Understanding the effects of having been brought up and and initially living in a society that saw you as male on the way you see the world, and then learning what it was like for those seen as female from birth.
I think until one does that, no matter how one passes or how stealth one is, the internal transition socially is not complete. You may not agree with the premise, but I think it has validity.
Karen,
I wasn't going to return to this, but today I happened on a couple posts by someone else from long ago that very closely resemble how it's been for me.
There are some
major differences between the writer and me, though. The first is that the person who wrote this grew up as a girl despite everything life threw in her way. She was a
type VI. And I am not. I accepted the physical proof that I was forced to acknowledge when three. After that I
knew I was cursed to be a boy forever—and instead of continuing to insist I only tried to make the best of the bad situation. Willing myself to never grow up. Refusing to accept that boys weren't supposed to be interested in girl things. And as things got worse withdrawing into my own world, where I could be in peace.
The second is that I never did "part time". Pretending to be a girl would have just made me feel even worse. Instead I gradually became increasingly eccentric while still holding on to being male. But it was
very uncomfortable. And by the very end impossible. When I was introduced to people they'd think they'd misheard and go on to call me by a girls' name, or interrogate mother why she'd named me
that. LOL.
The third is that the poster could no longer pass for male as a teenager. I took much longer to reach that point.
So... anyway. The first quote describes pre-transition.
I was never very good at "being a guy" and even back in the 1950's people knew there was something odd about me. By the late 1960's I couldn't even pull off the guy act.
Trying to pretend to be a guy meant watching everything I said, how I said it, how I sat, moved, looked at people - EVERYTHING had to be practiced .... and even then I didn't do it very well. When I started living part time en femme (mid 1960's) I found that my 'girl self' was just totally natural if I simply relaxed and went with my instincts.
The second quote is close to how I've felt since I gave up pretense. In the real world I don't usually even think about it except when the subject's somehow brought up.
Or when with someone with whom I want to make love.
Then it hits me.
Hard. Because I can't. Yet.
Strangely, I never thought about "passing" - I WAS a girl. Got a problem with that? GET OVER IT! (There was no asterisk in those days, female=girl.)
The first thing that struck me was how unbelievably EASY it was to be me - no more thinking before speaking, no more having to watch how I sat or moved, no more worry about how to dress without attracting unwanted attention - I could just let it flow and it all came out right, just natural girl.
I hesitated long before writing this because I of course have
no way to
prove how
I felt and feel. Complete's described her experiences to me as well, but not on the open forums in such detail as this. If she wants to pitch in I'm sure she will.
And I know reading this you'll probably think I'm just delusional or whatever... but it was so startling to find descriptions that were almost verbatim what I told a close friend just this past Sunday that I just had to do it. LOL.
I guess what I wanted to say is that if there
are some utterly invisible, inaudible, intangible and otherwise imperceptible messages that society beams at children to change them into boys, not
everyone "gets" them.
I found it much harder to cling on to the pretense of "being male" than to ultimately let it go.
