Dear Shirley:

For the longest time I didn’t feel comfortable being female myself. At times I felt like I was male, even though biologically I have always been female, XX, born that way. I associated female with weakness and male with strength and hated being weak. I wanted to be strong, hence I wanted to be male. I felt uncomfortable wearing feminine clothes and shoes and preferred comfortable clothing. Was never much into make up or fixing my hair and such. I now realize strength is available for girls/ women and boys/ men. Traditionally, in modern society, men had the societal power, in the family and outside the family. Much had progressed in this regard. But obviously,not everywhere.

Here is how I view the issue now: female/ male is a biological distinction, one produces eggs (born with all the eggs ever produced) and the other produces sperms (during puberty and onward). There are some differences in muscle mass and distribution but that is not significant in modern high tech life. Other than that, you make your own rules, be what you want to be, wear what you want to wear. Climb trees if you want.

Don’t make your life about being female OR male. Take yourself outside the gender controversy.

anita

Dear Shirley:

I want to attend to the title of your thread first and then answer your question.

The title of your thread is Gender Dysphoria. I looked at Wikipedia and it reads there: “Gender dysphoria… is the dysphoria (distress) a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.” It also reads: “Symptoms… may include any of the following: disgust at their own genitalia, social isolation from their peers, anxiety..”

The following is true for me as I look at my history: I was unhappy with my body as far back as I can remember and in particular I was unhappy with the visible female parts. Basically, I wish I didn’t have those. I wished I was like those dolls I played with- no such parts. I didn’t wish to have male parts; I just wished I had no sex parts. During and after puberty, my unhappiness, disgust and shame over having female sex parts got more intense. I did experience a lot of anxiety over this and I stayed away from female peers, not wanting to hear about their female issues, didn’t feel part of it. I rejected my own female parts as well as other females.

I wasn’t born with those feelings. I was shamed. It was drilled into me that sexual activity (in any circumstance) is disgusting, and women acting sexual are very shameful. I carried on this shame with me throughout my life, suffering for it for many, many years. I covered myself best I could, wearing loose fitting clothes (they also felt more comfortable, especially in the heat and humidity), and I was in no way a “girly girl.” I am still not an (older) girly girl. I still wear loose clothing but I am in my over five years of healing from shame, including bodily shame, starting with my first competent psychotherapy in 2011.

Healing for you is possible too. If you are feeling distress about your body, any part of it or all of it, it is very possible to heal from it, and the earlier, the better. It is not required to change to an extreme; it may not be desirable or even possible. But it is possible to reduce your suffering by a whole lot and it is possible to come to peace with your body, being female and being post puberty.

As to your question: ” how you got over the view of women as being weaker and thinking in biologically terms between them?” – my desire to be a man- like was not for sexual purposes- it was for the purpose of being emotionally strong, as social convention promotes that men are stronger. I wanted to be emotionally strong, that is successfully assertive, having control over my life, being active, not passive, being the leader in my own life, not being submissive to my mother, not being her punching bag and at her mercy.

What I learned in the last few years is that being a man does not at all mean being emotionally strong- it simply is not the case. Men and women are equal in this area. Men are expected to be strong and they pay the price for it by (statistically) dying younger. Learning this, took away from my desire to be like a man. I am learning that I can be strong as I am. Building my own emotional strength is key.

At this point, being a woman vs being a man does not mean much to me. I view myself as a person. Just a person- eggs or sperm production is irrelevant to me since I have never taken advantage of those eggs- did not become a mother and would not plan to be one even if I wasn’t too old for that.

Did I answer your question? Please let me know your thoughts and feelings about any part of what I wrote here, if you have more questions for me regarding what I wrote here, or regarding your particular experiences, please ask. I would like to help you any way I can regarding this issue.

anita

Dear Shirley:

Regarding the apple tree analogy, here is what is wrong with it: you don’t have to wait for a man to pick you. This is part of the (emotional) strength I wrote about- you don’t wait to be picked; you pick! Waiting to be picked is passive and that is weak; picking is active and that is strength.

And since you will pick, and not wait to be picked, there is no reason to dress girly-like or provocatively or to flirt. You will be doing the picking!

Your last post made me realize that I too didn’t want to be like my mother, so I didn’t want to be her gender as well. That makes sense.

Back to picking- you pick the values you believe in and leave your mothers and aunt’s values (or lack of) on the tree. Then you walk away from the tree. Your family of origin can have less and less of a place in your life. You can choose, one day, to no longer be there to hear what triggers your inner bully.

You can be free to be and become more and more who you are (a person I like, value and respect!)

anita

Hehe Valkyries. See “What’s Opera Doc” for the Warner Brothers’ take on Valks 🙂

Villages where half the warriors were women probably means that it was a small village:) Back in the day when combat was up-close and personal with swords, axes, etc., I’d bet on the average male warrior over the average female warrior every day and twice on Sunday if for no other reasons than reach and endurance.

Here’s the thing: the feeling of “safety” isn’t about gender. On average, men are physically stronger than women as was noted. There are reasons for that beyond primary and secondary sex characteristics. If a man, XY, does not have the ability to make proper hormone receptors, the man develops with a sterile female body plan with average size and strength between that of a man and a woman.

The other thing is that trying to come across as a “man” probably won’t make you anymore “safe”. There are differences in how men and women walk, there are differences in proportionality, and generally differences in size. I sometimes work with a woman who is 6’3″ tall, but, even with body armour on, it’s still pretty obvious she is a woman. However, with a Glock 41 and ~5 x 13round mags of .45ACP + 1 in the “pipe,” she’s somebody you wouldn’t want to mess around with.

Not understanding the scientist thing. There are some jobs that I truly don’t think would typically work for women, but research isn’t one of them.

Dear Shirley:

A member, norit, posted on your thread but it didn’t record here. You can find it in Activity (more than 10 hours ago). It included an attachment. Here is a copy (the attachment didn’t copy):

“Hi Shirley,
I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you’ve faced and are still facing. I don’t feel I can comment on ‘Transgender or Gender Dysphoria?’ because they’re not things I’ve had experience with.
I agree with you, I too despise gender roles in society. Girls can definitely work out, or be scientists. Girls can be whatever they want to be. I hope it’s okay for me to share, and that these links work: your thread reminded me of the #LikeAGirl campaign, which is something I find quite empowering as a young woman –

Fairytales always drive me nuts because they’re about the young princess being saved by the strong prince. Please, who needs a prince? We can save ourselves!”