Hi guys, girls (I mean, everybody).
I´ve got a question for you.
Two gender therapists so far have said that I look "boyish". When the first one said it, I was pre-T, so okay, I get it. I did not like to hear it though. However my current gender therapist said the same yesterday, and she was about to say "I mean, you don´t look like a..." and I suppose the rest of the sentence was "man yet".
I hate it. I´m thirty this year. Being called boyish is not something I enjoy.
I know that I look good and I pass full time, but somehow it still aggravates me to hear them say this.
Would it aggravate you? What do you think? I´ll try to post a picture.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fj67SxJC.jpg&hash=3d14604523bfa48831f5d4d69e9d98597abccabe)
You look like a (good looking!) man to me.
In 20 years, "looking boyish" will be a great thing! Trust me. (I'm 55, btw. 😊)
Ryuichi
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haha, true.
In my head I equate "boyish" to "not being man enough". I suppose I get read as in my early twenties...
That's how it is with many/most transgender people..they typically look like young people into older ages. If they are transwomen, the female hormones keep their skin young, and if they are transmales, the more female facial features make them resemble boys.
Yes, that would annoy the hell out of me.
You look older than a lot of FTMs I've seen. If I had to casually guess your age I'd peg you around 23--that may be irritating to hear but I try to keep it real--and that's a decent stretch beyond 'boyish'. That word conjures images of tweens/young teens to me.
In some odd way they're probably trying to be supportive and affirming but pretty much no thirty year old man wants to hear the word 'boy' in correlation to themselves. Anyway, I wouldn't sweat it too much; people can be extremely clueless.
This is going to sound stupid but I'm jealous as **** over the size/shape of your ears. They're partly what's helping to age and masculinize your face so efficiently.
Ok, good to know I´m not the only one. I wasn´t sure if I was overreacting to it. Maybe a bit.
Quote from: Raell on July 12, 2017, 10:53:25 AM
That's how it is with many/most transgender people..they typically look like young people into older ages. If they are transwomen, the female hormones keep their skin young, and if they are transmales, the more female facial features make them resemble boys.
I´m not sure about that though. I´ve seen many FTM who look, well, like grown men. As for MTF, I´ve never really fixated on how they look age-wise. But as Stone Magnum said, a man (particularly later on) does not like being described as "boy". I suppose it´s some sort of macho thing (that I do suffer of :P )
@Stone Magnum if it helps, I was extremely self-conscious about my ears when I was living as female... ^^
Quote from: Raell on July 12, 2017, 10:53:25 AM
That's how it is with many/most transgender people..they typically look like young people into older ages.
... and if they are transmales, the more female facial features make them resemble boys.
Okay, that explains my "boyish" looks. I still get misgendered every now and then. [emoji20]
November Fox, would you mind if we make this a thread where everyone can post pics to ask this question? I have some facial hair now, and I too would love to find where others think I am age-wise on my transition. If not, its cool.
Ryuichi
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You look like a young adult male(not a teenager); not boyish, in my opinion.
You look like you're in your 20s to me. Definitely look like a man tho
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You look like a very handsome man in your in your mid 20s.
It would annoy me coming from therapists... of all people they should be aware that the goal is not to make the client feel negatively about their looks.
Quote from: November Fox on July 12, 2017, 11:04:33 AM
@Stone Magnum if it helps, I was extremely self-conscious about my ears when I was living as female... ^^
I could understand that, but 10/10 they're working for you now.
It's funny, isn't it? The things that don't 'fit' work out so well in our favor after the fact.
I like to think that my body wanted to develop male regardless of the hormonal system. I actually had quite a pronounced adam´s apple, which people thought was weird (females cannot have adam´s apples, etc..).
Quote from: Viktor on July 12, 2017, 11:40:55 AM
It would annoy me coming from therapists... of all people they should be aware that the goal is not to make the client feel negatively about their looks.
The weird thing is that it´s only therapists who say that to me. Nobody else ever has. You´d think that they would know better, but hey.
