What it feels like to be trans, genderqueer or genderless

[LunaZamiko]

First off, female bodied. Second off, I suppose for me the largest feeling is more...confusion? When I was younger, my friends apparently mistook me as "a cross dressing dude with some serious issues" for the longest time, I suppose because my breasts are small, and my ribcage is large. I was really into anime back then, and I remember for some reason I was really only able to identify with the feminine-looking male characters. Itachi from Naruto, Sebastion from Black Butler, Haji from Blood+. I never really felt like a straight up girl, but not really a boy either. All the girls kept getting crushes on me, and kept nicknaming me "prince", due to their own fantasies of the typical, beautiful dark haired anime males. I mean, I didn't know how to feel about it. On one hand, I felt really proud of this. I could be seen as independant, intelligent, and didn't have to be expected to get touchy-feely with people. On the other, I knew I wasn't REALLY a dude. I felt like...I don't even know. Whatever it was, people apparently thought I was supposed to be born male. People feared and respected me, and I knew I had feminine characteristics as well, but they were never really noticed I suppose. That or people just wanted to point out all the reasons why I didn't fit in. I felt really lonely, and soon felt very frail. I had a large desire to be able to appear gentle, feminine.

Later, as my interests in anime died like the passengers of that missing plane (too soon?), they began to turn towards music/ theatre. Malice Mizer became my muse, and shortly after my figure developed a little more. I began to finally look like a damn female, for once. Instead of pants, suits/ties, I fell in love with EGA/Gothic Lolita. (It didn't cross my mind that my role models were all androgyne males, and some crossdressers. Shush.) I found shortly after people kept treating me in a way I HATED. I HATED being viewed as delicate and codependent, which seemed to be the automatic, weird assumption now since there was no more questioning of my sex from others. Suddenly people were sexualizing me, and I did anything I could to stop that from happening. I was never openly emotional in public, in fact a little cruel, and became VERY assertive/ aggressive. I still loved Jrock androgyny, and LOVED the combination of masculine/ feminine traits. I loved how someone could be viewed and treated as both, or neither. After spending so much time acting strictly to conteract the views that female bodies apparently brought, I was STILL unhappy. I wanted to blend what I knew were the feminine aspects with me, with the obvious masculine aspects of me. Because attempting to abide with either or did nothing but made me miserable. I don't feel like a man, or a woman. I feel like a person, who can have/ be whatever combination of traits/interests I desire.

[EvolutionMeetsCreation]

Wow..im so grateful im not alone in my feelings. I was daddys little girl as a child and I modeled myself after him. It was war to make me wear a dress and skirts weren't even up for discussion. I was the oldest in a family of boys and I essentially felt more male then my brothers. Then I grew up. Men made sure to isolate me further by refusing to accept me as one of the boys cause all they wanted was to fuck me. The women isolated me cause I am sexually attracted to women. Well ive just recently been granted the gift of self discovery and self improvement and whilst on my journey to create who I want to be I discovered despite being biologically female ive always been offended by the term lady as im so not a lady i despise the idea of being female and yet due to my body could never embrace that male side to me. Yet its not just my body which will be sculpted, the rest of me is receiving a remodeling job too. Yes I have traits/behaviors of both sexes. I do not feel I belong to either sex. I feel terminally unique and would love to rid myself of these breasts that are useless and get in the way of everything anyway. And somehow sew up this gash that has etched itself there and just be what I am not assigned to a fucking gender. Why cant I just be human. With no sex. Sometimes I am wondering would the male gender suit me better...but I find I just wanna be not fucking objectified and made one role or the other. Hell im not adverse to switching roles depending on what mood im in. Cause thats who I am mostly male traits unfortunately tainted by estrogen and whatever other female gene that seems to invade at inappropriate or unexpected moments and make me seem like a woman. Im not female!I despise any moment of feminity and just enjoy the other moments when I just am. Oh to be rid of this body and given one that suits this identity I now know I can create and well im looking forward to what I create and express myself as and with. Perhaps the next movement is learning to sew and fucking ultimately making me the genderless person I so painfully feel I am. Perhaps I may even accept creating myself as a male. Or just embrace this genderless feeling that seems to consume. Im grateful im now have the knowledge to help create the me that needs to live. Thank u for this site and the information.

