I have been struggling with this lately...feeling pressure to conform to what society expects of me  [I hate standing out] as well as a fear of never finding love if I continue on with transition. It's a hard path to follow indeed...sometimes the pressure comes from the outside world...and sometimes from within [Like I said...I hate standing out in a crowd!]. What do you do when you feel the pressure to just give up and conform?

As someone (don't remember who) once said, "The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity."
We've all struggled with that though. Many of us spent many years trying to conform to our birth gender, among other things.

Quote from: Alex201 on December 12, 2010, 08:44:10 PM
I have been struggling with this lately...feeling pressure to conform to what society expects of me  [I hate standing out] as well as a fear of never finding love if I continue on with transition. It's a hard path to follow indeed...sometimes the pressure comes from the outside world...and sometimes from within [Like I said...I hate standing out in a crowd!]. What do you do when you feel the pressure to just give up and conform?

You brought up a good point about never finding love.  If you don't transition will you ever find love?  You may never find love if you do transition, but will you at least have a chance vs no chance if you don't transition?

No, I have never felt like I should comform to what society thinks I should be, When I lived as  girl, it wasnt because I was cnforming, it was beaue I thought I was a girl.

and as for love.. well, have you ever heard the expression, "if you dont love yourself, then neither can someone else" or something like that.  And actually I have been in love twice sence transitioning, and I never had much luck with guys before transitioning.

Short answers: yes and staying inside a lot lately

I'm working on the things that I know make me stand out as not a guy to try to pass the time before my psychiatrist appointment.  I hope they'll help me figure out how to be more comfortable with it.  So yeah, I'm working on bulking up (muscle), bulking down (fat), thinking about my mannerisms, and planning what to do next.  I'm a bit of a control freak in certain ways, and making plans always makes me feel better.

For me, it's mostly fear that my family will find out.  However, I know that your family already knows.  Really, what can you lose by being you?

What would you rather, despair or anguish?  Despair is about the future, anguish is about the past.  Now you have despair.  When you get old, and you didn't do it, you'll have anguish.  Despair can improve, anguish is already set in concrete.

Choose for despair.

I just kinda toss the entire idea of 'society' and try and figure out who is really expecting what.  Conform to whose standard?  Society as a whole has thousands of different standards and they really don't care which one your on as long as you're not violent, criminal or suicidal, not asking for money and paying your taxes.

Yup, I've had those feelings my whole life. If I could conform then I would, but I can't. Haven't been able to find true love because it's impossible to love someone when you hate yourself. Haven't really been able to conform to societies expectations because it pretty much has nothing that I really want. So at the age of 39 I'm giving being a genuine human being a go. I'll let you know how I get on.

I feel that a lot, like you just want to be 'normal' (even though that really doesn't exist).

I don't exactly have a solution for that predicament, as I am still figuring it out myself. 

About the love thing - to be honest, there are reasons I'm glad I didn't transition earlier. I liked being able to have sex with anyone I met without the baggage. Having to prep people on what they're going to find (for us pre-op/non-ops) destroys all the spontaneity.

That doesn't mean we can't find love, but having to prep people takes the fun out of it. I suppose it's different for those having genital surgery.

It does go the other way, though.  I've never been comfortable with the idea of sex and a relationship until I tried imagining myself in that role as a guy.  It feels like I'll only be able to find love if I transition.  I guess it just depends on the person.

Quote from: Lee on December 12, 2010, 09:57:24 PM
It does go the other way, though.  I've never been comfortable with the idea of sex and a relationship until I tried imagining myself in that role as a guy.  It feels like I'll only be able to find love if I transition.  I guess it just depends on the person.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. But I feel like while I have gained my general freedom as a person, I lost another. Before, whether it was a guy or girl, I had the set-up they were expecting. Now I pass a man, I don't. You know, I meet a girl, I can't just get on with things. I wouldn't go back. I had to transition. But there are things I miss.

Simple answer: heck no

Only way I conform to society is in the expected professional and educational ways (school and work). I never did and never will. I'm me, people who don't like that don't have to but I won't let them stop me from being me.

As far as love... I found love pre transition. It was a beautiful 5 year relationship full of love. When I told her the truth things got worse before they got better. She adjusted and eventually left for other reasons. I'll be honest, I'm worried I'll never have that again with anyone. Thing is, I'd rather spend the rest of my life single as the real me than be in a relationship living a lie.

I conformed to societies expectations of my birth gender and attempted suicide at least four times.  Is that what they expected?  For me to die?  Well screw that.  I am now doing it my way and I am a whole lot happier.

All the time but I never cared much, I'm usually to depressed to care tbh.

Thers only a handful of people who dislike me for who I am, but I'm not gone give into their wishes knowing that, if I where born male, they would have not cared at all.

It was a LONG time ago but I was never able to pull that off (conforming to what was expected). No matter how hard I tried, I just came off as "odd", sort of 'neither one nor the other', and the more I tried the worse it got. By my late teens, even in boy's clothes and with short hair I would hear whispers "Is that a boy or a girl?" and, after a few minutes "That's a GIRL!" Sheesh! I took an awful lot of abuse from my family for not conforming but I simply couldn't do it.

On the topic of love, I couldn't do that either - I simply wasn't attracted to girls that way, even when they would throw themselves at me. How could I "love" someone if they didn't see me for who I was? I couldn't. Love is about someone loving who you ARE, not who you are pretending to be. I always knew I couldn't do anything about it because I would have to transition at some point or end up dead and I couldn't even think about doing that to some poor girl. There was more than one guy who fell in love with me before transition but I couldn't do that either.

I have known love since transition, a couple of times, and also spent a LOT of time alone but at least whatever happens now is honest.

The accepted response to society when it expects you to conform is to flick the V (or the finger if you're american) swear profusely at it anad carry on with what you were doing before.

I don't know whether it has anything to do with technically being intersex or maybe I am just an incurable rebel, but when I was male(ish) I used to act dress and behave a lot more fem than I do ever since I am female. It's probably a bit of both.

Happily (or sadly depending on your POV) most of the UK is now pretty accepting of gender diversity and so here if I went to Dee's lawnmower shop I can do precisely what she didn't do without attracting too much attention. At worst I might be assumed to be one of the practical horsey grand women from the county set! Some of them can be hideously good at such things.

So to be honest I tend to weigh up the people I'm dealing with and then adjust my approach to gain the best result. With some that involves femming things up and flirting and with others I become a knowledgeable "MS techno fixit" and impress them with my practical skills.

So I guess that's a no then. Thankfully I don't feel much pressure to conform.

In the past, absolutely.  Now I remember something Maggie Thatcher said, (before she went mad!  )  "There is no 'Society', there are only individuals" , and use that as my motto.

Spent 47 years trying to conform but not fitting in.  Well, I seemed to fit in on the surface, anyway.

And I wasn't very successful at love before transition.  Dating isn't going very well post transition.  I can't even get to the part where I get to disclose... 


Jay