All of us have seen posts that state:  I feel like a woman inside.

The question is how do you know what a woman feels like emotionally and mentally.

I was actually asked this question when I came out to my parents.  I had difficulty answering it, but I can say that I have a much easier time relating to other women than I do men.  I can also say I would much rather have a female body and be treated as female than live life as a male.

Melissa

Very engaging question, Leigh. I look forward to seeing all the responses to this.  To be quite honest, I have no idea what 'makes' me 'feel' like a girl.  I know I love being a girl, yet I can't really pinpoint the why of it...  it just feels right...whole...proper...me. 

How do very young children know?  Last year I read As Nature Made Him, about the boy whose penis was severed in a botched circumcision.  His parents raised him as a girl, and continued to raise his twin brother as a boy.  So how did this kid continually defy what his parents told him, and what society told him, from a very young age?  He just acted like a boy, regardless of what his family said and how they dressed him.  He knew deep within himself that he was not a girl. 

So I would take that to mean that perhpas what we are cognizant of as adults is only secondary to what we instinctually know as children. 

Valerie

Not the easiest to put into words.  I always knew I didn't relate to the other boys my age, I didn't understand them, didn't want to do the things they wanted to do.

It was the girls I related to, I liked dolls, I liked playing jacks, jumprope, etc.  I felt comfortable when I was with the girls, I seemed to understand them.  I knew I hated being a "boy" I hated the changes that took place in my body later.

I suppose when I say I feel like a woman inside, is just my way of saying I don't feel like a man.

Sarah

Perhaps the best answer to this question is "I don't know.  I just do."  That's what I ended up telling my parents.

Melissa

That was something I used to ponder for a while: how can one know what they are inside when they have nobody else's feelings and experiences to compare it to. But we can observe how others behave, and by putting myself in others' shoes and reflecting on how they react to different situations vs. how I would react, it became pretty clear that men's minds seemed to be made of a different "stuff" than mine.

It's funny how completely opposite my own perceptions were from the conditioning that kept me in the dark (e.g. "you'll never understand women", "it's natural for males to be curious about what it would be like to be female", etc) for my first 20+ years of life. And all this time my own internal unvoiced response was, gee if I'll never understand how women think then why the heck do I seem to understand already, and to think the same way! 

Quote from: Leigh on March 08, 2006, 09:32:24 AM
All of us have seen posts that state:  I feel like a woman inside.

The question is how do you know what a woman feels like emotionally and mentally.

Personally I have "NO" idea how a woman feels either emotionally or mentally, or any other way for that matter, and I would challenge anyone to say that they do.  Each of us knows how we each feel ourselves whether you are male or female.

I do know how I feel inside and I'm the only one who does, and if the way that I feel reflects to others how they think a woman feels then so be it.

Did that make sense? 

One thing for certain is that I definitely know how women feel when they are mad at me, just ask Gill

Steph

[edit] Had to change a "that" to "who"[/edit]

Stephanie

I just feel that I am really a woman and should have been born a female. Since biologically and to the outside world I am a man, my feeling and / or realization that I am a woman is something I can only keep inside of me. That is why I say I feel like a I am a woman inside.For many years, I never had any such thoughts and I used to make fun of a friend when he used to say that he would prefer to be a woman if he could be one, not knowing that later I would start feeling absolutely miserable about living as a man. I continue to be a man to the outside world and will die as one. Nothing could make me happier if even for one day I could be turned into a woman. My feelings are very strong about it regardless of the fact that I lack many characteristics of a woman.

Some of my physical attributes are more like a woman's while emotionally I may not have a woman's  characteristics. But then, I have seen many women including my own mother who did not break down emotionally like average women tend to. In many ways my mother was more of a man than I am as even my wife tells moe often.

Leela

I'm sure if you ask most women, they would not be able to answer this question either...

You feel what you feel as an individual... and society's definitions take over and DICTATE whether that is feminine or masculine. You're sex is what defines whether this is a dysphoric situation or not. If the dysphoria could result in a terminal condition, then sexual reassignment may be the only option.

Transsexuals are born the wrong genetic sex for their perceived gender, Transgenders are able to straddle the line between what they are and what they feel they should be, ->-bleeped-<-s are just happy to be able to vacation in "The land of the other gender" and then there are the rest of the folks who are quite content with their Sex, Gender and Sexual Orientation.

"That's just my opinion, I could be wrong."

I have been thinking about this question all day myself.  I guess the answer would be, I feel like a woman because I like feminine things and I like what other women like and I want to live a woman's life (both good and bad). 