Quote from: Ryuichi13 on July 12, 2017, 11:15:45 AM
November Fox, would you mind if we make this a thread where everyone can post pics to ask this question? I have some facial hair now, and I too would love to find where others think I am age-wise on my transition. If not, its cool.
Not at all, go ahead!
Yeah, I'd say 23-26ish, as someone who is just about 21 you look like you're a little older than me by a few years. Definitely I wouldn't call you "boyish."
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You look late 20"s
You look like a handsome 20 something year old to me. Most 30 year old men would love to look like you.
If you want to look like most older men, I would suggest a crappy diet to give you a beer belly and taking up smoking to wreck your skin.
It's funny we all want to look older until we are.
Take care,
Paige :)
You are about my age and if I had to take a guess, I'd say you are about my age.
Also pretty damn good looking, if you don't mind a compliment.
I get this all the time too -- I'm 26 in a month and still look 17
I'm a postgraduate student and my classmates were still surprised that i'm 25
like someone said they thought i was 17 when we were sitting in a bar after they watched me buy and drink two glasses of wine, and we talked about our masters degrees... like it's cool to be a child prodigy but really
I haven't gotten the "boyish" comment specifically but many people think I'm younger than I am. I'm 25, but many people have said I look 18. (Though this was also true when I was presenting as a female.)
Personally, I don't mind it. Like others have said, it's usually better to look younger than you are than older than you are. I don't think "boyish" means "unmanly" either. A boy is still a male; maybe your therapists were saying that you have a youthful, energetic look about you?
Quote from: Julia1996 on July 12, 2017, 11:35:52 AM
You look like a very handsome man in your in your mid 20s.
As usual....What she said! :icon_yes:
I think you look about 23-25!
Quote from: transguymac on July 12, 2017, 09:07:06 PM
As usual....What she said! :icon_yes:
I think you look about 23-25!
I also agree with this. Early twenties would have been my guess. And definitely masculine. :)
I feel your pain with the whole looking young thing. I had someone ask how old I was, because they thought I was about 16, which is ten years younger than I am... Hopefully that will get a bit better once on on T for a while.
You look more masculine then several of my mid 20's cis male friends.
I would have said early 20's as well.
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Quote from: November Fox on July 12, 2017, 10:20:12 AM
I hate it. I´m thirty this year. Being called boyish is not something I enjoy.
I know that I look good and I pass full time, but somehow it still aggravates me to hear them say this.
As most others have said, I wouldn't have thought you were 30, but I wouldn't think boyish as that seems more like someone in their teens. I teach college students, and I don't normally think my 18 year old cis-male students look boyish necessarily. A few over the years, but I certainly wouldn't say that to them because it seems condescending and like an insult.
Also I agree with what a few others have said that it's rather insensitive of a therapist to say it especially one that is specifically a gender therapist. Do they know that this has offended you? If they did, I would hope they would stop saying it.
Before I discovered I was transgender, I had a therapist who wanted to call me lady all the time and say things like you're a smart lady. I about punched him the first time he said it, and I told him that I never wanted him to call me that again. He's like what should I call you, woman? No, why can't you just call me a person and take gender out of it. That should have been a clue to him, but it wasn't. He would still do it once in a while, but he would catch it and rephrase. I appreciated the fact that he understood it bothered me and attempted to change.
Even without taking hormones, it might be the same for partial transmales since I was mistaken for being a middle school student, or teenager, into my 30s.
At 25, I was "arrested" by a truant officer while riding my bicycle past a middle school. I had to argue with him while he mocked my protests and told me to "Get back inside this minute, young lady!"
At the same age I was screamed at and ordered out of a fancy restaurant where I was applying for a job. When I showed the manager my driver's license, he scoffed, and told me it was probably a fake ID and to "get out of here, and don't come back!"
When I had my daughter at age 31 (I was married and also had a 3 year old son), people in my new church told me they had been feeling sorry for me, assuming I was a homeless teenage mother.
