I was just thinking about this the other day at my therapists office when I caught myself referring to me by my male name. I definitely feel like I'm already a woman, like really I have been all my adult life and have just been putting on an act.  That said, old habits die hard, so I still sometimes refer to myself in a male context.  Since I'm not full-time yet, that makes it even more confused.  But at the end of the day, there is no question about my gender, I am female and some how ended up with this jacked up male body.

So someone says they've always felt "female" or "male".....how do you possibly know what being "female" or "male" actually feels like?  Our perspective is all we have,  so i don't see how it's possible to truly know what someone else feels like to compare it to.  The soul doesn't have a gender tag that can be read for clarification.  There are so many varieties of men and woman and their tendencies, likes/dislikes etc that it's really quite impossible to say what it truly "feels" like to be a man or woman in the strict sense.  Also, People blur the boundaries of societies gender norms all the time without being trans....what do they "feel"?

All I do know is that from well before puberty (~5yo) I've had this constant and distinct knowledge that something was amiss with my gender.  Was it that I'm a woman and knew my body was wrong, or is it that I "wanted" to be a woman and my body was wrong?  Is it that I "needed" to be a woman on the outside to match something inside?  Who truly knows the difference, I don't believe I can really answer the why.....but I'm confident I'm now on the right track to my souls happiness and true fulfillment.

Quote from: staciM on May 02, 2017, 02:48:30 PM
So someone says they've always felt "female" or "male".....how do you possibly know what being "female" or "male" actually feels like?

I don't. What I do know is that the female stuff feels very uncomfortable and awkward and makes me do bad things to myself. The male stuff doesn't. It feels healthier and proper for me therefore I have to assume it is closer to the state I should be in, or should have been born with.

QuoteOur perspective is all we have,  so i don't see how it's possible to truly know what someone else feels like to compare it to.  The soul doesn't have a gender tag that can be read for clarification.  There are so many varieties of men and woman and their tendencies, likes/dislikes etc that it's really quite impossible to say what it truly "feels" like to be a man or woman in the strict sense.  Also, People blur the boundaries of societies gender norms all the time without being trans....what do they "feel"?

Exactly which is why I don't often say I "feel" like a man or I "want" to be one. I don't express either much, or at least no more so than an ill person imagines being healthy or wants not to be sick any more.

QuoteAll I do know is that from well before puberty (~5yo) I've had this constant and distinct knowledge that something was amiss with my gender.  Was it that I'm a woman and knew my body was wrong, or is it that I "wanted" to be a woman and my body was wrong?  Is it that I "needed" to be a woman on the outside to match something inside?  Who truly knows the difference, I don't believe I can really answer the why.....but I'm confident I'm now on the right track to my souls happiness and true fulfillment.

Being of the philosophical type I get asked this all time. It always gets into the nature of truth and how nobody actually knows anything about anything. This topic inevitably always comes down to feelings which is why everyone else has such a hard time accepting what we say. They literally know nothing about the state we are in, and never really will. All they can do is try to imagine, and all we can do is try to imagine what it's like to be them. Or, just get on with trying to be happy in life.

I've always internally been a dude. For most of my life I wanted to be externally a dude. Now I am also externally dudely. So I suppose both apply, depending on the semantics.

Quote from: staciM on May 02, 2017, 02:48:30 PM
So someone says they've always felt "female" or "male".....how do you possibly know what being "female" or "male" actually feels like?  Our perspective is all we have...

I think we can know by product of elimination. If you look at this from a cis perspective, their gender matches their body, it feels "normal or right" to be in their body, and be in the gender that correlates to with their assigned gender at birth.

Simply observing this in others is a good indicator that something is amiss with ourselves. Given most people generally don't have no incongruences between their gender and body is important. Sure they might not like the way society treats their gender, but that doesn't go hand in hand with identifying internally as the opposite gender, like there was a mistake made, a cruel joke played on them by Mother Nature.

It is this cognitive dissonance that for me is the biggest give away. The fact that I am in a male body means that should also feel male.  The fact that I obviously don't feel male while having all the necessary prerequisites I should need to match gender and body leads to the obvious answer. Well if I don't feel male, maybe I feel female.

This thought prompted the critical examination of my core identity, while also examining that of others, searching for a match, a sense of normalcy, and congruency. I ended up "knowing" I was female by "knowing" I was definitely not male, and the only solution or answer to what gender that made sense, and even came close to feeling normal is that I am female, but simply stuck in the wrong body- the subject of a cruel joke. I went ahead and tested that hypothesis and for the first time in my life I felt closer to normal than I ever thought possible. It went from thinking maybe everyone had this issue to some degree to "Ohhhhh, this is what it feels like  to have a congruent core identity- simply a non issue" Most people don't make a fuss about their gender because there is no issue to make a fuss about.



