There is a guy in my support group meetings who drives me up a tree. He seems perfectly nice, although not my cup of tea. That's not it. He's a nice person, not a jerk.
It's just that he makes me uncomfortable because I think of him as a girl, not a boy.
He just came out recently and is pre-transition. He has long hair that he wears in a feminine style. His clothing seems like female clothing, although I try not to look too closely. Even his glasses are femmy. He is quite zaftig, and the extra body fat accentuates his feminine features, especially in the face. His voice is high. He uses his hands like a girl. His whole body screams "woman" at me.
When I go into a closed (i.e., no SOFFAs) meeting with him, I'm completely uncomfortable. I want him to leave. I find myself wanting to call him "she." When I'm with my friends and talking about this person, I frequently slip up, and I do say "she." I'm trying not to; it just slips out.
But it's not just voice and appearance. This person screams "female" at me. Not femme, not feminine, but FEMALE.
I am not into gender stereotyping. I think that if someone says he's a guy, it shouldn't matter what he looks like. We should respect his gender identity. It might take some time, but we'll get used to the pronouns. But the thing is, this person gives off what I can only call a female vibe. Female energy. I don't know how else to describe it. Have you ever felt this?
On a couple of occasions I have met pre-transition guys in the meetings who gave off a completely female energy, as far as my perceptions could interpret. It didn't matter that they had short hair or wore unisex or male clothing. It was some kind of vibe I was picking up on. With one guy, I was so uncomfortable that I had to move to another seat after the break. I was there to commune with other guys, and I felt like I was sitting next to a girl. He looked pretty butch but "felt" like a woman. And I once knew a transwoman who struck me as just a guy. I didn't feel any female vibe at all from her.
This other guy does it to me, too, so I try not to think about him or even look at him. But he's also the first one I've met who also looks and sounds the part. I keep thinking that he's mistaken, that he really isn't a transman, but it's obviously not my decision. And because of his situation, it will probably be a long time before he is able to begin any kind of transitional path if that's the way he chooses to go.
Again, I have transman friends who are quite femme. I have genderqueer friends, one of whom might never transition. That doesn't bother me. The other guys in the room, even if they're pre-transition, seem to have a male energy. With this guy, it's a combination of his presentation and the vibe I get off him. But I wonder how much of it is how he LOOKS. I'm trying to sort myself out. I'm going to fewer meetings now; one reason is that he is usually there. That's one way of dealing with the problem, I guess.
So...do you ever get a similar vibe off someone and wonder if that person is really a transsexual? Do you meet trans people and get some kind of gendered energy off them? Am I perhaps picking up on biological signals like extra-strong female pheromones, something that T would cure almost instantly? I'm stumped.
I've never met any other transsexuals, so I haven't been able to have this problem. I have had problems with thinking of a few people on this forum as the wrong gender due to pretransition profile pics. I consciously realized this, and went "Bad Adrian!" and stopped thinking of them that way. It seems odd that I could just decide to think of them differently and have it work, but it did. It would probably not work so nicely in real life, but I can tell you that avoiding these people is not going to help you get over your problem. Getting used to more female transmen will help with acceptance most likely. This is easier said than done, since there is the justified fear of slipping up on pronouns. Just think "he, he, he" the whole time. Don't think "not she" because then you will slip up.
Well, there's my unqualified advice. I hope it's at least somewhat helpful.
I don't know any trans people in 3D, not that I know of, only on-line but there are some I have known for a long time who's writing style and overall demeanour just strike me as inconsistent with the gender they claim to be.
(I will sneak quickly out of the boy's room now before I get caught ;) )
My best friend strikes me like this. I am pretty good at getting people's pronouns right, but I got his wrong for months. He still strikes me as female even though I can always now say he and him and whatever. There's just...something. More recently, I've been able to at least not see him as female, but I have yet to be able to see him as male. He's just..genderless to me right now. It makes me feel kind of horrible, but there is just something that is triggering "female female female" and I can't figure out what it is. I can only assume it's something like pheromones or some extremely subtle gender ques, because I can't think of the way he looks or acts that would so signal female to me. It's bewildering, and frustrating.
I met a genderqueer, he wants to be a man but he is afraid of testosterone changing his personality.
I always had this mistake with him, I was like "you" (female form in hebrew) "OOPS! SORRY!!!"
