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Comment
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mason
IP: 131.252.203.140
Feb 22, 07 - 1:06 PM |
not tuff enough!
I need help. At times I feel like I know exactly what I want - other times I feel like I'm not masculine enough/too emotional to take myself seriously as male, despite my strong feelings that I am not female. This leaves me wondering if transition is right for me. I realize that not all men are stoic and tough, and that gender is socially constructed, yet i'm still conflicted.
also, I'm worried about leaving behind my q uee r identity.
can anybody help this sensitive boy work it out?
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Evan
IP: 205.188.116.130
Feb 22nd, 2007 - 10:48 PM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Man, I totally understand what you are going through. I wonder if I am tough enough to make it through the transition or if I can be man without doing it. I have a lot to lose professionally and with my family and I already feel I have the good qualities of a man anyway. Ijust dont have the biology to go with it. Is it my genitalia that make me a man or what is in my heart and my mind? If you want to email me, I am happy to talk to ya brother.
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Syd
IP: 24.4.127.176
Feb 26th, 2007 - 9:39 PM |
Re: not tuff enough!
I'm in a similar position, in that I'm too young to legally transition (medically, I mean).
Here's what I think, for what it's worth: being a man doesn't mean you have to be tough, it doesn't mean you have to be macho, and it doesn't mean you have to be unemotional. All it means is that you are a man. Period. Beyond all social construct, there is a thing called 'man' that is not nessecarily dictated by biology. There are men of all possible descriptions in the world, many just as sensitive, emotional and untough as you. Don't worry about the opinions of others in this situation. It's your life. Do what makes you happy.
So don't worry. Represent the sensitive males. Lord knows we need some people to work against the macho ******* stereotype.
If that helped at all, I'm glad. If not, feel free to ignore me.
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Riley
IP: 209.184.113.187
Feb 27th, 2007 - 10:45 AM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Nice topic. Glad you brought it up. I myself ponder and question the same things about myself. I've never been "macho" and I certainly don't condone or advocate being an ******* or a jerk in order to fully embrace the "male" label. I think there SHOULD be more sensitive and caring men out there. Lord knows the world would be a better place with role models like that. Keep doing what you're doing. If we were all meant to be the same, the world would be a mighty boring place, don't you think?
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Evan
IP: 64.12.116.139
Mar 3rd, 2007 - 12:14 AM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Ok I am posting again. Sometimes I want to be more sterotypical male. I mean, Ilike some of the male sterotypes and I want to be more like that. Maybe the T hasnt kicked in enough yet. Or maybe my brain just says ditch those attributes and be more sensitive. So the question is how to be all the male things I want to be without being what I dont want to be ......and how to be sensitive and my own man and still be what I think being a man entails. Man, so friggin confusing.
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Zee
IP: 69.92.37.175
Mar 10th, 2007 - 9:58 PM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Mason,
I'm not sure I have any great words of wisdom, but I am in the same position as you. I struggle with really knowing what I want, one minute, I think I have it all figured out and the next, I am unsure. I am at a good place in my life and I do not want to create ripples in that but at times I know I will have to, to really be myself and comfortable in my own skin.... I know that in myself, deep down I know what I want and when I overcome the fears I have surrounding that, the decision will be easy. You are always welcome to email me...
Zee
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Jesse
IP: 65.30.113.245
Mar 25th, 2007 - 8:19 PM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Hey everyone,
Thought I'd toss my nickel's worth in. I transitioned 9 years ago, and remember going through this same thing. I feel it's an important step, trying to discover what type of man you desire to be. What I attempted to do was pay close attention to other men whom I admired the most, then decide which of those things I wanted to apply for myself. Not sure if this makes any sense to anyone else or not, but it helped me a lot. Paying attention to how other men acted also helped me to know exactly what kind of man I did not want to be. Best of luck to you all.
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Evan
IP: 64.12.116.139
Mar 26th, 2007 - 12:50 AM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Thanks Jesse. So are you comfortably transitioned now? Does it get better or easier? I give lots of thought to what kind of man I want to be. I guess I mistakenly thought that geting my biology in line with my head would be the biggest battle but it isnt. Seems the biggest battle is getting my head inline with what kind of man I want to be. The penis does not make the man.....but it sure helps
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Jesse
IP: 65.30.113.245
Mar 26th, 2007 - 1:24 AM |
Re: not tuff enough!
