"Are you a boy or a girl?"

[cindybc]

Hi Tekla, you say you were such a good provider as the man of the house, putting 2 kids through college and enough money left over for what ever and the rent being no biggie. Then could you kindly tell me what the F**K are you doing on a transgender forum if you are such a successful a cisgender male?

When I was supposed to be a male I tried my best to keep a home together pay the bills buy food and look after three kids. Sent the kids to school in the morning, worked delivering mail door to door for four hours per day, then hurry home to get the kids off the bus, make supper, clean house, wash dishes, put away the toys and bathe the kids, and change the diapers on the youngest one. And then sit in a chair and watch my half blitzed abusive wife harassing me and sometime with some physical abuse involved.

I am certainly happy and thank God and all my lucky stars that I wasn't a man or there may be someones body in a grave somewhere and me rotting in some prison someplace for life. Oh yea all those years drinking alcoholically in an attempt to escape reality, and then ending up living ten years on the street, and I will not get into the rapings. I will go no further.

Cindy

[Jay]

I believe in providing for my woman but I think things like rent and such should be halfed. Why because automatically I am man I have to pay for everything... eh no. Everyone is equal at the end of the day.

I have been asked that once. But I said guy which I possibly shouldn't have done. If I dont know the people I say guy now. Or "what is it to you" or I just laugh at them and walk away.

[GQjoey]

This really shouldn't turn into a battle of "roles". I respect 9 out of 10 of Telka's posts. They're never sugar-coated, and I respect that 100%. But as far as "roles" go, it can truly go both ways.

After a 25 year marriage, my parents split, where as my father was pretty wealthy, married, with stocks, he isn't single, with no kids to claim. And my mother has helped me 1000000000000% in the past 5 years. She inched her way up the "mans world" scale, and after being a office b*%*# for 10 years, she now runs her own little team, and works from home, doing half the work, twice the money..

Let's not make this a gender thing..Now a days, plenty of women are making equal, if not more than the average man.

[buttercup]

Men provide.  My GF lives rent free, did you're GF?  Do you support her?  Do you provide for her?  Or do you just walk in and think since you feel you are male you get to call the shots?  He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.  Do you work?  Do you bring home enough for people to live on?  Or is the difference between you and a large pizza is that the pizza feeds four?  You know what I mean?  What is is you do?  Men do.  That's the deal.  Its not the dick, its the work.

Wow, you're such a man's man aren't you?  Sometimes I think you step over the line with your comments.  These are young guys here, and you talk like sh*t to them.  I'd hate you to be my father that is for sure.   

[cindybc]

Hi GQjoey Don't worry about me I rarely come into the F-M groups I am not usually confrontaional. But it just irritates me when someone makes it sound like, "Hey!" Look at me man!" me big warrior, look at all the mastodon's I killed today with my club. Sorry if offended but this transition journey is not a bed of roses, nore is it like dancing tip toe through the tulips with me game, for either gender dysphoric.
Cindy holds hat with long plume in both hands and bows respectfully then saunters off the stage gracefully.

Cindy 

[tekla]

While Janis might have sang, that 'freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose' she was most likely wrong.  I know all sort of women who have done very well.  Lawyers, executives, professors, even craft persons.  I know all sorts of guys who sat wondering 'why?' when the real question was always 'why not?'

For years I was, as you were with the hippies.  To a degree I still am.  What scared me then, and scares me now as I see another crop coming along is just what you describe.  Lots of lost little indians in that tribe.  They wandered from place to place, from person to person, from drug to drug until it all caught up with them.  But there were many who asked that 'why not' question and if not finding a way out, at least found a way through.  In the seventies I know several who took the path I did, into and through entertainment, where the rule were somewhat lax.  But I also know a bunch who were the original freaks at Atari and Apple, smoking dope, listening to the Dead and writing code.  They had that anchor, that thing they wanted to do, write code, or put on the show, or just sit and study.

I've lost a lot of people in my life through crossdressing and gender play.  Some were pretty important to me.  Its just that in keeping my eyes open, I've gained just as many.  In all desolation there is a measure of liberation.  So I wasn't going to be a big hit at the office with my painted nails, my clothing choices and mannerisms, I managed to find a place where no one cared about it, or even kind of liked it.  Or in doing research and writing, I found that the books didn't care at all, and the words on the printed page did not carry that onus with them.

With or without GID, if its severe or mild, life will go on anyway.  And you have to find a way to keep on living, and if you can find a way that is not just mere existence, that might provide you a life, isn't that better?  Isn't it a positive to think that you don't have to wash your life in drugs and crawl out of that hole?  And indeed, your the lucky one if you found that way out, for most its a one way death trip.  I don't want to see another generation walking the streets of the tenderloin looking for crack, or drunk on cheep vodka, or all methed out and tweeking.  I would like to think we can teach and encourage success just as easy as we could teach and encourage failure.

