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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 4:09:04 GMT
Having established that I am trans, I don't feel like a man anymore. However I struggle with really thinking myself as a woman, but I know that I clearly feel and see myself as that sometimes. I have remained myself through all of this self-discovery, but now I know that I am not a cis man, I don't know what I am instead.
I have a number of questions around all this. I know there won't be exact answers, but I'm having trouble as to thinking who or what I am, and when I am that.
1) Does trans girl/woman cover what I am well enough. If so, then why?
2) How do you picture me? Does that picture of me change? Do you hear these words I type in a woman's voice?
3) How do each of you conceptualise yourself? How do/did you reach that conclusion? When and how does that vary, if at all?
I'm not trying to say that I wish to be the same as any of you, or that I'm doing this all wrong. It's more that I don't what it is i am being, and that I don't know how to work that out.
I know that you haven't got this all figured out either. It's more that I need some tips or advice to reach a better way of thinking of myself.
xox,
Woori-Mei
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Post by chloé on Jul 3, 2021 6:56:37 GMT
Hi Woori, for me I picture you as the photos I have. This what I have in mind. After I think even if we are trans we have still a big male component which leads a lot of our mindset.our education and also hormones. That’s why we are really uncomfortable. Education, mindset, desires are contrary to what we feel. Today we are still all of us speaking as trans who wants to go further in our inner and deeper feelings. I’m still a man who is a woman. I’m still building my personnality. We will be always in the middle of the bridge. But to be honest you are all of you women for me, I don’t see you, Woori, different. You are a woman. But we are still speaking of trans, how does it feel to be a woman? But We don’t have yet real and simple womang girl. The closest in my point of view is « is it summertime thread » where we are woman
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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 7:26:19 GMT
Chloe,
Thanks for your reply. You're right, I think it's that big male component getting in the way. That it is the difficulty is in overcoming that mental gap between our male forms, hormones and upbringing, and our inner female self.
On here I do feel like a woman and think of you all in that way too, that's why I like to picture us all together as how we'd really like to look. Those photos of me you created have helped a tremendous amount. I can see myself as I would be now, and can picture myself acting out in the wider world. Having done that, I can see that I would like that. More and more I notice that I identify as the woman in a scenario, let's say on TV or in a book. That I wish to look like them, wear their nice outfits. I think before I was shutting that part of my brain off. Only allowing such feelings to appear very occaisonally.
What you have said has helped a great deal. A meaning of the Latin word trans is across, and we are across that bridge you referred to. I think is a very helpful way to look at it, that is this is where we are now. That helped move it in my mind from the blurry concept of identity, to an actual place that I could imagine and place myself.
xox,
Woori-Mei
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Post by chloé on Jul 3, 2021 7:51:50 GMT
Chloe, Thanks for your reply. You're right, I think it's that big male component getting in the way. That it is the difficulty is in overcoming that mental gap between our male forms, hormones and upbringing, and our inner female self. On here I do feel like a woman and think of you all in that way too, that's why I like to picture us all together as how we'd really like to look. Those photos of me you created have helped a tremendous amount. I can see myself as I would be now, and can picture myself acting out in the wider world. Having done that, I can see that I would like that. More and more I notice that I identify as the woman in a scenario, let's say on TV or in a book. That I wish to look like them, wear their nice outfits. I think before I was shutting that part of my brain off. Only allowing such feelings to appear very occaisonally. What you have said has helped a great deal. A meaning of the Latin word trans is across, and we are across that bridge you referred to. I think is a very helpful way to look at it, that is this is where we are now. That helped move it in my mind from the blurry concept of identity, to an actual place that I could imagine and place myself. xox, Woori-Mei Did receive my last photo?
