I am a woman VS I wish I was a woman

[dreamer_2.0]

I’ve been pondering on this for a while as there are transsexual narratives explaining they’ve known they were female since childhood but there are also a few stating they've known they’ve wanted to be female since childhood. Is there a difference between these two or are they perhaps different interpretations of the same feelings?

I personally fall into the latter as I’ve never believed myself to be female but rather have wished for a female life since as early as I can remember. Is it possible those like me who want to be female do so because they really are female without realizing it? Or is there an actual difference between myself and those who claim to have known they were female since whenever?

If there is a difference, because I believe myself to not be female does this invalidate my being transgender? Should it prompt red flags suggesting I’m considering transition for the wrong reasons? I believe my GD to be quite real and very distracting, but if I’m not actually female is it wise to continue down my path?

[whowhatwhen]

IMO It's all semantics, variations of both have appeared here from girls who transitioned.

[Ann Louise]

This topic may be fraught with controversy, so prefaced by My Opinion Only, I have long internalized the mental stance that I "do not want to be mistaken for a man," rather than "passing" as a woman. I AM a woman, and refuse to ascribe to the subtle psychological undermining that many seemingly innocently accord to themselves and others with the personally distasteful word "passing." To me it's much more than semantics, but the foundational cementation of a true, resilient, and stable personality. We Are Women. Live it. Love it. Be it with every fiber of your being. LOVE YOURSELF

[Anne Elizabeth]

Dreamer_grl Those specific words have plagued me for quite some time. While I also understand what whowhatwhen states I still have a hard time with it myself. This trip is the worst and yet the best trip I have embarked upon. Worst in the devastation that it has caused with my spouse and my future (I know I am thinking too far in the future) and the best in that I have spent so much time in the last four years soul searching that I have really become to know myself and what I want and need. Do I need to transition? I can't fully say that for 100%. Do I want to transition? I believe that I can say that for 100%. So are these different feelings. To me they sound different. Something somewhere somehow makes me believe that my life would have been better had I been born female, and for some odd reason which surpasses all reason I feel that my life would be better if I transitioned. So here I am stuck with the fence poking me in the a$$ trying to figure it all out and make the steps necessary to have a wonderful rest of my life.

[Michelle789]

I agree with whowhatwhen that many have transitioned successfully who fall into both groups. I believe they're two different verbal expressions of the same thing.

"I am a woman" or "I am a girl" - means that I identify as female, I am a woman on the inside
"I want to be a woman" or "I wish I was a woman" or "I want to be a girl" - I want to live a female life, I want to be a woman on the outside, I want to be a woman on the outside to match my female identity on the inside

[DreamRin]

I have asked myself this question for a long time now, i stand in the same boat as you Dreamer_grl identifying myself as "Wanting to be a woman" and knowing that i'd be living better and happier if i was born a girl. Unfortunately life has played a trick on me and gave me a man's body with a girl's mind.
I don't consider myself an early bloomer, i have only recently realized that what i have suffered all my life was GD, although i am still young. I think that this has contributed not to the first identification but the latter!
I don't know if i am alone in this but this late realization came in form of an extreme sorrow and waves of pain thinking that i might have just wasted all my life until now drowning in depression just because i couldn't feel happy with myself and didn't know why!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I always wished I was a "girl".. I believed it was a fantasy.
I thought odd thoughts about how it was sad that I would spend my life wishing I was something else.

Looking back, this LITERALLY dominated every single moment of 90% of my mind...the other 10% was my "real" life... I endured my life..it was a distraction...there were distractions I truly enjoyed so those are good moments, there were many people I cared about, but even with loved ones sometimes I was basically waiting until I could be alone so I could think of how I could be a girl someday. I just didn't know any better..

Over time, the distress got worse and I broke down and realized all the crap I was going through was because I was fated to transition. I just laugh now looking back at it how incredibly dishonest I was to myself..
Basically my nature just waited me out... and I started to be honest with myself because I was so miserable... anything is better than feeling the way I felt.. ANYTHING!!!....

Dreamrin what you said is so simple and poignant. You describe the realization I felt as an extreme sorrow and waves of pain thinking that I might have just wasted my life....... that's the feeling of GD exactly as I felt it. and what's more, before that moment, I got to live my entire life feeling alone and unhappy with myself and not really knowing why... ugh!!!

and so it led me to reconsider what my "fantasy" really was.. and I just kept learning from my experiences and I learned that my fantasy was just the way I coped with the same exact problem as other transsexual women...

