"man" Vs. "male"

[Guest Benzrathe]

Sorry if this topic's been addressed previously. Looked back 9 - 10 pages, and got tired of it. Figured if it was further back, it's been too long dormant an issue anyway, to ressurect. lol

Buuut, here goes.

How do you see yourself? How do you identify? Are you a man? Are you male? Are you both? Does it matter? I guess the reverse is in question too, my sisters? Female or a Girl/Woman? What's the diff for you, if any?

For me - I see myself clearly as a man, but not necessarily a male - I don't think. Its a new discovery for me. I'd always assumed they were synonymous. But I'm beginning to think not. I've been on T for about 3 years now, including a recent 9 month hiatus due to unrelated health issues. But no surgeries as yet. Thus my recent ponderings. How far operatively do I need to go, in order to finally feel at home in the body I was born to? From my very 1st shot of T, I felt like I was finally in the driveway... whether psychological or physio - dunno. Don't care. It felt good, and continues to bring me a sense of much needed and longed for - peace; as well as the genuine feeling of my pieces finally falling into their correct places. I'm pretty sure I'll be doin' the top as soon as financially feasible, its the bottom that I question. And that's not an issue of functionality or aesthetics - its - do I need that. What purpose would it serve in my self identification?

So in planning my next steps, I've had a new issue surface for me. Is man a gender? Am I really a male? I tend to be literal in most perspectives. Typically a male thing, I know. My friends & co-workers definitely see me as male, but this journey isn't about anyone else's perception of me. So some feedback on how you see this issue and/or yourself would be appreciated.

Thank, Benz.

[Guest Little Sara]

It's however you feel comfortable in the end.

I would definitely get surgery myself. I don't see myself living it down knowing I can never get it, or only get it in like 15 years. I can't be sexual as it is. It simply feels horribly wrong to me. So still a virgin, and while I might try something else than PIV before my surgery, PIV is definitely what would satisfy me sexually, its something I know.

I identify as female and as a girl (not a woman, I'm much too emotionally young).

It matters to me, it matters to employment, it matters to potential date, it matters to my potential sex life, it matters to social situations (though surgery doesn't matter *as much* it still does), it matters in clothing (goes back to the previous one).

Ultimately though, what counts is that it matters to me.

[Guest Martin]

I'm growing more and more comfortable calling myself a "man." I knew I was a guy for considerably longer, but because of my age I was unsure if I was a boy or a man. For me, "man" means to have a certain gender as well as to be an adult.

For me, "male means to have certain physical sex characteristics. I have quite a few of them - a deep voice, a beard, testosterone in my veins, a flat chest, etc. However, my genitals are atypical for a male. That will change to some degree later this year. If I had to choose between "male" and "female," I'd say my body is more male. Legally, that's what I am - well, in the U.S. My German legal sex will change later this year after I have the first genital surgery. However, medically I'm not purely male. I'm FTM. That's NOT my gender, but it is my true sex.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Martin, you have pretty much described how I feel. That's cool you are going to get to have bottom surgery. I used to think I didn't need it to feel whole and that I didn't want it anyway, but now I am finding that I am thinking about it more and more.

Right now I am in a place where I am not feeling much like a man. I feel male, but somehow "unfinished". My beard and other secondary sex characteristics are more in line with a 15 year old than a 31 year old. I would like to be a man. I know that ultimately it's up to me to be confident in who I am, but getting addressed as "ladies" and "ma'am", even if it doesn't happen all that often, really undermines my feeling of being a "man". In fact, I feel like a "man" would get a little rude at being addressed as "you ladies". Sometimes I feel like the bigger man if I ignore it, but I'm thinking most of my cisgender male friends wouldn't ignore something like that.

[Guest B.heard]

I think I see this as the other way round also I feel 'male' and id like to be a 'man'

But in being a man that needs me to to be able to sink my teeth into the the role/life and for that to happen you dont want other people or your family and social network addressing you as her, ma'am, miss lesbian etc etc etc

so for me Ive had top stuff done and will be waiting very eger for T to take effect as that happens I think things shift to allow you a taste of the real life as 'man' of course then comes the catch of personal relations.