[CallMeJO(e)]

People often mix up Gender with Biological sex which is quite disappointing. I am Gender neutral and/or Genderless. I generally chose to be which gender I want to either day and Which actually I feel a queer mix of both :D. Most of my friends are male if you consider them ''friends'' at all (Lack of True Friends). Having Breasts are quite disappointing (mine are D cup) and trying to hide them are a pain.

[TheNomment]

I define as Androgyne/Androgynous, which could mean (from gender wiki) Androgynes may possess traits that are simultaneously feminine and masculine, or neither.

I go by feminine and masculine (both man and woman), but I can see how that can be seen as gender neutral, or genderqueer.

I am biologically female, but my bone structure is so large, I look like a man when I bind. (I also have very thick eyebrows, and I don't trim them that much.) I have always been drawn to the androgynous style of clothing since I was a little child.

I grew up with a mother who always bought me pink clothes... Now I finally have the freedom of choosing my clothes.

I actually love being called the opposite gender from my biological gender, makes me happier, because it makes me feel like I'm doing something right. (I don't know why, but it's very enjoyable to me.)

I have thought about being trans for a while now... I still think about it sometimes, but I believe I was sort of born as a mixture of both genders.

Female traits - the private places, and facial structure.

Male traits - bone structure, foot size, hand size, broad shoulders, and eyebrows.

[AmberSkyeF]

I'm identifying more and more as agender the more I think about this stuff. Biologically I'm female. I have no issues looking female or being called 'she.' I don't want to be a male, just because I find the female form more athestically pleasing. I am apathetic about my breasts though. At the same time, I'm glad they're small. Plus, if I were male, I wouldn't be with my fiance, and I quite like being with him. But gender is nonsensical to me. I don't understand it. What does being female feel like? What does being male feel like? I don't know. I like presenting myself as a female, but if we're going by stereotypical qualities of what it means to be male and female, I probably have slightly more male than female qualities, but I wouldn't consider my gender male. Not at all.

The whole gender thing is nonsense to me, which is probably why agender makes much more sense to me. Having this label gives me an answer to why I can't define what it means to be female, because I simply don't know. I love dresses, but I don't see that as a feminine thing. There is nothing inherently feminine about dresses. I am romantically attracted to men. I can't explain why. But I also can't explain why I'm asexual. I just am. I can explain what makes me asexual, but I can give you the 'why.' So romantically attracted to men but has no idea what it means to be female. Therefore, agender.

[tim90]

I'm becoming increasingly aware that I am an Androgyne.

I really do feel like I'm a mixture of male and female. I want to appear more feminine, enough that I appear female at first glance or at least appear androgynous, but I don't feel like I want to crossdress.

In an ideal world I would look something like the androgynous model Adrien Lebreton, but unfortunatly this is not an ideal world.

I am trying to work towards that kind of look though, as I honestly feel I would be so much more comfortable in my own skin like that.

[Razz]

I identify as neutrois and am working on transitioning physically (because being assigned a gender based on how I look has made me cringe since I was small). I've spent a large portion of my life being resigned to a very painful, literally sickening sort of disphoria that was nearly unlivable at times. I'm glad I'm getting away from it, but it still stings when close friends and family try to cram me back into that gender box that I've always refused to be in. I guess, for me, I just never fit any gender stereotypes and it felt soooo wrong being forced to do so for so long. So it's frustrating to try and explain what I am to people who want to know because even I don't exactly know; it's just how I've always felt and I seriously don't get why so many people are hung up on this whole "one or the other, male or female" mumbo jumbo. But finally being able to make my body look the way I've always known it should is exhilirating; no more head hair, no gendered name to give me away... It's nice. :) I had to get past thinking I was crazy and alone, too, but I've come to realize that some humans are just not cut from the same cloth when it comes to gender.

