A fraud.
Someone wrote…
Sometimes I feel like a fraud because I didn’t grow up wanting to be a boy like other trans men did.
What’s your experience?
Posted by julian on February 19th, 2010 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 34 comments »
34 Responses to “A fraud.”
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February 19th, 2010 at 8:24 am |
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a boy either, but here I am! I think there was too much otherwise going on for me to think about my gender when I was growing up.
–Able
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February 19th, 2010 at 9:02 am |
Sometimes people think I’m a fraud because I *like* the (female) body I was born with. I just prefer the social role of being “male”, especially in the culture I grew up in. And I think sometimes that’s something you don’t realize until you’re older.
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February 19th, 2010 at 9:02 am |
I feel the same way – if I had grown up as a guy, I would’ve gotten beat up a ton in Middle School. (As it was, they wouldn’t usually hit me, just flush my stuff, etc.)
So yeah ^_^ with as flaming as I am, I’m definitely glad that I never had to defend my femininity growing up.
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February 19th, 2010 at 9:42 am |
I wanted to be a girl but knew I was just a boy who looked like a girl.
Now I’m a seriously girly man and damn proud of it.
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February 19th, 2010 at 10:30 am |
I just think it takes some people more time than others. I know a transguy that didn’t start transitioning till his late thirties. He probably didn’t realize he was trans till later because he likes guys. Everyone comes to these realizations at a different time and I don’t thnk anyone is more or less trans for wanting to be the opposite sex as a kid or not realizing they are until they’re older.
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February 19th, 2010 at 11:18 am |
Sometimes I feel like a fraud because I repressed my truly feminine nature for most of my life.
I think, in a lot of ways, that anyone who feels gender queer probably questions it on a regular basis, if only from all the pressure to conform.
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February 19th, 2010 at 11:39 am |
I didn’t realize I was trans until a year or so ago. It was all a big rush, but I did have that feeling of fraud at the beginning. I had always felt like something was wrong with me, but I hadn’t really been able to put my finger on it. I played my female role pretty well in high school. When I came out as trans, I felt like I needed to prove something. Now I’m much more ok with my femininity and being a feminine male.
It’s really has to do with who you are, and nothing at all to do with what other people are. You are not a fraud, you’re just being true to yourself. That’s the best thing you can do for yourself
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February 19th, 2010 at 12:21 pm |
@Z- I identify as genderqueer and I am always questioning if I am really trans or a butch lesbian. I finally found the perfect term for myself: a genderqueer trans butch boi. There is a lot of pressure in and out of the community to be one way or another. I am happy that I can be myself and that is all anyone can really do.
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February 19th, 2010 at 12:36 pm |
William, you are awesome and your comment sounds so much like my story.
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February 19th, 2010 at 12:36 pm |
Did I write this? geez. Sometimes Genderfork is such a mindf-ck. I feel this way a lot too, but I’m slowly working through it. I’ve found that the feeling is mostly a product and internalization of how OTHERS perceive my transition, not so much how I -actually- feel about it.
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February 19th, 2010 at 1:35 pm |
i can totally understand everyones comments. because like you all say i feel the same way. but i think its more because of my mom she believes that trans people and gay people only know how they feel about themselves when they are young and they can develop who they are. but i think im going to prove her wrong. i always knew there was something “odd” about me like i was different from the other kids i hung out with it just took me till now to realize what it was. but in realizing it i have come into my own and my friends love me more.
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February 19th, 2010 at 4:36 pm |
I feel the same way sometimes. Thank you for saying it.
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February 19th, 2010 at 6:59 pm |
I understand. Between being raised by with a bunch of boys and having a close-minded father, it didn’t really occur to me to let myself feel anything like that, or maybe I just DIDN’T feel it then… *Shrugs* Well, here we are, just as they are.
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February 19th, 2010 at 7:14 pm |
Wow. did I write this? No, I just feel the same way. You could think of it this way: just like some people “become” engineers or parents or bookkeepers we are “becoming” men. It’s just as natural. People evolve.
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February 19th, 2010 at 8:19 pm |
i feel like this alot too, because i am bio-fem, but more times i prefer to act as a gentleman than a lady, and i switch my clothing-gender representation almost eveyday, but i don’t particularly dislike my female body. Sometimes I don’t feel “queer” enough in my gender representation, and it frustrates me.
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February 19th, 2010 at 8:58 pm |
I am so relieved that I’m not the only one that feels this way..
I only started identifying myself as trans last year, and I feel like if I really come out to anyone, they won’t believe me or take me completely seriously because I grew up just as the next bio-fem would…..
and Micah…good lord…I hope I can say the same thing in a few years…
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February 20th, 2010 at 6:50 am |
Thanks for sharing, both the OP and all the commenters. I often feel the same way – as though, because I didn’t begin to realize my genderqueer status until I had a perception of what gender meant, people might view it as a choice or fake or a phase… This is a question I still struggle with myself.
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February 20th, 2010 at 7:26 am |
@Adisson
That is what I have mostly dealt with throughout my life, and what I am probably going to be dealing with more as I transition over the years. I don’t identify as transgender or transsexual: I probably never will.