Once I couldn't cope anymore, I transitioned.

Dreamer,
I think the safe way to think of it is that you should be assured that your feelings are shared by many. It has nothing to do with whether transition is right for you or not.

I have been told a couple of times to my face that I was wrong to transition, ..
geeeeezzz! Sorry I missed the memo that if I didn't "know" I was a girl from the moment I pulled my peepee out and screamed in horror, then I am not a "true" ts...

[Michelle789]

Kaitlyn, it's okay to not know that you're a girl from the start, and anyone who tells you you're wrong to transition is wrong for saying that.

There is no right or wrong way to experience GD, and there is no right or wrong way to transition. "It's my way, or the highway"

How about knowing you're a girl from the start, but not knowing at the same time. Like I knew something, I said something to my parents, and they told me no and I repressed it, and yet I still fantasized about growing up to be a woman, and about being a woman, my whole life. I guess I was confused from the start whether I was a girl or not, but I just knew, and as I tried hiding to myself and to others, it just found others ways out.

My whole problem is I need to really learn to embrace the my way or the highway thinking. So from now on I will be traveling a new highway called the "MyWay Highway", which is Girl Route 523.

I realize that two things are killing me: gender dysphoria AND being too concerned with what other think.

[Rachel Mari]

IMO I think it's the same thing.

Growing up with 5 sisters and 3 brothers, I knew early on that there was a difference. A physical difference. Everyone around told me I was a boy, I was physically male and that idea was reinforced all the time. I couldn't understand how I could be a girl when everything and everyone told me otherwise. I knew what I felt but I must be wrong.

I know I talked to my mother about it (don't remember any details, only that I did) and she made clear that I was a boy and would always be a boy and would never be a girl. I tried talking to a friend at school and that didn't turn out well at all and no longer had a friend. .

I also prayed for a couple of months every night for God to turn me physically into a girl and that didn't work either. Or maybe it kinda did, it just took 50 years.

So the question about wanting to be a girl or knowing you're a girl is to me the same thing. To me, it depends on how much you trusted your thoughts.

I guess it's just how you get there.

[PaulaQ]

I think that the main use of the distinction "I am a woman" vs. "I wish I was a woman" is in your acceptance, internally. I'd known for much of my life that I wanted to be a woman. I just thought it was impossible, insane, perverse, and would never happen, so I buried the feelings. When I finally accepted them, I realized "I am a woman." That was one of the worst nights of my life, by the way, because my second thought was "I'm going to lose everything again."

[bas1985]

my same struggle here.

"I am Marina" or "I want to be Marina"... kind of strange. There is another possibility... a friend of mine told me yesterday: you are not transitioning to female, you are escaping from male.

You are not a woman, you are simply a man escaping the role of men.

[debbie55]

Not certain I'm qualified to answer as I still sit here immobile asking myself the same question each day, but perhaps that makes me an expert lol. Anyway its the internet so I'll join in anyway.

I have always thought myself in the want to be a woman camp, I have a mirror, I can see I'm obviously not a woman. I couldn't fathom those that claimed they were always a woman, but then I read someone's account (not sure if on here or another place) of their realisation during/after transition, as they went from thinking they wanted to be, to thought they always were. The things they realised with hindsight were the little signs throughout their life, like not wanting to get their hair cut as a child, not being interested in sports etc. What suddenly struck me though was I have spent a lifetime analysing and dreaming about wanting to be a woman but had never thought about if I was a man (I still had that mirror for that) but when I looked back at the male aspect of my life there is a big disconnect from me and my male peers.

Sports, not really interested, I cant fathom football,(both English or US) or any of those male sports, the closest I come is motorsports and cars, but if I compare myself to my peers, if I'm honest its superficial, I cant give you a minutia history of a drivers career, hell half the time nowadays if you ask me while I'm watching it who's coming second in F1 I'll have no idea. Pubs, bars, nope not really interested, when I find myself in one and in a peer group of males, I'll often not "get" the conversation, in essence I'm blagging it. Its clear I don't see woman the same way my male peers do, I don't have the animal instinct to "want them" but I add into the middle those two little words "to be" and as someone else somewhere said, "men don't think this way".

So now I'm left with I don't know if I am a woman or just want to be one, but equally, I'm not sure if I know what it IS like to be a man, or if I just know how to play one on life's stage.

