Anger towards being a woman (Female identified responses only)

[Michelle789]

MTF TS responses only, including those that are questioning their gender.

1. Do you feel angry or resentful that you are a woman? Have you ever felt angry or resentful in the past that you are a woman?

2. Do you think that being a woman sucks? Why or why not?

[Angela Campbell]

1 no,I feel sad that I missed so much not being able to grow up as a female, but no anger.

2 no it does not Suck at all, it is wonderful.

[becky77]

No, never.

Resented being born with a man's body. But to resent being female is to reject your identity.
The question sounds alien to me.

No it doesn't suck, it sucks that its such a struggle.

[Rianna Humble]

I have never felt angry or resentful towards my true gender. In the past I tried to deny it, but that brought me to within minutes of death.

Being a woman doesn't "suck" for me. I can be myself around other people and that has led to being better able to relate to others.

[Aprilrain]

Is it anger at being a woman or is it anger at having to transition and live through that very dificult experience? these are very different things. You are a woman, transition is something that you're doing because you have to.

I can understand being angry at having to transition. There is a lot about transition that can suck. I can understand being angry with society and culture for the way woman are treated, that can suck too. I don't identify with being angry about being a woman though. In a perfect world who'd want to be a man??

[Shapeshiffter]

No to question 1. And No to question 2.

[princessheather86]

I'm not angry about being a girl, but I am angry about having to transition.

[Kathryn Martin]

I am not sure that the first question is a valid one. How can you resent your nature?

The second question is targeted in my view the wrong way. I resent living in a society in which being a woman means being less because of the patriarchal nature of our social construction.

[noeleena]

Hi.

Why would i hate my self why would i hate my body. would i say because im female . from birth,

intersexed yes of cause, had i been born a full male or a full female i cant answer that ? because i dont know how to, plus i did not transion from male to female or other way. fact of the matter is im happy being the way i am ,
i may not be complete ether way and yes i miss not giving birth to our children .

i dont have regrets to what if or could have been in many ways i have more than most people and i dont have to prove what i am ether way. im accepted for who i am.

And yet im still female , unless you are like myself its very hard for those here on this forum and many people to understand, so it comes down to because we are different , we have a mind and body in many aspects that says female and iv grown in to a woman i allso wont ever say my maleness is not part and parcel of who i am as well.

Anger .... about myself and why im this way, no of cause not, disapointed i may not have feminine facial features every thing else is really just lovely as far as im concerned,

2, as a woman I have acceptance , people wont me to be around them , iv not lost out in fact i'v gained so much from friendships to having lovely friends ,

oh i'v changed in so many ways as a person first, and becoming over the last 21 years, to who i am and in expressing my self fully as a normal woman , my potential was allways there before , just, i was not able to grow into who i am , iv done that and with the blessing of many who are part of my life, every thing has worked and still is,

...noeleena...

[I Am Paula]

1) No, I wake up every morning glad to be alive and a woman. Before becoming all that I could be, I have resented that GD messed with my life, but being a woman was not the issue.

2) Being a woman is wonderful...always. Compared to the alternative, it's winning the lottery.

I sure hate these questions.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

nope...

I don't think being your own nature is something to be angry about, nor do I think its something to feel overjoyed about..

If you can, separate out the feelings around what we get stuck with (ie a world that doesn't comprehend or embrace us) and separate out the feelings around successfully dealing with it or unsuccessfully dealing with it..

these are totally different around feeling anger at your nature.. you can't change your nature.

if you truly feel anger at your own nature, I would guess that's about shame and the inability to process and overcome it..

[Michelle.M]

I am not sure that the first question is a valid one. How can you resent your nature?

You took the words right out of my mouth. I can't even begin to imagine feeling angry or resentful about who I am.


2. Do you think that being a woman sucks? Why or why not?

Why would being who I am suck? I love being me, love my life, love being true to my own nature. Ain’t no way that can possibly suck.

[sandra-leigh]

I never felt angry or resentful about my TG / TS nature. Not as such.