But it’s the perceptions of other people that are going to make me uncomfortable for a while.
It did help (a lot) to read the comments about not being a super macho guy just because you’re on T. That was something I am a bit worried will happen over time. Though all I have to do is look at my dad in carharts and run away screaming to hide in my robe.
:P
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February 20th, 2010 at 9:36 am |
Well, it’s very nice to read all these comments. Genderqueerness doesn’t really have a sturdy place in mainstream society so there’s nothing to hold on to. Little examples to live by. For me this means that I have an incredible feeling that I have to justify everything about me. I ‘decided’ that I’m (mostly) androgynous. I did not decide how I am, but I did decide how to describe myself. I’m sometimes so tied up in proving my feminity that I forget that loving all of my boystuff is just as much part of me and part of my androginity. So pointing at my own past saying ‘see, that’s when I wanted to wear a skirt and really didn’t like being a boy’ and than coviniently forgetting all the times I wanted to draw spaceships and robots isn’t going to help. Accepting my own genderqueerness is about accepting my masculinity as wel as my feminity. And such it is also about accepting that I did a lot of boyish stuff for a large part of my life, to the point that my mom things I was a ‘typical boy’. I suppose that when you are a child your perception of gender is less fixed. Your own ideas about what boys and girls do are more open and you accept more easily that if everybody things you’re a boy than what you do probably is boyish.
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February 20th, 2010 at 11:14 am |
jorgen, exactly. my mother has a lot of trouble with my transition due to the fact that i had a fairly typical boy childhood, a lil quieter and more withdrawn than most but no tranny “tells” lol. i think by the time I personally was old enough to properly understand gender, I largely understood that it is a fixed element in most people’s perceptions (not least of all my parents, probably most importantly for a child).
earlier in my transition i looked desperately for things from my childhood to justify transitioning, both to myself and to “sell it” to my parents. but that’s been largely futile and trying just makes me feel more foolish. but i know how i feel.
as long as it took me to fully accept my femininity (“will puberty fix me?” “will being in a serious straight relationship fix me?”) it’s taken me even longer to stop denying that there are large masculine aspects to my personality. and why shouldn’t there be? i was raised as a boy, everyone has always treated me as a boy. It would be hard not to act “boyish” in some regards, and I don’t think transitioning should entail building another wall of affectation in front of the one you are attempting to pull down.
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February 20th, 2010 at 7:28 pm |
Yeah Poy Born (can I call you Poy?), promise me to be a beautifull girl who knows how it is to be a man and enjoy everything wonderfull about it. The world could use some more of that.
The more I think about it, the less I need to be genderqueer and the more I need to be myself. But being genderqueer is a really nice way to give yourself a place to call home and to give meaning to certain feelings. I just felt an ‘out of place’ man for a very long time. It was only years later when I learned about genderqueerness that I felt that there was something that made some sense. I never minded being a boy, I just never realized how much fun it could be to be a girl.
Clothing is very important to me in how I feel and it is part of how I started thinking about being genderqueer. That and some other factors. I very much like to dress as a beautifull elegant gentlemen with hat and tie, but I always felt this was a dress-up for me. Something for a party. Normally I always try to find a dress that is as neutral as possible. Something that would not indicate any manlyness. Not because I don’t like it, but because it doesn’t feel like it would fit me. If I don’t even feel manly with manly clothes on…
If I had a different body (the kind of body that doesn’t have all the facial hair and the filled briefs, you know, the kind that has wide hips and a ‘padded’ chest) I would probably very much enjoy to wear skirts and colourfull things. Women’s clothing is so much more fun than men’s. But as a male born androgyne I just strive to throw off the heavy weight of manlyness from my body.
Bottom line is, that being genderqueer can sometimes be very latent and it sometimes needs a certain something to trigger. We can feel different our entire lives without knowing why. And than somehow suddenly finding out that being genderqueer is part of who we are.
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February 20th, 2010 at 8:43 pm |
Wow, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels this way. I think I always saw my gender as somewhat fluid, but I loved my dolls and dresses as a kid, and wasn’t too atypical. I worry sometimes about whether I need to be more typically “masculine” in order for my feelings to be legitimate, especially since these days I’ve been thinking about the possibility of transitioning.
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February 21st, 2010 at 7:27 am |
Dae, did you live my life?
Nothing is needed to make your feelings “legitmate”, my friend other than that you feel them.
I’m transitioning to male (have transitioned socially, intend to transition medically as soon as I can) and it’s always thrown at me “But you play with dolls!” “Yes, some men do. I’m one of those men.”
I want to be a drag queen “when I grow up”. After hormones, dresses will finally look right on me, I’ll look to everyone else like I’ve always looked to myself.
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February 21st, 2010 at 9:56 am |
All you who’ve replied to this, you’ve made me so happy. Thankyou (:
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February 21st, 2010 at 10:32 am |
There are so many reasons for me to feel like a fraud – I feel like a fraud when I hang out with the gay community because I am not gay, and I feel like a fraud when I hang out with the trans community, because I am not sure that I want to transition… I know that feeling like a fraud is just another excuse not to come out and be proud of who I am, but its so hard to find the courage to do that!!