Um...I hope that made sense. :D

[luxurieux]

I wanted to share this video in case no one's seen it because I just can't stop watching it and I think it's relevant.

[Razz]

Oh wow. I'm going to cry.

[Ineffable Aardwolf]

I consider myself "omnigender," and when people ask for an explanation, I simply tell them, "I am male; I am female; I am both; I am neither."

I've always felt uncomfortable in my female body and hate being called a woman or a girl, but I'm not picky about pronouns. Call me a he, she, or it; I don't care. Just don't call me "they" unless you are talking about more than one of me. :b

[Carbon Monoxide]

Hmm, no idea what feeling like a gender feels like. I'm just a person.

[kiaroskuro]

Trying to meet gender expectations eventually leaves me confused, most of the time.

[Calligraphette_Coe]

Dear Testosterone,

I hate you.

You made those things descend and turned me into a fallen angel who was held down while her wings and innocence were amputated by life. I have never, nor will ever, embrace your 'gifts'. Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Masculinity, I will never let you possess me. Even as your followers held me down and removed my garments to invade me, I will fight you to my death and beyond. I will become as a ghost. And when you come looking for me, all you will find is....

She's not there.

[Faith Formation]

Have you ever seen a broken leg? I don't mean a normal broken leg. I mean the nasty freaky broken leg. No exposed bone or blood, but the knee is bent the wrong way. The leg doesn't go in the direction it's supposed to. It's something that's sort of terrifying to behold because you know it's absolutely horrifyingly wrong deep down in your most instinctual parts of your brain. Now imagine that you look down at your own leg and it's broken like that. You're not feeling the pain but you are feeling the utterly freaked out feeling of "OMFG MY LEG IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BENDING THAT WAY."

Not a pleasant feeling, right?

Okay, let's go further. Let's pretend that this freaky bent broken leg is seen as utterly normal by everyone else. They look at your body and go, 'what's the problem?' There's nothing freaky about them, you're the only one with the freakishness driving you nuts but no one else sees it. Forget the leg and just remember the feeling. The feeling of intimate, screwed up, almost grotesque wrongness. Like the very laws of how your body ought to be are violated, just like if you had that bending the wrong way leg. Imagine that feeling applied to everything about you that is male or female. Imagine seeing the male/female parts you have and getting that "OMFG MY BODY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT." That deep down instinctual feeling of "OMFGWTF" that you get when you see a shattered knee bending a leg the wrong way or even worse see that bent leg on yourself. It's not rational. It doesn't make logical sense. It's utter instinctual response.

That's bodily dysphoria.

Now. Imagine living with that every day for the rest of your life.

This... yes. This is so perfect. We've been having so many issues with dysphoria lately.. normally we just do our best to ignore it. But it never really goes away...

[glutamatergic]

I never thought of myself as genderqueer. I'm not even that sure I am; it's just a convenient one-word label to describe what is more appropriately a protest-against-gender identity rather than a gender identity. I fundamentally have no problem using female pronouns or having my complement of primary and secondary sex characteristics.

I object to gender as a concept beyond what combination of primary and secondary sex characteristics you're comfortable with. I don't object to mine, and I probably wouldn't object to others. But I am fundamentally incensed by gendering dress and behavior.

[xmicahx]

Have you ever seen a broken leg? I don't mean a normal broken leg. I mean the nasty freaky broken leg. No exposed bone or blood, but the knee is bent the wrong way. The leg doesn't go in the direction it's supposed to. It's something that's sort of terrifying to behold because you know it's absolutely horrifyingly wrong deep down in your most instinctual parts of your brain. Now imagine that you look down at your own leg and it's broken like that. You're not feeling the pain but you are feeling the utterly freaked out feeling of "OMFG MY LEG IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BENDING THAT WAY."

Not a pleasant feeling, right?