Hey Evan,
Yes, I am comfortably transitioned for the most part. I live and work, simply as a man. No one knows that I am trans, unless I choose to inform them. I agree with you about the penis not making the man. It is not the penis which gives power to the man, but rather the man who empowers the penis.
It does get easier, but that takes time. You will grow into the man you are to become. Just like anything else we learn in life, it takes time and life lessons. For me, I think a big part of the transition was healing emotionally from the hurts I had experienced from society in general when I was forced to live as a female...that and just giving myself the okay to be inexperienced about living as a functioning man, then to allow myself the time to learn and grow. Gosh, didn't mean to write a book here. Lol! There is just so much...Feel free to contact me via my email if you wish to.
Jesse
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Adrien
IP: 71.213.170.219
Apr 21st, 2007 - 4:44 PM |
Re: not tuff enough!
I can't tell y'all how excited I am to see this topic here, and I love to see my buddy Zee posting. :)
If this isn't one of the central questions of being trans, I don't know what is. If all your life you feel like a boy when everyone around you is telling you that you're a girl, then what is it you are feeling?
From the earliest age I can remember, I knew I was a boy. I never was the most athletic, the toughest, the most stoic. Those weren't the things inside me that told me my gender. What was it then? I don't know.
What I do know is this. The worst time in my life was soon after I started hormones. There were so many reasons this was a difficult time, but part of it was that I went to a default model of masculinity, the model provided by my dad, my brother, the male stereotypes in our (I'm American, so when I say "our" I mean American culture). I became very macho. People would say things about me like that I was a hardass, or that I was very hard on people. Well, that's not me. I was angry a lot, and even started to drift toward saying things and feeling things that devalued women, even having lived my whole life as a woman, sort of, and after being raised in the lesbian community! Talk about turning my back on the people who had made me feel safe and loved even when I couldn't totally accept myself or even identify myself.
Where am I now? I am 100% of the time recognized and treated as male, wherever I am. There is no longer any situation in which I am afraid of being misperceived as female. I have been on T for almost 2 years, and had top surgery in 2004. I have a female partner. We have been together for 8 years, so way prior to my physical transition. We have a 2 1/2 year old son. We own our own business and work from home.
A friend of mine recently told me that she thinks of me as the poster boy for transition because of how it has affected my life. Before I took any medical steps, and in the beginning of my transition, as I said, my attitudes and behaviors were very questionable. I think of that as being part of the journey. Because now, now that I finally have my body aligned with my mind, now that I don't live in fear and anxiety about whether I'm going to get called ma'am for any reason, I can finally start to be concerned about what kind of PERSON I am. Taking all the urgency out of the equation has given me the room to realize that there isn't one single solitary trait that is exclusively male. Not one. I am a father, and I have thought a lot about how to teach my son to be a man. I have thought about what that means to me. To ME, being a man is being brave, kind, strong, gentle, being a rock for the people you love, having a sense of humor, especially about myself. There are so many more things I could list, but not one of them is about being macho. And when I step back one more step, and look at the list of things I wish for my son, there's not a single one on there that I wouldn't wish for a daughter. Or a single trait in that list that couldn't be applied to the amazing women in my life, from my partner to my mom to my female friends. And for myself, the times that I look at with the most pride, the times I feel most like the man I have always wanted to be, are the times when I hold my partner up when she cries, or the times that I am tender and loving with my son. There isn't any way for all of us to meet in person, but I would be willing to bet that there wouldn't be many of you who would think that I was effiminate if we did meet.
Our trans community, the people out in the world today who are actively struggling with gender and gender issues is so varied and exciting. There are some of the bravest people in the world in our little group. I know women who were born into male bodies who present their real female selves to the world without the benefit of any hormones or surgery or anything. And that takes some real balls. So, I would never ever say that there is one answer for all of us. But I can say that my own very personal experience is that physical transition finally freed me to go back to figuring out who I am, not measured against some false ideals of masulinity, but against my own standards of what it is to be a successful human, husband, father, friend. And in finally shedding that construct for my personality, I think I have finally started toward being a real man, a good man.
I have gone on way long enough already, but I would be so happy to continue this conversation offline or on this thread, to share my own experiences, to answer any questions I can. There is nothing too personal to ask me (I know many don't feel the same way, but I mean it). I am still close enough to being pre-transition to remember a lot of the fear I felt and the ways things unfolded for me. I am more than happy to talk about any aspect of it to anyone who is curious or needs any reference I can give.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
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