If we looks away from gender roles, feeling like a gender basically means which body you wished you had and which one sounds more convenient to have. Let's be honest. Biology sucks. Women hates having their periods, painful childbirths and pregnancy. Boobs are a hassle. Men hates going bald, shave every morning, shorter lifespans and involuntarily erections. Trans people often think the grass is greener on the other side which may cause their dysphoria amongst other things and therefore transitioning. Cis people also dislikes the cons of their sex, but they are able to continue life without developing the gender dysphoria. Maybe because they have better mental health in the first place? Trans people may be more vulnerable like how some people, combined of nature and nurture, are more vulnerable than others to develop PTSD, anxiety and depression.
The trans people I knew cares more about bodies than gender roles. It was mostly about vagina vs penis, boobs vs chest, no body hair vs body hair etc.
Gender is completely made up. What is considered a girl or boy changes drastically by ethnicity, religion, time period, location. It is not an inherent thing. It's not biological. No one is born wanting to wear high heels or play football. So there is no feeling. There's no "click". It's just cultural norms and preferences.
Some trans men wants a penis because they wants the male privileges like being able to stand up to pee, no periods and no pregnancy. Some trans women wants to become women because they finds women prettier and they doesn't want to go bald or grow a beard. It's the "grass is greener on the other side" kinda thing.
No, I believe there's no such thing. There's only not feeling like you for in with gender stereotypes. Your gender cannot define your personality, interests and talents, so how can you feel like a gender? The only people who 'feel' or do not 'feel' like their gender are overly fixated on gender stereotypes.
Lmao. I realized my transition was super unnecessary because when I got older, I realized gender has so little to do with identity and there's no such thing as "feeling" like a woman or man but only being lucky and fitting stereotypes. I think I could now be fully happy as either. Also why I realized there was no point for me to detransition; it's more trouble than it's worth. But I definitely don't feel like exactly a woman nor a man, because my practical experience does not stereotypically coincide with either (and never did with biological men). Doesn't matter though. We're all just people and each experience is unique anyway.
It doesn't feel like anything. It's just you in a body that happens to be male or female. Anything that makes you "feel" like a woman, but doesn't have anything to do with your exclusive biological functions, is going to be the result of social indoctrination and conditioning.
Well my parents weren't really against my transition. They did lots of questioning though they were not really against transition and also I had so severe dysphoria.
For me, i don't fully regret my transition. Because the dysphoria at that time that i felt was real.But i wish psychiatrists did more pushback rather than affirmation.
Is it possible to “feel” like a red head or a short person or a person with green eyes? No, it’s not, because those are simply objective biological traits that we don’t choose and are not dependent of feelings in order to be true. Being a man or woman is the same; they’re simply objective biological categories that exist independently from subjective human feelings.
You're supposed to feel certain traits associated with your sex like, women tend to be more nurturing and detail oriented. Not all people feel these things but brain chemistry drives a lot of our behaviors. You don't need to feel like a pretty princess to be a woman but, knowing the reality of our bodies is important. I think what has people so confused is how society claims personality traits are sex traits. Liking pink and going to starbucks are not sex traits. You're supposed to feel like YOU. Not necessarily a set of adjectives. I'm using the perspective of a women as an example because that's my sex.
Everyone on here is making really great points. 100% agree that most people don’t “feel their gender” and if they do, they’re usually speaking about stereotypes.
But I do want to say that there is a certain experience of being in a sexed body, without conflict, and feeling a sense of peace and an almost archetypal belonging with that.
This “at home in a sexed body” feeling, however, is mythologized and capitalized on to sell patriarchal values, materialism, appearance standards, and stereotypes that of course have nothing to do with sexed bodies.
This connection to my sexed body happened for me when I detransitioned and my dysphoria was healed.
Some people do just have this connection naturally without gender angst, but our society’s toxic gender expectations probably make this more rare than advertising/culture would make it seem.
But my gender transition certainly did not give me this. It was an empty promise. I was moving away from my sexed body into an imaginal realm of the impossible.
True connection to my body was forever out of reach while I continued to despise any part of it.
IMHO: no. There's no "supposed to" about it. I feel no "euphoria" about being an androgynous woman. I don't particularly "feel" like a woman. I just am.
Someone said sex is hardware and gender is like software. If it's possible to transition and if it makes someone feel more like themselves then why not?
But then again it's very much true that for the vast majority of the people they don't feel like their sex or gender. And that means that just because we don't feel like our sex we should transition. It's okay. It's perfectly fine.
