How much of your identity is tied up with your gender?

Genes.

It would suck being a guy.

My spirit is my first point of identity. I consider myself “one” – both male and female. So, my gender doesn’t define my attributes. I am who I am. My gentle, my strength, my passion, my tender, my anger, my hardness, my analytical, my many many parts are neither male nor female.

Hey if my girl wants to help me change a tire, I won’t stop her for a second.

Certainly I was identified more with my gender as a younger woman, wife, mother.

Now…single for years and have completly detatched from any concept of being identified with anything outside myself.

I am not identified with my gender, job, or any other false persona for identitys sake.

Not status, body, youth, monetary holdings.

I am just me and do not need any outside validation.

All of it. I don’t know how to be any other gender.

Hmm…I am not exactly sure. It certainly is not unimportant. In addition to being a male biologically, I identify with the gender of “man” or “guy” and there is no doubt in my mind about that, despite being homosexual. Hence why it irks me when people say that getting a sex change would be a “solution”. It hardly would at all because I am not a woman in any way, not in my body or in my mind. Same goes for what I am attracted to and that attraction is both physical and emotional. I’m not sure how important it is and whether or not it is the most basic form of my identity, but in many ways, it is. It is immediately apparent and it forms the basis of my sexual attraction. It is quite important.

As for things like gender roles, those really don’t play much of a part with me at all. Can’t say they play no part, but barely any and I would like them to be as insignificant as possible, at least in the grand scheme of things.

So, it is important because it is so basic and well-defined for me, but it is not that big of a part of my identity. What I do, what I like, how I act, those are much more important and for the most part, function independently of gender. The gender is just that basic part of me that is constant.

….I assume I would be the same person if I was male…. I’d just be a bit stronger and have a penis.

I would enjoy the same things.

Have the same talents

Want to have the same career.

I identify more with my ambitions, than with my gender.

@Shae no way. Being a guy is way better than being a woman. We’re stronger, don’t have to bear children and all that associated mess, don’t only do lay-ups in basketball, sometimes get better pay, and are just generally cool and level-headed. Top that

@cockswain We have better shoes

@cockswain I bet you wish you could massage your breasts all night long. Top that.

@Shae—our shoes are more sensible—

@holden as much as I love my wife’s breasts, they seem like a pain to deal with. people stare at them, and they fly all around when she jogs

I am reminded that I am a woman every time I get a cramp ;)

I would LOVE to be a man for a week :)

None. I would have been quite delighted to have been born a girl. You take what nature deals you. Being a true hermaphrodite might have been super cool. Do they get XX or XY chromosomes? If a girl, I would insist on XX. Nothing short would do.

@j0ey I would even more love to be able to flip sexes at will—even if it took a solid day of meditation to change states. I would love to know how what I am doing to her feels from her perspective.

@DominicX it irks me when people say that getting a sex change would be a “solution”.

W-T-F !?! I can’t believe people actually say that to your face.

@cockswain I can cum till I pass out in need of sleep.

@lucillelucillelucille
as is your husband. :)~

@Shae that’s all a guy ever does, just with way less work

@cockswain as much as I love my wife’s breasts, they seem like a pain to deal with. people stare at them, and they fly all around when she jogs.

got a link?

~ I love you guys… You are all wonderful… But, does anyone ever take these questions seriously… at least for the first 10–15 responses?! ~ ;-)

@cockswain is bluffing and he knows it. Nobody would really rather not have boobies.

A lot of my identity is tied up with my femininity. However I have met some people who are biologically male and just as feminine as I am. If I was born a boy, I’d probably be a cross dresser. I love my femininity. It has nothing to do with my body itself or my breasts or bits and pieces, but more of a way of being. It’s an essence. I enjoy being feminine. It doesn’t define who I am entirely but it is a part of how I feel myself to be.

Of course, my culture, my family roots, my personality, quirks, interests, gifts, beliefs, and many many other things make up the entire being I call “me”. I don’t know what one single thing defines me the most. I will be laughed at for saying this, but some people think they are a body with a spirit. I like to think of myself as a spirit with a body.

