Back To Square One

[Guest Keiichi-kun]

Well before I start off I better give a little background info on me. Currently I am a bio female lesbian who used to be FtM. After amounts of therapy and some soul searching I have become comfortable with my female identity and no longer identify as an FtM. My parents know about this and were supportive until one day my therapist told me he doesn't feel I am tg. There are a number of reasons why and after some thinking I don't think I am truly tg either. There are reasons I wanted to be a boy but that's not for this topic. Anyways even though I identify as female I still have a hard time accepting it. I still pretend to be male online and sometimes wish I was a boy. I am still confused. To my parents they think I am now cured and my problems with being tg are all gone.

Now they expect me to be all girly again. They (expecially my dad) make comments like "why don't you carry a purse" or "why don't you grow your hair out" I usually reply with a "because I don't want to" but they always remind me that I'm a girl and girls do that. My mom now calls me cute again and I'm their little girl now. I may be a girl but I still like to be boyish. I like boys clothes and short hair and stuff like that. I wish they would back off but they aren't. Ever since we found out I'm not tg all the understanding they used to have seems to have gone down the drain.

[Guest Itzika]

Well before I start off I better give a little background info on me. Currently I am a bio female lesbian who used to be FtM. After amounts of therapy and some soul searching I have become comfortable with my female identity and no longer identify as an FtM. My parents know about this and were supportive until one day my therapist told me he doesn't feel I am tg. There are a number of reasons why and after some thinking I don't think I am truly tg either. There are reasons I wanted to be a boy but that's not for this topic. Anyways even though I identify as female I still have a hard time accepting it. I still pretend to be male online and sometimes wish I was a boy. I am still confused. To my parents they think I am now cured and my problems with being tg are all gone.

Now they expect me to be all girly again. They (expecially my dad) make comments like "why don't you carry a purse" or "why don't you grow your hair out" I usually reply with a "because I don't want to" but they always remind me that I'm a girl and girls do that. My mom now calls me cute again and I'm their little girl now. I may be a girl but I still like to be boyish. I like boys clothes and short hair and stuff like that. I wish they would back off but they aren't. Ever since we found out I'm not tg all the understanding they used to have seems to have gone down the drain.

Oh, ouch. (That sounds vaguely like my grandmother's reaction to every wish list I've ever made. ("Why don't you have anything besides books/CDs/DVDs" or if I do, "I'm so glad you have some girly things on there." Then my mom said "Well, really the boots she wants are Doc Martens (sp?), so..."))

I talked to my aunt about my gender confusion before I talked to my mom (I was a little irritated that my getting books out of the library warranted an interrogation, but that's a different subject entirely). She said (paraphrasing) she doesn't like thinking of gender/sexuality as an either-or, because it's a spectrum. So between male and female, there's androgyne, and between female and androgyne there are things like female-presenting androgyne and masculine female.

(Girls do what now? Really? *eyes get big* I only own a purse because it was cheap and I liked it (and the gift ones were falling apart). I only carry it when I'm going shopping, intending to buy something, AND dressed in 'girl mode'. And I know girls who cut their hair short. Some of my best women friends have their hair shorter than half the guys I know.)

I think you should remind your parents that NOTHING HAS CHANGED except the way you identify yourself. You have not been replaced with a more feminine clone, you have not had your brain suddenly filled with 'girly' desires; you just changed your personal label from tg to girl. And for once, I'm going to embrace my mom's "don't label yourself" policy. It seems that whatever you label yourself just creates more problems. So if you want a label (I always do), I would suggest creating a more personalized one than 'girl' or 'androgyne'. You want to have your hair short, you want to stay a little more boyish, but you don't think you're tg. I think your parents might 'get it' better if you gave them something more to go on than 'I'm a girl again'.

Of course, I have no experience with that area barring my yearly "No, I really do just want books" conversation, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Also, it doesn't sound to me like you're 'all girl'. I understand that there are reasons for your decision, but from what you've said it sounds to me like you're closer to androgyne than your therapist gave you credit for. Again, he has more experience than I do, but looking at it as a spectrum instead of either-or... Well, there are more options than tg or cisgendered.

~Rey

[Sally]

Well I have to start with I'm not a gender therapist, but even without being transgendered almost no one is 100% either gender. You, no doubt, exhibit some characteristics of both sexes or they wouldn't have gone along with the tg in the first place.

I would suggest that you are uncomfortable with the whole, wear a dress and carry a purse aspect of being a girl - don't! Ask them if they would rather let you be a bit of a tomboy or try to pretend to be totally girlie and end up back in therapy before too long.

