How to get rid of gender phobia?

Hey I have decided to start a new thread having sourced the cause of my stupid inability to accept my transsexualism.

Basically I just wanted any advice on how to overcome an internalised phobia of my gender identity. Not transphobia per se, more a phobia of the gender I belong to (ie men)

I have already been offered some good ideas: to connect more with men and read some biographies. I am also going to take the issue to therapy but I just wondered anyone had any similar experiences to share and what helped you.

I have tried to spend a little time with men over christmas to test out how I will feel once I transition socially but I just couldn't follow their conversation topics because I am not currently into the same stuff.

 

I can sympathise with this to a point. This is one of the things that led me to realise I preferred guys to girls romantically, because while the girl I know are nice and all, they can annoy the hell out of me far quicker than the guys. It's one of the more difficult things about being trans, I think. It seems odd to be that one person whose friends are all the opposite gender!

So to start off with, what kind of things were these men talking about? Just remember that you don't HAVE to give even half a damn about what they are talking about to be one of them. It's all well and good spending time with guys but if you spend time with guys who you have nothing in common with, you're going to make yourself feel bad!

Next time you spend time with some guys, talk about something that interests you. Just find a way to guide the conversation. Your opinions and interests are as valid as theirs are.

 

Hey you're back! I have missed you're comments over xmas. They were talking about beer and mechanical toy cars, helicopters and racing.

 

Yeah, see I can tell you right now that even 'as a guy' I would never in a million years have been discussing those things, nor would any of my 100% cis-male friends.

I just spent the last week on the mens ward in hospital and they were discussing motorbikes and tanks and engines, making stupid jokes and generally being weird. Felt really uncomfortable. On the other hand, the female nurses had discussed 50 Shades of Grey, TV soaps and some girly films and that didn't feel right either!

It's not a case of making your interests match those of others, it's about finding others whose interests match your own!

So what do YOU like to talk about?

 

Well...as I said before a lot of my interests have dissolved with depression and realising I'm a guy. I started to feel dysphoric about some of the interests I had like reading because of the nature of the books I preferred to read. See I always preferred books that were written from the fictional perspective of a woman, by women authors. I always found male authors focused on the sexual details of women and at the time, being a woman myself I found this rather annoying. It would be unlikely that they would be describing a male characters penis in that way (I suppose if they were gay, they may have). So anyway, I got dysphoria feeling the books I was reading were too feminine and not really me any more.

I also used to enjoy designing, drawing and making things but the stuff I made was quite feminine so it gave me dysphoria and I stopped :-(

Same with tv soaps and gossiping about people (hehe). All these things I would have normally talked about but now I'm trans, they give me dysphoria :-(

 

See I'm wondering where the line is drawn between the effects of depression and the effects of the dysphoria.

I'm no stranger to either, but I have been fortunate (if you can call it that) enough to have experienced the depression first for many, many years. So I can relate to both really well.

Basically, from my experience, depression will suck the fun out of everything. It could be your favourite thing in the world and depression will make you hate it. Everything about it seems wrong. Now you combine that with your dysphoria, and it's going to get worse. If it was JUST dysphoria then I could say try reading a different sort of book, or try drawing something else and it MIGHT not be a problem. But add the depression in there and it doesn't work (believe me, I tried!).

One thing I found useful was to do something I'd done in the past that I thought was OK but I didn't really go for it in a big way. So my favourite things to do were gaming, playing mandolin and languages. I couldn't do any of them, so I started drawing. I used to draw a bit but I wasn't very good. It gave me the opportunity to do something I didn't hate but didn't really care if I messed it up. It just gave me something to do. It didn't last long, I drew for a couple of days and moved on to something else...swimming I think, which was good for a while.

The point is I did little things like that just to motivate me to do SOMETHING. After a while, once the whole 'I could just do NOTHING ever' feeling started to life, I found enjoyment in my hobbies again. It takes a long time, I started drawing about 18 months ago and I have barely played my mandolin since then, I've not even touched my language studies, but I'm getting there. Once you get that motivation thing out of the way you can start thinking, or rather NOT thinking, about how gendered your activities are. The dysphoria from things like that shifts a little when you can start to realise that even as X you can enjoy Y.

 

Ok so before depression, which has been many years now, I used to love drawing and designing and painting, learning and playing musical instruments, reading fiction, playing at being an interior designer decorating my own room (lol!), shopping for clothes and baking.

I genuinely did like these things but depression kicked in and the gender dysphoria and I feel like I can't ever do them again because it makes me dysphoric

 

See none of those things have to be gender specific, or bring on dysphoria. I know it's not something you can control, but the depression makes it worse than it needs to be. Deal with that first.

Let's take musical instruments for example. When you pick up a musical instrument and start to play, what do you feel? Go and get one, mess around with it for 5 minutes and write down all the thoughts you have.