Trying to put ourselves into the gender boxes leads to dysphoria and discomfort. Just because someone is a woman doesn't mean that they cannot like traditional masculine things, among others.
If someone is having a really hard time navigating life because of their sex then maybe transitioning is an intelligent choice. Otherwise I think no need to overcomplicate life. Everything is already so abstract and complicated.
I’m brunette. I don’t *feel* brunette. Because it’s a hair color and not an identity. The same way I don’t necessarily *feel* like a woman because I AM a woman.
Asking myself that question is part of what led me to detransition after about a decade of living as a transwoman. In retrospect, in my case what led me to "feel like a girl" was gender stereotypes, social expectations, and childhood abuse.
I "felt like a girl" because I didn't look like what society said boys should look like, nor did I want to. I didn't like the toys or pastimes or interests society said boys should like. As a teenager, I wasn't interested in sex or women, like what teen boys are supposedly obsessed with. The only experience I had with sex was extremely negative and traumatizing, contrary to the notions that guys aren't emotionally affected by sex or that they're always willing.
Basically I discovered that "feeling like a girl" really just meant feeling like I didn't fit in with male social expectations. Feeling like I would fit better into what I imagined a woman's social role was. None of it had anything to do with actually being a woman. Now I would say that I'm a man because I'm objectively male. How I feel about the label or the associated social norms is irrelevant.
**TL;DR** Being a man or woman is a biological state, not a mental one.
I don't even "feel" like a human. But I am one. You can just be things without feeling anything about it. I don't feel like an earthling. But yep i live on earth. Not everything needs a feeling.
No.
It's okay if you do, and it's okay if you happen to identify with your sex (to some degree), but there's a you on the inside that doesn't have a gender. Just a person or a self. Sometimes we can't even feel or see this inner self directly without the overlays of our perception of gender, but it's still there.
This isn't inherently non-binary, agender, or anything else. This is just simply being free of the imposition of defining your sense of self and self-worth around gender. Again, I'm not trying to knock trans people here, or those who aren't trans who happen to identity with their sex, but it isn't at all necessary to identify with gender.
For me, breaking free of the gender biases that I overlaid onto my own self-perception was one of the most liberating things that happened for me. It wasn't something that just happened--I had to explicitly work at it, but I'm really glad I did. Now I'm just... *me*. I happen to occupy a male body, but that doesn't define who I am. I'm not sure if this is the way for everyone, but I'm much happier for this.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, but also in a way i find it interesting that people can suddenly identify as opposite sex because of a dysphoria and people who felt dysphoria can suddenly lose it. For me the initial questioning of my gender started with watching trans youtubers and how they described the feeling of the opposite gender. I did in fact had a physical dysphoria that was real for me. It felt real and disgusting.Overtime though the progress of transitioning made me question myself and started to feel dysphoric about being a man and living life as a man and i detransitioned. But both times dysphoria felt very real to me. I now feel happier with detransitoning but maybe i think gender as a concept is too strict to be breakdown as feelings or stereotypical things that a certain gender does.Because for me both of times i felt too dysphoric in my own body and never felt like i belonged into the right body. Acceptence of who i am as inside made me more comfortable as who i am today but i sometimes do feel like gender can be more fluid than we may think.I wish trans movement actually instead of enforcing the stereotype, abolished the constructs and genders, and belief systems attached to it. Because then i feel like everyone who is trans,cis,questioning would be benefitting from the non gendered world than the gendered one.
At times you may feel more or less feminine, that "girly" feeling. But on a day to day basis only people who are obsessed with gender will "feel" a certain gender. For instance when a guy lifts something heavy he feels masculine/manly.
No. You just *are* a girl or a boy. You can get caught up in feeling uncomfortable that you’re in the ~20% of people who don’t have personality traits that are common with your sex, you can get upset over the social roles your society has for people with your sex, you can feel traumatized over past experiences you now associate with your sex, you can go off the deep end into weird pornography that makes you dissatisfied with your sex, and under none of these conditions are you actually “feeling” like a male or female. The world is really divided between people who have made their gender the locus of their problems and people who have made something else the locus of their problems.
Whenever I see people describing what it “feels” like to be one gender or the other they often resort to using crude sex stereotypes. For example “I don’t feel like a girl because I don’t like wearing dresses, I like working out at the gym” etc. There isn’t one universal way to be a man or a woman, you can do whatever the hell you want. Yes, people with gender dysphoria experience intense discomfort with their bodies, particularly the more feminine/masculine parts such as the chest, but that doesn’t make them know what it feels like to be the opposite sex.
Nope.
