My Mom says that she doesn't understand what makes think I am TS because I don't act feminine enough. I've thought about this a lot but I still can't understand it. What is it that makes someone feminine? How does that relate to their gender identity? Does she have I point here? How do I know if I am feminine enough? What if I wan't to be a girl who is still kind of a tomboy? Is there something wrong with that? I am very confused now. Can someone help me out here?

A very A-typical parental response just like denial.

I know alot of ts folk who unless you knew them you would never guess they were female, we all come in different shapes, guises and attitudes.

Its what you feel inside that counts as far as im concerned.

Hi Aelita_Lynn,

Well, it's in a way easy to see how somebody that doesn't understand to think that way about it. Since you were born male, raised male all your life, it's easy to see where this "less feminine" behavior could come from.

But...I know plenty of girls that are not at all "girly", or so as it's put, but does it make them any less a girl? Nope. A lot of society's got blinders on, limiting them to seeing black and white, "masculine" and "feminine", "male" and "female". All these installed beliefs as to what a particular gender "should" be.....when there's a whole lot more to it than that.

So, getting to the point....Is there anything wrong with being a tomboy? Not in the least .

femininity is not femaleness. A feminine gay man (or straight man, for that matter) may be perfectly happy with his maleness, his male identity, but simply enjoy more typically female activities and expressing himself in a softer, more feminine fashion. Find something your mom does that is stereotypically masculine and ask her if that trait makes her male, somehow undermines her femaleness?

~Simone.

"Feminine" is all what you make it If you looked at my job and hobbies, you'd probably never guess that I'm female. Motorcycling and computer games top my list of hobbies and I currently work a tier 2 desk doing hardware and operating system support. I rarely wear skirts and heels. I don't consider them practical or comfortable. I loathe pink.

Does that make me less a woman or female? Not one bit.

So I say, be yourself and that will be "feminine" enough

WR

What you described is the exact reation I'm expecting if I ever come out to my mom. Well, that as well as being kicked out of my house and banned from life in general, lol.

I know for sure I'm trans, I've been aware and okay with it for years now. So what if my room's always a mess, I don't care about fashion or my appearance, and I'm a total geek? That doesn't change how I am inside. There are bio-girls with those traits. Who says I have to fit into the total female stereotype just because I reject the male one? I am me, and me is a she. The end.

As I have always said, it is a matter of Attitude.  And that is not a bad thing.  Just look around and see how many Bios seem to display an attitude of their gender, but are in non-traditional jobs or hobbies.

I have a couple of women customers who are carpenters and electricians.  They dress for their jobs, ie male.  But there's no doubt that they are women.

Janet

Another reason why societal "norms/standards" suck... people do not feel comfortable unless they can package you nicely and neatly into some definition.  I saw a question once on another board; "what would you miss about being a guy?"  Honestly, I could not think of anything - everything I like - mountaineering, tech toys, vid games, ice hockey - all enjoyed by gals and would be the same for me.

Quote from: lady amarant on December 07, 2008, 04:02:08 AMfemininity is not femaleness.

Bingo!

Hi Aelita_Lynn,

Expression (the way you look), behaviour (the way you act), gender identity (what you feel inside), sex (biological sex) and sexual preference (who you want to do) can all be different. They don't have to 'match'.

Your identity is what it is. It does not matter how you look or behave, your identity will stay the same. When you act in a way that feels right for you then you are being true to yourself and you will be expressing yourself as a woman.

Congratulations on talking to your mum about it though. That is a huge step. My advise is to keep on, don't put it back in the dark. Show that it is significant. Let you mum know how much pain you are in, share how you feel, what it is like. She may not understand but if it finally clicks that you are actually suffering then I think you have won most of the battle.

Quote from: Aelita_Lynn on December 07, 2008, 01:51:49 AM
My Mom says that she doesn't understand what makes think I am TS because I don't act feminine enough. I've thought about this a lot but I still can't understand it. What is it that makes someone feminine? How does that relate to their gender identity? Does she have I point here? How do I know if I am feminine enough? What if I want to be a girl who is still kind of a tomboy? Is there something wrong with that? I am very confused now. Can someone help me out here?

I think that's the essence of being TS (for MTF, that is).

As far as I know, most feminist and feminine girls/women I've known my entire life say "femininity is a concept." This is a motto I'v adopted growing up in a femal environment. The most tomboyish female in the world could also be considered the most feminine if her ideals and concepts relate to how she views herself and everyone else, male or female, as a whole. If you mother says that you aren;t feminine enough, analyse for yourself how YOU depict femininity, and analyse how your views of this is encorporated in those around you.

