Hmm. The consensus so far seems to be that mtfs proceed down the expected road in becoming more feminine after transition and we ftms do the opposite?
Both groups seem to display more feminine traits such as empathy, etc. after transition.
Thoughts?

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on February 10, 2013, 07:22:57 AM
Hmm. The consensus so far seems to be that mtfs proceed down the expected road in becoming more feminine after transition and we ftms do the opposite?
Both groups seem to display more feminine traits such as empathy, etc. after transition.
Thoughts?

I was a shell pre-transition. Now I'm a person. That's the diff.

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on February 10, 2013, 07:22:57 AM
Hmm. The consensus so far seems to be that mtfs proceed down the expected road in becoming more feminine after transition and we ftms do the opposite?
Both groups seem to display more feminine traits such as empathy, etc. after transition.
Thoughts?

I would hardly call my life conventionally feminine. I still do things that I enjoyed in my past that are definitely not very girly, but still doesn't alter the fact of who I am. As Sarah says in a subsequent post, I was a shell of a person before breathing only because it was necessary. Now I am a happy and complete person who sometimes does girly things and sometimes not. That's the difference. In my mind that doesn't mean things had to fall neatly into buckets, only guys can do this, and only girls can do that.

You might perceive things as being more feminine only because we both share something. We are a blend of both genders, not quite one and not quite the other. I don't consider it a bother, I consider a gift. I guess it's all in ones point of view I suppose.

I would chalk up the "Odd" changes post-transition to you finally realizing that it is OK to simply be the real and true you. Not someone elses image that you needed to live up to. Not some idealized imaged that you wanted to live up to.

Transitioning allowed you to be the real and true you.  Is that "Odd"?

My observation is that there is a "full-time" for mtfs where they start presenting as a woman and living as one full time. A lot of time they do not pass at this point, but sometimes they do. I don't know that there is a "full-time" for ftms. I haven't heard this concept too much. What happens with us is that as we start passing then we start living as the gender we should be. So I think it is understandable how things could be reverse for us.

--Jay

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on February 10, 2013, 05:09:28 AM

I wanted to take fashion for several years (nearly the same time I transitioned), but resisted. Found the very idea ludicrous and threatening to my manhood.

I have the same feeling.  Before I transition, when ever I saw some thing needed to be fixed, I used to fixed it.  It may be a broken faucet or furniture and I was really good at it too. I think that's something I got it from my grand farther. He used to be a really good handy man when I was little and I loved fixing thing. I loved the challenge.

I still have the urge to fix when ever I see something is broken. But now I stop my self before doing anything about it because I feel it is something too masculine for me to do as woman. I think this is because I am still worried about  who I used to be and I don't want to do anything which may give away hints of my past.

Let me qualify what I said. I've never been very accepting of, well, stupidity and general assholishness. But now I am even less accepting and much more likely to call the other person on it. So my empathy extends only so far.

When confronted with a student who just doesn't "get" a concept or pattern, I have been able to continue the same patience I used to practice, although it is often a struggle. I'm actually more understanding than I was, probably because I'm now keenly aware of what I didn't understand about my own self--the lies I told myself, the self-ignorance that I justified in weird ways. The crap I've been through. How stupid I felt when I realized how much I had kept from myself.

But when confronted with a student who didn't do the assignment because he or she "didn't know" what I meant in the assignment description, my response is now usually, "Why didn't you ask?" When the student "didn't know" that the assignment was due today, my automatic response is, "Why didn't you know? Did you check the schedule? No? Well, now you know what to do next time."

I'll be pretty lenient during the first week or week and a half. After that, not so much. And I have far less patience with people who cut in line at the store, make a lot of noise outside my classroom, and cut people off in traffic.

So I suppose I'm harder in some ways and softer in others. It's a mixed bag.

I think that one reason I hated (and still hate) my mother so much is that she is female and she wanted me to be a female. I was allowed considerable latitude to be a tomboy, but only to a point. Then she started pushing. She was also not the world's nicest person. I didn't want to be anything like her. Now I'm beginning to realize that a lot of this resistance was a knee-jerk anti-female reaction. I was opposed to cooking and sewing for the same reasons--despite Title IX, those were presented as my only practical arts choices in junior high school. I was similarly resistant to anything that smacked of home decorating, although I loved rearranging my bedroom.