[GabbiSophia]

Dreamer I am at this point now. It use to be a thought not a reality when I thought about the "vs" question. Even with it right in front of me I can't figure it out. Some days I do not "feel" real or should I say I do not think of myself as a woman. I keep trying to believe it is a fantasy because of the feelings I have but if it was a fantasy why does it make me feel so miserable at times. I have no clue what to do with myself atm in my life though I am trying to live just the same. Some days are worse than others and I get upset at them. I think how you feel is how you feel and you can not let others tell you how you feel or how bad it really is at times. I try to do the same but it is not easy as the need to understand myself is a constant issue. I also no that some of my fear that has me stuck is all about this subject. Hope it gets better and you are not alone in this thought process

[Rianna Humble]

Bas, I am sure that your friend was trying to be helpful, but (s)he could not be further from the truth. I believe from what you have told us that you are suffering from Gender Dysphoria and are transsexual. I am not a professional and cannot give a diagnosis, but I get that feeling from your writings.

If I am right, then you are definitely not a "man escaping the role of men". There are very definite differences between cismen and MtF transsexuals.

[bas1985]

Bas, I am sure that your friend was trying to be helpful, but (s)he could not be further from the truth.

Yes, he really tried to be helpful, but perhaps he was simply trying to protect me from "major consequences". He said that I did not expressed my attraction
toward males when I was presenting male and this is a key point in being a woman (for him, to be attracted by guys). I tried to tell him that I would be happy to be with a man but with the right body, but that the idea of being with a man with the masculine body and genitals is not very appalling to me (gross I would say)

[Kathryn Martin]

Contrary to what most have commented on this thread I am sure there is a difference. It is a matter on how you experience your self. Experiencing yourself as a girl is quite different from wanting a female life.

[Angela Campbell]

It would be hard to differentiate between the two when in the middle of it. You are born with a male body, you are ravished by male hormones, and you are brainwashed by society .....how could you know anything under the circumstances.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Ill only speak for myself, some of us are different again, and because many dont understand those differences i doubt they will accept what i say. and some who dont understand do ask.

Im both male and female = intersex, and i know some of us are female with a womb yet look more like a male and some of us dont have our womb yet are female, so we are a bit mixed up in our bodys and mind,

most of us are not trassexuals though i know a few who are, many of us do have surgerys and our hormones can and do change, iv experanced that, and my body went into changes started over 20 years ago. and no outside hormones,

Only you can answer this ? how do you think i have only thought as a female never as a male in fact did not know how to, now some trans do think as female yet many hide behind a wall and dont show any detail of female some of cause do, now many trans in regard thier bodys to all intent is male many i know face to face would make good rugby players, tall strong and look just like many men,

The certinty of knowing your self seems to be from early age maybe 4 on, and have a feeling they are girls, and head that way, dressing and so on, yes there is a difference , those wont wont to be like a woman and those who have an inner trigger go off and the brain is heading towards female,

my self from age 10 i knew what i was intersexed, both male female, no doubts at all allmost compleatly hard wired female,
Now of cause im just a woman my hormones helped in that regard, as it does for some of us .

even at age 10 i knew i would live as a female ...woman i should say girl because thats how i saw myself just not quite compleat yet it never bothered me i was pretty happy as a kid, my difference is in being by default female, and i never wonted to be female or strange for some a male, to get your head around us is quite hard .

The only answer i can give is in knowing, its not a wont or like to , its so hard wired in it just cant be different so it comes down to Psychologically , Mentalally , and Emotionally.

Your = I dont belive im a female, so the other ? is do you wont to live as / like a woman, only you can answer that,

I know some who do and some are just dressing for what ever reason. were as our difference is.... in.... being female ,

I will say this many i know who see them selfs as woman do have many issues to face, i did just mine were different in many way's,
I never claimed to be female i was born female with a mismatch of body parts, and brain wiring,

the other one is in having surgerys, iv had a good few, though just remember the surgerys dont change you you are what you are, the body is the carryer, the mind is the importaint part, and how all the detail is worked out, and yes that is the mine field,

Im not saying ones body is not importaint it is of cause,

Its when youv been through the hell hole of the mind field 8 years of, that changes so much and it ether makes or break's you,

The other neat part is when you allow your self to grow, and become a woman yes to grow in to becoming a woman , its worth the struggles and heartache other wise the other road is ...... well really nothing ......just blackness, allmost went that road, not nice i can tell you,

...noeleena...

