Gender Confusion?

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Cyran0 said:
Samantha, thank you so much. I was so riveted that I didn't even notice that it was kind of a long post.

I think I'll always have a part of me that wishes I were female. In the 0% to 100% spectrum, I'd say I'm a pretty solid 50%. I've never completely identified with the male role and there's a part of me that I'm beginning to recognize always identified with the female role. And I've always known that I'm bisexual (at least, for as long as I've thought about such things) so I've long put that issue to rest.

This thread, the research I've done recently, and time I've taken to think has really helped me. I'm feeling much more comfortable with my own thoughts now. I need to figure out how I want to deal with these thoughts but I've stopped worrying about what they mean.

Cyran0

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((((((((((((((((Cyran0))))))))))))))))

I'm glad you are finding some light, and glad I could help. Never be afraid to ask questions, because there are not stupid questions... I can recommend some other reading materials if you like and am always will to share what I can. If I don't know the answer, don't worry, I'm sure there is someone out there who does. When it all comes down to it, words, labels, and so on are just the little boxes people create to try and help them navigate life. If you don't fit a little box it doesn't mean you're wrong or broken, just different.

Different is good! Variety they say is the spice of life. Finding new ways to be happy, safe and content in our lives is more important than pretty much anything else. If we are not good to ourselves, don't love or care for us, we cannot really do it for anyone else.

If the people around us are more invested in their own narrow view of the universe, it's time to give them room to grow. I know that sounds like a platitude, but beneath it is a shocking amount of truth. Learning to when, why and to whom I should say NOT, YOU CANNOT do this to me has been one of the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn. Probably the most expensive too... In the end however I'd have to say it's been worth it...

Rock on!

Thanks again Samantha.

The real issue that's left over for me, and really the issue I've dealt with forever, is that thoughts and feelings are one thing but outwardly I'm male. So no matter how much I identify one way or the other, that's how the world sees me. And no matter how much I wish I could, I'm never going to get to really know what it's like to be a woman. I can't have that body.

So what to do with those thoughts and feelings?

Years ago I did a fair amount of cross dressing. Sometimes for theater, sometimes for film projects, and sometimes just to go out. I really enjoyed it. I loved having smooth legs, wearing makeup and putting on dresses. It was an insane amount of work but it was great. It felt very natural to just be this female version of myself for a time and then when the clothes came off, I was male again, and that felt good too. At the time I treated it as a goof or at most as a turn on, but looking back on it, I just enjoyed what I saw then as "taking on" that role. Lately I've been thinking that maybe it wasn't that I was taking something on but letting something out.

Ah but things were different then. I wasn't married, didn't have kids, and was about 50 pounds thinner. I suspect that, much like my homosexual urges, these feelings and fantasies and emotions will be dealt with quietly, by myself, without breaking any vows. Because even though my wife knows I'm bisexual and knows I used to cross dress and has heard me wish more than once to have her role for a time, we're still married.

Cyran0

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Cyran0 said:
Samantha, thank you so much. I was so riveted that I didn't even notice that it was kind of a long post.

I think I'll always have a part of me that wishes I were female. In the 0% to 100% spectrum, I'd say I'm a pretty solid 50% (and by that I don't mean gender neutral). I've never completely identified with the male role and there's a part of me that I'm beginning to recognize always identified with the female role. And I've always known that I'm bisexual (at least, for as long as I've thought about such things) so I've long put that issue to rest.

This thread, the research I've done recently, and time I've taken to think has really helped me. I'm feeling much more comfortable with my own thoughts and feelings now. I need to figure out how I want to deal with some of this but I've stopped worrying about what any of it means. I'm me and both my inner male and female are pretty much happy with that.

Though I'd still give anything to be a woman for a few days.

Cyran0

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Cyran0, first, thank you for your kind words. I try to keep things short and to the point as much as possible. I'm glad you found things helpful.

As to being a woman for a couple of days, I'm willing to bet that it probably wouldn't be nearly as interesting as you might imagine. I get flack for this all the time, but I'm here to say that the journey was less about gender or body than it was about freedom.

What I've noticed most about being all girl, inside and out is how little I notice gender anymore. What used to be a painful constant hell is now, well like breathing. It's what's not there that is more than what is. By that I mean heart, mind, body and soul I'm one person now istead of the constant conflict and pain.

Couple of days you might find interesting, but I bet once the novelty wore off, you'd find it as painful and conflicting as I did trying to be a guy. It's not even any one thing, it's not one huge problem alone (having the the wrong bits) as much as it is the HUGE mountain of problems that feel like one is being crushed every day of your life.

Anyway, I'm glad I could help.

