Obviously, someone that is not born, raised, and living as a female can never experience the "whole package" of being female. However, most GGs are probably not 100% female either. I think it is reasonable for a TS to claim that they are "being a woman" even if there is no way to be "100% woman". Most people wouldn't tell a GG that they can't be a woman if they were raised as a boy, or if they were born without a uterus. It just comes down to how picky you want to be in defining a woman.
Juno Michelle Krahn
Normal people are weird. Stealth is another word for "in the closet".
I'm going to hate myself in the morning but here goes my two cents. You may be right Speck but I doubt it, I just do not believe in absolutes. But assuming that you are right, so what? Are you saying that no one born male can ever be as female thinking and acting as any one born female? Does this include those males in our society that have been clinically diagnosed with gender dysphoria at a very early age and were socialized as female by thoughtful and caring parents? Do all women believe as you do? "We are extremely competitive, we are very aggressive, we have expectations placed on us that are just as impossible, we think very deeply, we pay attention to the nuances of relationships, we nurture, we fret...but the clothes and make up?" Sounds like a lot of males I know, but mostly in sounds like a lot of people I know. Time to get back to my superficial existence.
Rudeness was not my intent. I don't know if something "went wrong" for TGs or if something went wrong in a society that has rigid views on gender expression. But hopefully, we can agree that the kind of torment you have experienced as a transwoman is wrong.Originally Posted by Julogden
Don't take offense here, but how can your PROVE this. How exactly do you KNOW that you have female thought patterns since you can't be in the mind of a genetic female to know what patterns of thought they have after being socialized as a female? You can't base this on your INTERPRETATION of what you think women think. I have no doubt that you do feel different from other non-tg males, but you have no way of proving your assertion, but I do accept it.
Speck, I'm generally with you on this, though as I've just said, I do think that TGs do have some thought shifts that are not entirely male..
Like a black man can never know what it's like to be a white man?
Or an ugly woman can never know what it's like to be a pretty woman?
Or a low woman can never know what it's like to be a tall woman?
Or a a rich person can never know what it's like to have been born poor?
--
Perhaps. It's all just experiences though. I like diversity. Makes the group more interesting.
You shouldn't do that. It's rude. Keep it to yourself. It's akin to me telling a black man that he is black, and ask if he is aware of this fact.
Your thoughts and feelings seem okay to me Hon.
Second star to the right and straight on till morning
well answer my question...what was the point of the post?
i'll answer your question.. i can't disagree with your words..but the only point i see in writing it is that for some reason you want to make it clear to crossdressers and transsexuals that we don't know what its really like, and will never know what its really like to be a woman...
over the years, you see stories online about tg issues...read the message boards...they are filled with hatred and nastiness...the nastiest ones say things like..."you cant cut your dick off and say your a woman!! LOL"...
the nicer ones say 'oh those poor confused souls...deluded into thinking they are women".....how is your post different than the latter?
Good, I hoped it wasn't intended to be rude, glad that it was inadvertent. I feel that the problem is indeed with culture/society. Humans are by nature extremely variable beings, that's why we've populated the planet almost from pole to pole in almost all extremes of climate, if one person doesn't like a given spot, someone who does like it will come along eventually and call it home.
Every time a new human is conceived, the genetic dice are thrown and a new, unique being results, and a fair amount of the time, that new being is gender variant, just a normal part of the population, but it seems that many people can't grasp that we're to be expected in every society and that there's nothing wrong with us.
Thanks,
Carol
My name is Carol.
Hello Speck!
Of course you are correct! How could I ever know what it is really like to be, think like and experience being a woman? I've been a man all my life. So I simply study the woman I know and try to be like them, talk like them, walk like them and behave like them. It is the best that I can do.
Charlie
A few thoughts. Femininity and masculinity has a different range of definitions for different people. I don't think crossdressing is 'always testosterone driven and/or fetishistic' either; for some people it is, for some people, it's not. There is so much variety in who and what we are, that it's difficult to define us by one characteristic, in this case, crossdressing. But we still all like to be able to define, for ourselves, who and what we are, and that's where the problem comes in, because other people feel the need to define us in their minds so that they know how to relate to us. After all, the very first question when we are born is 'is it a boy or a girl?', because this will forever determine how others will see us and behave with us, no matter what or who else we become in our lives.
