Gender Roles and Dysphoria

[Guest Charlotte J.]

One of the toughest problems I've struggled with is the expectation that I, as a "man", conform to traditional gender roles. This is tough for me because I've never done that in the slightest. About the closest I've gotten was playing sports as a kid, but as I grew up, I just veered further and further into women's country. That it took me until my early 30s to recognize as a possibilty that I'm trans, and that it's taken me another 8 years to embrace the beauty of my trans identity--well, that's just kind of baffling.

Hindsight, yadda yadda.

Anyhow, I'm wondering how many other people out there experience this? My gender dysphoria is less about my body and more about my personality. In my marriage and family, I have willingly and happily taken on the traditional "woman's role". My wife has the career. I floundered about in various jobs until we had our kids. Now I stay home with them. It's a wonderful fit for me. I've always been the cook in the family. I'm the one more likely to obsess about clutter. I make sure that my children don't leave the house with clashing clothes.

I know I am in the land of stereotypical gender roles here. That's kinda the point, the way I embody and practice more of the stereotypically female gender roles than the male.

As much as I support the equanimity and empowerment aspects of of feminism, I find that my own journey is a sort of inversion of those values. I'm not saying I want to be subordinate or a second-class citizen, Lord no. But I also have never had strong career ambitions in the breadwinner sense. I do have career ambitions, but they are artistic/literary, which again, stereotypically speaking, arguably falls into the feminine category (aesthetics, communication).

I have to reign in here before I overanalyze. I tend to do that. I try harder not to, these days.

So I'm going to veer off into relationship territory to highlight my gender dysphoria:

This coming weekend, we are going camping with my wife's family. My father-in-law is much more of a "typical guy" than I am, and my relationship with him has been awkward and, at points, rough. I feel that I'm gaining a much clearer picture into who I am (after nearly 40 years!) and, in accepting myself as trans, am becoming much less self-conscious. I'm curious to see how this plays out in my relationship with him. My hope is that I will continue to feel comfortable and empowered and be able to relax into myself around him. I know that he wants to have a good relationship with me--he's gone out of his way many times to show that--and I want to have a good relationship with him, too, but as myself, not as the "typical guy" that he has assumed that I am.

As I said, this gender expression has been one of the toughest problems of my life, and one that I've just begun to grasp and consciously manipulate. Part of me feels that the gender binary is the problem--"male" is this, "female" is that, stereotypes like the ones I listed above. But another part of me, the part that recognizes that I feel more comfortable in a skirt than I do in any kind of man-pants (literally and metaphorically speaking here, folks!), is waking up to the very real possibility that the problem isn't simply with social constraints imposed by binary gender, but with being persistently placed in the wrong pole of that binary because of my male body.

Okay, thoughts are beginning to ramble. So...

Thoughts? Anyone out there relate to this?

[Guest Razilee]

Yes, Charlotte,

It does seem that the problem isn't dysphoria over who were are but above what it is that society expects us to be or look or act like. Our society has become very uninformed about history, how vastly different fashion and bigender roles have been in the past or in different cultures. Part of that is the shrinking world we live in, but it need not mean less diversity, but rather more. Stay-at-home fathers are rather new. Women in pants is actually rather new as well historically speaking. In a country founded on liberty and the pursuit of happiness, why can't we have the freedom to do what makes us happiest?

Love,

Raz

[Guest Charlotte J.]

Hi Razilee, thanks for the reply. I think that people feel gender dysphoria in different ways. I'm trying to feel out if others here feel their dysphoria in more their personality and emotions than in their body. It sounds like you may have some experience with that. I'm really interested in hearing other people's experiences.

I am aware that some cultures have or have historically had transgender populations. I'm hopeful that our culture is on the cusp of a new era, and that with the increasing visibility of trans* people, we may experience an increase in acceptance.

The camping trip I referred to in my last post was largely successful. What I enjoy about camping is the calm of being away from the plugged-in world, and the peace of idling without time pressure. With kids, and around my wife's family, who are much more activity-oriented than I am, camping is a bit more intense than I like. That said, I felt pretty comfortable being myself around my father-in-law, which shows me I'm making some progress. But by the last day, I was feeling fatigued, gross, and in need of a shower. And by the time we got back home, I was feeling pretty dysphoric. I'd gone three days without overtly expressing my feminine side, and that was difficult. My body felt familiar, but not in a good way--tense, defensive; the way I've held myself for years without understanding the cause. Pretty sure now that the cause is gender dissonance, and that the tension is a symptom of dysphoria. It creeps in, though. I felt fine, and then okay, and then I was still okay, then I woke up on Sunday and slid down into this tension of body and mind.

I'm all cleaned up now, though. I've had and taken opportunities yesterday and today to dress, which helps quite a bit. And so now I'm looking at how the physical act of dressing is important for feeling free, and I'm thinking about what that means, and I'm equally eager and terrified.

[Guest Razilee]

Yes, Charlotte, it would good if our society could find a place for the berdaches. the two-spirited who cannot be simply pigeonholed into one of two genders. I do the cooking, sewing and cleaning, rather like Felix Unger in and out of the dress. I don't like activity-oriented camping either. I like it when I seem to be accepted as female when presenting my feminine side, but it would be even better to just be myself and accepted as such. God, I know, accepts me as I am, but it would be better if, and I know it's asking a lot, if people accepted other people with unconditional love like our dear Pope Francis is encouraging us to do. Perhaps, as you say, we are on the cusp of a new era. Our culture is overdue for an upgrade.

As for my recent outing: I went to Al-Anon again as Razilee and as before did not talk much during the meeting, but I did converse with a woman afterwards who asked me how I was doing. I'm still afraid of my voice giving me away and I don't know if it does or not. Perhaps the Al-Anon people are too much alike to worry about little differences like whether someone is a woman or a transwoman, a man or a transman. Afterward I stopped by the drugstore for new nails. (I feel more comfortable buying women's things as Razilee.) The clerk waited on me at the cosmetics counter, which was a first time for that. I didn't get ma'med, but it felt good. So do the new nails.

Love, Raz

Love,

Raz