Feel like a woman

[Lorileah]

What it feels like to me to be a woman: I feel, hope. Then I feel that hope become despair when I see women treated as "less than." I feel fear. Fear for my safety in public places. I feel the need to be MORE cautious in said places because I feel like a TARGET. I feel anger when I am patronized. I feel belittled. I feel annoyance that some men believe I am here for their entertainment and sexual enjoyment. I feel confused when I am told I don't "know" things like how a car works, or how to build something or fix something. That it would be beyond my comprehension. Or that I should step aside and let a "real man" do it. I feel sad when I see how the world treats others.

I feel beautiful...then I feel ugly because people put so much stock in physical attributes. Or they place their idea of what a woman is and it is based of sexuality... how they believe a woman should dress to attract, please or seduce men.

How does t feel to be a woman? It can feel right but often it feels unequal disenfranchised or minimized.

[Lana Mae]

Lorileah, I am sorry that you feel all that negativety. Women, any woman is not less than but usually better than. Do not know why you are a target more so than anybody else. Only BOYS believe women are here for their entertainment and for sex, not real men. Many women can fix things better than"real men", I could not program the remote but my wife could!!We are all sad about how the world treats others. Be beautiful for yourself-no one else unless you want to share! I believe in equal rights for both sexes. Special hugs Lana Mae

[ellbee]

Laura, I'll take the time to read the wiki article to see if what they say fundamentally differs with Lisa Eliot and get back to you.

Bonus question?


I'm genuinely curious what you make of all the intersex infants who either had genital surgery or had a condition where they didn't appear to have male genitals, and so they were raised as a girl...

All the while, being constantly depressed, even to the point of feeling suicidal, knowing & even insisting that they are a boy, eventually rejecting their nurtured gender, etc., & finally living as a boy and being much happier.

After all, if there are no true differences, and are only socialized instead of biological, as I believe you suggest, then surely these children would have been perfectly content living their whole lives as female, no?


I'm sure you're already aware of such cases, but here are a few:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

http://secondnexus.com/social-commen...en-of-salinas/

http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-...Ruth-Langsford

[Becky Blue]

Read Julia Serano's superb book Whipping Girl. She is not only a very talented author, a geneticist, a trans woman and an activist. In that book she talks about the separation of sex and gender. A person's sex refers to their physical traits such as genitals, reproductive systems etc. Culturally we assign a person as male or female based on their genitalia. Whereas gender is assigned based on their identity, which can be far more fluid. Her book is very interesting and thought provoking.

[DrFabulous0]

The operative word here is like, sometimes I feel like poop, but I'm not poop, sometimes I feel like a million dollars, bit I'm not a million dollars, sometimes I feel like a woman....
I see no reason to take any offence at simple semantics, let people feel how they like and express that however they want.

[ellbee]

Sometimes you feel like a nut -- like at the 5-second mark...?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeibzLZn2hU

[Mary ElizabethJordan]

I have always my entire life felt like a Woman trapped inside a mans body. I Iook forward to the day when I can be a complete Woman.

[Dana44]

As one who has been with countless weomen through life., I know a bit about them. For example once I looked for a very feminine woman.. Never found one. But I did date a few CD's and on those relationships they were the most feminine woman that I ever saw. So feminine traits are known by Trans CD types. But is that womanhood. I felt they were women and looked it. They just had different plumbing but they looked at themselves as woman and looked good on dates. That was years ago for me. When we say that we feel like a woman don't mean were are trying to be full woman. I think many of us know what feminine traits are and many CD's do feel like they are and they are likely more desired than TS folks because they are still boys. So when a CD says Gees I feel like a woman today, By golly let him. Know one ever knows except the shadow. Also if you are out and about. One has to act like one. Right? I was out last night in a club and a band was there. when I was leaving I gave the band a thumbs up. I noticed that they was an all girl band. They told me I looked great. I am older and to be told that makes your day.

[sometimes_miss]

Perhaps that's because men's & women's brains are wired differently?

