didn't feel any different from that day to the next. My clothes, voice, and preferred name/pronouns changed but the person I was didn't.
The best answer I can give is "it's complicated".
You're a man when you're an adult human whose brain is wired to expect a male body.
You're a woman when you're an adult human whose brain is wired to expect a female body.
If one could swap the brains of a cis man and cis woman, they'd likely both be horrified upon waking. Because the brain is the person, not the body.
I tell people when I'm coming out to them that my "core" or "soul" as a person has always felt like a females. Not so much as my brain thinks I'm female, but deep down I feel that I am female. If that makes any sense? I suck at getting my point across via typing. Lol
I think therefor I am ( Rene Descartes )
Well, objectively speaking, I was always a man. That's how my brain is. But socially speaking, I've found that people just didn't consider me to be a man because I didn't appear to be one, and I've discovered that, for the most part, when people know of my past they no longer see me as the same as other men. It's not right, but it's how it is. So I can't say I was living as a man when I was early into transition. That didn't make me a woman, but there was certainly a denial of access to manhood happening there.
Quote from: Leeloo_Dallas on November 03, 2014, 11:15:40 AM
I tell people when I'm coming out to them that my "core" or "soul" as a person has always felt like a females. Not so much as my brain thinks I'm female, but deep down I feel that I am female. If that makes any sense? I suck at getting my point across via typing. Lol
That's a GREAT way to put it. Who you are inside - in your soul - is who you were meant to be.
This thread just made me think of Angel from the musical RENT. She was male on the outside, but her soul was female and presented as such to Mimi in the "tunnel of light". So Angel was truly female!
Quote from: suzifrommd on November 03, 2014, 07:52:47 AM
Really complicated question.
In contrast to a lot of people, I think gender is very, very complex. It's a combination of how you see yourself, how the world sees you, your socialization, your body, your experiences, your outlook, and your personal characteristics.
People whose gender identity matches their physical body don't have have this issue.
For people like me, who clearly saw myself as a man a few years ago, but am now living fulltime as a woman, the answer is much more complicated than "you were always a woman, you just never knew it." True I have a brain structure somewhere deep inside my cortex that wants me to be female. That's what makes me trans. But the rest of my brain, body, socialization, and experiences were decidedly male. I saw myself as a male, as did everyone else in my life.
I think it's VERY far fetched to say I was a woman back then.
So when did I become a woman? I honestly don't know. There was no point at which I made the irrevocable decision to change genders. I got my feet wet a little at a time. By the time I had SRS this June, everyone in my life saw me as a woman, and I was living and presenting 100% as a female. But there was no defining moment in between when I made my transition. The day that I went fulltime is a candidate. Maybe I went from being "mostly" male to mostly female at that time. But I didn't feel any different from that day to the next. My clothes, voice, and preferred name/pronouns changed but the person I was didn't.
The best answer I can give is "it's complicated".
This is very similar to my own thoughts :)
I will add that I do feel like I am 100% woman even though I don't have the same parts as most! Much of the way I interact and think has changed dramatically and most of this I believe was caused by how I am perceived, treated and interact with men and woman....some also could be from hrt.
What causes me to pause and question myself at times is also the way I think at times. I have determined that most of this is because I have not been raised or lived as a women all my life. I am finding this out more as I date and interact intimately on a verbal level and when I interact on a more intimate level with other females......meaning talking about men, aging, children and such.
When talking with other women about past dating experiences, mine are quite different. Not because of the obvious, because if I am talking about my past it is as if I was a woman all my life....but I also do have dating experiences with men, But my experiences are still different, mainly because there was no sex involved. I am finding out that sex plays a huge part in dating for woman as it does for men. But this is one area I have no knowledge of :(
Answer with a question- " if you were born blind and deaf and never saw or heard the difference between a male or female, would you still think of yourself as the gender that you are? Would you still know how you feel?" Most would likely answer yes and then continue with "I know who I am and my appearance, therfore , should have no bearing on how I identify myself . if you don't need to know what a man looks like or sounds like to know you are a man then how can looks be relevant to it?
Hi,
Simple answer when you,r born an intersexed person your both what happens after that does not really matter, not in my case . your different yet normal i know it is for myself , how others see that, well try 1500 friends and ask them what it means to be accepted. as i am ,
I dont see male or female because im a mix of both and have a lovely life,
For the record im an intersexed female
...noeleena...
Quote from: Michaela Whimsy on November 06, 2014, 10:34:44 PM
Answer with a question- " if you were born blind and deaf and never saw or heard the difference between a male or female, would you still think of yourself as the gender that you are? Would you still know how you feel?" Most would likely answer yes and then continue with "I know who I am and my appearance, therfore , should have no bearing on how I identify myself . if you don't need to know what a man looks like or sounds like to know you are a man then how can looks be relevant to it?