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Post by chloé on Jul 3, 2021 8:26:05 GMT
Today I identify myself as a woman and a man, impossible to reject the reality. The things which makes me better is to have girl talk with you like in is it summertime. All the discussion on trans are really interesting, I like it really but for my identification process, I need also real girls talk which offer me the possibility to switch my mind as Chloé. I don’t know what do you need exactly, I think both but for my case, I need to figure and to talk as a woman born, a woman with a certain type of body and women’ desires. When I have this type of discussion, I unconsciously change my behavior and my position. I take more feminine mouvements, and I cross the legs. When I read trans discussion, I stay a woman encaged in a man body and even if I like those conversations I need also pure girl discussions about desire, project, perhaps false history, with my photos I build it partially. Maybe I have to create my own thread but I feel you are more trans discussion axed at the moment. I love all 4 ❤️ And my wife and her absolutely non acceptance of Chloé is really destructive, even if this induced a real problem for her, she breaks my balance. I need you all 💋 Chloé
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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 9:29:57 GMT
Chloe,
Thank you very much for the photo. I really do appreciate all those that you have sent. Seeing the two of us together as friends is really heartwarming. I wish we could be together as we are in those photos.
I understand where you're coming from, you want to use this forum to be a place you can be just Chloe. That this is the greatest benefit for you here. You are right I am more focused on the hows and whys of it all at the moment. It feels that this issue of identify is the last big barrier to overcome, and your advice earlier has helped a great deal on that. I am weary from all this introspection, and I hope that I will soon be able to spend much more time talking girltalk.
Though I don't think I can offer much good advice as to your wife's reaction to Chloe. I will always be here to listen at least. Be a shoulder to cry on, perhaps.
I love you too Chloe, and everyone else as well of course.
Take care,
Woor-Mei
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Post by chloé on Jul 3, 2021 9:36:56 GMT
Chloe, Thank you very much for the photo. I really do appreciate all those that you have sent. Seeing the two of us together as friends is really heartwarming. I wish we could be together as we are in those photos. I understand where you're coming from, you want to use this forum to be a place you can be just Chloe. That this is the greatest benefit for you here. You are right I am more focused on the hows and whys of it all at the moment. It feels that this issue of identify is the last big barrier to overcome, and your advice earlier has helped a great deal on that. I am weary from all this introspection, and I hope that I will soon be able to spend much more time talking girltalk. Though I don't think I can offer much good advice as to your wife's reaction to Chloe. I will always be here to listen at least. Be a shoulder to cry on, perhaps. I love you too Chloe, and everyone else as well of course. Take care, Woor-Mei Thank you Woori, You have your own introspection and they are very important, keep this direction. I will be with you too. You can put you head on my bosom, and I will caress your hair to reassure you. 💋
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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 9:53:51 GMT
Thank you Chloe.
I will carry on as I have been. I think my focus on introspection is coming to an natural end, but will carry with it if that isn't the case.
Your last line - I've needed that many times in the past two weeks. Generally everything is good when talking with you all here, but I feel quite lonely with it all when I am not.
xox
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Post by Maria on Jul 3, 2021 11:15:39 GMT
Woori-Mei, I will try to answer all three questions to the best of my ability! Although I don't know how useful my answers will be!
1) I think for this one, it's unfortunately not a question we can really answer. Labels and definition are, I would say, there to be able to say to yourself and the world "This is who I am", rather than for the world or anyone else to say to you "This is who you are." What I would say is that from all our conversations over the past couple of weeks, there is nothing in there which if you were to say "I am a trans woman!", would make me think "Are you though?" If you say "I am a trans girl," how does that make you feel? Warm and happy inside because it truly sums up who you are and your experiences, or like there would still be some part of yourself that wouldn't be represented by that definition? The other thing to bear in mind is that just because a label fits now, doesn't mean you can't change it later as you discover more about yourself.
2) For me, when I picture you, I always see you as you are in the pictures on this site. As I said to Chloe, I think if I were to see pictures of you where you did appear male, I would find it hard to believe that they were of you because... well that's not who you are to me. In terms of how I hear you, I am the least helpful person in the world to answer that as I read everything in the exact same voice regardless. I could be reading an interview between Steven Fry and the Queen - they would both have the same voice.