There are no 'wires', this isn't something simple, as much as so many people wish it was. Every brain is different. Or we'd all think the same. There are no simple discernable major differences in easily observable physical structure that can explain why men and women think in different ways. The differences between men's and women's brains will be found at the molecular level, patterns of connections, and the electrochemical reactions that occur which cause or result in thoughts; problem is, you'll find that all those bonds are also different even between identical twins. We're quite far away from being able to analyse that and be able to compare and assign which molecule bonds result or cause each thought. Looking for simple answers to this will just make one more confused, because there is no SIMPLE answer, and as of yet, we don't have the complicated answer.

Then you have to add to the fact that our brains aren't ever 'finished'. Every time you add new information, something in your brain changes. New connections are made, others are broken.....at the molecular level. And no, you can't see it by looking in an ear.

You can actually intentionally forget something. Which means, that whatever way that memory was stored, can be partially or completely destroyed, just by thinking in a certain way (whether it's done consciously or subconsciously).

Just some food for thought, for those who think they're likely to get an answer to this anytime soon.

[Bonnie Chan]

I'm not sure about wiring differently. But I think there are indeed some differences between men's and women's brains. For example, why do men often better at <math> subject, while women are often better at <biology> subject? Is there any society guidance that says men should be good at math and women should be good at biology? I'm not aware of any society pressure that says men/women need to be good at particular subjects. (I'm not saying men are in fact better with math and women better with biology, just an example, but I'm sure there're subjects that are toward one gender.)

But of course a lot of other things are affected by cultural or how one was raised up as a kid. Such as why women cry easier than men. This is pretty much because of how society expect men to be strong and crying is considered weak, while women are okay to be weak already and they don't get trained to not cry. If a boy cry, he would get humiliated by others, and then learn that crying is bad for himself. If a girl cry, she does not get treated badly, oppositely, she may get sympathized even more and so she feels okay with crying.

So, it's hard to say which differences between men and women are really from our bio until society can view women and men as the same, which I think it's nearly impossible. In the end, our physical body differences will guide society to view women and men differently anyway.

- Bonnie

[Kate T]

As Reine and a few others have pointed out, there is bugger all evidence that male and female brains are spectacularly different anatomically or physiologically AS WE CURRENTLY UNDERSTAND.

I have grown up around medicine. I used to play on the computers for the first CT scanner is Australia at Prince of Wales Hospital where my mother was head of Radiology. My professional training means that I see CT's and MRI's almost daily and I have made a point of understanding what they are, how they are produced, what they can and can't do, what they do and don't say. I've subscribed to Journals and read more articles on transgender theory than most psych's. The only conclusion that I've been able to arrive at: we really don't understand transgender identification on a purely biomedical basis. We know lots about how it manifests and develops and looks but we have NO IDEA of causative agents, IF there are any.

We must also be cautious about what we call "meta" studies. A true meta analysis needs to be published and have a clear method for selecting studies for inclusion. Just saying "i've read lots and here are the good studies" is not a meta analysis. That is an expert opinion. Caution must also be exhibited in using the results from studies to supply evidence for a different question than the original study. The continued misuse by Mr McHugh et al of Celia Dejhne's longitudinal study on outcomes for transexuals in Sweden is a classic example. Mr McHugh and Meyer are also guilty of presenting personal "expert" opinion as a meta analysis without publishing their methods for selecting included studies in recent publishings in pseudo science non peer reviewed journals like "The New Atlantis".

This article here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ain-boy-brain/
by Dr Lise Eliot is interesting but is also a good example of how we must be careful about how we interpret results. In the article she quotes an MRI study that appears to demonstrate a difference in a certain region of the brain that correlates with a test of gender identification. Deeper digging however reveals that this test of gender identification was developed in 1975 based on a questionnaire of stereotypically feminine and masculine gender characteristics. Stereotypical in 1975! Dr Eliot goes on to conclude that given that a follow up study appeared to demonstrate this area of the brain changed in size correlating to gender from childhood, defined as age 7 - 17. Dr Eliot makes the argument that this therefore implies gender changes to the brain are thus developed through environmental and social influences during childhood. It is a well argued assessment. I am extraordinarily cautious however as such articles and arguments are often distorted and used to justify "coercive" or "directional" reparative therapies as used by Zucker and Bradley et al, therapies that we have very good evidence are at best ineffective and at worst harmful.