When I went into stores to buy things, I was routinely ignored, or insulted by salespersons who thought I was a teenaged shop lifter, and showing them my money made no difference.
The insults and being ignored stopped with my first streak of gray hair in my 40s. I was immensely relieved.
I'm probably an oddity in that I like being boyish,
I pass well, so I'm not "boyish" as in babby face, smol body, bieber hair. I'm pretty much your ideal, average teen male, despite being 22. I like that. I like keeping the energy and vibrancy of my youth, being a teen is probably my ideal age. Granted, people these days seem to acknowledge I am 20 as well, though I could more or less pass for younger.
If T makes me remain "boyish" for awhile I wouldn't mind too much. It may be confusing the older I get if I have to say I'm 30something-40something. But I think the look like I drank from a fountain of youth doesn't bother me if people didn't know my age. My careers don't seem to be anything that normal twenty-somethings do instead of 30+ veterans who have seen and done a lot, so I don't think it'll be a big deal.
Anyways, I took this to be about me :P You look like a young man, I'd say just hitting 30 still counts as late twenties, you look fine to me.I think plenty of thirties men still have the youthful essence of their twenties, anyways. Regarding aging, that still comes with time. I don't think people will automatically assume you aren't a man if you don't looked aged enough to the number of years you are. When you grow old your body will pretty much catch up with your age so I don't believe it's a huge issue.
Quote from: Raell on July 12, 2017, 10:42:47 PM
At 25, I was "arrested" by a truant officer while riding my bicycle past a middle school. I had to argue with him while he mocked my protests and told me to "Get back inside this minute, young lady!"
At the same age I was screamed at and ordered out of a fancy restaurant where I was applying for a job. When I showed the manager my driver's license, he scoffed, and told me it was probably a fake ID and to "get out of here, and don't come back!"
When I had my daughter at age 31 (I was married and also had a 3 year old son), people in my new church told me they had been feeling sorry for me, assuming I was a homeless teenage mother.
Ahhahahaha I shouldn't be laughing here, but this sounds so absurd I can't help myself ;D Glad you are past that point in your life tho.
That reminds me, I used to look younger than my age too (and like you, I'm not on hormones other than my own) and while I didn't mind, I had a few occasions when things went outright awkward. My favorite one is probably when I was 27 and had been chatting up this boy I met at an airport and we ended up going to the same hotel. Okay, I figured he'd be a bit younger than me, but he was traveling alone, far from home and I had told him what I do and thought it was implied we're both adults. Yet just before entering the room he happened to ask my age and I told him, he was just staring at me eyes wide and then said "I thought you were seventeen..." Then he ran off for good. That had me confused. Either it was a clever plan of him to opt out without being blatantly rude(??) or I barely dodged a bullet... either way the next time I'll make a point asking ID and not assume anything...
During the past year or so I have experienced a radical ageing process, I have no idea why but in few months something changed and now I look my age. Oh well, I still don't mind.
Thanks for all the love (...that´s more compliments in a day than I got the entire year ;D)
I don´t mind looking young so much as the connotation of the word, I suppose. I don´t entirely mind being pegged as younger than I actually am either. (Although it is annoying when people automatically assume you must be less experienced than them).
"Boyish" calls up the sort of lack of maturity, for me, that I see mostly in frat guys who hang around after hours on the street. My therapist doesn´t know that, but if I were to tell her that she comes across more girl than woman, I wonder if she´d be pleased at all... also, she knows that I don´t like the comment.
Quote from: N A on July 13, 2017, 01:45:01 PM
... either way the next time I'll make a point asking ID and not assume anything...
"You are stunning, can I see some ID please?" xD
Quote from: Raell on July 12, 2017, 10:42:47 PM
When I went into stores to buy things, I was routinely ignored, or insulted by salespersons who thought I was a teenaged shop lifter, and showing them my money made no difference.
