I feel embarrassed about starting all these threads but I'm so confused right now and my therapist, bless his heart, isn't experienced enough to help.

I feel like there's a tug of war inside me, where the emotional part of me does not want to be a man but the gender part of me, for want of a better term, cannot bear being called "she" and "ma'am" any longer!

I feel very negatively towards being male, like there is something bad about it, and I find myself wishing I could acclimate myself towards being female. At the same time I am doing 100% better on T, obsess over changing my body and go through constant stress over being misgendered or fearing that someone who calls me sir will say "I'm sorry, ma'am" a few seconds later.

I guess on the one hand I have really bad social dysphoria but on the other hand I'm truly ambivalent about switching "teams". Being a guy just seems like it sucks and people make a lot of assumptions about you, like voting Republican and liking American football.

One thing that scares me is that I've always gotten along pretty easily with most women on a friends/acquaintance basis. I have male friends too, generally people who share my interests, but having strange men treat me like a fellow guy, while really cool, is totally new to me. If I start to pass more I'm going to have to treat women differently and have them treat me differently and it feels isolating and scary. I've never thought 'like a woman' and find a lot of what they say different from what I would think or feel but I've always gotten along okay anyway, well, excepting elementary school when the girls with two exceptions flatly rejected me. The weird thing is that one of those exceptions was a very femme girl who was my best friend for most of elementary school. Things got really weird when puberty started to hit and I felt pressured to pick a favorite "New Kid on the Block". I thought I was going to get "found out". It never occurred to me to just admit I wasn't attracted to any of them.

I guess I am making myself upset reading trans women's transition stories on here when they talk about getting along with other women and being part of the 'club' if you will. I feel like being a dude sucks.

Your post here is prescient for me.  I've been feeling like that too lately and have that on my list for the therapist at the next appointment.  The exact thought in my mind is I don't feel authentic and that is confusing me.  It's confusing because I don't have any doubt at all that I'm trans.  I've spent enough time examining and analyzing that to write an encyclopedia.  But I don't feel authentic, like I'm not real.  I can't stop where I'm going though; I tried that before and it leads back into a pitch black bottomless pit.  I'm not sure if this feeling is something inside me or something being imposed by our F U society?  I need to think on that and figure it out.

So, you are not the only one.

Women seem to have a sort of instinctive group preference for other women. This is something I never experienced - i.e. no particular affinity to hang out with women, feel sympathy for them, or to feel like I identify with their experiences etc. This is part of what makes them instinctively bond, and if you just don't have that, like I don't, it's not like you'd feel all that much part of their group in that same way anyway. If you're just kind envious of the more relaxed method of their interaction with other women, well that's their 'privilege'. You can have that with the good friends that you might make, you just won't have it off the bat like women can. You'll have to earn it. That's not so bad, actually... I'd rather earn it by getting to know someone very well rather than just being accepted into a group because of gender. I'd rather know someone properly and have less friendships but decent ones than many superficial ones. Or I'd rather have one trustworthy reliable friend than be a part of a group. 

As for people making assumptions, people do that endlessly no matter who someone is. If they think you're a woman they'll be assuming you want to have babies and have girly interests instead. All people are subject to it in some form or other. Ignore it, it's a waste of time marveling at how dull people can be in this regard!

With strange new women, just keep your distance, be polite but not forward. Assume they have no interest in you. It's not too difficult - at least not for me as an anti-social type to begin with, who treats all people the same and keeps them at a distance. Showing no interest other than general civility makes them feel safer. I wouldn't envy you if you are attracted to them and want to enter the dating game though. That's something I won't be doing.

I would say it feels like imposter syndrome: Impostor syndrome  is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

I felt strongly that way about being considered a woman. They would say "You're the first woman to do X" and I was like "I'm not, because I'm not a woman," but sometimes I couldn't say that and felt really uncomfortable. But with being a guy it's different, I feel like a fake because I didn't have a boyhood, I didn't go through normal male adolescent rituals, I feel like I took the easy way out and now I don't have the right to call myself male.

Well we aren't "normal" in the sense of the word that means typical and common, there's no way our early experiences are going to be. We have a relatively rare medical condition. That's just something we all have to come to terms with. But we're still human, we're not impostors in the human race. We're just different, like hybrids. Try to find something good in that to focus on. I bet most cis out there have barely given their "right" to call themselves whatever a moment's thought. Probably never thought deeply about what they "are". Does that mean they have more right to the label than you?

