I'm not always sure how women come to the recognition that we are, women that is. I do believe that it isn't necessarily tied up with surgeries and learning to "present" a particular way. Unless of course one merely learns to present her self. Releases that to go about in the world unfettered.
I've always been sceptical of what providers who promise teaching transsexuals "to act like women" are actually selling. I don't think they can make genuine what is forced.
http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/crossing-the-border-coming-home-to-ones-self/ (http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/crossing-the-border-coming-home-to-ones-self/)
Honestly, I believe you've got it somewehere within, it's a matter of releasing yourself. Not a matter of learning to be what you're not. *shrug*
But, that's just me.
I agree with you. I know far too many TS girls that have to force the femininity, if they are even capable of showing any. Sadly, these are the girls that struggle with being accepted. Personally, once I decided this was the path I was definitely taking, all signs of man were shrugged off, and the inner girl spilled forth, naturally. I have a theory that these other girls just haven't completely given up their maleness completely, and so struggle with the femininity.
I have recently made friends with a lesbian who is about 12 years younger than I am. I was fairly certain that she new that I was TS (there were plenty of clues on Facebook and through a trans friend we share), but she gave absolutely no indication that she did. She treats me exactly like all of her female friends!! After a roadtrip and slumber party this past weekend, and realizing how much she cared about our friendship, I decided to tell her about my past. Turns out, she did already know, and it was completely a non-issue. Even the fact that I'm preop didn't matter. She called me a "girly girl" and even said that if she was into femme girls, she wouldn't have a problem dating me. And she has no issue trying to hook me up with girls she knows.
Why is she capable of seeing who I really am, and not judging me for my genes? Who knows. But I love her for it!! She was actually quite amazed to learn that so many people can't accept us as women, or even as valuable people. To her, our past just doesn't matter.
I once asked a very good genetic female friend what it was like being a woman, stupid question really and she said as much.
She said she did not feel female because she just was, didn't ever have to think about it and took it for granted.
It was she that allowed me to muster the courage to cross the mythical line that stopped me from taking the step to begin the journey to achieve my true self and destiny, and she constantly tells me that I have become more female than she thought she was.
It takes a woman to know one I guess.
Quote from: Nichole on February 03, 2009, 02:38:22 PM
Honestly, I believe you've got it somewhere within, it's a matter of releasing yourself. Not a matter of learning to be what you're not. *shrug*
But, that's just me.
Nichole
Yea I agree Nichole, it comes from within and natural, at least it was for me. I have always been accepted as female since I started transition, no questions apart from am I married, or do you have a husband or if I'm with a man, "is this your husband" lol.
Stardust
Some people may have difficulty peeling back every layer of their created male persona if they've sublimated the truth for an eternity. For different reasons such as fear or disbelief on some level.
Not that everybody is the same.
The longer one remains a prisoner of war the harder it is to get the true personality back. If you begin transition at 18 it's easy to drop that which society expected of you. But if you're 68 when you transition, you will probably never lose all the learned male responses and manners.
Of course, the success of the brainwashing done during your old life will also determine how deeply affected you are by it. When you grow up thinking escaping is hopeless, you learn very well how to blend in with your captors.
Julie
I transitioned when I was 38, after spending my life completely hiding from the issue. To the point where I even blocked any memories that had any GD associated with them at all (in other words, my childhood.) I blended as well as possible, had several marriages and LTRs, and had convinced myself that I was a man. When all that sham fell apart last year, and I allowed myself to see the truth about who I was, I dropped the maleness, basically overnight, and my true self simply was there.
I have seen other girls, even ones far far younger than I am, that have to work really hard to behave like girls. And I have seen many much older than I that don't have an issue. I think it's just another part of the whole spectrum concept.
I really dont understand how you teach how to be a woman, might as well teach how to be a monkey....its just letting whats inside shine and just live that.
Well, that's my point, I think. You can't teach someone how to be a woman, but you can potentially teach them how to act like a woman. Thus, Denae Doyle's career. Again, though, persons in need of that assistance have to actually make the effort to learn.... which many do not take the time to do.
What Julie says sounds right to me. I transitioned pretty young and the only act I ever had to put on was the boy one. About a year before I came out and started going full time, keeping up the boy character (holding my hips still when I walked, talking all monotone and balling my fists up... gawd that sounds silly now! ::) ) was just getting too draining. Plus, everyone at school was seeing right through it. So one day I just dropped it and stopped trying (I think I was maybe thirteen?) and everything just flooded out. Now I'm always the girliest in the room. My sister thinks it's hilarious!
