wow

wow did i do some talking today. a whole bunch of things that i didn't think i'd ever talk to him about lol. started talking about interpersonal relationships. a couple of people who i have difficulty getting on with. got into some of my issues / fears about clothes... about how i have weird stuff going on with my body image, too. about how it makes it hard to shop.

about my gender identity. about how when i get really stressed out sometimes i worry that i'm turning into a guy. about how i was worried about the excess body hair and about how that fed into that concern. about how sometimes i feel like a guy. about how i don't really want to feel like a guy. that i wish i was more 'girly' at times. about how i'm glad that i don't overly value appearances, however. must be hard to put a lot of stock in that (one simply can't look 14 forever). and the time taken...

it was good to talk about it. but hard, too. i don't want him to see me how i see me. the way i see me... hurts me at times. i worry that when i tell him about how i view myself that some of that will rub off on him. that he will start viewing me the same way. that he will feel disgusted and repulsed by me.

he was alright about it all, though. and he seemed happy enough about the conversation being meaningful to me etc. i can't believe i talked to him about this stuff...

i went through this phase when i was about 16 of thinking that i was gay. and i used to hang out at this gay bar with my best friend (a guy) who was gay. they knew we were underage but they let us in because there wasn't really a gay scene in the town i grew up and the bar was the only place for guys to meet in particular.

i didn't have such a hard time in thinking i was gay - because of my best friend, i guess. but i do remember going through a bit of a weird time with respect to gender identity. i know this is stereotyping... but it seemed to me that some lesbians were 'butch' and some were 'fem' and i was determined i was not going to be butch. that was really important to me. in terms of my gender identity. i appreciate that there are many more shades in-between now. but it is hard to figure me, where i lye, where i would like to lye...

my ideal of feminine beauty always has been a little different from most. i'm thinking carrie anne moss from the matrix or the female lead from 'kill bill' (whatever her name was) - though do worry about those sorts of characterizations being tied up with violence... or avril lavine (however you spell that) in jeans and skate shoes. or alanis morrissette in jeans... there is something attractive about the tortured female... though... i don't want to play the victim either... but strength. sexy in an almost androgynous way... does this make any kind of sense?

i don't want to look like / be treated like a high class hooker. i don't want strangers to sexually appraise me. i want people to go by what i say - to take me seriously as a person - rather than talk to me or like me on the basis of my physical / bodily appearance. i don't want to look like a sweet and innocent little doll. i guess i would like it if people thought i was attractive in an 'average and kinda nice once you know her' kind of way. i just want... physical, bodily presence... to be something that i choose to show to people i really care about and not anybody else. i feel naked wearing shorts (showing my legs). i feel naked in t-shirts - but what am i gonna do in the summer heat? i almost wish i could convert to islam for the clothing style... i don't mind my bf seeing me running around in my undies and bra - but that people wear bikini's in public? put some %#@&#! clothes on people.

i'm not athletic at all, so makes it a bit hard to muster lol. jeans and t-shirts are my trade mark. i think part of it is about being inconspicuous. but then jeans and a t-shirt simply isn't inconspicuous at cocktail parties. i don't want to wear a dress / skirt. i don't know what is to be done... i think part of it is about my not really having the money to get stuff i'd like to get. i would like to dress up in nicer clothes, i guess. it is just that buying them isn't really on my list of priorities. and about my really hating walking around the shops just looking so i don't really know what is out there in order to find stuff in the sales... i don't know. maybe it just isn't that important to me. but if it isn't that important to me why does it bug me (at times) so much?

sigh.

sometimes... i really do feel that i'm turning into a guy, though. i don't get the impression that i really will turn into a guy... but i feel like i have characteristics of both. like a really very masculine female. like i'm going to grow a beard. like my genitils are going to start deforming and distending... something that i struggle with a lot in terms of my self identity (because i really don't want for me to be that way). i just... have a lot of sympathy for people who struggle with stuff like this... i guess i'm alright really. just gets to me at times... gets to me at times... just an off the hand comment someone made (thought i was out of ear shot) - months ago now - about me being like a man... i guess i'd been bustin his balls about something or other and he does worry about his own gender identity at times... sigh... what are ya gonna do...

