I'm intrigued. Sorry for showing up late.
This is your best friend? The guy who keeps noticing more and more things and making little comments?Originally Posted by Sara Jessica
You've gotta watch out. You've gotta really think about what your boundaries are. I know it sounds silly, but this could turn into a situation that totally blindsides you.
Guys get a little weird when their friends turn out to be gay or trans. If you're not in the let's-drink-a-beer-and-whistle-at-chicks zone, you're in a place that has some sexual tension. Some guys can deal with that and even make jokes about it. Some guys can't.
If you're not their 100% hetero dude buddy, you become a sex object to some degree. It doesn't mean they're going to be offensive or try to rape you. But one day they might have too many drinks and tell you you're un-f*ckable. Or maybe they'll tell you that you are. Either way, it's a weird situation.
Maybe you've thought of this and you're prepared to stand up for yourself. But is being out new to you? Are you prepared for your own feelings?
And in a way, it can be flattering just to be seen in any kind of feminine terms. A part of you will say, "This person sees the woman in me, and that's all I want," and no matter how gross a guy is, it's good to feel beautiful and desired. You've gotta plan ahead and make up your mind that if you hear that voice in your head you're going to tell the b*tch to shut up.
Sorry for the tangent, but I just thought if you hadn't really experienced what it's like to come out to your guy friends that it might be helpful.
Less authentic? You're not posting about frilly panties. You're posting about changes you're making to your everyday life to make you more feminine. You say you identify as female. Sounds pretty authentically TS to me.
Not that I'm necessarily right, I really think most people who try to stay in the middle are torturing themselves and they would be better off (as far as their sanity) to go a little further to the one side of the path that they know they want to be on. Let's be honest, you're pushing pretty hard towards one side, aren't ya?
But, if you love the woman, if you love the relationship as it is, your sacrifice may be improving your sanity, not just appeasing her.
OK, here's another tangent of mine. Because I never hear anybody else talk seriously about the sexual-orientation-transition you force on yourself as a married M2F.
You kinda blame things on your wife not being comfortable with your inner female. But look at the big picture. Even if your wife is totally supportive and accepting, it's pretty weird to transition from living as a straight guy to living as a lesbian.
Seriously. I transitioned, and within a couple months I was totally comfortable being full-time and felt that I passed just fine. Not that I'm particularly attractive, but nobody looked at me funny. But when you throw a wife/girlfriend into the mix, that's when things get hard. Because gay people making public displays of affection attract attention.
And I'm not talking about inappropriate displays. I'm talking about subtle things. It attracts attention. It makes you self-conscious. You act more awkward. People look at you. In the end it adds up to you outing yourself as trans as soon as you out yourself as a lesbian. And you don't want to attract attention. So you show less affection towards your wife. And that puts a big strain on your relationship.
For me, it came out of nowhere. I realized, "Wow. I guess I really don't know the appropriate way for a lesbian couple to act in public."
And it made me realize that I had put all my energy into coming to terms with being trans but neglected to really think about what it was to be a lesbian. You're married to a straight woman. Unless she's capable of being publicly gay, and privately getting what she wants from a relationship with another woman, it's just not gonna work out.
And even if you take her out of the equation, you need to take a long look on whether or not you can handle being a lesbian with a lesbian. Because if you don't really cope with what it is to be a woman who loves women, you're going to end up being with unstable women. I went through that for awhile. Women were intrigued by me! I'm the weird guy who's going to get a sex change! But the women I dated weren't lesbians. They were unstable women who saw me as a novelty.
I'm just saying, being a lesbian is a huge part of the "big picture" that people tend to ignore completely when they wish they could transition. It might be a good reason to stop pushing towards the female side of the "middle path" and be happy with the relationship you have.
Ugh! That's how I felt for so long! I didn't accept myself. I basically idealized womanhood and thought I wasn't good enough to see myself as a "real woman." It really screwed up my perspective more than I realized. It was a depressing place to be at.
Some people are more observant than others. But the people-watchers are usually the quiet ones. So by the time someone actually says something, you can bet they weren't the first to notice.
Not that I'm a huge Monty Python fan, but this immediately made me think of the Black Knight.
"You're wearing mascara!"
"No I'm not!"
"Well what's that, then?"
"I'm tired."
"No you're not! That's makeup on your face!"
"It's just guyliner."
Ouch.
She might not actually hate every one of those things. She just hates that you're trying to kill off the man she married, and she hates that you're trying to invade her space in the role as the woman.
My ex was awesome at first. She accepted me as a woman more than I accepted myself. She'd even dated a few girls. She knew how to treat a woman. She loved to go shopping with me. She gave me my estrogen injections.
But in the end she wanted a more normal life for her and her daughters, and it was just too much for her feeling like she was losing her place as the woman.
The bottom line is that if you're a lesbian you have to be with a woman who's OK with being a lesbian. Otherwise it's going to all hit the fan sooner or later.