You just gotta let it flow, I think?
-Birdie
It depends... I mean, being a woman and being a lady appear to be two slightly different things. One requires that you just know how to exist, the other seems to require finishing school, lessons on etiquette, the 'proper' way to do pretty much everything. One designed to live, the other to impress.
I had the blessing(??) of going through all that a LONG time ago at age 24. By that age, I knew what I wasn't and had pretty much dropped any pretence. I knew I was ignorant and naive so I just went with the flow, knowing I WAS a girl and it didn't take long at all to "re-socialize" and just slip right into womanhood. It was as easy and comfortable as an old slipper ;D
Quote from: Leiandra on February 03, 2009, 06:27:00 PM
It depends... I mean, being a woman and being a lady appear to be two slightly different things. One requires that you just know how to exist, the other seems to require finishing school, lessons on etiquette, the 'proper' way to do pretty much everything. One designed to live, the other to impress.
Yeah, you're on the track of that Bundespost train, Leia. :laugh: You really are.
"Acting like a lady" and being feminine or being female are
not synonomous, at least not in my experience.
And yes, to whomever said this, ah yes, Rebecca Liz, those who require the use of Danae Doyle, or think they do I believe actually miss the point. Being a woman, being female, is not about how much social-femininity you can stack onto yourself and go along "tricking" everyone into believing you're a girl.
Cathy and I have our differences, but that doesn't appear to be one of them. You can lard on every bell and whistle you can think of, but at some point not a damned one of them is gonna matter if no one ever finds
female somewhere under all that stuff. Turn your wrists inside out and hold a shopping bag like Jackie Onassis and you're still not gonna fool anyone, except maybe you.
The sad thing for me is that SRS is not some huge watershed that finally proves the matter out either. Nothing proves it except who you are and allowing that to be. Which, btw, is another disagreement or the basis for one. The surgery of itself proves nothing at all.
If you were and are female, well it has to be there prior and after surgery to change your body. Meltzer, Suporn, Bowers, McGinn and Brassard don't "add' it during the time one's under the knife.
I mean, just as a lark. Find your way into the FTM board and ask politely if the possession of a vagina equals female. See what the guys tell ya. >:-) Yep, the guys have always been trouble-makers, no? Why the heck dja think Blanchard and crew have never satisfactorily or willingly dealt with the guys? :laugh:
It's not exactly rocket science.
Thanks for all of the comments so far. The answers and ideas have been rich and well-worth the reads. What a great group of responders! :)
N~
Nichole, I couldn't agree with you more. My comment about Denae Doyle's work was actually me trying to make the same point you made, without being quite as blunt (something I appreciated about your post.) I've met so many transitioners in my area that fit your description perfectly, sadly. Despite their GD, they aren't female at heart, and it shows in pretty much every aspect of their life. You can try to teach them to walk, talk, and act like a woman, to help them to blend better in society - but you can't teach them to be female. That must come from within.
I was struck by the topic title. I was thinking about this recently. I've often felt like I was born behind the Iron Curtain, and there were border guards and sharpshooters and a huge ugly wall covered with electrified barbed wire. I snuck up to the border, and freaked out because I thought I heard gunfire. So I retreated back to my dreary Soviet apartment.
Lately I've realized it's more like Canada. It might be a bit of a journey, but when you get there, it's just a clearcut swath of forest. There are guards, but they're just Canadians.
On the "learning something you're not" -- well, I'm an expert at that. Aren't we all? I spent the better part of three decades trying to figure out how to do my best impression of a normal guy. I learned to clip my words, grunt, curse, swagger, make crude jokes, leer, scoff, and otherwise be a jerk guy so that the other jerks guys wouldn't decide I was a freak. It's easy to fall back on these tropes, and I sometimes have to remind myself that it makes me feel awful.
~A
Quote from: Alyssa M. on February 04, 2009, 03:03:18 AM
On the "learning something you're not" -- well, I'm an expert at that. Aren't we all? I spent the better part of three decades trying to figure out how to do my best impression of a normal guy. I learned to clip my words, grunt, curse, swagger, make crude jokes, leer, scoff, and otherwise be a jerk guy so that the other jerks guys wouldn't decide I was a freak. It's easy to fall back on these tropes, and I sometimes have to remind myself that it makes me feel awful.
That's where we disagree, 'Lyssa. You tried to learn all of that and actually learned to "feel awful," no? So where was the deep inner sense that you were what you presented as?
The mistake seems kinda common to me. The clothing = the person. And "the clothing" will include all of that stuff you mentioned as well.
