Abandoning masculinity or something else?

[Sarah Doepner]

I've gotten questions from well-meaning people asking why, after years and years of relative success as a man I'm abandoning masculinity. I try to explain that my relationship with masculinity was one of social need and convenience but superficial at best. The expiration date ran out. Of course it gets deeper than that, but in a nutshell that is core. It's also interesting to discover their definitions of masculinity are pretty superficial and not mutually exclusive to a single gender expression.

I'm spending "Covid-19 Times" attempting to write my story and this is an interesting problem I've been unable to get much other perspective on.

What has been your relationship with masculinity through your life? Partners? Adversaries? Co-inhabitants? Something else maybe?

[Maid_Marion]

What you wear is a big part of it and I'm too small for middle aged men's clothes. Not with a 25 inch waist after gaining six pounds to my highest weight in years.
I enjoy shopping for clothes and there tons of XS clothes on the discount rack. Women's that is. The few XS men's shirts I saw at J Crew were hideous.

I recall a conversation with a military instructor. He claimed that everyone had wasted time in the day that could be put to better use. I said I was an exception.
I was working full time. I was also a full time caregiver who would go home in the middle of the day to hand feed my wife and help with her bodily functions.
Fortunately I didn't have to drive far and my employer was OK with the arrangement. He agreed--I was an exception that had no wasted time in the day.

Not only did I lose weight doing that but I had six pack abs from moving her around several times a day. And the hospice staff said she had great skin for someone who was bed bound.

Marion

[Aunt Kelly]

It sounds like, "Why would you give up your male privilege?", to which my answer is along the lines of, "If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand." It is hard, if not impossible, for those who don't suffer gender dysphoria to really grasp what it's like. They see it as some kind of choice.

[Lana Mae]

Hi, Sarah! At a very young age, I was forced into the masculine thing! I wanted a dress! Boys don't wear dresses! I was "forced" to take the masculine role! I tried my best and was more or less successful at faking it! Even marriage and children! I, of course, would not change anything as I have some pretty decent children! My wife passed away and the blinders came off! As a teen, I was so fed up with masculinity that I attempted to remove my masculinity! I did not but the attempt was there! Masculinity and I are not friends!
Hugs Lana Mae

[Angela Marie]

Masculinity, or the definition of such, is a social construct. You can still do things that are considered masculine but still be a woman. I grew up wanting to take ballet. That was never going to happen. But we all have come a long way since the 60's and it will only get better.

[AllieSF]

My relationship with masculinity, my own and that of others has been typical with no major issues. n Some people don't get it, and those are usually those closest to you, including friends and regular acquaintances. I am a full time woman, a transwoman, and I love it and I am very proud of it. I am unique and very special. This confuses some people, but, I truly loved my male life and experiences, don't regret any of them from a gender experience point of view, and I now love my female life and experiences, even the bad ones, which I wished never existed. My only true and important issue with transitioning has been the changed paradigm with my adult children.

[Katya@]

I went through male puberty with ease. I enjoyed my male lean body with muscles from years going to gym. I loved to be strong and fit. I had all the same experiences as a teenager as any of my friends. It is like the rush of testosterone shut down my female self. I also had no access to any women clothes to sneak into as I was growing in mostly all male household. Moving in with my girlfriend, who then became spouse (in my early 20s), put me right in the middle of all experiences a young woman is going through, and gender identity wheels started to turn. The rest is history.

[mbmeen12]

What has been your relationship with masculinity through your life?
Over all, on a scale of 1-10 and 10 being outstanding (8.5) and definitely struggled with weight at times (younger being picked on for having moobs). I served my country and I am being justly rewarded.




Partners?
I wont get into my two divorces but my current GG loves and enjoys me being "Kara", to include me being on HRT

Adversaries?
N/A

Be safe out there ..big hugs

[DMichele]

Sarah,

Until recent years, for me masculinity was a fa?ade only, i.e. the clothing I wore was the expected norm for AMAB. It was difficult to fine boy's and men's clothing that fit me real well bc of my slender frame (Note: today I find many female outfits that fit me real well). From about 9 or10 years old, I was envious of girls, their clothing and more. At the time I was not aware of gender identity, but today it makes sense.

There is no turning back the clock of time, but I am much happier today with where I am at on my gender journey.

[Teresa]

Sarah,
Hard to put a finger on masculinity or femininity as they are quite abstact terms . Can you actually say what makes a man masculine or a woman feminine ? Ask a dozen people and you'll probably get a dozen different answers .

So it's possibly something else you're giving up or something new you are embracing . Are you actually giving anything up or just adding an extra layer ?

Close family can be hurt by you apparently turning your back on the man and the responsibilites he has as a husband and father or a son , perhaps it's is abondoment to them , we may see it differently because we're not abandoning them but it's more a case of being excluded from them because we are TG .

Perhaps what some people are suggesting is we can't continue the same roles as a woman , which most of us learn is not true but we can't prove that point unless we are fully accepted .

Personally I don't have any regrets with my previous male life , I accepted my male role and did my best to fit in with it and use my abilities to give my family a secure lifestyle , I also accept I haven't lost those abilities , if I have it's more through age than my gender issues , I haven't abandoned that part of me because it's still part of me .

