I was just rereading the current thread on voice and something struck me, how critical are you of gender "tells?" The specific thought someone posted was in saying that while they have heard many transgender women speak they are still aware that the person was born AMAB. I am not wanting specifics on who posted it as I am not wanting to trash that person, that is not the point.

What I am curious about is are you humans here at this site as critical of AFAB humans as you are about MtF transgender people, or more specifically yourself?

I ask as it is something that I struggle with all of the time. In regards to voice, no I truly do not think my voice is completely indistinguishable from that of an AFAB, however many AFAB humans disagree with me. I am beginning to think that this is due to my own super critical judgement of what qualifies as male or female in a variety of areas. Take arms for another example. I complained to my wife (AFAB) that my arms are too masculine because of their size. She rolled her eyes at me and pulled out the cloth measuring tape. She quickly proved her point when we found out her arms are bigger than mine. How about another..... I complained prior to electrolysis that shaving my face made me a male, my therapist (AFAB) came back with that she has PCOS and shaves her face daily. She gave me a look that asked 'do you question my gender.' To which the answer was a resounding no. How about something I super struggle with, not having hips. Again, with a bit of quick measuring, guess what, I have a bit of shape. Not hugely curvy like Kim K, but actually more curvy than many AFABs I work with daily.

For many, many, many years I suffered while I was unwilling to accept the simple truth, regardless that I was AMAB, I am female. Part of my suffering is that I place AFAB humans up onto an impossibly tall pedestal. I have turned them into an almost goddess like creature that has such strong magical properties that I could never, ever possibly even get close to appearing like them. Thus part of my transition has been in breaking down my own image of what I thought a woman was.

For the past few years I have been really trying to take an accurate appraisal of what constitutes the entirety of the female end of the spectrum. And it is way more vast than I was ever willing to see before. My image of AFABs came about from media's inaccurate and unfair portrayal of women. You know that whole problem that women have been talking about for quite a long time now? What I thought was respect and reverence actually was demeaning and exclusionary. My own version of what makes up femininity excluded many AFABs from that category. Once I saw that I realized it I was obviously totally and completely wrong. The more I understood this, surprisingly to me, the more I could see my place within femininity as well. Which in the end was actually a HUGE part of what finally allowed me to transition.

I'm told all the time that I pass and yet I obsess about all of the "tells," I think I have. My voice is not fem enough, my hands are too big, my hips are not wide enough for my shoulders, my boobs are not big enough, my hair is not full enough, my body is too muscular, my Adam's Apple is too big, my face is not pretty enough. Blah, blah, blah, I could go on all day. I understand it is not just any one of these things that make me doubt myself but the entirety of it taken together. But, and this is a huge BUT, none of it excludes me of the reality that I was born female, just in the exact same way that it does not exclude anyone else either, regardless of physical features. I do pass, in person and on the phone. I have not been misgendered from a stranger in more than about two years. That's passing. Me obsessing about my "tells" does nothing but hurt myself and women in general, and I no longer want to be a part of any of that. Which is helping me to remove femininity from that high pedestal and find my own place within it.

So, how about you? Are you just as critical of every AFAB as you are of MtF trans people?