I don't make any claim to know 100% what it is like to be a woman. Then again, with my upbringing, I don't know what it's like to be 100% man either, because so much of my life was spent growing up expecting to become a girl.
I think that there are far too many assumptions made by people, who base those assumptions solely upon what they, themselves feel and have experienced. I know that it's a natural tendency to project our beliefs onto others, because humans want to feel that there are others who feel the same way we do. But that unfortunately causes a huge amount of misunderstandings because, well, we aren't all alike. We are different from each other, sometimes in lots of ways, sometimes in a few, but very rarely do any two people feel the same about everything.
As far as how we're 'wired' physically and how much that determines our thoughts and behavior, well, an interesting fact is that we can learn to do things differently, and we can learn how to think differently (though, to be honest, it's only a very small percentage of the population that makes any effort to do that as far as trying to learn how the opposite gender operates and thinks). It's not always easy; and it surely doesn't always come naturally; hormonal influences (aggression in males due to testosterone, and mood swings and changes in who she's attracted to during different phases in her monthly cycle in women, for two examples) can make it extremely difficult for us to learn how to behave in a way that is natural for the opposite physical sex person.
But it can be done.
Now, I'm not going to tell you that I know everything about what it's like to be a girl. That's simply impossible. But I can observe, learn, and know, an awful lot about it.
Because men, and women, are more alike than we are different.
Bottom line; in a truly advanced civilization, we will not be told by anyone that we can't do something, or that something is innappropriate for us to do, based on what physical sex we are.
Despite the human species belief that we are intelligent and advanced life forms, we aren't even remotely close. We are still barbaric and very much like animals the vast majority of the time.
And, BTW, Avana, I loved this one: "Honey, you're born naked. Everything else is drag."
Some causes of crossdressing you've probably never even considered: My TG biography at:http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...=1#post1490560
There's an addendum at post # 82 on that thread, too. It's about a ten minute read.
Why don't we understand our desire to dress, behave and feel like a girl? Because from childhood, boys are told that the worst possible thing we can be, is a sissy. This feeling is so ingrained into our psyche, that we will suppress any thoughts that connect us to being or wanting to be feminine, even to the point of creating separate personalities to assign those female feelings into.
I have no idea what it's like to be another man, so naturally I can't fathom what it's like to be a woman. There is never a simple explanation for being transgendered, and I would be careful drawing conclusions from endocrinology, neurology, genetics, etc.
That... and heck, the rest of your post... impeccable, irrefutable logic. Logic, we're told, that is the domain of the male, and not of the female... but I think you and quite a number of replies to this thread have proved that to be a myth.
You don't see why some of us think you are unaccepting? "As an alternative to suicide.". Wow. I am a a cd, and I have no hard feelings about tg people. I would say what I feel, but it would get me banned from the site. Its people like you that drive those people to suicide. Uneducated, stubborn, and set on views set in the sixties. You aren't the one under the knife so you can't hate on them for it. I support anyone making that decision. I will never do it, but I support those who do.
"If you think you can or can't, you're right" -Henry Ford
Rather than crucify you I would like to do some sort of mind fusion with you to help you understand the psyche of a trangendered person. Perhaps you would realize that to many of us our feminine experience is quite real. Not all of us are just men playing dress up.
I'm not even a transexual, I'm just a crossdresser, but to me my female side is just as real and fundamentally important to my personality as my male side is.
Not all crossdressing is a result of male driven activities, for some of us it's simply one of the ways the woman inside expresses herself.