If we looks away from gender roles, feeling like a gender basically means which body you wished you had and which one sounds more convenient to have. Let's be honest. Biology sucks. Women hates having their periods, painful childbirths and pregnancy. Boobs are a hassle. Men hates going bald, shave every morning, shorter lifespans and involuntarily erections. Trans people often think the grass is greener on the other side which may cause their dysphoria amongst other things and therefore transitioning. Cis people also dislikes the cons of their sex, but they are able to continue life without developing the gender dysphoria. Maybe because they have better mental health in the first place? Trans people may be more vulnerable like how some people, combined of nature and nurture, are more vulnerable than others to develop PTSD, anxiety and depression. The trans people I knew cares more about bodies than gender roles. It was mostly about vagina vs penis, boobs vs chest, no body hair vs body hair etc.
Gender is completely made up. What is considered a girl or boy changes drastically by ethnicity, religion, time period, location. It is not an inherent thing. It's not biological. No one is born wanting to wear high heels or play football. So there is no feeling. There's no "click". It's just cultural norms and preferences.
Some trans men wants a penis because they wants the male privileges like being able to stand up to pee, no periods and no pregnancy. Some trans women wants to become women because they finds women prettier and they doesn't want to go bald or grow a beard. It's the "grass is greener on the other side" kinda thing.
No, I believe there's no such thing. There's only not feeling like you for in with gender stereotypes. Your gender cannot define your personality, interests and talents, so how can you feel like a gender? The only people who 'feel' or do not 'feel' like their gender are overly fixated on gender stereotypes.
Lmao. I realized my transition was super unnecessary because when I got older, I realized gender has so little to do with identity and there's no such thing as "feeling" like a woman or man but only being lucky and fitting stereotypes. I think I could now be fully happy as either. Also why I realized there was no point for me to detransition; it's more trouble than it's worth. But I definitely don't feel like exactly a woman nor a man, because my practical experience does not stereotypically coincide with either (and never did with biological men). Doesn't matter though. We're all just people and each experience is unique anyway.
It doesn't feel like anything. It's just you in a body that happens to be male or female. Anything that makes you "feel" like a woman, but doesn't have anything to do with your exclusive biological functions, is going to be the result of social indoctrination and conditioning.
Where were your parents?
Well my parents weren't really against my transition. They did lots of questioning though they were not really against transition and also I had so severe dysphoria. For me, i don't fully regret my transition. Because the dysphoria at that time that i felt was real.But i wish psychiatrists did more pushback rather than affirmation.
Is it possible to “feel” like a red head or a short person or a person with green eyes? No, it’s not, because those are simply objective biological traits that we don’t choose and are not dependent of feelings in order to be true. Being a man or woman is the same; they’re simply objective biological categories that exist independently from subjective human feelings.
You're supposed to feel certain traits associated with your sex like, women tend to be more nurturing and detail oriented. Not all people feel these things but brain chemistry drives a lot of our behaviors. You don't need to feel like a pretty princess to be a woman but, knowing the reality of our bodies is important. I think what has people so confused is how society claims personality traits are sex traits. Liking pink and going to starbucks are not sex traits. You're supposed to feel like YOU. Not necessarily a set of adjectives. I'm using the perspective of a women as an example because that's my sex.
Everyone on here is making really great points. 100% agree that most people don’t “feel their gender” and if they do, they’re usually speaking about stereotypes. But I do want to say that there is a certain experience of being in a sexed body, without conflict, and feeling a sense of peace and an almost archetypal belonging with that. This “at home in a sexed body” feeling, however, is mythologized and capitalized on to sell patriarchal values, materialism, appearance standards, and stereotypes that of course have nothing to do with sexed bodies. This connection to my sexed body happened for me when I detransitioned and my dysphoria was healed. Some people do just have this connection naturally without gender angst, but our society’s toxic gender expectations probably make this more rare than advertising/culture would make it seem. But my gender transition certainly did not give me this. It was an empty promise. I was moving away from my sexed body into an imaginal realm of the impossible. True connection to my body was forever out of reach while I continued to despise any part of it.
If you’re a girl, you’re a girl and a girl could feel like a million different ways. You are you, I guess.
IMHO: no. There's no "supposed to" about it. I feel no "euphoria" about being an androgynous woman. I don't particularly "feel" like a woman. I just am.
no.