3) I would say that I see myself as a female playing the role of a man, in a body that is unusually proportioned and equipped for a female body. I used to be able to, when needed, kind of take a deep breath and switch myself back into "guy mode", which was never fun but was at least doable. Nowadays, I think as I have grown more comfortable with my identity and expressing it to myself, I find it MUCH harder (and sometimes impossible) to make this switch. So rather than feeling like a slightly awkward guy who would rather be a girl, I am very aware of being a girl pretending to be a guy. I have mentioned before about how historically this has come in waves for me though, and at the point of the wave where I am least bothered by these issues, then I see myself as a guy with feminine qualities but who can get by as I am without too much bother. Although right now, thinking that that last sentence describes just me feels absurd. As I've said elsewhere, I think rather than genuine waves it is more a case of going back into a semi-repressed state, so I think that description of myself is more a lie I am telling myself, rather than how I truly see myself.
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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 12:35:55 GMT
I think yesterday's discovery enabled me to move onto the general question as to my identity. I noticed I had been thinking about since late last night, and was still on my mind when I woke up 1) That first question. I must have had a reason to ask at the time, but now it seems a bit odd to ask others that. You make an interesting point about the world not telling you who you are. I now think that I only thought of myself as a man because I was told that was who I was. I would say after reading Chloe's first reply, that I would be happy to call myself a trans woman. I feel too old to be a girl That trans woman to me is someone on that bridge between being a man and a woman. I've looked at other definitions on the MtF spectrum and am not happy calling myself any of those. I just wanted to be able to think to myself "I am this" with something that is meaningful to me, but that could also convey what I am to others. With all that I now know about myself, trans woman fits that well enough for what I am, and need, right now. 2) That is how I picture you all, by the photos or in the absence of those, the avatars. I was more curious about the voice than anything else. Similar to yourself, I read you all in my own internal monlogue voice, like I'm reading the words out loud, except Chloe has a French accent 3) Thank you for going into that detail. This is all very personal for everyone and appreciate you sharing. It is difficult for me to say about my real mode and guy mode as I really only interact with 2 people in real life. For those two I know I've already being putting on a mask for them in a way, but nothing to do with my gender expresssion. I reasonably expect that I will have to have a guy mode for others, possibly them too. I can say with 100% certainty that how I act on here is the real me. That real me being someone that is happy to be seen as a woman. In all likelihood how I act elsewhere will be in guy mode, probably a more confident version of the man that everyone saw before. W-M
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Post by Jessica on Jul 3, 2021 15:13:15 GMT
Woori,
You are now asking what I consider to be the million dollar questions. And I want to give this answer the time it deserves. Unfortunately I don't have that time available right now so I will take a rain check and come back to this. Because I really want to dig in here. This is really goods stuff.
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Post by Maria on Jul 3, 2021 16:42:08 GMT
I think yesterday's discovery enabled me to move onto the general question as to my identity. I noticed I had been thinking about since late last night, and was still on my mind when I woke up 1) That first question. I must have had a reason to ask at the time, but now it seems a bit odd to ask others that. You make an interesting point about the world not telling you who you are. I now think that I only thought of myself as a man because I was told that was who I was. I would say after reading Chloe's first reply, that I would be happy to call myself a trans woman. I feel too old to be a girl That trans woman to me is someone on that bridge between being a man and a woman. I've looked at other definitions on the MtF spectrum and am not happy calling myself any of those. I just wanted to be able to think to myself "I am this" with something that is meaningful to me, but that could also convey what I am to others. With all that I now know about myself, trans woman fits that well enough for what I am, and need, right now. 2) That is how I picture you all, by the photos or in the absence of those, the avatars. I was more curious about the voice than anything else. Similar to yourself, I read you all in my own internal monlogue voice, like I'm reading the words out loud, except Chloe has a French accent 3) Thank you for going into that detail. This is all very personal for everyone and appreciate you sharing. It is difficult for me to say about my real mode and guy mode as I really only interact with 2 people in real life. For those two I know I've already being putting on a mask for them in a way, but nothing to do with my gender expresssion. I reasonably expect that I will have to have a guy mode for others, possibly them too. I