Self-Image - Do You Feel Like a Woman?

[Beth-Lock]

An important part of anyone's personality, is what they think of themselves and at the most basic level of human psychology, this is associated with what has long been thought of as one of the main criterions of being human, having a consciousness of one's self. Self-consciousness enables one to direct ones attention, to focus on one thing rather than another, and in that way, choose how long to think about what to do next, or on the other hand, to choose to not think about it much, to just react, out of habit for example. It is in this self-consciousness, that we can look for clues as to our inner nature, assuming we have the right impression of it in there. It may not be spelled out in an inner statement to ourselves, "I am a woman," but may be more subtle, and responsible for our feeling like a woman, perhaps despite factual evidence that we do not look like a woman physically. The psychological faculty of being able to detach one's thinking from the hurly-burly of knee-jerk reactions to stimuli in your world, and stop being driven by them and conditioned responses to them, and act in accordance to what you feel you are, yourself, and/or what you ought to be, and perhaps have not become yet, if you want to improve yourself or fully actualize your real you. At this point, comparing yourself to another, may make you want to copy another, and this means the other is adopted by yourself, by conscious choice as a role model. Let us take this as our frame of reference, as to how to ponder the questions of the psychology of being a transwoman.

Some have argued that you will feel that you are a woman, before your transition begins, because you know that you are a woman, intuitively, and by something like a born instinct, perhaps long, long before transition. This means gender transition is just a matter of refining this crude already mostly completed gender transition. Sex change then follows, and is just a means of becoming consistent in your physical attributes, so your anatomy and your physiology, as much as the latter can be changed by hormone balance change, is consistent with what a born woman has, as the physical basis of her womanhood. That way you are happier as a woman, because your structures, physical and psychological are not at war with each other. The answer to the question, "Do you feel like a woman yet?" is, "I have always felt I am a woman."

Others, hold that you may not be conscious that you are a woman, until well into counselling, and as a result, a lot or all of your self-image as a woman, must be built up, or at least reshaped by your own will and conscious choices, and a lot of professional help. Since many only feel that they are a woman, fairly late in life, their insight is that feeling like a woman is something that is made, rather than something you are born with. It is the work of the psychological counsellor to build this feeling of being a woman, to some extent, perhaps as artificially as the surgeon, during SRS, fabricates your vulva and neo-vagina.

Some place a great deal of stress on the role of looking like a woman, via clothes and make-up, and conclude that the most traditionally feminine clothing and grooming will aid in this significantly. The evidence for this is often gender dysphoria is partially eased by cross-dressing, even while one remains a man. Those whose cross-dressing prior to gender change played a major role in their transition, may feel strongly, that clothes make the woman, or have at least have aided in the emergence in full and into the conscious mind from the perhaps the unconscious, their feeling that they are a woman. Only after their cross-dressing has proceeded far enough, will they feel they are a woman. In some cases, even after that, this feeling only emerges with the help of counselling. Some TS are treated as second class citizens in the country of the trans, because their psychological adjustment to feeling they are a woman is tardive (late in life) and/or seems artificial. Visiting this judgement on what is apparently, merely a variation in their female gender psychology or psychological development,is at best an example of not being accepting, and at worst is cruel.

Let us use this frame of reference to compare our own stories. Perhaps even to compare our own theories, if we can separate them from our own feelings and value judgments. Those who want to argue that one or another of these categories are right or wrong are not welcome to comment here to this thread. There have been many opportunities to argue on other threads, in the past, and will be again, in the future. Just not here.


Some TS put the main emphasis on internal factors, those that can be modified or experienced when one is alone, by oneself, in whether or not you will feel you are a woman. On the other hand, others put a big emphasis on the social psychology, the reaction of others, and how you react to the perceptions of others and how they treat you, and how well or badly others choose to treat you, to treat you the same as any other woman,or on the other end of the spectrum, refuse to acknowledge that you are still a man. This is the point where the Real Life Experience becomes a crucial part of the gender change process, and how well you get along with others, in the social environment all human beings must learn to function in, is experienced and is tested. You need the real Life Experience to test whether you feel like a woman, and if you do not feel that you are a woman by this stage, and prove that the is feeling leads to being comfortable living as a woman, feeling like a woman may just be an illusion. At any rate, it is not strong enough to allow you to be a woman.

The most radical view, a new one mentioned by Misty, is that you may not need to live as a woman, but your feeling you are a woman, depends only on your internal state. This means that some are today given SRS and HRT, without changing gender, or at least not changing it overtly, so they continue to live a life in society, as a man, holding a male job., male professional reputation and function in a marriage as a man with a wife. They are still a woman, in deep stealth.

[Angela Campbell]

I don't know. A lot to think about here. I felt like a female since birth and that has never changed. The only problem was looking like one and being accepted as one. Do I feel different on HRT? Yes but not in that way. I am calmer and more at ease but I feel like the same person I always was. I just look better.

[Rachel Smith]

I feel no more like a woman today then I did before HRT. What I do feel is peace. I was talking to my daughter last night and I told her as I have said here before, I now have a happiness on the inside that is foreign to me.

[kimdl93]

As a TG person, I can say that I have always felt different...that I was wired with a predisposition that didn't quite synch with my anatomy. Dressing as a woman seems to help put things in better alignment, but I can't say I am aware of feeling like a woman. I feel the absence of discord. Does that make sense?

[karanne]

Generally, I feel like a girl. The only times I don't is when I have to undo my little 'boys' once a week from where they're normally tucked, then I feel some distress that I still have them. (The only reason I do is doctor's orders.) Other times, I feel like, well, me. I enjoy dressing as sexy as I can in my 21+ body (considering the office dress code), so I'm, well, me.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this, I'm still working on my first pot of coffee! :D

[I Am Paula]

Very good post.
My self awareness/image has changed drastically over the years. My GD, looking at it now, must have started very young, and the way I have dealt with it evolved over the years. Everything involved denial to some degree, and the escalation is obvious. Also, the constant feeling that I could fix myself, if I just went this one step further, was a lifelong idea.
Briefly, as a child I wanted to play with/ be/ emulate the girls. As a teen, with the limited info available about gender, I just assumed I was gay. After lots of experimentation...not gay (please don't ask what I am, that's still a work in progress.)...enter denial. I got married, and lived as a 'normal' male. Some secret cross dressing, and some living femininity vicariously thru' my wife. I knew something was desperately wrong. Everything about the male role seems foreign, so I became the consummate actor, studying males, and trying to be like them. Thus began a self destructive path of drinking till I felt better, or felt nothing at all. A couple of failed marriages. Women liked my gentleness, and femme awareness, but the drinking was out of control. I realized that gender was the trigger to the drinking, went to rehab, and soberly began to embrace, sans denial, that I was in fact born a woman. What a turning point. To finally admit that a lifetime had been spent living the ultimate lie!
The denial out of the way, I was still convinced I could fix myself. I didn't need chemicals or surgery, well, maybe some boobs. I went full time, no HRT, no therapy, just determination. It was seeing an Endo about my thyroid, and HRT came up, and he made me realize that being full time, with male chemistry was still a band aid approach, and suggested I see a therapist he knew well. (This particular Dr. has LOTS of TS experience, and I think he could sense that I was very conflicted.)
Short story, long. It came upon me that I was now powerless to control my own GD. That playing dress-up was no longer going to cut it. Transition was the only way to relief, and a fifty five year evolution had found it's logical conclusion.

So, in response to Beth-Lock's well written post- I think I was both well aware of my 'condition' from an early age, and a sudden late onset transitioner, in that my realization of the severity of my GD suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. I think that within us all lies the NEED, it's just a matter of the WHEN.

[Megan72]

Its hard to say if from birth I have seen myself as a woman or if I even knew at the early stages of my life what was wrong with me. I know I always have and still do feel like a square peg trying to be jammed into a round hole. Just because I choose to embark on this adventure later in life does not make me less of of anything, it is simply a product of my slower evolution IMHO. It took me longer to figure out some things than it has taken others.