~Brooke~

Quote from: staciM on May 02, 2017, 02:48:30 PM
So someone says they've always felt "female" or "male".....how do you possibly know what being "female" or "male" actually feels like?  Our perspective is all we have,  so i don't see how it's possible to truly know what someone else feels like to compare it to.  The soul doesn't have a gender tag that can be read for clarification.  There are so many varieties of men and woman and their tendencies, likes/dislikes etc that it's really quite impossible to say what it truly "feels" like to be a man or woman in the strict sense.  Also, People blur the boundaries of societies gender norms all the time without being trans....what do they "feel"?

All I do know is that from well before puberty (~5yo) I've had this constant and distinct knowledge that something was amiss with my gender.  Was it that I'm a woman and knew my body was wrong, or is it that I "wanted" to be a woman and my body was wrong?  Is it that I "needed" to be a woman on the outside to match something inside?  Who truly knows the difference, I don't believe I can really answer the why.....but I'm confident I'm now on the right track to my souls happiness and true fulfillment.

+1

I like your answer, Staci.  It mirrors my feelings exactly.  I knew from an early age I wasn't a girl, and it really upset me. I wanted so much to be like them, to be a girl. Who knows why.  In the end it doesn't matter. First the first time in my life, I have found a way to be happy.  Transition has given me hope. Like you, I am confident this is the right path for me. I don't really care if people don't think I really am a woman as long as people treat me like one, and I get to express my femininity. I revel in it.  Transition has been a dream come true.

With kindness,

Terri

I too knew at a very early age, my memory wasn't that I wanted to be a girl but rather I knew something was terribly wrong and I had no idea what. I doubt I even knew of differences between boys and girls. Back then the term transsexual hadn't been invented yet that I'm aware of and I had no idea that boy should or could be a girl. I was in my 20's when Christine Jorgenson came out with her book, it was like a bomb went off in my head.  It was the first I had heard of such a thing and it answered so many questions for me.

Well, ever since I can remember I always felt male, not female. I always felt trapped in the wrong body. The only thing I am doing is matching my physical body to my mental state. Nothing more, nothing less.

This conversation reminds me that however close we come to truth, to reality we never truly experience really. We are limited by the tools and instruments at hand, which must eventually get processed by our ultimate limitation, our mind and body.

For the sake of sanity though we have agreed on how to describe the world, even though there is no way to know for sure that we perceive the world in the same way. None the less we agree that a chair is a chair, a color is a color, emotions like happy, sad, scared etc are known to everyone and just because you may not have experienced it, or seen it does not mean it isn't real, doesn't exist.

So why should the reality of knowing that you are a specific gender be any different?

As we already have a definition for gender that can be agreed upon. We know gender is between the ears, not between the legs, and we know that gender is on a spectrum- and yet for the sake of simplicity and communication we most often talk about gender as binary.

We have agreed upon all of these through science, with these tools I think it's a pretty solid argument that each of us have the knowledge, and the right to know what gender we are, and how it feels to be male or female. Even gender yours or someone else's  is ultimately perceived through the limitations of your mind and body.

Vsauce had an episode years ago on the perception of color. How I know that your red is the same as my red?



I think it has quite a bit of relevance to this discussion.


~Brooke~

I guess I don't really know what it means to "feel male," as if there were one single way to be masculine, and as if I could somehow peer into the mind of a cis male.  All I know is that from the time I was very little, I was quite interested in the things that boys and men did.  I wanted to do those things too.  I wanted to be with males and be accepted as one of them.  I viewed my own girlness with a kind of detached disappointment until puberty hit me, and then the disappointment morphed into horror.  That was when I felt that I was turning into something other, that was alien to myself.  As I begin transitioning now, I don't feel like I'm turning into a new thing at all.  I'm just clarifying the boundaries of my gender identity for people who didn't already know.  So in my head I already feel male.  Whether that's congruent to what goes on in any given cis male's mind I have no way of knowing.     

Edit: Cross-posted with Brooke.  Some very thought-provoking ideas there. 