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February 21st, 2010 at 6:33 pm |
I still don’t know what the frak I am but this is definitely my state of mind a lot of the time. *nods*
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February 22nd, 2010 at 12:03 am |
I feel like a fraud every day, and unfortunately my community is pretty limited–I never even heard about genderqueerness until very recently, and there’s no way I could find such an accepting and open community of people where I live. I guess you just keep pressing on, and hoping that one day you can understand yourself fully.
Congrats to all of you who’ve made it to where you want to be! Keep on being yourselves, that’s all that matters in my book.
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February 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 pm |
I didn’t want to be a boy either, I just went through life as it came along, not really giving gender much of a thought, until I grew up and it was all just so wrong. Even then it took a long time to pin-point what the problem was. I don’t feel like a fraud as much as I feel terrified others will decide I am one because of this. By others, I mean the people who hold the power over whether I will be allowed to get the magical diagnosis that allows me to aquire the necessary treatment. Being honest with those people is scary when I know how badly that went for others with the same story as mine.
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February 26th, 2010 at 5:10 am |
Just kind of in response to what other people have been saying, I just wanted to say that I started a little less than a year ago identifying as genderqueer. It’s really hard to pinpoint exactly what words fit you if you don’t fit the binary. I was always considered a tomboy when I was growing up, I wouldn’t wear dresses, I did climb trees, I hated dolls, loved sports, etc. But I did love stuffed animals. But there’s been different phases in my life where I’ve tried to emulate other people around me and figure out who I am, but nothing seemed to fit. Then I met queer friends. And realized I didn’t have to try and act like a girly-girl, or accept the fact that know one would ever like who I am. I could just be me. After that I came out as genderqueer. I’ve thought about whether I’m trans or not. I don’t feel like a girl, but I don’t feel like a boy either. I’m just me, I have some traits that are masculine and I present masculinely mostly by choice, and partially just because of how my natural features are. It just fits me. I think I need to learn to come to terms with parts of me that are feminine, but I haven’t quite reached that point. Right now I’m still exploring parts of my newly formed identity that are safe and make sense. This whole thing is still pretty new, but I hope soon I’ll be able to give my feminine traits the same respect and acknowledgment I do my masculine and just plain weird parts :)
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February 26th, 2010 at 4:04 pm |
Dear lord, Syd, you sound amazing! Totally described me–I wish I could meet people like you in real life. Maybe that’s my biggest problem, not having queer friends. It’s hard to feel comfortable outside of the gender binary, if that’s who I am, when everyone else around me doesn’t even question the binary. Anyway, I totally get what you’re saying, and good luck with everything!
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March 2nd, 2010 at 3:33 am |
“He probably didn’t realize he was trans till later because he likes guys.”
This was my experience only opposite. I never really gave it much thought. I liked my little pony, carebears, etc, But I didn’t consider that the majority of my happiness or lack thereof was because I felt I had to posture myself as a man because I’m attracted to women. It didn’t dawn on me until my thirties that I was trans and also femme.
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April 20th, 2010 at 10:37 pm |
I feel the same way. Perhaps it’s because there’s too much “one true way-ism” in the trans community. We’re all so willing to slap labels on ourselves and each other. You’d think we’d have learned by now how much labels hurt.
No matter what, only you can truly know what your gender identity is. And even if it took you longer than some to figure it out, it doesn’t make it any less real or true.
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June 27th, 2010 at 6:12 am |
Just like many have said already, i feel like a fraud too. It’s confusing enough for a female to realize they are actually male and then transitition and look like a normal male. But throw in the fact that I (and many of you) want to still wear make up and dresses and heels, and you get a confusing mess – well to other people any way. So I have chosen not to transitition, but even that is painful for me because I am then considered a lesbian, but I’m not! But I can never satify a girl the way I would want to, well not in a truly real way any way.
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June 27th, 2010 at 7:02 am |
Hi Julian.
This site is such an eye opener, I’m so glad I was directed here, I’m finally seeing other people who seem to feel like me!
I’m having exactly the same experience. I was quite a conventionally ‘feminine’ child who never questioned my gender but the more I look back the more I realise that I never had any reason to and as much as I loved my dolls and drawing fairies, I equally hankered after the toy cars that I wasn’t allowed and like drawing HeMan and ghosts too. It was recently pointed out to me that as much as I beat myself up for feeling like a ‘tourist’ next to other trans men because strangers still perceive me as feminine and I’m (as yet) too afraid to consider transitioning, growing up the reason I never ‘wanted to be a boy’ could have been less due to wanting to be a girl than through not questioning WHY I hated my body (after all, the majority of teenage girls hate their bodies, right?) and from the fact that I found boys attractive rather than girls which was the ‘norm’ and so nothing was ever questioned there either. I think I just didn’t realise that wanting to be male was even an option back then.
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