MTF/FTM....How can this be??

[Charleigh Dakota]

15 hours ago, Betty K said:

Hi @Charlie Dakota, the terms MTF and FTM are regarded as outdated in many trans circles anyway, for exactly the reasons you cite, so I don't see any reason you should feel pressured to use them. Why not just call yourself one of the following:

 

- a trans woman

- a transfemme

- transfeminine

- a woman

 

?

I refer to myself as Female....no trans anything. I dont tell people I was AMAB unless they respectfully ask (and then its on a case by case) or there is a medical necessity.... I was not born a male...I was born female...so I am not transitioning from anything to anything. So, I just identify as "Me"

[Betty K]

2 hours ago, Charlie Dakota said:

I refer to myself as Female....no trans anything. I dont tell people I was AMAB unless they respectfully ask (and then its on a case by case) or there is a medical necessity.... I was not born a male...I was born female...so I am not transitioning from anything to anything. So, I just identify as "Me"

Cool. I refer to myself that way too, at least on government documents and the like where there is only a field for M, F, or sometimes NB. I think it is worth remembering that “female” is usually used to refer to sex assigned at birth these days, with “woman” as the preferred term for a trans woman, so you may get some kickback there. But generally it shouldn’t be a problem, except among transphobes, and you can’t win with them.

No-one should refer to you as MtF except possibly in a medical context, and even then best practice indicates that they should not. I suggest if anyone ever does call you MtF you tell them that term is inaccurate and outdated and you would prefer they did not use it.

[Betty K]

8 hours ago, Ivy said:

the trans stuff is a thing

I agree. Maybe if I passed I’d feel differently, but since I don’t, realistically, my transness is always going to be a thing. But also, speaking entirely for myself, I don’t see a reason to deny my transness, especially not to myself. Several decades of social conditioning doesn’t just evaporate. 
 

That said, I understand this is different for everyone. I don’t begrudge anyone else the right to identify as a woman, I just haven’t reached that point yet, and I may never reach it.

[Charleigh Dakota]

1 hour ago, Betty K said:

so you may get some kickback there.

Well, I assure you that since this girl wears not just high heels but also steel toed boots....my kickback is going to hurt them much worse then theirs will hurt me!! 🙂

[Betty K]

50 minutes ago, Charlie Dakota said:

Well, I assure you that since this girl wears not just high heels but also steel toed boots....my kickback is going to hurt them much worse then theirs will hurt me!! 🙂

So I just wonder, if you’re confident in your identity as a female, why do you need an acronym for “MTF” at all? 

[MaeBe]

2 hours ago, Betty K said:

I don’t begrudge anyone else the right to identify as a woman, I just haven’t reached that point yet, and I may never reach it.

Something I struggle with, too. I have difficulty with the idea of considering myself a woman. It feels like something one must earn and I have yet to pay my dues, so to speak.

 

[Betty K]

3 hours ago, MaeBe said:

Something I struggle with, too. I have difficulty with the idea of considering myself a woman. It feels like something one must earn and I have yet to pay my dues, so to speak.

 

You know, I don’t necessarily see my situation as a negative one. It’s not necessarily a difficulty I’m having; maybe I’m just not a woman, and maybe that’s okay. Tbh I go back and forth about it. But I do feel as if society is part of the problem. In some societies gender-diverse people were/are seen as sacred. If only our society weren’t so transphobic, maybe I wouldn’t feel any pressure to see myself as a woman.

[MaeBe]

7 hours ago, Betty K said:

You know, I don’t necessarily see my situation as a negative one. It’s not necessarily a difficulty I’m having; maybe I’m just not a woman, and maybe that’s okay. Tbh I go back and forth about it. But I do feel as if society is part of the problem. In some societies gender-diverse people were/are seen as sacred. If only our society weren’t so transphobic, maybe I wouldn’t feel any pressure to see myself as a woman.

I don't necessarily need to be a woman either, but the thought of it as something that may be a party of my journey always triggers those kinds of feelings. Right now, I still don't know what or where I am in this journey but each step has been into the feminine realm...and that train, effectively, ends in womanhood. Does that mean I will stay on the train long enough to get to the end of the line? Who knows!

 

I agree with your positing on society, if it were more accepting we would have a different collective mentality regarding gender.

[Charleigh Dakota]

I, speaking only for myself of course, have no question that I am female and should have been AFAB instead of AMAB. But, I think it is important for all of us to remember that everyone is different and therefore all of our individual journeys and "stops" are just as unique as each individual is. Nobody should ever feel pressured to be anything they are not....which is of course why most of us transition and/or "come out" at some point in our lives anyway....but do remember that not everyone is 100% male or female....so do not feel there is an expectation or requirement to be either man or woman. This truly is an individual choice...and right...and it is important that we do not try to "fit the bill" but rather just be ourselves...whatever that means to ourselves.