Okay, let's go further. Let's pretend that this freaky bent broken leg is seen as utterly normal by everyone else. They look at your body and go, 'what's the problem?' There's nothing freaky about them, you're the only one with the freakishness driving you nuts but no one else sees it. Forget the leg and just remember the feeling. The feeling of intimate, screwed up, almost grotesque wrongness. Like the very laws of how your body ought to be are violated, just like if you had that bending the wrong way leg. Imagine that feeling applied to everything about you that is male or female. Imagine seeing the male/female parts you have and getting that "OMFG MY BODY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT." That deep down instinctual feeling of "OMFGWTF" that you get when you see a shattered knee bending a leg the wrong way or even worse see that bent leg on yourself. It's not rational. It doesn't make logical sense. It's utter instinctual response.

That's bodily dysphoria.

Now. Imagine living with that every day for the rest of your life.

This is the the best analogy I have ever heard for describing gender/body dysmorphia. It is the closest thing to the feeling that anyone without it will probably get. Thanks for this!

[Conscientious Ghost]

Being a transmasculine genderqueer individual feels like being your average person who must eat, sleep, and socialize to survive. I seriously wish I was born with a sexless body because I despise my specific body parts. Before I undergone massive gender and body dysphoria, I was somewhat fine being called a girl or associated with feminine pronouns. I slowly desired to have a flat chest, butt, thighs, hips- I wanted to be a walking human cut-out cardboard. I acknowledged that I am a 'petite' and thin-looking person, but I felt disgusted with having these breasts, hips, thighs, and butt. When I discovered there were androgynous and gender-neutral people, the light bulb in my mind flashed like an emergency siren.

On the gender spectrum, I feel more comfortable with the masculine area than the feminine area. However, that doesn't stop me from wearing every now and then adorable clothing like over-sized sweaters. I actually like the floral crowns I saw myriad people post on Tumblr. It makes me want to look like a magical, non-binary fairy whose wings were slashed off and forced to adjust in modern society (sorry, off-topic ha ha). Challenging the norm is what brings better knowledge to our traditional standards. Times have change, and it perhaps time we change for the better (and worst).

Gender greatly confuses me and I'm glad to say that being genderless currently makes sense to me. I just feel human regardlass of my sex organs, which I highly despise to have been born with. I don't think I sincerely had a full problem being called a girl or a boy or a kid. I think I had a problem that according to my family and others, having a particular genitalia is what determines only this gender. I am who I am, so people's ideals of what a boy, girl, or person should behave and dress are not what defines me. Life is an exhausting journey, but I'm gracious of the experiences and realizations.

[St Attila]

It feels utterly normal.

I suppose I'm on the "reject how society treats this gender" scale of things.

I don't have any major identity issues in this field, but I don't like the pronoun attributed to me much, but I think the other pronoun would fit me even less because I don't possess qualities traditionally attributed to it, although I wish I did because that would make life so much easier.

I don't want to go around calling myself 'genderqueer' because of this, because I'm not. I'm simply an individual with certain qualities and gender/sex is SO UNIMPORTANT to me. It has nothing to do with me, the person. I don't feel strange or off, I feel like me and I find it weird that not everybody feels like I do and ascribe so much importance to gender.

Some people oppose gender neutral pronouns. I just feel like saying they are asshats in my view. Yeah, we shouldn't have them because YOU don't get it. Ok then. (Help help I'm being repressed)

[TheStarrySkai]

I'm pretty confused on gender. I remember hearing about trans people when I was younger. I didn't really care, they were just being themselves and it didn't bother me so I didn't pay too much attention to the whole thing.

As I got older and looked up transmasculine and transfeminine I started getting confused. I didn't get how people could feel like a woman or feel like a man. Like someone on AVEN said [totally don't know who or on what topic =P] I identify with personalities. Sometimes there are moments where I think /// oh is this what I feels like to be a guy? /// or /// oh is this what its like to be a girl? ///. Those don't too long. But enough to get me confused. For now I identify as gender neutral/gender apathetic with a bit of gender fluid.

During the summer of 2012 I cut my hair short. I remember seeing jrockers and kpop idols [mainly male idols] with their cool hair styles and thinking "ooooh! I want hair like theirs!" My friends kept saying "why did you cut your hair?", especially since people started to address me as 'he' due to my gender neutral, nearing masculine, why of dressing. I would always say 'just felt like it', but they would keep asking. People asked me "why do you want to look like a guy?". I never thought that I was cutting my hair because I wanted to look like a guy, I just liked the hairstyle and it happened to be a 'masculine' hairstyle.