Regardless of their perception of age, the people you mention must really hate younger people... O_o
Quote from: November Fox on July 13, 2017, 02:48:54 PM
"You are stunning, can I see some ID please?" xD
Now when you put it that way, it does sound like someone's about to get bitchslapped rather than laid ;D It sounded better in my head though...
Quote from: N A on July 13, 2017, 01:45:01 PM
Yet just before entering the room he happened to ask my age and I told him, he was just staring at me eyes wide and then said "I thought you were seventeen..."
He was looking for somebody underaged for illegal acts. Not the most respectable person to be around but both of you would have been consenting adults had the law entered the room.
Quote from: November Fox on July 12, 2017, 11:57:31 AM
I like to think that my body wanted to develop male regardless of the hormonal system. I actually had quite a pronounced adam´s apple, which people thought was weird (females cannot have adam´s apples, etc..).
The weird thing is that it´s only therapists who say that to me. Nobody else ever has. You´d think that they would know better, but hey.
Not at all, go ahead!
Coolies! Thanks, man!
I'll have to take a good pic of me. Unfortunatly, my beard is so light it might not show up unless I use a strong light. And my mustache is even lighter.
I looked today and I think I see a little bit of an adam's apple! I'm hoping I end up with one, despite my chubby throat. 😊
Ryuichi
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Quote from: Dena on July 13, 2017, 06:19:08 PM
He was looking for somebody underaged for illegal acts. Not the most respectable person to be around but both of you would have been consenting adults had the law entered the room.
That alternative never even crossed my mind, but then again I've never had a normal self preservation instinct in these situations so how would I notice. You are probably right.
Definitely not "boyish" a goodlooking man! You look very European too!
I think you look like a man in his early twenties. I don't think you look boyish..
I come late to this party... You look boyish. I did too when I was 29. I didn't realize it until I reached the age of 35-40 and met my classmates on school reunion and started looking on my 10 yrs old photos...
So? You look boyish, and look, so are most cis-males of your age
Btw, 'looks' are for girls, live your life. Your existence no longer is defined how you look, but what had you achieved, and physical ability.
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Definitely not "boyish" I'd say you look very handsome and adult. If you really want to look "manly" go out on a ship for a year or two. You're skin will dry out and you'll look far older than you are, lol
What's the problem? ;D
I'm almost 3 and a half years on and I still look boyish. If it weren't for the beard I'd look like I was still going to high school which isn't the best outcome as I work for a School District! I'm 23 and looking "boyish" isn't the worst thing. I'm more insecure about my voice. It's not high or anything but hearing it in my head is much different than hearing it on tape.
Quote from: November Fox on July 12, 2017, 11:57:31 AM
The weird thing is that it´s only therapists who say that to me. Nobody else ever has. You´d think that they would know better, but hey.
Blegh, my partner and I are both trans men, and we happen to have the same doctor at the gender clinic. We conferred notes after our appointments and found that he repeatedly referred to whichever one of us wasn't in the room as "not a man" or anything other than "he." Yeah, you'd think they'd know better.
Anywhoo you certainly do not look "boyish" to me! I get what you mean though, if it makes you feel better I sometimes get told the same thing (or, more often, asked to show ID when buying alcohol) and I'm 31 with some grey hair!
Quote from: gooseberry on August 04, 2017, 06:56:48 AM
Blegh, my partner and I are both trans men, and we happen to have the same doctor at the gender clinic. We conferred notes after our appointments and found that he repeatedly referred to whichever one of us wasn't in the room as "not a man" or anything other than "he." Yeah, you'd think they'd know better.
Anywhoo you certainly do not look "boyish" to me! I get what you mean though, if it makes you feel better I sometimes get told the same thing (or, more often, asked to show ID when buying alcohol) and I'm 31 with some grey hair!
That is freaking awful! The clinic I go to is WPATH so they're all certified to handle the LGBTQ community, like 99% of their patients are all LGBT so they're really chill....I would be really upset if I was seeing a doctor that did that me. If ya'll ain't got a new one, I would.