I also am a gg
I just finished reading all the posts in response to "Why do I want to be a woman?" and what struck me is that neither a CD, a TG or a TS can ever know what it is to be born with a female physical form,
true
a female gender identity
likely wrong
and to be socialized as female.
very true
Some of you may have some physical features that are more female than male but there are physical features of being male that are in the wiring of the brain.
these are called hormonal process - and it changes when hormones change naturally ( as we age to senoirs - eg. less sex drive - or artificially
Some of you have an identity that is more female than male but none of us will ever know what portion that identity might still be male because we can't really measure it. Nor do you know what portion of your identity is female
And few of you have been socialized as female.
that part I agree with totally, since the boys only have a fantasy about it - unless they had sisters and their eyes and ears worked
I can understand that you want your physical form to match your more female inate traits but when you judge that the female role in our society has less expectations differentplaced on it or that it's ok for us to be softer, or that we're less competitive or aggressive, I'd ask you to think again.
We were only to be competitive and aggressive amongst outselves, until inventors made washing machines, tampons ...and pants for women.
I don't for one minute think that I understand what it's like to male, nor do I think I understand what it's like to be transgendered. But I think a mix up of hormones can cause someone with the male form to feel and act more feminine. Or even eating whole grains which cause both an insuline and estrogen spike because our body was only meant to digest fruits, vegatables without issue, and secondarily meats ( note our canine teeth ) since no industrial processing was required to consume them
Depending on the amount of hormone mix up, it can lead a genetic male
wrong - you're acually talking about things on the DNA level now. You can be born with a vagina and have MALE DNA and be precluded from competitive sport - in fact, you can have a mix of BOTH male and female DNA. Compicated, eh?
to either be a fetish CD, a man who finds crossdressing as a way to relieve stress
or a man who feels (knows) she's a woman trapped in the male form. That would be a woman, regardless of DNA. Not my idea - just tellin' ya.
However, I believe the male brain is different from the female brain in ways that go beyond hormones
and you base your belief on what exactly? I know a lot of sissy boys who def think very female
but know they are male. Likewise, I know one or two ggs who think and act very male, but are straight
and know they are female.
and the impact of the way a woman is socialized goes beyond the understanding of one who is socialized as male.
againt, agree - but there are many things that socialize us beyond how to shop - and many have been closely monitored by the TS girls because they were interested in the matters - unlike the man's man who ran away whenever someone even mentions mensruation, baking, shopping, clothes, babies, etc
I mean no disrespect to those who have decided to transition
wouldn't matter if you did - you're obviously not qualified to speak on the matter. lol
because I truly believe that for many, it is the right thing to do so that the outside can match the inside more closely.
But I think more closely is all you get and if it's worth all the trade offs you might need to make, or if you feel it's the only alternative to suicide, I'm all for it.
Suicide? Kinda like how you'll feel if you need to have a double-mastectomy someday? That is - one ( err ...two of the things which give you your value and identity as a woman will be gone - maybe then you'll understand why what you've written here is hogwash - though we'd never WISH that upon you.
But for the vast majority who are here talking about clothes and make up, projecting their thoughts on feminity, the female psyche and the female experience and all the connections you all make to the physical act of sex, well I see it as more testosterone than any real connection to someone who is female on the inside and the outside.
Well you're RIGHT. MOST of the CD members here are CD - not TS. They know they are men. They just PLAY girl - and of course most would love to have a day as a woman with a ( beautiful ) woman's body and face - and of course not on a day with hideous cramps, yeast infection or when they need to do build something.
I personally know someone who says she feels all woman on the inside and indeed when all dressed up, looks as female as I do. And to tell her that I see so many of her behaviours as male seems to be an insult to her. I don't mean it as an insult because men and women may behave differently but I don't think one is more wrong or right than the other. I just don't think that all the feminine inner feelings and all the feminine clothes put together account for everything it takes to be a woman. True. You must also not know when to shut up.
I think there's some female wiring in the brain that is just different from the male wiring and all the SRS can't change it.
Your friend may not pass the requirements for SRS - so - please don't formulate your belief system based on one DUDE who likes to pretend he's a chick.
We are extremely competitive, we are very aggressive, with each other we have expectations placed on us that are just as impossible, that's true - but we often achieve the impossible we think too deeply about things that really don't matter very much and that we don't understand very well , we pay attention to the nuances of relationships and ruin them we nurture, overprotect we fret about nothing if there is nothing to fret about
...but the clothes and make up? To me, they are just as irrelevant to life as chasing a ball around a field. Bullshit! lol How much money have you spent on cosmetics, hairdos, cloths in just the past year - so that you could look presentable for other FEMALES? ( because unless you're LOOKING for a male - they don't care what you look like, apparently. lol
If you like clothes and make up, or enjoy playing sports, go for it. You have one life to live, live it in any way that makes you happy.