Now that I'm mostly transitioned, I still hate cooking and sewing, but I care very much about how my place looks. I spent hours putting together my bathroom. I can do this because I've always been interested in it but never allowed myself full rein because I saw it as a girly thing. Now I see it as a gay thing, and I have fun with it. It actually reinforces my gay identity.

But, alas, I still have the mommy issues.

Quote from: Jen on February 09, 2013, 04:51:15 PM
I think the changes that seem to have happened at my core weird me out more than the personality changes because I can explain those.  I am less of an introvert because I have less to hide.  I'm more of an optimist because life is better and brighter when there is hope.  I enjoying being with people because interactions with them don't have to be sharp, stabbing reminders of how my station in life is completely wrong.

That the way I think has changed, my use of language has changed, my interests have changed, these things freak me out.  I was supposed to be the same person just in a different wrapper that was more aptly reflective of the person within.  Intellectually, that was the point of transition for me.  I wasn't supposed to change into somebody else.

oh whoa.  yeah.  this is me, so much.

count me among the many who bought into the line of "the same person, just different on the outside" early on.  i used it with friends, used it with my parents, used it with myself, and sort of figured that it would be true, right?  that hormones don't mean anything, gender doesn't mean anything, and that what's it called, there was that line from orlando i think.  the point is that the changing wasn't supposed to be the sort of thing that would strike a final death blow to the sad sack dude i was trying to get away from.  i was trying to cheer him up with the warmth of opportunity, and ended up blowtorching him.

and then slowly, so gradually that i didn't even realize that it was happening as it did, someone else took his place, and that someone was me.

when i told my parents, when i assured them that their son wasn't going to die, i had no idea how wrong that was going to end up being.  it's weird, i can't even begin to summon the words to describe how much not-me that person was, and i can't figure out how that person was me, i can't reconcile the notion that that was my childhood and adolescence because it doesn't make any sense.

it's freaky.  it's one thing to mature, to change my tastes, to have shifts in personality, to start speaking in slightly different ways due to the influence of others.  but all of these happened at once, and to a degree so vast that i'm not sure how to relate any of them to each other.  there's a disconnect between the person who formerly inhabited this body and me, and whenever i think too long about that, i get weird and uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.  i don't know how i got from where i was to where i am.

i'm glad i don't think about it more than i do.

Quote from: Sarah7 on February 10, 2013, 07:53:33 AM
I was a shell pre-transition. Now I'm a person. That's the diff.

that's the only thing i can tell myself about before, but the weirdest part is, what if it's not true?  what if there was a person that i just obliterated in order to exist?  it would be easy for me to say that i just inhabited what had been empty space, but it certainly FEELS like my existence came at the cost of someone else's.

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on February 10, 2013, 07:22:57 AM
Hmm. The consensus so far seems to be that mtfs proceed down the expected road in becoming more feminine after transition and we ftms do the opposite?
Both groups seem to display more feminine traits such as empathy, etc. after transition.
Thoughts?

I think a lot of stereotypically feminine traits are seen by society (and probably by us as well) as having a certain level of "vulnerability", although I personally believe being vulnerable is the bravest thing anyone can do. You have to be very brave, and open, to let your true self and your true feelings show. I think when we are hiding who we are, it's because we are afraid, and we don't want to be emotionally vulnerable because it might give away our secret. But when we accept ourselves and have the chance to start living as ourselves, it's easier to lay that self and those feelings down on the line.

Thinking about it more, I think it may be similar to what Arch just posted. My parents were pretty good about letting me do whatever I wanted in terms of gendered stuff...but there were some family members who pushed feminine things on me, and didn't even give me the option to choose between things for "boys" and things for "girls." I came out as a "lesbian" first, at 18, because it seemed to be what fit...I liked girls, and I assumed that lesbians didn't feel like women either. While it was liberating and brought me a lot of happiness to not be hiding one part of myself anymore, I was really angry as well. I was furious that I felt pressured to hide the "masculine" parts of myself. That it was just assumed I'd want to grow up to be a stereotypically feminine and straight woman. That I wasn't given the choice. What made me even angrier was that when people found out I liked girls, I got the same crap! From near strangers, no less. Sure, there was the "Why don't you just try being with a guy? You don't even know what it's like, you can't say you're a lesbian." But people also mixed it together. There was also "You're such a pretty girl, you don't have to be a lesbian. Dress a little nicer, act a little more feminine, and you'll find your man." As if.

