Originally Posted by
PaulaQ
I'm not sure I understand what's ironic about any of that. This is a forum, at least in part about gender. Exploring what makes us perceived as being either masculine or feminine seems like a legitimate discussion to me.
Not all women are feminine, btw. I know some very, very masculine ones. The ones who are generally perceived as feminine are generally unable to explain why people perceive them as they do. I know, because I ask all of them.
This may seem like a fairly silly and academic exercise to many on this forum, but it matters to me a great deal because I spend a fair amount of my time trying to understand this stuff, because I'd like to pass, because *I am* a woman. Convincing the outside world of this is another matter, though. So each time I'm misgendered, I like to try to understand what I did wrong. (I also know that to some of us here, each such failure is simply proof to them that I'm simply some poor, deluded man.)
As I said, this may seem pointless to you. You, and many others here, are male-identified, and cross dressing in public is not such a serious matter for you - if you are really having a bad time of it that day, you can pack it in, switch back to boy-mode, and take care of business. I have no such luxury, so this stuff is important to me.
I'm ridiculed when I get it wrong sometimes - many of us are. Ridicule isn't so bad - some of us are actually attacked when we get it wrong. That's a lot worse, and so questions on the nature of being femme are of rather critical importance to us trans women. Often they are questions of dignity or safety. I know many in society disagree that we deserve such considerations, but I'd hope that on this forum, most of us could understand why we'd want them.