Same with clothing styles. I just see clothes that look cool, clothes that are boring, clothes that I'd wear and clothes that I wouldn't wear.

[Rabe]

Usually something along the lines of, "Well screw what my body says, I'm a guy."

Goddess; that is so aptly put!

[A_Different_Person]

I just recently came across this, and realized that I am probably agender.

When I was younger I did whatever I wanted- played with dolls and legos. To me, it was like everyone around me was very concerned over something that I just didn't get. It felt to me that everyone was really just pretending, and putting on a show that I wasn't told about, and didn't rehearse for, and the lines people were feeding me sounded really odd. As I grew older, everyone started changing, something that I was really upset about, and didn't understand, and it has just become a stronger feeling since then.

I still really don't care about gender, and I really dislike being called male or female, or having people react to me based on what gender they see me as. However, I can understand why people identify with a gender so strongly now, despite not really "getting" it.

I'm thinking about coming out to my friends, but the problem is that I'm still in high school, and a few of the people in my grade have strongly expressed opinions about anything that they don't understand.

[compassion21]

Hi,

This is something I am thinking more about, I am in my mid 40's and have kids, my birth Gender is Male but ever since I can remember I have felt Female, I remember when I was around 2 years old and I was naked sitting in the garden I picked up the cat to stroke her and I remember the absolute shock of realising as the cat's back was on my genitalia I remember feeling total shock at being Male. I can only say it's like if an arm was cut off but you kind of feel it's still there.
The body map I have of myself does not concur with my physical assignment.

I was always quite effeminate taken as gay by most of my friends when I grew up, luckily no one gave shit wether I was Gay or not, oddly I feel like if I were female I would be mostly lesbian but I can see I would be bi sexual to a certain extent as a man I am not attracted to men, I have hardly any male friends at school all my close friends were women, I remember going out on Saturday night when I was 17 and realising of the crowd I was with (all friends) I was the only bloke out of 12 of us.
It goes further, women are totally un threatened by me, I am attracted to women but most just want to be my friends and are or sometimes are confused when I fancy them, I can only assume they pick up on my actual gender that I feel and relate to me as such. Still I feel more comfortable with women & two of my closest friends are lesbians.

I look 15 years younger than I am and despite wearing male clothes (I don't cross dress) I put my hair up in a pony tail most of the time and often get mistaken for a woman from behind which i always find amusing.
I would recommend if anyone is thinking about surgery that you think very carefully about it, If I could have a womb and real female sexual organs I would do it tomorrow ( this may be possible in the future but I'm not holding my breath). I have had to accept my body despite it being like a pain in the arse and still very disconcerting, however it is fully functioning and I guess I am glad for that.
I have two lovely daughters who I would not have if I had opted for surgery in my teens which for years I wanted to do, I was terrified of puberty and losing any chance of a female form although it's easier now to get an op for most things :-).
I think it's something I need to talk about more, I was at a party last month and one of my male friends who is a cross dresser had exactly the same experience as me and has dealt with it in the same way, and feels the same way about wanting a fully functioning female body. Like me he feels more like a Lesbian in a male body and like me he has two lovely kids. That was quite a shock and made me realise I really haven't talked about it much, when I do some people think I'm a complete fuck up which hurts and to be honest the condition does cause a certain amount of constant mental stress.
I have to say to those who are having trouble with people believing them I had a few people at the party saying things like " how could you possibly know or understand at two about gender ??" well I did and I think it's obvious, if your mental map does not fit your body it's obvious.
Well thats a short resume of where I am and how I have tried to deal with it, it's not easy but I get along :-)

[compassion21]

This is exactly how I have felt since I was two :-)

Have you ever seen a broken leg? I don't mean a normal broken leg. I mean the nasty freaky broken leg. No exposed bone or blood, but the knee is bent the wrong way. The leg doesn't go in the direction it's supposed to. It's something that's sort of terrifying to behold because you know it's absolutely horrifyingly wrong deep down in your most instinctual parts of your brain. Now imagine that you look down at your own leg and it's broken like that. You're not feeling the pain but you are feeling the utterly freaked out feeling of "OMFG MY LEG IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BENDING THAT WAY."

