How does one follow souls, HRT, Egyptian gods and all that conclusive research...? Tough, but I'll have a bash. :D

Veronica - this has gone a bit off track from your defining paragraph...

Masculinity and femininity are elements of human nature, and as human beings we possess the capacity to feel and express all aspects of both to some degree. These, like all the other elements of human nature are subject for that degree to influences such as ....
I like what you say here - I think it explains well, for me, why we do much of the stuff we do - and a lot of other stuff we don't. The identity bit that comes next is tougher to debug and is part of the reason I came to this place almost a couple years ago because I yearn for an answer as to why my identity apparently seeks this outlet that it does. The difficult part of this is what others have alluded to: what is 'femininity' and its mirror, 'masculinity'?

So much of what has been described here, particularly in Reine's list, are societal constructs. They broadly hold well for western society today, but not so well for other cultures and periods in history. The problem we have deciphering this, is that we're all totally steeped in what those male/female roles in society are about, but I feel Reine's list misses a couple of obvious ones for me that must play a part, and that some have touched on.

The first is sexuality. Admitting that there might be something a little freaky going on sexually with us is a tough one for many here, but not surprising if you accept that we are hugely conditioned to believe that anything other than complete orthodoxy to being 100% heterosexual governs the relations of our modern world. It's bad enough that some of us may be prepared to confess to our partners that we like to express the appearance of the opposite (and generally, their) gender - but to conceive that this might have something more going on about sexuality, our self-image, our self-love, or any possibility we might be seeking to be desired in the way that a woman is...? Uh-uh... ain't gonna happen. I think there's a lot more here that may come out, but there are such barriers in accepting non-hetero behaviour, it's not going to come out in this relatively public forum (and particularly not where members' SOs also frequent... )

The other significant aspect unmentioned - but not necessarily playing a part - for women, is motherhood. The ability to create life - uniquely as a gender, and only threatened by artificial processes - although the relative traits of protection, nurture, sacrifice, etc. have been touched on. Surely something as significant as this must engender something like creation envy? I don't know, but I can only imagine it plays a part.

As for identity, I like the idea that the soul, the persona, id, spirit - whatever - is what carries the content that defines our gender too. For most folk, this happens to be aligned with physical gender: male-masculine; female-feminine. For a small minority, it's totally misaligned (transsexuals) and for another small minority (CD/ TG/ genderfluid/ andro etc.) - it's all over the frickin' show! Variable degrees of need for expression; varying degrees of frequency; varying types of expression - a weird and wonderful kaleidoscope of imagery and styles.

I feel like I'm understanding more about this when others here express similar thoughts - but I think the nature of this condition is so wound up with deep and complex persona stuff - rather than just hormones, chromosomes and genomes - that the best I can hope for is that I can construct some sort of philosophy that just helps me deal with it and achieve some sort of internal balance: my masculine with feminine side; my need to express something really outlandish from my natural, physical gender and requires all sorts of artifice to do so...

Interesting thoughts all... Now back to my wine... :wine:

Katey x