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Where Nikki's gender questioning messes me up a bit.


Briannah

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So... obviously right now gender is a spotlight conversation and understanding topic in our household while we're figuring out how to meet everyone's needs.  And now that I have time to think, I'm realizing he's confusing things in my head.  This is not a complaint or criticizing post, this is just me working out my thoughts way early in the morning.  I'm not usually up yet, and it's hard to articulate these feelings, so forgive me as I'm about to fail badly to express the mess in my head.

Nikki has real trouble communicating thoughts and feelings (something that doing is inherently female to me, this throws my ability to see his inner girl but I keep trying) so maybe he's just not expressing himself well, but what he does express boils down being a girl to....boobs, makeup, and clothing.  So we talk about those things a lot, but...they're all superficial to me.  They are not what make me female.  I didn't get a choice about the boobs(and would shrink them by half if he wouldn't have a massive sad and there was a nonsurgical option), and I ditched the makeup the minute I realized I DON'T need to do what society tells me to and I don't care for doing it much(but I don't mind Nikki doing it, but it triggers my I'm not artistic and I don't want to do this attitude), and I grab whatever I can find in clothing.  But Nikki only ever says "I feel girly" if it's physical.  Sometimes I try to interact with him like I did past girlfriends and he just gets weirded out.  Granted I wasn't a very good partner in a girl/girl relationship, so maybe I"m doing it weird and that was part of why they all failed, but still... And that is making me question the whole thing.  Not Nikki's needs, but the whole gender thing, and what IS my place in the world as a female?  Is it just what I look like?  Surely it can't be.  Spent my whole life and equality stance on the idea that it's more.  Was I wrong? 

I thought it was the strength to deal with all the ugly emotions, the flexibility in thought and beliefs to alter with every new understanding of the world, my ability to relate and maintain those relationships with others, my emotional barometer, and even the general softness of behaviors that i and most women I know exhibit.  The physical stuff is just what I'm stuck with.  Everytime I try to talk about these things with Nikki, he looks at me like I just grew a second evil head.  He listens, but he stares at me utterly confused and it goes back to the phsyical conversation again. 

Option A: It's like he's idealizing what it is to be a woman based on what men perceive women to be, instead of feeling like one and trying to make his outside match his inside.

Option B: I really don't understand what it is to be female, and have fallen into a trap looking for it to mean more than my outside to deal with societies judgement that i"m part of the lesser population, and am trying to attach strengths and behaviors and meanings to it that aren't there to counteract that feeling of lesser in my head.   

With time it will all get sorted out.  I will keep telling myself that.  But I had no idea this was going to make these kind of internal questions come up.  I thought my part in this was to help him sort himself out, not have my own sense of self challenged to this degree.  Although the psychologial websites say this is a normal phase for the spouse, so I guess I just got to it a wee bit late.

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Bree,

I think this is a terrific post and brings up some great points. At the real risk of offending Nikki or maybe others, I believe that a focus on the superficial aspects of ones trans gender is an early stage of the exploration and consideration of what it all means for the individual, and I think that is perfectly natural. Your reaction is perfectly normal too. Like an Austrlian woman I know, she referred to her boobs as her "floppy bits" as if they have little importance to her. But for me, seeing women and conceiving myself as having the body of a woman, breasts, and curves, and hair, and yes, clothing, are all very important visual cues of femininity.

Maybe it would help to consider transmen. At times they "pack" meaning that they wear a rubber phalus in their underwear so as to show (and feel, I imagine) a bulge down there in their pants. Okay, but for me, I don't even think of the darned thing. Like you, it came with the package and I don't even think about it.

Good for you for writing your thoughts. I imagine that that felt a little risky. 