As far as crossdressing leading to this point, I don't beleive it had much to with it, CD was only a way of involuntarily expressing what I already felt. I was jelous of the girls so I emulated them. It is the highest form of flattery. Over the years and countless hours of research I have learned what I might be struggling with and now I choose to try and correct that.

Megan

Ps. Please forgive my grammer I am on my phone.

[Marika01]

I have always felt female from childhood. I suppressed it so that it almost went away, but in the last year or so it has burst back to the point where I cannot keep it in any more - hence I've started to cross dress. But I am female internally and always have been. I just don't know how far I am going to go - being long term married tends to be a huge factor.

[Kimberly Kael]

When I was growing up it never occurred to me to challenge my assigned gender. I had highly educated parents and was taught the basics of logic and reason from the outset. They both seemed to accept my sex as axiomatic, so I had no frame of reference to challenge their belief. I had no exceptionally close friends and no siblings as a point of reference. I was just me, and I had been assured I was male. At school I felt like an outsider but I was able to focus on intellectual pursuits and live an essentially androgynous existence with only occasional thoughts about why I didn't fit in with my peers.

Around puberty I was greatly relieved to discover that I finally had something in common with the boys in my class: we found girls fascinating. Interest in dating was enough of a relief that I didn't realize how different my interest was than the boys around me. Not for a few years, at least. So I was slow in discovering that I didn't merely desire the company of women, I strongly identified with them. I took pride in that fact as an emotionally available date and coasted for a few years until relationships grew intimate enough that I discovered women's clothing. And makeup. And wondered what the heck it all meant.

I latched in to the limited rational explanations visible in the media I was exposed to. Rocky Horror Picture Show became an outlet that gave me a transvestite "role model." It wasn't a good fit, but it opened a door to a world of alternative explanations. I learned about Wendy Carlos and lamented that she was clearly such an outcast and that I was far too rational to pursue what sounded like a troubled, lonely life that appeared to be tied to trying to appeal to men. Except that it gnawed at me as the answer I denied myself. So I dressed in private, and for Halloween. "Kimberly" was born as a name for this side of me. I played female characters in role-playing games. And finally I started to see articles about transgender kids running for prom queen and king and I learned of growing acceptance of the disjoint nature of gender identity and sexual orientation. That's what finally set me free.

Of course it still took years to rewrite my intellectual framework for understanding myself. I would see and feel glimpses of the woman I could become and spend the following years learning to accept myself. So yes, I feel like a woman. The flashes of doubt and guilt are still there, of course. I spent my formative years having been told otherwise and that's a hard thing to shake. And of course the world is still full of people who would deny my womanhood given a few simple facts and that provides fuel for those doubts.

... but I've never been happier or more at ease with who I am. Thankfully life isn't a destination, but a journey. I know I'm on the right path and that makes all the difference.

[LeaP]

... Let us take this as our frame of reference, as to how to ponder the questions of the psychology of being a transwoman.

...

Others, hold that you may not be conscious that you are a woman, until well into counselling, and as a result, a lot or all of your self-image as a woman, must be built up, or at least reshaped by your own will and conscious choices, and a lot of professional help. ... their insight is that feeling like a woman is something that is made, ... It is the work of the psychological counsellor to build this feeling of being a woman, to some extent, perhaps as artificially as the surgeon, during SRS, fabricates your vulva and neo-vagina.

... Those whose cross-dressing prior to gender change played a major role in their transition, may feel strongly, that clothes make the woman, or have at least have aided in the emergence in full and into the conscious mind from the perhaps the unconscious, their feeling that they are a woman. Only after their cross-dressing has proceeded far enough, will they feel they are a woman.

Let us use this frame of reference to compare our own stories. Perhaps even to compare our own theories, if we can separate them from our own feelings and value judgments. Those who want to argue that one or another of these categories are right or wrong are not welcome to comment here to this thread. ...

...

Your "frame of reference" is a statement of consciousness and free will. No problem with that in itself, of course, but it's applicability to something as fundamental as one's sense of sex and gender is dicey at best.

Some prominent researchers, John Money prominently among them, focused on life experience (nurture) and had their hats handed to them. Others focus on disorder paradigms, strongly suggesting treatability, whether counseling (perhaps for paraphilias), or even reparative therapies. All of these are variations of personality, will, and choice along the lines you suggest.

Current research focuses on physical causes, the emerging consensus being that cross-sex "issues" (if you like) are caused by a variety of physical pre and post-natal factors and manifest in certain predictable physical and psychological ways.

Does that mean there is no role for personality development and choice? Hardly. Little girls clearly have to develop into mature women. And adults continue to refine their sense of self and place in the world as well.

I think you are suggesting that the sense of sex and gender itself can be developed, however. You speak of consciousness of gender developing. There are ways I accept that (I usually speak of emergence), but I do not believe it develops out of nowhere. You didn't say that, exactly, but you did go on to talk about creating "self-image" as an artificial construction.

I don't believe, and it is not my experience, that my self-image has in ANY way been this sort of creation - whether assisted, facilitated, or anything similar. My therapist has not suggested, has not steered, has not supported any particular point of view. Rather, she has followed the lines I brought up myself. Not only has she not supported them in the sense I think you are trying to convey, but her mode has been to repeatedly challenge me.

My sense of sex and gender did not develop. It emerged suddenly as if out of nowhere. It was STARTLING. And just as suddenly went away. It came back again and again with greater frequency until it became permanent. I had no sense of gender prior to that. The experience triggered a broad re-examination and re-understanding of my entire life.(Talk about OMG moments…) So rather than development, I would characterize this as discovery. The ugly duckling story comes to mind. When everyone tells you you are an ugly duck you believe it at some level… but not really. One day you find you are a swan, and things snap into focus.

If you are indeed suggesting that therapists fundamentally assist in changing people's sense of gender, I think that is quite dangerous. I don't believe it can be done anyway, anymore than I think someone can be changed from gay to straight, or vice versa. I also believe that a therapist attempting to engage in this type of psychological manipulation would be doing something deeply unethical, even if initiated by a client.




I'll decline to address the rest of the OP.

[Kandy Barr]

I am a woman!!

[Marleena]

Lots here to digest Beth so I'll start with childhood. I think we've all heard of TG children that are adamant that they are girls even though they have male anatomy. They are still in a "pure" state where social conditioning has not been enforced enough to force change on them.

In my case as a child I knew I was different and thought I should be a girl but never realized it could be possible. I was shamed out of doing or wearing anything that could be thought of as traditional girl clothes or actions. I was raised as a boy but just never felt like I fit in.

Those feelings continued and intensified until I hit my 20's and I tried to transition on my own but did not succeed. This point in my life was my first encounter with severe GD. Anyways I returned to my expected gender role and over compensated and suppressed it all. Now it's all back again late in life. I don't feel I have ever been manipulated to believe that I am female, it was always there in the background.

I can't comment on RLE because I might not ever get there nor do I wish to adress the point about people that are likely genderfluid. What I can say is that HRT got rid of the black cloud always over my head and allowed me to walk in the sunshine and be happy. My life makes sense.

[dreamer_2.0]

Really good post.

I do not feel like a woman inside, never have. I feel "different" and not really part of the male world but know I'm a guy and this is where some of the dysphoria stems from as I wish things were different. I wish I had that innate feeling that I was female inside, seems like it would make the decision to transition a bit easier. Perhaps I am a woman inside but haven't realized it yet and require at least a few more hours of therapy.

I feel this is partially responsible for a poor self-image as I want to be female but, currently, just feel like an imposter when attempting to explore this side. Actually fulfilling a female life, from my current vantage point, feels impossible which beats the self-image down some more. Perhaps this is why I'm just a dreamer_grl.

If it's true that transition is 90% mental and 10% physical. I've got a very long, difficult climb ahead like many before me. Very curious if HRT will help alleviate some of the mental (and physical) angst.