He just gave me that vibe too! he was with short hair and everything, but the way he talked, his voice, his reactions, his emotions, everything related to his behavior seemed to make me want to call him a she without control.
I know that a couple of other guys in my group have some problems with him, but I think for them it's more his female appearance. I'm the only one I know who has also had this problem with butch-appearing pre-transition FTMs. With them, I know I'm picking up on something subliminal.
I don't believe in gender stereotyping, so it drives me nuts that I'm having such a reaction to this person. I have a genderqueer friend who may never transition--he has a female name, but I call him "he" and only get mixed up occasionally when other people call him "she." I keep thinking that if I can see him as male, I should be able to do the same for this other guy. But my friend just screams "guy" at me, whereas this person does not.
I definitely won't say anything to him, Kvall. I don't want him to start thinking that he's too femme to ever be read as male. In fact, I stay away from him as much as possible, not only because he makes me uncomfortable but also because I don't want to slip up and say something without thinking. Once I started transitioning, I also started to have a bit more trouble censoring myself. The best way to censor myself is just to avoid talking to him.
It sure makes me feel like a heel, though.
P.S. to Myself: I didn't know that Hebrew had male and female forms of "you." That's interesting.
In hebrew almost every word has gender.
If you say "run"/"ran"/"running" to someone, it will be female/male.
If you say "running"/"ran"/"run" about someone it will also be with gender.
you, he she, it.
Adjectives - Pretty, cool, all of them can have gender.
I've had this problem with people.
There's this guy in my support group that's been on T for 20 years, has a beard and still doesn't parse as male.
He's short, thin, has female mannerisms, high voice, and a LOT of a passive "victim" vibe. I saw him walking down the street wearing a hoodie with hood up, and I honestly thought he was female from behind.
While I can understand where you're coming from, look at what you're saying is making you think this kid of "female":
...weight can't just magically be willed away, so if he's still very much pre-transition, and by proxy pre-HRT, then there's really only so much he can do.
...not everybody has a luxurious budget to buy all new clothes with, and some people have certain items in their personal wardrobes for all sorts of reasons.
...if this is something that he's only recently realised he needs to do for himself, then (especially depending on his age) he's probably had years of learning what mannerisms and appearances will make life easiest, especially if he's only been attracted to men. These aren't things that one can just magically unlearn.
It's really hard for me to *not* put myself in this kid's shoes. I was in a similar position myself for *years* -- I say "similar" because all of my long-terms boyfriends (now exes) all claimed that they loved how "boyish" my personality was, and even in high-school, all of my friends commented on this "gay punk boy in a female body" thing I had going on, so obviously I neglected to adopt most female social mannerisms (though I quickly learned that, having tits the size of my head, when all else failed, I could cry and get my way), but I grew up with a mother who was ex-theatre and a father raising me on Broadway musicals so I've always loved make-up and dressing up and, especially pre-transition, have always had a wide range of outfits for various occasions -- even some dresses. I've always felt longer hair flattered my face shape better (though it's been years since it's come past my shoulders). And when I had tits the size of my head? Forget binding, it could have killed me, and forget working off the hourglass figure, since walking for more than a few minutes at a time threw my back out and even laying down on my back for a few seconds weighed so heavily on my chest I felt suffocated. Furthermore, when i lived in Los Angeles some years ago, I briefly worked as an adult model and a Pro Domme -- it was easy work for me, and hey, it often involved my life-long loves of make-up and dressing-up; it was all just "theatre" to me, both then and now. Believe me, I'm finding it very hard *not* to put myself in this kid's shoes -- even the TS guys at my local group couldn't stand me because I'm so poor that it took me three years to get things in motion.
Yeah, I look a lot better now than I did then -- and suddenly some of those guys who *hated me* five years ago now think I'm "cool people", but the end result is that I went through so many years of them, both to my face and behind my back, laughing, bad-mouthing, calling me "she" (both intentionally and sometimes not -- and oh, boy, did they ever have some choice phraseology when my past work came up in convo once), and so forth that honestly? I can't stand them -- out of the TS guys at the local group, the only one who was ever consistently decent to me, even defended me when I wasn't there, is the guy who ran the group, and incidentally, he's the only one I care for.