The closest I got to that was that in grade school and high school it hurt when guys bullied me by calling me a girl: at the time I identified as male with not a hint of a doubt about that, and the name calling was (or so it seemed at the time) merely the same dynamic as calling me "four-eyes" (because I had glasses), or calling me after one of the characters in children's public safety commercials (uncommon name for the times.) Find someone who is different and bully them. It didn't feel at the time that they were serious about me seeming like a girl to them; it was more a reflection that I wasn't rough and brash and a trouble-maker and wasn't athletic. And I was bright, and in those times it was "in" to try to bring the bright guys "down a notch". But I never was angry or resented how I was: I was hurt that the guys were trying to hurt me. I wasn't doing anything to them.

When, in my early 40's, I realized that I was a cross-dresser, the mental bolt of lightning was not just that I wanted to wear the clothes but that I wanted to wear them outside and I didn't care if other people didn't want me to. There was no way I was going to be angry or resent that I wanted to do that.

There was, along the road, a bunch of confusion and hurt, a lot of which was with regard to "how much do I want this", "how do I really identify myself", "how much would this 'cost' me", and "am I willing to pay the price".

[Jorja]

1.) Anger? No way. I am and always have been a beautiful creation. It is not my fault that someone at the baby factory put the wrong brain in the wrong body. Stuff happens! What I was angry about is nobody would help me correct this mistake.

2.) In my view, there is nothing that sucks about being a woman. It is who I am. My life is perfect. How can I argue with that?

[Frances]

1. I fought against transition most of my life. Denying my nature was essential to preserving my security. I was angry that transition became inevitable. I was angry that I was trans, and I was angry that I waited so long to finally accept it. I was angry at my grand-mother for enforcing gender rules and punishing my transgressions, and for creating hurtful associations that made me hate myself.

2. I don't find being a woman sucks at all. Getting rid of the inner turmoil sure does not.

[Michelle789]

Thank you all for your responses. I feel somewhat better now. I feel like I'm fighting against a lot of internal issues, many of which stem from my family and that psychic. When I attempted to talk with the psychic last year about my gender stuff, she told me that "being a woman sucks." To make matters worse, I heard at least one transwoman that I know say that she was angry about being a woman and essentially repeat what the psychic told me. So I feel like hearing all this negative stuff makes me even more confused sometimes. I think hearing comments like that re-triggers painful memories of the psychic, and adds more to the confusion.

@April - Am I angry about my identity? No, I'm not angry about identifying as female.
Am I angry about having to transition? Not so much angry, but scared.
Am I trying to find a way out of this? Yes.
Am I still confused about whether I have actual dysphoria or something that was caused by my family or the psychic? Sometimes - maybe it's GD AND other issues too.
Am I working with my therapist to sort out other issues? Yes - damn it sucks to have multiple issues creating a big web of confusion

It certainly doesn't help hearing negative comments like the ones from my past which prompted me to start this post. Trust me, I want to keep a positive attitude towards things that are harsh like gender dysphoria, and transition. I got fed so much negativity all my life from my family, peers, and that psychic. Sometimes I feel like I can be too much of a "Pollyanna", but hey I'd rather be a Pollyanna and be happy than be miserable, which it can be easy to be in a situation like this.

[KellyJameson]

Anger seems to have many ways of being expressed and experienced. Depression is often linked to anger. Fear is often linked to anger. Frustration can be another path to anger. Hopelessness or feeling sorry for yourself can lead to anger. Anger can also be a defense mechanism.

I'm not inclined toward anger. It is simply not in my nature and actually I would probably be better served by being on more familiar terms with anger.

Injustice is the only thing that seems to trigger my anger and even this happens slowly as I think it through.

There was some self pity and feeling the "injustice of what my life circumstances had done to me"

Also when I finally started to transition I was than angry that I had wasted so much time as not living the way I should have been, plus being crippled by my fears needlessly prolonging my misery.