For me to feel like a 'man' in a relationship.. right now I need downstairs to be alterd I dont know if my view will change after years on T as that will alter things anyway but as for right now I would choose SRS of some sort and i have to add thats -not- just for sex just because my mind functions male and my body reacts to male things and if I was with a woman id feel better having a body that was not the same I know the SRS on offer is poor but ill still take that step to feel more like the 'man' in the relationship.

[Guest Deeedoo]

I believe that a male identifies as male. There's no criteria. I think that a man has to be someone who is male and who has grown up. A man must go through something and learn about life to be a man. A baby can be male, but he can't be a man.

[Guest Benzrathe]

1stly, thanks for your input.

I agree with you all to a certain degree. I know we're each responsible for our own identities, as well as our own individuation's. I also know that from a literal and ofttimes legal vantage, having a said set of characteristics can legitimately confer a specific gender label. I'm grateful for that even. In my journey to self, I've relished these changes, as not only comforts but finally landmarks for others.

Re: age/maturity - my ex-wife frequently says (with mock chagrin) that its like she now has 3 adolescent males in her life - our 2 sons and I. So I can relate to feeling like a boy in an adults body, at least initially. I'd been coined "Peter Pan" pre-transition anyway, now I have the hormones to prove it. =] But It came as quite a surprise to me when I caught myself thinking of me as a man, and no longer as a boy. Like my kids, I grew up right before my eyes, and almost missed it, I guess. We grow up so fast... lol I still have my "boyish" qualities: selfishness, playful, clueless (at times), emotionally challenged, and often too much "littlehead" thinking. I'd blame the latter on the T, except its always been true.

I guess what I've been struggling with is knowing that being a chronologically mature male, doesn't make anyone a man; so does biological (southern) danglies make you one either? Am I just buying into the popular dogma that genitalia begets gender? How far do you really have to go?

Personally - I'm truly leaning toward full op - top & bottom, because I can't wait for the day when I can pee standin' on the side of the road, and/or jog without the worry of slippage, or that I might Hansel & Gretel my junk along the way. I'm longing for to the day when I can run around with my shirt off, or simply open and not risk being charged with Indecent Exposure, and being able to luxuriate in the feeling of pulling my honey firmly against my chest! But is it the lack of breasts, and/or a penis that makes me male? Or is it I'm a man already, and by virtue - a male, regardless of biology?

Am I makin' sense? Or merely over thinking a simple proposition? Can ya tell I've been gnawin' this bone a while? =]

Benz

[Guest Cody_T]

I think that being male and being a man have nothing to do with what you look like. I'm male with my hideous body, although I'm way too immature to be a man. I feel a lot of pressure to grow up and become one, but it's kind of hard. So once I grow up, become mature, and don't wimp out when things get hard, I'll be both male and a man, and whatever I have physically going on I still will be.

Physical transition is more based off of body dysphoria, I'd think. Social transition is important in being seen male, but you can still achieve that with no surgeries. Surgery, especially bottom surgery, has to do with how much you need your sex to approximate your gender. If you don't do it, you're no more or less of a man. If you do it, you're no more or less of a man. All you are is comfortable in your body, whichever one you choose.

Personally I want both, and for me top is more of necessity cause of size. I don't have any delusions that transitioning or having surgery is going to make me a man, because a penis is not what makes anyone a man. I want them because for me, it's like something is missing and something else *should* be missing. It's how my body should be, or at least as I could make it. But I'm male now, I'll be male afterwards. And even if I look perfectly male, I won't be a man until I manage to do that on my own.

[Guest DanM]

Howdy,

Even a dog will bury a bone after its jaw gets too tired of gnawing on it. Lol Man or male, hmmm I would say that a persons level of maturity would have to have some bearing on how they percieve themselves. I see myself as male and man.