I don’t really think my gender is one of the main defining points of the person I am, it just seems so generic to have that as a serious defining quality.

Though I do say that being the gender I am does have it’s places of importance, I am far more likely to define myself by what I believe before what gender-specific allocations related to me.

@prolificus ~ I love you guys… You are all wonderful… But, does anyone ever take these questions seriously (at least for the first 10–15 responses?! ~ ;-)

Not lately.

I’ve always liked being female, doing female things like hair, makeup, used to do my nails. I’ve also wired the basement, drywalled, seated toilets, helped change the brakes. I think there are only minor differences between male and female brains.

I don’t identify with a gender given to me, you know this. So my life is a lot more about being a person rather than this woman others see when they look at me. I work with trans and gender non conforming youth, I spend my life answering people’s questions about our community and hoping for the discrimination to end. But in a way, because I spend so much time dealing with people statements about how I must like this or wear this because that’s ‘what girls do’, much of my life is about my gender, the denial of it.

I spent fifteen years in a boys club without being a whore or acting like a man. I think that if you forget about gender and concentrate on the task at hand, it becomes less of an issue.

I have always been frustrated by being a female. I have never been a girly girl. I was a divorced mom of two boys that had a deadbeat dad. Although there are many success stories of women that balanced home, school and parenting, I was not one of those women. I did not have any help with my kids or my finances and did not know about all the resources available to me to accomplish school with my financial circumstances. I was frustrated because I was a very intelligent female willing to work as hard as it took to earn a living to support my kids. If I had been male, even a whimpy male, I could have walked onto any jobsite and got a job making double what I could get working in an office. Because I was female, I was never given a chance to even prove my ability to do the job. Instead I ended up spending most of my children’s childhood working two and sometimes three jobs, just to pay the bills. I have often wished I could be a man for just one week, so I could see with it was like to be able to see life from such a simplistic perspective. That was 30+ years ago and now women are able to work labor jobs and they teach you how to get into and afford college while in high school. Now that I am actually verbalizing this I realize maybe it wasn’t my gender I should have been frustrated with, but the narrow minded era I was born into. It wasn’t being female that was hard but society’s perception of a female’s role that caused my difficulties. WOW!

@Exhausted There are plenty of people dealing with gender norms they don’t want these days as well.

My gender is non-sticky. This causes some people distress. I try not to discuss it in front of family. Unfortunately, no matter how I feel, gender norms still dictate far more of my behavior than I’d like.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I wish you and I could meet with Mr. Spock and let him do a Vulcan Mind meld for us, putting us each in the other’s body for a day.

@SeventhSense – He calls me “Sweetness and Light”

I’m all man. And I didn’t become all man until I embraced my feminine side. No one but my young children got to see that part of me. They are teens and twenties now, so my feminine side has all but vanished to the outer world, never to be seen again. But I must admit, I do still feel it sometimes. It manifests now as compassion, empathy, and hope for my children.

Perhaps if I hadn’t been a single father, I wouldn’t have found my feminine side. I’m glad I did though. Although in the background, it is a part of me, and it has helped to create the man I am today. And that’s a much better man than I was before.

@ETpro how come?

So most people seem to live without any awareness of their gender impinging on their construction of their own identity. In fact, it seems that for a lot of people answering here, gender plays no role in their identity. We live in an enlightened time and kumbayah, my lord.

Wow! Makes me feel like a totally failed person—constantly aware that I’m male and that that has an enormous effect on what I do and how other people treat me. Why can’t I get over that and rise to the level of spiritual enlightenment where gender means nothing?

I think I’m going to go and stick another ice pick in my other eye.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir You say yourself that much of your life is about the denial of gender. This says to me that gender is extremely important to you. You are constantly trying to identify yourself as not male and not female, but something else. And yet you say it doesn’t form your identity at all.

