Okay, hope this is okay to start a thread mostly to have a place to put my particular ramblings rather than cluttering multiple threads with my soliloquies and vague questions.

Starting with, where I am starting from.
Had issues with my body and women's bits since adolescence. Struggle with gender roles and identity too and never felt like I fit into either category really. When I tried I do girly, I sometimes got misgendered as a transwoman (strange one, that) when I have done boyish I kinda get curiostiy and uncertain responses, a couple of "Sirs" at one point. But I can't pull off man.

About 5 or so years ago I really went through a phase of presently mostly masculine/boyish and changed my name to something gender-neutral.

Then about a year ago some unrelated exome sequencing threw up an unexpected extra chromosome so XXY (which felt like a bit of a stomach lurch and "yeah that explains some things") but not Klinefelters Syndrome either because I am phenotypically female. Though I'd say in some ways a slightly masculinized female in terms of body shape, proportions, certain aspects of face shape, man hands! In class photos from a distance I'd be mistaken for a boy.

As if my reproductive parts and external features chose different paths. I have no idea what's going on there, still trawling through genetic results trying to find out if there's a missing SRY gene or some kind of mutation that countered the Y thing.

This is me now, odd duck that I am. Nearly non-existant eyebrows (never plucked, just...always that way) ridiculous pallor, puffy eyes, fish-mouth frown thing, bit of a double chin, and a growing badger-stripe in my hair
I feel like a chameleon, though this pics maybe don't show it as much (not posting my girlier or other photos) in that different days, hair, make up, lighting, angle... I can look quite different. So much so that some friends don't recognise some photos of me.I blame that on being such a blank canvas.

Dear Allsorts:   Wonderful post and pictures.  It is nice that you started your own thread that you can use as your personal journal and that we can follow your updates when you post them.  We will be looking for you to update with your experiences and pictures of course.... and you can be looking forward to appropriate replies.

Your story strikes a chord with me....
I had a similar but obviously different story along with similar early pictures... as a MTF.

As a young boy/man in high school and college I was a runt of a guy... just 5'4"... maybe 5'5" if I fluffed up my hair.   I was thin, no muscle bulk, girlish face and a voice to match. 
I was the butt of rude and terrible remarks from my male classmates that were developing into big, tall, muscles and bulk, men.  The locker room scenario was obviously an absolute mental and sometimes physical torture for me.  Even my girlfriends at the time kidded me that I looked and talked like a girl... so you can imagine that my dating life was less than stellar.
The good news is that all of that worked in my favor when after college and in my very early 30's I decided to transition...

I started transitioning for a year or two before I started HRT... and I could pass most of the time if I wanted to be in girl-mode due to my small thin build, long blonde hair, and my girlish voice.  I started HRT in March of 2015 and went full time female in December 2016 and have passed 100% all the time since then.

I liked seeing your photos... and will be looking forward to seeing more of them as you continue your transition journey... and what an exciting journey it will be for you... there will be disappointments, failures and frustrations BUT there will also be successes and wonderful experiences ahead for you.

Thank you for posting and starting your very own thread.
Hugs, and well wishes on your journey.
Danielle

Hi Allsorts,


My knowledge of genetics is way too limited to be of any help in figuring out what's going on with your Y chromosomes, what health effects the possible causes may have, if any, what medical treatments you may need, if any, or tell you what gender identity these causes normally correlate with.

I can only ask you whether you feel comfortable with your current gender expression, and, if not, how could you feel more comfortable, and tell you that given your canvas, however you choose to express your gender will have a very attractive result.

Thank you both for your responses, much appreciated.

Danielle, thank you for sharing some of your own story (sorry to hear how you were treated), yay for your experiences in recent years. I can believe that you 100% pass from your avatar pic. Very feminine and natural) and reassuring me that it's okay to start this kind of thread. I wasn't sure, but I know that I like to ramble and sometimes want to post things that aren't exactly a forum, question-type or big issue post.