[Ivy]

I decided to change my "gender" on this site because I basically live as a woman anyway.  Might as well just claim it.

[Betty K]

8 hours ago, MaeBe said:

I don't necessarily need to be a woman either, but the thought of it as something that may be a party of my journey always triggers those kinds of feelings. Right now, I still don't know what or where I am in this journey but each step has been into the feminine realm...and that train, effectively, ends in womanhood. Does that mean I will stay on the train long enough to get to the end of the line? Who knows!

 

I agree with your positing on society, if it were more accepting we would have a different collective mentality regarding gender.

It’s funny, I’m always touched when my friends call me a woman, but I also feel a need to correct them sometimes. I guess I just want to be the one to make that call, much as I appreciate that they do see me as feminine.

[Betty K]

2 hours ago, Charlie Dakota said:

I, speaking only for myself of course, have no question that I am female and should have been AFAB instead of AMAB. But, I think it is important for all of us to remember that everyone is different and therefore all of our individual journeys and "stops" are just as unique as each individual is. Nobody should ever feel pressured to be anything they are not....which is of course why most of us transition and/or "come out" at some point in our lives anyway....but do remember that not everyone is 100% male or female....so do not feel there is an expectation or requirement to be either man or woman. This truly is an individual choice...and right...and it is important that we do not try to "fit the bill" but rather just be ourselves...whatever that means to ourselves.

100% agree

[MaeBe]

15 hours ago, Betty K said:

It’s funny, I’m always touched when my friends call me a woman, but I also feel a need to correct them sometimes. I guess I just want to be the one to make that call, much as I appreciate that they do see me as feminine.

Oddly, I feel counter to that. If my friends actually consider me as a woman one day, I'd much rather be accepted in the world as a woman than have to lay claim to it. That's coming from Gen X, Midwest US-born, baby trans me. 🤭

[Charleigh Dakota]

35 minutes ago, MaeBe said:

Oddly, I feel counter to that. If my friends actually consider me as a woman one day, I'd much rather be accepted in the world as a woman than have to lay claim to it. That's coming from Gen X, Midwest US-born, baby trans me. 🤭

I can relate to how you feel @MaeBe. And that is coming from a very late Gen X (1976), East coast US-born woman. My public transition has become a very high priority for me and I am willing to do almost anything to never be misgendered again. I want, no wait...I need the world to not just see me as a woman but also to accept me as a woman...because I am a woman. 

[Ivy]

[MaeBe]

@Ivy Love it! 😆

[Charleigh Dakota]

20 minutes ago, Ivy said:

Samesies!! ❤️ 

[Betty K]

6 hours ago, MaeBe said:

Oddly, I feel counter to that. If my friends actually consider me as a woman one day, I'd much rather be accepted in the world as a woman than have to lay claim to it. That's coming from Gen X, Midwest US-born, baby trans me. 🤭

I don’t disagree, but that’s the thing, I’m not accepted in the world as a woman. I have a few friends who see me as a woman and I have the majority of society who, I presume, doesn’t. And, like you, I’m a Gen Xer, born in 1973 and raised in a tiny town on the outskirts of a provincial city in South Australia. I often think maybe it’s the binaristic, transphobic conditioning I received as a child that makes me unable to claim womanhood for myself. Then again, maybe it’s my own inner sense that my identity is not binary. It’s so hard to tell. That’s what cultural condition does: it muddies the water so you can’t see yourself clearly. Or that’s what it did to me, anyway.

 

If the world accepted me as a woman, who knows, I might accept myself as one too. Maybe. I correct my friends because I want them to know it is not so easy for me, and how nuanced this question of gender is. 

[Ashley0616]

Well I can never say I'm a woman because I wasn't born one. My gender at birth was male not female. Deep down I wished I was but I can't change what I was born as. I call myself a transwoman but on here I say MTF because that is what I am. I can't deny that. I wished I was female at birth but the experiences I had as a male were also fun too. I wouldn't be able to lift and drag bodies in Iraq because I wouldn't be as strong. I'm not saying that women are weak by no imagination but I am saying that men can lift heavier weights than what women can. Which is why they have different classes for lifting weights. I always found myself talking easier to women than men. I'm proud that I am MTF because of all the crap I endured to get to where I'm at now. I wouldn't be me. I wouldn't understand how people relate differently. I don't mind explaining it to others that want to know. My pastor and a few members of my church asked me. I told them that I can only say what I have personally experienced. I have more people who accept me at church than my own family. 

[Charleigh Dakota]

@Ashley0616 We are all born different and that is what makes each one of us so beautiful!! 

[Ashley0616]

5 minutes ago, Charlie Dakota said:

@Ashley0616 We are all born different and that is what makes each one of us so beautiful!! 

Yes we are.