[Kathryn Martin]

You know, Angela. You are not ravished by male hormones at age 5-9 which is roughly when puberty begins (usually around age 8) you have no "male body" experience during those early years. Many of us believed at this age that their bodies would be "right" once we got older.

[Emma Beth]

The more I think about it the more I realize that for me the differences in those words is what allowed for me to suppress everything for many years.

It was the want category that allowed for me to hide from myself for these many years and still makes it hard for me to accept myself at times.

When I was in my early twenties I had to move back in with my parents for a time and I got caught experimenting and trying to find out who I was, that ended up in an awkward conversation with my father that pushed me over the edge into suppression that put a wall in place that is finally beginning to come down. I will never forget the words my father said that sealed that wall. He said, "It is perfectly normal to Fantasize; but that's all it is, Fantasy."

Now, in a lot of ways, he was 100% right. Fantasy is perfectly normal. But, the second part of his statement was the most damaging simply because at the time neither of us knew exactly what was going on. So, the right kind of help and earlier realization of the problem would go many years before truly surfacing.

I can't say what camp I fit in with the two statements just because of my situation. The reasons are clear to me because of the "damage" innocent words that were meant to help can cause without meaning to.

[Aprilrain]

its semantics and its a coping strategy. I much like Kaitlyn just believed it was an insane impossible fantasy. A curse really. Of all the things in life a person could want or hope to be the opposite of your birth sex is by far the most bizarre of them all. Not only is it just weird, its literally impossible to achieve. at least that is what I told myself for years and years.
personally I think the people who say "they always knew" are either bats shit crazy or suffer (blissfully perhaps) from a sever case of delusion. When I was 8 and pulled down my pants to pee, yup there it was, clearly NOT a girl!!

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Focusing on the difference misses the fact that almost everything else is the same.
The confusion, the loss, the growing distress, the existential emptiness, the energy wasted against your nature, ...its all the same...

The difference is only relevant to each person's understanding of themselves.

The difference is in the language of your transsexual nature and not your nature itself.

It's complicated because lots of crossdressers wish they were women sometimes...
They may even wish it a lot and will claim they want to make the change...

Some of us use their language...to "knowers" we may sound like something else as we are speaking in tongues... so be it..

The language of wishing is very different from the language of knowing...Elizabeth I had a therapist in the very early 90's tell me the same thing "It's perfectly normal to fantasize, but that's all it is"... I felt waves of nausea in that session, but I never brought it up again...it was like I had finally got the courage to speak and I was shot down immediately...

So the difficulty for some of us lies in that we must learn that new language of knowing...
When and if you do learn that language of knowing, you will realize all those feelings from the past meant something totally different ...

...the "knowers" like to own their language and their nature... they feel they are the originals... they just had it easier than us is all it is.

They celebrate the difference despite its irrelevance to a transsexual's improvement of their quality of life through transition.
I say let them be different...it doesn't matter

[Marleena]

I’ve been pondering on this for a while as there are transsexual narratives explaining they’ve known they were female since childhood but there are also a few stating they've known they’ve wanted to be female since childhood. Is there a difference between these two or are they perhaps different interpretations of the same feelings?


Dreamer this is an important question you need to work through with your gender therapist in order to get your own answer. For some it is quite clear they are female from childhood while others like me knew something was wrong and didn't understand it. Guilt, shame, denial and confusion can and do come into play. The clues will be there but need to be understood.

[arbon]

My brain did not make the leap to knowing I was a girl when I was young. Everyone and my body were telling me I was a boy and thats what I thought I was supposed to be. Just did not like it. I could not conceive the idea that I could be a girl in a boys body.

It left me extremely confused, and thinking and feeling like I was sick, bad, wrong...

Confused is one word that best describes my life until transition.

[Kathryn Martin]

The difference is in the language of your transsexual nature and not your nature itself.


Is the difference in the language or in the experience of self? It is easy to say that a 9 year old child is bat shit crazy because they know they are of a gender and in the manner expressed by April that they are delusional because of course their body belies how they experience themselves. If you take this logic to it's conclusion than being transsexual is clearly an aberration of the mind, a mental illness. A public board is no place to speak about the actual medical evidence, physical and physiological evidence that supports what transsexuals talk about. Not studies, not anecdotal something but actual medical evidence. I have always said that the real indicators are not feeling a particular connection to girls, or playing with dolls. Rather, it is on a much more visceral physiological level.