Alex,

You are so brave to discuss these sensitive topics with T. I would imagine it's a huge sense of relief to finally tackle this stuff. Do you think we all have "parts" who are attracted to different sexes at different times--and "parts" who need to assume various gender roles in order to accomplish specific tasks? Just wondering.

Good work!

Peace

AK, I have an unlying hormone disorder that causes facial hair....I also have been in my early yrs been told by a childhood friend (male) that he was always afraid of me more then he'd been afraid of another bloke..I am told that I have an "edge" to me that frightens people...unyet inside is love...I do not wish to be "fem" and find other "butch" women catch my attention...I think the "norm" for consitutes a woman is insane.....I just watched an advert for vitimins for women over 50 and the woman jumps up and says all women want to look smart..:-( ....I watched that advert in my black t-shirt and black jeans and stomach slightly hanging over the top of my jeans cleverly disguised by my t-shirt over the top LOL!... I do fear the edge I am accuse of having because that reminds me of my adoptive mother...the part of her I have internalised..perhaps my trying to rid myself of that is what others pick up on? ...oh I don't know and I aint got a %#@&#! clue where this reply is going now...of To T to tell her I am feeling fed up with therapy and dont know any better way of putting it and dont know why I am fed up with it..blah, blah, blajh

alex i understand completely. Seriously i do. i have worried about many of the same issues. i know i am not gay, but i wondered that and i was concerned about dreams etc But i determined i was not because in the presence of real women i felt icky about even the idea. i am not turned on by every guy, but the sexual feeling is different if that makes sense.

Almost all my friends are lesbians, and my best friend from childhood came out as bi. None of that made me feel any more secure about my feminity. You're right... sterotypes exist for a reason.. they are based on observed commonalities... they just don't apply to everyone. There is often a noticable association with one gender or the other. But its spectrum based rather than either or. That just confused me more... the hetero world is very either or.

i am built like my dad's family. i am several inches taller than other women in my family. i am broad shouldered and not delicate anywhere except my hands maybe. i had to fight for my father's respect... which increased my fears of being too male.

it came to a point when i was going to go to a lesbian party with my bi friend.. in trying to decide what to wear i started to cry in frustration "they're all going to think i'm the boy!" It's funny now in retrospect but i really thot that in comparison to my very openly sexual friend i was going to seem like her escort.

i work hard on my feminity... i love girly stuff... i LOVE clothes (i don't know if my T has seen me in the same outfit twice... "hi, my name is fluff and i have not shopped in 8 days" ) i like make-up. i like stupid girly crap which makes my intellectual side cringe.

The worst things are my intellectual side which rejects BOTH genders... and the more aggressive side of me.. that part developed to protect me from others. It has been so effective that i am very alone in many ways. Developing aggression, high assertiveness and just being more overt to begin with causes a lot of image anxiety.

You are certainly not alone in this one alex

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i worry that when i tell him about how i view myself that some of that will rub off on him. that he will start viewing me the same way. that he will feel disgusted and repulsed by me.

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I feel the same way, Alex. I thought I was alone. You're very courageous in telling your T! I'm afraid if I say I absolutely hate (a certain facial feature) that he is going to start staring at it and be repulsed by it just as much as I am. I feel so self-conscious in front of him anyway.

I'm glad that you shared all of this with your T! I hope it helped you feel better about yourself! Take care!

Hey. I did feel brave in talking to my t about this, yeah. A bit of a risk. I think he was okay about it. I guess I did feel some kind of sense of relief after the session. But I guess I still worry a little that it will change how he thinks of me (for the worse), yeah.

> Do you think we all have "parts" who are attracted to different sexes at different times--and "parts" who need to assume various gender roles in order to accomplish specific tasks?

I dunno. I wouldn't like to speak for others...

Psychologists think that gender identity and sexual preference are best thought of as dimensional rather than categorical. That means... If you list all the stereotypic masculine traits and all the stereotypic feminine traits the majority of people will exhibit traits from both and people will fall on a continuum with respect to the degree that they are masculine or feminine. Same goes for sexual preference. Most people are attracted to both - falling on either the exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual end of the spectrum is relatively rare.

