When you are alone, just thinking...or even when you are speaking and referring to yourself, do you usually do it using the right words? The right gender?

This is a tricky question, because it should only work with some languages...

English, for example, doesn't have a gender difference for most words you are just thinking or that you'll say when referring to yourself.

While in English you may say "I am concerned" whether you are a man or a woman, in Portuguese this can be said in two ways:
1.   If you are a man, you'll say "Eu estou preocupado
2.   If you are a woman, you'll say "Eu estou preocupada

For me it is kind of strange, because I am so used to thinking in the same way since I was born, that I end up thinking/saying phrases with the masculine derivatives. Sometimes I use the feminine without noticing and I feel very accomplished, but these are very rare situations.

Can any of you relate to this? English speakers most likely won't face this problem, but this is indeed a big problem for me and I believe this must be shared by those who have languages with similar grammar patterns (romantic languages).

It tricks really bad my disphoria, because "I cannot think and refer to myself as a woman when I am on automatic".

My hope is that this can be changed, but I guess it will need a long time...

My first language is English, so I don't have that problem, but sometimes I'll slip up and say my birth name, which annoys me because it's automatic, and when I do that, I get worried that maybe I'm not trans and I'm just fooling myself. But I realise that it's nothing to do with that, it's just habit, it's VERY hard to break a habit you've been going by your entire life. I think with time it'll get easier, like with anything

I suppose I have the advantage of coming from a time when everything was very black-and-white, boy or girl, he or she. Even the law was black and white: before surgery you were a boy or girl and after surgery you were the opposite. That also fit with my simplistic mind and when I had SRS (1974) I switched, EVERYTHING switched. There were no "modifiers", no trans-woman, just woman. Although it took a few months to detach completely from the male name, it happened totally and completely fairly quickly and with complete integration in to the world of women, everything prior was gone.

i think i'd have serious problems remembering to use -a when not in a girlish mode. just like i have problems remembering to use the right level of speech in japanese. it easy to be formal, but as soon as i'm writing to people who are closer to friends than any other kind of relation, i'll start mixing up things a lot. very much depending on mood and mode. it's easier where the grammar is as gender specific as in portuguese, but... i'll have to think before i remember whether i was supposed to speak like a girl or a guy.

norwegian or english are so much easier, until i start making mistakes with referring to myself as "he" or "she" in the wrong contexts, or talking wrong for my gender presentation.

i don't have any well established gender. whether it be male or female presentation, some times i end up feeling that it truly is but a presentation, and it becomes difficult to remember how it would be natural for a person of my presented gender to act or speak. it's even funnier when i forget what gender i present as, that has confused me a few times.

maybe things would be easier if i could just settle for one gender and be done with it. but that would be too boring.

Natalia, I understand the problem. I learnt Italian so I could communicate with my father's side of my family. It's a luxury that in English you don't have to refer to your gender constantly, especially if you're mid-transition and you're testing your passability with the public without giving them any gender-specific clues. I felt like I had to relearn Italian after I transitioned, and felt embarrassed to refer to myself with the correct gender so early on. It felt so artificial. I sympathise.

Quote from: Natalia on March 27, 2014, 12:08:49 AM
When you are alone, just thinking...or even when you are speaking and referring to yourself, do you usually do it using the right words? The right gender?

I have trouble with this. When I refer to myself, I still finding myself using "he" most of the time.

I started this so young that I have always referred to myself as a woman (in my mind anyway) I was forced to use the wrong gender references through my school years or face the consequences I was at a time where it was Male or Female, no in between.  Try telling a teacher in the 40's, 50's you weren't who you were, it didn't work.

Now even my high school friends refer to me as "she", I'm surprised how accepting they have been.

yeah it happent a few times that I mix it together, I general try speaking gender neutral and think pretty gender neutral about myself so it dosent happent so much, but my head is abit messy.

Quote from: Natkat on March 27, 2014, 05:10:56 PM
yeah it happent a few times that I mix it together, I general try speaking gender neutral and think pretty gender neutral about myself so it dosent happent so much, but my head is abit messy.

Thats what I do too :/

What ive noticed is this , when I think or speak with my normal male voice it seems really strange to use female pronouns , just because it seems awkward , like if I had a normal female voice I dont think id have a problem

I always speak and think to myself in female terms.  I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I talk to myself a lot.  I work alone quite a bit.  I can't get upset at others for messing up pronouns if I get even get it right my self. 

Julie: you should see me at home. I always talk to myself. I carry out entire conversations sometimes!

I never thought about what pronouns I use when I refer to myself in my inner monologue. I usually just say "okay, goofus how about..." The only time it's gendered that I'm positive about when I have to do my shot. Then it's "you're a big boy! You can do this!"