When you take off the clothing who is there under the skin? O, you learned
to clip my words, grunt, curse, swagger, make crude jokes, leer, scoff, and otherwise be a guy so that the other guys wouldn't decide I was a freak. And mayhap managed to do a really good impersonation, but did the impersonation make you "one of the guys." (I know, that question is loaded as can be so don't stand right in-front of it! >:-) )
My question is always: what's at the core of the person?
Go take a look at Nero's avatar, for instance.
I mean just looking at it is there any doubt, or would there be if you didn't know him already, that the pic is one of a girl? Yet, talk to Nero and you discover that the impression you had isn't what you're getting.
Like 99.9% of us he's gonna have some qualities that our society labels "feminine." Every guy, even the macho-ist pro wrestler, :laugh: :laugh: is gonna have some of those qualities. But when you chat you find a nice guy that's under the exterior of that body and voice, under the usages of language he's become accustomed to using. I mean, you're talkin' to a guy, just a nice one. :)
I've had the same initial response to a couple of women I've met IRL. They look not so beautiful, not so feminine, yet five minutes later I've wondered how I ever let my exterior vision define them in a way that they showed wasn't there at all. "Now how did I mistake her for a he-in-a-dress?"
Oth, I've had the same experience conversely: the look was right, the carry, etc was right, but the person who came through was not female. She just wasn't "there."
Nichole
I agree with that, and have noticed that a lot of people here... whether you know or don't know what they look like, you can tell what lies at the core of their being, just through the way they express themselves, their mannerisms, their thought patterns, their reactions to different situations.
People show who they really are far more when they don't consciously try to, when they're relaxed and being natural... when their identity isn't being called into question. The subconscious is a far bigger indicator of who a person is, in my opinion.
And yeah, our Nero is a prime example. He's every inch a guy no matter how much he tries or doesn't try to be. That's about as obvious as it's possible to get once you've talked with him a while. It wouldn't matter what avatar was used, the person is the same.
You can learn practically all there is to know about how various aspects of society expect people of any gender to act... but the most valuable, useful knowledge is innate, it can't be taught, and people already have it, within themselves.
Quote from: Nichole on February 04, 2009, 08:24:13 AMThat's where we disagree, 'Lyssa. You tried to learn all of that and actually learned to "feel awful," no? So where was the deep inner sense that you were what you presented as?
:eusa_think:
I'm read this about five times and I still don't quite get what you're driving at. :-\ I'm just saying I have a vivid memory of being harassed when I was little, and that it was a big effort for me to try to figure out how to act so that I would get beaten up. Well, it worked, more or less. By high school, I had some amount of acceptance by my peers. Sure, it required subterfuge, but the friendships were real. Was it worth it? Was it the main reason for my self-loathing back then? Or did it save my life by giving me some glimmer of social interaction? I have no idea. I can't repeat the experiment.
I'm pretty far from full-time, but Alyssa gets out a lot these days; my friends see that other persona much less often. But sometimes when I find myself in a group of guys, especially with that other persona, I fall back on those tricks I learned to avoid getting picked on, even though nobody cares now. Some part of me is still afraid of that walk home from school.
As to the rest, well, I somewhat agree, but I don't think that most people's "Gen-Dar" works that well on Internet forums. I remember, on a mountaineering forum I used to post on, when a girl joined using a very non-gendered user name. After about 100 posts, a few people were shocked to discover she wasn't a guy. Someone said she had a "very masculine style." I learned her gender much quicker. (Maybe we sent each other some messages? I don't recall why.) I always saw her posts as completely girl.
So I guess that question is loaded, but since you loaded it, I can't help but wonder how you'd answer it. No, I've never been "one of the guys" -- but in my posts, what do you read?* Girl? Guy? Genderless nerd? Bastard child of Maureen Dowd and William Safire? I guess I know what you mean about meeting people IRL, but the one example that jumps out is a cissexual girl I've been friends with for years. Once you know her for a while, it's hard to see her as a girl. Yet there she is.
*The correct answer is (d). I even stole the "answers at the bottom of the column" gimmick from Safire. :p
I don't think that most people's "Gen-Dar" works that well on Internet forums
There are programs that analyze writing samples for gender.
Quote from: Alyssa M. on February 05, 2009, 12:17:27 AM
Quote from: Nichole on February 04, 2009, 08:24:13 AMThat's where we disagree, 'Lyssa. You tried to learn all of that and actually learned to "feel awful," no? So where was the deep inner sense that you were what you presented as?
