most people might look at that, and say "so that must mean you're a man?" no, that's not even close to what i'm talking about. maybe my username uses the word "girl." for some reason, i feel comfortable with the concept of girl, but the concept of woman, no. even though i'm 19, i'm not sure if i could still be called a girl. i don't even know anymore. i found that word that describes me is female. people seem to believe that woman, girl, and lady are all synonyms of female. well, i don't believe that anymore. actually, i believe they are all different constructs of gender. that is the conclusion i've come to. when it comes to bathrooms, i'll definately go into the door marked "ladies" or "women." those are not me, and they probably never will be. i like to hold myself up as a "lady" sometimes, but woman never really was what i desired to be. therefore, i'm just a female or "feminine individual." i know those codewords i will run into, but at the end of the day, i've given up on trying to believe there is just one way to be, and that it's all just that simple, because it isn't.

I feel much more comfortable thinking of myself as a girl. 

to each their own...obviously differences abound on syntax. 

But as Val notes, whatever works for you is what you need to do...

When I first came out I was unable to aplly the word woman to myself. I ussed girl and lady.
Then about 6 months ago it dawned on me I have matured enough to use that word in self describing.
I am a woman.
Just took me a lot longer to get to that point than most girls.

If you continue to live a females' life I would wager you will see yourself as a woman some day.

When you deny who you are, you stop growing emotionally. For us trans folks that often happens when we are around puberty. We may stay in denial or the closet for years before coming out. Emotionally we are still back at thirteen or fourteen, even if we are in our forties.

I am not saying that's the case for you, but if you're nineteen and still feel like a thirteen year old "girl" that's okay, because I went through that in my thirties. I have witnessed friends in my community go through that at fifty, or sixty. It's all part of the process.

I can still remember when I personally shifted out of the so-called teenage years. I was in Target looking at this very cutesy shirt. "that would look great with a pair of leggings" I thought. then it hit me, "Rachel, that would look cute on a teen age girl, you're almost a forty year old woman." 

Quote from: rachel_eliason on June 13, 2011, 04:10:06 AM
When you deny who you are, you stop growing emotionally. For us trans folks that often happens when we are around puberty. We may stay in denial or the closet for years before coming out. Emotionally we are still back at thirteen or fourteen, even if we are in our forties.

I am not saying that's the case for you, but if you're nineteen and still feel like a thirteen year old "girl" that's okay, because I went through that in my thirties. I have witnessed friends in my community go through that at fifty, or sixty. It's all part of the process.

I can still remember when I personally shifted out of the so-called teenage years. I was in Target looking at this very cutesy shirt. "that would look great with a pair of leggings" I thought. then it hit me, "Rachel, that would look cute on a teen age girl, you're almost a forty year old woman." 

When I was younger I liked climbing trees, riding my bike, and playing 'Cowboys and Indians'.   I don't do any of those things now as these activities have served their emotional, physical and psychological purposes.   I never made a conscious decision to stop doing those things.   I just stopped doing them naturally and never gave it a second thought.    However, I feel a very strong need to experience the thoughts, attitudes and behaviours of a pre-teen, and teen girl, good or bad.    I have to go through that experimenting stage where I feel completely free to experiment with clothes, attitudes, make-up and ways of being.   I have to experience and develop my inner girl-child and watch her grow and develop.  I cannot simply go to dressing, behaving and thinking as a woman my chronological age, as she has been all through her teen and pre-teen years.  She has fully completed that absolutely vital stage of her life and learned its lessons and incorporated them into her life: we have not!    Just as I have absolutely no need  to start climbing trees, she has no need to act and dress much younger or even a little younger than her actual age: I do.   

I have just started re-reading Sabine Lang's book Men as Woman, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures.  This book covers in considerable detail the attitude and treatment of people like us from an Native American perspective.  Lang writes that all the tribes had a ceremony of sorts to formally admit 'boys who were girls' of around 10-12 into a socially recognised gender status within the tribe.  After this ceremony the whole tribe acknowledged that the 'boy' was now a Nadle, Bate, Winkte, Mixu'ga etc and the child was completely free to be feminine, dress and live out the female gender role.    Imagine just how different our lives would have been if our girlhood/womanhood had been so openly acknowledged and accepted?!   However, nothing of that sort of ceremony exists in our society.  So we mtfs suppress our natures and remain emotionally 12 or 13.   Whatever is suppressed doesn't go away eventually.  It grows stronger and more insistent with every passing day.  Until one day, we either come out as we are, or the suppressed part of ourselves grow distorted and monstrous and sucks up all our life energy and we die.   For your life's sake bring out your inner girl into the light and openly acknowledge her.   

I wonder if our FTM brothers feel the same?   Do they feel a need to run about, climb trees, and just be a pre-teen boy?

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Women-Changing-American-Cultures/dp/0292747012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308002180&sr=1-1



 

Quote from: SpaceyGirl on June 11, 2011, 02:45:57 PM
i feel comfortable with the concept of girl, [Yes so do I] even though i'm 19, i'm not sure if i could still be called a girl. [It doesn't matter what chronological age you are, womanhood isn't given to you you earn in by going through a series of female learning experiences].