This topic was sparked by a similar topic I did in the androgyne section about whether it is possible that I don't identify as a woman becuase my internal idea of what a woman is does not match the woman I could be.

Along similar lines I was thinking about whether the culture of people of your identity can be a barrier to you identifying as that. I was thinking in particular of lesbian culture. It could just be my mind is a bit narrow but are there people that struggle to identify as a lesbian because they don't feel they fit within lesbian culture (assuming such a thing exists, definintly seems too). But this could apply to all sorts of things e.g. "I don't feel like a man becuase I don't understand man culture", "I don't feel like a man because I like girly things", "I don't feel I am transgendered because I don't fit in that culture".

I guess a lot of this could be to do with perceived culture rather than reality. In reality you get girly men, and transgendered people of all stripes.

Yet you do get people that strongly identify as woman or man despite a lack of real familiarity with living as one. This can be a real challenge to transition.

I've kind of made the assumption that we have 'core' identities that are not dependent on culture yet at the same time we seem to need culture to define them.

Just some thoughts, any other thoughts out there?

I see what you're saying, and I've definately seen a pervasive streak of male posturing among the FTM community.  Interestingly enough, it's most often with guys who were formerly lesbian-ID'd or had little experience with men.  Instead of simply living as men, they are living as they perceive that men should.

There must be a bit of 'finding yourself' in there too, in a similar way to teenagers do. Similar to the FtM posturing you have observed, you see some mtfs going uber feminine to start with. I think this as analogous with living your teenaged years in your own gender - exploration, trying new things, finding out who you are as a person, taking things to extremes. Guys trying their best to be men, girls learning to be adult women. You only have to look at teenagers to see that this is similar to what older transexuals are doing. People trying to live up to the stereotypes before deciding what actually fits who they are before discarding the rest. I guess those who have spent more time in a place similar to their prefered 'self' are further down the road to having sorted things out. Does that make sense?

Completely.

It's a second puberty that you look back at the photos of five years later and say..."Jeezus, what the hell was I thinking?"

I feel like I have gone through several of those 

Quote from: Nicky on May 06, 2009, 08:30:07 PM
There must be a bit of 'finding yourself' in there too, in a similar way to teenagers do. Similar to the FtM posturing you have observed, you see some mtfs going uber feminine to start with. I think this as analogous with living your teenaged years in your own gender - exploration, trying new things, finding out who you are as a person, taking things to extremes. Guys trying their best to be men, girls learning to be adult women. You only have to look at teenagers to see that this is similar to what older transexuals are doing. People trying to live up to the stereotypes before deciding what actually fits who they are before discarding the rest. I guess those who have spent more time in a place similar to their prefered 'self' are further down the road to having sorted things out. Does that make sense?

I know an MtF who said that was exactly what she went through. She's about 2 years in and finally settling into her womanhood, though before that she was all bright colors and short skirts.

This particular angle has worked its way through my mind since a certain post of interalia's.

Given American culture, at least, I'm having a difficult time exactly defining how I feel inside to be female as opposed to feminine without the use "historic" cultural references. (That is, the historic ones apply little in this age. . .My brother-in-law is a stay-at-home dad.) I can conjure a couple of. . ."flowery" (maybe?) statements to convey my motivation and conviction. However, businesses and professionals stand in the way of our goals, and they (as I understand) prefer a more concrete language.

In short, I totally agree with your core identity and necessity of definition stance. 

If only the (entire) human race would develop telepathy already. . .Words get in the way too much.

I must totally agree with Nicky and Mister

As you can see from my avatar!! teenaged/middle aged twit

But as you both said it's getting use to the things we missed. And as long as we do no harm, it's a way if growing into our new identities, feelings and life.
Yes going not so much puberty, but development of the identity.

Cindy James

Personally I will not allow culture to define my identity. Culture can influence my actions only out of self preservation. e.g. I don't wear a dress to a redneck BBQ. Cindy if you read this and you're an example of what a twit looks like, I think I'll be a twit. You look great. Hugs, Gen

i don't identify with a good 70% of the culture i see around me, time to build my own world i think.

I have been struggling with this question for quite a while now, and frankly I think the game is fixed. The problem comes from defining what is a male trait and what is a female trait.

Big boys dont cry... only woman get emotional... constantly hammered into us when we are children and our minds are malleable. Men are strong and women are weak, etc. Even in this day and age when intellectually we know that either gender can accomplish pretty much anything, we still perceive each other in this prehistoric frame of reference. Hence such expressions as 'manly man' and 'chick flick' just to name a few...

Our passions and pursuits are further defined by outmoded notions of gender. As a child I hated playing sports and prefered hanging out with the girls. This not only upset my parents world view of how their son should behave, it also set me at odds with the other boys. I loved music and taught myself piano at an early age. I spent hours in class drawing whatever hit my fancy. Yet I channeled that same talent and creativity into building detailed toy train layouts, model cars, electronic circuits. That was deemed OK, as thats obviously what little boys should be doing. I never saw a distinction between hours spent with music and art vs hours spent working on my train layout. And even so, because I wouldnt partake in sports, it still wasnt deemed 'male' enough. Never mind that in my head I always identified with being female.