Blessings,

Sam

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Cyran0 said:
Thanks again Samantha.

The real issue that's left over for me, and really the issue I've dealt with forever, is that thoughts and feelings are one thing but outwardly I'm male. So no matter how much I identify one way or the other, that's how the world sees me. And no matter how much I wish I could, I'm never going to get to really know what it's like to be a woman. I can't have that body.

So what to do with those thoughts and feelings?

Years ago I did a fair amount of cross dressing. Sometimes for theater, sometimes for film projects, and sometimes just to go out. I really enjoyed it. I loved having smooth legs, wearing makeup and putting on dresses. It was an insane amount of work but it was great. It felt very natural to just be this female version of myself for a time and then when the clothes came off, I was male again, and that felt good too. At the time I treated it as a goof or at most as a turn on, but looking back on it, I just enjoyed what I saw then as "taking on" that role. Lately I've been thinking that maybe it wasn't that I was taking something on but letting something out.

Ah but things were different then. I wasn't married, didn't have kids, and was about 50 pounds thinner. I suspect that, much like my homosexual urges, these feelings and fantasies and emotions will be dealt with quietly, by myself, without breaking any vows. Because even though my wife knows I'm bisexual and knows I used to cross dress and has heard me wish more than once to have her role for a time, we're still married.

Cyran0

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Actually "dressing" is a perfectly normal thing, and many, many people do it without ever taking an irreversible step like surgery or hormones. These days, more an more people are blurring the lines between genders, so it isn't the trauma it used to be.

Spouses and children are also taking it better and even accepting it fully.

Beleive it or not, in some ways I kind of envy your ability to take everything off and just feel like a guy again. I never felt like a guy even when I wa trying so hard to pretend to be one.

Me, I'm a country girl, a farm girl, and like the clean, wholesome look. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers/boots/sandals, hair pulled back and just the sun on my face. Closest I've ever gotten to makeup is a touch of sheer, colored lip that doubles as a moisturizer. For me, getting all dressed up is a nice blouse, slacks or a skirt, and something different with my hair. Makeup? Nah, still really only gloss and maybe just a little powder. I grew up on a farm in the country, and never really got into the whole glam thing myself.

For me, it was never really about apperance, clothing, makeup or any of the trapings of femininity. For me it was the social roles, the differences in thinking, feeling, communication, and relationships. For me it was always all about just being one of the girls. Mentally and emotionally since before I knew about sex, gender, orientation or any of the more complex things society adds on after the fact, I always have been a girl.

So after all the years of pain, confusion, exclusion and not fitting in, I took thesteps I needed to medically, surgically to be me. It's been great for me, I finally fit into the world and am free to just be who I am, not the person I was told I had to be.

As to being male on the outside... Used to be. Honestly I used to get mistaken for Jonathan Frakes who played Riker on ST:NextGen. Now, I look nothing like him, and that makes me really happy. There's no mistaking me for a guy, and frankly people who never knew me find it impossible to believe because I'm so clearly female. Curiously enough the only surgery I've had was in a place most people don't get to see.

Gender isn't nearly as fixed as folks might think it, and I went in the space of a face short years from looking like Riker, to looking like my Mother. I put off transition for more than a decade because I figured there was no amount of surgery in the world that could make my body correct and female. Well I was right, cause the only surgery I needed was the place so few people ever go. So trust me, outsides can change. Insides however not so much...

So if that is the only thing, maybe, who knows. I just wanted to say, it's not nearly as limiting as you might guess, or even I suspect, believe.

Blessings,

Sam

selfy u sound almost exactly like me...
i fantazize almost all the time....since i became a teenager... all of my fatnasies have been exclusively homosexual... i have fantasies of myself as a man... with a man.. also ive had dreams...
at the same time this makes me feel very sad and empty inside..

to be honest i think women are at a huge disadvantage physically.. and even mentally/socially.. but thats cause i guess ive had too many negative experiences being one..
-the periods obviously
-makeup feels like a prison on my face and its a huge chore to do
-bras feel like handcuffs, always tight and never comfy
-boobs can weigh u down and really hurt if something hits them (maybe just me).. but thank god i hardly have any at all.. (so i dont really even need a bra!!)
- vaginas are just ugly and the stuff that comes out of them is unbearable and sickening and ruins my panties.. not to mention yeast infections (thank god not me ide rip it all out if i ever got one i swear..)which most women seem to get.. do men get yeast infections much?????
-long hair is just annoying
-social pressures to be beautiful and look young (advertisements appealing more to women about wrinkle cream, botox, weight loss especialy whereas men are allowed to look old like the hair coloring that even ADDS gray streaks to the hair).. ive noticed, women on tv are always beautiful and full of makeup and beautiful figures but men are allowed to be fat and ugly (according to jim for example) (except roseanne i guess but even she wears makeup..)
-how women act towards each other sometimes is disgusitng!
-personally i just find mens clothes more comfy... womens are too tight or too revealing or the overall shape is just plain annoying to me... even womens sweat pants are too tight! give me a break!!
-being at a risk for rape especialy where im from

i can think of disadvantages for men..
-small %#@&#! size destroys ego
-expected to have outgoing/aggressive personality and to compete and have power
-hurts really bad for them to be hit in the balls
sorry thats all i can think of!