Hey. Can I ask what the hormone disorder is? Is it to do with either the production of testosterone or the way that your body (e.g., hair follicles) respond to testosterone?

I tend to be more afraid of females than I am of males. I know that this is a bit stereotypic, but I find that guys tend to be more up-front with their concerns. They will say it to your face, and once it is sorted out they tend not to hold a grudge. Females (in my experience) tend to be more covert about their having a problem, though (so you have to try and guess and figure it out or hear it on the grapevine) and they can be nice to your face while bearing grudges behind your back. This is just my experience, though, and I know plenty of guys who are more 'feminine' in how they handle upset / conflict, and plenty of females who are more 'masculine' in that respect.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

I remember that, sometimes. Think I exemplify that at times... I'm not proud of that. Women can have sharp tongues, yeah. But then... So can guys. But I guess it is a more stereotypically feminine trait...

Hey. Yeah, I thought for a time that I might be gay... But yeah, the sexual feeling is different. I think I am fairly much heterosexual. Would have been happy enough being gay... But turned out that I wasn't really. I was a little disappointed in that, but there it is lol.

I think that sometimes stereotypes are there for a reason - in the sense of being based on observations of typicality. But I think that othertimes the stereotypes really are groundless. There are also issues to do with what generates the stereotypical behaviour. Is it 'naturally determined' or is it that 'people behave according to the stereotypes because they identify with the stereotypes' (where they wouldn't behave that way if we changed the stereotypes) or what?

I think there is more overlap between 'male' and 'female' and 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' than people typically think that there is. The psychology studies seem to be showing us that this is the case. That things are dimensional. That things are complex.

I'm not exactly delicate either. I'm five feet seven, which is fairly tall. And i'm fairly big boned / solid. Lots of guys are shorter than me. I don't feel particularly feminine around guys who are of slighter build and / or less height than me... Spent much of my life feeling like an overgrown elephant. That is part of my body image issue, really. I always think I'm taller and bigger than I am in fact. Tend to think I'm taller than people who are actually taller than me. Other people seem to have a more accurate estimate of my size in realation to others than I do. I seem to spend much of my life saying 'I'm heavier / bigger than I look' because I keep thinking that other people are under-estimating me out of politeness or whatever. It is hard...

My bf helps me feel feminine... Sometimes. We are still sorting things out... But I think he does find me attractive, yeah, and it helps me feel attractive. I'm also surrounded by women who are around my size or bigger now - and that helps a lot. I mean I still feel bigger than them, but I know that objectively I'm not. A kind of a reality check, I guess.

Philosophy is also traditionally a male field. Not many women... Especially in analytic philosophy. It is kind of renouned as one of the majorly 'old boys club' types of disciplines. I think that it is changing now... But that is its history at any rate. Doing philosophy isn't considered a particularly feminine thing to be doing... There are some females, to be sure... But I think they all struggle with gender identity issues a little.

I was in a seminar where a guy gave a talk and a couple of females ripped into him because... He was wrong, basically. Afterwards... People were saying that they were being mega-*****y for ripping into him... Agressive females... And I thought to myself 'if one of the guys had ripped into him the way that those females did then nobody would have batted an eyelid'. I thought it was simply gender discrimination that those women got a hard time for having done that... It would have been tolerated / accepted / approved of (even) if they were male. But... Turns out there was a little more to it than that (the guys were saying that beating a horse that is lying down already isn't really good form - and they didn't need to go on and on and on about it). I'm not sure what I think.

But I guess... There is a 'new' feminine stereotype... One that involves handling oneself well with the boys... I don't know. Times are a changing (thank god) but it is a little tricky, yeah...

Hey. Yeah, I guess I worry a lot about what my therapist thinks of me. Because... It is important to me. I worry that there is something disgusting and repulsive about me (that that is why my father left me etc) and it is there... somewhere... and my therapist will be exposed to it at some point. and then... he will (or will want to) leave me.

So I go through this terror whenever I disclose anything that I find repulsive and disgusting about me, yeah. Worry that that will be the thing that will make him not want to work with me / not like me anymore.

It is hard, yeah.

But nothing risked nothing gained, I guess. But still... only time will tell how he really feels about it.