[arbon]

I did not think I was a woman inside, or feel like a girl or woman.
I wanted to be a girl, I wished for that, I dreamed about it, but I did not think I was already.
Mostly I was confused and thought I was just a real sick person to be the way I was.
I did not make the mental leap that I could really be a woman inside with a male body, or at least accept that possibility, until therapy.
And it was not that a lot happened in therapy. Just a few things that were said gave me pause and let me consider things differently.
Like she said once "you have the right to live as your gender" which was a statement that really stuck in my brain. It was like I just needed a little nudge, or a little bit of permision, to just let myself be who I was, I started to realize who I was much more clearly.

I don't know now if I feel like a woman or not. I do think of myself as one though. I definitely don't feel like a guy. Sometimes I find myself looking at guys and wondering what its like to be a guy. Its kinda weird. I was not happy living as a male, not happy at all. It was the most wrong thing in the world for me, just totally wrong!

I know today living as a woman feels right. Thats what I feel.

[Kathryn Martin]

Others, hold that you may not be conscious that you are a woman, until well into counselling, and as a result, a lot or all of your self-image as a woman, must be built up, or at least reshaped by your own will and conscious choices, and a lot of professional help. Since many only feel that they are a woman, fairly late in life, their insight is that feeling like a woman is something that is made, rather than something you are born with. It is the work of the psychological counsellor to build this feeling of being a woman, to some extent, perhaps as artificially as the surgeon, during SRS, fabricates your vulva and neo-vagina.

...

The most radical view, a new one mentioned by Misty, is that you may not need to live as a woman, but your feeling you are a woman, depends only on your internal state. This means that some are today given SRS and HRT, without changing gender, or at least not changing it overtly, so they continue to live a life in society, as a man, holding a male job., male professional reputation and function in a marriage as a man with a wife. They are still a woman, in deep stealth.

Let me address the first of the cited paragraphs first. There are two issues I see: firstly the conflation of gender and sex is rampant in this view. If you accept the feminist view that gender is a cultural and social construct then being female has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with sex. The idea, that a gender role can be constructed is of course front and center in what you refer to. You don't become a woman but you become feminine by such an evolving construct and feminine is defined by the external cultural and social pressure that society imposes to conform to the paradigm. What it also does is cement the feminist critique of transsexuals and transgender persons as having made a choice. The radical feminists in fact then parley that choice into an invasion of women spaces by the patriarchy and the re-inforcement of sexist gender roles (see Greer and Raymond). The difficulty for transsexuals with this critique is obvious. It makes radical feminists and transgender activism unlikely bedfellows by emphasizing that being transsexual is a choice.

The second point is intimately bound up in the first one. Let's say in the middle of your life you discover through therapy that you are really a woman. If you analyze how this sudden knowledge is come by, then it always comes down to self reported preferences, usually connected to emotional reactions to particular life situations. It is evident that those preferences are determined by gender perceptions, often breaking out of the mold usually associated with the paradigm of the persons sex. It is in the end again a lifestyle choice. The interesting thing about this is, the the medium (that is the self reported preferences) become the message (I am a woman) but all based on a social and cultural construct. Sex is not at all involved. The entire DSM 5 and it's predecssors is built around this.

This conflation of sex and gender obscures what is really the characteristic of a transsexual, namely that your body (Biological sex) does not match your brain (biological sex) and that it has nothing to do with gender at all. Gender is simply the way we are taught to view persons of a particular sex.

[Dawn cd]

Going back to your second type—those who discover they are women through therapy—you say "it is the work of the psychological counsellor to build this feeling." But is that true? Does the counsellor "build" it or does the counsellor simply assist in removing inhibitions, thereby enabling the innate female consciousness to flower? At its root, self-consciousness may still be a matter of nature rather than nurture.

[Ariamythe]

I don't know that I feel "like a woman." But I know that I feel less and less "like a man" everyday. I recognize myself differently in the mirror than I did six months ago.

[LeaP]

Dawn, thank you for returning to self-consciousness in this way.

Yes, self-consciousness is innate. A very human criterion, in the words of the OP. And one's sex and gender IS part of one's self-consciousness. I have experienced - and (to the OP) - changed and developed many points of view, but my apprehension of sex & gender isn't a point of view. Not only did the apprehension of gender precede the viewpoint changes, it conflicted with those I already had.

One may or may not be fully aware of what they are. That awareness influences your point of view. Adopting a point of view does not change what you are, however.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I recall telling my sister about how I "felt like a woman" and her immediate response was to say she had no idea what that meant..and that she could not say what it meant to her to "Feel like a woman"..

As I go through all this, its very apparent to me that how I "feel" on the inside is quite remarkably consistent with how I've always felt. Not once did I spend a moment's time trying to feel a new way...trying to build up myself into a more "female" place...

I can't say for sure, but I imagine as I sit here today my sense of self is no different than any other woman...cisgendered or otherwise... I just feel like i'm sitting here typing....

what's different is that all the extra stuff is gone...its not like the female replaced the male... there was NEVER a male...it was ALWAYS a female... but now I do not have to spend the bigger part of my mental and emotional energy faking male energy, and protecting the world from any female energy that may leak out and fill me with shame

[Angela Campbell]

If someone could be convinced of being a different gender than the one they appear to be then there would simply be counseling to correct a ts and make them want to be the sex they are born with. Instead this is considered something that cannot be changed. Your inner gender is set and we have to change our bodies to reflect this. If I could have been "fixed" and made to feel inside like a male just by socialization I think 50 years of being forced to live as a male would have worked a little better.

I cannot speak for anyone who realized this late in life and do not know what they feel. I always knew. The world tried to beat it out of me, they tried to shame it out of me, they tried to common sense it out of me. Still..........

Perhaps this is two different things. I do not know. I do know shame can bury things pretty deep.

[MatildaJ.]

My sense of sex and gender did not develop. It emerged suddenly as if out of nowhere. It was STARTLING. And just as suddenly went away. It came back again and again with greater frequency until it became permanent. I had no sense of gender prior to that.


I recall telling my sister about how I "felt like a woman" and her immediate response was to say she had no idea what that meant..and that she could not say what it meant to her to "Feel like a woman"....As I sit here today my sense of self is no different than any other woman...cisgendered or otherwise... I just feel like i'm sitting here typing....What's different is that all the extra stuff is gone...now I do not have to spend the bigger part of my mental and emotional energy faking male energy

As a GG, like Kaitlyn's sister, I have never felt particularly female, or girlish, or womanly. I can put on the clothes and act the role, but it feels like an act. I also don't feel male. I just feel like me. I have an intellectual understanding of gender roles, and I can play my part and don't feel there's another part that suits me better, but it doesn't feel authentic.

[dawnmarrie1961]

Do I feel like a woman? I can't answer that without asking another question:What's a woman supposed to feel like? Soft and squishy? I'd hardly call myself that. Do I feel sexy? Sometimes. Confident? Sometimes. Vain? Sometimes.
I think the more important question that I need to ask myself is: Do I feel good about myself? That I can answer "Yes" to.

[barbie54s]

I always wanted to interact as a girl and enjoy what they were able to do and have when I was young. With HRT, I am able to interact as a woman now. I really don't know what it really feels like being a woman. If you asked a GG, I think each one will give a different answer. Now that I am able to interact as a woman, I feel like myself.

[Leah Lynn]

I, too, must question what a woman is supposed to feel like. I have no idea what the sensation of feeling like would be. My only answer may not be relevant to the question, as I can only say that I feel that I AM a woman.

Leah

[Beth-Lock]

I think some are making an assumption that the frame of reference intended to imply some sort of psychodynamics of development or therapy, but I was not coming from that direction. The frame of reference was an attempt to wring out of classical behaviourism and logic, (mainly of Josiah Royce, who I think offers a clue relevant today), and a few other hard science theories, some sort of rough definition of self-consciousness, also drawing from robotics and artificial intelligence. Psychologists who used to take this reductionist approach, often believed conventional personality theory especially with its attribution of cause and effect, was unscientific and psychotherapy, ineffective, (all psychotherapy). As a result, the sort of theoretical frame of reference I have tried to rough out, is not dependent on hypotheses concerning either development of a self-image or the usefulness of any psychotherapy to accomplish any goal other than hand-holding. Of course my own personal views are not so extreme, but I have adopted this stripped down theoretical approach, for the purpose of this thread. In retrospect, if I had expected it to remove controversies of the type alluded to by some posting responses, I guess I would have to have been overoptimistic, aye?