It's interesting to be confronted with this on a board that purports to support transsexuals. It also says one hell of a lot about those that make this claim.

[LeaP]

I think it can be both, Kathryn. In my earliest memories - say between 1 - 6 (I have a lot of VERY early memories), I perceived myself as the same as my sisters. This was indeed visceral. I also remember the collisions and conflicts over gender that started shortly thereafter. There was still not a lot of conscious thought about it at that point. Again, the pull, for lack of a better work, was visceral. I was also dismayed over the gender channeling and exclusion that kicked in. At some point, what I once experienced directly transformed into wanting and thinking about, as I withdrew. That, of course, went into high gear starting in adolescence.

[Marleena]

Well I edited out my own personal experiences after Kathryn's post. I might be naive but I don't see the danger in posting one's experience in a public forum if it might help others. All TS women end up with the same conclusions about themselves but arrive at it and experience the journey in different but similar ways.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Kathryn
I never felt a connection to girls.
I never felt "feminine"..I felt like I wished I had been born a girl...

Looking back however, I have always known I was a girl
..I just didn't know I knew.. I expressed it as fantasy (clearly it was!!lol as I had a peepee!!)
I can only say this with the benefit of experience and hindsight. People struggling with this now can't (yet)...

This is not counter to any medical research nor does it imply that this is all some kind of mental illness...

[stefan37]

I have always felt different from other boys. I wore my friends skirts whenever I visited her. Her parents thought it was cute. Not sure what I felt as I really had no clue about gender. From around 12 or so I realized there were differences and I felt I was born the wrong gender. Growing up in the era I did there was no way I could express how I felt. I was forced to act in a certain manner and I would dream that one day I would wake up as a girl. As I got older I found comfort in crossdressing. Many stories of transsexuals did not resonate with me, so even though I thought I may be transsexual, there could be no way. I was not like them.

I really don't think it matters how one views it. Like water we all will find our level. I like the analogy given by either Frances or Rianna holding an inflatable ball underwater. At some point it will break free and rise to the surface. Those that need to transition will do so.Those that need to have surgeries for congruence will have them. Those that transition and can live and function as female without surgery and be comfortable will be ok.

How one views oneself doesn't really matter to me as we will all find ourselves at some point wherever that may be.

[Rianna Humble]

It is not helpful to falsely characterise those who say that, when they were in the depths of the struggle, they felt like they were going crazy as people who are trying to make out that being TS is a mental illness. Only one person in this discussion has raised that possibility and raises it frequently to try to kill off discussion.

Neither is it helpful to characterise these forums as a site that only purports to offer support. In what way is that slur meant to help people who are questioning whether they have the right to seek help?

Each of us may experience our situation differently and at certain times may not have the words to express adequately what is going on - I know that at the age of 7 or 8 i did not possess the perfect knowledge of what my medical consition was, nor did I have the words to discuss it with adults. That does not diminish the reality of what I experienced whatever some might seek to say. Fortunately for me, those people did not get to decide whether I was worthy of the sort of care they might condescend to offer.

[Kathryn Martin]

personally I think the people who say "they always knew" are either bats shit crazy or suffer (blissfully perhaps) from a sever case of delusion.

Rianna, with all due respect this is not some semantic formulation in which the person saying it could not quite find the right words. It may very well be that no one get's to decide who you are, but neither are you asked beforehand if you would like to be a transsexual or a woman or whatever it is prior to birth. I am sure you weren't and neither was I. I told my mother who I was when I was nine years old because I knew and I felt increasingly threatened by the insistence of others that I was not.

The OP specifically asked the question whether there was difference between "knowing to be who you are" and "wanting to be who you are not". I did express that there was a difference contrary to most commentators. How that is derailing the thread is beyond me. Apparently it is appropriate and according to board politics to call someone who knew who they were "bat shit crazy or suffering from "blissful" delusions" if this is expressed in a generalized form. To me it is exactly the de-legitimization transsexuals have always faced.

I have always maintained that understanding this difference can lead to very distinct health care outcomes and in fact can help a person struggling in finding who they are. Fudging the differences on this specific issue can lead to a lot of problems down the line for the person. While it may be politically expedient to gather everyone up into one happy family, from the individuals point of view how does that contribute to an positive individual outcome.

[Angela Campbell]

When I was 8 and pulled down my pants to pee, yup there it was, clearly NOT a girl!!

