After reading a certain blog that accused ftm's of not having any men in their lives... and thus us trying to fill a void by 'pretending' to be a man.. it got me thinking.. how have the men in your life influenced you to become the man that you are now?

Father – Dad's the one that encouraged me to learn how to fly planes, taught me how to play numerous sports, work with a variety of tools to help him build all sorts of things from our boathouse to fixing my laptops, he's the one that's encouraged me to learn how to take care of my own car, and do oil changes and all that stuff. He's the one that taught me how to fish, and afterwards how to gut, scale, and clean it. He's the one that's taught me to also help women, whether it's helping them into the car, giving them my chair, or escorting them somewhere.

Friends – I grew up with lots of guy friends, I remember specifically one friend Ben who in grade 4 I candidly discussed SRS with, and he agreed that I should go for it because I was clearly a male. Many other guy friends that I've spent many a day with – mountain biking, building dirt jumps, wrestling, playing sports with, and just hanging out in general on a day to day basis – whether it's playing video games, watching a movie, wrenching on bikes, or off exploring abandoned buildings.

Uncles – Uncles are the ones that taught/still teach me the finer points of fighting and wrestling, how to wrangle a calf and hold it down for in field surgery, how to drive a quad and vehicles, who took me out to shoot pests on the farm (I love it).

Cousins – I grew up with two male cousins my age. We wrestled constantly (me often winning), playing video games, playing off in the forest, talking about sex (from a male viewpoint of course), fishing, and all sorts of other things.

Other adult men in my life – Other adult men that played a giant role were people such as the officers in my cadet squadron. They were the men that taught me how to shoot a gun with precision, and how to snare rabbits, and build shelters, and play war games in the forest. My Boss that I've worked for, for the last 7 years is the man that's been involved in my learning how to fix any kind of farm machinery when it breaks down, taught me it's cool to burp and fart and lick your plate clean, how to put in a hard day work, and not give up when you get pinned by a cow or kicked in the face by a goat.

Random Guy's that I meet – they've taught me that I fit right in, that they'd never guess me as female.. and that I'm doing okay at this game of life!

I could add alot more to this.. but what's the point.. I've grown up spending more time around men than women.. and obviously it's had a lot to do with me becoming the guy I am today. Thanks guys!

Wow, I've had just about nothing BUT men in my life. Too many to recount here. So that theory certainly doesn't apply to me.

I'm sure they'll think up some half-assed explanation presently...

I look forward to it.. I wonder if he's seen the thread yet.. bahahaha.

As a friend of mine used to say (and I'm paraphrasing): "The blogger's mind is made up. Don't confuse him with the facts."

Considering that I and countless other guys like me have been male for as long as we can remember, I don't think the "no male influence" theory CAN hold much water, any more than the theory that gay men were all smothered by their mothers. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)

I'm curious about this blog; is it transphobic or just speculating about our origins? (All of the FTM-hating-blogs I know about are written by women.) Maybe you can send me the link. I could use another good laugh today.

hmm well I grew up with my father, 2 brothers, and stepdad and my mom.

I would say my father and oldest brother have shaped me in the most way.  I have gotten my dads cheapness lol, and I have also gotten his sneakyness about lying, and wat exactly is a lie and what isnt.  but I also got his childish behavior and overall fun, goofy attitude.

and my oldest brother has taught me to be decent I guess, he is very nice, a total gentleman, I think i may have gotten a little bit of that from him.

and my other brother isnt the best influence, but lol he was the one to give me alcohol and cigarettes.

and my step dad, well, he has the worst personality I have ever seen, and he absolutely cannot deal with stress or anything.. so I have strived to be the opposite of him.

My grandfather has been the biggest influence on the man that I am.  He practically raised me - my biological father was never much there for me or showed a great deal of interest in me.  We spent most every school weekend with my grandparents and my Papaw taught me to hunt, fish, farm, you name it.  I'm actually changing my surname to his (Liles) once I officially change my first name.  Just because I feel it's who I am - I don't want my father's surname since it means little to me.

http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2010/08/transmen-ftms-where-are-theirthere-men.html lolz. What a joke.

"Hell, I'm just your basic biological Butch female, yet until adulthood the only close relationships I had were with males."

Clearly, this overbearing presence of male influence in her life is responsible for turning her into a hypermasculine lesbian. She obviously identifies most strongly with the men who contributed to her formative years, yet she also feels a deep and pathological need to compensate for the feminine influence that she missed as a child. Extensive psychotherapy (and, if necessary, hospitalization) can restore her to a state of normalcy.

It's pathetically easy to make up such stuff and make it sound relatively plausible.

I actually never grew up with any positive male role models. My father was only around for the first few years of my life, then after that my mom only had abusive husbands. Right now my mom has an awesome boyfriend whom I wish had come into our lives much sooner, but before meeting him last summer, I honestly cant think of a single positive male relationship I have had. I suppose some of the men I dated changed me, but not for the better.

I've never been too keen on father figures. My father figures haven't been the best, one of them is an outright manipulative a-hole and the other isn't bad, he just has issues and quirks that bother me. I looked up more to my brothers.

But right now I look up to two people. One's actually a girl and the other is a guy. Honestly, I don't believe in letting whole people shape me as a person, everyone has their bad sides and idolizing can sometimes make you blind to that.

My family is incredibly woman dominated. I have one brother and me and him are very similar. Other than that...There's no males who've been around me all that much.

Hmm, well I guess I've had the typical male figures in my life. Dad, uncles, grandpas,cousins. For the most part, ever sine I was young, I always connected more with them. I always wanted to be included with them whether it was working on the cars, working out, playing sports, just hanging out. I've always had guy friends because I just had a hard time connecting with girls, like when they'd talk about boys and stuff, they were boring to me.

