Just Trying to be Myself

[Guest Hideyoshi]

I have been having troubles figuring out who I am. It all started about seven years ago when I first had the desire to dress and act like a female. This came about by me wanting to desperately try on a dress, and when I had the dress on I was in a state of shock with how amazing it felt. Ever since then I have had mixed feeling about who I am. I have these moment where I want to become a girl 100% right this second,but then I have these days where I don't even think about it. Then there's the average day where I feel like a guy who just wants to have a feminine side, that I can embrace without getting funny glances or rude remarks. My problem is I feel like i should be either male or female both physical and mentally. I am having problems expressing myself as in between male and female.

When ever I look at myself in the mirror I want to see a beautiful girl looking back at me, but I have never been able to really think like a girl.I took the COGIATI and it said I am androgynous,which I think makes sense for the way I think, but physically I want to be a girl. I have been slowly growing less and less comfortable in my body. I just can't figure out how my mind and body fit together. Can anyone out there relate to me.

[Guest Kate]

Ugh, the COGIATI. That thing is chock full of awful stereotypes, according to it you're not really a woman unless you're bad at math, have no sense of direction and like being hugged by strangers. No respect for super-cool engineers like me who are creeped out by strangers touching them. I know I my feelings have been all over the place over the years. Several years ago I had been on HRT for a few months and was loving it until I met the woman whom I have since married, was too scared to tell her, and promptly convinced myself that no I wasn't actually trans. My dysphoria went away completely for 3 years at that point, not a single inkling that it had ever existed... Until about a month after the wedding when it came back with a vengeance.

There's a common perception out there that to be a "real" transsexual means you have to have known since the moment your mother took you home from the hospital but that is just not the case. Just because you don't experience crippling dysphoria 100% of the time doesn't mean your identity is any less valid than anyone else's. The same way that just because you may like some stereotypically masculine things doesn't mean you are any less of a woman. I mean I love riding downhill mountain bikes, shooting guns and working on cars, it doesn't make me any less of a woman, just makes me awesome . You may or may not fit into the gender binary, only you can know that, but regardless of your hobbies or sense of fashion if you think about the person you want to be and she's a woman, then that's who you are.

Kate

[Guest Jamie61]

I was shocked to learn that "gender identity measures" could often be a collection of stereotypes. With trillions of human beings in this world and only two universally accepted genders, it seem to me a problem waiting to happen. I'm guessing that GID is way more common then what people/researchers think. I am very cautious about any method of (or motive for) categorizing people. Maybe because this I how I identify myself, but I take offense to categorizing transgender people.

I would love to wade across the boundary between binary genders, slowly learning as I go out and back, or over and back out. This would be a logical way to learn as you get there. And wouldn't it be amazing if you could continually freely move around the gender spectrum!

I suffered dysphoria acutely as a teenager and it nearly destroyed me. I feel was able to suppress it to survive and that became a way of suppressed living these last three decades. I've have always wished upon a star that I would have been born a girl... and I still feel that way. If I have to pick one, it's definitely not "boy". I am now de-programming myself so that I can finally learn how to "do me" and not waste this opportunity. So for me GID has always been there, but not at the same volume level. (Hope that makes sense, can't sleep and its late....)

Jamie

[Charlize]

I am interested in the statement that: " I want to see a beautiful girl looking back at me, but I have never been able to really think like a girl." I'm certainly not certain i will ever know what it is to "think like a girl". I have a unique set of experiences and have been conditioned over many years. I certainly doubt i can ever fit the stereotype of a woman from my parents generation. I have found a great many new experiences i have as a woman are shaping me as well. I'll never be pretty but i certainly have grown to love the person in the mirror and how she looks more than i ever felt good about him. Early in this journey i had a great deal of trouble letting go of him. Oddly years into letting go i can accept that he'll always be with me. He was not so bad just needed a bit of work and a few changes. I'm still me and that transcends gender in many ways.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest Charlotte J.]

I think there's a lot of wisdom in the responses to this thread so far. I especially like what Charlize wrote:

I am interested in the statement that: " I want to see a beautiful girl looking back at me, but I have never been able to really think like a girl." I'm certainly not certain i will ever know what it is to "think like a girl". I have a unique set of experiences and have been conditioned over many years.

Of course, none of us know how anyone else feels or thinks, so... as someone born with a male body, Hideyoshi, it may seem that you don't know how to think like a girl. But if you identify with the category "girl" and you think, wouldn't that mean that you automatically think like a girl? By virtue of being you? Maybe the problem is that you're kind of blinded by the fact that your body is male. Maybe it's because you've been gendered male that you discredit your personality as not-a-girl.

But maybe it doesn't really matter all that much, how you think and feel and whether or not that fits into the categories that society calls girl/boy, man/woman, male/female. You are simply you. I am simply me. Now, I know that I feel more comfortable chatting with most women than I do most men. I know that simply because it is what I experience. I know that I feel more fully myself and more empowered when I free myself to act in ways that I consider feminine. I know that every day I allow myself to act in these ways that feel natural to me, I become more authentic. What does that all mean in terms of gender? That's still unclear to me. What is clear is that if I don't do this work of climbing out of this box that I've somehow gotten into (and who did that? Was it me? Was it society that put me in this box? And how am I separate from society? Wait, I'm not...?), I am not going to be fully alive. As someone who has suffered from depression and felt less than alive for too many years, I refuse to play that game. Right now I'm approaching the world in a way that kinda feels flamboyant. It's not in the way I dress, but the way I approach people. This flamboyancy doens't seem artificial to me. It seems confident and surprisingly calm for flamboyance. It's as if I'm stepping up to people and saying. "Hi. Yes. This is me." And smiling at them, because I'm so happy with the way I am just being in my body.