Not a pleasant feeling, right?

Okay, let's go further. Let's pretend that this freaky bent broken leg is seen as utterly normal by everyone else. They look at your body and go, 'what's the problem?' There's nothing freaky about them, you're the only one with the freakishness driving you nuts but no one else sees it. Forget the leg and just remember the feeling. The feeling of intimate, screwed up, almost grotesque wrongness. Like the very laws of how your body ought to be are violated, just like if you had that bending the wrong way leg. Imagine that feeling applied to everything about you that is male or female. Imagine seeing the male/female parts you have and getting that "OMFG MY BODY IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT." That deep down instinctual feeling of "OMFGWTF" that you get when you see a shattered knee bending a leg the wrong way or even worse see that bent leg on yourself. It's not rational. It doesn't make logical sense. It's utter instinctual response.

That's bodily dysphoria.

Now. Imagine living with that every day for the rest of your life.

This... yes. This is so perfect. We've been having so many issues with dysphoria lately.. normally we just do our best to ignore it. But it never really goes away...

[QueenK]

Well I can't explain why I was born into the mind and body of a female (cisgendered) but I can say that I've grown to be a bit bias, I think women are the most beautiful things on the planet. We don't get enough credit. And no I don't agree with all the gender assigned roles to me as a female but I have the choice these days not to go by that standard. I find that women's fashion and beauty products are hot to me. Yes there's social complications with that system but I truly believe that if I was born a male in this life, I'd be transgendered.

[QueenK]

Hi,

This is something I am thinking more about, I am in my mid 40's and have kids, my birth Gender is Male but ever since I can remember I have felt Female, I remember when I was around 2 years old and I was naked sitting in the garden I picked up the cat to stroke her and I remember the absolute shock of realising as the cat's back was on my genitalia I remember feeling total shock at being Male. I can only say it's like if an arm was cut off but you kind of feel it's still there.

The body map I have of myself does not concur with my physical assignment.

I was always quite effeminate taken as gay by most of my friends when I grew up, luckily no one gave shit wether I was Gay or not, oddly I feel like if I were female I would be mostly lesbian but I can see I would be bi sexual to a certain extent as a man I am not attracted to men, I have hardly any male friends at school all my close friends were women, I remember going out on Saturday night when I was 17 and realising of the crowd I was with (all friends) I was the only bloke out of 12 of us.

It goes further, women are totally un threatened by me, I am attracted to women but most just want to be my friends and are or sometimes are confused when I fancy them, I can only assume they pick up on my actual gender that I feel and relate to me as such. Still I feel more comfortable with women & two of my closest friends are lesbians.

I look 15 years younger than I am and despite wearing male clothes (I don't cross dress) I put my hair up in a pony tail most of the time and often get mistaken for a woman from behind which i always find amusing.

I would recommend if anyone is thinking about surgery that you think very carefully about it, If I could have a womb and real female sexual organs I would do it tomorrow ( this may be possible in the future but I'm not holding my breath). I have had to accept my body despite it being like a pain in the arse and still very disconcerting, however it is fully functioning and I guess I am glad for that.

I have two lovely daughters who I would not have if I had opted for surgery in my teens which for years I wanted to do, I was terrified of puberty and losing any chance of a female form although it's easier now to get an op for most things :-).

I think it's something I need to talk about more, I was at a party last month and one of my male friends who is a cross dresser had exactly the same experience as me and has dealt with it in the same way, and feels the same way about wanting a fully functioning female body. Like me he feels more like a Lesbian in a male body and like me he has two lovely kids. That was quite a shock and made me realise I really haven't talked about it much, when I do some people think I'm a complete fuck up which hurts and to be honest the condition does cause a certain amount of constant mental stress.

