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Has your family ever made you doubt your gender?

Started by Ribbons, January 20, 2011, 09:52:41 PM

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Ribbons

Me and my parents were talking about sports today, and my mom made me wonder if I was a tomboy or a boy. It really feels weird when we have those mother to daughter talks; they always make me feel gender awkward.

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cynthialee

My brother.
He insisted that my transition was a kink thing for awhile.
I did get him to understand that was not the case when I explained to him how little I actually have sex.
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
Sun Tsu 'The art of War'
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Alex201

Yes...I have heard every excuse in the book of " Why Alex Must Be A Girl". My mom tells me tons of reasons that I am not a boy and it drives me nutty.
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Lee

I'm dreading this.  :-\
My dad definitely treats me like "Daddy's little girl," and my mother lives in her own perfect world and likes us to reflect it.  I'm not expecting them to deal with things without a lot of trying to talk me out of it.
Oh I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love

A blah blog
http://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,365.0.html
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jmaxley

Oh yes.  I didn't have any doubts or fears about going on T until I told my mom.  She keeps telling me I'll regret it and I've started wondering if I might.  Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm just a really confused girl.  But if I was really a girl, surely I wouldn't love getting called sir and wouldn't want to get the boobs lopped off.  If I was really a girl, wouldn't I feel more like a woman?  'Cause I don't feel like a woman at all and I don't want to feel like a woman.  If there was some way to make peace with being female, I might would try it, just because transition is kind of scary.  But I really don't want to be a girl.
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spacial

I had a very difficult relationship with all of my family.

They knew what I am. Even though it was never spoken of. It's kinda obvious for those that know me really.

But I know, if I had ever tried to talk any of them, each would have turned it around to be about them.

My father would have seen it as yet another excuse for his own failures. My mother would have seen it as yet another problem in her life, everyone is blaming her. My sister would have seen it as me invading her terrotory. My brother, well, he would probably have used it as an excuse to attack me again.

Sorry, if this isn't quite what you wanted. But I do sympathise.

I walked away. Form all of them. Never looked back.

But one point I will suggest. If you start trying to avoid doing or saying things because they might question your identity, then you're being as fake and dishonest with yourself as they suggest you are.

If, for example, you like fiddleing with car engines, watching sports, drinking beer, getting into fights, listening to whatever, none of this makes you anything other than someone who does these things.

Who said a girl can't do these things? And who put them in charge anyway?
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Gilmorton

My Mum tried to turn me into a girl for years. It was a real battlefield. I think she felt that my being the way I obviously was (and it *was* obvious, even from the age of two, apparently) was her fault somehow, so she went into complete denial - I was going to be a girl whether I liked it or not!
I did try, I really did. But I was obviously crap at it, because when I told them last month that I was transgender they were not even surprised.
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Debra

My parents still say I'm a guy. It did instill lots of doubt in me when I first started....but nowadays I am so much happier and everything makes sense. They can't throw their doubts at me anymore =)

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Sharky

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Northern Jane

I sympathize with all of you! Some things never seem to change no matter how much time goes by.

When I was a child in the 1950's I knew I was a girl and I was tolerated - maybe adults thought it was "cute" - but by the time I started school my 'behaviour' was a cause for concern with my mother and she tried by every means possible to force, cajole, ridicule, embarrass or shame me into "acting like a boy" (which was pretty much impossible) and by age 8 I didn't know what I was and started to think maybe my mother was right and I was just a freak.  Through my teens things would happen that would reinforce my certainty in my gender and then my mother would try to undermine it again. By my late teens I was pretty solid in my belief and that just escalated the conflicts at home.

I left home at 24, had surgery, and started a new life and everything was fine but I only went home to visit twice in all the years that followed. My mother never did accept my decision to be myself and my only visits home were under the protection of my husband (to keep my mother off my back). Both my parents are gone now and my mother, by her own stubbornness, missed out on knowing a daughter she could have been very proud of.

I hope things work out for all of you and that you get through this without loosing your family.
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rejennyrated

To be honest I'm likely to be one of the exceptions here

My mother always said to me "All I want is for you to be the best you that you can be. If you feel that is female then that is fine, if it is male then that is also fine." and for reasons best known to herself she single handedly bullied and cajoled the rest of my family into accepting my gender non conformism from quite an early age (5 years old). She also chose schools which placed great value on individuality.