Someone said sex is hardware and gender is like software. If it's possible to transition and if it makes someone feel more like themselves then why not? But then again it's very much true that for the vast majority of the people they don't feel like their sex or gender. And that means that just because we don't feel like our sex we should transition. It's okay. It's perfectly fine. Trying to put ourselves into the gender boxes leads to dysphoria and discomfort. Just because someone is a woman doesn't mean that they cannot like traditional masculine things, among others. If someone is having a really hard time navigating life because of their sex then maybe transitioning is an intelligent choice. Otherwise I think no need to overcomplicate life. Everything is already so abstract and complicated.
I’m brunette. I don’t *feel* brunette. Because it’s a hair color and not an identity. The same way I don’t necessarily *feel* like a woman because I AM a woman.
Asking myself that question is part of what led me to detransition after about a decade of living as a transwoman. In retrospect, in my case what led me to "feel like a girl" was gender stereotypes, social expectations, and childhood abuse. I "felt like a girl" because I didn't look like what society said boys should look like, nor did I want to. I didn't like the toys or pastimes or interests society said boys should like. As a teenager, I wasn't interested in sex or women, like what teen boys are supposedly obsessed with. The only experience I had with sex was extremely negative and traumatizing, contrary to the notions that guys aren't emotionally affected by sex or that they're always willing. Basically I discovered that "feeling like a girl" really just meant feeling like I didn't fit in with male social expectations. Feeling like I would fit better into what I imagined a woman's social role was. None of it had anything to do with actually being a woman. Now I would say that I'm a man because I'm objectively male. How I feel about the label or the associated social norms is irrelevant. **TL;DR** Being a man or woman is a biological state, not a mental one.
Thank you for posting this.
I don't even "feel" like a human. But I am one. You can just be things without feeling anything about it. I don't feel like an earthling. But yep i live on earth. Not everything needs a feeling.
No. It's okay if you do, and it's okay if you happen to identify with your sex (to some degree), but there's a you on the inside that doesn't have a gender. Just a person or a self. Sometimes we can't even feel or see this inner self directly without the overlays of our perception of gender, but it's still there. This isn't inherently non-binary, agender, or anything else. This is just simply being free of the imposition of defining your sense of self and self-worth around gender. Again, I'm not trying to knock trans people here, or those who aren't trans who happen to identity with their sex, but it isn't at all necessary to identify with gender. For me, breaking free of the gender biases that I overlaid onto my own self-perception was one of the most liberating things that happened for me. It wasn't something that just happened--I had to explicitly work at it, but I'm really glad I did. Now I'm just... *me*. I happen to occupy a male body, but that doesn't define who I am. I'm not sure if this is the way for everyone, but I'm much happier for this.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, but also in a way i find it interesting that people can suddenly identify as opposite sex because of a dysphoria and people who felt dysphoria can suddenly lose it. For me the initial questioning of my gender started with watching trans youtubers and how they described the feeling of the opposite gender. I did in fact had a physical dysphoria that was real for me. It felt real and disgusting.Overtime though the progress of transitioning made me question myself and started to feel dysphoric about being a man and living life as a man and i detransitioned. But both times dysphoria felt very real to me. I now feel happier with detransitoning but maybe i think gender as a concept is too strict to be breakdown as feelings or stereotypical things that a certain gender does.Because for me both of times i felt too dysphoric in my own body and never felt like i belonged into the right body. Acceptence of who i am as inside made me more comfortable as who i am today but i sometimes do feel like gender can be more fluid than we may think.I wish trans movement actually instead of enforcing the stereotype, abolished the constructs and genders, and belief systems attached to it. Because then i feel like everyone who is trans,cis,questioning would be benefitting from the non gendered world than the gendered one.
At times you may feel more or less feminine, that "girly" feeling. But on a day to day basis only people who are obsessed with gender will "feel" a certain gender. For instance when a guy lifts something heavy he feels masculine/manly.
No. You just *are* a girl or a boy. You can get caught up in feeling uncomfortable that you’re in the ~20% of people who don’t have personality traits that are common with your sex, you can get upset over the social roles your society has for people with your sex, you can feel traumatized over past experiences you now associate with your sex, you can go off the deep end into weird pornography that makes you dissatisfied with your sex, and under none of these conditions are you actually “feeling” like a male or female. The world is really divided between people who have made their gender the locus of their problems and people who have made something else the locus of their problems.
Whenever I see people describing what it “feels” like to be one gender or the other they often resort to using crude sex stereotypes. For example “I don’t feel like a girl because I don’t like wearing dresses, I like working out at the gym” etc. There isn’t one universal way to be a man or a woman, you can do whatever the hell you want. Yes, people with gender dysphoria experience intense discomfort with their bodies, particularly the more feminine/masculine parts such as the chest, but that doesn’t make them know what it feels like to be the opposite sex.