Not a "yes" here. My gender dysphoria is largely social. I want be around women, do the sort of things that they do. If men wore skirts and women wore ties, I'd want to wear the ties, but how would I know that if I didn't see what people wore?
I also wanted a female body, but only when I saw what females had and saw what I had. Before that I didn't know there could be any different.
Maybe I'm just an atypical trans person or maybe not really trans.
Quote from: Michaela Whimsy on November 06, 2014, 10:34:44 PM
Answer with a question- " if you were born blind and deaf and never saw or heard the difference between a male or female, would you still think of yourself as the gender that you are? Would you still know how you feel?" Most would likely answer yes and then continue with "I know who I am and my appearance, therfore , should have no bearing on how I identify myself . if you don't need to know what a man looks like or sounds like to know you are a man then how can looks be relevant to it?
I do something like that too, but since usually men are the ones who are so weirdened out by it I ask them if they suddenly have a strong urge to put make-up on and present as a girl if I would chop their penis off :P.
Honestly, I'd tell them that I was a woman even before transition.
Going into transition it was so easy to think that somehow I had to "become" a woman, had to earn it somehow... either with passing in public, or being full-time, or being on HRT for a certain amount of time, or "male fail"ing, or surgery, some arbitraty big moment where I'd be complete and could earn the right to call myself female now.
But when I finally did go full-time, I realized something... there was nothing to earn. There was no moment where I magically switched from male to female. I was still exactly the same person. I acted the same, wore the clothes that I wanted, made the same jokes, liked the exact same things. The only difference is that I wasn't constantly plagued by a feeling of "wrongness" anymore, while acting that way and doing those things. And I wasn't constantly holding myself back anymore either, stopping myself from doing the things that I really wanted to do, acting the way that I really wanted to act, because "it would be wrong for a guy to do that."
That's the thing. I was always a woman. The problem was that I wasn't free to be the person that I knew I was, because society kept telling me that it was impossible for me to be female because of my body. But I've always known it. Ever since puberty started, I've known that my body wasn't supposed to be going through a male puberty, and that I hated being treated like a guy, and knew that being a girl would be what felt "right." I didn't understand it at the time, I thought I was just a boy who wished that I was a girl, and being a girl was something that I'd have to earn, or worse, that I could never be one at all. But the truth is, it was my mind telling me that I really was a girl, and that the problem was that I wasn't free to be who I knew I should be. I realized that the only thing that was ever wrong was the society that told me that I couldn't be a girl, because they don't understand that gender is in the head, not the body or the genitals. I was never a man. I was just a woman with a penis who went through the wrong puberty against my will because I didn't know there was any other option at the time, and didn't know that it was perfectly okay to be female even though I wasn't born with a vagina.
Quote from: Kirey on November 03, 2014, 06:58:25 AM
No long explenations. If you had to answer this question to someone, how would you answer them in short? For many cis people it is the genital that says it, what is it for you?
I got an answer ready I just first would like to see some others :P.
I was thinking about this recently...and I'm sure if I re-mannified myself (so the trans- issue didn't come up) and asked a group of cis- people "What makes a man, a "man"?" or "What makes a woman, a "woman"?" no one would answer, "Well the first thing is he MUST have a penis!" The answers would revolve around character and purpose of one's life; all of which are matters of the heart and mind, not the body.
In fact, one's genitals probably wouldn't even be mentioned in the entire discussion...and if it were, it'd beg the question of "my penis is bigger than his...am I more of a man than him?" And women without wombs, etc.
Genitals are not relevant to gender, even among cis-people. But, when someone presents as trans, suddenly "It Is The Law!" Obviously they have a hangup of some sort on THEIR genitals. Oh yes--they're cis-,
which means their body AND mind are aligned.
This suggests there is something in the heart and mind that defines man and woman; and most of those things are set in utero and in early life.Anyway, that's what I think. It's not a long essay, but might be longer than you wanted. :)
Quote from: Carrie Liz on November 07, 2014, 12:15:17 PM
Honestly, I'd tell them that I was a woman even before transition.
Going into transition it was so easy to think that somehow I had to "become" a woman, had to earn it somehow... either with passing in public, or being full-time, or being on HRT for a certain amount of time, or "male fail"ing, or surgery, some arbitraty big moment where I'd be complete and could earn the right to call myself female now.
But when I finally did go full-time, I realized something... there was nothing to earn. There was no moment where I magically switched from male to female. I was still exactly the same person. I acted the same, wore the clothes that I wanted, made the same jokes, liked the exact same things. The only difference is that I wasn't constantly plagued by a feeling of "wrongness" anymore, while acting that way and doing those things. And I wasn't constantly holding myself back anymore either, stopping myself from doing the things that I really wanted to do, acting the way that I really wanted to act, because "it would be wrong for a guy to do that."