It's interesting that you say you had similar photos early on in your own story. The thing is, when I had long hair, I'd fairly regularly get read as FTM transwoman. Kind of like if I played with makeup and if you stuck a wig on me, I don't entirely pass as a cis-woman, which felt a bit strange to me. I was struck by a documentary I watched about transmen in which one lad looked at an old photo of him as female and they said "it looks like you, with a wig" "man in drag". I could relate, as if the more I tried to look very feminine, the more wrong I looked.


I still looked okay, nice enough, but there was something that little bit "off" about me. I was also approached on FB by a couple of transwomen and by a local transwomen group! Erm... very kind of you ladies and glad you have your group but...no?!
In other situations, probably my manner didn't help either. Not that I am all that manly in my demeanour or voice, but again something subtle, like a woman with overt stereotypical Aspergers, not quite fitting the female social code. I studied (at that time) male-dominated subjects and spent most of my time around boys/men and fit in quite well... always as a 'good friend' and never as 'girl I'd potentially date'. I think some of my ways of talking, opinions and sense of humour sat better with men than women. But then again I'm not convinced such things are innately gendered when we have a culture in which we are saturated with expectations pretty much from birth.

Hehe I'm 5'4" too! I had my growth spurt (and puberty) early and so was one of the tallest in my year for a while, before ending up on the shorter side!
Luckily in terms of gender dysphoria, I had a good cis-male friend a while back who was 5'3" and he was as blokey as it gets, so I have an internal model of "short male".

autumn08 - Thanks for the compliment
I'm learning the genetics stuff myself, still learning. My GP is not very approachable about things (complex and loooong medical history both physical and medical, combined with NHS time restraints and a resistance to anything done privately)
From what I can tell, XXY doesn't require any kind of treatment usually (other than for some males, gynacomastia) but really not much out there about female phenotypes - a couple of cases in research studies which mostly seem to end up with people shrugging their shoulders about the whole thing.
I cannot know, but it made me wonder if that was something to do with my ungirliness. Obviously not anatomically, but the Y chromosome supposedly acts elsewhere and in other ways too. Who knows?
It does make me wonder if I have some sort of AR as well, and I wonder how that might affect things if I ever chose to, was able, was allowed to take T. Could render it pointless.

I haven't felt comfortable with my gender expression so far. It feels like I have been trying to be something that isn't natural for me, somehow fake, hard work and imposed by social pressures.
I'm reasonably comfortable presenting fairly non-binary/androgynous because it's easier and more natural, although cause confusion in people sometimes.
I do have intense dysphoria about my chest though. I have hated having breasts ever since they appeared and wanted top surgery since I was a teenager (but never associated that with being in any way trans, just as a personal quirk/issue and weirdness.) They felt like some alien blobs put onto my body that didn't belong there and were unwanted. Yeah, my chest causes me distress.
Also never liked having women's genitals much, especially having a uterus. Does that sound odd? Again, things I didn't want but were arbitrarily there. Not sure I want male genitals either though but that could be partly because I've not thought about it much before and is alien to me in a different way because I can't imagine what would be like to have them. I have tried packing at home in private a few times. It's definitely interesting, different, and I kind of like it but the real thing would be quite different I'd imagine. Also not sure about facial hair. It would be a basic for "passing" but not sure how I'd react to having my face look that different, and feels more forced than naturally wanted. Also wonder what it'd be like on my pale face.  Maybe stubble or that shadow would work.

I feel like I can't make an definite assertion or decision largely because I feel I could never pass, and my anxiety (esp social anxiety) would make it near impossible to take that first leap in terms of bathrooms and changing rooms. I'm anxious enough around normal social situations. Enhanced by the whole 1? 2? year RLE prerequisite where I'd have to do those sorts of things whilst still clearly not passing. That terrifies me. I can't see how 40 year old male with no facial hair and baby soft skin could be read as anything but trans and lead to threatening situations. I've had more than enough trauma in my life. Also the suspicion that given my mental health history and stuff, a GP would be very unlikely to take me seriously or refer or prescribe.
That's the fear-based baggage I have to work through mentally and emotionally to allow me the freedom to know what I am and what I want.
I'm tempted to find a private counsellor if/when I can afford it to talk that through (though again, fear, I know how much therapists want/tend to jump on issues from my past and aside from having done a ton of therapy on that before, some things it does me no good to keep rehashing. I've never talked about the gender issues because other things and my overall mental health were much more urgent.)