This actually really jives with me. I was very much a proud butch lesbian prior to coming out, and while I never personally had any bad experiences or interactions with men that would leave a bad taste in my mouth, I think just in general coming from that background there is some tension there - like they were a rival team or something. And combining that with the fact that a lot of my lesbian friends that I had known for years openly felt that I was "selling out" by transitioning, well. I know where you're coming from.

I think what helped for me in terms of adjusting my mentality about it was thinking about men that I admire or would like to be like. It helps to take the generalization out of it and focus on concrete examples, at least for me.

This is something pretty alien to me. I never considered myself on the female team, no matter what anyone said. I may never have considered myself on the male team either until recently. I wonder if it's easier or harder in the long run to have felt like you belonged and have to readjust, or to have been like me and never belonged anywhere, so I don't really have to adjust to anything, other than the obvious "male ettiquette"... since I'm not exactly itching to join any male groups either really. Given I'm fairly anti-social but generally polite, nothing much has changed. No culture shock. No great expectations. I do feel like something was missing from my life - maybe it was that. But since I've never quite felt it, I guess I'll never know.

Cant relate there, Ive  never had a lot of female friends, usually. In high school I actually had a mixed group of friends both male and female and it was the best time of my life. I grew up on a lot of awful feminine stereotypes that I had to move away from, which in itself was somewhat difficult, but otherwise what I miss most is not that I dont know how to be a male because that comes natural, its mostly that I missed out on being more boyish as a child and people looking at me associating typical girlishness to me, part of me wishes I couldve been seen as male so I can skip the "first impression" based on my sex

I think I meld very well with the males I come in contact with, and so much better now that there isnt any sex tension based on opposing gender, Im finally one of the bros, in a way...

But anyways thats just me, and to be fair Ive met a lot of girls and guys that dont necessarily fit their gender standard as far as socialization goes, so as per the norm its best not to write off all girls and guys as the same,

Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on September 25, 2016, 11:41:29 AM
Being a guy just seems like it sucks and people make a lot of assumptions about you, like voting Republican and liking American football.

One of the things I feel strongly about is gender equality, that means men have every right to embrace interests, affects, or hobbies deemed "feminine" as much as a woman can with things "masculine"

I guess the drawback and confusion is if you're trans people might expect you to go full macho man or full femmy girl, which is silly. Most people have at least some interests on the other "side", so to speak, some more than others but thats also okay, too.

Me, personally? I'm not the most buff and tough guy, I dont ever expect to be. I like rough activity, action, hardcore music etc. and abhor femininity. But since Ive transitioned I found I still like cute things, pink, sometimes femme clothing, emotion and softness...in short, I went from masculine female to "gay"/effeminate male, and the second is more natural because its more me.

If people knew that about me theyd probably wonder why I even had to transition, why couldnt I just be female? Well...easy answer, because I wasnt, it had nothing to do with just my interests or affect otherwise I wouldnt have bothered going through the trouble wanting to be seen and associated as male

Quote from: FTMax on September 25, 2016, 07:22:48 PM
I think what helped for me in terms of adjusting my mentality about it was thinking about men that I admire or would like to be like. It helps to take the generalization out of it and focus on concrete examples, at least for me.

My therapist just reminded me that I talked about wanting to emulate my grandfather. He's everything a good man should be and nothing like the stereotypical media notion of masculinity (where everything is eXtreme! and nothing's taken seriously). So you make a really good point about taking it down to the specific.

This resonates with me a lot. I'm almost six months on T but don't pass yet and I feel like I'm in this really uncomfortable in between place where I don't fit with women but I don't fit with men either because no one really sees me as male, lol. I guess I feel pretty intimidated by other men because they seem more real to me and I feel like an imposter, which I know is bull->-bleeped-<-, but it's almost like it's hard for me to believe myself because of what I see when I look in the mirror.

I also am a bit afraid of being seen as a cis man because of the assumptions that people make. I went to a women's college and a lot of my friends were queer women who were pretty uncomfortable with men in general so I think that feeds my fear a bit, that I've betrayed them or betrayed feminism or something. I felt like an outsider with them because I was always attracted to men, but now that I'm transitioning that makes me feel even more awkward.

I guess I'm just trying to remind myself of the kind of guy I want to be in the meantime.