I can be very hard on myself so I was angry more at myself than at life.

Both genders have their own particular burdens to carry and it is not uncommon for each to think the other has it better. I do not think there is an advantage to being one or the other so "being a woman" for me is no more a curse than it would have been to be a man.

I think it is understandable to be angry at being a transsexual because it can make for a hard life in a world that is not very tolerant along with everything else that goes with it.

You want to avoid self pity and regret. Anger can be a positive emotion as long as what it springs from is rational.

[Starling]

I'm angry that I can't just be a woman, like Athena, who sprang fully-grown from the head of Zeus. (My own father, of course, wasn't even Greek.) Angry, too, because I could never mute the damned radio in my head that broadcast all dysphoria all the time, and separated me from other people--the noise of otherness that made me calculate everything I said and did so as not to be unmasked as a dickless-pansy-queer-pervert-tranny-creep. And angry, finally, that I was born decades too soon to have access to all the resources that would have helped me so much more when I was young and plastic. So much time lost...maybe too much.

:) Lallie

[LeaP]

... Have you ever felt angry or resentful in the past that you are a woman?

I'm not sure if this is just the happy days farm thread or what, but a lot of people are either forgetting history or not answering this portion of the OP. A basic theme in many discovery and crisis threads is self-loathing. Many of our histories are utterly rooted in self-rejection. Not all of those histories are below the level of conscious awareness of identity. Add to that the typical, often tortured, process of realization then acceptance.

So my answer to this question is absolutely yes, I was angry and resentful for decades. It was somewhat relieved episodically over the years in a variety of ways, but always returned. When it raged into full consciousness, it just about killed me. Did I resent my nature through this period? OMG yes.

Of all the responses, Frances' rings closest for me, though things have gotten much better over time.

[Marleena]

Interesting.. I had quoted France's post earlier but didn't hit send again. I guess I'm not feeling tranny enough lately to post here. It's probably from spinning my wheels. I think (hope) I'm just doing enough to survive.

Anyways Lea and Frances said it all well. If I had my choice I rather be cisgender any day or at least deal with all this crap when I was younger and had money to do it the right way.

[Rianna Humble]

Have you ever felt angry or resentful in the past that you are a woman?I'm not sure if this is just the happy days farm thread or what, but a lot of people are either forgetting history or not answering this portion of the OP.

As one of the respondents who stands unjustly accused by those words, I will confirm that:

1 I did not feel resentful in the past that I am a woman - as my original reply states, I tried to deny the fact but I did not resent it
2 I am not rewriting the past. You are welcome to check every single one of my 5602 prior posts
3 This is not a "Happy days farm" response

[LeaP]

Here's what I think, Rianna: Several responses are based on making fine distinctions between identity and its consequences. Some further parse things down to specific emotions.

I read the OP's concerns as far more generalized than that. Anger AND resentment AND "sucks" describes a concern broader than "just" resentment, or soliciting distinctions such as resentment vs denial. Perhaps the OP is comforted by the fact you "only" experienced denial but that - whew! - thank God there was no resentment! But I doubt it.

I also don't think distancing the condition from its consequences addresses the context of the questions. How is it useful to someone concerned about psychological and emotional fallout from being a woman to maintain that being a woman is great ... except for all that sucky stuff (like denial) that came with it?

I liked Frances' answer because she didn't go there. She essentially said "yes, some things sucked." And it nicely spoke to the concerns of the OP.

"Accused"? I think you take rhetoric a bit too seriously!

[PaulaQ]

I'm not angry at being a woman. I like being a woman. Sure, there are downsides to it - feeling like a victim waiting to happen when I go out at night being chief amongst them lately, but it beats hating myself, and wanting to die every day.