I've not been very active on the forum this week.
Mostly I've been bogged down with a nasty virus/cold/cough thing (not much fun and somehow managed to catch it a few days before the friend I'm staying with, and yet he has recovered and I am still quite poorly with it!) and have kept logging in on my phone and then realising I really can't type well on my phone so...reading only, not replying.

Finding the cough-thing a bit disheartening, since I don't think it would be wise to bind while my lungs are trying to get rid of infection (and a heck of a lot of mucus). since my chest gives me the most dysphoria, yah it's not making me feel great.

I've felt fairly comfortable otherwise... if I let go of the idea that I am trying to "pass" as anything in particular, and therefore cannot "fail" at it, it somehow makes it easier. I am telling myself that I am trying to pass at being me, whatever that is. And I cannot fail at being me.
It'll do for now.

I can also hold it more easily in my head if I try not to think of myself as a man, but as a boy. Or lad.
I guess partly, that would be accurate. I haven't the experience and a lot of this (even pre-any-T-or-anything) is a bit like being an adolescent, unfamiliar, learning, awkward.
Plus I tend not to feel particularly grown up even when going with my assigned gender. I feel like a bit of a kid most of the time, that I should somehow *feel* more grown up by now, different somehow. Probably doesn't help that (aside from the grey hairs and a few crinkles under my eyes) I don't terribly look my age. I think my life situation influences that as well. With all my other stuff, past, health issues etc, my life hasn't taken the path of most of my peers. I'm not married (only had one proper relationship) no kids, no mortgage, still living in shared houses, no career (or work experience - long term disability/chronic illness) so I am still in many ways in the same situation that I was when I was 19. It makes it hard for me to feel like a normal, proper adult.
So I suppose it makes sense that I have a hard time seeing myself as a 40 year old male, just as much as a 40 year old female.

Still struggling with how the aspects of me that feel male, conflict with what I see out there of social expectations of men. The whole provider, protector, leader sort of stereotype. Nope, I'm mentally fragile (ill) physically weak, cannot really look after myself let alone anyone else, and can't do much exercise/strength training.... if someone asked me to help carry a heavy box or some shopping it would be a case of "not without dislocating a shoulder, sorry" (damn you EDS)

At least I'm wearing my fave jeans today. They are from the men's section but that's not the point - or it is, just in terms of the different cut and colour and style.... and pockets. Just feels like me. Like "aaaahhhhhhgh yes" almost like slipping into some really comfy old PJs or slippers.

I'm in a  bit of weird situation right now. My last accommodation didn't work out (still in touch with two other former-tenants who also moved out!! lol) but I've not yet the money or found somewhere else (hard to find private lets that will accept housing benefit) so I'm crashing at a friends house temporarily. It feels like being in limbo a bit. It's not a hotel, but it's not my home either. Keep having to remind myself that as peaceful and helpful as being here is, this isn't really my life and the peace and okayness will have to end again.
Which makes it feel somehow frivolous or pointless thinking about all this transgender stuff, in the bigger scheme of things right now. "More important things to be focussed on" like finding somewhere to live. But then I realised, that is the nature of my life and circumstances, it's always going to be hard and precarious, there are always going to be pressing concerns. I can't just keep ignoring this other stuff simply because there are bigger crises at hand, I can't keep putting it on the back burner to deal with later, because there isn't going to be a later, this is it, this is how my life is and will be.

I find it hard to decide where the balance is. To stay relatively sane I have be in a more taoist mode of "go with the flow" and a buddhist mindset of "live in the present moment", but at the same time there are so many things to be sorting out. Yet so much of it I really don't have much power to sort out. Worrying about things I think I should fix but that I probably can't fix. The lottery of the benefits system these days, endless bureaucracy, arbitrary targets, absurd red tape with the housing list, unpredictability of when any bedsits or rooms that accept HB will turn up, ups and downs of my health problems, just too many things I cannot get much of a grasp on or are dependent on the decisions and actions of other people. Or require me to do things that by definition my impairments mean I cannot do. Life feels like one long catch-22.