When I was trying so hard to be male I was trying to find women to date - I was drwm to the ones who were a bit more tomboyish than others - most had moderately short hair and almost always wore pants and a lot of women find carrying a purse as down right inconvienient.

If you are just a tomboy and not tg, life could become so easy if your parents would just allow you to find just how girlie you are comfortable and let you live that way!

That's really about all, good luck and I hope your parents will allow you to just be you,

Sally

[Guest Evan_J]

I have to agree with the previous poster on this one. Changing your label does not mean all of a sudden you like things you didn't before. Nor ought it mean you do something you don't wish to. My exwife was "all woman", considered herself "femme" and almost NEVER carried a purse and on anygiven day would love to have cut all her hair off. Did I wish she carried a purse? Yes. Did what I wished she carried matter worth a hoot? No. (She let me have my way on the hair It was a trade off) She never felt like any of that indicated whether or not she was female OR feminine. Stay however you feel best.

[Guest Keiichi-kun]

I guess next time they say stuff like that I could simply reply with "just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I wanna carry a purse, ect." I know I was getting my hair cut the other day and my mom was telling me I should get it colored Of course they sometimes think I act like this because I'm a lesbian (mostle my dad) but I think they've stopped with that thinking.

[Guest Cody_T]

this reminds me of my parents... I mean, sure I've done the "carry a purse and wear girly clothes" to make them happy, but the only thing you could ever guarantee me having in my purse was a graphing calculator (total nerd, but really how complete is your life if you can't graph on demand?). Ever since they found me out they've been dropping subtle hints about me wearing girly clothes, making my style my hair, really pushing makeup- all things I did before just because I was too stupid to realize that I didn't have to do them and could still be a completely worthwhile person. Especially with my parents, who have always stressed that you have to be dressed nicely with your hair nicely brushed wearing makeup for people to like you, it's hard enough just dressing in androgynous things. If I had my way I would wear solely clothes from the boys' section, and had I had my way early on I would have never gone to the girls' section in my life. I know the way I want to dress and that is in only male clothes... even were I a girl it wouldn't make me want to wear girls' clothes. Or at least, were I in my current incarnation decided to be a girl. And yet, they think it's a good idea to gently push the girly clothes on me and compliment me on how I look when I'm wearing girls' clothes (biggest pet peeve of my life, I've always wanted to be invisible when I wear them, so people complimenting me just makes me feel worse and worse). It's almost as though they think that my identity is centered completely around clothes... and believe me, if it was, I would have never given in to shopping in the girls' section. Clothes affect how I feel about myself but not who I am. I'm ftm and I feel like crap in girls' clothes. If I'm an androgyne I still feel like crap in girls' clothes. Girl and I still feel like crap in girls' clothes. It's not something that changes when you change your label. That's the important part.

What I would do is make that abundantly clear to your parents that being a girl or not being a girl has no bearing on how you present yourself or what you want to wear. You're not going to suddenly become femme because you're considered a girl; you're the exact same person who liked guys' clothes and short haircuts before. Just tell them that this is you and that what you want to wear is up to you. If you one day decide you want to wear dresses and heels and carry a purse everywhere then you'll do that, and that's great, whatever. Clothes are given too much significance in society. It definitely seems like their understanding has disappeared when they say something like, "that's what girls do". Bottom line there is no "what girls do" and you just have to let them know that no matter what other girls do you're your own person and you're going to do what makes you happy, not a ton of other people. Labels are just superficial names for things. Would not a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Who you are boils down to something much more basic than society's labels. Whatever you do though, don't start wearing girly clothes or carrying purses because it makes your parents happy. There's no real pleasing parents in the long run, so save your compliance for important things.

[Guest androgynous]

Personally I don't subscribe to the idea that one should make their parents happy, because it won't make you happy. A balance can be found in this. I had issues with my parents as well, but I wonder what they would think when I have said to my dad back then: "Well, if your such a man why don't you get your club and get me a fresh clubbed bison! I am hungry dad!" (probably extreme stereotyping) tong-in-cheek

What's most important is that you are happy, and they happy on your choice. It is your life, and they have to respect your choices. But at the same time, you can also avoid conflict in they don't subscribe to your thoughts. It comes from both sides, they might be totally stereotyped all their life and you can't blame them for it, at most you can explain it in private or with a therapist?

Be who you are, feel what you wanna feel, everything will turn out fine! and there are always people who can listen, you are never alone, ever.