I'm not great white hunter, I just liked money.  I thought that money could (and it did) provide a certain level of if not freedom, at least security.  And you obligations, no matter how you come to bear them, are your obligations.  Living up to them, regardless of who you are, or how you are, is just part of being human in the greater world.

Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself, 'first as a Tragedy, and the second time as a Farce."  And we, in this community, everyone from drag queens to crossdressers to TS are crossing that borderline now.  Where what happened to a lot of us was tragic, what's going on is moving a different direction.  As more and more TG persons of all stripes find success, its going to be a lot harder for those that do not to find sympathy. 

In our own ways, many of us have been a part of that.  Making it all OK.  But it makes the road that others have to follow a bit harder in some ways.

So sure, plan for your HRT, or SRS, or find a place where you can express yourself, but be sure that you also have to have a life plan, goals, a way to make it in the world, GID or not.

The roles you take on, the roles you play, the roles you choose are not set in stone, but they all have consequences, many of them long term. 

For those who take some sort of counter path they get to invent them, but those that want to mainstream their lives, will be required to play by the same rules as everyone else.

[soldierjane]

What exactly am I supposed to say?

"I'm a vampire. Now run before I eat your face, grub"

Posted on: October 20, 2008, 12:19:01 pm

that does not even begin to answer the question?  Did you support her?  Provide for her?  Were you the person bringing home the bacon.  Or were you just one more macho jerk thinking you get to call the shots when in fact, you brought little to nothing more to the relationship?  To be the man, you got to pay the bills, make the jack, provide and all that.  Otherwise its just a stupid power deal.

Teks, I think he was commenting on how when he and his GF are seen as a lesbian couple they get asked the silly question of "who's the man/who's the woman" and now that he is discovering his emerging masculinity, he will respond he's the man. He was not claiming any sovereignty over her, it was a jest. Besides, your ideas of what being a male and a female are seem slightly outdated.

[James]

Eeek, I seem to have inadvertedly started all this (How do I always manage that?) but when I brought up the "Who's the girl?" question I meant a situation where the phrase is used to harass two gay men... I thought that was obvious. and I'm sorry Tekla, I'll try to be more clear in the future.  It was a joke, based on the fact that it seems ironic to me that whai is typically harassment would actually make me happy to hear applied to me, as it would mean they saw me as a gay MALE, not a female.
As to the rest, yeah, you have to pay your bills like everybody else does regardless of your gender, it'll likely be harder for us to find jobs than other people, if you want to achieve something you need a plan, the gender roles assigned to us by society or ourselves aren't inflexable and unchangable, choices have consequences, and (in the words of Mr. Mackie) drugs are bad, m'kay... (shrug) good advice, but obvious, especially for most of us and I'm not sure what it has to do with the topic, which is basically about how best to respond when people question your gender.

[Dante]

I HATE when people ask this question. I haven't come out to my friends yet, so I flounder around for an answer, not willing to admit I'm a girl, but not having enough guts to say I'm a guy and explain to my friends. I always end up shrugging if there's a lot of people around, or if I'm feeling rebellious, I'll ask 'Why does it matter?', sort of as a rhetorical question, but also kinda curious.

Just the other day, I was on my way home on the city bus with a whole bunch of people from my school, I was listening to my iPod real loud to drown out the noise and my thoughts (which I never succeed in drowning the latter), when I saw the guy sitting in the row in front of me (I was standing near the middle door) ask if I was a boy or a girl. I could barely hear him (my ears are really sensitive, even when listening to loud rock/metal music), but I knew the mouthing of the words. I was floundering again, because one of my friends was standing a few feet away from me, and the question had caught her attention. I just ended up shrugging, and then she turned on me. She was like 'Did you just tell that guy that you didn't know if you were a boy or a girl?' I was totally screwed, so I just made a face and turned around to look out the door.

Anyway, long story short, this happens a lot, and it's impossible to come up with an answer.

Although, if I really thought about it, I might be able to come up with a formidable response, but my mind always goes into panic. I guess I'll try Arch's idea; I'll bet that'll sound funny. 'Are you a boy or a girl?' 'Yes'.

I resolved that the next time someone asked me that, I'd say, 'Guess'.

[tekla]

Honestly, I'd ask them, as I said earlier, 'what it to you?'  But if I'm in a good mood, I might just give them an increadbily long winded answer that goes nowhere when you parse it out.  Kind of like Grandpa Simpson, who is my hero in that regard.

"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I took the fairy to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones."

[sneakersjay]

Tekla kicks ass!  Too bad she's taken. 


Jay

[tekla]

Just remember, the goal is to have them walking away thinking "Gee, I'm sorry I asked."

[Dante]

Just remember, the goal is to have them walking away thinking "Gee, I'm sorry I asked."

Good point.