So to me, I think on some level, I took feminine behaviours as submission to some extent. Submission to what everyone else was trying to tell me about who I was. Yet at the same time, I never acted like a stereotypical guy either. Because the stereotypical guys were the guys who made my life miserable...they were the ones who put me down all the time and tried to make me into a proper straight girl. I did retain a lot of my feminine traits, but they were saved for those I cared for...to the rest of the world, I did try to put on a more masculine presentation than suits me.

But now, I know I don't owe anyone an explanation. Much like I didn't have to explain why I wanted to be with a woman and not a man, I owe no one an explanation as to what I like and what I don't like. I know I am a man, and I will do what I want, be it considered feminine or masculine. I don't care if they think it makes my transition a mistake, if they think it's just me not "working hard enough" to alter my socialization, if they think I'm a "sissy" guy, if they think I'm a gay man (they don't seem to though). I'm not entirely there yet, but it's a work in progress. One day I will hold a lot less back.

I read all the posts and thought that some overanalyze somewhat where I just take some things in stride, but I get criticism for never asking enough questions about things that should be important to me, so this thread has set me to thinking.

Other than external changes I have changed rather dramatically in terms of personality. Formerly I was considered a type-A chloric personality. Forceful, opinionated, something of a passive-aggressive ->-bleeped-<-, I can admit to that now in retrospect, although I would never have admitted it before. How could I when I was always right? I have moved from that extreme to a type-B personality, laid back, empathetic, patient with others, kind and loving. Mr. ->-bleeped-<- is gone forever and is not being missed.
My brain and thought processes have changed dramatically, I enjoy shopping when before I would avoid malls at all costs. I am at home and comfortable in the women's intimates department, before I felt like a whale out of water. In terms of intimacy, I experience the emotional side that was never there before. I must own 20+ firearms that are gathering dust in the gun locker, I no longer have a desire to shoot at the range or go hunting with the Neanderthal former buddies anymore, I'm just not interested. I enjoy lengthy conversations with women about women's issues, family, children, and relationships, before it was just so much silly women's drivel. I should say that over the last 18 years of the longest transition ever, that there has been rather dramatic changes, I suppose that my transition will be complete when I pass out of this life.

I kind of feel like you are in my head, transtrender.

Let me say right up front, my bias is that I want the person I have become through transition to be the person I truly always was, because I really don't like the idea that my existence came at the cost of somebody else's, for a lot of reasons.  Not wanting to be guilty of essentially killing the person whom my family and friends loved is probably the biggest one.  Even though the truth is, if that really was a different person, they would not exist today whether I transitioned or not.

So I want to find an explanation like maybe that previous iteration of myself was just a distortion of the real person within and the changes I have noticed were just the result of me not trying desperately to fit into the male world anymore?  Or maybe that person was a phony, fakey, shell and the perceived changes are just the result of removing a facade to reveal the real person within?  Elspeth talking about the journal she kept as a mormon did strike a chord with me on that front.

Maybe that's it.  I want to believe that's it.  Then again, the simpler explanation seems to just be that I have become a different person.  That previous iteration of myself died after all on the day I chose not to end my life but to fight for it and go down this path.  That kind of makes me saaaaaaaaaaaad....

And yeah, overanalyzing...  I feel myself doing that here.  This subject is kind of a biggie for me though.

Quote from: Jen on February 10, 2013, 08:03:56 PM
I kind of feel like you are in my head, transtrender.

Let me say right up front, my bias is that I want the person I have become through transition to be the person I truly always was, because I really don't like the idea that my existence came at the cost of somebody else's, for a lot of reasons.  Not wanting to be guilty of essentially killing the person whom my family and friends loved is probably the biggest one.  Even though the truth is, if that really was a different person, they would not exist today whether I transitioned or not.

So I want to find an explanation like maybe that previous iteration of myself was just a distortion of the real person within and the changes I have noticed were just the result of me not trying desperately to fit into the male world anymore?  Or maybe that person was a phony, fakey, shell and the perceived changes are just the result of removing a facade to reveal the real person within?  Elspeth talking about the journal she kept as a mormon did strike a chord with me on that front.