I kind of hope... That he will find me feminine and attractive regardless. I mean... Not exactly sexually attractive... but personally attracative or something. i don't know. i'm not sure what i mean. but i worry that my feelings about myself will rub off on him in a bad way, yeah.

Wow is right Alex! I've talked to T about something similar. I often feel there are two of me. One that wants to be feminine and the other tough girl/guy that comes out as a protective shell.

My dad had a lot to do with this view of myself. He would say growing up to my brother 'your sister is more of a boy that you are'...so as the MMPI results stated I reject traditional female roles of wife and mom.

I still meet my son's needs but don't succumb to the pressure of being the perfect mother.

I'm glad you opened up to your T and on here too. Thanks for sharing

Ak, Its PCOS, Polycystic ovarian disease.

oh yeah, the over grown elephant. How dismayed was i when i first noticed that i am same height as T...or taller i wanted to scrunch myself down so as to appear shorter

my feminity was not helped by the problems in my marriage... months without any affection much less anything else. Right now i feel like some sort of half human. i don't feel like i can say i am a woman, like i am not allowed somehow. i get to the point where i feel foolish putting on something pretty even though i love pretty things... i feel like someone is going to laugh.. i feel like people will think i am a man in drag. It gets to ridiculous proportions.

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MzJelloFluff said:
my feminity was not helped by the problems in my marriage... months without any affection much less anything else.

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I read this and wasn't quite sure how to interpret who was the unaffectionate one. I am assuming it was him. My situation is reversed. My femininity and sexual preference are often daggers my husband throws at me. Our relationship is struggling. Because of this I sometimes just really can't stand to be around him, much less be affectionate. So instead of him trying to understand the underlying issues, he resorts to attacking my sexuality. If I become friends with a female and express a desire to go out to dinner or for drinks with her, he immediately calls her a lesbian and tries to make me feel uncomfortable about the relationship. Sometimes the marriage with kids.. thing messes up his argument, so then he will start calling her a drunk.

The really sad part about this is... sometimes these attacks work. I've now realized that I frequently avoid contact with my friends, change my behavior, or I question who I really am as a result of them. Even though intellectually my lack of attraction to him at the moment seems reasonable given our situation. Internally I still think there is something wrong with me. Irrational but true.

Alex,
I agree with this one. Women tend to base their decisions on emotions while men tend to base thiers on cognitions (Not all, of course). I find it difficult when women are moody because I don't know how to feel about them. My T just told me I have borderline characteristics (idealize/devalue). So, when someone isn't even kilter it makes it difficult for me to hold all the various emotions that result from their behavior. Of course, I can be moody and my emotions can be all over the map. But in the end, I'd trust a man over a woman I think.

It helps me to read these kinds of threads. Funny how each of us is struggling w/these same male-female issues in many the same way and yet so different as well.

I am small, petite and very curvy. I like being a girl and I like feminine things.......BUT...........because of my "relationship" with my father (who disappeared when I was 12), I have felt tortured by my femininity. So, I go thru these bizarre times when I wear "boy" clothes that are way too big. I wear bras that push me down etc. I have even gone so far as having my hair cut like a boy during these phases. I don't think anybody honestly thinks I am male, but there sure are times I'd like a chance to carry the "family jewels"

It infuriates my mother ( like most everything I do) and she makes snide remarks about my sexuality etc. During the years I was battling infertility (my daughters are adopted), she would say things about "God knowing the truth" etc. I'm still not exactly sure if she thinks I'm a "closet lesbian" , a transexual wannabe or what. I think I am basically a heterosexual, screwed-up female. But......ya never know, there's always tomorrow.

Hey. Yeah, I guess I'm ambivalent about the traditional gender roles, too. I remember growing up knowing that my Father really wanted me to be a boy. I'm his only child, and it was really important to him that I be a boy in order to carry on the family name - which is something that he feels very strongly about. I think there were difficulties, too, in his not really knowing how to relate to me. It was difficult enough for him trying to relate to me at all (since I was a kid), but my being female made it even harder for him. Maybe part of me implicitly wonders if he wouldn't have left me if I was a boy. Though I know that I'd be more offensive to him as a masculine girl than as a feminine girl... I don't know. It is hard, I guess.

