Quote from: Lyric on July 27, 2014, 10:57:24 PM
I've never been comfortable befriending males who do the overly masculine stuff, nor have I really ever hung out with women who do the totally girly thing.
Same here. It's all about balance, and those two extremes just feel uncomfortable. I have a room mate who is the epitome of hyper-femininity. Here's her Tumblr:
http://riacatherine.tumblr.com She's an odd combination of histrionic personality, child-like immaturity and meme-worthy adorableness. She's almost constantly in Princess Mode. And then there's one of my guy roomies who isn't really "macho", but he's full of testosterone. He listens mainly to thrash and punk music, wears a spiked vest, and always plays with swords or his crossbow. Neither personality really vibes with me enough to want to hang out with them, but we get along well enough to coexist.
I've always been drawn towards femininity with an edge; the kind of personality that embraces and expresses their femininity with grace, but speaks their mind with ferocity and stands up in the face of oppression. The masculine form and personality doesn't appeal to me at all. It's not something I've ever resonated with. I have very "manly" friends, but we don't hang out if they're going to watch a game, go to a sports bar, or go to a strip club. And yeah, they'll talk about the typical stuff around me, but all I can really do chuckle or roll my eyes with a grin.
If I'm hanging out with any of my female friends I definitely feel a lot more comfortable, but they don't really go into super girly mode. We just talk about life, personal goals, dreams, relationships, TV shows, food, art and make each other laugh as much as possible.
It's really kind of weird to me to relate so much more with women and not have any romantic or aesthetic interest in men. I'm not saying it
is weird as some kind of absolute. It just initially seems a bit contradicting when you're transitioning MTF; except in my case I'm far less feminine in demeanor. It outweighs any masculinity I have, though.
So, basically, I have the brain of a lesbian. I wish more people could understand how that's possible instead of saying,
"so you're basically just an effeminate straight dude, then." I'd say there's a
huge difference between simply being more emotionally receptive + less testosterone-powered and
feeling/knowing that there's a girl inside who is grudgingly piloting a Teselecta that's stuck in the form of a male.
(By the way, that's a Doctor Who reference. The Teselecta was android spacecraft that could shape-shift into any life form convincingly. Sorry, it was too great of an analogy not to use.)An effeminate cis male isn't going to suffer dysphoria, peruse the internet for everything trans related, join a trans community forum, and decide that HRT is something beneficial for their mental health. I also highly doubt that an effeminate cis male would create a blog for the purpose of viewing and reposting trans and lesbian subject matter, women's goth fashion, androgynous and feminine portraiture, and artistic photographs of flowers. But who has the time to think about all those specifics, right? If your hips are animated when you walk, your posture isn't all over the place, your personality is far left of manly, Monday Night Football sounds like a great excuse to hide away with a book and a cup of tea, and yet you find women attractive, then you're just a straight guy who just spent a little too much time with your mommy as a child.

Anyway, sorry about the tangent. I never fail to have a novel's worth of thoughts.