Maybe that's it.  I want to believe that's it.  Then again, the simpler explanation seems to just be that I have become a different person.  That previous iteration of myself died after all on the day I chose not to end my life but to fight for it and go down this path.  That kind of makes me saaaaaaaaaaaad....

And yeah, overanalyzing...  I feel myself doing that here.  This subject is kind of a biggie for me though.

yoooo, same here, it's freaky, like reading someone who's cribbing lines from your thoughts or something.  idk even how to respond, it's just, wow.

i want to believe the same thing, but i know it's not true.  it doesn't fit right, and i know that when i actually think back and think hard about who i was and what i was thinking and i know that The Real Me wasn't locked up there somewhere, the real me was what i was presenting to the world because well there was no like Secret Attitude that i wanted to have that i didn't, no Emotional Liberation that i would get if i were True To Myself.  it was just me obsessing over how much i hated my body.

and the worst part is that i think i prefer who i am today, that i'm HAPPY on some level that that other person was destroyed.

Quote from: Jen on February 10, 2013, 08:03:56 PM
I kind of feel like you are in my head, transtrender.

Let me say right up front, my bias is that I want the person I have become through transition to be the person I truly always was, because I really don't like the idea that my existence came at the cost of somebody else's, for a lot of reasons.  Not wanting to be guilty of essentially killing the person whom my family and friends loved is probably the biggest one.  Even though the truth is, if that really was a different person, they would not exist today whether I transitioned or not.

So I want to find an explanation like maybe that previous iteration of myself was just a distortion of the real person within and the changes I have noticed were just the result of me not trying desperately to fit into the male world anymore?  Or maybe that person was a phony, fakey, shell and the perceived changes are just the result of removing a facade to reveal the real person within?  Elspeth talking about the journal she kept as a mormon did strike a chord with me on that front.

Maybe that's it.  I want to believe that's it.  Then again, the simpler explanation seems to just be that I have become a different person.  That previous iteration of myself died after all on the day I chose not to end my life but to fight for it and go down this path.  That kind of makes me saaaaaaaaaaaad....

And yeah, overanalyzing...  I feel myself doing that here.  This subject is kind of a biggie for me though.

Hmm how do you know this 'old you' wasn't just your male persona? I had a 'female persona' but she was reserved for certain people and situations. There wasn't much to her. She tried to act and speak how she thought women did. You can imagine how that went.  She was actually a poor imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, people would get irritated when she would vanish into thin air and become a man without warning.

First thread to draw tears since I came back 'round here.  Hooray...!  hmmmm..

Quote from: Not-so Fat Admin on February 10, 2013, 09:42:18 PM
Hmm how do you know this 'old you' wasn't just your male persona? I had a 'female persona' but she was reserved for certain people and situations. There wasn't much to her. She tried to act and speak how she thought women did. You can imagine how that went.  She was actually a poor imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, people would get irritated when she would vanish into thin air and become a man without warning.

Well, I don't know that it wasn't.  Maybe it was just a persona.  Transtrender brought up the term "cognitive dissonance" and that describes the feeling I get when I look back at how I was, and it just makes me... doubt, and wonder, and obsess.

Quote from: Shantel on February 10, 2013, 06:51:05 PM
Other than external changes I have changed rather dramatically in terms of personality. Formerly I was considered a type-A chloric personality. Forceful, opinionated, something of a passive-aggressive ->-bleeped-<-, I can admit to that now in retrospect, although I would never have admitted it before. How could I when I was always right? I have moved from that extreme to a type-B personality, laid back, empathetic, patient with others, kind and loving. Mr. ->-bleeped-<- is gone forever and is not being missed.

Am I going to regret admitting that, given some of the other context in this thread, your post has me ever so slightly worried that post-transition I might wind up being a mirror image of this?  There might have been a brief time, in my mid-teens, before I left Mormonism, where I might have fit the first part of this description... but I think that's unlikely. I think it might have some relevance to why I have delayed and struggled against transition in the ways that I have... at heart, I am so aware right now, thanks to way too much therapy and navel gazing, that what drives me to transition is the dysphoria I feel about my physical body... I have managed to arrange my life in general so that most of the time I'm fairly sure most others see me as the second phase personality you described.

I don't seriously think I would shift in this way, once the shackles of the body were out of my way and I felt more free to be some new me. But it would really suck, at least to the me now, if something like that were to happen.