I'm going to go jsut a bit off topic and take a video game example. Princess Peach and Princess Daisy are neither living nor real individulas, but they were made by rela people. Both of them are princesses...a feminine title by itself. Yet they bother act in non-feminine ways when they are out of the normal scheme of "Damsels in distress." They fight, they throw fits, they play sports, and they even rescue thier boyfriends. Now this relates to my previous point of feminine aspects of a person. I KNEW people who were like this in my highschool. They were more rough and tumble than I'll ever be, and they were quite feminineif not loud and rambunctious at times.

So, as you can see, the concept is a set standards of PERSONAL idealisms for yourself, not what others think of you-though i wouldn't go so far as to say there are irrefutable aspects that others percieve about you that you SHOULD take into consideration, such as the tale-tale blatantly physical traits and actions that you would find all-to-rarely in a girl, such as the comical (yet very real) hand-down-the-pants-for-no-reason pose on the couch, or the act of trying to purposefully gross someone out. These jsut don't fit (for obvious reasons)

As for your mother...well, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she may just have a differant idea (or generalized societal idea) of what it means. Who knows? Oh, I'm rambling on again.

I hope I was of SOME help to you, Aelita. 

50 years ago, people would have said that any woman who wanted to have a career instead of being a stay-at-home-mom wasn't being feminine enough.  Any woman who wore pants outside the house or didn't wear makeup or didn't cook dinner every night for their family or didn't yearn for 3.5 children wasn't being feminine enough.  I could go on.

Femininity or lack thereof does not a woman make, and femininity is often defined by what society thinks a woman should act like.  Likewise, you could be the most feminine person out there and still identify as a man.  Your mom does not have a point, and her words shouldn't make you second-guess yourself.  Just do what makes you happy, and you will be acting like a woman because it'll be a woman doing those things. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a tomboy.. tomboys can be pretty cute.

Um, fifty years ago was 1968>69 and that was not the case.  All this was just really heating up, but women had jobs, careers and wore pants by 68.

Quote from: tekla on December 08, 2008, 12:32:26 AM
Um, fifty years ago was 1968>69 and that was not the case.  All this was just really heating up, but women had jobs, careers and wore pants by 68.

That's not universally true.  Certainly this is true for some women during those times but the women's lib movement came about in the 1970's as a reaction to rampant sexism that was still in existence.

Depending on where you grow up even in the U.S. this will remain true to this day.

Ah
Is femininity being a Barbie doll, Bratz doll, Princes Lea (starwars?) , an Amazon. Femininity for me is how you react to your environment. How you think about yourself. Do I feel feminine? If ( and I do ) I'm feminine.
Your Mum, just being typical, your Dad would probably go the opposite! "You feminine little poofter" That was my families reaction; too  feminine for one not enough for the other. For me it's how you feel.
Love to a really feminine girl
Cindy

Quote from: tekla on December 08, 2008, 12:32:26 AM
Um, fifty years ago was 1968>69 and that was not the case.  All this was just really heating up, but women had jobs, careers and wore pants by 68.

Er, that was forty years ago (see the uses of having taken a maths minor ). But yes, you have a point, the first signs of that process were already there in 58. Looking at it one way, the war had opened a lot of civilian jobs for women, and the feminist movement made d*n sure they wouldn't be completely closed again.

  Nfr

FOR ME, I put that in caps for a reason, re-read it, wearing pink anything mainly skirts, fixing my hair, makeup painting my nails those things allow ME to feel a little more feminine even if I'm doing that before I go out say shooting. FOR ME, now your turn.............

Math problems aside,
the war had opened a lot of civilian jobs for women, and the feminist movement made d*n sure they wouldn't be completely closed again.


I'm not sure it worked exactly that way.  In part a lot of that was in place in '57 when the post war birthrate dipped, and more and more women found themselves at work, not out of some demand to work but out of a dual need for more pink collar workers but also a changing economic reality that forced a lot of those women out of the home and into the work force.  Women in the work force in large numbers created the modern feminist movement as advancement and pay became huge problems.  In other words, the jobs came before the political demands.

Of just as much importance as the war jobs, was the growing rate for female college graduates who were not getting the jobs that the men who they went to college with - and often did better in college than - were.

Quote from: Seshatneferw on December 08, 2008, 04:06:28 AM
... the first signs of that process were already there in 58. Looking at it one way, the war had opened a lot of civilian jobs for women, and the feminist movement made d*n sure they wouldn't be completely closed again.

  Nfr

By "the war," I assume you mean World War II.

Unfortunately, those jobs did close up when WWII was over. Case in point: my mother was an executive assistant in the state government during WWII. In 1944, she asked her boss about a promotion. He laughed in her face. He said the only reason she'd gotten above "secretary" was that all the men were away. When the war was over, her job would be given to a deserving vet, and she'd go back to being a secretary.

The feminist movement opened things up again, but that wasn't until 20 or 25 years later.