can say with 100% certainty that how I act on here is the real me. That real me being someone that is happy to be seen as a woman. In all likelihood how I act elsewhere will be in guy mode, probably a more confident version of the man that everyone saw before. W-M Haha, my internal voice doesn't even do accents. Just the same mild British accent for everyone lol. Do you feel that it would be a separate "mode", or more of a mask? To use a really bad analogy that is probably completely wrong from an IT perspective: 1 would be rebooting a computer under a different operating system in order to use software that can only be used on that system, 2 would be staying in your original operating system and trying to make that software work with an emulator or something. To apply that to me: I used to feel like I did 1, but just wasn't as comfortable with that operating system. Now it feels more like 2 the whole time - like I can do it, but it feels buggy and like there are things that don't quite work properly a lot of the time. The last couple of months, I've felt bits of the "real" me slipping through in real life, which feels both authentic and terrifying. It feels like one of those game shows where the longer you wait to push the button, the greater your prize, but if you wait too long and the buzzer sounds then you leave with nothing. Like I'm tiptoeing up to a line in the sand, but I'm blindfolded and wasn't been told quite how far away that line was when I started.
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Post by Lily on Jul 3, 2021 17:18:38 GMT
The accent is done more in post-production so to speak. That when I think it's Chloe speaking I imagine the accent.
It would definitely be a mask, that I would be restricting myself, not letting all of me out. I said that I was definitely my real self on here. This is because I'm free to do so. It didn't feel like I changed how I was behaving because the environment had changed. Another thought springs to mind is that I much prefer my own company because I am freed from the restriction of meeting other people's expectations of me. I know I don't feel or act quite like myself in many social situations, and so mostly just stay silent and observe. Thinking on this further, I think that the mask is also like camouflage, making myself unnoticable.
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Post by Jessica on Jul 4, 2021 15:23:03 GMT
Having established that I am trans, I don't feel like a man anymore. However I struggle with really thinking myself as a woman, but I know that I clearly feel and see myself as that sometimes. I have remained myself through all of this self-discovery, but now I know that I am not a cis man, I don't know what I am instead. I have a number of questions around all this. I know there won't be exact answers, but I'm having trouble as to thinking who or what I am, and when I am that. 1) Does trans girl/woman cover what I am well enough. If so, then why? 2) How do you picture me? Does that picture of me change? Do you hear these words I type in a woman's voice? 3) How do each of you conceptualise yourself? How do/did you reach that conclusion? When and how does that vary, if at all? I'm not trying to say that I wish to be the same as any of you, or that I'm doing this all wrong. It's more that I don't what it is i am being, and that I don't know how to work that out. I know that you haven't got this all figured out either. It's more that I need some tips or advice to reach a better way of thinking of myself. xox, Woori-Mei 1. I think the only person who can answer this question is you. You decide what and who you are. For me, I would say yes in my opinion it does. A trans girl is someone who was born in a male body and feels as though they are female. You have said several times that is how you feel. So yes, I'd say I'd call you a trans girl. The real question is whether or not YOU feel that way about yourself, AND whether or not YOU feel there is more to it than that. Do you feel genderfluid? Do you feel simply nonbinary feminine? Do you feel like a transvestite? And really at the end of the day, the label matters less than how you feel on the inside. 2. Having never seen your actual face unedited, and having never heard from the male side of you that you present to the world I picture you as a woman who looks like the one in the pictures you post. The picture hasn't really changed. And I don't think in voices so I don't know how I would picture your voice. I would have to think about that. 3. Hoooooooo boy. As I have said several times, this is really the question I am trying to answer. Am I a woman with a man's body, or am I something else? Is there room for both versions of me inside my head? Honestly, right now I lean towards that. That there are two people in there that are basically twins in one body. The James side of me, I think, is just as real as the Jess side of me. If I was magically transformed into a woman today, would James still be in there or would he disappear? I honestly don't know. I don't know if he would still be there as a person, but there are parts of him that have marked on my brain and would still be there. James is why I am a huge obnoxious sports fan, and work as a coach for my job. James has a fatherly instinct to roughhouse and protect my family and that would remain. James is a huge part of me, even when I am feeling more like Jess. So I don't really know! Sometimes I feel like a crazy person when I talk about this....having two people inside me.