Exactly. When I was much younger than that I could tell that by having that thing I was different from the girls and I thought it was an incredibly cruel thing. How could they do this to me? Yes I knew there was a difference, and I knew something was wrong.....I also learned quite quickly never to tell anyone.

And actually testosterone effects the body quite a bit before the age of 9 or so when puberty begins. First is in the womb then again during the first few years of life.

So YES testosterone ravaged the body, society damaged and brainwashed me, and yes I did have a male body even between the ages of 5 to 9 I had a penis. Confused by this.....I would say so.

[Donna June]

A lot of insightful answers here to which I can't add much except to tell you about my own personal struggles. I know I am not a female, but wish I was, yet in my mind and heart I know I am a woman. I always thought, am I deluding myself in thinking that?

[Leah Lynn]

As early as four years old, i "wanted to be a girl", in that I wanted that little male appendage to fall off, so I would then be the same as my sister. She even refered to me often as her little sister. I usually hung out with the girls all my life. I was better at playing jacks or skipping rope than shooting marbles or shooting baskets. While the guys watched the game, I was in the kitchen with the ladies. I wanted to be a girl, PHYSICALLY; I've always been one, otherwise.

Leah

[KellyJameson]

For myself I did not know " I was not a girl" and identified as such but only one that was "different" from other girls.

This was mostly something I kept to myself or it never occured to me to make a point of it but occasionally my "strange behavior' probably caused adults some consternation.

This lasted all through childhood and I kept identifying with female characters in Disney Movies, stories in books, ect.. and became interested in any story where a "man became a female" so I was beginning to realize on the outside something was wrong.

The wanting to become was not the wanting to become a female but simply to look like other females but this all happened in a childs mind and also in a mind that would not or could not comprehend the force of gender identity.

I slowly slide into repression and adopting a split personality and rejection of self (identity) so lived without gender identity as coping mechanisms.

It is like building walls inside your own mind which people do to cope with trauma.

You live with a memory (identity) that you do not remember but this memory continues to make itself known.

It creates a tension in the mind so there is always a tension in your life but you do not know exactly why.

Strangely one of the most powerful stories to resonate with me as the suffering I went through was about David Remier who they did a sex change on when his penis was burned off during a circumcision gone wrong.

His suffering and confusion were very much like mine but opposite in that he felt like a he after being made a "she" and raised as one.

For myself I had to go looking again for what I had lost in childhood as my "gender identity" so it was a "finding myself" (gender identity) but this self had " always been"

I think gender dysphoria falls on a spectrum as " how strongly you identify" with a gender and mine was extremely powerful so my dysphoria was always non stop and intense and made for some bizarre behavior.

Many children "grow out " of gender dysphoria because their identity was fluid so they could move from female to male or male to female once purberty arrived but this was simply not possible for me so I withdrew from close relationships with people to protect my "fractured identity" as I attempted to put the pieces back together

What was happening on the inside would than be mirrored on the outside and what happened on the outside would support the inside.

It is a dance between the outside (external as the physical representation) and the inside (internal representation that "was" but than lost but found again)

A movement back to the beginning ( gender identity) even though I really had never left.

To say you want to be a woman is to identify "with women" so you have a sense of yourself as apart (separate) from women and want to join or possible rejoin them.

The question to answer is WHY you identify with women because there are dark unhealthy reasons to identify with them that will have nothing to do with the "knowing that you are a member of the female gender"

Look at yourself as living in a duality made up of the male and female sexes. ( Two opposing energies but everyone as a mixture of these energies)

Some women are very masculine and some men are very feminine but they are still men and women as "gender identity" and this comes from feeling aligned with their body and the life they live through this body.

Your feminine energy should be so extreme that you live opposed to your body so you are not a "feminine man" even though you may have been labelled as such.

I have never resonated with feminine men and often find myself irritated by that weird mixture of the feminine and masculine that seems passive yet also aggressive because I am neither.

Use your intuition to "feel" who you resonate with.

I have met thousands of people and never have I met a "man" who was anything like me but I often "resonate" with women while remaining an individual.

Gender really does fall on a spectrum except for those where it cannot because they stand so completely apart from the bodies they possess and live in and through

Certain aspects of gender expression unfortunately are dependent on the body you live in partly because of the need for others "to see" your identity (to know what you know) because we need to be known as we know ourselves.

[LeaP]

... Looking back however, I have always known I was a girl
..I just didn't know I knew ...