Believe me, my personal anecdotes aside, I can see both sides of this because I really do believe that all human beings have some form of a soul that those around us can pick up on -- and I've never met this guy, so all I have is what you're saying here to go by. And I'm far from innocent of being suspicious of people who claim to be somehow TS/TG but come off as very cisgendered, even if only "in spirit". But that said, what you've listed off as reasons for having this issue with this kid's "vibe", all I'm seeing is stereotyping based on presentation which could be the result of nothing more than how he's learned to cope with life this far. If pheromone has anything to do with this, I have no idea, but human beings don't have a strong enough sense of smell to detect actual pheromone (it's completely different from the musk of sweat), at least not in typical quantities on somebody who bathes even every two or three days.
Quote from: Arch on November 03, 2009, 01:02:56 AM
P.S. to Myself: I didn't know that Hebrew had male and female forms of "you." That's interesting.
The fascinating exception is the first person singular pronoun 'Ani.'
- N
Quote from: Nimetön on November 03, 2009, 11:51:31 PM
The fascinating exception is the first person singular pronoun 'Ani.'
- N
Yes ^^ but don't get cheered up yet people, because the next word would probably ruin the happiness, like "I (Ani) want (Rotsa/Rotse)", once again having gender attached to it (Rotsa is female form of want, rotse is male form of want, both leading to the simple English: "I want")
Quote from: YoungSoulRebel on November 03, 2009, 11:33:48 PM
But that said, what you've listed off as reasons for having this issue with this kid's "vibe", all I'm seeing is stereotyping based on presentation which could be the result of nothing more than how he's learned to cope with life this far.
With all due respect, I've gone out of my way to express that my problem is not ENTIRELY due to presentation, although that seems to be a significant component or at least an exacerbating factor. I'm specifically referencing something nonphysical, some kind of subliminal psychological effect or maybe a chemical signature. I can't put my finger on what it is because I'm not sure what it is.
I've seen some fairly femmy transguys and had no trouble accepting them as male because they somehow "feel" male to me. I've seen some very masculine-appearing transwomen and was able to see them as women almost instantly because they give off some kind of feminine vibe. I've also seen the opposite (very butch transguys and a very femme transwoman) whose professed gender simply didn't click with me. This is the first guy who has really hit me with the "double whammy" of a (for now) completely feminine presentation AND this vibe or whatever you want to call it.
I wasn't particularly clear about something. When it's mostly the physical presentation that causes me a problem, I can rely on the vibe to condition me to use the correct pronoun and have the correct perception; I quickly see the person as male or female because that FEELS accurate to me. When it's mostly the vibe that strikes me as wrong, I can rely on physical presentation to condition me to use the right pronoun (although I really avoid people who have the wrong energy or whatever it is--that just messes with my head). With this guy, I've got nothing to go on because both the physical and the...other thing...are working against me. I try and I try, but I cannot get those pronouns right, and I still think of him (obnoxiously, in my opinion) as a girl.
I was being pretty cavalier with the term "pheromones." I don't know if humans have pheromones per se--you know, like ants have--but I know that we do pick up on chemical cues like sex hormones. Maybe that's a contributing factor.
Your own experiences sound onerous indeed. I'm glad you were able to get through it all--and find your way here.
Then let's just agree that I'm finding this difficult to be objective because of my past experiences with other TS men. You may very well be going only on "vibe", "essence" or whatever you want to call it here, but when you pointed out that other guys in your group have issue with this one kid in particular because of how he looks, that's just setting off all these triggers in my head about how, by and large, TS guys are gender-conformist jerks who have a very, very short list of "acceptable variations amongst TS men" and how this automatically excludes certain people, no matter what their reasons for "non-conformity" (even if it's a very obvious physical reason), and if any of this non-conformity applies to you, well, "you're just doing it wrong!" And if they're feeling extra-mean-spirited, they'll spend a day-and-a-half on google, eventually locating your old (yet still legal) name, culminating in a massive vomiting panic attack.
Nobody here has ever been that horrible to me, so obviously I find this forum easier to converse in than others, so I'm just going to unsub this thread and ignore it now. I can't be objective in this one.
I get what you mean, Arch. The ex and I had a good friend back in Cali who was MTF, but introduced herself to us as a guy. She (and it's really tough for me to refer to her this way, because I never thought of her as a woman) talked constantly about her sexual exploits with girls in a very masculine manner, belched and farted like the best (or worst) of men, and dressed in a traditionally male manner. When we met her, I should note, she'd been on HRT for a year.