Melissa

                     I am a woman so I at least know how one woman feels......me.  I dunno if any others are similar, I believe all of us think and feel differently although there are common threads. I don't especially like feminine things but then all women don't like them either.  I loved raising my children and love attending children now but all women don't like children by any means. I know I think and feel differently than men i have known, judging by the way they talk and act. I guess no human knows exactly how another feels.



beth

Quote from: beth on March 08, 2006, 05:50:26 PM...
I guess no human knows exactly how another feels.
...

Therein lies the answer.

I never really felt "like a gender"

I feel like a person.  I happened to be fortunate and was born with female genetailia and my brain never objected...  Stephanie posted this thread a few months ago https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2108.0.html  I pretty much said the same there...

Jaycie put it well earlier... Its akin to describing that exact moment you fell in love.   you really can't.

 Hi, I dont' really know myself. I just know that I was always a bit uncomfortable around boys from an early age. Although I had a few friends thru out my life they were
far few in between. I felt I could relate to girls. I didn't understand then all that much I just knew I wanted to be with girls more than boys. I feel that way now that I could be a woman instead of a man. I hated being pushed into that male role. Not that I don't enjoy some of the things I did and still do that are tratitional male things. But I hear that is changing now. I always had a fasination for womens shoes for some reason. And I like feminine things just haven't been able to express these feelings till now. I've been pretty much  quiete and somewhat withdrawn much of my life trapped within myself not being able to express my feminine side of me. What I mean to say is yes I do feel like a woman. These past few months I have been expressing myself in feminine ways even my voice sounds like a woman with practice. I do break down emotionally like a woman
when things happen like when my pet cat died. I cryed uncontrollably for weeks. Something that as a male I had to suppress all my life. I always would get emotional over things and I would be told to just stop it. It wasn't normal for me to express myself emotionally they would say. Well I guess if I feel that emotional when something serious happens then I must be a female inside.

Owen
Love being female

Definitions of to feel:
To be conscious of an inward impression, state of mind, persuasion, physical condition, etc.; to perceive one's self to be.
Come to believe on the basis of emotion, intuitions, or indefinite grounds.

As has already been said no one can know how anyone else feels. But we can see how other react to different situation ect.  If we also react the same than it can be said that we feel the same way.

So a statement like

QuoteMy reaction to many things are the same as other women therefore I must think (feel) like a woman at least in those situations.

would be acceptable.

Does this make any sense?
I'm really not sure.

Jillieann

Quote from: Leigh on March 08, 2006, 09:32:24 AM
All of us have seen posts that state:  I feel like a woman inside.

The question is how do you know what a woman feels like emotionally and mentally.

Great question! I've never been comfortable with the usual "I'm a woman trapped in a man's body!" descriptions.

I think of it this way: perhaps for people who's gender matches their physical sex, they're NOT aware of feeling male or female. They don't notice it, as there's nothing to contrast it against. Kinda like how fish don't notice water and birds don't feel the air perhaps.

But GID people DO notice thier gender, as it's opposed to both their body and how people treat them. This IS GID in a sense: a pervasive, continuous awareness of one's gender. It'd be difficult to label that feeling male or female, but if nothing else it feels incongruent, in contrast with everything else. Naturally, it's a logical assumption to equate that feeling with the OTHER sex, but it's only an assumption, a conclusion, not a FEELING.

I finally settled on explaining that I will never know what it is like to "feel" like a woman because no matter what the doctors may or may not find, I was socialised as a male within this society.  Also I never fit in very well and never identified with the males and male figureheads that society introduced.  I do know that I feel and function much better by crossing over to what a more feminine role and appearance.  I also know that I want to have surgery in order to finish my crossing from one to another.

To keep it short though I usually just say, I am I.

Isn't that what Moses told God :I am what I am"

you said it Lost,   says it all

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For me saying that I feel like a woman is more of a conclusion than a statement of condition.   When I hit puberty and a sexual identity mattered to me I fell that I should be wearing panties and putting on bras.  I should be wearing dresses and getting my hair fixed.   Sexually I am attracted to women, so  I must be a lesbian.  I identified more with Dale Evens and what she did than I did with Roy Rodgers.   I did not feel competitive when I played softball being more like a girl in the 1950s was,  than a boy.  However, I was not coordinated jumping rope and playing girls games either.   I liked the idea of wearing dressing like a girl and was indifferent to male dress.   Female clothing was not accessable to me because my parents room was off limits and my mother did not leave her things laying around.  There were only one or two occations that I had access to her bra to try it on and one almost used up lipstick in the medicine cabinent.   I tried that also.   My sister when they came along were 6 years and 18 years younger than I was.    For many years my female idenity was just a mental facination until after I was 25 years old.

Regardless of how I dress, I feel like a female wearing a male disguise.  As I look more female from the hormones, this has been changing to more feeling like a female.  It's almost like the disguise is melting off of me.

Melissa