Fantastic thread with insightful posts. I know what it is like to live as a male. (Played one in real life) I know what it is like to be a transitioner now too. Oh my gosh, being a transitioner is like changing the course of an ocean liner. So much effort to change so much. It is an intense adjustment. So, in the midst of the transition, trying to find one's place in a new gender, is it not surprising to hear, "Want to be a woman." "Want to be a man." So many physical, emotional,  logistical things to lose and then reacquire, it takes our focus to such an extent that it is hard to relate to the ultimate goal of being a correct gendered entity. It is worth recognizing this reality. How much effort do many of us put into agonizing that we don't feel like the final result? "Am I doing the right think transitioning? I don't feel like a ____. Maybe it isn't right transitioning because I don't think like a _____." I would advocate for us transitioners to give ourselves a break. I personally take heart in the fact that I am definitely not male in any way, now. I left one shore (living, being considered male) and am steaming toward a new island. It takes a while to get there, but once I travel a ways, I will be able to think and feel like who I am more. Sorry if my analogy doesn't 'hold water' for some folks.
Moni

I have no way of knowing what a vagina would really feel like but in my mind is a very clear idea of it. That may sound strange but for years before I ever took my first hormones I knew in my mind what breasts would feel like even though of course there weren't any. Once I had been on HRT long enough to develop breasts and the nipple sensations the previous idea of what they feel like was spot on. That's always kind of amazed me. I'll never of course be able to make the same comparison with a vagina sadly. Since puberty I've had sensations where had I been born female the vagina would be. Most times mild sensations, occasionally rather vivid. Mostly frustrating and confusing because there isn't anything there to feel those sensations but perhaps I do have an inkling of an idea of a vagina. Will never know but a nice fantasy anyway.

I'm a woman. I know my interpretation of that may be different to what a cis-woman would say. But it is my truth and reality. I will be very glad when my body matches my mind

--
"You do realize, this means you get to do character creation & the newbie zone all over again? "

I've felt like I'm supposed to be a boy since I was very young. I preferred to play with boys until I was forced out of that social group and into one of all misfit girls, which everyone thought I was as well. I came out around the age of 12 by telling my mom and dad I was supposed to be a boy, and from there it's been a wild ride.
But as far as feeling male or female now, I feel like I'm a male with a deformed body. And because of these deformities, I'm getting medical treatment to fix them, and then I'll be mostly rid of the deformities, but with some scarring from the medical treatments. You feel me?
Of course, my idea of how I want to express my gender vs. how I actually express it are very different.
I'm actually quite feminine, but since I'm very early on HRT I feel a bit desperate to compensate for my body, so I act as masculine as possible. I've made plans, though. Once I'm completely passable, I believe I'll be more comfortable expressing my gender in the way I feel is appropriate for me, perhaps by growing my hair out some and wearing clothes I like more than just hoodies, baggy t-shirts and shorts constantly.

Tl;dr: my identity is male, and I'm solid in that, but my desired expression is feminine-leaning. My current expression is making up for my lack of male physical characteristics.

i feel like i *should* be male, i *identify* as male, but i am too aware of my current situation to outright say i *am* male.  but i am not female, either.  that is what others see when they look at me, because i have outer female characteristics.  but my brain and whatever internal parts that they can't see are, in fact, just as physical as the parts of me that they can see--and those parts on the inside are what make me think "male", and thus form my identity.  so physically speaking, despite my appearance, i feel like i will always be in-between.  socially, too: i was raised to be a girl, but never felt like a girl, never really *was* a girl, yet have lived as one for most of my life and will (hopefully) proceed to do the opposite for the rest of my life.  socially and physically both, because of my experiences and the way i was born, i'll always technically be somewhere in between... but that won't stop me from embracing an identity as male and doing as much as i can on both social and physical levels to express it and "right" what was "wrong" from birth.  because when it comes to the question of who i am, it's my brain that forms my identity more than my outer body... and that part of me says male.

i guess my answer is "both and neither", depending on how you look at it, because all of the above apply in one way or another.

I felt like I was always female but my body was not. I tried to adapt my mind to my body and tried to be male. This came after many attempts to castrate myself and cross dressing in secret at night as a teen. But my mind was always female and made life as a male pretty difficult. Because I always was female in my head I would question everything that is male related. Things like why can't I wear makeup as a man. Why don't they make skirts for men. Why do I have to have body hair.Why can't I be a feminine man in a marriage with my wife. I tried every angel to satisfy the need. I wished I can have sex like a woman also. I wished I can feel how it felt to be in a woman's shoes only once in my life and sometimes fantasized that God would do a body swap with my ex wife just for a day. So that I can get to be a woman only once in my life and experience it. I was so desperate to fill that need to be a woman that I made deals with the devil as a child to make me a girl because God did not want to listen and make me one.

So I always felt like a woman trapped. But other people didn't see me as a woman so for them I am becoming a woman. Some of them have different views in milestones that you must achieve to be a woman in their eyes. For some you would never be a woman. Like for some you have to have the op to be a woman otherwise you are a man and nothing you can tell them will convince them otherwise. So I guess for them I am becoming a woman and I am not a woman yet. Like my mom said when I told her I will have my op soon her response then was then you are a woman. So for her because I have a penis I am still not a complete woman.