On a basic level perhaps some people that have made the comment to you is because it's not the same when you go to the pub for a drink and other social outings you did with them . Telling you they accept you is not the same as sitting at the bar having a pint with you .

[Robertacd]

I have been running from "masculinity" all my life. Sure I played the guy most of my life, but only because I had to.

If I could be 12 again today I would come out, instead of using therapy to learn how to hide it.

[candykowal]

I do believe two factors very early in my youth had determined my affinity to embrace my feminine side.
I was a premee baby and underdeveloped in internal and external organs. Mom's last oop's child of all boys, hoping for a daughter.
As a baby, I often slept with Mom as Dad worked a lot on the road. I was coddled and pampered, wore satin and slips.
Emulated my Mother and played dress up in her lingerie chest and closet. I had my own Barbies, and learned how to be just like Mom.
Doctors got me well with hormone therapy which caused me to develop breasts and as a pre-teen, I was a B cup, bigger than most girls.
By this time Mom was dressing me in unisex clothes and allowing me to grow out my hair...all the guy had long hair back then.
I started wearing dresses at home when Dad was away and my brothers left home and by 13, wore lingerie and blouses, capris, girls sneakers, and was pretty metrosexual entering High school.
I would go on to present as a girl my senior year and thru college.
I was going to a therapist to embrace the idea of transitioning at 19 yrs old but the money was never there.
I tried to be masculine as a guy for 4 years as I joined the Navy but soon found being a guy was not for me.
So I got out and was presenting my feminine side and I had relationships with women, even to the point of being engaged.
But they couldn't wrap their head around a femme husband. I was so alone as a bachelorette, and gave up my feminine side again.
The third girl today is my wife and continue to try to be masculine but it just isn't my personality as I am pretty mellow. But I am not lonely, as much!
I try to be husband first, all times, but you can never really loose that feminine side of yourself, you miss being contoured, looking and smelling pretty, feeling pampered...it sure is my heaven and I love to reminisce about my girly youth.

[MarieTS]

OMG Sarah, there is just so much there. It is like an open-ended essay question. Because every one has such individualized experiences I suspect the answers to your question will be many and varied. As for me, there are a few analogies that best describe my masculinity experience/relationship.

For starters, right from the beginning I had that sensation you often feel when you have been picked for the wrong sports team... you know you REALLY belong over there with those other kids. But, I am here so I have to make the best of it. Maybe I can get traded later :daydreaming:

Because my underlying femininity was so pervasive, I had to find ways to use masculinity as comoflage until I could safely express the real "me". See, I did not feel like a boy/male trying to be a girl. Rather, I felt like a girl trying to figure out how to discreetly survive in a male world. It was like a Bond girl playing a role until such time that she could spring into action and reveal her true identity.

The whole feminine/masculine issue came into focus most clearly for me when I started learning French in school. Vocabulary words were separated into two categories, feminine and masculine. Oddly, the meaning of words bore no relation to their gender. Words you might consider masculine were often feminin, and vice versa. Ah, this is just like me, I said to myself.

I realized there was no key to decipher gender either for words or people. It taught me that what I wore and what dangled between my legs defined my gender incorrectly. Just as certain vocabulary words that appeared to be masculin but were not, my physical characteristics may have appeared masculine, but I knew I was not. I was feminine. I prayed that in time Marie could prevail and correct this personal noun -- me -- to the proper gender.

So, in closing Sarah, masculinity was a few things. It was a cover. It was a curse. It posed a conflict. But it never fully defined me. Femininity did.

[Sarah Doepner]

Thank you for your responses. In my case, I haven't rejected masculinity, it just wore off and is no longer needed and I can finally breathe.

Masculinity was the default setting for me and with no sisters or close female cousins I had only my mother as a feminine influence for many years. We moved a lot as my father followed the major western construction boom. As I grew up I never had a chance to cultivate the friendship of any girls and by the time that was possible I already had self esteem issues that made it more of a challenge than I was prepared to handle. All that said, since being a boy was my only viable option, I fell into it with the knowledge I had something different about me that needed to be kept to myself. Eventually I had the opportunity to explore a little and the first chinks in the armor appeared. There was no outside influence, just my nature struggling to be revealed.

Masculinity was more like a cardboard suit than a suit of armor, slowly degrading in the rain over the years. It gave me plenty of time to develop social and physical skills, knowledge of the world and a career, family, relationships and white male privilege, all of which has created a resource base and buffer as I let the last of my masculinity slough off. I don't need it any longer but wouldn't be who I am without it. I'm 2+ years on hormones, I've legally changed my name and gender and I'm waiting for a new birth certificate so I can change the rest of the records, I'm scheduling a B.A. and some FFS, all while hoping to not get the 'rona. I want to emerge from the lock down and reengage with the world as Sarah but I doubt I'll be hurt too badly when someone makes the mistake and calls me Dave. He got me here.

[pamela7]

Perhaps one does not "have a relationship with" until one starts to think about it. Looking back, I'd say that as a pre-adolescent I was just a kid and gender was irrelevant to me, pretty much. The T influx from 14 however, led me to extreme activity, as if i were compensating for "not being male enough" ... of course I was compensating; I just did not realise until much later.

[Katya@]

Hi Candice
What an unusual and complicated relationship you had/have with your masculine side. Thanks for sharing.
Katya