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elialshadowpineAt this rate, I'm going to need a filter for this. Although I realized it technically falls under health issues since those are a contributing factor.
So between chatting at LJ, DW, and a trans/queer group on Fetlife I trust, I've gotten some interesting feedback. Some of this I want to copy, but for confidentiality, I'll only post my replies.
A few trans women on Fet suggested that what I am going through sounds a lot like trans issues. I am not comfortable using the trans label, because essentially what I am dealing with is being raised as male, punished for presenting female or showing any interests in coded female things, went through a sort of variant on the trans puberty issues because I had untreated PCOS from 13-22-ish. To bring numbers into it (not exact), cis women have testosterone levels around 80. Mine was close to 300. Cis male T numbers are in the 200-900 range (roughly). So, I was WAY WAY WAY above normal levels, and it has had permanent side effects. I mentioned previously about being misgendered; upon further thought, it happens more than I think. I have just learned to "pass", for lack of a better word, with clothing that shows off my cleavage. If I wear anything baggy? People assume I'm male. If I'm on the phone and don't use my "phone voice"? Same thing.
One trans person put it as, even though I was not assigned male as birth (AMAB), I was assigned male in childhood, and that has a massive effect. I'm just starting to realize how much so. She suggested that as terminology; another trans woman friend suggested "raised male against my will". I also like the suggestion of "genderfluid genderqueer woman", although that leaves out the childhood aspect. I think all fit, and I'm sorta weighing which is likely to be more acceptable. I am definitely not comfortable identifying as trans, although the umbrella term of trans* might be a possibility (since I believe it includes genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, agender, non-binary, gender neutral, gender non-conforming, etc, under that label). Thoughts? (Esp appreciated from trans friends.)
I want to C&P a post I made there because I think I made some breakthroughs.
When I was very young, Mom was my primary caregiver. She socialized me as female, and I liked girly things. I liked Barbies and Disney Princesses and My Little Ponies and most of the stereotypical things that girls born in the 80s liked (though I was born in 85 so that only sorta applies).
Writing about this here has been very helpful. Writing the above actually made me think about things and realize that some points in my childhood actually tie in. My parents started having trouble in their relationship after Mom had my sister, when I was about 4 and a half. Mom was exhausted with pregnancy, work, and new baby (and to be fair, my dad actually did a LOT of the childrearing for my sister because baby!sister decided Mom was a milk dispensary and nothing more)... and honestly, it is about that point things really changed. Part of Dad's abuse was that he basically assigned me position of marital therapist at the age of 11, and so I heard... a lot of things that a child should never have to hear. But the relevant bit is this -- Mom didn't want to go on hormonal birth control. She wanted Dad to get a vasectomy. At the time, there was a study going around linking vasectomies and testicular cancel. IIRC from what I have heard of it there were a lot of signs it was BS, but Dad is... paranoid, to say the least. He was pissed Mom wouldn't go and get her tubes tied. Which started the Great War... (okay, I'm pretty sure things were building, but that's when, to my recollection, things really took off.) Mom was iron set on having no more children, which meant... my sister and I were It. (Never mind that my Dad had two sons from his previous marriage; they were Nothing to him.)
About that time was when Dad really started in on the raising me as a boy, and when the punishments for anything feminine started. I was no longer allowed to wear the fancy princess dresses my grandmother hand sewed for me. I was criticized for "walking female" and taught to walk like a man (and sit like one, and so forth). I was screamed at and slut-shamed to the point my Dad's face turned purple for buying with my own allowance a child's makeup kit and wearing it to be "like Mom." Seriously, if there was a stereotypically female thing and I did it? Abuse time. (It's probably a good thing that my femininity does not coincide with traditional gender roles, for the most part.)
The ironic thing is that when I got to be about a month from turning eighteen, my Dad started in on how unfeminine and unattractive I was. I refused to shave my legs, I didn't pluck or wax my eyebrows, I spoke my mind, I spewed profanity, and I "walked like a man." (BUT THAT'S WHAT YOU TAUGHT ME TO DO.) I was labeled a "feminazi bitch just like your mother who will be left by every man who'll have her. And men will keep leaving you, and you'll never know why. It's because you aren't a good Christian woman." So, having fulfilled all his obligations and become the son that he wanted so badly, it still wasn't good enough. And it's fucked me up but good.
It wasn't until I moved in with my ex-fiance and the people he lived with, including a Dominant femme, that I actually realized I liked being feminine -- well, the parts I like, anyway. I like presenting as femme, in Goth fashion, but at home, I don't have the spoons to play the part. There's where the genderfluidity comes in, I think; sometimes I feel female, sometimes I feel male, sometimes I feel female-but-not-of-this world, and sometimes I feel in-between. Female/female-but-not-here tops the list though, and it's probably more than 90% of the time I feel that way. So... non-binary but female leaning? Argh. Words! They are hard!