[Godot]

(to the original topic)

I've never been asked this before..but honestly, I don't know what I will say if I'm ever asked because I don't really look male and it will just rub me the wrong way to say "I'm a girl" because that's not how I feel I am. If it ever happens I guess I'll just say "It's complicated"

[Dante]

I got to use my 'Guess'. It's actually pretty effective. He guessed I was a guy. So I just left it there, so my friends would think I was just being sarcastic (which mostly I was, but I was also curious) but I wouldn't have to admit to the truth.

[iFindMeHere]

I just felt I wanted to comment on something someone said earlier on about "MEN" being providers.

I honestly don't and never have looked at it in that way.  I personally really don't like constricting labels that say men must provide and women must do the dishes.  Who says either should or shouldn't do either? Why are they correct or incorrect?  Doesn't it depend on situation, the individual, personal choice and preference?  A woman may not want a man who provides, may feel personally insulted if she cannot be the one to bring home the bacon.  Does that make her partner any less of a "man" if he chooses to be with that person?
And what about gay guys?  They are both men after all or is one the real "MAN"?


I know that everyone on here is obviously going to have very differing views on how they conduct their lives and relationships but I mean come on in some way all of us on here are pushing the boundaries of what mainstream society considers "normal" whatever the heck that is and therefore I feel it makes sense for us to want to smash what are frankly suffocating gender stereotypes in my opinion.

You can argue that you can be trans/ androgyne/ whatever and still subscribe to the idea that there should only be traditional gender stereotypes that men or women behave in accordance to but what I would say to you and it is just my opinion, I'm not saying I'm right is that most of those same sterotypes would keep you (as a member of the trans community) down by default.
Those stereotypes, if adhered to would deny you the very right to be who you are. 

*standing fvkk3n ovation*

[ruavain]

I'm in pretty much the same place as the OP.
I can hide it well for pictures, but in reality, right now, my hair is so long that it is just about at my ass.
It is like this because until recently, I was not in a place in my life where I could start transitioning, and if I had to pass as female then, well, I would grow it out because I have a soft spot for really long hair on both girls and boys and thought maybe I'd like it that way (it's a pain in the ass, I tell you).

When I go out now, I braid it, the only thing I really can do.
Duo Maxwell-esque, for anyone that might happen to be a GW fan in these parts, though I don't do it purposefully to be like that.

I intend to get my hair cut, finally, to a more convincing boy-style in December, when I visit my parents for Christmas (and have hopefully lost a little weight).
I have no reason not to go out and do it right now, except, well.  My mother is a professional hair dresser, and is the only person to ever have touched my hair.
She "gets me," so even when I give her crappy, "Well, I want it...  like this...  *waves hands, wiggles fingers, crosses eyes, makes no sense*" she just knows.  Hair grows out, but man am I paranoid about going to a random shop and ending up with something hellish and awful.
Maybe that's a sissy reason, but yeah.  I've heard, and seen, the horror stories, man.


Also, just a quick touch on the "men providing" and "outdated standards" and all of that -- my grandfather was an absolute pussy and my grandmother did everything and supported everyone all on her own.  She controlled the house, the rules, the income, the spending, with an iron fist.
My grandfather did not have free access to any of their money -- he was given an allowance, like a teenager.  When she would send him out for grocery shopping, she would give him a specific amount to spend, and expected both the receipt and any remaining cash (to the cent) returned to her.
She had a job in law, and worked until the day she was forced to retire.  He did things around the house.
They've both passed, my grandfather years ago, and my grandmother months ago...  and my grandmother is still providing.
My mother received her house (the house that had always been in my grandmother's name, not my grandfather's) and generous inheritance, and I received an annuity that provides me with a certain amount of money every month no matter what.
Having lived most of my life in the house with my grandparents, I have to agree with milliontoone about "never having looked at it that way".
I don't mean to say any of the opinions or statements are wrong, just that I grew up with a different viewpoint. 

[Alyssa M.]

Men provide.  My GF lives rent free, did you're GF?  Do you support her?  Do you provide for her?  Or do you just walk in and think since you feel you are male you get to call the shots?  He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.  Do you work?  Do you bring home enough for people to live on?  Or is the difference between you and a large pizza is that the pizza feeds four?  You know what I mean?  What is is you do?  Men do.  That's the deal.  Its not the dick, its the work.

It takes a real man to date a woman who makes more than he does.

[trapthavok]

Men provide.  My GF lives rent free, did you're GF?  Do you support her?  Do you provide for her?  Or do you just walk in and think since you feel you are male you get to call the shots?  He who pays the piper gets to call the tune.  Do you work?  Do you bring home enough for people to live on?  Or is the difference between you and a large pizza is that the pizza feeds four?  You know what I mean?  What is is you do?  Men do.  That's the deal.  Its not the dick, its the work.

It takes a real man to date a woman who makes more than he does.

Oooo!!! Ooooo!!! Pick me Pick me!!!!

I would LOVE  a suga mama <3

[cindybc]

I got my sugar mommy, her name is Wing Walker.

Cindy