Then I end up thinking maybe this gender issue is moot anyway. I mean, what real difference will it make in my life? My life is... struggling to get up, get dressed, eat some food, go online a bit, watch TV a bit, sit and watch the birds a bit, interspersed with naps, resting or just laying on the sofa when my bashed-brain or overwhelmed mitochondria can't get themselves together enough to even follow a TV programme or do a crossword. What difference would my gender expression even make to those things?

Ah well. At least I have my fave jeans on

Not really any different but hey, gratuitous pic posting. I'm not sure what to do with my hair.

I know it is unreliable but I did a few online tests and I come out as "androgynous" or "undifferentiated". Actually I think the latter is probably more accurate. I'm not sure that particularly identify with any gender, gender identity is kind of a strange concept to me - like reading about something and understanding it "in theory".
Though I do wish I looked a bit more masculine, and have a fair bit of dysphoria about my chest.
For now I'm still relatively okay with "boyish".
Curiously, a regular bus driver on our route greeted me as "Hello mate" last week!! Hehe.

Also managed to find some women's straight leg jeans in the charity shop. It's so hard to find straight leg jeans in the cheapy high street shops at the moment. Everything is skinny or super-skinny.





Not posting much but there's lots going round my head at the moment.

Looking good, Allsorts! 

"Boyish" is a good choice of words for your appearance.  The defining characteristic is your hair: definitely masculine.  Your eyebrows are somewhat feminine, and the rest of your face is androgynous.  If I ran into you in public, I would gender you as a young-ish male.

Thank you, KathyLauren :-)

My hair is an ongoing project! I had it cut a while back (again - I've been in cycles of growing it out and lopping it off since my teens. Lol I was a trendsetter, always ahead of my time, or that's what I tell myself... when I first had it cut short absolutely no girls at my school had short-short hair and I was a bit of a freak, then around 6 months later or so loads of them started doing it and it was perfectly normal....*rolls eyes*)
But I've never learned to style short hair in a masculine way.
Plus I was too nervous to venture into a barbers so went to a unisex hairdresser's and of course despite "I want boy short hair" got a girlified short haircut from them. Had to snip off some wispy bits. Gaaah.)
So I'm looking online about styling and gels, wax, products, but so far not getting the hang of it. My hair has always had a mind of its own and short of gluing it into place it always goes its own way!

The eyebrows are my major thing at the moment. I feel I couldn't easily pass as masculine because they are so incredibly delicate. It's not as if I pluck them, they've always been like that. Filling them in with a brow pencil looks really fake (and the wrong colour - even "dark brown" pencils/powders are too red for me, ash-brown hair, green/grey tinge.) It's clearly not "hairs" but makeup. I'm going to experiment with the fibre-brow-mascara stuff in the hope it will look more "bitty" but I know I've not the energy to be doing that ever day. Wish there were a more permanent/semi-permanentt solution to filling them in that makes it look hair-like.
Yeah, I've tended to think my face is kind of androgynous. It felt masculine to me when trying to do the whole pretty-girly thing, but I guess only by contrast to the more ideal feminine face shape and features.  Even when girlied up I would sometimes get misgendered, more of a "Hmmmm genuinely not sure which you are" rather than anything certain I think.

The boyish thing. I quite like in itself.

But I end up in mental tangles about it because... well, I'm not a boy! I'm 40. So while I feel comfortable with the look in itself and regarding myself that way, it leads to people thinking I am much much younger than I actually am (ie I got ID buying alcohol earlier in the year with the "if you look potentially under-25" policy at the supermarket) which feels quite weird. I worry I wont/dont get taken seriously or people talk to me in a way that is frustrating. Like, one acquaintance/friend from a social group I go to when discussing dating and being single said, "You'll understand when you're older".... erm, I am ONE whole year younger than you.....