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Post by Lily on Jul 4, 2021 18:02:51 GMT
1. I think the only person who can answer this question is you. You decide what and who you are. For me, I would say yes in my opinion it does. A trans girl is someone who was born in a male body and feels as though they are female. You have said several times that is how you feel. So yes, I'd say I'd call you a trans girl. The real question is whether or not YOU feel that way about yourself, AND whether or not YOU feel there is more to it than that. Do you feel genderfluid? Do you feel simply nonbinary feminine? Do you feel like a transvestite? And really at the end of the day, the label matters less than how you feel on the inside. 2. Having never seen your actual face unedited, and having never heard from the male side of you that you present to the world I picture you as a woman who looks like the one in the pictures you post. The picture hasn't really changed. And I don't think in voices so I don't know how I would picture your voice. I would have to think about that. 3. Hoooooooo boy. As I have said several times, this is really the question I am trying to answer. Am I a woman with a man's body, or am I something else? Is there room for both versions of me inside my head? Honestly, right now I lean towards that. That there are two people in there that are basically twins in one body. The James side of me, I think, is just as real as the Jess side of me. If I was magically transformed into a woman today, would James still be in there or would he disappear? I honestly don't know. I don't know if he would still be there as a person, but there are parts of him that have marked on my brain and would still be there. James is why I am a huge obnoxious sports fan, and work as a coach for my job. James has a fatherly instinct to roughhouse and protect my family and that would remain. James is a huge part of me, even when I am feeling more like Jess. So I don't really know! Sometimes I feel like a crazy person when I talk about this....having two people inside me. 1. Having read Chloe's reply, this has helped clarified things for me. I think trans girl fits well enough for me now, because I don't know more of the specifics. I was just looking for something to call myself other than a man, but knew woman wasn't right either. I think the main problem for me is that I have a loose grip on which behaviours are male and which are female. Therefore I cannot determine when I'm feeling or behaving one way or the other. So how do I tell if I'm any of those terms you listed or any others. I've just always been me, but have obviously restricted and repressed my desire to be feminine. Right now, I don't know the amount there was that I repressed. So trans girl is the best label for me because it isn't too specific, but I know that I definitely fit under that term. Right now I do feel that I would like to be appear and be treated as a woman. I now feel far more likely to press that magic red button that would instantly transform me. 2. Having read all the answers so far that helps. I think I asked because I'm not sure how I see myself inside. I know have been picturing myself more often as the woman in those photos. When I look in the mirror I tend to see the woman in there amongst the clear masculine appearance. Don't worry about the voice thing if you don't think in that way. I read everyone's post in my own internal monologue like I'm reading them out loud. 3. Thank you for sharing that. It was a very personal and difficult question that I asked. Well I don't think you're crazy, but I know what you mean. I'd feel the same if I was to describe how I felt about my gender identity. This is just your way of conceiving of your whole self. There is no split personality, just two clear aspects of the one. Well that is my interpretation of what you've said. Feel to free to correct me if I've misunderstood. What I was trying to learn was how each of you determine what you are, or when you clearly feel male or female, so that I can more easily determine those things in myself. I suppose I go back to my point above, which behaviours and feelings are male and which are female. A lot of my recognition of my female side comes from the clear signs of gender euphoria and gender envy, and not so much around what gender I think my behaviours are. So I don't know how much of me is male, and how much female, and even if that really matters. There is also the issue of gender dyshporia and its absence, but I think that needs its own thread. Do I just need to do some basic research on the subject of behaviours? Is this all just simple ignorance on my part? I'm starting to think that it is.
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