I have to say to those who are having trouble with people believing them I had a few people at the party saying things like " how could you possibly know or understand at two about gender ??" well I did and I think it's obvious, if your mental map does not fit your body it's obvious.

Well thats a short resume of where I am and how I have tried to deal with it, it's not easy but I get along :-)

So at the age of 40, have you gone through any processes to look and appear more feminine?

[compassion21]

Hi,

This is something I am thinking more about, I am in my mid 40's and have kids, my birth Gender is Male but ever since I can remember I have felt Female, I remember when I was around 2 years old and I was naked sitting in the garden I picked up the cat to stroke her and I remember the absolute shock of realising as the cat's back was on my genitalia I remember feeling total shock at being Male. I can only say it's like if an arm was cut off but you kind of feel it's still there.

The body map I have of myself does not concur with my physical assignment.

I was always quite effeminate taken as gay by most of my friends when I grew up, luckily no one gave shit wether I was Gay or not, oddly I feel like if I were female I would be mostly lesbian but I can see I would be bi sexual to a certain extent as a man I am not attracted to men, I have hardly any male friends at school all my close friends were women, I remember going out on Saturday night when I was 17 and realising of the crowd I was with (all friends) I was the only bloke out of 12 of us.

It goes further, women are totally un threatened by me, I am attracted to women but most just want to be my friends and are or sometimes are confused when I fancy them, I can only assume they pick up on my actual gender that I feel and relate to me as such. Still I feel more comfortable with women & two of my closest friends are lesbians.

I look 15 years younger than I am and despite wearing male clothes (I don't cross dress) I put my hair up in a pony tail most of the time and often get mistaken for a woman from behind which i always find amusing.

I would recommend if anyone is thinking about surgery that you think very carefully about it, If I could have a womb and real female sexual organs I would do it tomorrow ( this may be possible in the future but I'm not holding my breath). I have had to accept my body despite it being like a pain in the arse and still very disconcerting, however it is fully functioning and I guess I am glad for that.

I have two lovely daughters who I would not have if I had opted for surgery in my teens which for years I wanted to do, I was terrified of puberty and losing any chance of a female form although it's easier now to get an op for most things :-).

I think it's something I need to talk about more, I was at a party last month and one of my male friends who is a cross dresser had exactly the same experience as me and has dealt with it in the same way, and feels the same way about wanting a fully functioning female body. Like me he feels more like a Lesbian in a male body and like me he has two lovely kids. That was quite a shock and made me realise I really haven't talked about it much, when I do some people think I'm a complete fuck up which hurts and to be honest the condition does cause a certain amount of constant mental stress.

I have to say to those who are having trouble with people believing them I had a few people at the party saying things like " how could you possibly know or understand at two about gender ??" well I did and I think it's obvious, if your mental map does not fit your body it's obvious.

Well thats a short resume of where I am and how I have tried to deal with it, it's not easy but I get along :-)

So at the age of 40, have you gone through any processes to look and appear more feminine?

i removed all my facial hair with sugaring, and wore skirts and i just feel feminine I am quite effeminate but as I said I am attracted to women.

I don't get on with men as a rule not always I do have a few male friends though. As a child i was repulsed by facial hair and i played with dolls as a child. I don't understand men's behaviour and feel much more comfortable with women.

I cried about being a man and wanted to be a woman and have babies this grew to a total overwhelming fear at puberty and I drank far too much from 15 to 30 to try and cope. Oddly when I'm pissed I forget I'm a man at all.

Its like a grinding pain that never goes away a feeling of total dislocation.

However I have kind of learned to cope and consider myself a woman in mans body, I have kind of grown to accept it but its never that easy,

I am not going for surgery unless I can have a real vagina and womb grown for me which isn't going to happen although I see that are doing this now for women with organs that have been removed so there is some hope maybe.

Life is odd, I am just lucky I live in a rich country and have enough money to live on, those are blessings I kind of put up with the other stuff. Thats how I feel. I'm not looking to score brownie points here or trying to make an issue where there isn't one I also don't like justifying my feelings which have laid me very low for long periods of time, its just how I feel.