And yeah, I honestly... I don't feel "cis" really tells the truth, and I feel like it's something too important to me to just gloss over. There are certain assumptions that are made. I ran into a lot of trouble with the feminist community when I first started poking around there because my experience and most cis womens' experiences are so far apart it's not even funny. Like the oft mentioned feeling of needing to constantly be aware and on guard? Okay, part of that my Dad passed down from his Vietnam PTSD (even today I HAVE to sit with my back to a wall and able to see all entrances and exits) but part of it I just don't get. I mean, I understand on a logical level, but I never felt afraid walking alone at night. I may have come out char-broiled for sharing my experience (and I was not judging others; I was saying that I had never experienced that. According to them, I'm not a "real" woman. ~thinks~ would that count as transphobia? I've got my head worked up in so many knots.)
It's kinda amazing, though, how so much stuff I had accepted as "normal" just sticks out now. Like, WTF Dad, seriously? I'm almost 30, and it's taken me this long to figure it out.
Something someone mentioned in the thread, too, was that my previous endo had wanted to put me on spironolactone, which is an anti-androgen. Since, at the time, my med schedule would have made that difficult (my endo said that the 2 pills needed to be taken strictly twice a day, and that did not work with all my other meds being 3x a day), I didn't go through with it. But what the trans woman mentioned was that it could be, in my case, be considered HRT -- and that sorta fits. Because even though PCOS is something that plenty of cis women deal with, that with the combination of my childhood... it feels like more than another med to take, it feels like reclaiming my gender. It feels important. And more than words can really say. I'm not sure it would be the same if I hadn't been raised male, but with that factor, it feels... different, and important, and an act of strength and reclaiming/rediscovering who I am.
So, I'm not quite sure where to define myself yet. That's still a work in progress. But I'm making a lot of headway in realizing the depth of abuse that was done to me, and I'm seriously thinking I need to find a trans-friendly, abuse-specialized therapist, because the two are intertwined so much.
That is the current update on Nonny and her explorations of gender. :P Any thoughts or comments much appreciated. :) (Also, as it has been brought up, if folks have resources for femme as gender, I would be curious to see those, as it has also been suggested to me by a few people. :)
Part of me, though, is still feeling like I'm just doing this to be attention seeking and looking for a Speshul Snoflayke label... with my anxiety, I suspect that's something I'll deal with for awhile. Logically, I know there will be people who will roll my eyes at me and consider me that way, but I think it is more important to work through these issues, to whatever conclusion I come to, than try to keep burying it. I've been trying that for nearly 30 years and it hasn't worked, so evidently, there is a problem there.
So between chatting at LJ, DW, and a trans/queer group on Fetlife I trust, I've gotten some interesting feedback. Some of this I want to copy, but for confidentiality, I'll only post my replies.
A few trans women on Fet suggested that what I am going through sounds a lot like trans issues. I am not comfortable using the trans label, because essentially what I am dealing with is being raised as male, punished for presenting female or showing any interests in coded female things, went through a sort of variant on the trans puberty issues because I had untreated PCOS from 13-22-ish. To bring numbers into it (not exact), cis women have testosterone levels around 80. Mine was close to 300. Cis male T numbers are in the 200-900 range (roughly). So, I was WAY WAY WAY above normal levels, and it has had permanent side effects. I mentioned previously about being misgendered; upon further thought, it happens more than I think. I have just learned to "pass", for lack of a better word, with clothing that shows off my cleavage. If I wear anything baggy? People assume I'm male. If I'm on the phone and don't use my "phone voice"? Same thing.
One trans person put it as, even though I was not assigned male as birth (AMAB), I was assigned male in childhood, and that has a massive effect. I'm just starting to realize how much so. She suggested that as terminology; another trans woman friend suggested "raised male against my will". I also like the suggestion of "genderfluid genderqueer woman", although that leaves out the childhood aspect. I think all fit, and I'm sorta weighing which is likely to be more acceptable. I am definitely not comfortable identifying as trans, although the umbrella term of trans* might be a possibility (since I believe it includes genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, agender, non-binary, gender neutral, gender non-conforming, etc, under that label). Thoughts? (Esp appreciated from trans friends.)
I want to C&P a post I made there because I think I made some breakthroughs.
When I was very young, Mom was my primary caregiver. She socialized me as female, and I liked girly things. I liked Barbies and Disney Princesses and My Little Ponies and most of the stereotypical things that girls born in the 80s liked (though I was born in 85 so that only sorta applies).