:eusa_think:
I'm read this about five times and I still don't quite get what you're driving at. :-\ I'm just saying I have a vivid memory of being harassed when I was little, and that it was a big effort for me to try to figure out how to act so that I would get beaten up. Well, it worked, more or less. By high school, I had some amount of acceptance by my peers. Sure, it required subterfuge, but the friendships were real. Was it worth it? Was it the main reason for my self-loathing back then? Or did it save my life by giving me some glimmer of social interaction? I have no idea. I can't repeat the experiment.
I'm pretty far from full-time, but Alyssa gets out a lot these days; my friends see that other persona much less often. But sometimes when I find myself in a group of guys, especially with that other persona, I fall back on those tricks I learned to avoid getting picked on, even though nobody cares now. Some part of me is still afraid of that walk home from school.
As to the rest, well, I somewhat agree, but I don't think that most people's "Gen-Dar" works that well on Internet forums. I remember, on a mountaineering forum I used to post on, when a girl joined using a very non-gendered user name. After about 100 posts, a few people were shocked to discover she wasn't a guy. Someone said she had a "very masculine style." I learned her gender much quicker. (Maybe we sent each other some messages? I don't recall why.) I always saw her posts as completely girl.
So I guess that question is loaded, but since you loaded it, I can't help but wonder how you'd answer it. No, I've never been "one of the guys" -- but in my posts, what do you read?* Girl? Guy? Genderless nerd? Bastard child of Maureen Dowd and William Safire? I guess I know what you mean about meeting people IRL, but the one example that jumps out is a cissexual girl I've been friends with for years. Once you know her for a while, it's hard to see her as a girl. Yet there she is.
*The correct answer is (d). I even stole the "answers at the bottom of the column" gimmick from Safire. :p
I was actually walking toward it. One plays a game, makes an effort to "submerge" what's felt, or in this case, at least for me, what was quite well known. For survival's sake it can become quite successful. One makes some friends, doesn't get beaten continuously perhaps, learns after a while to "fit in." Although not everyone does. Northern Jane has been quite explicit about her being unable to "fit in" in the fashion you managed to do so.
But, the point was, is, submersion, reparative therapy self-applied, successful? Only in the way your life suggests it has been: a temporary fix that wears off and leaves one with the same sense that "this is not me."
You may have become the quintessential "man's man," Alyssa. I've no way of knowing.
What seems to be indicated by your ongoing presence here and the things you write is that whatever adjustments you've managed to make to "submerge the girl" have become unsuccessful, but I'll leave that evaluation for you to make. For me, it kept coming back until no matter what the cost, and some of the cost has been rather steep materially and emotionally, what was submerged rose again and had to come to rest unsubmerged.
And, tbh, I'm grateful it did. The costs have been high, but the living result is that I am much more comfortable now within my own skin as Cathy said in her essay. The gen-dar business I am not trying to get into. Nor do I avow that someone who doesn't eventually have reparative surgery isn't as ->-bleeped-<- as I am. I believe that's just in great part another subterfuge, this one though revolving around self-esteem and a desire to compare one's self with another to "see" if she's had it as badly and done it up as well as I did.
Suffering hurts the sufferer. To measure whose degree was worst and whose method of relieving that was best or more effective or the "right" way is not either within my ability or desire. Trans-women who walk around with penises are not any less trans I think. As far as I am aware we all have walked around with them for at least 18 years, usually a good bit more.
Same is true conversely for trans-men.
The matter for me isn't and wasn't deciding in my own mind who's "real" and who's "false." That's just a silly game, I believe, that only indulges the player. I've better ways to build my self-esteem and my own sense of validity: I live & feel, therefore I'm valid. And for the same reasons, so are you. Period.
Btw, the algorithms and the word choices on those gender-writing evaluations can be easily figured out and the writing altered at will with some very simple word canges. Those wrds mostly revolve around gender-stereotypes about how women speak: more likely to say "we" than "I." Use of certain prepositions "under" or "around" rather than "over," etc. Doesn't take a long time to adjust so that you can train yourself to write in any gender according to the test, or none at all.
Nichole
I've noticed that since I let the genie out that I'm having a hard time "acting" with my man behavior. I remember watching tapes of me playing football in HS and even though I was making most of the tackles I noticed I was running like a girl. I can only say that if you saw my football videos you would see what I'm saying and you'd also see how I trained myself to walk and run more "manly". I've been doing stuff like this for about 30 years and I'm tired now. I'm actually having a hard time remaining stealthy. The girl is out and she's out to stay, I couldnt put her back if I wanted to- and I dont! 8)