Door
Someone wrote…
I can`t look more masculine, because I can`t get on T.
I can`t get on T, because my therapist says I have too many doubts.
I have too many doubts, because everyone tells me I look too feminine to “become” a man.
I look too feminine to be read as a man, because I can`t get on T.If someone sees a door in this circle, tell me!!!
What’s your experience?
Posted by Freiya on May 1st, 2014 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 9 comments »
May 1st, 2014 at 8:46 pm |
Doors:
Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
Gender Outlaws edited by S. Bear Bergman and Kate Bornstein
Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg
Trans Warriors by Leslie Feinberg
Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon
Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman
From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
I hope these help. Books have been one of the biggest keys in me figuring out my gender identity, and realizing how beautiful/valid/strong I am. Good luck!! p.s. lots of us are out here already, waiting for you to be as manly, masculine, femme-y, faggy, butch, glitter-y, soft, tough, whatever as YOU want and need to be. we can’t wait to hug, hold, love, and affirm you, exactly as you are.
[Reply]
May 1st, 2014 at 11:41 pm |
Don’t think, just do.
[Reply]
May 2nd, 2014 at 6:23 am |
Also, you may want to consider whether you have doubts about being happy with the effects of going on T, or if you just have doubts in your confidence to handle it or to pass. If you feel like it is right for you and you feel confident that you would be pleased with most/all possible effects and side-effects of taking T, then any other doubt may not be a valid reason to prevent you from starting T…
What I’m saying is: you can work on building self-esteem, coping skills, and social safety-nets…If your doubts are about that…then maybe talk to your therapist about actively working on those and then going on T? or while going on T? Those alone shouldn’t be a reason to not pursue T…Obvs you don’t want to get overwhelmed and not be able to cope with the effects the changes have on your social life, but if you already have plans and defenses built up, you should be okay to go.
————-
Also also…Are there other ways you haven’t yet tried to pursue masculinity? Or feeling comfortable in your own body? I know for me, I have to remember that for those of us who are seen as female and moving towards expressing our gender in ways that seem more male to society, usually we assume we have to be super dudely to be “trans-enough.” Whereas it is harder for amab/male-presenting people to head in the other way across society’s binary…though they have less gender-norms to break before they deviate from their normative masculinity or “male-ness” and society starts to see them as gender-variant. This is mostly all due to misogyny which is ingrained into us and Western culture (assuming you are from the West here…if not, my apologies.) It is refreshing to me to look up trans men and nonbinary people who present as femme or more femininely…Also trans men or nonbinary people who have varying levels of physical creation of gender…like people who do or don’t pursue T, HRT, chest or bottom surgery, facial reconstruction, etc…There’s so much variation, and it’s hard to remember that this doesn’t dictate or invalidate your identity. Perhaps you are just wanting to pass in society as male very much, but if your doubts are more a self-doubting thing, instead of pragmatic daily/legal stuff, then looking for role-models might help you…It has me.
People online who inspire me gender-expression wise include:
http://boyqueen.tumblr.com/
http://teeveedinner.tumblr.com/
The lead-singer of the band Rachel Stamp…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-4caRmsnKg
http://viviandemilo.tumblr.com/
http://heavymuffintop.tumblr.com/
Best of Luck!
Also, feel free to take any of this which helps you, and leave behind anything which doesn’t work.
[Reply]
May 2nd, 2014 at 6:24 am |
Also, you may want to consider whether you have doubts about being happy with the effects of going on T, or if you just have doubts in your confidence to handle it or to pass. If you feel like it is right for you and you feel confident that you would be pleased with most/all possible effects and side-effects of taking T, then any other doubt may not be a valid reason to prevent you from starting T…
What I’m saying is: you can work on building self-esteem, coping skills, and social safety-nets…If your doubts are about that…then maybe talk to your therapist about actively working on those and then going on T? or while going on T? Those alone shouldn’t be a reason to not pursue T…Obvs you don’t want to get overwhelmed and not be able to cope with the effects the changes have on your social life, but if you already have plans and defenses built up, you should be okay to go.
————-
Also also…Are there other ways you haven’t yet tried to pursue masculinity? Or feeling comfortable in your own body? I know for me, I have to remember that for those of us who are seen as female and moving towards expressing our gender in ways that seem more male to society, usually we assume we have to be super dudely to be “trans-enough.” Whereas it is harder for amab/male-presenting people to head in the other way across society’s binary…though they have less gender-norms to break before they deviate from their normative masculinity or “male-ness” and society starts to see them as gender-variant. This is mostly all due to misogyny which is ingrained into us and Western culture (assuming you are from the West here…if not, my apologies.) It is refreshing to me to look up trans men and nonbinary people who present as femme or more femininely…Also trans men or nonbinary people who have varying levels of physical creation of gender…like people who do or don’t pursue T, HRT, chest or bottom surgery, facial reconstruction, etc…There’s so much variation, and it’s hard to remember that this doesn’t dictate or invalidate your identity. Perhaps you are just wanting to pass in society as male very much, but if your doubts are more a self-doubting thing, instead of pragmatic daily/legal stuff, then looking for role-models might help you…It has me.