What am I missing here, people? Did I write my question wrong? Do we have totally different ideas of identity? Or how we think about ourselves? Do we overlook something because it is so pervasive we are never even aware of thinking about it?

@wundayatta I wouldn’t say it’s extremely important but it’s salient. But I am not constantly having to identify myself as anything – with my love and my friends, I don’t have to and that’s enough. I understand it’s contradictory, but a lot of what’s important to us and that which involves deconditioning is. To clarify, the concept of gender is important only in as much as it is constantly in my face (I have to deal with it) but the concept itself isn’t important, to me.

@lucillelucillelucille
I think Lucifer means Angel of Light too. :)

@wundayatta I think you’re conflating “enlightenment” with “blissful ignorance.” At least a handful of us are painfully aware of what you’re talking about.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I would just love to truly know what it feels like to be a female. Since you siad you worked with those fighting gender identity issues, I though you would welcome a day truly in a male body as well. If I was too presumptious in that, forgive me.

@ETpro no that’s all cool yo…but you see I don’t have to switch bodies to know how a man gets treated…gender is a performance and I can do a great one…besides I’m already a player with the ladies~

@wundayatta

I know very well what my male gender means and how it affects my identity.

It means that I can work and get along with a large group of women better than they can amongst themselves as all female… raur raur scratch hiss…

I think it’s important to remember that we can ENJOY our gender but like anything, to create an entire identity out of it is not wise. I love being a woman, enjoy dressing as a feminine form, but I am SO much MORE than my gender, so is everyone else.

Being overly identified with anything is a set up to take a big hit if that identification is taken away, lost, damaged, be it a house, a job, a lifestyle, our bodies, looks, youth, etc, etc,

You can always tell the ones that have over identified with something and it is lost, watch the breakdown of ‘self’. ( lolol )

If one does not develop the entire self above and beyond gender or anything else, what happens when that breast dies to cancer or that prostate drops the torpedo? hahaha

@Simone_De_Beauvoir This is so hard.

It’s not about what you think about gender or how aware you are of it or how important you think the concept is. It’s about how your gender affects who you are, and how you behave, regardless of how you think you should think about it. It’s got to have a huge effect on your life, because your whole work is about gender. Although that’s not the point, really. It’s really about how it affects your behavior and your “performance,” as you put it, and how it affects, from the inside, the “eyes” with which you look at the world (which does have to do with your work).

@wundayatta Are you discussing my situation or yours?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
Your life is about nothing but gender. You’re so wrapped up in labels or “non labels” that it’s inseparable from what you project. God forbid someone uses their own labels.

Five bucks says somebody will tumble out of the closet before this thread is through. And it ain’t gonna be me!

@SeventhSense How can you possible make that judgment based on things you only on me from fluther – you forgot that my life is also about being a feminazi and an extremist socialist atheist vegan…I feel like I super-force those views down your throat as well, wouldn’t you agree? In all seriousness, you’re wrong. And you can use whatever labels you want.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
Okay I guess that’s not fair of me. I can’t comment on your life outside of this venue. I’m just saying what you express on fluther in regards to every thread that even hints at sex or gender is highly subjective and interpretive of a particular slant which is very unique. And if it works for you that’s great but to say it’s not a consideration or a reaction against the status quo would certainly not be accurate.
As far as the feminazi, I like the heels and the uniform.:)

I’m me and i’m female…..I love being a girl….ball sweat is nasty, but my gender doesnt really effect me. I’m just janet. funny, deep, simple….....

@wundayatta But I don’t know how being female affects my life or performance or anything because I’ve never been a man. At least not in this lifetime. So how do I know what I do or feel stems from being female as opposed to my culture, or upbringing, or experiences?