But please, don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a woman 100% or that you understand the female experience 100%.
Please, don't fool yourself into thinking that you know what you are talking about, just because you think it is that way - without any scientific study and based solely on the case or two that you know about.
Leave room for doubt when you describe what femininity is.
Leave room for doubt when you describe what transgerderism is - and for gawd sake - understand that Crossdressing and Transgenderism are two completely different things - and there is a big grey area in between.
Wow, thanks Ashlylynn for the great "other" GG opinion on all this T stuff. I agree with some of the things that Speck wrote, but prefer and agree more with your explanation and rebuttal, where inserted, much better.
It is one of my lasting regrets that my body does not conform to my self-image. You are right that I will never know what it would have been like to be born with a body that corresponds to my gender. Neither will I know what it would have been like to be socialised as female whilst growing up. However, you are wrong if you believe that I cannot know what it is like to have a female gender identity - in my case, I cannot know what it is like to have a male gender identity since I have never had one.
You are right that the male brain is different to the female brain in ways that go beyond responses to hormones, but are you aware of the studies that tend to show that an MtF transsexual's brain has more in common with a cisgendered female brain than with a cisgendered male brain (and vice versa for the FtM)?
I have a great admiration for those TS's who were able to play out the role of a male to the extent of getting married and raising children - I know that this was impossible for me. I am told that children relate well to me, but I will never know the joy of having my own children.
Again you are right to say that GRS will not change my brain - in my case what it will do is to align my physical appearance to my true gender. Unfortunately, the only way that we can prove whether I genuinely have a female brain is to dissect it and I am not too keen to have that done whilst I am still alive.
Two years ago, I came very close to providing the opportunity for that to be done, but decided that there was more future in living.
There are many things of the female experience that I have been deprived of by having the wrong body. About the only thing that I do know 100% is that I don't know anything 100%.
Not quite sure why you want me to crucify you
Check out this link if you are wondering about joining Safe Haven.
This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any
Galileo said "You cannot teach a man anything" and they accuse ME of being sexist
Never ascribe to malice that which can be easily explained by sheer stupidity
Ashlynn,
I know we're just dealing with text here and you and I may have different definitions for a variety of labels, but to show you how easy it is to misunderstand, I've cut and past the first example:
"I just finished reading all the posts in response to "Why do I want to be a woman?" and what struck me is that neither a CD, a TG or a TS can ever know what it is to be born with a female physical form,
true"
a female gender identity
likely wrong
and to be socialized as female.
very true"
You rated three things with a true or wrong individually. Those 3 things were joined by an "and" meaning all three things together.
I don't pretend to know what it's like to be transgendered because my body, my identity and my socialization are all (3) female. I'm here reading everyone's experience to try to understand being TG'd better. Some posts (not all) make me feel misunderstood. I'm not transgendered because I sometimes wear pants. In fact those who attempt to convince GGs that they too are transgendered, in my opinion mimize the difficulties many TGs and TSs have experienced. I haven't had a carefree life because I'm female. That's not to say that I don't understand how dressing in female clothes can be relaxing for a TG. The way I understand it is that when dressed as female they don't have to do the work of putting on an artificially constructed male persona. But as a GG, I don't feel my life is "easier".
There were many who understood my point. I think you've missed the forest for the trees.
there's been all this talk about women wearing pants being cross-dressing or showing signs of transgender identity -
it's neither.
the difference is history made pants come to women, and in the case of transgender people, it is those trans individuals who have come to the pants, so to speak (or the skirts, or whatever is the 'other' gender tagged article of clothing, behavior, mannerism, etc, etc)
in other words, gender is on a more environmental level, a social consciousness like a tide that changes. if you're swimming with that current, or riding that wave, you're not transgender, which means to go against the direction of 'normal' (main current) gender expression, which in most cultures is assigned at birth based on visual sexual cues, and then indoctrinated throughout life.
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