We knew and hung out with her consistently for roughly a year, and about halfway through that time, she decided that she would rather be referred to as female, and began dressing in a slightly more feminine fashion. It never worked for me, though. I couldn't bring myself to see her as female, because she never had seemed that way... of course, I suppose her having introduced herself as male didn't help much with that.
What I think the problem is, though, is the inherent gender stereotyping that occurs in American society (and really, the vast majority of societies across the world). Even as transfolk, we categorize people by gender, because it's how we were brought up. Because transitioning is such a huge step, when we see others starting the journey, we tend to think about how prepared they might be (or I do that, anyway). If the person doesn't fit our image of what his/her target sex might be, we experience cognitive dissonance (i.e., our feelings don't line up with our perceptions). Perhaps the FTM in question was overly socialized as female. Perhaps he sees himself as more androgynous but prefers to present as male (which is my own case). I'm sure, in any event, you don't mean to disrespect him... and yet, it can be pretty uncomfortable when your thoughts and perceptions are misaligned.
For me, I tried to treat my friend as she wanted to be treated. I tried to force myself to use female pronouns when referring to her... and yet, even now, in retrospect, I see her as a he. Back then, I found it highly uncomfortable to be around her, because I was afraid I'd slip up and hurt her feelings. However, sometimes it's unavoidable.
SD
Quote from: YoungSoulRebel on November 04, 2009, 12:37:19 AM
by and large, TS guys are gender-conformist jerks who have a very, very short list of "acceptable variations amongst TS men" and how this automatically excludes certain people, no matter what their reasons for "non-conformity" (even if it's a very obvious physical reason), and if any of this non-conformity applies to you, well, "you're just doing it wrong!" And if they're feeling extra-mean-spirited, they'll spend a day-and-a-half on google, eventually locating your old (yet still legal) name, culminating in a massive vomiting panic attack.
By and large I've found TS guys to be awesome... but in every community you'll encounter a small subset of people that aren't. We call these people insecure ->-bleeped-<-s.
I don't think there's any hate going on here. It seems more "I feel bad for feeling this way about someone, can anyone relate?" and "Why do I see someone the way I do?". You ask questions like that and discussions involving physical appearence, mannerisms and transition progress are going to come up.
You can't help how you read someone or the "vibe" you get, but you can help how you treat them. You got treated like crap, but everyone here sounds like they've been respectful to the people in question.
Nobody here is condoning or engaging in behaviour that could be considered demeaning or disrespectful.
Regarding gender confirmity - men have a smaller "normal" range of expression. It's not just trans-men. We do however get male priveledge as a tradeoff :).
Quote from: YoungSoulRebel on November 04, 2009, 12:37:19 AM
You may very well be going only on "vibe", "essence" or whatever you want to call it here, but when you pointed out that other guys in your group have issue with this one kid in particular because of how he looks, that's just setting off all these triggers in my head about how, by and large, TS guys are gender-conformist jerks who have a very, very short list of "acceptable variations amongst TS men" and how this automatically excludes certain people, no matter what their reasons for "non-conformity" (even if it's a very obvious physical reason), and if any of this non-conformity applies to you, well, "you're just doing it wrong!"
Oh, dear. We have an ironic saying in our groups: "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!!!!!!!" Which is meant to point out that we all have our own path and we all get wherever we're going in whatever way works for us. I strongly believe this. I've got an untransitioning genderqueer buddy, with a female name, whom I call "he." He has short hair but feminine features and a pretty high voice. He's still a guy to me because he FEELS like a guy. I've got a trans male buddy who self-identifies as genderqueer and lesbian. I've got another transman friend who calls himself a femme guy. And so on. Some of the other transmen have problems with one or more of these guys. I've never understood that. Why inflict a confining binary on people who don't fit it? So you're right, some transmen are very binary-driven, with regard not only to themselves but to other people. I like to think that they'll mature sooner or later and see that another guy doesn't have to fit their particular brand of masculinity.
I asked one of the guys how he responded to the femme fella--I was trying to figure out if anyone else had a problem with the FF because of "feel" or if the bias was based on appearances only. I got the impression that for this guy, it was all about appearances. And I was thinking, "Yes, but--for you, isn't there something ELSE, some undefinable quality about this person that leads you to think of him as 'she?'" I asked the question, more or less. And the answer was...apparently not.