I think part of it is that I didn't really identify with my mother at all. Maybe my rejection of femininity is part of my rejection of her. But then my mother wasn't traditionally feminine either, so I guess that in rejecting the traditional feminine gender role I'm more like her.

It is a hard one, yeah.
]

Hey. Yeah, I guess I'm ambivalent about the traditional gender roles, too. I remember growing up knowing that my Father really wanted me to be a boy. I'm his only child, and it was really important to him that I be a boy in order to carry on the family name - which is something that he feels very strongly about. I think there were difficulties, too, in his not really knowing how to relate to me. It was difficult enough for him trying to relate to me at all (since I was a kid), but my being female made it even harder for him. Maybe part of me implicitly wonders if he wouldn't have left me if I was a boy. Though I know that I'd be more offensive to him as a masculine girl than as a feminine girl... I don't know. It is hard, I guess.

I think part of it is that I didn't really identify with my mother at all. Maybe my rejection of femininity is part of my rejection of her. But then my mother wasn't traditionally feminine either, so I guess that in rejecting the traditional feminine gender role I'm more like her.

It is a hard one, yeah.
]

Ditto Alex !

Heya. Yeah, I thought so. My thing is meant to be similar. Not with the production of testosterone, but with the way that my body handles it. Related stuff...

Hey. Yeah, most of my clinician's have been much smaller than me. We get a lot of immigrant doctors from asian / eastern places, and they tend to be smaller than me...

Yeah, the problems in your marriage wouldn't have helped at all. I'm sure you know rationally that it wasn't about you at all, but bloody hard emotionally. For anyone. And when someone has a few issues about being disgusting / repulsive (as I do) then that would make it so much harder...

Yeah. One of the reasons why I don't 'play dress-ups' for cocktail parties and the like is that I'm afraid that people will laugh at me. That I'll just look wrong somehow. I'm not sure what it is... I guess... I could find stuff that would be appropriate and that I'd actually like - it is just that I'm broke.

It is nice for me that you understand... But I'm sorry that you do :-(

Hey.

I think I hear what you are saying. Something that my therapist said (I think he might have been reflecting me back - but it still felt quite striking at the time) was about how part of this might be about... My not identifying with my mother at all. I guess the idea is that I might be rejecting my feminine aspect because I equate that with my mother. But then my mother wasn't really traditionally feminine... So in rejecting a feminine aspect I might actually be identifying with my mother after all (my therapist didn't say that lol). Dunno... Complicated, I guess.

I'm not sure about the 'female - emotional' 'male - rational' thing... Not sure... I have some male friends who are fairly emotional in their own way... But perhaps not as emotionally expressive, that is true.

I've been thinking about the incoherance of female stereotypes... The inconsistent qualities that are regarded as 'feminine'. I think that males struggle with their conception of what it is to be masculine, too... Dunno... Hard stuff.

Is it that you feel that your father might not have left if you had been a boy?
Or that you identified with your father rather than your mother?

Psychologists distinguish between:

1) Sexual identity
2) Gender identity
3) Sexual preference

We are used to thinking that sexual identity and gender identity will co-incide (be either male or female but not both) and that sexual preference will be for the opposite sex / gender.

These things can come apart, though. For example... People with sexual identity disorder believe that they are really of the other sex. This can happen sometimes due to inter-sex disorders (e.g., xxxy genotype) or botched circumscisions where xy (male) is raised xx (female) and so on.

People can be happy with their genotypic / phenotypic sex - but identify most strongly with the opposite gender. So... Some men like to dress as female etc even though they are happy with their sex and don't wish to have a sex change.

Sexual preference is different again. A person can have sex identity and gender identity that is in line and in accordance with their genotype / phenotype. And have sexual preference that is strongly homosexual, strongly heterosexual, mildly homosexual, moderately heterosexual, no preference (bi-sexual) etc.

People still tend to run those together...

I'm fairly heterosexual... I'm happy enough with my sex identity (I know I'm genotypically / phenotypically female and I'm happy enough with that). I find it distressing when I think / feel that I'm phenotypically turning into a male... With respect to my gender identity... I largely reject gender role stereotypes... But I do 'tow the line' on some things (e.g., with respect to hair removal!). And my preference is certainly to do that... My gender identity is complicated, I guess.