People online who inspire me gender-expression wise include:
http://boyqueen.tumblr.com/
http://teeveedinner.tumblr.com/
The lead-singer of the band Rachel Stamp…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-4caRmsnKg
http://viviandemilo.tumblr.com/
http://heavymuffintop.tumblr.com/
Best of Luck!
Also, feel free to take any of this which helps you, and leave behind anything which doesn’t work.
[Reply]
May 2nd, 2014 at 8:02 am |
Thank you two.
Yes, books have always been important to me too. I guess I am through with everything Kate puplished so far, but there are some others I did not know in your list.
And yes, I`d love to just switch out my brain for a while and just live instead of just thinking. I try to, but it is my family mostly who tells me to “think it through again, this big desicion”. I somehow feel a bit emotionally blackmailed.
[Reply]
radical/rebel replied:
May 2nd, 2014 at 9:07 am
hey german dude!
if you’re feeling emotionally blackmailed, I think you should *listen* to those feelings. you’re probably right on the mark.
You are the only person who can know what you want and need. If you feel certain and confident about your journey and your choices, don’t let other people keep repeating that you should “think it through again.” Sometimes we spend our entire lives thinking something through and never actually get to the point where we take the action we know we desperately need!
I hope your family can find the courage to listen to you, the courage you’ve already showed by telling them who you are and what you need.
good luck in yr journey, and know that Genderfork will always be here for you as a supportive place to air your thoughts, feelings, fears, joys, etc. <3 <3
radical/rebel
[Reply]
May 2nd, 2014 at 11:26 am |
Oh, I can totally relate to this. I had a psychatrist tell me that I wasn’t doing a very good job of “looking like a man” and generally pointing in my direction.
You see, I can’t bind because I have H cups and asthma, this doctor won’t acknowledge my experience because of my breasts, and because of this, won’t consider giving me a referral so I can have top surgery… which for most, would make me “look like a man”. Long story short, I HEAR YA.
My door is going to be finding another doctor. I suggest you do the same, if it is possible. Best of luck.
[Reply]
May 3rd, 2014 at 2:10 am |
Oh hey, i didn`t expect this. Thank you. I always try to tell people that the so unpersonal, anonymous and evil Internet to me has become a place where I feel the safest and where I feel somehow home, sometimes more than at my real home. It is good to know that there are people who hear me.
Yesterday I found words for something, I developed the last weeks.
I am so pissed about the fact that my family wont`t listen, they question everything I say and think they know better all the time.
I developed kind of a “cis-envy” of the worst kind, bringing back some dysphoria I thought I had come over already.
I thought like “if I were male assigned at my birth, if I had been raised and had grown up in a male role, nobody would question my words now. This is for me one of those male privileges, that I miss. To stand up for myself, to speak out for myself, without having everyone questioning my ability to do so.
I have never been a liar, never been too freaky, I am over 30 years old and well reflected. I have no idea how my family came to the conclusion that they could not trust my words?
And then I get irrational, and I blame it on the boobs. They are the reason nobody can trust me. They are the evil. And I got to get T, NOW, to erase this mistake my body is. It`s sending the wrong signals!
I too can not, or don`t want to wear a binder. I do not have much to hide, but still enough. I am a smoker and I always had problems with my throat and…my dictionary says: my respiratory tract …is too narrow and always somehow irritated since I was little.
So I have to breathe really deep very often. So wearing a binder is no option. I got one a while ago but I never really wear it.
Fact is, that I got the best therapist you can get in the whole region where I live, she is definately the most experienced one. But she won`t rush anything. She, profesionally she has to, believes me and all that, she is great, but I get more and more impatient, because of…I don`t know, internalising all the questioning of all the ohters.
So I wish you good luck finding a doctor who listens to you, and who helps you getting the “things” out of the way that are the reason you are not “looking like a man”. I mean, don`t those “doctors” see, that it`s not about to do someone a “favour”, they don`t have to bring you a gift. A doctor telling you what yours did, is like….throwing more rocks right into your way, than there are already. It does not help.
Thats a terrible phrase, I heard from my own sister, and it is evrything but nice to hear it. “You wanna be a man? But you can`t, you don`t look like one. You don`t even look like a lesbian, get over it!”
Those people could punch me right into the face, that would hurt less.
So, it feels good to have this place, or space like genderfork. Just to read that I am not alone helps me to stay patient when I feel pissed.
[Reply]
May 5th, 2014 at 10:35 pm |
just wanted to update, I had therapy yesterday….and she somehow told me in what time I could expect her to write me the positive medical report, the so called t-letter. And it is…not much time…She gave me some…”homework” to do, tips I should try out and I have to go on with some outings and so on, she said this was the usual timespan that she works with, if everything goes on like this, it may be possible. She would not give me that hope, if she would have any doubts, would she?
So…she was talking about…three months, that will be the hardest of my whole life. I mean, even when it is more than three months, I was afraid to NEVER get T, but now this moment exists in my future and maybe within the year 2014!!! Thats more I expected!!
[Reply]