I have not seen anyone talk about this and I think it's something which happens to all of us when we are raised into our male gender roles.
I feel as if my male upbringing has had an effect on me and how I see my self. Some times when I associate with girls or do female things I get a weird sense of humiliation that I am doing this.
I sometimes have trouble seeing myself as a girl because I knw that I look to other people like a guy, but also because I as a kid believed my parents when they said I was a guy and associated with them because I thought I was one of them.
Although I have always know something was up. I had a break though recently when I realised that I associated with girls on a much deeper level than previously thought. I also realised that my attraction to women was actually homosexual not straight behaviour. This is good and all, but a little slow.
I think a lot of people have had those feelings. I certainly did in the beginning. They tended to fall away as time went on and I got in touch with how unbelievably amazing it was to be able to walk the earth as a real female.
HRT will break down any emotional issue's associated with male behavior. You will feel so different and hanging on to the fragile masculinity will not be a problem. :)
I'm very early in a transition too and have run into this. The people I've told all expected that the next time they saw me, it would be like flipping a switch and here's Emily. I had to explain to them that after decades of learning to hide every little thing about myself, when I try to drop those defenses, I actually feel like I'm doing something wrong.
I've been living fulltime at home for about a month now, using my natural mannerisms all the time and the longer I do it, the less taboo it seems. I've started to notice that I no longer have a pure male presentation. It's just the clothes and the pitch of my voice that's my guy mode now. I still use the feminine movements and voice inflections. I went to a support group meeting dressed as Emily and they thought I was FTM.
I'm right there with you Emily and highlight. Letting go of those male defenses is hard... I have to get over thinking the male defenses are the natural mannerisms... When realizing when I let go of them, the female in me feels much more natural...
Hang in there.
+1 on this. Big barrier for me. Talking alot about this with my gender therapist.
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I feel that way as well and then I really feel bad when I slip into my male persona out of habit when I'm around guys.
I feel like such a fraud. I really do hope it gets easier to just be me when I start e.
I'm very thankful that the band I'm in is supportive of me and our female singer treats me like a sister.
Ella
Quote from: Emileeeee on July 13, 2015, 08:08:28 AM
...after decades of learning to hide every little thing about myself, when I try to drop those defenses, I actually feel like I'm doing something wrong.
I totally identify with that.
Oh yes. This is actually something I'm very concretely going through right at the moment and I think a contributing factor is that I'm starting to pass a bit. It's taken me years to not spontaneously gender myself incorrectly out of sheer habit but that has flipped quite recently. It has never been out of shame about being girly otherwise, but I am still working on getting over my guilt of being a lesbian since that is something I managed to get myself quite the complex over the past 15 years before my transition. Being in an accepting lesbian relationship has helped, but I'm still working on it.