How satisfied are you with your birth-assigned gender?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm definitely not butch, but I actually think I might have similar feelings. It's one of the reasons I don't even consider myself a woman at this point. Just agender (genderless).

I meant butch by straight standards, not lesbian standards. Having seen both worlds, I've noticed a huge difference.

I'm femme, but in the straight world, I'm really butch. I'm butch compared to other bi women, as well.

EDIT: I'm also really glad that someone else out there can identify with these feelings, thanks.

Okay, yeah, I guess by straight standards I might be closer to a soft butch, although I prefer femme, I don't currently have the wardrobe for it.

My issue was that I was always doing "woman" wrong, overdressing, underdressing, not behaving properly, having the wrong sense of humor, the wrong appetite, the wrong hobbies. I've never really clicked on this whole idea that "women always and only do X and men always and only do Y" and in fact it makes no sense to me at all. Trying to make myself fit into a gender box contributed to my depression.

I got really depressed trying to keep up with femininity. I used to have a lot of internalised homophobia and I was scared of being seen as butch. A lot of what seems to come naturally to other women doesn't for me. It's like I've got gender autism, as well as regular autism.

I felt a bit better when I finally realised I didn't have to fight my true nature. This is true of my aspie traits, as well. They're analogous for me. But still, the gap between what I was trying to be and what I actually am still bothers me, sometimes.

Yeah, a lot of that doesn't come naturally to me. It's one reason femme appeals to me, as it is not traditional femininity.

I really don't think this sort of feeling is uncommon among people with ASDs. My daughter, who is only 6 1/2, stands out for several reasons, one of them being that she seems to act more like a boy than a girl. She was playing in the garden with a neighbour's daughter and her male friend (who also happens to have an ASD). The difference between my daughter and the other girl was quite striking. Although my daughter is very pretty, with long dark blonde ringlets, big eyes and a sweet wee face, the other girl, who has short dark hair, looked somehow more feminine and certainly less disheveled. My daughter appeared more like the boy, not so much in having a big male body or anything like that. It's hard to put my finger on it. I mentioned it to the boy's mum and she said she'd noticed the same thing, especially in the way the other girl was swinging 'sweetly' on the swing, whilst the other two pranced around, without any elegance. The boy has dyspraxia, which would account for his lack of co-ordination, but my daughter has very good co-ordination. She says she feels like a boy and is much more comfortable in less feminine clothing too. I wondered for a while if she was in fact intersex (with no obvious physical markers for that) and that thought does enter my mind now and again.

That said, I'm similar. I wasn't so obviously tomboyish as a young child, but I never felt feminine; I was just me. My testosterone levels are normal, but my body over responds to it. I'm excessively hairy, even with permanent removal (and my daughter is heading that way too) and I do have a male digit ratio (as does my daughter).

@Verdandi

No, it's not.

I have a hard time in gay clubs because they often think I'm straight. If I go to a nightclub, I like to get dressed up and wear a bit of make-up. I have a curvy figure, so I look best in clothes that are feminine, though I enjoy wearing men's clothing in a casual context (I'm even doing it now). It's about expressing yourself rather than a gender identity.

I wasn't obviously tomboyish as a child, but I wasn't feminine, neither was my (NT) sister. My sister has grown up to be feminine now, but I'm still androgynous in behaviour (I look feminine due to my face and body-type, though).

I actually have a very female digit ratio, but I think my testosterone levels are a bit high. My mother has the same problem of high levels of male hormones (for a woman).

Is it because I'm a monogamous heterosexual male Aspie that I'm finding this all very hard to understand?

To me, feeling sexually attractive as a general thing is OK as far as it goes, but ultimately has very little to do with real life as I know it. As a single person, I want to be sexually attractive to women who could be compatible with me, and invisible to the others who would just be wasting my time and their own. The very notion of global attractiveness seems odd - I know a lot of mainstreamers are supposed to have highly stereotyped tastes, but from the individuals I've known, I'd say in practice it's very much a matter of horses for courses. One of them may like a moustache, the next may like me smooth and clean shaven. So however I adjust my appearance, I'm going to repel somebody.

When in a relationship, it's easy because I only have to attract the one person, and attracting anybody else becomes meaningless and quite likely counterproductive. So for me, feeling sexually attractive is only seriously meaningful as a specific thing, when there's a named target and a halfway decent chance of an orgasm. My self-esteem seems to be mostly about higher social motives and technical performance in pursuits of well-defined practical value.......stuff like have I helped anybody or achieved anything worthwhile.

I hope this won't be taken as my trying to belittle alternative views of sexuality......obviously they must make sense or they wouldn't happen, and if you can find a modus operandi that works for you, good luck........I'm just expressing my bewilderment and hoping somebody will chip in and try to explain.

@ToughDiamond

Women are still largely taught to tie a large part of their self-esteem and value as a person to their global sexual attractiveness. Even in feminist circles (admittedly only in some of the third-wave ones). Even if you are monogamous. It's insane and very unhealthy, but it definitely is there and pervades every cultural representation of femininity.

I couldn't begin tell you how deep the self-hatred in some women runs if they fall short. Women hate their bodies when they're barely out of toddlerhood. I think I started at the age of 8.

Sadly, this is very true. The media expectations for female beauty are still quite narrow. I'm very thankful to have a great guy who doesn't buy into the whole 'global' attractiveness part and likes me for how I am.

i answered "5".

i do not care if i am a boy or a girl. as long as i am me, i am happy with that.

Thank you both for this. I really miss the boilersuit feminists of the 1970s and 80s. Since then I've had so much flak for not reconstructing my views that I was seriously beginning to think I could be plain wrong and that my own ideas were the unhealthy thing.

Yes, finding a partner who doesn't care about the superficial things does help an awful lot. As I said in a previous post, I'm excessively hairy. However, I don't need to bother too much about ensuring all the hairs are removed from my legs at all times. I only go for the ultra smooth look when I know I'm going to be wearing shorts or a dress or going swimming. He doesn't mind in the least and that saves me a great deal of time and hassle. Some would find that gross, which is strange when it's just natural. I know I fall way short of the cover girl look, but my husband finds me attractive just as I am, I've no doubt about that. I don't think he likes vain women, who spend way too much time on their appearance, in the slightest.

I suppose body hair is a gender identifier, and a lot of women remove most of theirs so that they'll seem ultra-female. Most of the women I currently know probably don't.....the "alternative movement" as I know it doesn't seem to expect it, perhaps because of disdain for the commercialisation of mainstream "beauty."

Covergirls fall short of the covergirl look. Its all photoshop.