Being a women VS Wanting to be a women

[Katie7]

Hello,

Sorry if this question was asked before but I would like to get opinions from those who are or have done transitioning.

What would you say to someone who doesnt feel that she's a women. Someone who doesn't feel like trapped in the wrong body. Someone who didn't think that she was a girl from early age. Someone who got more male traits than female. Someone who is far from being a women in any aspect.

Yet,

Wanting to be a women is at the forefront of her thoughts, runs in her mind all day, affecting her life in everyway, preventing her from making important decisions and achieving important life goals.

what would this person deserve?

Katie x

[Zooey]

what would this person deserve?

Therapy, and lots of it?

I'm not joking. Any time people are having thoughts like that, and especially when it's to the point of disrupting their ability to function in life, therapy is important. It's possible they are a woman, but have other issues preventing them from accepting it. It's possible they have some other issue, and are trying to escape something. It's possible they have a form of OCD, and have become hyper-fixated on the idea of being a woman. It could be an intense fetish-based desire. It could be a million and one other things.

One thing I will say is that some transwomen get incredibly hyper-fixated on stereotypically "male" traits or the lack of stereotypically "female" traits, and question whether or not they can possibly be women as a result. Women are not a caricature of themselves, and it's perfectly fine to be a tomboy, rather than just a boy. Or a nerd, or a whatever. You can be a woman who is all or none of those things. If you're a woman, you're a woman. If you're not, you're not.

So yeah... Therapy.

[Badtranny]

Well, you need to get to the bottom of these feelings.

I suppose it's possible to transition regardless of whatever you are, and we should all be free to live whatever life we like. Just know this; life as a trans woman is hard. I can tell you for sure that I would not be able to deal with it if I didn't feel so natural in this role. This is the life I feel like I should be living. It's weird and it's un-explainable, but it's the way I feel.

Zooey is correct. Find a therapist. Do the soul searching. Start going out as your target gender. Start coming out to people. If it feels right keep doing it. When it stops feeling right, stop.

[becky77]

I would say seek professional help.

Why does someone who doesn't see themselves as a woman, use the term 'she'?
There is an issue with identity that needs to be explored and resolved first.

[Aprilrain]

I think your title is just semantics.
When your need to transition outweighs your anxieties you will start moving forward.
If I'm totally honest with myself, the truth is I would have gotten a new therapist if I wasn't hearing what I wanted to hear. So while therapy is good, therapists are only human, this really has to come from within you.
transition is hard and it SUCKS and in the end most of us are visibly trans and have lost high powered jobs, most of our income, our marriage and at least some friends and family.
This is serious shit and at the end of the day you're the one who has to live with the outcome, good or bad.

[arbon]

What would I say?
I did not think of myself as a girl or woman. I never thought I was in the wrong body.

Just very unhappy and messed up living that life trying to make it work as a man and not let anyone know how I hated it. I wished I had been born female.


Today I am a woman. I know it and there is no conflict wishing I were something else It feels right. It is how I think of myself. Transitioning really did suck though, and life as a woman can still be rough.

[Marcelle]

Hi Katie,

I agree with the others here . . . if you have not sought out therapy, now would be a good time to do so. However I will tack a few caveats on to the therapy portion: (1) find a therapist who has experience in gender identity related issues not just one who knows about it. Therapist are not all created equal and while some may specialize (my therapist does) in gender related issues, others are more general. (2) therapy is good but if you are going there hoping your therapist is going to make you decision for you, you are taking the wrong approach. Your therapist should guide you along your journey of discover and while they may push at some points they should never tell you to take option A, B, C or D . . . that is your job. Soul searching is a must during the process of therapy.

Being relatively new to transitioning I can only provided limited advice so much of what has been said resonates wisely. You will know when and if you truly need to transition so don't rush down the pathway unless you are 110% certain it is what you want because as many who have posted here can attest sometimes there is a big price to pay. Small steps like Melissa recommended (e.g., going out as your target gender, coming out to others) is cautious approach and if you feel comfortable going further, you will. In the end, if you are a woman, you will know it in your heart of hearts.