@SeventhSense Well questions on fluther, like this one, ask us for subjectivity – this one asked about the role of gender in my life and of course that sounds like a lot of the other stuff I talk about but it’s still not the same – as an activist for the transgender and other communities, gender (like race and class and sexism) are what I talk about (and I detach myself as much as possible). I don’t know what else to tell you other than why don’t you just answer the question with your own answer and stop focusing so much on mine. and of course it’s a reaction to the status quo…my gender struggle (and it’s really been one) is a reaction to what I was raised with and what’s expected of me…but the ‘rebellion’ is the least of my problems…and the rest of my problems I really don’t feel safe discussing on fluther…because people like you assume that by talking about myself I’m pushing an agenda when it really affects me more than you know

@cockswain

We’re stronger
So? I could be stronger mentally, but I’m not bragging.

don’t have to bear children
Firstly, women don’t have to do it. Secondly, it would be your loss anyway.

sometimes get better pay
Are you proud of that?

are just generally cool
You’re generalising and/or being biased because you think you’re cool.

level-headed.
Yeah because all the wars and crimes in the world were started by such level-headed men.~

It doesn’t matter if you’re joking or not with your statements, because some men do hold these opinions very close to their heart. So apologies if you’re just being sarcastic or satirical. I felt compelled to speak for the other half of the human race.

@HTDC thanks for covering that – I’m so tired today

Oh, your gender shapes your viewpoint. Even if you can’t see through somebody else’s eyes to be sure, the fact that there are demonstrable differences in thoughts between gender-identified men and women that seem consistent and contingent upon their experiences as a certain gender seems to indicate that pretty strongly.

It might be difficult to extract all the tangled influences, but it’s worthwhile work, I think.

As I’m catching up on this thread, the Ani album I had on repeat through high school pops up on my playlist. Heh.

@jazmina88 “Ball sweat is nasty”???

Wait a minute? Have you ever been asked to eat cold pussy in the morning?

That is Nasty… it’s like peeling apart a stale grilled cheese sandwich in the back of the fridge_

I would respond to this question seriously but I’m too emotional to give an honest answer. Must be my uterus.

@holden Don’t be so hysterical. Hi-oh!

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I don’t want to know how a woman gets treated. I already know that. I lived as a woman for a year. I held a job and all. I want to know what it feels like to be a woman.

I’d say I’m affected by my sex, in that I’m given certain passes as someone that’s observed as male… but my gender has no specific effect on me, as even though I identify as male, I don’t really care that I identify as male.

@ETpro I guess you’d feel like you have some other body parts and I suppose the change would be meaningful to you…you can have my body any time

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
What else does society need to do to embrace a transgender lifestyle in your estimation?
Should people be forced to adapt a lifestyle which is not part of their experience and abandon their “preconceived ideas” about their own sex or is acceptance of those who are different sufficient? I never have any idea what your driving at.

@SeventhSense Speaking for myself, I think the latter step is a good start. Certainly, more people willing to consider what it means to live outside of the normative gender binary and willingly enter relationships with such people (not just romantic, though that’s certainly included) would be super great.

Also, that’s one heck of a straw man you’ve set up with your language there. Just sayin’.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I was a towhead blond boy with a very effeminate face and figure. And from the time I can first remember, I felt something had gone wrong in the gender assignment department.

I “outgrew” my gender identity issues by realizing that what I really felt inside was human and that without having XX chromosomes, no surgery would ever change what I am. Since making that decision, I am as male as the next guy. I exercise daily, alternating between free-weights, and HeavyHands cardiovascular exercise, and am in great shape, quite muscular for a guy my age. Here’s a picture of Dr. Leonard Schwartz, the inventor of the HeavyHands workout. I’m a bit younger than him, but that’s the body shape I inhabit now. Just wanted you to know what you’d get in the bargain. :-)

I truly wish there were some process that would allow a one-day swap. Alas, I’ll just have to guess what it would feel like to be you, and you won’t experience what it feels like to me me, or how hard a HeavyHands workout gets moving 15 pound dumbbells in windmill-like swings at the 30 minute point.