 

Ok I will give it a try. Another thing is I don't really find it easy to get along with guys :-/ which is weird considering I'm supposed to be one of them. It's exactly like you said not feeling comfortable with the guy or girl conversations in that hospital ward.

Maybe if we had similar interests though then yes, it would be a starting point. I seem to find it quite difficult to connect with other people as it is I'm not sure why.

 

Well whatever the reason is, the depression and dysphoria don't make it easier! Having said all that, it's not like you HAVE to hang around with guys anyway! I'm living full time and I know 3 girls offline. THREE. One has been one of my best friends for 10 years, but she lives miles away. 1 is my friends girlfriend, one is in my therapy group. I don't plan on changing that just because I'm a girl.

Like you I find it difficult to talk and connect with people, girls are especially hard for me because I don't have any of the inherent experiences, but the more I've been working on my depression the more I've forced myself into social situations and it has gotten a bit easier. You can get there

 

Thanks I know this is what everyone wants but all I want is a normal life with an ok job (doesn't have to be amazing) and friends I can rely on. At present, I have one friend - one! :-( I seem to have a history of people turning against me going from friends to bullies which I assume is my fault in some way, though I can't think what I did wrong.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but have you made any friends or dated post transitioning/coming out? If so have you found being trans to be an issue?

 

I've made one single solitary friend in real life in the last 10 years. She has only ever known me as Holly, and she was fine with it. But she is bisexual and we met in therapy so perhaps that makes her a bit more open minded, I don't know...

I haven't dated, but then I only dated once before and that wasn't exactly easy then! xD

I've found that most people I speak to now, tend to ignore the trans thing unless they REALLY have a problem with it. I know I don't pass so I always expect some questions and I'm OK with that, but most people tend to just go with it. I find they are more interested in the fact that I give a damn about what they are talking about than what happens to be inside my underwear! Once I realised that I started to feel more confident.

Also, I want to share something with you from my personal experience in regard to your 'friends to bullies' thing. Be warned, what I'm about to tell you is probably the one thing I am most ashamed of in my life and is something I will never forgive myself for as long as I live. Ever.

I've had the same friends since forever, but they came in 2 groups. These groups didn't really get on with each other for various reasons. Anyway, we started sixth form and all our friend groups got messed around what with people going to different schools so the dynamic changed.

One group, my main group, had 4 people in it. R, the leader. P, the second in command. Me, and then A. R and A went to different schools, so it was just me and P at this school. He made friends with another guy we knew and somehow became the 'leader' of our old friends group.

My other group, contained J, the leader, me, and S. J went to the same school but we didn't see much of each other. S also went to our school and we saw bits of him.

Now P did not like S. He thought he was weird, which is rich coming from him but that doesn't matter. Now I was really depressed during this time because P was being a complete dick to me. He and his new friend shifted the power balance. P had always been kind of a dick, but R kept him in line, now R was gone and P could do whatever he liked and I hated it. Then one day, P moved on to being mean to S. I joined in.

I have never understood WHY I joined in, other than it mean that somebody else was getting a hard time instead of me. S started to cry and P took the piss out of him for it. I stopped myself, but couldn't stop him. I didn't try. I have never ever felt more ashamed of myself. I had gone from being a decent person to bullying someone who is now one of my dearest friends just because someone else tipped the balance of power and made me feel bad.

S couldn't walk as fast as me and P, and we had a LONG walk between our school and the train. S tried to keep up with us, but we walked faster. P set the pace and I kept it. S dragged behind and tried really hard to keep up, but in the end felt sick and couldn't keep it up. This went on for some time.

I quit school because of this, and basically fucked my future for a long while.

I'm telling you this, just because I want you to know some people find it hard to stay true to friends. I don't want you to go and forgive the people who turned on you and start being all buddy-buddy again, I don't, not at all. I just want you to know that the chances are bloody high that you had NOTHING to do with them turning apart from being the unfortunate soul that someone decided to give a hard time to. Don't blame yourself for it.

 

well I have no intention of getting back in touch with those people. They are long gone from my life.

I just need to find new friends but I'm worried that as I find it difficult any way, it's going to be a lot harder being trans.

 

Then don't give them the option. You introduce yourself as whatever male name you like and stick with it, the worst they are going to think is that you don't LOOK like a manly man, but hardly anyone I know does and the ones that do tend to be complete dickheads. Pardon my French.

Making friends can be tricky because your mind starts putting stuff in your way. So you need to start taking that stuff away. The first thing you need to get rid of is this idea that being trans will make it harder. I know it's hard to do, and I'm not good at it either, but personally I find that it has made things a little easier because I feel more comfortable with myself!

 

I have no idea where to start. I mean part of me wants to have friends but at the same time I feel like I don't deserve to be happy and wouldn't expect anyone to want to know me because I'm a transsexual :-( How do you overcome these feelings?

