Cisgender or transgender, a lot of them kinda look masculine to me. No joke. A lot of cis women look kind of masculine to me now.
It bothers me because now I can't really reliably tell how I personally look. I kind of hate how I look on some days and I'm OK with myself on others. Some days I look in the mirror and say, "oh crap not him again. Other days I say, "meh; I'm late for work that will do."
What could cause this? I'm guessing that since I transitioned I looked for masculine features in women to see them in myself. Or hormonal brain changes? I don't have a single inkling of attraction to women now at all. None. Zip, zero, nada. I'm thinking the lower T and high E has altered my brain chemistry some?
Or I could just be having a wild imagination?
I find I study how people look a lot more carefully than I ever did in the past. I never used to notice the subtle differences be male and female, and if someone was clearly male or female as 99% or people are then I'd never look further. These days I find myself seeing the male in women and the female in men and wondering about it.
I tend not to look at myself.
I'd say you're just being more observant. A lot of cis women have very distinctively masculine features.
I have my moms big shoulders... They measure about the same, but I'm 6 inches taller than her.
Hugs,
- Katie
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I went through this last November. I kept comparing the features that I felt looked masculine on my face to the same features on other women. Around that time, I went to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 in the theaters. At one point in the movie, there was an extreme closeup of Jennifer Lawrence's face and I sat there stunned as I noticed that she had brow bossing that was cleverly covered up by makeup and a small, but noticeable, Adam's apple. Later that week, I noticed that Jessica Alba has the same deep set eye sockets as myself, but was using certain makeup tricks to make them appear shallower. At that point, I simply stopped worrying about my features anymore and just practiced my makeup skills to be able to mask the "flaws" in the same way.
I'm more observant , picking up details
One thing to remember is that we all (cis and trans women and men) have both masculine and feminine features. When you read someone as male, you see more masculine and female more feminine features stick out. We as trans women see more of everything in between. 98% of the time I can tell if a woman in transgender where most cis-gendered person probably couldn't tell, but must of us trans women can. As a side note, I've also seen cis-women that I first thought were trans but were not. (Took me a longer to determine that they were not.)
I think you're describing frequency illusion (Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon). You know, once you're clued into a particular pattern or idea, you see it everywhere.
I thought I had never encountered a trans person before I became trans. Now I see other trans persons routinely, and probably even mistakenly label the occasional masculine women as a trans-women. The truth is that I just wasn't clued in before, and now that I am, I search for the tell-tale features all the time (in others and myself).
The bad news, like you said, is that you see yourself as more masculine than other people do (who aren't clued in yet anyway).
Quote from: iKate on September 25, 2015, 05:08:08 PM
Cisgender or transgender, a lot of them kinda look masculine to me. No joke. A lot of cis women look kind of masculine to me now.
[snip]
Or I could just be having a wild imagination?
Not quite the same thing, but .....
Nowadays I can tell when a woman is attractive without feeling any attraction to her. Her beauty is obvious in a more detached way. I can also see more clearly how other women enhance their looks via various methods.
When I see guys going slightly crazy about a woman I can see what they are attracted by and wonder why it has such a huge effect them. Previously it probably would have had a huge effect on me too.
So, iKate, I wonder if part of it is simply that you see women without the male hormonal filters?
How do guys look these days? I always wondered what the heck women saw in blokes but now I am starting to get some idea of what it is. I can see why some guys have an attraction and previously I would not have noticed that.
Quote from: mfox on September 26, 2015, 07:48:14 AM
I think you're describing frequency illusion (Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon). You know, once you're clued into a particular pattern or idea, you see it everywhere.
I thought I had never encountered a trans person before I became trans. Now I see other trans persons routinely, and probably even mistakenly label the occasional masculine women as a trans-women. The truth is that I just wasn't clued in before, and now that I am, I search for the tell-tale features all the time (in others and myself).
The bad news, like you said, is that you see yourself as more masculine than other people do (who aren't clued in yet anyway).
This I think makes the most sense. Thank you.
A lot of women do have features of one kind or another that society generally considers to be masculine just as a lot of guys have features that society considers to be feminine I've noticed it all my life and really its no big deal as most people don't even notice. Now that your being critical of how feminine you look your seeing masculine qualities in other women. So use it to your advantage and look at those women that you see these qualities in and figure out why they pass as women (usually its the first thing you think of when looking at them and asking yourself this question) they might be doing something that can help you better pass yourself.
I'm more attractive, more "female," better dressed (better behaved) than a lot of cis-F I see. Still it is mostly clear to public I'm cis-M, but middle gender somewhere. Small children sometimes can't quite figure.
I'm just me, always have been, of late (14 Jul 2015) more comfortable, more out. But I'm not making physical, surgical, hormone changes in my life. I'm entirely NOT concerned about "passing" as someone different than who I am, who I've been 67 yrs.
Not changing names, no state/fed ID gender swap, no employment issues because retired. Not looking for a partner.
We're wearing more interesting attire, more authentic, more expressive. It gets feminist, gender/political/theorectical.