Quote from: JesseA on May 15, 2010, 06:50:51 PMDoes anyone else find it so hard trying to pretend you have a penis that at a certain point, everything just falls through and you either have to bear with knowing you have a female body and continue for your partner's sake, or just quit entirely?

Have never been able to masturbate at all...

I was like that. When I got to where I lost the feeling of having a penis during sex I'd just zone out and wait until it was done. I also never masturbated like a woman. I was ashamed, embarrassed and felt it just wasn't right. Once I started masturbating like a guy and imagined having a normal penis- no problem. The bigger he gets the more fun it is too.

So yeah, sex as a woman was difficult and took alot of effort. Sex as the man I am is enjoyable and just feels right.

/TMI

Quote from: Hunter_ on May 15, 2010, 01:21:32 PM
Haha yeah I supposed I should have been clearer on the rest of my body. Yeah I'd like to change that as well... I've always hated my curves but my issues with my breasts, though I've always wanted smaller, are much more recent. I mean I like boobs and I've got a nice set. I'm just beginning to realize I don't want them on me. I've been binding for a few months and I've been amazed with how good it makes me feel. I just recently learned about the tissue damage and am trying to stop though. I'm just not ready to commit to top surgery yet and don't want to damage what I've got. Still, stopping has been really depressing. I hate how I look without a binder, which is kinda shocking since before I really didn't think about my breasts much at all. I also have always wanted a deeper voice. Like I hear in my head when I talk (or lower), not what I sound like when my voice is recorded.

Even with a binder, with my body type, I can rarely pass, so I don't go out of my way to try. I don't feel like I should have to make myself look like an unattractive male, in ridiculously baggy clothes, to be seen as I am. I just wear what feels comfortable and looks good on me. More often than not that means guys or gender neutral clothing. I wore a dress for the first time in maybe two years to a drag ball at my college and felt horribly awkward in it. I admit that I'd probably be more attractive as a femme, as in nearer to the femme ideal than to the butch one, but it just doesn't feel right. Still, I actually had sex with my then girlfriend (very femme) afterwards while still wearing it and it felt really kinky and illicit. Def not natural though. When I do pass, or when my partners/friends acknowledge my masculinity, it feels great. That said, I resent anything that would make me hate bing female or force me to be overly masculine just to get my "maleness" recognized.

Well, do realise that gender identity is a spectrum and not a binary thing, I'd say that you're mostly masculine with a few feminine streaks. You don't have to be massively buff like Ryu from Street Fighter in order to be an FtM transexual, and I don't think I've met a single FtM who fits said physique (if you're an FtM transexual of said physique and are reading this, please PM me <3) so don't worry yourself about having to be overtly mascumine!

Quote from: Hunter_ on May 15, 2010, 01:21:32 PM
As for doing boy things...idk the closest I really get is wanting to be the man in a relationship, and even then I wan't a very equitable dynamic like was modeled to me by my parents. I wasn't really a tom boy growing up, more of a book worm. I was/still am really into star wars, comic books, and action movies? I'm pretty dismal at, and have no real interest in, sports, cars, or anything like that. Neither does my father and like I said we're pretty much the same person personality and interest wise.

Boys are into all sorts of things, anyways, I dont think many boys are into cars or sports. Theres just as many who like playing computer games and just as many who just want to go out socialising

Quote from: Hunter_ on May 15, 2010, 01:21:32 PM
And as far as actually transitioning goes... I'm trying not to think about that to much. Just trying to figure out what I would want in the perfect world. From what I know of surgery, I feel like at this time, the options available might just make me feel more disphoric than anything. At my current level of disphoria, I'm not sure if it would be worth the money, pain, and isolation from my community/the lesbian relationships I love. I don't even do butch well, I can't imagine meeting most straight womens desires for a heterosexual male.

You'll figure it out when you're ready

Quote from: V on May 16, 2010, 05:44:52 AM


I find that I simply give up on trying after a while.  You can only deceive yourself for so long.  I try to masturbate like a man, the only way my brain really knows how to (and how I always imagined doing it when I was a kid - I fantasized about it, actually), and it just... Well, it's miserable, isn't it?  You have nothing to work with.  You don't really "get hard"; and although technically you do, there's really nothing to grip... I've always felt like I was being denied some sort of expression of my feelings because I didn't have a penis, actually.  It was a method in which I feel I should be able to express myself.  The only way I could understand arousal was by... an erection.  I expect to get one.  I don't.  I might as well not have an arm, or a leg.

I feel the same way. You worded this perfectly... I hate the feeling of nothing there, I hate the idea that my arousal doesn't show.. I find it so unfair that when my boyfriend is turned on.. I can TELL.  The arm, leg thing.. exactly.