@elenuial
I’m not trying to set anyone up. It’s just an ongoing discussion we have.
It’s pretty clear that so many people in regards to this PC BS have zero sense of humor and even less capacity for self deprecation. I’m just completely confused. Some people are just never happy unless they’re fighting against something.

And again Simone abandons the topic when it has some real capacity for communication. Maybe next time I’ll just hold up a mirror for her and step aside.

@SeventhSense

Cheers! I agree 100%

Grievances looking for causes, no humor, for self or others.

Maybe people don’t think life is such a joke as you do. This isn’t PC BS, people’s lives are severely affected (physically and emotionally) by ignorant, close-minded, uneducated individuals who try to dictate their views on those who aren’t your stock standard masculine male/feminine female.

There are real problems out there for lesbians, gays, bisexuals etc. who have the right to take life seriously. And I stand up for what Simone is doing. Unfortunately, some people’s ears and minds are just too shut to understand or actively make a difference in the way these gender roles dictate almost every aspect of our lives and society.

@SeventhSense I like you a lot and very much value your opinions and contributions. But in this fight, most people who haven’t walked a mile in those shoes have no idea what they are pooh-poohing. If you haven’t directly felt the sting of bullying, beatings and discrimination for something you cannot change about yourself, it is almost natural to see it as trivial and those who complain about it as whiners.

Tell the transgendered and gay people who have been murdered by bigots that if they just lightened up a bit and laughed it off, all would be fine. Bigotry of any kind seldom goes away on its own. It has to be called for what it is and challenged at every sighting till it finally dies out.

@HTDC

My hardcore idealistic days have passed…things are what they are, until they are not.

Humor IS everything!

There is absolutly NOTHING in this life that needs to be taken so seriously all the time!

I am happy to pass the torch and sit on the porch these days.

@Coloma ”My hardcore idealistic days have passed…things are what they are, until they are not.”

And how can we possibly get to the stage where they are not if people are just sitting around waiting for things to happen? Until people band together and do something, positive change isn’t likely to happen.

As a side note, I’m not gay or lesbian so there’s no excuse, as a heterosexual man or woman to say, “well it’s their fight, only they can do it” or “it’s not my problem, it doesn’t affect me”. In the end gender roles and society’s attitudes towards those who are “different” affect all of us and the way we treat everybody in society, both directly and indirectly.

@HTDC I don’t know what gender you are, but I think I love you.

@HTDC
Of course life is a joke. This whole trip is one big fucking joke. You have men trapped in women’s bodies and women trapped in men’s bodies. You have to see the humor in that. There’s certainly no humor in being the victim of violence for your sexuality though. That’s shameful and I agree that that is not a laughing matter. But playful banter about sexuality is what heteros do. And you also have to see how some transgendered roles are very particular for only SOME people.
Unfortunately, some people’s ear’s and minds are just too shut to understand or actively make a difference in the way these gender roles dictate almost every aspect of our lives and society.
And they will continue to be because they work for THE VAST MAJORITY of people. Exceptions do not make the rule. If dwarves feel overwhelmed by large doors on buildings should we lower all doorways to 4 feet and force most people to crawl?
And some of those preaching acceptance are too pigheaded and stubborn to realize when they are accepted but also want the road to be paved like glass and every obstacle and pebble removed from their path towards self realization. And of course I say to them join the human race. Whether you are hetero, homo, transgender or transsexual life’s a bitch. You make your way through life and don’t expect that society will ever look at a trans-gender individual as mainstream. It’s not going to happen. To do so would require that every person become trans gender. And that will never happen. I see vagina- I think female. I see penis- male. I see both- hermaphrodite. That’s not going to change.
@ETpro
I’m sorry for your past.

@HTDC

Well…your torch is burning brightly…I hope you see the results you so desire.

@SeventhSense I could try and address your every statement, but this one seems most important.

”You make your way through life and don’t expect that society will ever look at a trans-gender individual as mainstream. It’s not going to happen.”