What an interesting thread, thank you Raell!

Way back when I was in the throes of transition, I thought I was going from one pole to the other.  Only afterwards did I come to realize that I had always been female, and that all prior misgenderings were mistaken -- including those I made upon myself.  So it's possible for one's answer to this to change over time.

Quote from: staciM on May 02, 2017, 02:48:30 PM
So someone says they've always felt "female" or "male".....how do you possibly know what being "female" or "male" actually feels like?  Our perspective is all we have,  so i don't see how it's possible to truly know what someone else feels like to compare it to.  The soul doesn't have a gender tag that can be read for clarification.  There are so many varieties of men and woman and their tendencies, likes/dislikes etc that it's really quite impossible to say what it truly "feels" like to be a man or woman in the strict sense.  Also, People blur the boundaries of societies gender norms all the time without being trans....what do they "feel"?

Staci (and Kylo) make some good points about the construction of the question, and namely the "feel" part of it.  This is where the "semantics" get tricky, I think.  To me, I "feel" sensations and emotions.  I can feel touch, and hunger, and pain and pleasure and so on.  And I have feelings -- glad, sad, mad, scared, disgusted.  That's what I feel.

In this context, the idea that one can "feel like a woman" doesn't make sense to me. 

It's possible, though, to say that one identifies as male or female, which may differ from how the rest of the world genders us.  This is generally enough to produce feelings of dysphoria (a conglomeration of sad, mad, scared, and disgusted), and it's from those feelings, I think, that we come to realize the truth of who we are. 

Quote from: Charlie Nicki on May 02, 2017, 09:11:44 AMI don't really feel I "am" a woman yet. For me womanhood isn't only hormones and appearance (that's probably the least important part). What makes anyone a woman is their experiences in life...I've never lived like a woman, I've never had their struggles (or their triumphs) so it's impossible for me to say I am one right now. I do think I definitely identify with them and would like to experience life like them, it's what feels right, what makes me feel happy and comfortable in the world, it's like realizing some of the pieces of the puzzle were placed wrong even though overall it seemed like it was OK and completed, and I just need to rearrange those pieces so the puzzle is actually correct.

So what does it mean to "be" male or female or something else entirely?  Charlie Nicki points out that there's a difference between living the life and identifying with the life.  Which is to say, there's an internal component to "being" and an external component as well. 

For those of us who transition, we are privileging the internal experience, while respecting the power of the external experience.  If we want to be gendered in a particular way, then appearance actually matters a great deal!  After all, it's because of appearance that the world misgenders one in the first place.  So I'd say that one must attend to appearance if one really wants to experience living life as a woman (or a man).  And not just physical appearance, but how one's voice sounds, and how one's body moves, and what kinds of social expectations one both accepts from others and has of others, and what stories we tell.  Because all this is wrapped up in how people have (automatically and subconsciously) constructed the categories of gender in the first place.

This is indeed an interesting thread.

Since the age of 5 I know that I am a woman, but i could not verbalize it or fully understand. I always knew that I was not a man, but my sense of gilt obliged me to play the male role and I got very good at it, except for my feelings. I became a workaholic, drunk too much, smoked too much until i collapsed. at the end I assumed and have been living as a woman and am under HRT for 2 years. Since then no cigarettes, not a workaholic, moderate alcohol. I became a writer and found parts of me that I didn't know existed.

While there's no tangible proof to say one is or isn't a man or a woman etc. there is definitely evidence, medical and consequential, that anguish and stress results from being forced into the wrong category. Being on HRT I appreciate how it can suit one's brain better than being filled with hormones that do not compliment it, and how other treatments work to remove or at least lessen the sense of displacement.

So we may not be able to say - with proof - what we are, but there is evidence of the negative effects of being made to be what you're "not". You have to conclude at least some extent that if there is a "solution", then there was a physiological "problem" to start with.

Quote from: Kylo on May 03, 2017, 07:12:18 PM
While there's no tangible proof to say one is or isn't a man or a woman etc. there is definitely evidence, medical and consequential, that anguish and stress results from being forced into the wrong category. Being on HRT I appreciate how it can suit one's brain better than being filled with hormones that do not compliment it, and how other treatments work to remove or at least lessen the sense of displacement.

So we may not be able to say - with proof - what we are, but there is evidence of the negative effects of being made to be what you're "not". You have to conclude at least some extent that if there is a "solution", then there was a physiological "problem" to start with.

In a way, though, doesn't it go without saying?

Men and women never have to offer proof -- it's self-evident.

So we just have to "be" as we "are."  Sometimes the "being" needs a bit of changing, though.