Cheers

Marcelle

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I transitioned..

I never in my life, even today understand myself as a woman..

I always understood myself as "wanting"or "wishing" I was a woman... i'd have thoughts about how unlucky i was to be stuck as a guy...i'm 6'2, i've weighed as much as 240lbs and my body was covered in hair..(ugh)


So i get your original post... you need to go to a therapist and explore what those feelings mean.... as i explored them i learned what a transsexual really was...i learned that my own coping mechanisms and the way i was brought up embedded deep feelings that impacted how i viewed myself...

as i suffered gender dysphoria more and more, i found myself transitioning, challenging myself all the way... I did alot of the things Melissa recommended, especially getting outside as a woman and interacting with people

i felt extrememly ashamed and guilty..but i did it anyway and its the best thing i could have done..

all those feelings are gone...i don't think of my gender...i am what i am despite my own hang ups..

in a way...this is about learning to live with yourself...if you are make it as a guy you know you did th right thing..

[Frances]

I don't dwell on this stuff much... anymore. There are many ways to be a human being and there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a woman in this social context. A trans person not identified as such will be indistinguishable from a cis woman. All the advantages, inconveniences, privilieges and burdens will be the same.

Gender has to be experienced, however, and communicated. You have to live to see if it feels right and if it diminishes identity-based anxiety. Transition is the opposite of fantasy.

[Katie7]

Hello,

Thank you all for your input. Well… to me its just like me loving sweets, lots of them, I can’t stop wanting them. And, people are telling me eating sweets will make you fat, you’ll loose your teeth and horrible things will happen to you. Then I say ok I won’t have sweets. I want to keep the things that I think are good for me, BUT, all I think of is the sweet! I can’t help myself wanting them. It makes me angry that I want something so much and I know having it will make me suffer.
So, next action for me is to see a therapist. Already found one who is experienced in GD. Just have to see how I can afford regular sessions.
I’m a person who usually think things through in depth and don’t make decisions out of impulse. I want something so much which I shouldn’t, and to make matter worse I can’t get rid of the feeling or explain it.

Feeling lost!

Katie x

p.s. I don’t like sweets

[Tammy V]

I think therapy is needed in this situation but also trying out hormones to see how they make you feel and spending time out in public presenting female can also tell you a lot.

[Inna]

"Being a woman vs wanting to be one"

well, lets just say that no man who feels strong within his core would ever want to be a woman.
So, by the definition, discomfort brought on by duality of consciousness of gender experience puts you in the transgender theme.
How deep does the rabbit hole go? That can be deciphered by bringing subconscious reality into a forefront of your experience through appropriate therapy.

[LeaP]

What would you say to someone who doesnt feel that she's a women. Someone who doesn't feel like trapped in the wrong body. Someone who didn't think that she was a girl from early age. Someone who got more male traits than female. Someone who is far from being a women in any aspect.
...
what would this person deserve?

Last first. No-one deserves anything. Life is what you make of it.

Obsessive thoughts, including those of gender, can mean almost anything. If you don't know what they mean, therapist first!

"Trapped in the wrong body" is a meme from the proscriptive gatekeeping thinking of decades ago. It may describe a few, but most instead relate feelings like dislike, discomfort, body mapping manifestations, negative feelings associated with the progressive coarsening with age (increased maleness ... MTF context), dismay at body hair, various kinds of sexual guilt, and so on. You can indeed feel trapped! At times it feels like there is no end to all the traps, but at best, "trapped in the wrong body" is a shorthand way to describe the above for most of us. Worst case, it's total BS.

I've found its best use is in delivering a glossed-over message to people who can't begin to dig into real understanding and empathy anyway. Or don't have the time. They've heard it. They think they get it. If you nod and look serious while you say it, it goes over even better.