How can you be so sure and say that with such confidence? Only decades ago it was never going to happen that gays were even allowed to hold hands in the street. And now look around you. I’m sure they would have seen gays having any rights at all, as merely a pipe dream. You can’t predict the future. If so much has changed in just a few decades, imagine what the next century could hold. (Bearing in mind humanity still exists by then.)

Why do I get the feeling that the people who say “it’s not going to change” really just don’t want it to change?

@SeventhSense So what you’re saying is that if I could be just like you, I would be happier? I’ll get right on that, thanks.

Your dwarf example is ludicrous. Let me extend that with a thought experiment. Let’s pretend that you and I got teleported to ancient Rome, where the “VAST MAJORITY” of men had sex with little boys. I guess, by your logic, you’d soon be a card-carrying NAMBLA member. I guess I’ll be a weirdo by being an actively dissenting voice against raping children, but the social censure that will fall on my head is my fault because I don’t have a sense of humor.

What, why aren’t you laughing?

And non cisgendered people have playful banter about sex and sexuality, but we tend not to share it because it squicks people out. Oh, and has resulted in some people getting killed before. Whatevs.

@elenuial I think I love you too.

Awwww lurve is in the air!

The world is full of injustices, always has been. Sometimes progress is made, sometimes it is not.

There are millions of issues regarding the sufferings of humanity.

Natural resources, child abuse, gay rights, factory farming, carbon footprint, overpopulation, rain forests, STD’s, mad cow disease, H1N1, racism, poverty, drugs, war, the penal system, cults, corruption, organized crime, polloution, endangered species, over fishing the seas, global warming, pornography, genocide, white supremacy, teenage pregnancy…...on & on & on into infinity.

Pick your poison but don’t force it down anyone elses throat.

There is NO news under the sun, and thats a FACT!

@elenuial
Let’s pretend that you and I got teleported to ancient Rome, where the “VAST MAJORITY” of men had sex with little boys.
No but I would have to accept that I was outside of the norm like the transgender in society today. How is the dwarf analogy ludicrous? It is a person who is outside of the normative range of the population and will be looked at as different and has to account for this. Much as when I see a man in drag. I see a man dressed up as a woman. I don’t deny his right to do that but I see what any average person sees. I’m sorry but it does no one any good to imagine that you can change the very basis of how people relate. And anyone who is trying to promote this approach is blowing smoke up your ass and are seriously wasting your time. You can’t get any more open minded than I am. I can move in any circle but one thing I am always is a pragmatist and a realist. I won’t tell you you look good in those jeans and I won’t lead you down a flowery path. The truth is sobering. It is what it is. That is what you are asking. You are saying that not only do you want to be able to live in your fluid and genderless world but you want others to see as you see. How is that not controlling and just wishing to usurp the gender authority?

@elenuial
So what you’re saying is that if I could be just like you, I would be happier?
No if you would be just like you and allow me to be just like me you would be happier.
Live and let live.

I will be back tomorrow but I can’t believe it’s 2:00 A.M.
Peace Yin/Yang

Idenity to me is how I would describe myself. I wouldn’t immediately jump to my gender. Yes, I have feminine traits but acutally I sometimes think like a guy. There are time my hormones will get the best of me an I will be more emotional but most of the time I have a no nonsense additude. But mostly I just identify myself as just being human. Unpredictable and always striving.
That is my identity, not my sex. Anyone with eyes and ears can see or hear I was born female. But I am unique to my own sex and my own race because I am a combination of hundreds of things and influences that make me who I am today.

I do not see gender identification as a contribution to society in any way. It’s what we do besides being a man or woman that matters to society. That’s where equality and creativity of the people reside.

Some culture/religion value men more than women,and vice versa. So I think I can still get the advantage from cultural/religionism community. But I never like the discrimination,just the advantage.

