Am I fake?

[ZaiynXavier]

I am.. a person. I want to say im a boy but im not really cos i was born like a girl. So i guess i cant really call myself a boy. 
 

I am trans (ftm) but i still like dresses.. so am i fake? i also like glitter and makeup and painting my nails. 

[Vidanjali]

43 minutes ago, ZaiynXavier said:

I am.. a person.

I am trans (ftm)

am i fake? 

 

I think it boils down to this. Only you can answer whether you're trans, and you have. It's worth examining exactly why you worry you're fake. Is it just because you like some things which are typically associated with femininity?  There are practically infinitely many ways to do "boy" & there are plenty of boys who like such things. For a trans person, gender can be much more nuanced. Whereas cis boys, due to social constraints, may be less inclined to explore any preference for "feminine" things, trans boys, having been raised with such things, have no social barrier to access them. Is it our preference for certain adornments that define our gender, or something else? As we live in a cisheteronormative world, it's easy to doubt oneself when one's sense of gender (including how it's expressed) doesn't align with what's expected by society. Maybe an interesting line of inquiry would be "what kind of person am I?" rather than "am I fake?" That is, take note of the things that make you feel most like you & see where it takes you. Reserve judgment & enjoy. 

 

 

[VickySGV]

I just had a real go to with an A#1 H8er. on this subject.  You were born with some outside stuff that people see more of on women/girls than boys/men, but they did not see deeper into your physical body where the real answer lies in your brain and endocrine glands and their sensing and cell building tools..  Also you did not have the words to tell them who and what you were back then, but you knew probably sometime after you were 2 1/2. 

Another problem you, I and the Trans community go through is that other people are looking for Boy OR Girl, to them it has to me one or the other when it really is >Boy-----------(you tell me) ----------Girl>.  We are on a spectrum of feelings and ideas of what our gender is, and it shifts its balance often enough to be a puzzle to us.  You question and feel strange about your birth "gender" so you are NOT a Cis person because they never question.  No fakery I can detect.

[Marcie Jensen]

10 hours ago, Vidanjali said:

Maybe an interesting line of inquiry would be "what kind of person am I?" rather than "am I fake?" That is, take note of the things that make you feel most like you & see where it takes you. Reserve judgment & enjoy. 

 

 

Well said! And, I agree Vidanjali. That appears to be the important question.

[Russ Fenrisson]

It's totally normal to like wearing make-up, dresses, and other pretty things while still feeling one way on the inside. That doesn't make you any less how you feel. However you wish to present is legitimate- no matter what you're interested in.

 

Hundreds of years ago, even before written history, both men and women dabbled in nail painting and make-up without any regard to who should use it. It was, at first, used for practical reasons, such as for camouflage and to keep unwanted pests away, before being realized as a form of expression and beauty. Really, make-up and dresses should be seen as a form of art before dismissing it as items only worn by a certain group of people.

 

It can be tough at first, but perhaps you can see these items in a different way. They're not something only women or feminine people can enjoy and dabble in- they can be something everyone can enjoy, whether they enjoy art or changing how they look based on their mood on a given day. Make-up and dresses, at the end of the day, don't have a prescribed gender. It's what you make of them and how you feel about them that determines if they're right for you or not.

 

One can still be masculine, if they desire, while still wearing make-up and dresses. Do what makes you feel comfortable. How you feel wearing it is more important.

[Sally Stone]

Something I learned along my trans journey is that maybe the way I perceive my gender or my sexual orientation doesn't necessarily align with my sense of fashion.  I was born male but in terms of my fashion sense, I am a girly-girl.  Like everyone who has already responded to this thread, we always find ourselves trying to identify who we are through a gender binary lens, which in my humble opinion, is too restrictive.  As human beings, the truth is, we are complex.  Therefore, our gender may point in one direction, while our sexual orientation points in another, and our sense of fashion might point in a third.  We should actually be perceiving ourselves through a prism, which reflects many more of the colors that make us who we are.   In essence, I see no reason at all why you can't feel masculine and express a girly sense of fashion simultaneously.  You're just a complex human being, and that's perfectly okay! 

[ZaiynXavier]

Thank you! Those replies were very insightful!

[Vidanjali]

Recent comic by Sophie Labelle 

[awkward-yet-sweet]

I've dealt with the same feelings.  I'm intersex, classified as female at birth.  Found out last year that my anatomy has some weird quirks.  I don't really fit as a girl, and as a wife I've not really been a success.  Not able to feel like a "man" either.  So I'm sort of androgynous/boyish and inbetween. 

 

Only you (or somebody close to you) can come up with your label if you need one.  I've mostly gone with how my partners see me.  To my GF I'm "Lisichka" and to my husband I'm "Pocket Fox."  In public, I'm a "partner" or "spouse" instead of a wife.  It works. 

[Alexis MR]

I'll add my share to these good coments: you seem to be experiencing the consecuences of toxic masculinity. 
There is a common concept of what "manly" means, but if you look around you'll find hardly any man applies to that 100%. Some examples: one of my friends, strongly build, loves beer, hairy, heterosexual... and he works in the health care system for helping the handicapped, which is a nurturing thing commonly attributed to women.
I'm another example, I love alternative clothing (goth styles and such), and I use a lot of jewelry, I love piercings and rings, I even made some myself. But I don't think anyone would think I'm femenine. it's just another take (a healthier one) on what masculinity means. 
Don't be afraid of expressing yourself in any way you feel right for you. But, I'll like to add at last, it may help if you compromise sometimes to meet society's expectations if you feel unsure of how you'll feel living as a man, meaning: it may be reasuring in some way to pass completely as a man (if you usually don't) to see people's reaction and get a feeling about everything, or just to feel more reasured about yourself. 
In the end is your choice, no one else's, and the important thing is that you feel confortable.  
  

[Dillon]

Hey there @ZaiynXavier. I just joined today and saw your post. You bring up a great question! I thought it might be helpful to share that I'm a trans guy who likes nail polish, and I've come across trans guys who wear makeup. As a kid, I loved dresses! As I understand things, I was born in a transmale body, not a male body or a female body. That's how some people look at it, and it's a perspective that helps me. But whatever perspective helps you, the bottom line is that only you can say who you are.