No-one can nail down what it feels like to be a woman because there is no set of psychological and emotional commonalities across all women. Still, what you said wasn't about not feeling like a woman, but that (you, presumably) don't feel that you ARE a woman. Nuanced, but different. The difference between "I don't know what I am and I have this obsession," versus "I know I am NOT a woman and I have this obsession."

The meme of feeling like a girl from an early age is in much the same vein. It actually is true for some, it's an enlightened understanding of one's early life for others, and a total, restrospective rewrite of personal history for yet more. People experience gender issues (trans or not) in youth in many ways. Whether they play out as early emergence or conflict, suppression, psychological issues or something else depends on the individual. ... not that they're limited to just one, of course! Being trans can seriously screw with (and screw up) your psyche.

Along the same lines, there is no core or master (mistress?) set of traits that accrue to all women. Your behavioral traits will fall where they will, like they do for everyone, regardless of gender or sex.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

by far the feeling of being trapped...being suffocated...to death...literally ..... was what drove me kicking and screaming to transition...survival instinct i guess...

Whenever somebody mentions "Feeling trapped" ...its like a trigger word for me....

to b e clear
i never felt i was trapped in my body....my body felt like my body then..i read about transsexuals being trapped in mens bodies...it was confusing...i thought to myself that since i didnt feel trapped in my body (i just wished i was a girl), i could not be one of thesse "sex change ladies" as i called them....fast forward 45 years....i did all the surgeries...guess what...it feels like my body now...
like its always been this way..

BUT I DID feel trapped in my LIFE...i felt like life just screwed me and i had to pretend to be ok for the rest of my life...
and that was unacceptable to me....once i learned that transition was actually something i could do, i fell apart because i was so scared and ashamed....my wife...my kids...my job my parents....it was all i could think of what i was DOING to them.,
i was on that razor...I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO>>>>>>>I CANT DO WHAT I HAVE TO DO>>>>>>it sucked@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but the trapped feeling was worse and it set off my surivival instinct and i went on some kind of weird autopilot and in a short time period i was in therapy..and i was presenting as a woman at home...taking hormones , electroylsys...lost 80lbs!!!! and i'm like....and i'm planning to tell my boss...and i'm like
"Oh my gosh...I"m transitioning...F###K ME"...i was sitting on my friends leather couch in my lovely rouched dress and divine nude Donna Karan hose that made my legs like butter...soft leather boots that made my 6'5 when i stood up.... LOL>....
i looked pretty good actually..

so that's why i say
do everything you can to avoid feeling trapped...specifically this means do things that express what you think your gender is...and have a therapist while you do it...

therapy helps you identify self defeating thoughts and can share their experience and educate you about who you are and what your options are to feel good about yourself

[LeaP]

"Suffocating." A much better way of putting it, Kaitlyn. Like I said, the traps never end – they just change their forms. Perhaps the worst and hopefully the last, is the realization that circumstances and other people aren't what trap you. You are your own trap. Reality closes in when you figure out that also means you are the one and only person on the planet who can fix it. Just for fun, that involves doing exactly the things that you are most afraid of in life and that you have carried with you since early childhood.

[becky77]

Trapped in the wrong body is just an easy summary.

I would describe my experience more like mutation.
I remember just keep getting taller and my feet growing and it felt unnatural, my whole life I have felt odd being taller than other people.

Hair growth especially on the face was like an assualt, my brother all keen to get me shaved, I hated it. From day one again it felt unnatural, I wasn't comparing myself to other girls, this was just my inner feelings. It felt wrong.

Voice breaking was awful, I have never been able to accept my voice it has always sounded alien to me. I do feel vocally trapped I have lost much ability to be expressive simply because there is like this block.
At 38 I should be used to how my voice works but I'm not, I will get excited and make a noise that is suddenly deadening by a lack of reaching the pitch my head tells me I can do but my body can't.
I can't explain it, it's like my body doesn't work or feel like it should and that feeling didn't kick in till puberty and has never left.