@SeventhSense I didn’t abandon the topic – the power went out in our house because of the storm outside. I actually wrote a pretty long response which is now lost but, in sum, it had to do with the irony of your statements – that a transgender person or an ally fighting for their rights are the ones forcing others to conform to their ideas of gender when even the very idea of our activism is born out of the fact that it’s the other way around. You are very fortunate to feel that being a man is how you identify and that you never faced outright ridicule for how you dress, act, etc. I don’t know why you needed to put me on the spot in this question and this discussion is further taking away from the OP’s original question so I think if you really want to learn, you should pm me with questions and we’ll talk. All you’re doing right now is being inflammatory helped along by @Coloma chiming in about some idealistic past of hers – to you, @Coloma, I say (yet again) that we have chosen to live our lives differently, you choose to label other’s passions as idealism, you choose to say that you have no control over the many injustices out there and you have removed yourselves from holding responsibility for thigns you (all of us) should be held responsible for – if you think life is about humor and humor is everything…hey, whatever works for you but that’s not going to fly for me and it is not in my character to laugh it all off when people are being discriminated against – I encourage you to show me an example in my first response to this question where I shoved poison down your throat. Go ahead, highlight the phrase (s) for me – all I did was answer the question but my answer just had to be dissected, @SeventhSense, didn’t it because you just have to be spiteful, you just have to incite my anger, you fucking get off on it – I hope for their sake you don’t have any transgender friends.

If I woke up one day as a female and knew that I was stuck like that for life, I would kill myself. I am one of those people who has a strong gender identity.

I would like to know what it is like to be female for, say, a week… that would be a good learning experience. However, for good? No.

@Arisztid You would kill yourself if you woke up with female genitalia? Why would you not continue to identify as male, since mentally you still would be? Seems extreme.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies brb. vomiting

@meagan huh? You don’t like cold stale cheese either?

@JeanPaulSartre I have known enough transsexuals to have a better understanding of the condition and what they undergo than most people. It is more than just the genitalia which would be bad enough. The suicide rate for untransitioned transsexuals is astronomical. From what I have heard, the official suicide rate is 30 to 50%, the unofficial suicide rate much higher.

One of my best friends and roommate for a time was FtM transsexual, unable to afford transition. I saw what he went through and, in fact, he wound up suiciding. He and I had a lot of talks on the subject and I have done some digging on my own. I know that I am not strong enough to handle it. Some can handle it but I know that I would not be one of them.

@Arisztid Word – this is because of socialization though. Unfortunately, transgendered people are discriminated against even by their most likely allies. Thanks for clarifying your answer some. Sorry I jumped down your throat prematurely.

@JeanPaulSartre No worries and I did not think that you were jumping down my throat. Transgendered people have a bad lot of life. I can never keep it straight in my mind… is the current term transsexual or transgendered.

@Arisztid I think transgendered – but most trans people I know don’t identify as trans, so I’m not 100% sure what is preferred.

@Arisztid the umbrella term is transgender – it includes transsexual within itself if that’s how a person identifies.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir and @JeanPaulSartre Oh ok… thankyou. I get so confused with the terminology.

@Arisztid that’s perfectly normal, these things are hard to learn and figure out sometimes

@Arisztid Glad we mostly Simone could help!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies You could warm it/her up considerably before getting to it like that. Doesn’t she want to pee and wash up a little? And are you joking ‘cause why would you want to go there first thing in the morning?

Enough to get me into trouble. Sometimes I wish I’d been raised with more gender specific ideas because as much as I think I like myself and how I feel about people around me, I’ve always struck people as odd and not quite what I appear. It’s taken some pretty extraordinary men to find me attractive in a workable relationship that appreciate me rather wanting to modify me. I always wanted to be the “normal” pretty girl guys wanted to date and weren’t afraid of, it never worked that way.

Both all of it and none of it at the same time. I was born female but I have never been able to really identify as female. I identify fully as male, and am finally in the process of transition.

@downtide Good Luck!

I don’t know how it happened but somehow I was raised by a feminist but turned out totally wrong. I’m trying to fix it. But I’ve really gotten in too deep with the materialism. My entire “look” screams stereotypical modern plastic woman. Its really disgusting.