I am angry in some sense that I'm transsexual - I'd much rather have been born just plain ol' male or female and been done with it. (For that matter, I'd rather have gotten cancer, if I had to have some choice of medical condition.) My life would've been way better. I am definitely angry over the way we are treated - this is the only medical condition I'm aware of where lots of people try hard to convince you to not seek treatment. I'm angry over the prejudice so many of us experience, and the unwillingness of so many to even try to understand our problems. (You just haven't lived until you hear one of your supposed allies in the GLB community center where you are volunteering your time bashing us creepy trans* people. Although arguably that isn't as bad as having to face off 5 angry shit-kickers who want to "get the faggots out of their neighborhood" - something else we face too.)

I get angry over people who don't really consider me to be a "real" woman - whatever that means. But mostly I don't get too mad about that - I've been lumped into the "other" category for my entire life, so I'm used to this by now.

So I guess, to not avoid the question, I was angry that I'm a trans woman - sure. I hated hiding who I was from myself and others for my whole life. Living in fear, being desperately lonely but terrified to really open up to anyone. I hated that the only way I could survive my youth was to pretend to be something I'm not, and that even though I tried to do "the right thing" according to the world, I feel punished for seeking treatment. And I am angry that this cost me my marriage.

Most of this is lessening over time though. It is what it is, and I knew what to expect from people because I grew up handicapped. Some people are really awesome, some are total assholes. A minority sees you for you. Focus on finding those people and life's a lot better.

[sandra-leigh]

I am definitely angry over the way we are treated - this is the only medical condition I'm aware of where lots of people try hard to convince you to not seek treatment.


People do want us to seek treatment -- treatment to get rid of the condition and get back to "normal". Same way as they would want you to "get help" to cure important sexual offenses like "raping the wrong kind of women" :sad:
Body Dysmorphia. Getting a limb voluntarily chopped off is rather discouraged.
Breast reduction. Unless you are going to get them reduced to the point where you are no longer "competition" for the attention of the men.

[PaulaQ]

Yes indeed Sandra - they view our birth sex as "normal", and our gender as "what needs to be fixed." Now, if only modern medicine agreed with that. :(

[arbon]

I don't feel angry or resentful about being a woman. Did I ever? - Prior to 2010 I never though of myself as being a woman, my mind never made that leap. I was however angry about being the way I was - confused, frustrated, thinking I was some sort of pervert for feeling the way I did. Very angry, to where I would yell at myself and hit myself.

#2 my mom listed out all the bad things about being a woman trying to dissuade me. Did not work :) I'll take the good that comes with being a woman along with the bad.

[Rianna Humble]

Here's what I think, Rianna

I cannot stop you thinking whatever you choose to think, but every time that you accuse me of being pollyanna or twist my words to give them a sense that I have twice denied, you are calling me a liar.

As for whether or not I am ignoring what the OP asked, I have addressed the questions (which turn out to have been suggested by something that the magician she used to consult had said to turn her away from her true nature). I did not address whether her questions were actually asking whether the moon is made of blue cheese or of green. Neither did I decide to attribute any other "hidden" meaning to her question. I answered honestly twice and you would make me out a liar. I am not.

[LeaP]

Get a grip, Rianna. I didn't make you out to be a liar, nor do I think you one, not a bit.

[Michelle789]

I have addressed the questions

Rianna, yes, you did answer the question and are 100% spot on. So did everyone else. Thank you to everyone for posting and answering. I really appreciate all your responses. Everyone here did answer my question. Nobody ignored what I asked.

The words the psychic used, the way she said it (she completely yelled and blew up in my face for 30 minutes). For 30 long minutes, she told me terrible things about women, and that my soul was male. Let me sum up the earthquake that happened on August 8, 2013.

I finally had the courage to talk to her about this after 14 long months of her ignoring it, pressuring me and telling me to "man up", and every time I was ready to talk to her she would some how sweet talk me into talking about something else. Like she knew I was going to talk about gender, and tried to charm me out of it. I even had a failed attempt to talk with her about gender on July 25, 2012. This conversation is another story, and looking back, I should have fired her on that day.

