Questioning Gender

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We don't have much context to go on regarding your manly societal obligations, other than that you are 21 and living in the UK. In the USA, ethnicity and immigration status makes a huge difference in the USA. Presumably the same is true where you live.

I moved away from a very nice upper class home in the tropics to find a job, leaving my younger brother to deal with mother, who still lives at home. He tried to get me to help in him moving away from home, now that my mother needs his assistance, but he wants to be the one who makes the decisions. I guess I'm only qualified to do the "dirty work." My friends and doctor agree that the best thing to do is to stay away and let them sort it out.

The book I referenced brings up the issue of female responsibilities. A guy can get out of bed and be at work in half and hour. Females typically need to spend at least that much time looking nice, as other females will judge their appearance and adjust their interactions accordingly.

In my case I feel I am appropriately labeled in some instances.

Do you live in a very conservative area?

"Getting ready" is one of the most time consuming, important parts of my mother's day. I, on the other hand, engage in no such time consuming ritual. I get dressed quickly, brush my teeth and hair and put sunscreen on. However you are correct in that my "value" is reduced by my failure to conform to expected female aesthetics.

Below is a quote from the OP, but I have changed a few of the words..

Surely many of us here recognise masking or passing, and that autistic people do it out of anxiety that, if our autistic traits become noticeable, there may be unwanted attention and possibly hostility. The possible reactions, and who they might come from, differ of course for the OP, but the problem is essentially the same, and has nothing to do with fashion tips, as the OP has already said. One difference though, is that I can vary how much I try to pass relatively easily and quickly according to the company and the situation; I imagine that presenting as a different gender may be rather more difficult in this respect (as might the chance of meeting hostility.)


I wonder whether autistic masking has a part to play in this. I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood basically just "playing my role" in a play written by everybody else. I'd been doing it since infancy, to the point that I barely even knew I was doing it myself; just following the script and never really questioning who I was, or what I wanted from life. I wasn't diagnosed until four years ago, in middle-age, and I'm still discovering who I really am and overwhelmed by confusion sometimes. I'm not in a position to offer any insight into your feelings about your gender, but maybe they have only become apparent now because you are learning to drop your autistic mask, even if only to yourself?

Chronos,
This is brilliant. I was also a disappointment to the females in my family, for the exact reasons you state. My grandmother was a fashion model for (bleep's) sake, into her 70s! The getting ready took hours for some of them. It was like living in Real Housewives in terms of appearances, and it seriously messed with my head. Value is very hard to rebuild when you've been contemplated like a curiosity, or a bug in a jar, just for being yourself. Hence, that built a path of connected dots which destroyed most of my life. Thanks for sharing! Happy sunscreening.

I'm just gonna say it, FINE, then let's all just be disgusting slobs like males. YAY, all ALL MALE world of UGLY. fine ladies, become guys, whatever. we're all ugly, that shouldn't matter, but it does.

being a "nice guy" for decades hasn't worked. It's the jerks who get places in the world.

I'm tired of feminism.

? No one has said they prefer to be disgusting slobs, or that men are disgusting slobs. I simply doubt that spending an hour applying cosmetics is as important as being a kind person.

In my madness confronting my own gender issues, I have been bothered by this neo-feminist opposition to things once considered "pretty". To me, it seems the women are masculinizing, and society is becoming this one neutral gender, thus invalidating trans. men are women, women are men, I don't f----ing know anymore.

It's just all blue jeans and t-shirts now. The same uniform for everyone. Apparently what I "thought" was feminine, was just the evil male patriarchy MAKING women look that way, or something like that, so now all the ladies want to be guys.

Everything has been turned inside out. I'm more messed up than ever. So, just default back to jerky guy because that is what society taught me I should be. males suck, the bra burners of the 70's taught me that one. It was awesome to hear that as a young boy back then. No wonder i'm so screwed up.

Angry feminist women get mad at men and end up taking it out in their sons. Those boys grow up hating their own gender.

Nothing makes any sense anymore.
Especially to a 5 year old boy accidentally discovering his feminist mother's copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves"....still reeling from that confusion almost a half a century later. Moms: be careful what books your kids get a hold of.


PS: and BTW, most guys think cosmetics is a waste of time also. That part I understand. But don't lose the nice outfits, well ditch the uncomfortable ones, but please don't copy the males, we have no fashion sense.

In the mid 70s I recall a reel to reel film shown in school that suggested institutionalization as a possibility for those were were unable to handle the transition to adulthood. They showed a young girl, unable to deal with hypocrisy of her parents, doing drugs and ending up in an institution. By the time I became an adult the institutions were pretty much closed down, as the "conservatives" wanted to save money and the "liberals" didn't want to see people locked up.

I had family working in the psych industry in the 80's when they closed all the psych hospitals. Nice that people that didn't need to be locked up were freed, but since then, the mental health system has been in a shambles.

Now, if someone can't handle the transition into adulthood, they are ridiculed and punished. Treated as less than by much of society, particularly conservatives. "suck it up and get a job" that's the righty ethic. If they are not fortunate enough to have a family to take care of them they are cast into the streets. I think that's what some call a "great" america.