When my hair started falling out it was the worse thing ever, I was well aware many men go bald (and lots of men hate going bald), but once again something inside me was screaming out this is wrong, it shouldn't be happening to me.

So maybe not trapped, but since puberty definitely a body growing out of sync with how I felt inside.

It destroyed my self esteem and confidence because I felt so at odds with my body, I know I still suffer some body dysmorphia. Somedays I see the female me other times I see the mutant and I know that's not normal. I don't understand how the two images can be so different so I know it's a mental thing I need to get past.

I sound mad now!!

[LeaP]

The voice thing! I never, ever gave it a conscious thought, but that has been happening to me my entire life, including countless corrections when I do reach too high. Just part of the background of my life, I guess.

[St. Eve]

Thank you.

I am so grateful for this thread and for you all telling the truth about your experience. I have only recently been ok using the term gender non-conforming or gender fluid for myself. I may end up feeling like these were terms I used to get me to keep going forward. I am thrilled and terrified to have begun telling the truth in therapy and my marriage and coming out to my loved ones. Plus, I have just started to introduce my female self to my family of choice.

I hope, someday, I will just get to be free of the trap I have created that tells me I can not dress, present, and express as I feel inside. Just beginning to consider a low dose of hormones....scared of what that will do to my marriage...continuing to take small steps forward, one step at a time.

Would be very lost without being able to know your experiences. It helps me stay committed to my path and my life.

Peace
EvaLyn

[Kaitlyn Michele]

i recall my voice for a while comforted me...

Here's how it went...in my early mid 40's i was secretly dressing more...the gender dysphoria was getting worse and worse... i used to fantasize about "talking in a woman's voice" while driving or just walking...and when i'd try...it sounded horrifying to me...

i'd think.."that's that...i can't do it"... i'd feel "relief" because i could never transition with this voice...i could never "feel normal" and talk in a high pitched squeak...

over time the GD got worse.... i started therapy...i started going out and ultimately speaking with people.... and guess what....i never changed the way i talked at all..... LOL.... actually that's kind of a lie...what happened was i just slightly adjusted the real world scenario...i had to talk...i talked... it took time but i softened it up, pitched it a little higher and now when i talk in "guy voice" it sounds weird.... and when i talk like i talk now, it feels like i always talked that way..

its weird to think of how powerful thoughts are but they are nothing compared to experience

[Jennifer-GWN]

Body congruency issues started very early for me. By early 20's I'd capulated that what I got is what I got and had to deal with it. my urges to express my inner self continued. At times forceful at time majorly suppressed as carried out my sense of duty.

The question of passing both visually or verbally comes up and my response generally goes to here... Today I am free and full of confidence, the confidence I never had in a male role. I am the woman I should have been for so many years. I do my best to dress well, look good, and sound good. I present as female as best I can, not to fit a specific stereotype or feel forced in my appearance, but simply to look and present in a way that is natural to me and masks whatever male traits I can. I'm confident in who I am and that is what really matters in the end. Do I continue to work to improve in some areas? Yes of course; but not through an issues of self confidence but because I want to be the best I can and make up for years missed. Perhaps that comes from a sense of regret to some degree.

I think in the end your own personal confidence and you you present and project yourself can take you a long way. The real key is getting to that place.

It took me quite a while to leave the safety of my house and the little safe environment with which I hid in. When I finally stepped out into the world in a full time role (everywhere but work at that time) I could have counted on my fingers the number of times I'd been outside in total. It was not many. Fear and confidence were my demons. They have been conquered.

So yes; always felt that there was something wrong, knew that I should (vs wanted as there is a difference in my mind) be a woman and now have realized that. And I WILL make the years forward the best ones I can where ever life takes me.

