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What Does it Feel Like?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by HarryPotterFan, Feb 19, 2014.

  1. HarryPotterFan

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    Hey guys. So I've been finding things confusing recently, in terms of gender identity and whatnot. And I saw on this other thread (http://emptyclosets.com/forum/gende...125807-gay-trying-understand-transgender.html) that some of the replies are very similar to me and how I'm currently feeling. I'm not saying this means I'm transgender or whatever, but anyway.

    How does it feel to feel like you're a gender different to your sex? I've never doubted my gender nor felt that it wasn't aligned with my sex, but then somewhat recently, things have changed. But, see, I don't know if it's a gender thing. Like...I'm assuming you don't feel like a different gender because of clothing style or likes or dislikes or whatever, because that's just society's idiocy and expectations. And nor is it strictly anatomy. So what is it that makes you feel like a certain gender?
     
  2. Maverik

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    I don't think there is an empirical answer to that question. Because from what I've seen it "feels" very different for different people. Some feel disgusted by their own bodies, others feel out of place in their gender roles.

    For me personally, it's a case of having had a desire that I couldn't explain and ignoring it for years. Finally, when I came to terms with the idea, a whole ton of things began to make sense. The way I didn't care about how I looked. The way I didn't look after my health. The way I constantly felt bad for wanting to act on certain imbed impulses but feeling like it was wrong to do so.

    As soon as I realized my womanhood, all of it changed. I suddenly cared very much about how I looked. I wanted to be healthier. I suddenly had an ideal body to strive for where before I had no interest in becoming "How a man should be". And all those impulses that I berated myself about as a man, I have no problem with as a woman.

    I finally felt like everything made perfect sense. Even the bad things clicked. Days when I felt bad for "no reason" seem to be days when I feel dysmorphic about my masculine features (specifically my strong male jaw line and cheek bones). And when I feel that way, doing something to make myself feel pretty helps immensely.

    So yeah. I guess it just... "Felt right" when I really sat down and thought about it.
     
  3. anonym

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    For me, it feels wrong when people call me she/her/Miss or by my real name. Women's fashion came to disgust me so I have gradually begun to dress more and more neutral starting on the road to dressing more masculine. I became fearful about my female body parts and very much disgusted. Sometimes I half expect to see myself as male bodied but then when I look down at my body and see my reflection, it's a nasty shock, a horrible reminder that I am literally in the wrong body. I am still in the process of accepting a male identity but when I think of myself as him or he, it just feels so much better and takes away a whole shed load of anxiety. When I am around women, I feel bad because I just don't fit. It's not me. I sometimes (though less so now) envy other guys for their bodies and the fact they were born male and wish that I was them. But now I realise that I wouldn't want to be just 'some guy' because that wouldn't be me. What I want now is to change my body to make it match the gender I feel I belong to so that socially I can be read as male. Overall, the best way I can describe what it means to be transgender for me is not feeling 'right' socially and within my own skin. Gender dysphoria for me comes more in the form of anxiety. Anxiety about wearing women's clothing, anxiety about using women's bathrooms, anxiety about living in female body etc etc If I sat down and thought about it for long enough, there would be an endless list of things. Even the absence of male features is another dysphoria trigger.
     
  4. drwinchester

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    Yeah, it's this prevailing sense of being 'wrong' as your birth gender. Every time I hear female pronouns, my birth name (for instance), it's like "who's her? That's not my name. I'm not a she. What are you talking about?" Bit of a slap in the face- especially when people are well aware I'm a guy but don't give a shit (no one's done this, except family).

    Like, I remember growing up (and I know I covered it extentsively in the other thread so I'll keep this brief) feeling wrong. Now, I wasn't a traditional 'trans story'- I didn't ask for a penis for Christmas, never dressed like a boy.

    The idea of being trans was probably the most absurd thing I could've stumbled on to explain how I felt. The key was, it fit like an old worn shoe.

    Male pronouns felt validating. I felt real for the first time. First time I wore guy clothing and flattened my chest, I literally stood there admiring myself in the mirror for ten minutes and was all "holy shit, I look how I feel." My female body gives me anxiety- it's not right. But presenting male- it was probably the first time I could sit and focus for more than twenty minutes at a time and just be able to do, say, homework without having to constantly rope myself back in.
     
  5. Daydreamer1

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    Someone I saw described it like you walk around your whole life feeling like your shoes are on the wrong feet. You know something feels weird and wrong, but you don't know what. Then you realize it was your shoes the whole time. That's one of the best analogies for describing what it feels like, but on another level.

    For me, it also comes in the form of dysphoria when I get cramps when the "curse" is about to happen and feeling discontent seeing my bare chest and my curves. As others said, it's feeling uncomfortable hearing people refer to me by pronouns like "she/her" because they don't fit who I am--sort of like where your shoes on the wrong feet.
     
  6. drwinchester

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    Yeah, that's perfect. Really is like walking with your shoes on the wrong feet. Sure, you're wearing shoes. They work. But they're on the wrong feet and if you're enough of a dunce (like me), it takes you a bit to realize what's up. You walk long enough in them and you're just asking for cramps.
     
  7. warholwendy

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    Like Maverik said it's different for everyone. Personally I don't feel disgust in my body but rather an overwhelming since of sadness that I'm not the opposite sex. There are people that are absolutely repulsed by their birth sex though.
     