If there's a legit fear here, it may have to do with my feeling that I've often tended to repress some things lurking in the depths, because my strategies for managing my dysphoria were so much about being the best kind of woman I could be, even if no one quite saw me that way, though I'm not really sure they don't see me... there have been hints and clues that I could at least interpret as people wondering "Why doesn't she just transition already" -- some going back to some of my earliest contacts with transwomen my own age or near it, who were more direct and resolute in doing what I mostly dreamed of at the time, and more than a few of those chided me for my delaying tactics. Is it that I fear becoming a female Hitler or entrepreneur???

Quote from: Elspeth on February 10, 2013, 10:09:47 PM
Am I going to regret admitting that, given some of the other context in this thread, your post has me ever so slightly worried that post-transition I might wind up being a mirror image of this?  There might have been a brief time, in my mid-teens, before I left Mormonism, where I might have fit the first part of this description... but I think that's unlikely. I think it might have some relevance to why I have delayed and struggled against transition in the ways that I have... at heart, I am so aware right now, thanks to way too much therapy and navel gazing, that what drives me to transition is the dysphoria I feel about my physical body... I have managed to arrange my life in general so that most of the time I'm fairly sure most others see me as the second phase personality you described.

I don't seriously think I would shift in this way, once the shackles of the body were out of my way and I felt more free to be some new me. But it would really suck, at least to the me now, if something like that were to happen.

If there's a legit fear here, it may have to do with my feeling that I've often tended to repress some things lurking in the depths, because my strategies for managing my dysphoria were so much about being the best kind of woman I could be, even if no one quite saw me that way, though I'm not really sure they don't see me... there have been hints and clues that I could at least interpret as people wondering "Why doesn't she just transition already" -- some going back to some of my earliest contacts with transwomen my own age or near it, who were more direct and resolute in doing what I mostly dreamed of at the time, and more than a few of those chided me for my delaying tactics. Is it that I fear becoming a female Hitler or entrepreneur???

Well let me tell you my experience as a non-type A, empathetic, caring person pre-transition, and that is that I stayed pretty much the same afterward.  Maybe I'm a little moreso on all those traits, but it's hard to tell.  It's like I could say I'm more prone to cry post-estrogen, but that's only 'cause I cry when I'm happy too now.

I don't think you have anything to worry about .

Quote from: Jen on February 10, 2013, 10:17:31 PM

Well let me tell you my experience as a non-type A, empathetic, caring person pre-transition, and that is that I stayed pretty much the same afterward.  Maybe I'm a little moreso on all those traits, but it's hard to tell.  It's like I could say I'm more prone to cry post-estrogen, but that's only 'cause I cry when I'm happy too now.

I don't think you have anything to worry about .

I hope you're right... this is certainly more consistent with where I envision myself going, if/when I manage to sort out the practical details of getting there.  But like a recent poster in some other threads, I do tend to worry about some things way more than is good for me... often fairly strange or seemingly silly things.

Somethings have changed. I tend to be way more patient with people now and definitely more forgiving. I also like animals a lot more and care more about my appearance.   The anger and hate for the world in general is gone. I did drop some "masculine hobbies" that I had before due to just losing interest, but I think some of that is due to my dad not being around anymore and so the need to please him is gone. I'm still a little shy, but not as bad. I still find making friends to be difficult for me and I still lack confidence in myself. But overall, I am happier with my life than I was before.  I'm sure there are other differences that I am not thinking of right now, but they are likely minor ones.

As usual, it seems I'm an oddity..

Apart from a lack of soul crushing depression, I'm much the same person I've always been. Sure, I'm happier and I no longer take hiding as an option rather than attend a social event, but I'm still much the same person..

Kia Ora,

Personality as in the combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioural response patterns of an individual.

Yes, I've changed post transition,  but  I feel it is a combination of things, like aging "Age comes with wisdom-but wisdom doesn't always come with age"   and interaction with society-them now seeing and treating me as my 'correct' gender,I automatically react differently... However one key shift came from my involvement with Buddhist psychology the more I understood it the more my outlook on life changed.... I am a lot more laid back [in fact if I was any more laid back I'd be lying down]...

To sum it all up........

Before transition  chop wood and fetch water after transition chop wood and fetch water [but with a big grin on my face] 

Metta Zenda