Hugs,

Emma

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That felt a lot risky, but I need to articulate things as we go, both for myself to sort them out now, and the spouse that come after.  My worldview has broken in very real ways, and I feel like I'm scrambling around trying to fix it.  Seventeen years of having to alter my expectations because Nikki is SUCH a guy (not in the alpha male sports sorta stereotype, but in the emotional and communication ranges) and suddenly hey Bree, I think I"m actually a woman really skewed my sense of world understanding.  And I'm only starting to realize this. 

Maybe I just don't understand why visual cues are important because I'm not brain-wired that way?  I rejected all the visual cues pretty early on, they did nothing for me and I decided putting effort into them was not a valid use of my time because they did nothing for me.  My brain is all about analysys, emotion, and intangible connections.  What does the visual cues of femininity do you for you if I'm not being intrusive?  My understanding was that it makes the inside match the outside as it were, but Nikki's inside is so confusing to me in terms of male or female and my understanding.  So maybe learning something here from you can help!  :) 

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I'm happy to provide anything I can, but can't now as I have to go to work! I'll write later for sure.

I do empathize with your situation and feelings, Bree, I want you to know that.

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Hmmm, there is an initial huge attraction to the girly side of femininity when first transitioning, at least that what I found, look at it like a small girl wanting to be grown up. It's a phase that I passed through, and as you actually do grow up as a new female you do begin to see the other myriad aspects of femininity, a lot of which is quite everyday humdrum, the desire to be ultra girly all the time subsides, and surfaces at times which is useful for special occasions. I well remember people talking to me in my early stages of transition about all of this, and yes I had a blank stare too!

Long term don't worry. I'm still married to a beautiful cis woman, the same one that I married when I was male. We get along fine and still love each other.

Cheers,

Eve 

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I'm not entirely sure it's all option A, but more of a variation on that. There's a lot there where when I dress as a woman it's more me dressing and presenting in how I want to look like and how I'd like to represent myself as a woman, not necessarily what I think a woman should look like, but what I should look like as a woman. Yes there's a lot with the physicality of it all right now, but I think I also haven't been really able to explore that at all. I know I'm terrible at really communicating these thoughts of mine and I'm working on it. It's not something I've really had to do externally and I've never been very good at the whole sharing thing and that's all on me. I know you and I kind of touched on this in conversations outside of here and they weren't exactly the most enlightening either way, but I kind of had that little epiphany when I started writing a reply here.

I guess I'm working on all of this in stages. Since you and I talked and decided that HRT and full on transition is out and I'm going to limit this to dressing and being with you in either mode and as I need it to help, I guess I kind of concentrated on the dressing end of things and ways to make me look more like a girl when I'm in girl mode. I do need to work on expressing myself better and opening up to you more, but I kind of jumped on the dressing and looking the part first. As you like to say, I tend to focus on fixing things rather than going over it all.

I absolutely want to get more of my feelings and thoughts out and I think those moments we've had when we've gone out and the lunch date we're going to today are going to be a huge part of that. I have huge butterflies about all of this right now and I'm not backing out but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I have some trepidation about going out to lunch with you in girl mode. 

I do want to thank everyone for continuing to talk to me and Bree on this and share your experiences, thoughts and support. It means an awful lot to the both of us.

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Well thanks for your comment Nikki, I didn't realise that you weren't on HRT. This throws my previous comment into a bit of doubt, when I started transitioning as a cross dresser or transvestite if you prefer, I went to a bar in Birmingham (UK) every 1st and 3rd Monday evening of a month, a group called "Outskirts" met there and it was a place where I built up courage, picked up tips etc from others, whom I made friends with. Not all of those friends went any further than cross dressing, which I know they still do, and they still dress ultra girly, and use lots of make up. I progressed through to HRT and living full time as female, it's HRT that changes the way you think and act. Point is that those early friends behaviour hasn't changed, so please take my previous comments about Bree's entry with a pinch of salt................sorry. I'm not advocating that you should change your mind regarding not taking HRT either, it's your life to do with as you wish, you only get one shot at it, shame there isn't a practice or dry run................

Cheers,

Eve

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