  8. clockworkfox

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    For me, it isn't quite disgust. There's frustration though, and anxiety, and something like grief. The anxiety is the worst though, it's pretty damn constant and it seems to continually open the door for frustration.
     
  9. Sarah257

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    Having to spend years as a guy felt like crap quite frankly. I felt almost nothing but negativity. This ranged from apathy toward everything to downright hatred (although the hatred thing was much more during the early stages of puberty and eventually died down quite a bit). I felt empty. Hollow. Like I was missing something. I spent years trying to find out what it was, and delved into many subjects in its pursuit. Ironically, despite trying to find myself, I maintained a steadfast grip on my identity (or what I had compiled so far anyways, which included being a "guy"). Still never felt right. I could list all the things that come to mind about certain instances or circumstances, but I have a tendency to be a little wordy as it is and if I were to expound upon them all, we'd be here all day :slight_smile: So, moving on...

    When I finally admitted who I was, things opened up for me tremendously. Now I'm happy again; I have a future filled with hope instead of emptiness. The initial feelings were a bit mixed, but it was overall a kind of bubling giddiness mixed with profound relief. Now it's a bit more like contentment mixed with relaxtion and a bit of self consciousness at paying a bit more attention toward myself.

    ^is a very apt description

    @drwinchester: You figured it out before I did... Are you calling me a dunce? :lol:
     
  10. HarryPotterFan

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    Thanks all of you! I actually didn't know if it was something anyone would be able to put into words, so I appreciate that :slight_smile:

    So, OK, I was wondering if this could still mean I'm transgender, or if there's even a word for me, based on how I feel.

    Firstly, I don't have dysphoria. I'm apathetic towards my female body, really. My breasts...eh...if I could magic them away I would, because I don't like having breasts, but not to a point where I feel anxious or disgusted or anything. And also, from what you've all said, I don't think I feel like I'm a guy. I've always been unhappy with myself and not knowing why, but do I inwardly feel like I'm in the wrong body? No. But I do feel like I WANT to be a guy, and I feel very drawn to it and feel like there's a strong possibility that if I start expressing myself and identifying as a guy, things would click in my mind and I'd feel like, "Yeah, this is me, things make sense now." So I don't feel like I am a guy, but I want to be and I think that not doing so might be the reason I've never quite felt right.

    What do you think?
     
  11. Claudette

    Claudette Guest

    you may have dysphoria, like you said, you'd magic away your breasts if you could, it's not always wanting to be the other sex, it can also be about presenting as your current sex, I would try living as a guy (or like one lol) and see how it makes you feel.

    When I came out, so to say my whole world got turned right side up, everything started(and still is) falling into place, the world seems brighter, my dark thoughts are gone, and well.. for once in my life im not fighting crippling depression lol
    But I think the depression was a big part of it all. I'm just glad im not built like my gigantic brothers lol

    Like a friend said on a similar thread, she isn't sure about doing the final surgery, and that is a-ok ^^ because it's not always what equipment you have, its about how you present yourself, and being comfortable about it ^^
     
  12. anonym

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    I think there is a chance you could be transgender just because I can relate very much to what you say here. This was me say a year or more before now. I was 24 before I started feeling like I might be a guy and up until then I felt indifferent about my body. I didn't get dysphoria as such in the way that I do now. It manifested more as an eating disorder that I was battling with, part of which meant that I was a lot happier with a super skinny body. For a long time after I started feeling like I might be transgender, I can't say I felt like a guy. If someone had asked me that question, I would have answered no. It was more a case of knowing that from somewhere deep within there was a instinctive feeling that I wanted to become a guy, a feeling so strong that I had no control over. Another thing to consider is how you feel about relationships. I had only just started to come to terms with my sexual orientation when I realized I wasn't a lesbian as I had long thought I was but felt like sexually I should be a guy in a relationship with a woman.
     
  13. HarryPotterFan

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    Thanks for replying, both of you, much appreciated :slight_smile:
     
  14. Sarah257

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    You'll never know if you don't try, so get out there and try a bit of it. Remember that you don't have to go full guy in a day; you can start small, just to see if you like it.

    Good luck Bro! *chest bump* Sorry for that :lol:, but I thought it might make an interesting expirament. How did me calling you "Bro" make you feel? I know it's a small thing, but it's a place to start!
     
  15. Ash93

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    I figured I may as well give you a bit of my experience since it sounds like you have some of the stuff I feel. Before I ever looked into gender identity and stuff, I had always been rather indifferent to my breasts. I would complain about them, and sometimes I'd think, "Man if I had magic these would be gone in an instant!" I would wear baggy sweatshirts to kind of hide my chest, but I didn't necessarily hate anything about them for a long time.

    As of right now, there are days where I want to throw fancy flower pots at the wall and scream at the injustice of the world because d*** it all I don't have the right body! Then there are days where I'm quite indifferent to my body so long as I never look in the mirror, and in general don't try to think too much. Sometimes I think maybe I was totally wrong, but then I see another girl walking around in a skirt and a cute shirt and heels and make up, and I kind of feel sick at the thought of wearing that myself.

    I own a single sweater that is technically male clothing, and I feel practically naked if I don't wear it. I haven't really done much to combat everything that I feel because I really need a job first, but little steps definitely help in figuring things out. Maybe you could head to a thrift shop and try on some guys clothes just to see how it feels. That could help :slight_smile: