What is ‘living as a woman’?

[Anonymous]

Hi.

I did not dress , i did not even dress whan i saw our Psych or endo..

& why should i , dressing …..does …. not make you a woman ,,

no matter what you wear. & who the hell has the right to tell you how to dress & what clothes you ….should ….. wear.

I dont buy the the bullshit thats dished out by the gate keepers

I was born both male & female intersex, to explain my self.

I told the Dr’s concerned what i had done was doing & would do.

& that was accepted so whats the problem , for me none & now it make’s no difference what i wear or when.

Tho i dont have any male clothes both at Jos & my idear of not having any .

I did not jump through any hoops as many seem to have to,

Why because im not a kid who does not know my own mind & two im old enough to know who i am about ,

I’v not changed from male to female because im both & that really is it,

Now over here who i saw & how things were done for this kid was more than right.

Now i wont say i did not wear any of my womans clothes i did just not any where & there was no need, tho i had worn my clothes for 3 years ,

did not make any difference to me..

So i spos the next ” is do i pass as a woman… no bloody way. not at all..

yet im accepted as a woman & live as any normal woman does , the parodox is why am i accepted , youll have to ask those who know me on T R I dought youll get an answer of i look like a woman ,

& i dont expect my friends here to tell lies, i am what i am.
& i dont pretened to even try to look like one.

& i dont need to. even in A U im accepted & that out in public & i do know a lot of people who have nothing to do with the trans people.

So my take will come as being some what different,
May be im very strong minded & as a woman .. you know the saying dont mess with me . as a woman im very strong ,

Yet that is only one small detail of who i am . & iv had to be.

at 63 iv been through a few things so any way , when you meet up with me youll be able to make up your own mind , & may be youll find its whats inside of this chic is more than my looks or lack of.

oh inside of 3 years H R T & S R S & B A. 07 june / july Phuket
profile is on the net just use my name ,

…noeleena…

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Can anyone please let me know what would be defined as “living as a woman”?

Ok, my take, its living your life as your true gender identy and feeling a sence of peace and happieness.
If you are “trying too hard to fit in” then there is an issue you need to address. It should be feel natural and without self doubt.

Amy
xx

[Anonymous]

“Living as a woman”?

Firstly – live.

Secondly – how do other’s perceive you?

How you see yourself is how YOU see yourself. No one else can tell you your point of view. Besides – how important is it for you as to how others perceive you?

I will answer your question with a question – EXCEPT for references as he, him, your male name, what does it matter to you what anyone else thinks.

If you are a woman – then you are.

It’s not about jeans or t-shirts or welding gear. Your job does not define your gender. Your job isn’t 24 hours/7 days a week. Your gender is. There are many around who will testify that your career does not DICTATE who you really are. Who you perceive yourself to be does. And if you are lucky, the rest of the world will come to agree with you.

ALSO, it never ceases to amaze me how many of us put ourselves LAST in this world. I put mine off due to my kids – and thank you very much – they still aren’t talking to me. How about we consider ourselves first for a change? You will be able to face life’s problems with a huge weight lifted from your shoulders when you are only having to cope with the problems of others. Even the problems we face after “living as a woman” are minimised when we don’t have to deal with just getting up in the mornings. I never considered in my previous life, how compromised my problem handling levels were. I was always running at just under overflow before – now everything is so much easier to handle.

[Anonymous]

The phrase ‘living as a woman’ usually refers to living full time female and not presenting as male in any situation. In your case as you are still presenting as male sometimes it means the time when you no longer do that.

Personally I don’t like the phrase. It implies a disguise, a sham, something that the many who would deny us our true identity latch onto.

As Portia says though if you’re a woman, you are a woman no matter what you’re wearing or how you are presenting. Women wear jeans & a t shirt too

The doctor thing will resolve. The thing is to face your own fears and find and live as your true self.

The main thing is to just be you, whoever that might be.

On that note there is a book ‘Finding the Real Me’ by Tracie O’Keefe and Katrina Fox. If you’re searching for identity it’s awesomely useful.

Gwen

[Anonymous]

HI , Too live full time as a woman change your name and all your I.D too female . Tell work you are transitioning and they must list you in new name and sex female .As I work as personal carer for people with disabilities , its a female dominated area . Too go to work in high heels and make up would be totally rediculouse !! Shorts t/ shirt and runners is the normal dress ! I dont wear make up every day but I doo have french nails, pierced ears and long femme styled hair !! There are no specific rules you gotta be a fashion model everyday .I consider myself a lesbian and associate with them , when they ask me out I usually get asked “What Are you going too wear Ella “As I tend too be a bit excentric with my dress at times !! Cheers Ella – Kristine

[Anonymous]

I think the other women have summed it up nicely, to me it is living as your trueself. How you interact with others, the words you use, mannerisms and posture, goes a long way to help, it is not how you dress, even before I had my surgery, you are just as likely to find me in a pair of trackpants, jeans, shorts and a top, as you are in a skirt or dress and I know a lot of women are the same.

Hugs
Sharon

[Anonymous]

I feel a bit better now after your replies.

Noeleena I understand when your talking about the bullshit of the gate keepers, I guess I have seen enough of authorities and their agents that I fear they would require me to fit into some formula (look at how hard it’s become just to get a headache pill from the chemist). Maybe I’m being to hard on them and pre-judging.

Like Portia said I feel like I have put myself last too often, but I know work and home are going to force me to carry on at least for a couple more years. I just wouldn’t want that as a reason for them to hold me back against my will, I guess the “man in me is dying” and the last thing I want is any “well intentioned” doc to bring him back.

Portia I completely agree with you on compromised problem solving. I recognise now that my internal fight over the years has serverly damaged my capacity to function as a professional engineer.

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with you gilrs here .
if you change your name and all documents where gender is required and live as your true self who can say your not living as a female ? if you chose not to wear anything “feminine ” 24/7 and wear t shirt, jeans etc there is nothing to say your not being a female as these days there is nothing to require women to dress in anything from the past such as dresses ,skirts etc
.I guess if your job involved wearing a uniform you would have to waer th famale one .Outside work your free to wear andirogenous clothes.So many women these days do wear such that its stupid to say that they are not living as women ! I guess it was easier for th powers that be in the dark past to stipulate a tg live as a woman as this involved dressing 24/7 in female garb
I dont really know how you can prove or disaprove you have lived as a woman for the required time for srs if dress and mannerisms dont com into anymore.My understanding of both implants and FFS is that living as a woman for one or two years is not required for both of these ,so you can have either or both without this .But then if we go by dress standards of today you would only have to inform a medical authority that you want srs,change your name etc and qualify 1 or 2 yrs later for it … Am i
wrong in this assumption ?
hugs
Suzz

[Anonymous]

While I agree with what others have written , I think that there is a bigger issue here than our personal views of what ” living as a woman” implies.

I wish to avoid having to qualify every assertion I make and so advise that I am talking generally here , I accept that some others have been raised differently to those to whom I refer, viz. the mainstream.

It is easy to forget that we are born and raised as genetic males and are looking from the outside at how genetic women live their lives and trying to work out how we can fit into their world. While we share a lot of the same experiences as GW , now that gender roles are more relaxed than in past times, we were still raised and see the world from a male perspective.

We experience male privilege as we grow up and are part of a male culture that sees men as superior and , usually we go along with this if we can as it makes life easier. Of course, inside we may be torn and confused but to join the herd is preferable to exclusion and ridicule. It is only when this ruse becomes intolerable do we come out and face life , for better or worse ,as our true Transgender selves.
Now we are faced with having to find our real self after years of pretend and we can often tend to idealize women’s lives as somehow better than that of a man’s life. Generally they are not. It is only when we venture out dressed as women that we encounter the attitudes that they face from men and other women who defend men’s worse attitudes , cruel comments, aggression, stares, ridicule of women’s interests etc.
Generally we find it uncomfortable at best and downright dangerous at worst. I believe that mysogeny is at the heart of negative attitudes toward trans folk , from both men and women.

To conclude the ramble, I believe that we should do away with concepts of ” living as a woman”. MAN and WOMAN are only a social constructs anyway and to try and conform to either, only strengthens the the polarity of gender. We are another alternative to the binary and need to be able to live inside both genders . The world would be a better place if everyone did likewise, IMO.
GW don’t go around thinking of ” am I living as a woman?” , they just live their lives and get on with it. We should do the same. Live as you believe you want to and handle the shit that it brings. There is no more to it than that really but it takes courage to be an individual , let alone forego male privilege and the relative safety and power that it offers.