Well put. Except there were times when I did know I knew ... Like reveries, then gone again for a time.



I have always maintained that understanding this difference can lead to very distinct health care outcomes and in fact can help a person struggling in finding who they are. Fudging the differences on this specific issue can lead to a lot of problems down the line for the person.

And I also agree with this. Sooner or later, one has to be able to answer this to rationally transition. But the difference can only be known when one CAN answer the question. ... at which point it becomes stark, staring obvious (see Kaitlyn's comment above). Some sooner, some later, some (bat shit crazy or not) lifelong.

[AmandaM]

It might depend on what you mean by "want to be a girl". Do you mean a female version of yourself? Or women you see on the street or on TV? Any woman? Or just the hot ones? Can you picture yourself as an old ugly woman? Or when you think of it, do you find yourself feeling better if you were a nice-looking older man? I think if you aren't sure you have to play these mental exercises.

[bas1985]

When I was 7 my mother bought an Encyclopedia. There was a medical section, and in this medical section a (short) section on Sex. I looked there for information, I was a very curious "boy" (let me use the word boy, as they treated me like one) but the sentence I read gave me no hope. It was written that it is Impossible to change sex even if "newspapers and scandal magazines" say the contrary.

It was said that "eventually" a boy accepts to become a man and a girl a woman, and any other deviance is treated by psychiatry (it was suggested also to bring the homosexual kid to the psychiatrist).

I remember perfectly that in my brain of 7 I asked this question: "and what happens if I will not accept to become a man?". Did I know? Or it was simple curiosity, like when I browsed the scientific section and asked myself if there was life on Mars (the Universe was my favorite section). But... did I know? Or I wanted to? I trusted the book, so I trusted that it was "impossible" to change sex, even if in magazines there were success stories about gender change.

I was confused, but I was also with a scientific background... and catholic. So anything related to sex was a bit odd, maybe dirt.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

The female version of myself is myself.
Why on earth would I want to be an ugly old woman?


Bas...exactly! I am Catholic as well.

I have a recollection of being in my early teens and asking my mom what a "tampoon" was!!! LOL... a couple weeks later I was shown Time's Life cycle library.... I devoured it and read all about gender reproduction and sex. All the differences between men and women...

The socialization of gender is so stupid and pervasive that there were sections about how women sit, how they stand, how they hold babies on their child bearing hips and even how they crossed their arms ... I went to school copying all these gestures, especially sitting in class demurely with legs crossed or with my hands on my hips ..and I was promptly teased and ultimately beat up for it.. and that was that... my fantasy destroyed... but over the years I would pull out the book and stare at the drawn pictures of women just standing with their arms folded under their breasts in a "womanly" way..and all the time i'd plan and plot and "fantasize" about "turning into a girl/woman"...

I don't get how anyone can even for one second can say that this isn't one way that being born a girl into a boys life

.. i'm not saying this to defend myself...I am saying this because I know for fact that many of you out there are going through the exact same thing...

I beat it. I transitioned. All that is behind except to talk about it..

My medical treatment was EXACTLY the same as any other transsexual that chooses to get surgery.

[dreamer_2.0]

Thank you everyone for your responses (and PMs). I appreciate hearing the different perspectives though still aren't sure which side I fall onto. Describing the difference between the two questions as mere semantics makes sense, especially upon reading a comment which said that regardless of whether you feel you are a woman or simply desire to be one, the pain and struggles we go through are virtually the same. Different paths to the same destination, womanhood...or as close as possible.

Although, another comment expressed that there is a legitimate difference between the questions which should dictate the treatment required. I'm glad someone brought this up because it's essentially the reason why these two questions are important to me. Despite not believing myself to be a woman inside (though at least more feminine than masculine) I am taking baby steps towards transitioning. Is it the right course of action for me? I don't know. Perhaps one day I will. Until then, baby steps and seeking knowledge from you fine ladies.

[Inna]

I am sorry for my lack of time as I have not read all the responses, but if you are questioning the reasoning behind Your Transition, please do take time to speak to a professional TG therapist and discuss all the aspects.
Transition is best started early, yet, there is never too late to start unless such leads to detransitioning.
You are TG however you may not be TS, a big difference.
Transitioning however, does not need have a woman as a pinnacle, but can also lead to description only validated by YOU.

[dreamer_2.0]

Currently working on all this with a gender therapist. Sessions are good alas she is leaving at the end of this month so I'll be starting over with someone else in April.