I hope this clarification eases the mind of anyone worried about it.

[KellyJameson]

To say that you feel like a woman is to say that all women experience an emotional state unique to being a woman and if it applies to women than it also applies to men.

If there is an emotional state unique to men and women than it would exist for the same reason men and women exist and that would be for reproduction so the emotional state would come out of "sexuality" for reproduction.

Is there a gender experience created out of nature as reproduction independent of a social construction of gender. I believe there is.

I personally believe transsexuals carry a feminine sexuality and it is out of this sexuality and reason for why they emotionally resonate with other women and why their minds, completely independent of free will, subconsciously adopt a female gender identity.

You are born into the world and through this living realize who your "kind" are and "are not"

Transsexuals are wired to be transsexuals and why testosterone causes problems even though it is bigger than testosterone and probably happens at a cellular /chemical level that dances with the structure of the brain put in place during the months spent in the womb

Transsexuality is a state of consciousness that you find in other women.

Transsexuals have many of the same problems with men that women do.

I do not think in terms of feeling like a woman but of experiencing myself and seeing others who experience themselves as I do and they are almost always women.

I understand women because they think and feel as I do.

Women are not a mystery to me but I have to work at understanding men because men have a masculine sexuality which is opposite of my feminine sexuality (brain sex)

It is an energy that sex comes out of and is also created to partly serve sex.

Two opposite energies that complement each other but it makes each person experience themselves differently from the other.

It took me a long time to realize than men simply do not think and feel as I do. They cannot because they are not designed to otherwise it would affect their sexuality as their brain.

The universe is made up of dualities and transsexuals hold both dualities but neither in one body which creates great internal strife.

In my opinion Transsexuals have a feminine brain sex that is opposite the body they are born with.

[Pink Person]

Gender is a set of general formal and functional characteristics. Sex is a set of specific
formal characteristics. Our sex is a subset of our gender. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.

Still pining over your status as a man or a woman, as male or female, as masculine or feminine? Take a vote of your parts and let the majority rule.

[FurPus63]

Yes I feel like a woman!!! However; I would like to add that this feeling didn't hit me as hard until I began HRT. Once I started living my life 24/7 as a woman, the feeling of "being a woman," became a reality for me. Until then it was a fleeting thing for me. Because I was living my life as a man, it didn't "feel" right for me to feel like a woman. Growing up and living my life as a man, it was impossible for me to feel like a woman. If I had any inner feelings like that, I denied and repressed them. I had to. It was the way it was. In my family and my socialization as a young man, made it impossible for me to have those kind of feelings. They had to be repressed!

To make a long, long, story short, and fastforwarding 'till present time, I can't help but feel it took transition to bring out all those feelings I had repressed for so long! Now I can embrace those feelings and allow them to flurish and express them as often as I can. It is so liberating and makes me feel so free and alive! This is so f....ng cool! Yes! It feels great to present, live, and be the woman I have shoved deep down inside myself for so many decades. To be finally going through life knowing that it's "o.k" to have and express these feelings is the most rewarding experience.

I'm not sure GG's can understand what I'm saying here. Not insulting anyone, but I've talked to a few girls and when I express myself to them and describe these feelings I always get this look like, "wtf is she talking about?" Has anyone else experienced this? I try to use my imagination to create a scenario which would help them to grasp a deeper sense of empathy for me, so I'll say something like, "that feeling you had when you put on your prom dress or wedding gown for the first time," or "that feeling you had the first time you experimented with make-up." Then I'll get an "oh yeah, I remember that," kinda facial expression. It's usually fowolled by ,"yeah, but that's something I experienced when I was young, when I was a kid...." So perhaps what I'm going through right now is simular to what my therapist has called my "adolescent" period of transition. I don't know. All I know is that this overwhelming feeling of feminitity comes over me several times a day and I can't help but feel something that says, "I am a woman!"

So I am feeling like a woman or a girl? What does feeling like a woman mean? What does it feel like? Can we really put a finger on it and say, "that's it!?" Well after putting some thought into it, I can't help but feel that although those "girly," "femme" feelings are cool and are a part of the whole transition process, they are sort of like those feelings one gets when one feels like they are falling in-love. Those feelings are immature. Although they do feel sooooooo cool!!! I think feeling like a woman is more than just those cool, good feelings/emotions we experience and have experienced from time-to-time throughout our lives. There's more to it than that.

Need to keep thinking......Thanks, great post!

Paulette

[LeaP]

I recall telling my sister about how I "felt like a woman" and her immediate response was to say she had no idea what that meant..and that she could not say what it meant to her to "Feel like a woman"..

As I go through all this, its very apparent to me that how I "feel" on the inside is quite remarkably consistent with how I've always felt. Not once did I spend a moment's time trying to feel a new way...trying to build up myself into a more "female" place...



I've also had the experience of telling someone the same thing and receiving the same response. And, like you, I have never spent any time trying to be more female.

But you did feel something sufficiently to make a statement at that time. And so did I. As time has passed, much of the gender specific-impression of what it is to feel myself this way has subsided. I simply feel like myself again. The same, but different. I can evoke it by remaining quiet, and closing my eyes, but the apprehension of gender has become largely unconscious (again?).

Still, I identify myself – my conscious sense of self – as female. Specifically not "a woman," which I strongly associate with living a woman's life and having the world reflect that back. I'm also acutely aware of how my personality, regardless of identity, plays out in day-to-day life because I was not raised and socialized as a woman. I can identify some things that I can tie to gender specifically, but I believe also that some of the effects of socialization can be more or less permanent, too. I.e., of course some of my behaviors and reactions are male-characteristic. Put in its more common form, I don't believe I'm going to lose my male-typical interests ... even as I learn to relax the stranglehold of maintaining myself as a male.

But had I not experienced what I did, in the way I did, meaning having episodes of perceiving myself as female, and which became continuous and dominant over time, I would not have believed it possible. I will note that along the same lines, I now have a strong same-sex sense around women on occasion. Prior to this, I frankly disbelieved in lesbian identity in MTFs.

I did nothing to consciously cause any of this. There were triggers and circumstances at that time which caused the crisis out of which it emerged, but that is not the same thing. Prior to that first episode, I was struggling through understanding myself as TG because of the lack of any sense of gender. Prior to that, as some kind of perverted cross-dresser. (And NO, that is not a statement about all crossdressers!)

My experience arose out of my personality, repression of a type I also once questioned, and the crisis circumstances of the time – which perhaps caused things to emerge in a certain way, and other factors unique to me. I doubt the type of experience is unique, and there are many other ways for people to discover and then perceive their identity. Perhaps for some there is no such perception, and the path is simply a resolution of dysphoria. Who knows?

Many, perhaps most reading about my experience will not believe it. That's okay. Most of us tend to disbelieve things which we have not experienced or which perhaps stretch our credibility. But I am not putting it out there for any other than the few who may experience the same thing and not know what it is.

There are two aspects of my experience that are relevant to the OP – that identity emerged uninvited, and that it resulted in consciousness of myself as I was when I was very young.

... I wonder what is behind all the statements of "I am a woman" if there is no sense of gender identity that can be identified as female or woman?? (Please note that I think that identity reverting to a common gender-unconscious state, or becoming normal, is a different point.)

[Kimberly Kael]

I think one important distinction to make here is that when I say "I feel like a woman" it doesn't necessarily mean that I experience the world the same way other women do. How would I know? No, what I mean is that I feel a strong kinship with other women. That my identity is that of woman. I mean it in the same sense that I can say "I no longer feel like an outsider."