Well, this has been an interesting thread to read. I came out transgender at the age of 27, and I am now 28. Although I identified as a gay man for most of my life, something still just felt wrong. It is like everything that I was doing to my body was trying to make it into a girl, for example, doing electrolysis on my face to remove my beard. I have always wanted to have sex with a vagina and have never used my %#@&#! during sex. I finally took the plunge and went on cross-gender hormones last year and will be having my genital surgery this coming January. As happy as I am to be going through this, I wish I would have had this courage to transition at an earlier age.

Cyrano, from your posts, it sounds to me like you could very well be transgender as well. I think you should seek out a gender therapist ASAP to explore this. There is only so much satisfaction that crossdressing and fantasizing can bring. If indeed you are transgender and begin a physical transition, I hope you do it soon because most all transgenders all wish we would have done it at an earlier date.

Tracy

i'm not sure if i've posted in this thread before, and my concentration is so bad these days that i can't bother to read it thorogoughly (sorry spelling a bit bad too right now) but i felt compelled to ask if anyone has ever read the article on wikipedia about "genderqueer"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

i had been wondering all my life what the heck was wrong with me until i read that article last year. it hit 100% home.

not sure if i need a gender therapist tho. i just hate being female mostly, but i don't fully identify with being male either. i don't want to be either gender. i just want to be katie.


crayz.

花鳥風月

c'est tout ce que j'aime

My hubby just came out to me that he is a crossdresser and we are stuggling to get through this together. It is an issue you may want to explore with a couselor to see how far it goes. No matter the outcome be happy with who you are and embrace yourself.

*hugs* love who r u and never stray from it to please others

I think what you are feeling is normal.
I was always a tomboy and for about 6 years, from age 13-19 I though I was transgender. I wore mostly all boy clothes. Had no interest in girly things, still don't. Ordered binders for FTMs of the internet. I wanted surgery and hormones. I came really close to starting hormones. I finally noticed that it was just my mom making me feel that way. Ever since I was little I was never feminine enough. I wanted a skateboard. She wanted me to play with dolls. She forced gender stereotypes onto me and made me feel like I was the wrong gender. She has been trying to get me to have a breast reduction and it wasn't until then that I noticed how messed up she was making me. I like video games, drumming, extreme sports, and what not. I don't need to be a guy to like the things I like. She makes up crazy rules that woman have to live by. For example. Only guys can wear sneakers in the summer or with shorts. You have to always have all 20 nails painted. You always have to carry a purse. I also have PCOS and got horrible periods since I was 11. That didn't help at all. I now take birth control non stop so I don't have to deal with that. I get about 4 periods a year that way. The biggest thing for me was realizing I didn't have to fit anyones view of what a girl should be. There isn't a role I have to follow. The clothes for girls suck now. Everything is so tight. I am in the normal weight range for my hight. I could gain 10 pounds and my BMI would still be normal. But very few tops for girls fit me. My DDs are the biggest problem. Everything is made to make you look "sexy" and show everything. It is really hard finding modest clothes. By todays view of thin I am fat. I remember in high school girls talking about being 94 pounds and how 90 looked to anorexic but 96 looked fat. I was 90 pounds when I was 10 years old. These girls were about 16. A little boys Medium is bigger then a girls XL. I noticed this the other day when there was a misplaced kids t shirt in the womans section.

Tell me about it. I am a male to female transgender. You know what my therapist told me, as we were discussing the high beauty standards put on women. A man can get away with being unattractive to a woman if he makes $260,000/year. Guess how much a woman has to make for a guy to overlook her unattractiveness, according to guys? $0.00. The point is that there is no amount of money a woman can make to buy herself out of being unattractive. Thought this was pretty interesting, yet also sad.

OMG I feel this way too about being a dude ! I have always felt like this since I was 4 years old, been a right tom boy, I feel I am a male trapped inside a female body.why couldnt I have been born a boy ? not fair !

That is sad to know.

Hell yes!! :d

I've had a lot of the same thoughts.