[Guest Benzrathe]

Howdy,

Even a dog will bury a bone after its jaw gets too tired of gnawing on it. Lol Man or male, hmmm I would say that a persons level of maturity would have to have some bearing on how they percieve themselves. I see myself as male and man.

True Dan, if only to revisit said bone on occasion... =]

I'm not losin' sleep over it. Just ponderin' as I meander down my path.

Peace

Benz

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

This is a bone a lot of people have been gnawing on for a long time. What makes a male? What makes a man? It makes one's head swim round and round because there is no simple answer. Maybe there isn't a factual one either. Different permutations of this question have been floating around the forums in one form or another. What's a mother? A father? As always, language is an imprecise way to communicate complex ideas. We all know what we mean, but we don't know exactly how to say it.

Have you ever read Jamison Green's Becoming a Visible Man? I started reading the first few pages on Amazon.com and got hooked. I'm waiting for it to come in the mail any day now.

Science has given us some good guesses at what it means to be male, but none of science's criteria are absolutes. There are men walking around with two X chromosomes for years before they find out. They find out when they discover they are sterile. Sometimes they live their whole lives and never find out. Likewise, there are women that live their whole lives and never know they have an X and a Y chromosome. Nature doesn't think in absolutes. I'm trying to stop myself from doing it.

Anyway, from the perspective of the individual, your gender can really only be determined by how you feel. It seems imprecise to those who have the genitalia to back up their feelings, but it really is all we have. In the case of XY women (not transwomen, but those with androgen insensitivity syndrome) or XX men (not transmen, but people with two X chromosomes who developed into individuals who are externally indistinguishable from typical genetic males), their gender is determined by how they feel because they do not have the typical chromosomal makeup. They'd feel just as female or male even if they lacked the proper parts, the same way we do. It's just that human beings are biased toward over-weighing the cues that are directly observable. In this case, that'd be genitalia. Of course, when you think about it, most people have no idea what chromosomes they have. They also don't check out the genitalia of people they meet on the street.

Am I male? I'd have to give that one a resounding "YES". Am I a man? Not quite yet. I still have some growing up to do. Benz, I'm a total Peter Pan. I've got no children, no wife, it's just me, but I probably have more toys than the average 12 year old. When I get out of school and get a job maybe I'll feel more like a man than a boy. It's kind of frustrating to feel like a little boy at my age, but since my boyhood got cut short around age 10 or 11, I'm just going to go ahead and indulge. Adolescence at 30 is a heck of a ride.

[Guest Nekomata]

I once saw a public service announcement about being a parent. It said "Any male can make a baby, but it takes a real man to raise a child and be a father."

Oh and btw Stranded, Jamison Green's book is really good. I read an FTM friend's copy of it. It actually helped me, surprisingly. All of the things he longed for, and all the structures of manhood, I never realized there was so much to it. And it made me realize that I've never had a man's mind and helped me to decide on transition.

[Guest My_Genesis]

For me to feel like a 'man' in a relationship.. right now I need downstairs to be alterd I dont know if my view will change after years on T as that will alter things anyway but as for right now I would choose SRS of some sort and i have to add thats -not- just for sex just because my mind functions male and my body reacts to male things and if I was with a woman id feel better having a body that was not the same I know the SRS on offer is poor but ill still take that step to feel more like the 'man' in the relationship.

Yeah that's how i feel.

I think "man" and "male" can kinda be used interchangeably....at least in my case i identify as either one (or i guess both), but i feel more like a male in a screwed up body (meaning, in some regard atypical for a female ) lol.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

A MTF butting in here.

I was born male (assigned at birth - the Birth Certificate says "male" not man.

They tried, I tried, society tried to make me 'man' - but it didn't work very well.

And of the mantras in the Genderlife Voice Feminization Video is "One is not born a woman, one becomes one."

Substitute 'man' for the word 'woman.'

There you are!

Lizzy