That's the thing. I was always a woman. The problem was that I wasn't free to be the person that I knew I was, because society kept telling me that it was impossible for me to be female because of my body. But I've always known it. Ever since puberty started, I've known that my body wasn't supposed to be going through a male puberty, and that I hated being treated like a guy, and knew that being a girl would be what felt "right." I didn't understand it at the time, I thought I was just a boy who wished that I was a girl, and being a girl was something that I'd have to earn, or worse, that I could never be one at all. But the truth is, it was my mind telling me that I really was a girl, and that the problem was that I wasn't free to be who I knew I should be. I realized that the only thing that was ever wrong was the society that told me that I couldn't be a girl, because they don't understand that gender is in the head, not the body or the genitals. I was never a man. I was just a woman with a penis who went through the wrong puberty against my will because I didn't know there was any other option at the time, and didn't know that it was perfectly okay to be female even though I wasn't born with a vagina.
Oh, Liz, this is so well written and clearly thought out. Seems like your experience and mine were so similar. Though I haven't gotten over the mindset that being a woman is something I'd have to earn (and would basically be impossible, because I am whoever I am, woman or not.) I've been content to be me and live as a woman, which is beyond my wildest wishes.
But what you wrote is causing me to see it in a different way. Thank you.
You're a man or a woman when the neurological phase of development is finished. If the body is male and the brain is male, then you are male. If the body and brain develop out of alignment, the brain is the deciding factor. The body gender can be altered, but the brain cannot. The end. Here's a cookie. :P
The problem with many transgender people is they are way too fixated on these types of things. If you are a women then "be" a woman. I am a woman by simply being myself...no fixation necessary.
If you identify as a woman you are a woman. If you identify as a man you are a man. No one else can tell you what your identity is.
OK, I've totally changed my answer (teacher, can I do that?)
I think when I first put on my wig and fake breasts with an intention to be seen as a woman, I became female. When I took them off back home, I became male again.
I permanently became female when I began living as full-time in June '13.
Before you send the trans SWAT team my way, hear me out.
For most of my life I considered myself male, as did everyone else in my life. True I was trans, meaning I had a brain structure that wanted me to be female, but the rest of my being was male. There's no way I could be considered female at that point.
I now, believe I am largely female (though non-binary, but that's a different post...). I've been trying to work out the semantics of when I actually BECAME female, because that's the way it feels to me. This morning I finally came to my conclusion - it's all about intention. When I decided I wanted to be seen as a woman, that's when I became a woman, because certainly nothing changed INSIDE. I'm still the same person I was as a male. I'm just wearing different clothes, using different mannerisms, and using a different voice. I've also been surgically altered, but that didn't change my gender.
I know this is different from most other people's experience, and I don't mean to invalidate other people's points of view. But this is how I see it - for me it's all about intention.
Thoughts?
When I was 16 I would cross dress and go out in public....barely a look from anyone or anything said to me, and this wasn't during a time where people were more accepting. I felt like a woman and thought I looked fairly good. Not much different than how things are now.....but in reality it is 1000% different than now. Mainly cause I had to take it all off and also change my persona.
Fast forward many years till about 8 years ago. Still cross dressing but dressing more like a "cross dresser" still going out shopping and such...not getting too much attention but a few comments.....about 900% than now.
3 years pass and I finally admit I am transsexual (hate that word!) still cross dressing but not going out much, I feel a weight has been lifted and can now start to live my life like it was meant.....about 600% different than now
2 years of basically isolating myself and on unsubscribed hrt....starting to feel and appear as I should and even being gendered female at times......about 300% difference than now.
Another year and now on full dose of prescribe hrt....being gendered female constantly but living as a man. Feeling more like I should but still about 300% different than now. Mainly because I am still legally a man and working as one.
Another year pasts, hrt continues, name change, start new job as myself. come out to more family and people, body, face and hair is fairly decent and in the female range. I think this is what it's like to be a woman.....wrong still about 100% different than now.
3 years past, my appearance has changed a little more, have learned to style (or not style!) my hair, make up routine is....well routine, seeing female in mirror ALWAYS!! Finally this is what it means to be female....I am there!! But what happened in those 3 years to make this change feel more complete was how I was accepted and treated like any other female. Some good some bad....but all because I am a woman. Even when I am not looking so good....I am still a woman. How I feel now compare to even 3 years ago is 100% different....and even than I thought that was how it felt to be a woman. Compare to many years ago when 16....is completely nothing like I thought it would be. My life is so much the same, yet so so different! Some has been from just getting older, but I feel like such a normal woman and it had nothing to do with me trying....everyone else in society did it for me!!
What did it was living!! And I am positive 3 years form now I will feel it is almost 100% different....especially if I have grs!! Even just recently I am still learning why woman may treat men badly when it comes to dating......it is our chance to be in control. This is something I don't like to do to men or anyone....but hell I am a woman now and I want my free drinks!!!! :)
Sorry, I have no "short answer" to this question, so I can't answer.