(... of course I could also make the same true statement more akin to the phrase "I feel like a sandwich", but that's a different story altogether. The English language is wonderfully ambiguous sometimes.)

[LeaP]

A distinction on a distinction ...

I also don't claim to know how anyone else experiences their gender - any gender. But I can tell you that with my first episode I knew what I felt instantly and unambiguously to be be female, even acknowledging that I should have no basis for that. Yet there it is.

[MysticLady]

Too feel like a woman..........is not to feel like one.

[Marleena]

If we put this back to it's simplest form we have a female brain. Why some discover their "birth defect" later in life is irrelevant I would think. We all got raised as males from an early age because it was expected of us to conform if we resisted. As for GG's not being able to define what a woman feels like, it is to be expected as they've never known anything different (it's natural). HRT and transitioning fixes the disconnect we all feel.

I mentioned young TG/TS children in my earlier post because their thought process is more pure and they have not been conditioned yet.

*And again just my own thoughts..*

[LeaP]

I think some are making an assumption that ...

Always fair to challenge a first reading, so I went back for a re-read of the OP.

The theoretical slant always interests me, but it still boils down to your two scenarios of reaching identity: one where it is known before transition and the main concern is congruence, the other where it is not (alternatively, didn't exist or is insufficient) and there's a need to construct it.

The message of my original remains - anyone trying to construct sex/gender is in for some serious disappointment and a therapist assisting is woefully misguided at best.

The intent of RLE is not to "test whether you feel like a woman"! The SOC text regarding its actual purpose was recently given by Michelle in another thread, so I won't bother repeating it.

Finally, you refer to the "gender change process." I really can't tell whether you conceive of this as the development of gender through some process, or if it's just the semantic equivalent of SRS or just what, but it's very clear that the transsexual path properly involves an apprehension of one's innate gender before pursuing physical change. To do otherwise is a foolish risk with life-altering implications.

The closest I can come to your constructed gender scenario is that care standards (and certainly the DSM) do not speak of life-long or innate identity. Rather, they talk about the persistence of cross-sex feelings for certain minimum lengths of time. Even so, these still precede pursuing physical changes. There is no "gender change" in this. The physical science research, on the other hand, tends to confirm theories of innate gender and brain sex.

Getting back to the theoretical, what real-life transsexual cases is a constructed identity theory supposed to address? Because it sure doesn't dovetail with any of the life stories I've ever come across. The successful ones, anyway. I enjoy theory, but as a way of understanding the real world, not things which do not exist.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Regardless of whether some of the theoretical discussions pan out to real and knowable answers, there is a practical reality that trying to feel like a woman or trying to express yourself as something you are not is a losers battle..

If you are a woman, the feelings you have are BY DEFINITION those of a woman
...you by definition feel like a woman..you may not be able to express in words, but isn't it that simple?

It was trying to feel like a man and the exhausting and unsustainable loneliness you endured trying and trying is what brought you to this point..

[LeaP]

Yes on the second paragraph, not exactly on the third. I didn't arrive at a conclusion of transsexuality over my (considerable) issues living as a male! I know that you didn't really mean to imply this, but it's important to state that the condition isn't arrived at by a process of elimination. At some point there HAS to be the awareness that one's sex and gender aren't in sync. There are a lot of men who have failed in life walking around who have not concluded they are trans! It's sad to consider there might be some who have.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Its the idea that pouring more and more energy into something (being/feeling/acting male) and getting less and less return for it that drove me (and I bet lots of others past 30's and 40's) to reflect MORE on the awareness you have of feeling wrong, or in my case of wishing I was female...so yes, you need to have that awareness but its a tough place to get to...for me it was the negatives getting too much to handle that forced me evaluate my gender situation...

and at first, I really went all out trying to feel different...and I kept waiting for something to change and it really never did... I feel the same...except now feeling this way feels really good, fulfilling, and effortless..

so rather than focus on feeling like a woman or what it theoretically means to feel like one, I just feel the way I feel...and finally that's a good thing

[ReineD]

Wouldn't the question be more accurate if it were, "What gender do you identify with"? I don't think there is a universal way of "feeling like a woman". I don't know how feeling like a woman is defined. Like others have said, I only know how I feel.

But, from an early age, I knew which gender I identified with. There were differences between myself and the boys that I could sense and not explain. And I understood my female playmates' cores without being able to define why. Still today, there is a bond or an understanding if you will, between myself and other women even those that I do not know. It's as if we share some abstract universal experience, and this is true for me no matter the race, age, or whether or not the other woman has had children. If I were to try to put it into words, fundamentally it would be about the fact that we share the same purpose even if for some of us the purpose does not come to fruition, which is to bear and nurse children.


Lea, what did you mean by failing as a man? Only once have I ever felt that I had failed as a woman - when I miscarried a child. I was so ashamed of myself that I was literally not able to tell my husband on the phone, when I was calling him to get me to the hospital. I was also not able to tell my parents or my friends for some time and when I did, I felt deep shame. I stopped feeling that way when I found out that miscarriages are quite common.

Does failing as a man mean not being able to father a child, or not being able to support the self? Or does it mean not identifying with other men?

[Anne Elizabeth]

You know ReineD I believe you have it correct when you say "What gender do you identify with"? I don't think there is a universal way of "feeling like a woman". I don't know how feeling like a woman is defined. Like others have said, I only know how I feel." I myself have been trying to put everything in perspective and I myself due to this post and a couple others have come to realize that feeling like a woman or feeling like a man is probably one of the most difficult intangibles to define ever.

In my case I think I am feeling, what I feel a it feels like to be a woman.

Or maybe I would say that I am feeling what I should have always felt like but couldn't because of the wall I constructed around her in order to exist in and interact with the male figure that I felt others felt I should be because of my body.

I guess in all actuality it is the body that we have let ourselves be defined by and not our mind. Breaking down that barrier and letting the mind take control is one of the most painful and most satisfying things I have ever done.

I am now ready to start the completion of my journey and that scares the stuff out of me. But, I also feel it is the right thing to do.

Anne Elizabeth

[Beth-Lock]

Wouldn't the question be more accurate if it were, "What gender do you identify with"? I don't think there is a universal way of "feeling like a woman". I don't know how feeling like a woman is defined. Like others have said, I only know how I feel. But, from an early age, I knew which gender I identified with.

I guess that my attempt to ask if you identify as a woman, because you are conscious that you have an idea that you are a woman, without implying it is a special sensation or even a visual image, got oversimplified when I thought the simplest way of summing that up for the title of the thread was to ask if you feel like a woman.

I am sorry that the latter choice of words led some down a path I had not intended. Some like Reine, pointed out that the literal interpretation of having such a feeling, as if it were something tangible, or a special experience, would not likely be true, (unless you get carried away in a poetic or mystical mood, when the pink fog rolls in, one special day)..

[JennyLynn]

This is such an important topic, because it gets to the crux of who we are and why we need to do what we do. I always feel like a woman..I always feel like a man. I just take the best of both worlds and try to meld them into my one being. It's amazing how you can have the sensitivities of a woman around other men and they tend to positively respond to it.....as long as you're not carrying on like a total touchy feely girl.
I am a man when I dress...I am a woman when I split wood. I am both. Appreciating the essence of both sexes makes every activity twice as enjoyable. I guess I just embrace the fact that I can do either "manly" things or "womanly" things and appreciate the specialness from both perspectives.
I hope this helps, but it does take practice and due dilligence on your part to just embrace both aspects of who you are and try not to seperate them.

[Angela Campbell]

But, from an early age, I knew which gender I identified with. There were differences between myself and the boys that I could sense and not explain. And I understood my female playmates' cores without being able to define why.

My experience when young was similar. I knew I was not at all like the boys, even though I was told that I was one. I did become a part of the girls group for much of my childhood until they grew and kind of realized I was not one of them and they distanced themselves from me, leaving me not part of any group. By then it was impossible to fit in with the boys in any manner at all. If it ever was.