 

Well it's hard to feel you love yourself if you're still not sure who you are, and let's face it, you're not sure, you're in that horrible limbo place between what you've been told you are supposed to be and what you think you should be!

But we can work around that. The first step, you already did, or took steps towards at least. That was to accept that you're not binary female. That's a good start, at least we know what you aren't!

The rest, is all about confidence building. It involves some tricks, and a lot of feeling like an idiot! It also requires you to be honest and objective, which is really hard to do when you're feeling crappy, so I usually advise speaking to someone else while you're trying to do it. The EC forums are a good place because we have NO reason not to call you out on things because unlike your friends, it doesn't make much difference if I call you out on something and you think I'm mean because of it. I'm not here to tell you you're great, I want you to figure that out for yourself. The same goes for the rest of this community.

So why don't you deserve to be happy? Is this just a general feeling, or are there specific reasons that you personally don't deserve to wake up in the morning and think 'Glad I didn't die overnight!'?


As for people not wanting to know you because you're trans. There are people in the world who think like this, but let's be realistic, if you start talking to someone who dislikes you because you are trans, you were never going to be friends with this person anyway. See it as a really quick way of filtering out the people who aren't worth your time.
That leaves us with the people who either are happy about it or just don't care. These people don't care what's between your legs unless they find you attractive, and since I'm fairly confident you have about as much self esteem as I do, I'm guessing you aren't going around thinking "Everybody wants to sex me", so it shouldn't be much of a problem now!

For all these people, the things that will draw them to you are the things you like. All those things you listed before that you feel you can't do. Talk about them, even if you can't do them right now, talk about them. If you can't summon up the same passion you once managed, it doesn't matter, just express your interest. Let it be known without question that these things are what you like and that you want to talk about them. If someone asks you about trans stuff, you can either answer them or say "I'd rather not talk about it", either is fine. But talk about what interests YOU. That will draw them to you.

What makes people LIKE you is YOU. Not your body, but that bit inside you that some would call the soul. That quality that you express without knowing it. The part that draws people back in even if your down in the dumps and generally feeling crap.

Overcoming this idea that you're not worth somebody else's time is seriously difficult, but ultimately, you probably are. At the very least, you are worth somebody else's time as much as they are worth yours. These people you are likely to talk to aren't anything special. They don't hold the answers to the big questions, they don't hold the keys to your future, they are just random people. Random people who you happen to be talking to. Why are they worth YOUR time?

 

Well the reason behind why I don't feel I deserve to be happy is because I feel like I'm a horrible person and I don't have anything to offer. For example, I see that other people have their flaws but there's always something that shines through. That, I think is why people still like them and want to be their friend. But with me, there's absolutely nothing. Not a thing. I just feel like a parasite that has nothing to contribute to society. I'm just a waste of space. Even the very reason we live, to continue the human race, I cannot contribute to. Basically, I just feel worthless, useless, a waste of a human being.

 

OK, let's think about this another way.

I've been talking to you online for what...over a month now? It makes no difference to me if you feel better or not realistically, I don't know you and am unlikely to ever meet you. Yet here I am, still writing this message. Why do you suppose that is?

 

Well I guess like my friend and therapist because you're trying to help me. I don't want to be depressed yet I feel that's what I deserve. It's hard to explain but because of my feelings about being not only trans but being a guy (which as I said I don't like) I don't feel that I am a person worth helping. So I can't invest the effort to help myself if that makes sense

 

Yeah, I do want to help you, I like helping people. But there's a reason I'm trying so hard.

You're scared. The things you say I can relate to. In a sense, I see parts of me in the things you say. That's all people look for in others. Something of themselves.

Express the parts of you that you know. If you are uncertain, be uncertain. The uncertain among us will be uncertain with you. Find people, DIFFERENT people. Experience the world of men as something other than a stereotype. Bring yourself to understand that you are whatever the hell you say you are and nobody has the right to tell you otherwise. Know that being 'a guy' and being YOU are different. They mean different things to different people. You don't want to be just some guy any more than I want to be some girl. If you picked out 100 random girls from the street I can say with some confidence I would not want to be any of them, and from what you have told me I imagine that is the same with you and guys.

There are parts of you that you don't like, and you can work on those, but there are parts of you you DO like, or used to, before the depression took hold and made you doubt thinks. Find them again and share them. Let people share the things they care about with you. ANYBODY.

It's hard to feel like a person worth helping when you don't feel like a real person. I know that feeling, that place where you can't invest in yourself. I've been there for over a decade, and I'm only starting to claw my way out of it with every ounce of energy I have, an to the rest of the world it still isn't enough! It is hard work and it takes time, but somewhere in that pit of misery is you, whoever you are, and you are worth the effort to find.

You are worth my time, because if I can help someone have an easier time with something I've struggled with I know I have done some good in this world. You are worth your own time because you deserve to be out of it. You've done nothing wrong, you are not being punished. You are lost. Nobody deserves to be lost. Not for long.