Father - Not my favorite person.  We did used to fish together when I was younger, but as time went by his temper got worse and we grew apart.  He's not really a part of my life at this point, and not someone I want to be like.

Friends - Some of my best friends growing up were guys.  I felt like I understood them better than my girl friends and peers.  I'm still friends with one of my childhood male friends to this day.

Uncles - I have a lot, but they were never really involved in my life.

Cousins - Most of my cousins were younger than me so I didn't spend much time with them, but when I did I played with the boys instead of the girls.

Other adult men in my life - My step-dad is what I'd consider a father figure.  I've known him practically since I was born, and I do look up to him.

My dad is a pretty sorry excuse for a role model, but my little brother (yes, little brother-- he's three years youbnger than me, but that doesn't mean he can't be important) has played a HUGE role in my identity. He's not really your standard macho guy, but he's definitely a guy, even when he's cooing over a baby or cuddling with cute animals or squealing in glee over a pretty purple blouse that he wishes guys were allowed to wear. (It's never "I wish I was a girl," always "I wish guys were allowed to wear pretty things, too.") I guess he's kind of my default standard for masculinity-- he keeps me from feeling like I have to put a stopper on my "feminine" side, which is important.

And of course I had some male teachers in high school and college and male friends throughout my life who I've learned from and admired and such, but none of them have really played the same role as my brother.

I don't think male influence is exactly the case with forming FtMs.

My father was always there and we have always been close. In my family we mainly have women, my three sisters and my mom. I'm not close to any of my extended family really so uncles and such don't apply.
My father did have a brain injury and his heart stopped for 15 mins when I was 10 or 11. He had to be nursed back to health for several years and still is disabled and always will be. I don't know if that has anything to do with me but I severely doubt it because I was sneaking out as a child and dressing as a boy long before the incident.

As far as friends go I've had a lot of male and female friends. I always could relate to the guys better but admired girls more.

I have dated both men and women. The guys I dated on the most part I just lost interest in and never got extremely close to. I think my biggest crushes were on girls.

After thinking it over I really don't think male influence effected me either way. My encounters with guys has been average IMO.

My father is an abusive dick, nuff said about him..
i don't see my uncles on either side
my grandfather died on dad's side when i was 8, moms side before i was born.

my first positive male interaction was my freshman geometry/homeroom teacher.

*shrug*
i don't think this stuff has any effect on our GENDER

Interesting topic - and I think once again this is a perfect example of how one's personal experiences actually form their viewpoints on society. I mean, usually it's adults who show children how to act, teach them things, etc. If you happen to be lucky, like me, then your parents didn't push you one way or the other as far as male activities vs. female activities, etc. My parents always taught me that I could do anything that I wanted. My dad taught me many male things, but also general things. My mom taught me many female things and also general things. But still, there were plenty of times that just me and my mom went fishing for instance. So it wasn't until I started interacting with the larger part of society that I was noticing differences and more defined terms of "male" and "female". In school of course I would see girls act a certain way and boys act a certain way. Often times teachers would reinforce those binary models (ex. splitting groups into boys and girls, restricting boys from doing certain things or restricting girls from doing certain things, etc.).

Since I'm lucky enough to be seen as sometimes androgynous, sometimes male and sometimes female, I've kind of been able to see prejudices based on gender from a number of view points over the years. I've had certain people think I couldn't do something because they perceived me as female. I've had other people think I couldn't do something because I was male. I've had people treat me differently because of what gender they thought I was. I've had people who thought I was male, diss me for having longer hair (and of course we all know that long hair on a male means you're a ->-bleeped-<-!! *BIG EYEROLL*). I've had people who thought I was female, diss me for wearing guy's clothing. All of those people had their own viewpoints and own unique life experiences that brought them to those viewpoints. And what I learned is that I just couldn't "win" with people who had such a narrow perspective that it only allowed for certain things ... and it was very hard (if not downright impossible) to change those rigid perspectives.

Anyway, in short, I don't think there is a single answer or theory possible to explain gender and all of it's variations and variety. And I also think that people who have very rigid theories of their own aren't very easy to sway.

To answer the original question posed - I've had both excellent male and female people in my life, both related to me and not. I've also seen and been exposed to horrible examples of men and women throughout my life. But at least I had the foundation from the start to have good examples.

interesting answers yo.. I didn't think that male influence or lack there of actually created FTM.. hence why I started this thread.. since it seems to be a common reason given (by the butch community etc) to why people become ftms. But I think this is a good start at breaking their theories.. lolz..

anyhow I knew that I was/wanted male long before the differences between roles of boys and girls became obvious.. it was just something I knew. Whether there had been male influences or not.. I still would have been a guy. The guys in my life have just played a huge roll in creating the kind of man I've grown up to be.

I never had a father figure. But when I started performing my drag dad adopted me and he's been the most influencial male figure in my life. He's trans too. I'm generally afraid of cisguys. Not as much since starting T. But I was always afraid they'd read me or see me as less of a man so I never was close to any guys. He's taught me alot. First about performing but then I got closer to him and he's shown me alot about living, period.

I have a dad and a (younger, 17-year-old) brother...but neither are the most masculine of men. I wouldn't say that I'm trying to fill a void, but I am definitely more masculine than either of them. My dad is into home decor and such and wears flamboyant clothes, and my brother is a skinny little **** who can barely bench the bar.

Because of this, both are extremely (er, what word should I use?) protective of thier male-ness. Therefore, neither of them really accept me as much as my mom does. Because think about it...if a guy admits that masculinity is not only for bio males, and that male traits can be injected, then he is accepting that it's not a birthright to be male.