Cheers... Jennifer

[Michelle789]

I agree with others that "trapped in the wrong body" and "knew from an early age" are simple ways of trying to explain our experiences to others, and simple ways of trying to understand this phenomena. The reality is far more complex.


I. Here is the more complex story of my gender dysphoria experience.

A. The reality is that, to some degree, I always knew.

1. I told my parents at the age of 5 that I was a girl.

2. I had thoughts and feelings of wanting to grow up to be a woman at the age of 8.

3. From the age of 13 onward, which is about the time my testosterone poisoning regime began, I had a voice in my head that would frequently tell me that I am a girl. It wasn't every day, but it happened frequently enough. I would both think and feel it.


B. In many ways, I didn't always know.

1. I still assume that I was a man, one who was different from other men.

2. I still tried to be a man.

3. I was confused about whether I liked men or women.

4. I talked to others as if I was a man. I gendered myself as male. I accepted being called "sir".

5. I often wished that I was a girl, and this especially became true in the last 2-3 years before I transitioned.

6. I never grew my hair out. In fact, I actually sported an extremely short hair cut as a man.

7. I realized that I never identified as a man, but I did have a male persona.


C. I had a history of CDing.

1. I thought I was a CDer, but always felt like there was something more.

2. I could never relate to the CD mantra of how CDers are male identified CDers who don't wish to be women. I deep down inside wished I could be a woman.

3. My CDing was both fetish and masturbatory, as well as dressing fully head to toe, but always closeted and in the safety of my own home.

4. I called myself Michelle privately when dressed.

5. When masturbating, I would imagine myself as a woman being penetrated by a man.


D. I had a history of body dysphoria / dysmorphia since the onset of male puberty (age 13).

1. I hated my facial hair shadow once it started growing.

2. I hated that when I shaved my facial hair that I still had a visible, thick 5:00 shadow.

3. I hated my body hair once it started growing.

4. I felt like my body was the most repulsive thing in the world. That feeling persisted for the next 21 years, and only went away once I started HRT.

5. I hated my male physical features.

6. I had a certain amount of feminine features, such as small and feminine shaped hands and feet. I absolutely loved those features. I only hated the gross hair that grew on my hands (along with the rest of the gross hair growing on the rest of my body).



E. My behavior and thinking was always on the more feminine side

1. When I looked at an attractive girl, I wanted to be her rather than have sex with her.

2. When I looked at a girl, I was interested in what she was wearing, not seeing her naked.

3. I was far from being macho.

4. I wasn't terribly aggressive.

5. I never chased after women, nor did I know how to.

6. I preferred to be chased after.

7. I had no interest in rough and tumble play.

8. I would rather cook and clean than be a breadwinner.

9. Many people thought I was gay because of my behavior. At least one person knew I was an MTF before ever coming out. Another close friend of mine strongly felt that I was a girl on the inside.


F. In some ways, I still had male behavioral characteristics.

1. I ended up in the stereotypical male profession of computer programming.

2. I was good at math and logic.

3. I had enough male personality traits in me to fake being a male.


G. I had an emotional meltdown 2-3 years ago.

1. I consulted a psychic who essentially tried performing reparative therapy on me. She attempted to get me to "man up".

2 When the psychic pressured me to start dating women and playing the male role, my feelings of wanting to be a woman really intensified. I was afraid that I was going to have to stop CDing completely. I was also fearing having to play an unnatural role in a relationship.

3. I felt so stressed out that I wanted to die so that I could be reincarnated as a woman in my next life.

4. I started putting the pieces of my GD past together and started realizing that I am in fact a woman in a man's body, and that it may be transition or die for me.

5. Once I started reading up more articles on the internet on the GD condition, the more I was seeing that that's what I was experiencing.

6. I fired the psychic when I realized that she was of no help to me, and that her only agenda was to perform reparative therapy on me, to have me "man up", and to take my money. I realized that she would never help me with my gender issues.


H. I took actions to start to confirm my gender identity and transition

1. I joined this forum, and started reading the experiences of others, and started to realize that I am in fact a transwoman.