I forced my self to change this but it is impossible for me since the reflection in the mirror still screams MAN at me, maybe I will achieve this once I change my presentation but it will take a lot of work

I also see myself as a male in my dreams which bothers me quite a lot

THIS is one more fact that keeps me from fully accepting that i'm trans. my first language doesn't have gender specific grammar for first person either. but when i was very young, like 9yrs old maybe i used to refer to myself in third person. there was a voice inside that read out every single thing i did as if i was reading a novel. say i stood up and walked out of the room, that voice would narrate while i'm doing it 'she stood up and walked out of the room' say i was afraid of something instead of feeling the fear that voice would read on 'she was afraid' etc. it worries me now that i used female pronouns for myself. i don't do the narrating thing now, but sometimes it comes to me naturally and i still refer to myself as she in the first instant, but quickly correct myself and keep reminding myself to use he in place of she. it needs effort. hope this goes away soon.

also, i too have these personal arguments, discussions etc. with myself, and there i'm behaving like i'm two people. things like 'it's gonna be alright buddy' 'don't worry man' etc. are normal enough i guess, but it sometimes i talk to myself as a guy would talk to his gf? it freaks me out to think about it but it comes to me so naturally. i'd say very often 'look babe, you need to understand' 'sweet heart, it's not like that' 'don't worry baby i'll rsave ya' sort of stuff. and afterwards i freak out at having called myself with girlish words of address. maybe i'm desperately in need of some real romance, or i'm finding my girl body attractive, like im pretending im dating myself. ew that's gross.

adjusting pronouns will be easier than adjusting adjective agreements in first person (en français)

Dunno what that says about me.

With Portuguese, Italian and many others this is such a nightmare that you English speakers can't even imagine. You cannot talk without having to refer to your gender...all the time, for everything...

It is not just thank you...it is obrigado/obrigada....and so on! It's very easy to mix everything and end mixing feminine with masculine and talking like if you are a crazy lunatic from some asylum.

But I think this is just a quetsion of getting used to. As we have lived our entire lives being referred to and having to refer to ourselves using the wrong gender, we are extremely used to it...

It doen't mean we're not trans. Never! It is just that we are so used to it that it falls on the automatic...and we don't think before we do it...we just speak.

I think that, perhaps, when you start going full time, you change that more naturally.

I am not out of my "boy mode" yet and so I must refer to myself on the masculine forms always...but I feel bad when I am alone and I end thinking and talking with myself (crazy  ) and using the same masculine forms.

Perhaps any of you, boys and girls that are already full time...perhaps you can tell me if after transitioning this becomes easier.

I was doing that for a while initially, but now find I'm more often referring to myself as she/her/missy/girl etc.

Weirdly, when I decided to pursue transition for a second time I initially found myself calling myself Julie (the name I'd chosen during my first transition) even though I'd already chosen Grace.

Referring to oneself in English in 3rd person is not the same as using gender specific adjectives upon oneself. Talking to yourselves?! You all sound rather batty, personally. Unfortunately, I don't use my Italian nearly enough, but early on I tried my level best to never use adjectives to describe myself.

I am seeing that some people are misunderstanding what I really wanted to mean on my post...just for you people hava an idea of how it is on Portuguese, I decided to write an usual conversation in Portuguese and translate it to English.

All the gender specfic words are in red (woman) or blue (man):

Olá, como vai você?
Hello, how are you?

ÓtimA, e você?
Great, and you?

Eu estou ótimO também! Nossa, você está lindA com esse vestido!
I am great too! Wow, you are beautiful on this dress!

Muito obrigadA
Thank you very much!

Quer ir almoçar, está com fome?
Do you want to have lunch? Are you hungry?

Sim, estou famintA! Eu queria ir naquele restaurante ali, mas é muito longe e estou me sentindo cansadA hoje.
Yes, I am starving! I would like to go to that restaurant over there, but it is too far and I am feeling tired today.

Ah, tudo bem. Fique tranquilA, eu te levo no meu carro.
Ah, no problem. Be cool, I'll take you with me on my car.

How many in English? NONE

How many in Portuguese? SEVEN


Well, perhaps now you can have an idea of how different this is from referring to yourself on the third person.

This is a nightmare! this is SPARTAAA

Natalia thank you for giving us a lesson in understanding other languages and cultures.  I can also understand that many respondents here are thinking about how many of us still misgender ourselves in our conversations and even in our dreams.  It is troubling enough that some will question being transgender at all.  It helps me be a bit more gentle and understanding of the innocent mistakes people make.  It also illuminates the idea that gender is not static or well determined for many of us but something fluid and changeable regardless of linguistics.

After dealing with being considered a boy and man for over six decades It is a big change and sometimes a challenge to gender myself and my TG/TS friends in the way we prefer.  Language does change and perhaps a hundred years from now people will have better and more inclusive terms of engagement?