Good points Reine...

And I'm with Veronica on the 'still searching for answers' perspective - believe me, I wouldn't keep chewing the fat here if I was happy enough to just trot off because "it makes me feel good and I don't need to know why..." There are probably all sorts of other <worse> things I'd be doing if I had that kind of philosophy...

Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
So basically, is it a question of having one objective truth (an essential definition for woman and an essential definition for man), or is there no such thing and everyone is who they say they are despite all appearances. I think that in the world outside this community, people will know who is a woman or a man. In this forum? Not so much. And what about the battles surrounding the definitions of woman vs female, and man vs male? It is confounding.
I think this is one of those things at the core of the difficulty. I'd bet 99% of folk who don't experience this condition have never even considered those definitions - it just is to them... To us it is something so much more relevant to our daily lives where some of us are caught between the feelings of experiences that satisfy us (a mix of normal and 'irregular' things we feel are feminine) but who in the guy cis-world thinks to themselves: "Wow - I feel masculine today..." This is why parallels with stereotypes are easier to get understanding of - trying to explain how the two internal feelings of being me, when me can be how I look in my avatar and Mr Ordinary otherwise, can coexist to someone with just a one-dimensional gender existence, would be next to impossible. imho... I'm almost tempted to come out to my wife just to prove it... So thanks for trying Reine. :D

I think your final question has been put before but it's worth re-examining, even though the premise has to be simplistic (I don't mean that pejoratively - just that it has to be as it's what we're struggling with here ) I don't think I'm a woman when I dress or at any other time. If you'd asked me a few years ago before coming here, I wouldn't have thought I was anything but a man with a kink... Now...? I'm becoming more convinced that I am not 100% male by any means, but that I do experience a capacity (and need) to express behaviour (with presentation as part of that) which our society normally considers feminine. I'd think it great if everyone's perception aligned with mine, but given what I said earlier, that's pretty unlikely right now and for the forseeable...

Pamela - I'm going to paraphrase a great man here for why some of us need to analyse this: we don't choose to do this because it's easy - we willingly do this even though we know it's going to be hard, but some of us need to keep trying and teasing out a little more understanding each time we discuss it.

It always makes me chuckle how these discussions are interspersed with the 'lighten up' comments - Folks: if it makes your head ache or your eyes bleed, you don't have to read any of this... just move to the next section down...

Katey x