(Gender) Alienation triggers

[Asche]

I don't see my gender-related feelings as being dysphoria exactly, they seem to be more just feelings of alienation from what people assume I am / expect me to be.

I still present as male, and last night I had an experience of feeling rather alienated.  Our chorus is planning to have just the men in the chorus sing a song about "watching girls."  It's a nice enough song musically, but something about being among a bunch of "guys" singing about ogling "girls" just felt so "not me."  It's not that I don't enjoy looking at women, it's the girl-watching/girl-ogling/girl-objectifying pose/culture that bugs me.  I felt like an atheist at a tent revival.  It just kind of slapped me in the face with the fact that I don't feel like a "guy" and don't want to.

And the women are working on the song "I'm so pretty."  I've always had this secret desire to look and feel pretty (fat chance 🙁 ), plus I love the song anyway, and I so wish I could be singing that song instead of the girl-watching song.  The sad part is that even if I transition, I probably still won't be allowed to sing with the women, since I'd probably still be a tenor and not an alto.  There's a woman tenor in our group, and they aren't having her sing "I feel pretty," either.  (They'd let her sing the girl-watching song, but she isn't willing to.  I don't blame her....)

I guess this is my subconscious telling me it's time for me to get off my butt and start transitioning, right?

[suzifrommd]

I guess this is my subconscious telling me it's time for me to get off my butt and start transitioning, right?

Well, messages from the subconscious have a low signal to noise ratio, so hard to say.

But this certainly is the sort of thing that drove me to transition. That's been the biggest benefit of transitioning. I never feel on the wrong side of gender divide anymore. I've even sort of forgotten what that felt like.

[sam1234]

Things like that might pop up from time to time. Its only a song and doesn't reflect your feelings. (kind of sounds like one of those disclaimers the have before a t.v. show. No disrespect intended. Try to look at it as a song that you don't particularly like for any reason and then let it go.

Perhaps this is the push that you have been waiting for. If its right, you will know it.

sam1234

[Pip]

I don't see my gender-related feelings as being dysphoria exactly, they seem to be more just feelings of alienation from what people assume I am / expect me to be.

I still present as male, and last night I had an experience of feeling rather alienated.  Our chorus is planning to have just the men in the chorus sing a song about "watching girls."  It's a nice enough song musically, but something about being among a bunch of "guys" singing about ogling "girls" just felt so "not me."  It's not that I don't enjoy looking at women, it's the girl-watching/girl-ogling/girl-objectifying pose/culture that bugs me.  I felt like an atheist at a tent revival.  It just kind of slapped me in the face with the fact that I don't feel like a "guy" and don't want to.

And the women are working on the song "I'm so pretty."  I've always had this secret desire to look and feel pretty (fat chance 🙁 ), plus I love the song anyway, and I so wish I could be singing that song instead of the girl-watching song.  The sad part is that even if I transition, I probably still won't be allowed to sing with the women, since I'd probably still be a tenor and not an alto.  There's a woman tenor in our group, and they aren't having her sing "I feel pretty," either.  (They'd let her sing the girl-watching song, but she isn't willing to.  I don't blame her....)

I guess this is my subconscious telling me it's time for me to get off my butt and start transitioning, right?

That whole scenario sounds like the worst stereotyping, designed to make anyone who didn't agree things like "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" feel completely out of place.  Feeling alienated in a situation like that doesn't mean a call to transition - the trouble is, the world is pervaded by situations where imprecations to gender conformity (at various levels of crudeness/subtlety) are blasted at us, meaning the feeling of alienation can be pretty intense.  That said, I don't see why you shouldn't sing "I feel pretty" - why shouldn't tenors (of whatever gender) want to feel pretty?  Have you asked?

Perhaps your subconscious is telling you to transition, but I wouldn't say that the chorus songs demand it.

[Asche]

Its only a song and doesn't reflect your feelings. ... Try to look at it as a song that you don't particularly like for any reason and then let it go.

Oh, I'll sing along.  I've had decades of experience "passing" for male -- passably.  I'm not tied up in knots over it.  It's not evil.  It's just a perspective that is alien to me, like liking guacamole.  And since it's such a part of male culture, it's one of those things that make me feel not-male.

[sam1234]

Some of those attitudes change with age. Younger guys seem to be more into bragging about the girls they have been with or trying to act macho. Not all, its individual, but I seem to run into that attitude more with guys in their late teens and early twenties.

Just from the comments on the forum from the younger trans guys, I don't get that vibe like i do from cis guys. Even though we've always been guys on the inside, having to live in a female body and be subjected to comments that are somewhat derogatory gives us more empathy for women.

You seem to take the long view and that's good. Much more healthy than letting yourself get too worked up about it.

sam1234

[Asche]

Some of those attitudes change with age.

It's not so much an attitude as a component of male culture.  When guys get together, they mostly tend to "bond" over stuff everyone assumes they have in common (whether they do or not), and this is one of them.  For instance, you'll get a couple of guys pretending to enjoy getting rip-roaring drunk, even though none of them actually do, because they believe that's what "real" guys do.  It's one of the reasons I gave up on men's groups.

Just from the comments on the forum from the younger trans guys, I don't get that vibe like i do from cis guys.

My experience with trans men has been pretty positive, too, although the ones I know are older (40 or over.)  I do get the feeling that some trans men, in their quest to feel "masculine," sometimes adopt pieces of male culture that they might not be so wild about if they thought it through.  (I remember the time someone here used the term "wife-beater," which is apparently a term for a kind of shirt.)  There's some pretty toxic stuff there.

You seem to take the long view and that's good. Much more healthy than letting yourself get too worked up about it.

It wasn't about getting worked up about anything.  It was more that it made me realize something about myself -- being seen as male isn't worth it if it means having to spend my limited time and energy on BS like this.

As for the "long view," I can't actually take too long a view: I've got maybe 25 years left at best.  It's bucket list time, folks, bucket list time.

[Aazhie]

Sounds like you should take some soul searching time to consider these feelings. It's one thing to feel indignant of behalf of another and another to feel like you want to belong.  That depends on how much you want to belong, to be fair.  I know many cis guys who have wanted old fashioned (French pre-Napoleon) clothes to come back in style because guys could wear wigs, tights and frilly bows and still be considered hyper masculine and very male.  XD  It's a spectrum and as you mentioned, guys are held to a lot of standards, much like women.  I personally would love to see a reversal of the songs being sung by specific genders... the girls oggling the guys going on about 'feeling pretty' but I'm just a fan of anarchy, LOL XDD  And also, it's pretty attractive to me to see aggro ladies and cute, femme guys.  By femme I mean dressing up, not feminine looking.  Rambo in fishnets is just too awesome, sweaty hairy manliness and all :3

Also, I think you can be pretty if you want. Not sure if you think you are leaning any particular way, but I know all kinds of men who cross dress and they look very good, regardless of their body shape/size and diverse features!  Confidence and being oneself can go a long way to being attractive in any sense, not just the attractiveness expected of stereotypes...