Bit of a tough time settling on a subject for this post....

When I first approached my therapist and MD to obtain hormones for gender fiddling, I asked if either was familiar with genderqueer and the like. Neither was familiar with the term or its implications. But they were more than glad to help out with the requested HRT.

I'm quite pleased with how it's all going, as I was a rather hyper-masculine individual before and rather miserable about it. I chose an intentionally androgynous name, and my presentation, while largely feminine, retains some masculine bits that suit me just fine.

Presently I have no clear intention to pursue genital surgery, gender marker change on ID, etc. But I do openly applaud the use of feminine forms of address and treatment from others at work & the like. People at the office, old school mates, family and such watch my YouTube channel, on which I self-identify as genderqueer, transfeminine, and a variety of other terms that suit me whenever I'm capturing the videos.

But I find myself tugged in the direction of hyper-femininity increasingly as the transition process progresses. I'm urged to use makeup more extensively, train my voice more aggressively, etc.

I hate to say it, but it can be a bit overwhelming at times. I've begun to stress in conversation and vlogs that I don't know what my presentation will be like a year from now, and that I will not likely ever appear to be other than "more feminine than I presently appear" when all is said and done.

I have a lovely voice, well trained for singing and public speaking. But I've noticed lately that I have begun to stress over how it isn't sufficiently feminine, despite the fact that I like the way I sound. I have even stopped singing, an activity I enjoyed for many years.

Does anyone ever feel sort of carried away, and a desire to deploy a parachute against the process? It's not that I want the change to stop, but more that I don't want to trade one dysphoria for another. Make sense at all?

Some times I find myself a little envious of people who feel desperately compelled to transition all the way through GRS and stealth. There must be some small comfort in that.

I just want to be Sydney.

QuoteDoes anyone ever feel sort of carried away, and a desire to deploy a parachute against the process?

Carried away?  Yes sometimes.  But a parachute?  No I keep trying to pour high octane fuel in the the rocket sled.  I am one of those who wish above all to get to the end of my transition and GRS.  Stealth?  I have not decided on that just yet.

Sidney.

I completely understand your position. It makes perfect sense to me.

You want to be in control of the process. You want to assess each stage and decide if you will proceed to the next.

You want control over your body and your life.

You like who you are, who you've been and look forward to who you might be.

That sounds like a pretty secure person.

Thanks to you both. I guess in part I'm just going through puberty again (at 40 pretty soon here ) and oafing about at self-discovery.

I shouldn't exactly expect it to be easy. I gather that I'm far from alone in having grown up with something of a fantasy in mind of a scenario in which I'm not bound by the constraints of the body into which I was born. But in my version, there was no single target "me" into which I would change once and for all, but more the ability to change my presentation to suit the occasion.

Here I find myself with my big feet and deep voice, talking to some woman I fancy, going on a date... and I feel almost like two conjoined personalities through it all.

There are all these fiddly details, like changing to a more intimate manner of speaking to make a pass at someone, and experiencing the dissonance of wanting to both deepen and soften my voice to convey the meaning.

And of course, no one can say, "This is how you should do it," because only I can really make that determination. But I can hardly be objective.

I've been feeling almost like two personalities also: One the female part which was the part society told me I was, the other the male who's been in hiding for a long time, and here he is, metaphorically speaking. 
Not that I totally feel like two people...but that right now, I look at what to put on and how to act in terms of "Is this going to make me feel emasculated or not (since the biogender's female)?" (Basically, pants=ok. Skirts, uck right now.)  And I wish there were some sort of social/legal status that doesn't cause me to be only part of who I am, like I've been.
Well, that's a scary and difficult thing to want.  To look between genders out in the world, maybe to take hormones at some future point, even to fight a political struggle to be acknowledged as third-gender...I have to work for a living in a world that isn't kind to its' misfits.

So, of course a large part of me wants to forget about all of it and go back to just being a cisgendered woman who happens to prefer the practicality of men's clothes.
I just doubt I can do that, having figured it out, without making myself way nuttier.  That would be bad.

Too...cisgendered people, well, for them,  there are little social blueprints for how to do things, you know...and yes, they do shift over time, but there still is a sort of blueprint for how to do things. Sex roles are getting less rigid, but they're still alive and well. 

For cisgendered people new to the dating scene, there are magazines, and well, they tell you the blueprints in current fashion-admittedly, what the fashionable way is to pick up the opposite sex is usually what the magazines say, not the magazines reporting on actual dating data.(because actual research eats profit margins)

There aren't any "official" gender roles for androgynes.  No set behavior patterns.  It's quite disturbing to think about-at least for yours truly.  No ads saying "Smell like a true androgyne with new Huh? deodorant," or such.

I don't know about you, but I've never seen "dating tips for the transgendered person," on the cover of any supermarket checkout stand glossie.

Quote from: SydneyTinker on October 24, 2010, 08:56:00 PM
Does anyone ever feel sort of carried away, and a desire to deploy a parachute against the process? It's not that I want the change to stop, but more that I don't want to trade one dysphoria for another. Make sense at all?

Yes. I did deploy the main, it's 100%. But, I worry if the reserve is OK. I don't need to trade one dysphoria for another, either. So, yes again. It makes a lot of sense to me.

@rite... Seems that there is very little that is official for Androgynes. But that can be a good thing, too. You aren't tied down to rules. You can be you. You don't have to do those magazine kind of things. You get to be you, without all those rules getting in your way.