I called her initially asking her why I was born male (as in body, not identity) in this life time, and I asked her to retrace back to the last past life where I was female. I thought that maybe there was some particular reason or punishment or past life karma for me being born in a male body. Her response was that "that's how God made it". She then gives me a speal about how some babies change sex in the womb from female to male or from male to female.

I asked her about the gender balance of my past life history, and she told me that she saw "female twice, and all the rest were male." This completely went against my intuition, I felt that I had been female in most past lives. I had read on the internet that some people believe that being trans is a result of having a mainly female past life history, and we chose male because we thought it was easier to be a man, and ended up regretting it, so we transition. In fact, here is the link
http://pinkessence.com/profiles/blogs/transgender-re-incarnation

I had also seen this theory a couple other times but I don't have the links.

Oh, and there have been many many more times where she said something that went completely against my intuition too. She literally spewed poison into my head.

Then I told her about how I felt since I was a child about my gender, that I felt like I really was a girl and had to repress this all my life. She went on a 30 minute long tirade that could have easily been the biggest earthquake LA has seen since Northridge.

1. Being a woman sucks (this was said really emphatically)

2. Once upon a time, that there were no women (I'm not sure what religious book she's reading here)

3. She didn't want to have any daughters because she didn't want them to go through what she went through (how nice I hope your daughters didn't hear that - oh and she ended up with two daughters and one son - what a terrible insult to say about two of your three own children, to make them feel like they're unwanted because they're girls)

4. Bitched about PMS, pregnancy, and menopause

5. Told me how men dominate women and treat women like crap

6. That it will always be a man's world because of the chauvinists, and that the chauvinists will always try to control women

7. That I am ungrateful to be a man and that men have it 75% easier than women

8. That I have more male energy than female energy, and that I was doomed to always reincarnate as male

9. That gender confusion comes from the devil (she sounded literally like she could have been the devil herself)

10. When she asked me my sexual orientation, I told her that I'm attracted to women, and she said "so you want to be a lesbian woman", and she said it in such a way made it sound as if being a lesbian is some big sin

11. That this is the sad truth, and that eternal damnation is real

12. That the government likes to make clones of everything

13. That Obama was re-elected because of the gay and lesbian vote (she also told me this several weeks earlier too) - I'm sorry to talk about politics here but this is what she told me

She yelled and screamed the entire god damn thing. Especially #1 and #9.

Afterwards I stared at my living room window with a blank stare, and was completely paralyzed mentally and physically for 3 long hours. This comes after years of lies and deception, and 14 long months since my gender issues started blowing up in my face that she just strung me along, pretended to care. Yes, it was my fault for trusting her and giving her too much power. I cannot blame her for everything. But she put me through hell, especially on August 8. On, and don't forget the day she told me to "man up" (January 18, 2013).

And all her pressuring me into dating, marriage, and manning up. Instead of helping me and using her so-called psychic abilities to help me, she just tried to make more of a man out of me, and to repress my nature even further. I repressed my nature enough, and the little bit of relief I got in life from cross-dressing in the closet, and I felt like she wanted to take even that away from me so I can be married and play a male role that I'm not suited for (and stop cross-dressing too).

This is why male privilege and saying how "being a woman sucks" or "anger about being a woman" are such buttons for me. It literally reminds me of this painful, horrible day, and that horrible psychic and all the pain she inflicted on me. Add to that all the misogyny from my family and my past. This is why these are such hot buttons. The psychic, and my family, and society, all tried to make me repress my nature, all in the name of male privilege and the gender binary.

I'm really sorry for the long rant, but this is why I started the post. This is why the questions I asked are such hot buttons for me, along with male privilege.

Oh, and I finally fired her on August 11, and no she didn't see that coming.


#2 my mom listed out all the bad things about being a woman trying to dissuade me.

Yeah, this sounds just like the don't smoke lecture we all get from our parents. All the bad things that come with smoking. It's sad that anyone would treat being a woman like smoking, but that's how lots of people think, even other women. Oh yeah, smokers try to tell non-smokers not to start too.