When older I was not really boyfriend material but I was still very close to all the girls even if I wasn't accepted as a boy or a girl.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Beth..

I hear what you are saying..i think some of the posts come from the point of view that it can be the difficult nature of tangibly understanding the "Feeling of being a woman" that gets us into trouble.

All feelings are difficult to communicate verbally...What is love for example?....

One thing for sure, our situation is about "being who we are" ...and the implications of this are very huge and its a very unique problem that is really difficult to communicate about..

+++++
Jenny
Actually no, it really doesn't help. Your post shows a total complete lack of understanding of the transsexual condition.

Practice and diligence??? oh jeez thanks...that's what I was missing....I should have thought of that for 40 yrs... I just have to try harder to embrace being male!!

Your perspective is valid from the POV of not being transsexual but like some other cd's that communicate here, it ends up actually invalidating who and what we are because it presumes that somehow we are the same ...

[Badtranny]

I just take the best of both worlds and try to meld them into my one being. It's amazing how you can have the sensitivities of a woman around other men and they tend to positively respond to it.....as long as you're not carrying on like a total touchy feely girl..

LOL

Men tend to respond to me even better when I'm being 'touchy feely' ;-)

Check the URL doll, no one here buys into the 'best of both worlds' ********.


Hey Tam, did I use '********' right? [edit] I guess I did because it got censored. I didn't realize that was a 'bad' word. ;-)

[Kathryn Martin]

Kaitelyn, the difficulty of saying I feel like woman, or I have feelings of being a woman is the attempt to qualify feelings through a lens of gender or sex. I think that Reine actually put her finger on something that is very important. So when atI nine year old I say I am a girl then you have to ask yourself how can you know. It is very visceral, unconscious. How does a girl pre puberty identify and know what she is. The visual clues are marginal at best other than those that culturally mandated such as haircut, clothing etc. But the bonds shared or not shared in your world and the interplay of action and reaction with your world create a certainty.

[Nicole Erin]

There is no such thing as feeling like a woman or like a man.
There is male and female. Every gender standard is but an act. MTF transsexual ACT like female born people typically ACT like women.
If a person was taken out of society like living on an island or solitaire, they would not be then a man or a woman. There would be no reason to act like a gender as there would be no one to impress.

The gender role people play might be different than their birth sex but either way it is just an act.

Just because someone supposedly "knew" when they were five years old doesn't change that. A child doesn't know the difference.

[Angela Campbell]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm no. I disagree with that. Just the hormones alone make a big difference in behavior. There is some and maybe a lot of socialization but there are many big differences.

And yes a child does know.

[Marleena]

I brought up the TG kids here because some of them feel the disconnect early in life and know exactly what it is.

[Pink Person]

I believe that self-identification is the most important factor in determining our gender classification, but there are also many other subjective and objective factors that determine our location within the matrix of our gender class.

People who claim they can't or don't self-identify in gender terms are being disingenuous or suffering from false modesty. Social identification is a critical factor in gender classification but not more critical than self-identification. Since self-identification is subjective, it doesn't require justification or proof of cause. There are other factors in gender classification that do require substantiation but they supplement our core subjectivity without superseding it.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

How exactly is self identification more critical than social identification? (and btw for transsexuals it physical as well)
What are the benefits of self identification if you are not socially identified in your proper gender?

It's a simple logic problem if the answer is that you have to self identify first
...but if you do that , and then do NOT live even socially in your self ID'd gender, that's what causes all the problems transsexuals deal with as they end up living only inside their heads..

Also, self identification is subject to fantasy and wishful thinking, as well as repression and denial depending on where you are in your life...

What i'm trying to say is that because self identification is subjective, unprovable and all "in your head", its empty, and its devoid of meaning if you are not successfully living out that gender....whether its fantasy or denial...

to have a good quality of life, you have to self identify "right"..and that's not subjective at all..


You can take a position that gender really doesn't matter in the context of living life...we are just human beings after all. But that ignores human nature and the many difference between male and female. And the fact that so many transsexuals go to such lengths to change their bodies and their social roles, and then go on to live highly productive and fulfilled lives is testament to how important gender is ...not self id'd gender, social gender...

[mary something]

It's a simple logic problem if the answer is that you have to self identify first
...but if you do that , and then do NOT live even socially in your self ID'd gender, that's what causes all the problems transsexuals deal with as they end up living only inside their heads..



Humans are social creatures, we require socialization with others or we risk serious physical and mental health issues. Socialization with other people is transactional in nature. Someone could identify as a turnip inside their own head if they wanted to but the problem for TS people is that unless they feel that their internal and external life is in harmony it's empty and devoid of meaning, just like Kaitlyn said.

So instead of trying to describe and pin down what it feels like to be a woman I'm happy to say that this is my path to harmony.

[LeaP]

...not self id'd gender, social gender...

Surely it's both. Even if you don't "feel" like a woman, there is a knowing. That it manifests in such common ways and early in life (in most cases), that you are driven to live it in such a visceral way, makes it also a self-identification issue - almost certainly based in physiology. The last thread focused on consciousness, this on feeling, both in an attempt to dig below choice. Neither is quite right. While I believe there is a base level of unthinking consciousness in which instinct acts (which may be nothing more than life itself), there are many levels of awareness and mental activity that are above that base, yet rooted in physiology. Adolescence invokes some of them, as does the maturing of the adult mind.

Gender awareness is in there somewhere. Were it as easy as feeling one way or another, or living one way or another, I think the internal conflicts would be far less. Simple choice. Were the self-knowledge completely rooted in either full awareness or the base level of consciousness, we would not be questioned as we are.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

doesn't that imply self identification is even more meaningless except in the context of helping you to determine what you should do with your life...
in other words, whether or not you should change your body or your social role to match your gender?

in fact, what I've experienced is that many transsexuals say they knew since their earliest memory (lets leave out that I don't believe everyone that says that)..but the rest of us didn't... we were confused, upset, on and on ....

I, for one, could not be confident that I self identified as a woman until I actually went out and did it socially...which then informed me enough to go and change my body...I saw this a lot in my group therapy...

this leaves me to feel that my self identification was actually irrelevant to what I actually did...I didn't know until I did it!!!! I can't look back with perfect memory...so perhaps i'm overstating what I didn't know because I was so in denial..

I have often said that in my mind, I have a suspicion that what I feel today is similar or the same thing that a cisgender person feels... this is an incredibly empowering and quality of life improving idea.... before how I self identified was a messy jumble of emptiness, denial, compartmentalization ...now its not...
and its not possible by self identification only...

[Ginger Maxim]

Your basic question, Do I feel like a Woman. The answer to that for me is, No....
When I dress femininely I most certainly do. I want to be loved by someone special.
But to fully answer your question is to answer No. I do not feel like a woman inside 24/7. I have been asked this so many times during counciling and I can honestly say I do not. But the dreams and fantasies are so very strong. ie: even to go as far as hormone treatments, breast augmentation, but that won't ever happen. They are dreams and fantasies. While being dressed I would like it to be possible, but as soon as the clothes come off, so do my dreams and fantasies.

The only real issues I have are that the dreams and fantasies are becoming stronger and the want and raw passion to dress full time is getting stronger. I am not sure if it coralates to my incredibly strong desires to be with men more and more now. My fantasies a re growing more and more each day. But this won't be possible as long as I am with my GF... I know she won't let me.

As you can tell, I am quite confused on the inside, but no I do not believe I am a woman on the inside.

Ginger...

[Lilo]

I also agree with self-identification being most important. Only after fully self-identifying one can fully self-accept. I feel that I struggle the most not because "I dont feel like a woman" but because I certainly dont yet feel like a REGULAR woman. This causes lots of issues related to outward expression and social acceptance. As long as I continue feeling like an 'odd' woman, I will lack the necesary confidence to go 'all out' and gain acceptance. That is why I consider self-identification (not just as a woman, but as a regular woman) and self-acceptance need to come first. I am not sure if this lack of confidence is common or just a part of my personality.