2. I started going to a TG support group and identified with the feelings said there.

3. I started seeing a therapist to talk with her about my GD history.

4. I started presenting publicly and found that I was more comfortable presenting as female.

5. I realized that I am more productive, more myself, and more interested in life as a woman than I ever was as a man.

6. Initiation of HRT caused me to finally no longer feel like my body was the repulsive thing in the world. 21 years of that awful feeling finally went away, for good.

7. The period where I was going back and forth between male and female presentations was incredibly stressful and I dreaded having to present as male.

8. Initiation of HRT and presenting as female to my friends allowed my friends to notice that I am much happier, more myself, more interested in life and other people, and more relaxed as a woman than I ever was as a male. I also felt the same way as people were seeing. I believe that a combination of HRT and presenting as female full-time contributed towards this.



So that's the long story. Now here's the short story.

II. The short story.

I'm a woman trapped in a man's body. I knew and I felt this way since I was 5.


Now you tell me, which is easier to explain to someone who knows absolutely nothing about the trans experience?

Which takes less time and effort to explain?

Which version of my story do you think the average cisgender person who knows absolutely nothing about the trans experience is going to understand?


I rest my case

[Frances]

I have not read your post yet, but I LOVE its alphabetical and numerical taxonomy.

[Marcelle]

Hi Katie,

In a way you have described me, that is the part about not feeling trapped in the wrong body. I still feel that I am a woman and live my life as one but, I do not feel as thought I am trapped in the wrong body as it is my body and while it is definitely not genetically female it is still my body. Oh don't get me wrong, I hate my body and facial hair and have taken steps to have it eliminated but, the rest of my body I quite like. I like the way it responds to exercise (my speed and strength), and being on the smaller side of an average genetic male, it still allows me to blend quite effectively. When people see me, I have no doubt they see a "guy" but that is their baggage to deal with, not mine. I am a woman and my genetics do not change that.

Cheers

Marcelle

[Barbara Ella]

To echo others, if you are thinking you are having a problem, ie. cannot accept the current situation, sorting out your thoughts, see a Therapist.

When this all began for me only 4 years ago, at age 65, for reasons outlined elsewhere in this forum, I did not think of myself as a woman. I was strictly CD. I was not happy, and the wife knew something more was not visible. After a lot of introspection and examination of life experiences, i became aware that I could be a woman. Yes, difficulty accepting, but it was obvious, and a weight was lifted when I realized the truth. Whole lot of other problems, but we all know about those.

Now on HRT for over 2 years there is no question about my true being. I never hated my body as being male. i still do not hate it, but I just need to make it work for me now. I am nearing the end of electrolysis. I am planning/scheduling the next phase of my very slow transition. I may never complete it because I am determined to continue with my wofe of 45 years.

Working through the confusion may have been easier given my age, and life situation. Being younger can add so many complications that it gets to be a bit much, thus the need for a therapist to help guide your thoughts and help you see things you may not see right away.

Don't beat yourself up over this. The person just deserves your unconditional love, respect, and support. But shouldnt that be what any person deserves, and what we are all asking for, to be just like any other person...woman.

Hugs
Barbara

[docrobbysherry]

Katie, I identified with your post. My "female obsession" didn't appear until later in my life. I was soon being bombarded by thots of myself physically becoming a female. All sorts of "other" fantasies accompanied these thots.

I did not get or ask for help. Because at that time, I was completely isolated and thot I was the only one that had these thots and desires!

It took me coming out online here and many discussions and meetings with trans of all ilks to discover my fem/trans comfort zone. I am a crossdresser, pure and simply. All those other fantasies and thots that filled my mind r gone. But, it took me about 15 to work it out myself!

If u get proper counseling, I believe u can work out which r your real needs and which r fantasies more easily and quickly than I did! And hopefully, clear your mind and give u some peace and comfort. Good luck to u!