Looking up to women

[Alana Ashleigh]

I saw a reel on Instagram yesterday from a transgender woman saying how she always looked up to and admired women. I felt like this way before I ever realized I was transgender. I always felt weird for feeling that way. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

[Pema]

I've always admired women, too, and even thought of them as role models. But I never felt weird about it. It just seemed sort of...clear to me.

[CosmicJoke]

I saw a reel on Instagram yesterday from a transgender woman saying how she always looked up to and admired women. I felt like this way before I ever realized I was transgender. I always felt weird for feeling that way. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

I don't know if it's so much "admiration" for me but more of an envy. I always felt that way very strongly and it only got worse to be honest.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I have always felt this way.

I respect their caring, nurturing demeanor. When I finally started seeing women doctors, they just seemed to be more understanding. I could explain something, and they got it right away, because they listened. In arguments with women, including my mother, they had a way of calmly explaining why they felt the way they did, and it made sense to me.

They were better at communication than the guys were, and I think I was jealous of that. But even their bodies just seemed to be a better design, with their "plumbing" internal and out of sight. They seem to be more emotionally mature in general, although there are many men who are on par in that respect.

[Rochelle]

Looking back, most of the supervisors I've had over the years have been women.  More thoughtful when making their decisions, never rushing to react, but taking the time to listen and understand before acting.

[Charlotte_Ringwood]

In all honesty I look up to almost anyone, as I've found most people  offer some inspiration or perspective in this life that I can use to grow.

Really the people I most admire have strong emotional sensitivity, appreciation and exist in all genders.

However I have always found women to be more approachable for me personally and feels so safe. I try to project a similar approachable and safe expression and willingness to accept anyone in need of comfort or genuine advice.

[Sephirah]

I saw a reel on Instagram yesterday from a transgender woman saying how she always looked up to and admired women. I felt like this way before I ever realized I was transgender. I always felt weird for feeling that way. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Honestly, no. I had a lot of really bad experiences when I was a kid with girls around me. I was very passive and a lot of the bullying I got came about through the young women around me. A few were quite possibly psychopathic. But I don't think that was due to them being female. More that they were just unhinged. I hope they grew out of it.

It sounds aspirational, what you're talking about, Alana. Which is entirely understandable. When you look up to and admire someone, a part of you aspires to be like them. They're role models, so to speak. So I get that entirely. And for trans people it's entirely understandable to feel that way.

I just kind of... didn't. I found myself in spite of it, not because of it. I have never been what you'd call conventional. Which is a good or bad thing depending how you look at it.

You certainly shouldn't feel weird for feeling that way. I would venture a great many people also do.

[Jillian-TG]

I very much respect and admire women - they have a beautiful balance between strength and softness. On the surface it's easy to think that it's impossible to be feminine and strong yet women do it all the time. It's to be admired.

[Camille58S]

I have always had more respect for women than men. That may sound a little harsh, but it's the truth. Women are more interesting, more in touch with their emotions. More open to in-depth conversations. They actually listen to each other. Men seem to have their responses taken from a playbook! They have too many rules about what they can talk about. I know that is changing some, but men still have a long way to go.
 I saw a stand up comedian once, I forget his name, but he put it well when he said " you go to any dinner party, and it's always the same thing... the men are talking chainsaws, and the women are talking orgasims!"

[Lori Dee ✅]

I have always had more respect for women than men. That may sound a little harsh, but it's the truth. Women are more interesting, more in touch with their emotions. More open to in-depth conversations. They actually listen to each other. Men seem to have their responses taken from a playbook! They have too many rules about what they can talk about. I know that is changing some, but men still have a long way to go.
 I saw a stand up comedian once, I forget his name, but he put it well when he said " you go to any dinner party, and it's always the same thing... the men are talking chainsaws, and the women are talking orgasims!"

Reminds me of the TV show Tool Time.
Tim Taylor: <grunt, grunt, grunt > "More power!" <grunt, grunt>

😆

[Alana Ashleigh]

I have always had more respect for women than men. That may sound a little harsh, but it's the truth. Women are more interesting, more in touch with their emotions. More open to in-depth conversations. They actually listen to each other. Men seem to have their responses taken from a playbook! They have too many rules about what they can talk about. I know that is changing some, but men still have a long way to go.
 I saw a stand up comedian once, I forget his name, but he put it well when he said " you go to any dinner party, and it's always the same thing... the men are talking chainsaws, and the women are talking orgasims!"

I have to agree with you on women being in tune with their emotions. When I had my first breakup, I took it VERY hard. I couldn't put one foot in front of the other. Nothing could get me over it. I called my cousin who I've always been very close with. She was the only person that understood what I was feeling.

[NancyDrew1930]

I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s being surrounded by a lot of men and women who really pushed the "black and white" envelope and with my neurodiversity, I gravitated to the girls and women.  I still remember being in kindergarten and wishing that I could wear the colorful clothes and scrunchies and finding that I wanted to dress like they did and wear the scrunchies and all that, because that was the way my brain at 4 or 5 years old was designed.  It wasn't a sexual thing, to me it was the girls got to wear the fun clothes and even when I talked with them, I bonded with them better more than the boys.  And I was never interested in playing like war or a lot of sports like the other boys were or as I got older into my teens, taking woodworking classes or small engine repair, did not appeal to me like it did to the other boys, and I enjoyed doing more the stuff that the girls were doing like home economics (of course in the 90's they had started to teach the boys how to sew and cook and do all those things that in decades past had been considered "for girls and women only" in order to train them to be the best housewife they could be to their future husband and kids.)  I remember and looking back now, I can see how my grandfather, who was born in the 1930's and was raised where the men were to be the "warriors" and train the next generation of men to not show emotion and that as a husband and father you were the head of the household and you were to rule your wife and kids with an iron hand, and you needed to know how to do repairs around the house and with your car, so that your wife and kids wouldn't have to worry, he was disappointed that I was not following what he was trying to get my grandmother and mother to do to steer me (as his oldest grandchild---and he was already disappointed by his son, my uncle, because my uncle and aunt did not have any boys and my grandfather came from an era where you kept having kids until you had a boy to carry on the family name)  in the "correct" male way to where I would eventually marry a woman and have kids and "be the" stereotypical 1940's/50's "man" that he was expecting me to be.    And yet I fought and did things that he saw as "girly" (like take music and drama instead of wood shop and small engine repair), because to me I was not interested in those masculine things and even looking back now, if I had the chance to change history, I would have probably taken the hairstyling course that my high school offered, even if it made me look really girly.

Even now I'm seeing how I'm putting into practice all these things I observed from girls and women over the years to let me come out as the woman that I was already meant to be.

[Alana Ashleigh]

I still remember being in kindergarten and wishing that I could wear the colorful clothes and scrunchies and finding that I wanted to dress like they did and wear the scrunchies and all that, because that was the way my brain at 4 or 5 years old was designed.  It wasn't a sexual thing, to me it was the girls got to wear the fun clothes and even when I talked with them.

I felt this same way. I first started feeling this way in high school. I was envious of the ways the girls were allowed to express themselves with makeup, clothing, their feelings etc. I was envious of the way they got to be themselves, and express themselves however they wished.