[Anonymous]

Hi Christina,
I’m not sure the ‘social construct’ view of gender reflects the whole of the picture. It is an element of it for sure but I believe there is a genetic part to play as well. I think it’s nature combined with nurture rather that nature vs nurture.
To put this into context ‘living as a woman’ would simply be honouring our genetic disposition to be so. How we live as a woman is dependant on our nurturing.
Gwen

[Anonymous]

Starting and undergoing hrt is a long process, there is no need for podium anouncments to family and friends. The feminising nature of hrt will be subbtle enough to break the ice.
Find a gp that some one else uses and start fresh is on the cards.

All the best
Maddy

[Anonymous]

Hi Chicks
I would like to share something here and I do not wish to offend my girlfriends here on TR

What does it mean to be “a women fulltime?”

Honestly I really don’t know. It’s a personal thing and no one can tell you differently.

Remember the movie “The Matrix”? The Oracle told Neo to “know yourself”. “No one can tell you that you are “the one”, you just know it, “through to through….bones to bones”

Speaking personally it’s about being yourself and living your life as you, that’s all. I don’t care what the world says and how we are perceived!

Yes, I have changed my name and been through the normal legal steps as you have. However who cares what’s legal!!! I don’t! They can refer to me as a ‘HIM’ as long as they like. It won’t break me! I really don’t care anymore…..

I’m happy and at peace living my life as my true gender identity. The world and its prejudices can go and jump. If we are going to change the world, then it’s up to us….don’t give up the fight!

Amy
xx

[Anonymous]

Gwendolene, I did state that I was generalizing . As I have stated elsewhere , I believe that woman and female are two distinct things. Female denotes one pole of the sex spectrum and ” a woman” is what our society generally identifies what a female represents. We of course make a lie of that. We would all agree that this societal view is far too blunt and fixed and so is so much bunkum. There are also a wide degree of behaviours that society will accept as ” woman ” thankfully.

I am talking about how a woman lives her life, not just how she looks.
The fact that what other cultures eg Inuit or Inca, Bantu or Sunni etc calls a woman ( and how her life should be lived)is very different to ours proves ( to me ) my point. Each society has their own construct.
We as TG folk are free to emulate the ways of a woman ( a particular woman or role model?) or we can live our lives as we believe we must and set our own standards as free people. The price we pay for that is what stops many of us doing so I believe.
I like to do both actually, sometimes I like to dress and act ” as a woman ” but most of the time I am just myself which is a mix of gender behaviours and activities. I feel no contradiction to go out and play with the chainsaw while I have makeup on ( if I didn’t noone else would do it!) I see no problem with ” acting ” as anything we choose ( I think that we all ” act” most of the time, it is the way Humans are ) , knowing that you are doing it is what brings sanity and enlightenment IMO.
Having said that,gender roles are so yesterday!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi girls
Hmmm, I think that there is a difference between being a female and living as a woman. I believe that I have always been a female inside and only recently started living as a woman full time and feel that there is a huge difference, not just in the extra effort required just to go out but in feeling all of the vulnerabilities that go with it. Like I’ve walked the streets around where I live at night for years but now avoid some because I actually feeled frightened walking them at night. I guess I am just trying to say that unless I was presenting myself as a woman all the time I would not be experiencing the highs and lows that come with being my true self. And being true to yourself is, I think, the only route to true happiness.

While my new job requires me to wear steel cap boots and other protective clothing it is not really an issue. Clothes do not make the woman but I do change into something a little more feminine at meal times. I have been employed under my new name and assumed gender and to me making a success of my new life is extremely important to me.

Hugs Bobbie

[Anonymous]

Well I am gone up set some one , but to hell with it!
The requirement (in my “OPINION”) is one demanded by the medical indemnity insurers on the basis that you can not come back to sue them.

I would say most of us would accept any one as they choose to present themselves and buy what ever moniker they choose to use. I do not feel a requirement to be told who I am and refuse to be dictated to by others as to what I must do to prove who i am.

I would added to live as a woman is far more than name change , hormones, surgery and mannerisms, it is to transend the male aggresive competative dominating masogonist attitude that pervades our society, and there are plenty of women who join that failure of humanity strangely not most of us though.
Kristyana
Probably no help but well felt the need to say it. Got the flack jacket on so have a shot if anyone feels the need.