Then again, although to a lesser degree, I was always under-age-guessed even when in full-on woman mode, just more so now so it's something I have to just live with.
Hehe I purposefully stopped dying my hair just so my greys/whites would show in the hope I'd appear older (my natural hair colour is a boring and ugh sort of ash-brown) Hasn't worked!

Then I feel sort of ashamed because I know it's other things too on top of that. How I speak, act, move. The situation in my life. Just not what my peers are. But I haven't been able to change that. Part of me wants to be comfortable with my young-ness but then I feel like I am being immature, refusing to "grow up", that sort of thing. So it's hard for me to embrace my "boyish-ness" even though I think it's probably just "how I am" as a fundamental trait as much as anything.

Or partly a result of the course of my life, and my health problems and not having a partner, kids, house, job and all that. I've developed my playful side and child-like wonder and delight in things because I don't have any of the Big Things and not much happens in my day to day life. In house. Out to garden and sit. Potter to shop to buy food. Potter back home. I take my happiness where I can, and that tends to be small things and childish things. Rainbows, critters, flowers, bubbles, you name it. I make myself feel better about it by telling myself its a zen thing ;-) Beginner's mind.
Plus then the mental health stuff that means I just cannot be the brave, strong, dependable adult figure however much I try. I really feel that, as a burden. I'd love to be the one who can help out, get stuck in, pay for friend's meals, drive people somewhere, mow the lawn, put up shelves, whatever. But I'm a mentally-imbalanced, slightly brain-injured, arthritic hypermobile with mitochondrial dysfunction. I'm the one on the receiving end of support - which makes me feel a bit like a child, in the world. It's an unpleasant feeling.
And that I can do whatever to make myself appear physically more masculine, but many of the stereotypical masculine traits and activities I will never be able to attain. Need more geeky and ill/disabled male role models!!!!

Well you'll be happy when you are 65 and people think you are still in your 40s! 

You didn't mention your HRT status.  Have you started on T?  Because a little beard shadow will go a long way towards making you look older and more masculine.  With facial hair and a deep voice, no one will even notice your eyebrows.

Hey,

I learned loads while reading this, thanks for all the details. Given the personal issues you face, you sound really determined, which is inspiring.

Great post

anastasia x

I find your pictures quite riveting--like that optical illusion where if you draw a cube out of just lines and look at it thinking it's a cube, then it's a cube, but if you shift your eyes/brain just a little, it inverts and looks like a floor and two walls. Your pics are kind of like that: male this way, but female that way, but also male, but also female...

I think you could get away with presenting as whichever you want. It's a very slick look either way. I like it.

Your story reminds me of an (unfortunately former) friend of mine: XXY chromosomes, AFAB but very masculine frame/voice, frequently gendered as both male and female, non-binary with asbergers (idk if either of you have it, but that's how he described his behavior, too). Poor guy also has some hardcore social anxiety (much worse than mine), so he's been a total hermit since I met him; last time he said anything to me was 2 months ago, and he hasn't answered my attempts to contact him since, hence the "former friend" bit. The other difference between him and you would be that you both look like you're in your mid-late twenties, but he just finished high school, and you just finished your 30s. You're very lucky in that way, I think.

Ta, both of you

KathyLauren, I know :-) I think it runs in the family, my mother and aunt both looked a lot younger than their ages. I think it caught up with them when they hit 50 a bit, but then they were also fans of sunbathing so that probably didn't help. I can't be out in the summer sun without burning. SPF 50 all the way here.

Hormone-wise. No I'm not on T. I'm not that far along in my journey yet.
It would be too soon to make that sort of decision, I think, especially as some of the results can be irreversible within a couple of months. I'm not certain enough in myself. Aside from that, I'm pretty sure my mental health would preclude me from NHS treatment. You're supposed to be mentally stable, and I am not. I'm better than I used to be but it's still going to be a lifelong thing and far off normal.