Writing about this here has been very helpful. Writing the above actually made me think about things and realize that some points in my childhood actually tie in. My parents started having trouble in their relationship after Mom had my sister, when I was about 4 and a half. Mom was exhausted with pregnancy, work, and new baby (and to be fair, my dad actually did a LOT of the childrearing for my sister because baby!sister decided Mom was a milk dispensary and nothing more)... and honestly, it is about that point things really changed. Part of Dad's abuse was that he basically assigned me position of marital therapist at the age of 11, and so I heard... a lot of things that a child should never have to hear. But the relevant bit is this -- Mom didn't want to go on hormonal birth control. She wanted Dad to get a vasectomy. At the time, there was a study going around linking vasectomies and testicular cancel. IIRC from what I have heard of it there were a lot of signs it was BS, but Dad is... paranoid, to say the least. He was pissed Mom wouldn't go and get her tubes tied. Which started the Great War... (okay, I'm pretty sure things were building, but that's when, to my recollection, things really took off.) Mom was iron set on having no more children, which meant... my sister and I were It. (Never mind that my Dad had two sons from his previous marriage; they were Nothing to him.)
About that time was when Dad really started in on the raising me as a boy, and when the punishments for anything feminine started. I was no longer allowed to wear the fancy princess dresses my grandmother hand sewed for me. I was criticized for "walking female" and taught to walk like a man (and sit like one, and so forth). I was screamed at and slut-shamed to the point my Dad's face turned purple for buying with my own allowance a child's makeup kit and wearing it to be "like Mom." Seriously, if there was a stereotypically female thing and I did it? Abuse time. (It's probably a good thing that my femininity does not coincide with traditional gender roles, for the most part.)
The ironic thing is that when I got to be about a month from turning eighteen, my Dad started in on how unfeminine and unattractive I was. I refused to shave my legs, I didn't pluck or wax my eyebrows, I spoke my mind, I spewed profanity, and I "walked like a man." (BUT THAT'S WHAT YOU TAUGHT ME TO DO.) I was labeled a "feminazi bitch just like your mother who will be left by every man who'll have her. And men will keep leaving you, and you'll never know why. It's because you aren't a good Christian woman." So, having fulfilled all his obligations and become the son that he wanted so badly, it still wasn't good enough. And it's fucked me up but good.
It wasn't until I moved in with my ex-fiance and the people he lived with, including a Dominant femme, that I actually realized I liked being feminine -- well, the parts I like, anyway. I like presenting as femme, in Goth fashion, but at home, I don't have the spoons to play the part. There's where the genderfluidity comes in, I think; sometimes I feel female, sometimes I feel male, sometimes I feel female-but-not-of-this world, and sometimes I feel in-between. Female/female-but-not-here tops the list though, and it's probably more than 90% of the time I feel that way. So... non-binary but female leaning? Argh. Words! They are hard!
And yeah, I honestly... I don't feel "cis" really tells the truth, and I feel like it's something too important to me to just gloss over. There are certain assumptions that are made. I ran into a lot of trouble with the feminist community when I first started poking around there because my experience and most cis womens' experiences are so far apart it's not even funny. Like the oft mentioned feeling of needing to constantly be aware and on guard? Okay, part of that my Dad passed down from his Vietnam PTSD (even today I HAVE to sit with my back to a wall and able to see all entrances and exits) but part of it I just don't get. I mean, I understand on a logical level, but I never felt afraid walking alone at night. I may have come out char-broiled for sharing my experience (and I was not judging others; I was saying that I had never experienced that. According to them, I'm not a "real" woman. ~thinks~ would that count as transphobia? I've got my head worked up in so many knots.)
It's kinda amazing, though, how so much stuff I had accepted as "normal" just sticks out now. Like, WTF Dad, seriously? I'm almost 30, and it's taken me this long to figure it out.
Something someone mentioned in the thread, too, was that my previous endo had wanted to put me on spironolactone, which is an anti-androgen. Since, at the time, my med schedule would have made that difficult (my endo said that the 2 pills needed to be taken strictly twice a day, and that did not work with all my other meds being 3x a day), I didn't go through with it. But what the trans woman mentioned was that it could be, in my case, be considered HRT -- and that sorta fits. Because even though PCOS is something that plenty of cis women deal with, that with the combination of my childhood... it feels like more than another med to take, it feels like reclaiming my gender. It feels important. And more than words can really say. I'm not sure it would be the same if I hadn't been raised male, but with that factor, it feels... different, and important, and an act of strength and reclaiming/rediscovering who I am.
So, I'm not quite sure where to define myself yet. That's still a work in progress. But I'm making a lot of headway in realizing the depth of abuse that was done to me, and I'm seriously thinking I need to find a trans-friendly, abuse-specialized therapist, because the two are intertwined so much.
That is the current update on Nonny and her explorations of gender. :P Any thoughts or comments much appreciated. :) (Also, as it has been brought up, if folks have resources for femme as gender, I would be curious to see those, as it has also been suggested to me by a few people. :)
Part of me, though, is still feeling like I'm just doing this to be attention seeking and looking for a Speshul Snoflayke label... with my anxiety, I suspect that's something I'll deal with for awhile. Logically, I know there will be people who will roll my eyes at me and consider me that way, but I think it is more important to work through these issues, to whatever conclusion I come to, than try to keep burying it. I've been trying that for nearly 30 years and it hasn't worked, so evidently, there is a problem there.