Quote from: Elijah on May 16, 2010, 06:51:12 PM
I feel the same way. You worded this perfectly... I hate the feeling of nothing there, I hate the idea that my arousal doesn't show.. I find it so unfair that when my boyfriend is turned on.. I can TELL.  The arm, leg thing.. exactly.

It's good to see that I'm not alone with this, although it is a very difficult thing to struggle with, so it's really not good at all.  I feel I can't understand myself, or be understood, because yeah, my arousal doesn't show.  I can't communicate that way.  I always very powerfully felt that I was supposed to.  I don't think, at this point, any surgery can offer me that; I will have to wait for advances in medicine...

Quote from: M.Grimm on May 15, 2010, 04:26:50 PM
. Being femmy does not make me any less male. When my body becomes male-looking my behaviour is probably going to become even more feminine, because that is just how my personality works. I just repress it a lot because I hate being seen as a woman.

I struggle with this so much. It's great (and yet awful) to see other people in the same boat.

I'm just wondering, for those of you who don't see yourself as particularly masculine, what makes you feel male other than your desire to change your body?

Quote from: Hunter_ on May 17, 2010, 09:31:37 AM
I struggle with this so much. It's great (and yet awful) to see other people in the same boat.

I'm just wondering, for those of you who don't see yourself as particularly masculine, what makes you feel male other than your desire to change your body?

It's just how I see myself. I don't think of myself as a female, and that's that.

I guess I don't really understand what to see oneself as female would mean either. This is why i started tagging along with my ex to femme club meetings lol.
I guess for me it's just really not about gender at all. It's about anatomical sex. My anatomical sex feels wrong. I'm not overly concerned with passing, since one it's pretty hopeless for me without t and because with current surgery options I'd never sufficiently pass to myself. I do feel I've adopted some masculine gendered behaviors in an attempt to communicate that wrongness to others but I really resent how that restricts me and further distorts how others see me. Idk if I should just focus on trying to be ok with acting feminine (since thats probably how I'd act as a male anyway) because I'm never going to get the body I want.

Well, I think it's useful to separate the things we might be dysphoric about into 3 general categories: anatomical sex, gender identity, and gender role/expression.

In my case, I have a problem with all 3, but if I had to pick the worst it would be the female gender identity. I've always, ever since I can remember, categorized myself with, competed with, been friends with, and compared myself against boys, not girls. Socially being a girl is wrong for me. Being a masculine girl in a female-dominated environment is just as wrong as being a feminine girl in a male-dominated environment because my issue is with the "girl" identity and not the gender role/performance that goes with it (which is why I'm one of a subgroup of trans guys who never identified as butches or socialized among lesbians, because I find no comfort whatsoever in masculinity when it's tied to femaleness).

But I also have issues with female anatomical sex - simply put, I find my "girl parts" revolting. I ought to have a penis. I ought to be bigger, stronger, faster, tougher, and a little bit hairier. And I think that alone would be sufficient reason to identify as male.

And I'm not really feminine. But that's really the least of my concerns, since it's perfectly ok to be masculine in either sex. If it weren't for the other stuff, I wouldn't care.

I have a similar deal going on.

I just cannot click with having a "girl" identity. I tried very, very hard for years and this simply did not fit for me. I thought that if I just let myself be a more masculine female I'd be fine, but that only made me feel worse and more out of place. Much like you, Kyril, I never hung out with or got along with lesbians as a group because... well, they're all girls! We have so little in common!

Also, my body is wrong. It is a female body, and that is incorrect. My height is correct but my upper body strength is lacking, my skin is too tender and too bare, my facial features are too soft, my voice is too high, for some reason I have breasts and do not have a penis. I am uncomfortable in my own skin. Everything is wrong.

I shall join. I resent being small, weak, high-voiced. I didn't hang out with masculine girls because masculine girls are still girls. Not to say I didn't hang out with girls at all, I just resented masculine girls. Maybe it's because underneath all of it, they still asserted themselves as females ("girl power," right?) My body is mine, but it has developed wrong. I was raised kind of wrong and nobody thinks of me how I do. I hate being called her because they're asserting me to be something I'm not, and it reminds me of how futile my efforts are. It shows me that they think of me as a girl.

Meh, I'm just a big pile of resentments. I feel like I've been deeply wronged somehow in life, but I have nobody to blame it on and I can't really fix it either. Just stuck in this purgatory/hell. I'm sure nobody takes me seriously either.

Quote from: kyril on May 17, 2010, 02:43:30 PMSocially being a girl is wrong for me. Being a masculine girl in a female-dominated environment is just as wrong as being a feminine girl in a male-dominated environment because my issue is with the "girl" identity... (which is why I'm one of a subgroup of trans guys who never identified as butches or socialized among lesbians, because I find no comfort whatsoever in masculinity when it's tied to femaleness).

Same here. I didn't- and couldn't- identify with lesbians no more than a guy would. It just made no sense to identify or socialize with them. I couldn't identify or understand them at all.