I'm afraid that some of the other guys don't take the femme fella seriously ONLY because of how he looks and dresses and all of that. This would be unfortunate if true. But on the other hand, that would mean that if the FF cut his hair, wore men's shirts, and dropped his voice some, the other guys would take him more seriously and start to see him as male, whereas I would still be getting the weird not-male vibe off him. Gah.
I guess time will tell. It will be interesting to see if my perception of him changes in the coming months.
Post Merge: November 04, 2009, 02:25:56 AM
Quote from: Teknoir on November 04, 2009, 02:39:35 AM
By and large I've found TS guys to be awesome... but in every community you'll encounter a small subset of people that aren't. We call these people insecure ->-bleeped-<-s.
:D
Post Merge: November 04, 2009, 03:27:26 AM
Quote from: Sebastien on November 04, 2009, 01:52:45 AM
I'm sure, in any event, you don't mean to disrespect him... and yet, it can be pretty uncomfortable when your thoughts and perceptions are misaligned.
No, I certainly don't. And yes, it certainly is.
I have to agree with you, Arch. There are some people who give off a distinctly "male vibe", regardless of their birth gender or self-identification, and others who give off a distinctly "female vibe". I've even noticed this in writing. For example, I've never thought of Jamison Green as being anything other than male. But when I read Just Add Hormones by Matt Kailey I kept catching myself thinking of him as "she". And maybe it's just because I've seen pictures of Mr. Green, and not of Mr. Kailey. Or maybe it was the mention of Matt Kailey's Prada shoe collection. ;) But the writing in the latter book just felt more like that of a woman. *shrugs*
I've never been to any kind of Trans groups RL. I've only met others online and most have been M2F. I'm pre-op/pre-T and with my chest size of DD's I'm sure to many of you I might not be as 'male' looking as I should be or would like to be. My voice is something I hate because to me it's just to high pitched and yeah I'm over weight so I'm sure my 'curves' are more female than I want.
I do my best to make myself look and feel as male as I can but I know I have a long road ahead. I hope someday I get the chance to be in a group with others like me because I feel so freaking alone. In a way I do understand the whole vibe thing, cause I get those feelings when walking past certain folks on the street.
Kurzar,
I also never been to a trans or any lgb groups either. Susan;s is it aside from docs and such. I do know a few non transitioning peoples tho.
The funny thing is, now me and everyone else are wondering what kind of vibe they give off.
I think I must give off an adrogynous vibe. People treat me like a girl and a guy...
Example: Dustin: Aaron is Haruhi because Haruhi is acually a girl but goes around as a guy!
Dustin: Hey dude, hey man, ect.
I am so confused by everyone. ;_;
Yeah, I kind of think I should give off a female vibe, but I must give off a male one based on real life experiences. Another thing I wonder is if anybody has these experiences among the cissexual. I'm sure people do, at least subsciously, but it's expressed a bit differently I do believe.
Quote from: Mr. Fox on November 06, 2009, 08:47:58 PM
Yeah, I kind of think I should give off a female vibe, but I must give off a male one based on real life experiences. Another thing I wonder is if anybody has these experiences among the cissexual. I'm sure people do, at least subsciously, but it's expressed a bit differently I do believe.
Well I can say both my bio male mates tell me i'm very male acting, so it's easy for them to see me as male. They slip up on the pronouns now and again but 97% of the time they do it right. I guess it's more those who take the time to get to know me see me as masculine, while the general public seems me as female due to my voice and DD lumps.
Yeah some guys at the FTM meetings I go to have a definite female vibe, lots of "metro" ppl in the area the meetings are in.
It isn't even necessarily a masculine/feminine thing. I know at least one FtM who has been on T for years, and looks completely male, yet has a very butch-lesbian vibe. Could be because he was a butch lesbian for 30-odd years before transitioning, and so has picked up the mannerisms. I don't know. I also know FtMs who are screaming queens, but they still feel like gay men, not like women at all. It's hard to put a finger on what the difference is.
Hey, Kvall asked what I did, except when he said it it was a lot clearer what he meant! Thanks!
Quote from: Kvall on November 07, 2009, 05:42:21 AM
Arch, I'm kinda wondering whether you get these same incorrect vibes off of cis people. Do you read any/many cis people as the opposite gender? Whether you do or not might give some insight into what it is, specifically, that triggers this for you.
