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Dec. 19th, 2005 04:25 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
alienchangeling.livejournal.comI don't know quite how to put this. I'm taking my first steps in talking to other people about my gender issues, and even though I've taken some precautions to shield myself using anonymity on the Internet, I'm still (mostly irrationally) afraid. I'm trying to decide if my gender issues are real, and if so, what they make me.
I'm a biological male. To make a long story short, I've been uncomfortable with my body and the male social role for a long time. I really hate having male stereotypes applied to me, and I always have: I don't really think like a normal male, and when I try to behave like one, it feels like I'm pretending or faking it. A lot of the experiences that are supposed to define maturing males alienated me. I've never wanted to look like an adult male: I haven't liked my body since puberty, and more to the point, the older I get, the less I like it. I'm fortunate that I'm only now starting to develop chest hair (I'm 25); as it is, this and balding are the last indignities my body seems determined to inflict on me.
As a child, I thought that I was some form of androgyne: I didn't use the word, but I imagined myself as a bridge between male and female. I liked to play with boys and girls, though of course most of the girls excluded me. In middle school and high school, I played at being an asexual neuter, but in college I started to figure out that this didn't fit any better than male and that it was impairing my ability to find meaningful relationships (I'm talking about friendships here; romantic relationships are a whole different matter, one which I have little experience with). After college, my gender issues seemed to wake up and take the opportunity to really tear into me, and this, along with other bad life experiences, sent me into a tailspin I haven't really recovered from.
I'm trying to figure out where gender fits for me. It's complicated, because I don't have a strong feeling of being something. I've read a lot of stories written by transsexuals and transgenders and lurked message boards, so I know a lot of people who cross gender lines have strong sense of being female or male, where that doesn't correspond to their bodies. I don't have a strong sense of anything; the closest I've ever come, in my life, is that childhood sense of androgyny, but since then things have become so complicated I don't even trust any identity-feelings I do have.
The part that makes it harder is that I have some pretty strong psychological masculine characteristics. I did well academically in male-dominated fields for a long time, though I had a persistent feeling of inferiority, that I was never quite good enough; part of my recent crisis has been my lack of ability to continue to prosper in those fields. I still enjoy academic debate in writing. I have a high geek-factor and enjoy some stereotypical male activities, like roleplaying games.
I don't feel all that feminine. However, I don't know how much of that is me and how much of it is habit and trained reflexes built up from years of trying to live up to the expectations for males. I'm a very inhibited person, and I've suppressed my feelings for a long time. For one example, my parents disapproved very strongly any time I tried to let my hair grow past the clean-cut male length, and when I was younger, they dragged me to the hair-cutter's by main force if necessary; it's only in the last couple of years I've gotten the courage to stand up to them, but I lack all the years of experience with having longer hair to know what styles work and what don't, and I don't even know how to learn. In middle school I got teased for liking trashy fantasy romances, and again, only recently have I started to explore them again. And so on. I wonder if I'd hadn't faced such negative reactions, reactions that I internalized, if my personal growth might have gone in different directions and I wouldn't have uncomfortable now.
One of my peculiarities is that I've never cross-dressed. I think part of this comes from growing up in an
all-male household except for my mother, so I never had siblings' clothing around to try on. Part of it comes from caring very little about my clothes: I've never seen clothing as important to who I am, it's hard to explain beyond that. And part of it is just because I've never felt the desire to cross-dress. I'm thinking about cross-dressing now, but coming to it as an adult seems very different from all the stories I've read. It makes me feel inauthentic, like this is all stuff I'm just making up.
I've been going to a therapist for this and other personal issues. I managed to "come out," so to speak, to my therapist, awhile ago, which was a major step for me. However, she has no specific training for gender therapy; I've been teaching her about it, but obviously her lack of experience means that she can't help me in resolving some of my doubts either way.
I don't know what I am. When I'm doubting myself, I imagine that I'm a male who's taken his discomfort with the sexist assumptions in society way too far. When I'm taking my thoughts and feelings more seriously, I worry about the future: if some form of gender transition is right for me, the longer I wait the harder it will get, and I'm really afraid that if I wait too long my chances of doing anything but living out the rest of my life as male will be gone. But, I don't even know yet if I were to take some serious steps, how far I would want to go! I've considered going on anti-androgens, but they're expensive and I'm not completely financially independent, so I don't see how I could pay for them without my parents finding out. Also, that doesn't seem like a good long-term solution, because of the cost and because I've read that anti-androgens have negative health consequences when used over a long period of time. I've thought about orchiectomy as the longer-term extension of anti-androgens, but there's little to no medical literature on the health of eunuchs (I hate that word so much, even though it is an accurate description; if I get my testes removed, it's not because I'm "half a man" or any of the other pejoratives, it's because I'm something else altogether!), and I don't know how that would affect my ability to pass as male. I'd like to get rid of my beard permanently, but that's also expensive and would, to my knowledge, be helped by getting off male hormones; also, while it's the easiest of the options in the sense that it won't impair my ability to pass as male, it won't do anything about the other permanent changes like balding or chest hair.