It may be a bit pessimistic of me but I knowing my battles with NHS with other health things, I doubt I'd get anywhere. I don't know if GenderGP would be any different or worth looking into. For now I don't have the money, and not sure my GP would work with them or approve at all. If the time came when I felt I could make that decision.
Yeah, beard shadow would definitely help.

anastasia, that's kind of you. Thank you. I'm glad you found it useful in some way. Though I'm definitely not inspiring. I think that word gets used for people with chronic illness/disability/MH problems when they manage to get on with things regardless, achieve things. I'm very much aware that I still struggle with daily living and am unable to work/job.
I suppose in context I feel I have come a long way and that has taken a lot of work (and big changes in my life) and finally finding a couple of medications that helped (16th try before we found something that actually worked) so I do indeed feel determined. But maybe not the same way that other people use the word. I am generally viewed as not trying very hard, because I don't *do* or achieve much. But it takes all I have to do the things I do. Hehe if they'd met me 15 years ago.... I was a wreck, chaos, utterly non-functioning even with basic stuff. So I am proud of how far I've come. It's just hard sometimes to ignore people who judge me for not doing more. Ya know? You can't see inside someone's head, you can't tell how much effort their putting in or what is going on inside, so people tend to judge from outside actions, from results - not effort. It's hard to be held up against the images of people who recover, or who at least recover enough to "live a normal life".
I dunno. I think our culture is focussed on achieving, producing, doing. Doesn't much value the small things people do. or what they can give to others simply by virtue of being... being a listening ear, being friendly. Things you don't earn a wage for.

Sorry, off on a rant there. I appreciate your support!

In terms of feeling young. It's weird, like a paradox, and oxymoron. In the world's terms I am not much of an adult. There are definitely parts of me that are underdeveloped. At the same time there has been a shedload of life experiences, and I've learned a lot. It's just that the skills I developed and things I learned aren't useful in the normal world or workplace. I feel like I am both 15 and 80 at the same time, in different ways.

Not very much different but tried filling in the brows a little. Plus... gorgeously sunny day!



And just for fun. Me with long (dyed) hair and full makeup ;-)

On no! Dustkitten you posted while I was replying, I'm not ignoring you!!!

Interesting reply, thanks.
Yeah, I get what you mean. Yes... no...yes... hangon, no..... ummmm....anyone?

Sorry to hear about your friend. I've had some social anxiety in the past, but also had a friend who was realy debilitated by it, even in terms of email and phone, so I know it can be hard when someone falls out of your life like that, when it isn't that there's an argument, they just can't handle social contact full stop. And how hard it can be to be someone that socially phobic and be trapped in it even when you really want to have friends.
The only thing I can suggest is to give them space but maybe once in a while send a message or email along the lines of 'I hope you are well, was thinking of you. Feel free to get in touch at any point if you'd like, but no pressure there.' Just to keep the door open a bit. Maybe. My old friend went AWOL for months at a time, but always ended up coming back at some point. I know that in their interactions with others there could be a total withdrawal response at times because they were convinced they had 'burned their bridges' by their words or actions etc. So perhaps it can be helpful to occassionaly remind them that their absence doesn't mean any bridges have been burned, it isn't a point of no return'.
Just an idea, don't know if it would help in your situation.

Almost all the XXY stuff I've read online refers to Klinefelter's and "feminised male phenotypes". Eventually I came across one lonely case study of a woman who not only had female internal organs but also had a kid! I think that was the missing-SRY one. It's fascinating, the more I read. Without SRY you don't develop testes or male anatomy and most Y SNVs are related to male fertility. But I've read that the Y chromosome - some non-SRY genes - gets expressed in various other parts of the body (including parts of the brain) so it makes me wonder if female-phenotype XXYs might have subtle differences on account of that.

Nope I'm not diagnosed with Asperger's. though interestingly when Channel4 had a programme on they put a test thingy on their website and I scored in the range for it. I guess it's complex, since I have mental health diagnoses and the cognitive impairments from TBI so... things overlap a lot and I don't think I'll ever know exactly what is going on with me.

edited to add: ps I love your avatar!!