As a teenager I knew I was a girl in a boys body and the countdown to adulthood was like watching a clock tick and seeing a door I could jump through (surgery) but its (surgery) just not the whole enchilada for me, I want to be born a girl... and to be frank most girls thought I was gay and everyone knew I was "Different" many were afraid of me or bullied me. I still don't fit anywhere but to be honest who wants to fit into a category anyway ??? Life is short I am lucky in so many ways so there it is.

[compassion21]

Fantastic, well said. I would love to have been born a girl but ended up felling like you sod em I'm me and I don't fit any stereotype.

First off, female bodied. Second off, I suppose for me the largest feeling is more...confusion? When I was younger, my friends apparently mistook me as "a cross dressing dude with some serious issues" for the longest time, I suppose because my breasts are small, and my ribcage is large. I was really into anime back then, and I remember for some reason I was really only able to identify with the feminine-looking male characters. Itachi from Naruto, Sebastion from Black Butler, Haji from Blood+. I never really felt like a straight up girl, but not really a boy either. All the girls kept getting crushes on me, and kept nicknaming me "prince", due to their own fantasies of the typical, beautiful dark haired anime males. I mean, I didn't know how to feel about it. On one hand, I felt really proud of this. I could be seen as independant, intelligent, and didn't have to be expected to get touchy-feely with people. On the other, I knew I wasn't REALLY a dude. I felt like...I don't even know. Whatever it was, people apparently thought I was supposed to be born male. People feared and respected me, and I knew I had feminine characteristics as well, but they were never really noticed I suppose. That or people just wanted to point out all the reasons why I didn't fit in. I felt really lonely, and soon felt very frail. I had a large desire to be able to appear gentle, feminine.

Later, as my interests in anime died like the passengers of that missing plane (too soon?), they began to turn towards music/ theatre. Malice Mizer became my muse, and shortly after my figure developed a little more. I began to finally look like a damn female, for once. Instead of pants, suits/ties, I fell in love with EGA/Gothic Lolita. (It didn't cross my mind that my role models were all androgyne males, and some crossdressers. Shush.) I found shortly after people kept treating me in a way I HATED. I HATED being viewed as delicate and codependent, which seemed to be the automatic, weird assumption now since there was no more questioning of my sex from others. Suddenly people were sexualizing me, and I did anything I could to stop that from happening. I was never openly emotional in public, in fact a little cruel, and became VERY assertive/ aggressive. I still loved Jrock androgyny, and LOVED the combination of masculine/ feminine traits. I loved how someone could be viewed and treated as both, or neither. After spending so much time acting strictly to conteract the views that female bodies apparently brought, I was STILL unhappy. I wanted to blend what I knew were the feminine aspects with me, with the obvious masculine aspects of me. Because attempting to abide with either or did nothing but made me miserable. I don't feel like a man, or a woman. I feel like a person, who can have/ be whatever combination of traits/interests I desire.

[tim90]

i removed all my facial hair with sugaring,

Could I ask what sugaring is?

[compassion21]

i removed all my facial hair with sugaring,

Could I ask what sugaring is?

its a sticky substance you stick to your face and pull off fast, it removes the hair and the root so that your face looks hairless unlike shaving, bloody painful, but I naturally hate facial hair ( I have to say I only shave once or twice a week since I simply can't be arsed to do it any more).

I so wish I was a girl but I am not I am used to my male body now (mostly) but its an awkward fit :-)

If I was a female physically I would certainly be quite feminine and be really girly but I would be a weight trainer and kung fu expert as I am now so I won't take any shit from people.

i identify as a woman in a mans body its hard and its not fun but I know what I am, no confusion about that.

[tim90]

You sound like you may have similar feelings to me. I think that, like you, I would have been much happier being born female, and being 5 foot 6 inches tall and weighing barely more than a hundred pounds I have quite a feminine build anyway. But like you I wouldn't be happy having surgery as, for me, it wouldn't be the same as actually being born female, although I appreciate this may not be the same for everyone. I'm currently trying to get myself comfortable looking as feminine as I possibly can, although it feels like I'm a million miles away from where I would like to be.