Good question. Unfortunately, I used to attribute a lot of genderbending cues to queerness in general. So I felt that something about a person would set off my gaydar because I just lumped everything queer together. I was in the closet then.
But a number of times after I came out, I've had a feeling about people I didn't know were trans. For example, I had a student last year who set off my ping big time--but it was sort of an androgyne/ambiguous ping. I never did find out anything about him that confirmed or denied my internal reaction. I had another student who was in the same class for a few weeks till he dropped. I didn't have much interaction with him, but my initial reaction was that he was definitely queer in some way and might be gay or trans. Right before he dropped, he gave me a paper proposal about a trans issue.
And I forgot--I've had the not-female reaction to two supposed transwomen, not one. Here's a data point or two. The first gal was in late middle age and so steeped in male privilege that I'm sure that had something to do with my perceptions. The last I heard, she was still pre-op and pre-ho but was dressing full time
en femme. That was months and months ago. I don't know how she is living her life now, but I have no real reason (other than my feelings) to suppose that she isn't trans.
The second person, it turned out, wasn't MTF at all. I thought he might be a cross dresser, not a transsexual. It turned out that he was neither. He was just a lonely guy looking for a friendly group of people to hang out with.
When I was twenty-one or twenty-two, I saw a woman who seemed pretty obviously male-bodied but who sported a wig, carried a purse, and wore women's pants, shirt, and shoes. I honestly don't remember whether I was thinking of this person with female pronouns--I don't think so--to me he was just a guy in women's clothing, or maybe a guy who identified as a woman and dressed the part. I pretty much read him as male, but I got that from visual cues, not some nebulous energy he was exuding.
But my ex at the time was all agog and not very subtle about it. He kept nudging me and whispering to me, and I gave him a hard look and said something like, "So? Who cares? Leave him alone." I was extremely irritated with my ex about the way HE was acting. I was wondering why people can't just be whoever they are without other people staring at them or messing with them. If the person was a man, who cared? At that time, I didn't have much, if any, real awareness of trans people, and I was deep in my own girl phase, feeling queer as hell but not being honest with myself about it.
How long ago all of that was.
Interesting that you mentioned this... because it's something I truly fear.
The thought of there being something that will give me away no matter what I do - such as this "vibe" thing - is part of what has made me so afraid of beginning my transition. I have avoided, until quite recently, asking even my closest of friends to use male pronouns, because I've been afraid that there's something about me which is beyond my control which will negate all my efforts. I've kept telling myself that even if I were to fully transition physically, somehow people would still know. It's been very discouraging, and I've never really realized before that this is the primary force behind my hesitation regarding transitioning or asserting my identiy.
... I can only hope that, whatever this "vibe" thing entails, I don't have an "F" written in invisible ink on my forehead...
Quote from: AndrewMarten on November 18, 2009, 02:32:00 PM
I've kept telling myself that even if I were to fully transition physically, somehow people would still know.
I really don't think it's on most people's radar. I started going to a gay men's group a few months after I started T (and right before my top surgery). My first encounter with one of the facilitators was kind of weird--he did think I was a dyke, but I told him I was a guy, and that was that. The men in the group don't treat me any differently from anyone else. And yet I keep thinking that they MUST at least suspect. Well, I don't think they do. That's just my paranoia talking.
I started attending another group a few months after that, and the T had really worked its magic. Nobody ever questioned me or treated me differently. I look in the mirror and think how female I still look, but nobody else seems to see it. I suppose they might think I'm a fairly androgynous-looking gay guy, but the operative word here is GUY.
I keep thinking that this one fellow in my trans group is just super femmy and will stop rubbing me the wrong way when his voice drops and he starts getting facial hair. T has a way of changing things...it could be that he has really high female hormone levels and my keen nose is picking up on it. If that's the case, T will solve the problem pretty quickly.
I guess what I'm saying is that at some point you will probably realize that you would rather take the plunge and take the very SMALL chance that you won't transition as well as you would like. But in person I only know of one guy who has really transitioned badly, and I'm not sure that he's been consistent with his hormones. It's still early yet, too. Two or three years more could make a big difference to him.
If you feel that T is right for you, don't let the androgynous phase scare you. Almost everyone goes through that phase. For some it lasts longer than for others. And try not to worry about other people's perceptions of your gender. If you're confident that you're male and on the right juice, that will go a long way toward persuading others.
Oh, and a beard always helps!