People think science is precise. You get a yes or no answer. Thats not really the case. What you get is a high probability that the hypothesis you have formulated under the conditions and assumptions that you have made is likely or not.

As for the original question I have no idea what it is like to "Feel like a woman". I feel like me. I KNOW that I am a transwoman but there is no way for me to describe what that feels like as an identity in the same way that there is no way Reine or Sandra or any of the other GG's to describe what it feels like to be them. You are who you are and you feel how you feel.

[Becky Blue]

The reality is you can find lots of science supporting lots of different opinions on how our brains are wired, M v F brains, why some people feel they are born in the wrong body etc etc. Right now the reality is we don't know, we have scientific opinion not scientific fact. One day soon i am sure more will be learned and perhaps consensus will be reached.

[EffyJaspers]

I don't particularly think I would say, "I feel like a woman". If another guy said it I would deal with the situation from the situation's perspective.

The TV show Shameless brought up for a few episodes (i stopped on that last episode for now) that a girl named Mandy has a half-sister. Ends up that half-sister has a girl penis. Ends up that half-sister's drug-addicted mom hated men and thus told that boy he was a girl with a dick. --> I can't wait to see what happens next to this side character, but overall it deals with the point that this boy knows how it feels to be a girl (woman) because that is how he was brought up. He will not ever experience a woman's period or child birth, but I would never reject it if he told me he knows how it feels to be a girl (so not a woman yet). I'd be inspired if he told me he knows how to be self sufficient because of his mom wasn't always there.

Considering my sister's lives so far as I see them there usually isn't much difference between them and mine so if you say you feel like a woman I Believe it's all from your perspective and I accept that/don't care/congratulate you.

I am growing my hair out, so one of the things I naturally do is brush these bangs [that are too short to do much with] aside repeatably. I recognize this act from female friends and all the movies and shows where a woman always brushes her hair aside. That's prolly my conscious "I feel like a woman" (I then try to play it off in my mind as fact that anyone with long hair may deal with but I matter-of-factly attribute as a thing women do). ---- At this rate I could say have bra [and bra strap] lines and panty lines is also a IFLAW moment... I love them. Need to come out to family [and friends eventually] someday...

[Bonnie Chan]

You can actually intentionally forget something. Which means, that whatever way that memory was stored, can be partially or completely destroyed, just by thinking in a certain way (whether it's done consciously or subconsciously).

This sounds interesting. Could you elaborate more how one can intentionally forget something? I always thought the more you want to forget something the more you remember it. I thought you can forget something when you just don't care about it and never have a situation to think of it then it eventually goes away.

I don't particularly think I would say, "I feel like a woman". If another guy said it I would deal with the situation from the situation's perspective.

I think this is pretty much the attitude we should stick to. It rather depends on the situation and surrounding context. If one says "I feel like a woman", then it's not clear what that means and you really have to ask the speaker to explain more. The sentence is just too short to actually mean anything specific.

- Bonnie

[ReineD]

And I suggest you start with this, perhaps?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuros...ex_differences

Laura, I'll take the time to read the wiki article to see if what they say fundamentally differs with Lisa Eliot and get back to you. You might want to read it in detail too, and also watch the video fully, so we can make comparisons.

I finally got to it. I didn’t have to read very far.

Second paragraph:
"Experts note that neural sexual dimorphisms in humans exist only as averages, with overlapping variabilities; that it is unknown to what extent each is influenced by genetics or environment, even in adulthood; and that it is impossible to identify whether a given human brain is from an XX or an XY solely by examination of its anatomy."

Translation: The variables do overlap (men and women do share the same traits), they don’t know if traits are influenced by genetics or environment (although the current consensus is about 50/50 nature/nurture, but it is not gendered … individuals of both sexes experience similar variations in traits), and it is impossible to tell if a brain is from XX or XY chromosomes just by examining it.

So the wiki article agrees with Dr. Lisa Eliot and I will repeat: In her lecture, she did not say male and female brains were identical. There are some physiological differences, but the differences are slight, which does result in overlaps of personality traits and abilities among both sexes.