It's difficult to be ourselves as trans people, but I think it's necessary for our health and our humanity that we do. I don't have any advice for you, but I do know that you are the one who knows what's right for you. It's really important that you understand that you are the arbiter of truth and value in your life. I've struggled with and will continue to struggle with being overwhelmed by signals and messages from society that just... feel wrong. I don't know if that's part of your experience or not, but since you are struggling with gender dysphoria, I guess I assume it may be. Now I am beginning to understand that the dissonance I feel when I compare myself to stereotypical notions of gender does not mean there is something wrong with me. It means there is something wrong with stereotypical notions of gender. To paraphrase Kate, "I'm awesome." How do I know I'm awesome? Because I have come through years of uninterrupted gender signal-jamming to truly see and accept myself as a unique being.

Know what's awesome about you, Hideyoshi? You've been conscious of your unique gender expression since you were 11 (I think). You had the courage to try on a dress. You are aware. That makes you awesome. I hope that you continue to be your awesome self and I'm confident that if you do you will be amazed in 5, 10, 20 years at just how even more awesome you've become.

[Guest Hideyoshi]

I think what I mean by "not being able to think like a girl" is that over the years I have always tried to find a girl that I can be friends with. Who well help guide me in the ways of being girly, but every time I think I have found a girl I could be friends with I trick myself into thinking that if I mention me wanting to be girly to them they will think I am some kind of creep or disgusting person and walk away. I guess it's not so much as me not thinking like a girl but me not being able talk to girls or relate to the things they deal with, because I have never been a girl. So what I am trying to say is that it is not that I don't think like a girl, but that I have never been able to merge my way into a group of girls and feel like I fit in. That maybe because I don't have the courage to be by the people that I am striving to be. It's like someone meeting there role model. They get all nervous and can't think strait, and in my case girls would be the role model. I don't know if that helped clear things up, or just make things more confusing.

Also i would like to thank all the people who have posted. All the advice you have given me is very helpful, and will hopefully help me figure out the path that I want to go down in discovering who i am.

[Guest Charlotte J.]

I think what I mean by "not being able to think like a girl" is that over the years I have always tried to find a girl that I can be friends with. Who well help guide me in the ways of being girly, but every time I think I have found a girl I could be friends with I trick myself into thinking that if I mention me wanting to be girly to them they will think I am some kind of creep or disgusting person and walk away. I guess it's not so much as me not thinking like a girl but me not being able talk to girls or relate to the things they deal with, because I have never been a girl. So what I am trying to say is that it is not that I don't think like a girl, but that I have never been able to merge my way into a group of girls and feel like I fit in. That maybe because I don't have the courage to be by the people that I am striving to be. It's like someone meeting there role model. They get all nervous and can't think strait, and in my case girls would be the role model. I don't know if that helped clear things up, or just make things more confusing.

Yes, I think I follow that. From what you wrote, it sounds like you've made friends with girls in the past. What I'm hearing you say is that you fear rejection; that's certainly valid, and certainly a difficult and scary place to be. I wonder if there's a gradual way to approach it. Are there girls that you feel more comfortable around than others? Or girls that share common interests? I wonder if there's a way to approach gender that won't put the focus on you. Can you ask them about the things you wonder about in a more neutral way? Or compliment them in a way that might be a clue as to how you feel? Like, "Makeup seems like it would be really difficult. How do you do it?" or even "I like that top. It's so colorful."

I'm remembering something that happened to me about 12 years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties. I would sometimes wear bracelets, just like beads, simple, but a splash of color and interest on my wrist. It was just something I liked to do and that I did for myself, and before I ever thought of the possibility that I might be trans. A friend, who was a girl, complimented me on them and said "you accessorize well." It made me smile. So maybe it can work that way, too... you could consciously present subtle cues about your gender identity. Could be that most people don't notice or think much of a bracelet or androgynous necklace of some sort, but sensitive people, the people you want to surround yourself with, might notice, might comment, and maybe that leads to conversation and friendship.

Just some thoughts. What do you think?

[Guest Hideyoshi]

I think that is a good idea. I am not quite to the point where I want to tell other people in person, parents included, about my true desires. This is a good way to ease my way into looking like what I want to, without people having to know my true intent. until I am ready and have the support I need to move on to the next step, what ever that might be. I have also started growing out my hair. It has only been a couple of months,and it is right above my eyes. It is getting there but still has a long ways to grow before it gets to the point where I want it to be.

[MarcieMarie12]

My dysphoria went away completely for 3 years at that point, not a single inkling that it had ever existed... Until about a month after the wedding when it came back with a vengeance.

That happened to me too. Though it was never 100% away, it was just low enough level that I was just thinking about it and not acting on it.

[MarcieMarie12]

I just took the COGIATI today online---something about class 4---PROBABLE TRANSSEXUAL. I agree the test does ask alot of questions that seem to stereotype women. So I am taking it with a grain of salt.