So what does that mean now as an adult? I was recently talking with another TG on the phone and the conversation naturally veered towards our passions for trains. Not just model trains... both she and I sahre a fascination with the steam era from the late 1880s through the 1950s. Suddenly in the middle of the conversation she stopped and asked "why do we always talk about guy things?".

It really struck me hard... does that mean my female identity should be threatened by passions and interestes deemed male? Am I supposed to confine my conversations to talking about lingerie and breast forms like so many of the CD forums? I think thats what struck me the most... its hard enough co-existing with the rest of the folks outside the TG/TS world, do we also have our identities challenged by those within our group as well?

Who we are and how we identify should not be shaped by what we like and what we indulge in. Those artificial boundaries and definitions only work within any one particular culture which changes continuously throughout history, and as such bear no reality on humanity as a whole.

I am me...

I think that part of the "going overboard" is simply that a person making such a tremendous change in their life is likely to go a bit crazy at first with a lot of their choices. It just has to be a relief to finally choose to live as you feel and going crazy just happens. It is only later as they get used to living in a different life role that they pull back.

I have given this matter a fair discussion before, and considering others have discussed gender roles a bit, there's not really much for me to add beyond Stacy's point.  People need to act according to who they are, not who society tells them they are.

Quote from: Mister on May 06, 2009, 07:48:59 PM
I see what you're saying, and I've definately seen a pervasive streak of male posturing among the FTM community.  Interestingly enough, it's most often with guys who were formerly lesbian-ID'd or had little experience with men.  Instead of simply living as men, they are living as they perceive that men should.

and

Quote from: Mister on May 06, 2009, 08:32:26 PM
Completely.

It's a second puberty that you look back at the photos of five years later and say..."Jeezus, what the hell was I thinking?"

Interesting. I don't know that much about transitioning/transitioned FTMs. I know a few irl, and more MTFs but mostly cis-women and cis-men.

That all said, I do think that there's a lot of posturing that goes on in the first few years with MTFs and often enough you get a repeat of that after SRS. Yep, second and even third puberties that take up a lot of time and space, but very much resemble the first ones. A lot of pubertal behavior is generally about learning to fit one's life into the lives of others, finding who one is and fitting that into a social construct.

People search for identity and ways to validate themselves and invalidate their feelings of (maybe) inadequacy(?) in new roles and modes of activity and interactions in transitions and possibly even moreso after SRS.

Again, I cannot speak to FTMs, although I suspect that Mister is spot-on about FTMs who don't have a lot of interaction with men simply because I find that true of MTFs most certainly. Often there seems to have been very little observation or quiet time just listening and watching our target sexes, so a lot of MTFTSes appear a bit lost at first and often pattern presumed behavior and ideas of masculinity or femininity at least early in transition rather than any actual behaviors they derive from observation and lived experience. I often wonder if that's not a reason for the syndrome we've prolly all seen where someone appears to be a part of the mother's or father's generation after transitioning than they appear to be what currently prevails.

I've often thought that most TSes prolly should (at least to some large degree) have their transitions mentored by friends of the target-sex rather than other TSes. Simply because that sort of interaction and mentoring appears to me to be more authoritative in regard to actually living with the presumptions and various privileges and responsibilities that our cultures place on the sexes. There are nuances that seem to be, often enough, lost when one's guidelines are set by either an imaginative foundation of how females act or how males act and I'd be willing to guess that those guidelines tend to skew toward past social norms and stereotypes rather than toward current behaviors of the groupings.

There are individual nuances, of course, to everyone's behaviors that violate or bend social norms no matter who they are. But I have often imagined that some of the more egregious deviations that seem to clash among FTMs and MTFs may be more an effect of that ignorance Mister mentioned than anything else.

Good topic Nicky and excellent posts by both you and Mister.

Nichole 






   

I'd be willing to guess that those guidelines tend to skew toward past social norms and stereotypes rather than toward current behaviors of the groupings.

I'd be willing to guess you are right about that.  There often seems to be a very extreme - almost cartoonish - notion about what is, or what is not, male, or female.

Lot's of guys find sports boring, and, at least in NorCal, and the West in general, there are lots of women who are way into sports, for all sorts of reasons.  When I'm out in major climbing areas, or extreme skiing slopes, I see just as many girls as boys anymore.  And if you don't think that girls don't do sports, or support sports, or that boys don't supports girls sports, you ought to go to UCONN, or the University of Tennessee, where the women's games sell out just like the guys games do.  Championship games are championship games in big time NCAA land.

There does seem to be more than enough posturing and posing on both sides, the stereotype male deal, the ultra fem thing.  And, in the end, it always seems to stand out, rather than blend in.