[LeaP]

There are obviously different patterns.

One is the classic Type VI scenario. Unambiguous knowledge, virtually from birth. The toddler screaming, "but Mommy, I'm a girl!" (or boy)

Another is the out-of-the-blue late bloomer with little or nothing in life to-date to indicate a gender concern.

A third (mine) is repression. Lots of early and life-long indications. Knowing yet not knowing. Occasionally actually knowing and either forgetting (things from early life) or pushing it away.

I'm sure there are plenty other variations.

I agree with the idea that what you do winds up the most important thing. More so all the time, in fact. That's partly because I also find confirmation in it. I also understand the pragmatic points that you are making.

But, Kaitlyn, you protest too much! "Only" important in the context of what you do with your life!? That's a pretty significant qualifier.

Is the experience of "feeling" feminine important? I don't know - it's not a feeling that I've experienced much. Acknowledging a conscious experience of a female identity isn't the same thing at all. But I'll note that GGs have many affirmations (and affronts) to their sense of gender. Some of them are about femininity, some about other things.

I just believe that I would have remained stuck forever had I not experienced what I did.

The responses along the lines of "I have no idea what it feels like to feel like a woman" remind me of silly philosophical arguments on questions like whether or not we perceive color or feel pain the same way. Really? I know people just love to dwell on their existential differences, but it takes a certain posture of ignorance regarding the physical realities, don't you think?

I think the better bet is that all of us are "feeling" the same thing.

[PaulaAnn]

Hi LeaP;Well # 3 you mention is pretty close to my situation.Well I don't know what any other woman feels like;I understand what they experience....all I know is that I feel like one and after 50 years of doubts and a host of other negatives,I'm where I aught to be.Yeah ,I feel like a woman,I think like one,therefore I am. YMMV.
PaulaAnn

[Kathryn Martin]

Is the experience of "feeling" feminine important?

What are feminine feelings, I am stumped.....

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Lea

Oh I think we are all basically feeling the same thing as well assuming that you are a woman... Maybe the question is to talk about what important means. What is important to each of us can be very different!
Clearly I overstated my thought carelessly.....its important to understand yourself...


The "I have no idea...." quote is right from my sister..LOL... The context was as a response to my statement that I did feel like a woman...at the time, those were words I used to describe what felt

[LeaP]

What are feminine feelings, I am stumped.....

The ones you were having just before your classmate punched you in the mouth for offending his sense of propriety. (Substitute own story as needed.)

[Kaitlyn Michele]

LOL...

the ones I was having when I sat there in middle school with my legs crossed (like a girl!) and got punched in the head and called faggot..

[stefan37]

I have no idea what it feels like to be a woman. I just know finally how it feels to be me. To be called maam while wearing jeans, tee shirt, no makeup or earrings. To see mail and correspondence arrive with my new name. To hear those around me use pronouns appropriate to me. Feminine? Hardly. I still work in a male industry and need to continue working with the skills I have been given and learned to make a living. Running my business is way more difficult than transition. But I am finally experiencing what it feels like to have the freedom to express my emotions. Changing my name has taken transition to a much different stage than just saying I am transitioning and living as a male or in between. Don't get me wrong I am in a very awkward stage and get gendered male more frequently than I do female. But to be able to live my life as I feel I need to is indescribable. it will only get better as I unlearn those many years of male socialization. Many times I feel as I am cramming for a test learning years of female socialization into a few years. The trip can be wild at times, but to date has been very positive. Glad I am doing it.

[gonegirl]

The ones you were having just before your classmate punched you in the mouth for offending his sense of propriety. (Substitute own story as needed.)

Dang it!... I thought feminine feelings were all to do with what colour panties you are wearing.

...and just when I thought I was done with therapy!

JK :-)

[LeaP]

... legs crossed (like a girl!) and got punched ...

There you go again, bringing up those things I had forgotten ...

[Badtranny]

But, Kaitlyn, you protest too much!

NEVER!

Kaitlyn is one of the estemed few here who never wavers in her position or philosophy. Her opinion may change as she is faced with new information (after all she actually used to argue with poor little me) but everything she says has the ring of truth.

She speaks from the heart and only of what she personally knows. Many of us here have surrendered what we once thought to the experience of a real life transition.

Unless you yourself have walked the path, than you should be careful of where you're stepping.

[Jorja]

Back in the days when I was "trapped" in that male body, I longed for a time when I could feel like a woman. What does a woman feel like anyhow? Asking several women over the years I got the same answer over and over. I just feel like myself. Guess what? Even now, thirty some years later, I just feel like me. Yes, I now have the physical appearance of a woman. I walk like one, I talk like one. I dress like one. I live like one. I love like one. I must be one. Life is too short to try and figure out all this useless stuff that doesn't mean anything to anyone except on a web forum for conversation. Get out there and live life.

[DebbieL]

Short and sweet, yes. I ALWAYS felt like a girl trapped in a boy's body.
I didn't like boys when I was in elementary school, and played with girls when I could.
When the other girls started growing breasts I got so jealous!
When I started growing hair on my face and body - I wanted to kill myself - and tried several times.
When I found out I had a bass voice, I was devestated.
When I finally started dressing in public - I felt free for the first time in 30 years.
When I look at myself in the mirror and see a male face and body, I'm disgusted.
When I look at myself in the mirror and see a woman's face and body, I'm happy and content!
When I finally started growing breasts, I was like a teen-age girl.
When my wife told me I had to dress age, size, and situation appropriate, I kept thinking "OH MOM!!" - now I know why girls get so frustrated with their mothers.
Yes I Feel like a woman - and for the first time in a very long time, I feel happy, peaceful, and contented.

[Beth-Lock]

What are feminine feelings, I am stumped.....

How about it being the intuitive understanding that it is a fact, that you are a woman, and bringing the rest of your life, including the perceptions of and reactions of others to you, into consonace with that, since that is the only way out of some sort of unsatisfactory mixed up life.

[mariehart]

Oddly enough I've been thinking a lot about this very subject lately. Clearly like most of us here, I don't feel like a woman. I think that my final acceptance that I am essentially female came when I finally realised this. It took a long time though with many missteps on the way. Nobody feels like a woman or a man or a boy or a girl. We just feel like ourselves.

One of the problems with being TS is that it's never quite so straight forward as it's sometimes portrayed in the mass media. Even the other day I read a story in a woman's magazine of a girl who transitioned aged 21. There she was tastefully posing nude and gushing about how wonderful her life was now. Genuinely pleased for her and envious in a nice way but sadly I feel her story reinforces the cliché of the three year old who knew something was wrong and suffered societal consequences of her gender dysphoria. Where does that leave the rest of us who lacked the insight at the time? It was stories like that back in the day before the internet allowed a little more clarity of the subject that ensured I had difficulty with accepting my own issues. I didn't fit the cliché, so I decided I must be just a transvestite. It took a long time for that illusion to fall away.


I didn't feel like a girl aged three or four or eleven when I started cross dressing and wishing I would wake up in the morning as a girl. Worse still I played with boys things and even if I did love to play with girls things. Not only that I was attracted to girls so I really couldn't be one. Ignoring the fact that my first big crush was on a boy in my class. I went through much of my life deluding myself that I was acting like a man. But in retrospect I was only fooling myself because most anyone who got to know me saw my feminine side. I remained largely unaware that my carefully contrived male persona was paper thin. I was shocked to the core eventually when a friend told me that everyone I worked with believed I was probably gay. Looking back that must have been true in previous jobs. Also I realised later my family thought so too.

If there's one thing that can be done for people it's that we strip away the notion that we must tick a number of notional boxes and fit the clichés before we can accept who we are.

If I'd known better earlier in my life. I most certainly would have transitioned. Now it's too late. I have every day of the rest of my life to regret this.

So I do believe it's an important point in terms or our acceptance of who we are.

[ReineD]

I have a question for Beth and others. Is feeling like a woman at all connected with knowing that one is a woman?