And yeah, I fear my parents giving me this lecture too when I come out to them.

[becky77]

I'm not sure if this is just the happy days farm thread or what, but a lot of people are either forgetting history or not answering this portion of the OP. A basic theme in many discovery and crisis threads is self-loathing. Many of our histories are utterly rooted in self-rejection. Not all of those histories are below the level of conscious awareness of identity.


If the question was did you resent being different/trans/born male? Then the answers would have been quite different. But it was all about the identity of being female, which personally I don't resent. I resent the struggle to be the person inside, however that is another subject.
More interesting answers to this, are those that to relate the often lesser status of women in society.

I've had guys trying to hard sell and bully me into a sale, because they think I can be intimidating.
I've been in situations where I'm walking late at night on my own, and you 'feel' a man staring, I felt very vulnerable. Being looked at as just a sexual object. It's not pleasant but it is what it is.
I know getting passed over for promotion is common. Etc etc

I told one of my close friends a while back and it took him some time to get his head around it.
Saturday night he finally met me as Becky, after the initial questions and time to adapt he quickly got used to it. However only a couple of hours later in the evening, he was already talking to me in a more authoritative manor, and without realising referring to things as if I no longer know what I am talking about. Now this is someone that has known me for over ten years and as a guy, within one night his mind has accepted me as female and his treatment of me changed.
You can see why some genetic females who have had this their whole life, would think it sucks.

[Angela Campbell]

I was always a girl inside even though I had all that male stuff going on. I wanted to be a girl...I was angry to be a male! Not angry for being what I should be, but angry for the burden of having to try to be something I am not. I don't think I ever felt like I would rather just be a cis male not wanting to be a girl.

I guess I was unhappy with all the male crap.

[stefan37]

Do yourself a favor and see a real gender therapist and not a psychic. These issues are difficult enough to deal with, without getting misguided advice.

[LeaP]

Rianna, yes, you did answer the question and are 100% spot on. So did everyone else. Thank you to everyone for posting and answering. I really appreciate all your responses. Everyone here did answer my question. Nobody ignored what I asked.

...

With that, comments retracted with apologies to anyone who thought themselves indicted, and Rianna specifically.

[Angela Campbell]

Do you not realize that the"psychic" is doing you harm and may be the single worst thing that you can be doing?

[Michelle789]

I said in earlier post that I fired the psychic 9 months ago. I started seeing a gender specialist two months ago. It's just that the psychic left a huge psychological scar on me that still hasn't left. I will most definitely talk about this in therapy next time.

[arbon]

And yeah, I fear my parents giving me this lecture too when I come out to them.

It wont be so bad, you just need to make sure your ready and that it is what you want and need to do first.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

What I found to help with emotional scars is to not fight them
Don't judge yourself for them
Allow them their due...that situation sucked.. you made a mistake and you must own it.. you got hurt, it left a scar...all you can do is learn from it..

when you have a moment of clarity with no self judgement you are well served to realize that the answer to your situation lies within you, and only within you...

Your OP question was actually a good start... you can see from the answers that most people here are not angry...most people here have accepted their situation and most of us are much better for it..

You are better off sharing your inner feelings and then seeing how you relate to others that have similar feelings...sharing their experience can inform yours... hopefully your therapist is giving you tools to cope because it is all much easier said than done!!

[Starling]

I would take the disadvantages of being a woman in a man's world over the disadvantages of being a woman in a man's body in a man's world, any day. Being a man is its own struggle, even for cis-men; but dealing with the junk that besets all genders breeds less futility if one at least has a sense of connection.

I once used this simile on a general-interest forum to describe transsexuality: it's like trying to fly a plane with the controls of a train. It's not only one's body that is wrong, but the body chemistry too, which means, if you're MTF, that you are trying to surmount the emotional challenges of a woman with the physical resources of a man.

My inner sense of self tells me what I should be capable of, within and without, and yet too many of those things cannot be accomplished by someone who looks like a man!

:) Lallie