It feels better for me if I self-identity as "not male" instead of "male who's not normal," which is what I used to think when I was trying to hide from myself. I've begun to think that makes me some species of transgender. However, I still seem so different from "normal," even among other transgenders and transsexuals. Has anyone else had similar experiences to mine?
I'm a biological male. To make a long story short, I've been uncomfortable with my body and the male social role for a long time. I really hate having male stereotypes applied to me, and I always have: I don't really think like a normal male, and when I try to behave like one, it feels like I'm pretending or faking it. A lot of the experiences that are supposed to define maturing males alienated me. I've never wanted to look like an adult male: I haven't liked my body since puberty, and more to the point, the older I get, the less I like it. I'm fortunate that I'm only now starting to develop chest hair (I'm 25); as it is, this and balding are the last indignities my body seems determined to inflict on me.
As a child, I thought that I was some form of androgyne: I didn't use the word, but I imagined myself as a bridge between male and female. I liked to play with boys and girls, though of course most of the girls excluded me. In middle school and high school, I played at being an asexual neuter, but in college I started to figure out that this didn't fit any better than male and that it was impairing my ability to find meaningful relationships (I'm talking about friendships here; romantic relationships are a whole different matter, one which I have little experience with). After college, my gender issues seemed to wake up and take the opportunity to really tear into me, and this, along with other bad life experiences, sent me into a tailspin I haven't really recovered from.
I'm trying to figure out where gender fits for me. It's complicated, because I don't have a strong feeling of being something. I've read a lot of stories written by transsexuals and transgenders and lurked message boards, so I know a lot of people who cross gender lines have strong sense of being female or male, where that doesn't correspond to their bodies. I don't have a strong sense of anything; the closest I've ever come, in my life, is that childhood sense of androgyny, but since then things have become so complicated I don't even trust any identity-feelings I do have.
The part that makes it harder is that I have some pretty strong psychological masculine characteristics. I did well academically in male-dominated fields for a long time, though I had a persistent feeling of inferiority, that I was never quite good enough; part of my recent crisis has been my lack of ability to continue to prosper in those fields. I still enjoy academic debate in writing. I have a high geek-factor and enjoy some stereotypical male activities, like roleplaying games.
I don't feel all that feminine. However, I don't know how much of that is me and how much of it is habit and trained reflexes built up from years of trying to live up to the expectations for males. I'm a very inhibited person, and I've suppressed my feelings for a long time. For one example, my parents disapproved very strongly any time I tried to let my hair grow past the clean-cut male length, and when I was younger, they dragged me to the hair-cutter's by main force if necessary; it's only in the last couple of years I've gotten the courage to stand up to them, but I lack all the years of experience with having longer hair to know what styles work and what don't, and I don't even know how to learn. In middle school I got teased for liking trashy fantasy romances, and again, only recently have I started to explore them again. And so on. I wonder if I'd hadn't faced such negative reactions, reactions that I internalized, if my personal growth might have gone in different directions and I wouldn't have uncomfortable now.
One of my peculiarities is that I've never cross-dressed. I think part of this comes from growing up in an
all-male household except for my mother, so I never had siblings' clothing around to try on. Part of it comes from caring very little about my clothes: I've never seen clothing as important to who I am, it's hard to explain beyond that. And part of it is just because I've never felt the desire to cross-dress. I'm thinking about cross-dressing now, but coming to it as an adult seems very different from all the stories I've read. It makes me feel inauthentic, like this is all stuff I'm just making up.
I've been going to a therapist for this and other personal issues. I managed to "come out," so to speak, to my therapist, awhile ago, which was a major step for me. However, she has no specific training for gender therapy; I've been teaching her about it, but obviously her lack of experience means that she can't help me in resolving some of my doubts either way.
I don't know what I am. When I'm doubting myself, I imagine that I'm a male who's taken his discomfort with the sexist assumptions in society way too far. When I'm taking my thoughts and feelings more seriously, I worry about the future: if some form of gender transition is right for me, the longer I wait the harder it will get, and I'm really afraid that if I wait too long my chances of doing anything but living out the rest of my life as male will be gone. But, I don't even know yet if I were to take some serious steps, how far I would want to go! I've considered going on anti-androgens, but they're expensive and I'm not completely financially independent, so I don't see how I could pay for them without my parents finding out. Also, that doesn't seem like a good long-term solution, because of the cost and because I've read that anti-androgens have negative health consequences when used over a long period of time. I've thought about orchiectomy as the longer-term extension of anti-androgens, but there's little to no medical literature on the health of eunuchs (I hate that word so much, even though it is an accurate description; if I get my testes removed, it's not because I'm "half a man" or any of the other pejoratives, it's because I'm something else altogether!), and I don't know how that would affect my ability to pass as male. I'd like to get rid of my beard permanently, but that's also expensive and would, to my knowledge, be helped by getting off male hormones; also, while it's the easiest of the options in the sense that it won't impair my ability to pass as male, it won't do anything about the other permanent changes like balding or chest hair.
It feels better for me if I self-identity as "not male" instead of "male who's not normal," which is what I used to think when I was trying to hide from myself. I've begun to think that makes me some species of transgender. However, I still seem so different from "normal," even among other transgenders and transsexuals. Has anyone else had similar experiences to mine?