[Pink Person]

I live in two worlds, the world inside of me and the world outside of me. I don't live in only one or the other. Both of them are real. I imagine that other people live in two real worlds also.

Is your reality the same as mine? No, because I live in the good reality and you live in the bad one. Ho hum, I 'm glad we settled that issue.

Ladies and gentlemen (I think that means everyone), personal gender identification and social gender identification are both very important characteristics. Go ahead and make your own salad out of them.

P.S. If you have lost your self-image, wait until society violates it. It will usually sound an alarm when that happens.

[Kathryn Martin]

I have a question for Beth and others. Is feeling like a woman at all connected with knowing that one is a woman?

My answer is no, not at all. What does feeling like a woman mean? Is there an overarching paradigm that makes all women feel alike? Awareness that I am a woman is simply that, a recognition of a simple fact arising from how we interact with our bodies and others. It is a far cry between "I am her" and "I want to look like her", "behave like her" etc. There are obvious clues but people seem to be hell bent on ignoring them. It could reveal something they don't want to know.

[mary something]

I think people can experience this differently. During the period of my life when I was seriously questioning myself and trying to figure out who and what I am the feeling at times that I felt like a woman was an important confirmation to me during the process of understanding my identity as a woman. I can't define it existentially of course but I've had that feeling before. As I expressed myself more naturally to my inner being and the world confirmed back to me the truth I have always been scared of inside there was times that I felt that sentiment. I found it as confirmation that I wasn't crazy and it was a good thing lol.

Girls in our culture learn how to be women while growing up, I did this a lot later in life than the average girl. For me having the feeling at times that I felt like a woman was confirmation, however maybe it was the only way I could express that to myself I sure as hell wasn't a man?

[Contessa]

i don't feel like a women, I feel like myself. I feel like I should have known this some time ago. But within the last few years it has bee driven out of me. I kept it hidden on the inside from others. i now present an image as I should. I am me. i might look somewhat like a man but I am actually Fem-male. I am as much like a woman as I can be though that is not the sum of my parts. I probably won't go on HRT or have SRS. But will forever present as what I am. I have always been a bit of a wimp a sissy as I felt I didn't fit.

Now I am good I am ok. I am relaxed as I am dressed and have on makeup whic sort makes me look like the fem-male I have always been. I am as others have said at peace. I am happier than I have ever been. I feel like me, Hi my name is Contessa.


Tess

[Kathryn Martin]

I hope you do not believe that literary license can be granted in this matter. As you know, language is very important. And the question asked was simply the wrong question. If the shoe fits keep feeling "like a woman" and "feel you are a woman". It is astonishing what feeling can accomplish. And keep searching to answer your question. It's a doozy.

[IanBrianna]

It depends on my level of juice. At my age (68), this level influences a lot of things. Every 3rd day or so I get to feeing frisky, and the friskier I feel, the more my inner female comes out. Throughout my life, I have preferred being cross-dressed by a dominant woman, though I have enjoyed doing the solo thing, especially if the lingerie is from a woman. I like to feel possessed by femininity, especially the femininity of a specific woman. This type of encounter is not hard to find if you do a little looking. But with or without the encounter, I would say that every third day or so I turn femmy.

[Kathryn Martin]

I have been experimenting with cross-dressing, and was amazed at how I could switch back, without losing any of my femme ways, adter the hour or two of it, had passed.


I like to feel possessed by femininity, especially the femininity of a specific woman. This type of encounter is not hard to find if you do a little looking. But with or without the encounter, I would say that every third day or so I turn femmy.

I rest my case......:wtf:

[Marleena]

But with or without the encounter, I would say that every third day or so I turn femmy.

Oh yeah..me too! I wanna touch myself right now!

[Ann Louise]

Gosh it's good to be back among you living, thinking, feeling women. I read the OP, and skimmed the remainder of the responses so as not to unduly color what I feel about this. Please excuse the "duh" factor if I therefore seem a bit obtuse; anesthesiology apparently has a long hangover! Well before, and certainly during the start of my transition I thought a whole lot about what it feels like to be a woman, of course in the sense that I wanted to be sure that I was on the right track when starting HRT and turning my former life into tattered shreds. Something stands out in my memory from this forum, wherein someone stated something like "... it's not like I wake up every morning, open my eyes, and think I Am A Woman. I'm just ME." That seemed quite logical to me, as indeed, that's not what I do either, upon waking, or going about my day.

And the premise of "feel like a woman" of course relies on the concepts, or attitudes, or intrinsic ways of acting and reacting to life's situations, minute by minute, does it not? So in my case, where did all that pre-conception come from? My mother of course, and my aunts, and the ladies in the neighborhood, and heavens let's not forget the bloody television droning on in our poor helpless little skulls as we carried on our young existences in front of them. So from all the above sources surely something must have gone into my formulation of my womanhood. It's not entirely in-situ! It only seems logical to me. Now, pick, choose, validate, invalidate, disregard, inculcate, let's go through all these mechanisms to winnow the seed from the chaff. And lest I forget, there's also that concept of nearly mystic proportions, difficult to describe, that hey, all the foregoing stuff, sure, that's all part of it, but wait, I feel like a woman (or not).

Like if I woke up on a deserted desert island, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, thought about my upcoming day and wondered how I'd get on, would I even give a crap if I felt like a woman or not? I don't think so! I want to eat, sleep, be healthy, and have a loving partner to watch my back and snuggle up to at night.

So to me it comes down to content and quality of forethought and afterthought that I give to my desires and wants, and my regard of how I and others have behaved in the past, and will in the future, when posed with various life situations and trials.

Now, here I can get some thinking going, particularly in light of the fact that I've have so many years of the male shell of "he who shall remain unnamed" and how "he" went about things under the duress of testosterone poisoning, boyhood, adolescent and adult peer pressure and the realities of a tough adult world, and how "he" went about dealing with it all. And although perhaps all situations couldn't be categorized into polar opposites like kind/unkind, tough/weak, analytical/emotional, etc., there does seem to be quite a bit of data back in my internal drives that are showing some pretty marked contrasts between then, i.e., pre-outing, pre-HRT, pre-body modification, and now.

Kindness, gentleness, nurturing, and many similar terms that are most commonly associated with "womanhood," are seemingly ideals of womanhood that I hold most important now. And this is not an active seeking of these characteristics that I'm engaged in, but rather, noting after the fact, that are behaviors that I'm exhibiting towards myself and others. Many males of course exhibit these behaviors and attitudes, but in my experience, is it a stretch to say that they at least not likely to do so as much as we do? I don't think so. And are we in general more kind, gentle, and more nurturing, or at least aspire to be so more throughout our day? I do anyway. And are there still bitches among us? Sure there are, but hey, so what! We're human. At least I'm not getting called an @$$h0!3 anymore! LOL

And I readily feel a piercing of my heart at the misfortunes of others, and the urge to associate myself amidst physical and emotional beauty and the loveliness of this world and others of like mind. That's part of my particular version of feeling like a woman. Of course males do, too, to some extent, but are they as willing and compelled to do so as so many of us here have repeatedly expressed the compulsion to do so are? I don't think so.

So I'm corny, so simplistic, so unsophisticated? So what! My womanhood is not a result of an analytical process, at least as far as I can tell from up this close to "me," but rather that wide range of strongly felt desires, reactions, empathetic feelings and urges that I've found I Did Not Have before my outing and transition, and that now do have, now that I'm on my way.

Anyway, so glad to be back, and I wish all you true, sweet, thinking women the best this life has to offer in the short time available to us,

)0( Ann )0(

[mary something]

My ex and I used to joke about the Shania Twain song, "Man, I feel like a woman". When it would come on the radio we would dance around and hold our bellies while singing like we were having period cramps, pretend we were shooting babies out of our bodies with some of the kids dolls that were always laying around. We would try to outdo each other with our absurdity and it was always a blast lol

http://www.vevo.com/watch/shania-twain/man-i-feel-like-a-woman/USMNV0300062

Sometimes we can think way too hard about stuff :)