So thankfully, both at home and school, I was actually positively encouraged to find my own niche on the spectrum. I am incredibly grateful to her. She was a remarkable lady.
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CaitJ

My parents are repressed, conservative morons, so their resistance to my transition only validates my gender further - it's kind of like the village idiot telling you that you're wrong.
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Northern Jane

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SarahM777

I had both in my family. I grew up as the oldest of 6. When i told my brothers and sisters none of them were really surprised. Of course being my brothers and sisters they had to just tease me a bit and told me we always knew you a little wierd LOL Which was ok as i knew they were teasing me a bit. Out of the 6 my youngest brother has been the most supportive as he does have a friend that is TG. My youngest sister though seemed liked she was very accepting but in the end she used it to betray me with my father who went ballistic. I had never told him as he had always given me grief as i was never man enough yada yada yada.
Out of all my family my mom has been the best. Other then 2 practical concerns we go out and she will at times help me pick out clothes and quite a few of them are fairly cute but not ultra feminine. Wat has helped is for a time she worked on a pysche ward and
dealt with a number of both  TG and inersexed people and she saw the pain they were going through so..........
Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard.

Be positive in the fact that there is always one person in a worse situation then you.

The Fourth Doctor
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spacial

Quote from: Vexing on January 22, 2011, 04:46:22 AM
- it's kind of like the village idiot telling you that you're wrong.

Once again, Vexing's, down to earth, plain speaking style, manages to get right to the heart of the matter.

Beautiful.
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E

I had kind of the opposite experience of Northern Jane - from an early age, I knew there was something odd about me, and was convinced everybody else could see it, too. I was also always a bit thin-skinned, and kept being bullied by the other kids (more and more as time went by), so I took all the weirdness inside and shoved it into the deepest, darkest corner of my mind, and acted as male as I could. I don't know when this began - it had started by age 6, certainly.

So my parents keep telling me how I've never shown any signs of being trans, and how I was just the perfect stereotypical little boy. Which is just not true - even my very best efforts couldn't make me anything more than sorta gender neutral, since I really couldn't stand any of the typical "boy stuff". But more than once they've got me worried about whether or not they might be right - am I just fooling myself? Then the dysphoria returns.
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Tad

Quote from: jmaxley on January 21, 2011, 12:52:17 AM
Oh yes.  I didn't have any doubts or fears about going on T until I told my mom.  She keeps telling me I'll regret it and I've started wondering if I might.  Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm just a really confused girl.  But if I was really a girl, surely I wouldn't love getting called sir and wouldn't want to get the boobs lopped off.  If I was really a girl, wouldn't I feel more like a woman?  'Cause I don't feel like a woman at all and I don't want to feel like a woman.  If there was some way to make peace with being female, I might would try it, just because transition is kind of scary.  But I really don't want to be a girl.

This. T Day is Friday. And yet now I'm freaking out wondering if I'm am just some messed up girl.. because a few months ago dad told me I'm too young to know, not mature (because people don't mature til their 25 plus or something), that it's just a phase (albeit apparently a life liong one).. and I keep second guessing myself now - after being confident about this for quite a while. it's driving me nutty. Like wtf if I am making the worst decision ever? What if my dad is/was right? Ya know? I try to picture starting T without them in the picture.. and try and focus on how I would feel then, and I'm pretty sure I'd be perfectly confident about this.. and yet I can't tell - because I can't really picture my life without them.
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Mr.Rainey

When I was younger my mom pushed feminine things on me. It really hurt. I was so terrified I'd like being a 'girl' one day.
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spacial

Quote from: Mr.Rainey on January 30, 2011, 09:04:30 PM
When I was younger my mom pushed feminine things on me. It really hurt. I was so terrified I'd like being a 'girl' one day.

You know something, I felt exactly the same. It was especially bad when I was being pushed to follow my older brother into the popular guy, hit with the ladies, sort of thing.

I had spent so long keeping my femininity alive while trying to hide it, the thought that I might lose it at that point, petrified me.

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Alex201

Quote from: spacial on January 31, 2011, 06:51:29 AM
You know something, I felt exactly the same. It was especially bad when I was being pushed to follow my older brother into the popular guy, hit with the ladies, sort of thing.

I had spent so long keeping my femininity alive while trying to hide it, the thought that I might lose it at that point, petrified me.
I can relate. I also have a fear that I will someday actually grow to LIKE being a girl...and lose my masculine self. That thought terrifies me and I have found myself desperately trying to surpress any female traits for fear of "liking" being a female.
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