Trapped in what??

[melissaK]

So wandering the online universe of gender issues I came across a statement by a person that made me think. (Thinking is soo dangerous, its always so exciting, like driving too fast but you don't need a seatbelt)

Anyway, we routinely say "We TS feel like a mane trapped in a womans body; or a woman trapped in a man's body."

This person said "I feel like I am trapped in someone elses expectations."

I haven't heard this phrase before that I recall (I hear LOTS of things I don't recall, ask my wife about the things she told me but I don't recall!).

So since I have just recently come out of my closet to my family and said I'm really tired of hiding, I'm going to transition, I have felt wonderfully alive. And soon thereafter I began getting pissed off at everyone with transition questions. And that has made me wonder who elses expectations besides my own have I been responding too.

And, since being out, I have been dressing myself to suit myself pretty much. I am NOT ready to try to pull off a cross gender look (I need more hair, I hate wigs, etc). But my wardrobe is girl jeans (really 'misses' 5,7,9 sized for narrower hips fit better than womens 6,8,10 sized for wider hips) and my shirts and ts are layed looks with half the layers buttoning on the wrong side. Shoes, same way, mixed for the look I want.

And it made me realize half my gender issues are with other people's rules and expectations of what I should look like. I feel trapped by them.

How does this relate to being TS?
Is this just a post coming out stage??
Is it something elses??
Am I falling into Kate Bornstein land?? (Kate did the SRS transition and didn't like being a woman full time any more than she liked being a man full time, so she just became Kate - Gender Outlaw.)

Thoughtful commentary to help me figure myself out is desired!! (You dont have to figure me out, thats my job, but everyones POV helps so don't be shy.)

[darla_g]

This person said "I feel like I am trapped in someone else's expectations."



I like that expression, although i do say it could apply to more than just transsexualism.

[celeste26]

"I feel like I am trapped in someone elses expectations."

Sounds so alienating as though we can some how live without others in our lives too.

[Diversity]

Hi Melissa,
Thank you for your post and for sharing the saying: "I feel like I am trapped in someone elses expectations." This is exactly how I feel about the issues many of us face as being crossdressers and still identifying as a man. I don't want to stop being a man, but I do want to wear women's clothing. I'd like to try makeup and even different hair fashions from time to time. I would like to get my ears pierced sometime as well.
All of these issues I personally face, fly in the face of (as you so well put it) - being trapped in someone else's expectations. I must stay on this side of the line, as I don't want to lose the love and respect or add any trauma to the very people I love - my wife and my children. This is more important to me than my needs to crossdress and feel the freedoms I would genuinely like to feel and live. So, I try to balance this with getting private time, here and there, when I can, to fulfill my needs.
It is life as it is for now. I wish it were otherwise, but it is a choice I am making, as I am choosing to put my family's feelings (anticipated feelings which I know are correct) as my first priority, ahead of my own. If I knew my family would accept this aspect of me, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment, and as long as I had my family's support, I would not worry about friends and others in society, as they would have to accept me for who I am. However, with me, my family always comes first and as we are a very close family, I know my instincts about them are correct.
Good luck in your own search and your own journey. Thank you once again for sharing this with us.
Di

[Rianna Humble]

It is good to think, but not often good to over-think things.

OK, so you've come out to a whole bunch of people. Did you use the term "transgender" or "transsexual"?

If you do the RLE properly, you shouldn't get as far as GCS without finding out whether you can take being a woman 24/7/365.25

Do you already have a reputable gender therapist? If so, challenge her to help you find the right questions. If not, what are you waiting for?

We all conform to a greater or lesser degree to other people's expectations - or worse still, what we imagine those expectations might be. The difficult trick is not to get bogged down with those expectations, real or imagined.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

............I feel trapped...............



to me this is the single most common thing i've heard about how transsexuals feel...especially male invested mtf's...
its part of what sets us apart from others that thankfully for them have never felt it the way a deeply closeted transsexual feels...

for me personally, i can compare the feeling to an awakening survival instinct...
i have little doubt that many of the incredulous cisgender people that were shocked by transition would have done exactly the same thing as me if they were faced with this feeling...that's how horrible the feeling is...

and so we do anything to get rid of it, as many of us know, nothing works if you are ts... so we transition at all cost...

afterwards, as Kate found out, life isnt any more or less rosy...shit that bothered you still bothers you... stuff you liked you still like, people don't all use the right pronouns..etcetcetc... and w/o the desperation around that trapped feeling we go all out in different directions with the new found confidence brought on by freedom from that horrible trapped feeling..

so i say just keep heading in your direction...someday that trapped feeling will be gone...it may not happen until you are lying in a hospital bed after srs, but it may happen sooner....
you will know because you will "just know"...you will no longer feel trapped...and a whole new world will open up...it will be filled with all kinds of problems and issues but they will be YOUR issues, and you will no longer have that terrible trapped feeling, and you will be free to decide what's important and what's not and whether you are more like Kate or more like me or just more like yourself

[StephanieC]

I can relate to this. Sometimes it's almost like having an out-of-body experience where I'm a shell, going through the paces.

[KellyJameson]

Try to live as you would if there were no expectations but with a concern for your own safety.

Try to live without thinking but in that place where you are so comfortable your body does what is natural for your brain like it did in the first few years of life.

It is that place where you are not self conscious about how you appear to others or even to yourself.

You may want to do meditation exercises that make you more aware of your body so you learn to become comfortable in it again.

For me not being allowed to move as was natural for me in childhood forced a split between body and mind where I would always think about walking, running,sitting,throwing a ball, ect.. because all my movements had a feminine feel to others watching me that would make them angry so they would yell at or tease me.

I became intensely self conscious and this separated me from that natural flow of movement others have who move without thought.

This was one aspect of the expectations along with constantly insulting men because I was clueless to "male pride" so I did not treat them like men expected to be treated by other men along with not treating women like they expected to be treated by a man.

It completely puts you outside of everyone elses expectations that are easily met by other cis-gendereds.

I found this incomprehensible for the longest time and I'm just starting to figure out male pride in masculinity and how they need to protect it.

Cis-genders experience their own version of reality that is very different from mine.

[noeleena]

Hi .

Other peoples expectations, yes. I just did not take that on , i did not live how they wonted me to,

My Mum did not force me to be other than i was, that was 55 years ago from age 10 on , Mum wonted me to get married helped me find a job that i liked Mum accepted me as my own person. & yes i really did have a free rein . & i did not try to live other peoples lifes,

I did not feel traped at all nore this female in a males body that has no meaning for me, i may have missed out on some body parts i may not look as i should ,thats not a major for me you know some times we look to much at the outer look of the person & age changes that , so dispite my lack of ...looks.... i have other attributes that more than make up for what i miss out on, in the looks dept,

I would say many people did not see in myself what i knew, what i allways knew & now every one knows just took a bit of time thats all & some did know & commented on that, they saw a female who needed to grow into a woman, just because some of us take longer does it really matter.

...noeleena...

[melissaK]

Hi . I did not feel traped at all nore this female in a males body that has no sense to me . . . just because some of us take longer does it really matter. ...noeleena...

Thanks Noleena. Being out I am being ME. And ME doesn't feel trapped. I realize how untrue to myself I have been. And I'm figuring out how what matters to ME in the looks department.