Our feminine self

[Anne Bonny]

I wanted to add to my last comment about these feelings in myself that I like to identify as "feminine" but which I suppose really aren't, because men can feel the same...

[that I am sensitive and emotional, not really moment to moment but across the day and over time. I feel at peace, I feel more loving, more caring, and more open and accepting and gentle inside. I find I share interests that women tend to have beauty...pretty clothes, jewelry and shoes, hair.... I also find I enjoy being with other women...]

These feelings can be felt by men but in my feminine self I have them...I doubt men would be interested in pretty clothes etc... And thinking again about all of this I assert that when I am Anne....rather when my femm side comes over me and moves into place these are indeed my authentic self this is how my feminine self feels internally so I disagree that I am overlaying anything over my personality or affecting a constructed and false ... well what would be an act... I am not acting at all this is really how I feel inside when I am Anne.

Trying to understand all of this I realized that that the feelings and desires Anne has are not "temporary insanity" at all but are consistent with what my female self really does feel and desire...

When gears shift and my masculine self moves back into place suddenly and consistently with what any man would feel and desire ... He does not want anything to do with what Anne had wanted... No, I am taking my panties off and wearing briefs! No, I am not going to wear a dress from now on or for the rest of the day! No! I need to go run, or mow the lawn or work on the boat or whatever because the male self is more check lists, and tasks, and oriented toward doing maintenance and fixing and so on with less feeling about it it's more of clicking off things and going to the next.

This has nothing to do with a split personality...mine is fixed...but these feelings are colored by and tend to go along with the "mood" ...with the gender that is in place I most definitely have feminine feelings and desires, and Masculine feelings and desires but they are not present at the same time and they can come over me out of the blue...or with circumstance...I am alone stress is low...rather mundane...Anne tends to show up within me for a while...then in the afternoon or with more stress...I have to get "X" done...then go on to "Y" and "Z" etc....definite tasks like doing the lawn, working on the car or the boat, or jogging, bills...but then again Anne has gone jogging, and has done bills but Anne does not really like to get dirty and go down and work in the shop or working on the mower or doing heavy dirty things...Anne tends to be ok with lighter cleaner things....

This is all very complicated and nebulous...intangible hard to define with definition....part of our frustrating struggle to understand ourselves...how can I be this way...what is it exactly. Well It is not easy to figure out or to define with any real definition...unfortunate but it is endlessly fascinating for me at least and we all struggle with this who are transgender or gender challenged though many are able to just shrug it all off many of us can't.


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Oh...A rose by any other name....hiding some aspects about ourselves....I do not really believe Anne's having a name is really a very big deal, and being referred to with feminine pronouns when I do not look like a Butch or a Charles and referring to me as he or him...well I would much rather have femm self recognized and acknowledged because how I am dress and my general overall appearence is quite obvious and different so that minor acknowledgement by others making it quite open is reasonable and fine I believe. Most of us do not dress full time or even partially like the metro's....speaking for myself I tend to be all male and masculine or all feminine and female so openly acknowledging that is matter of fact, objective and makes perfect sense.

Noleena wrote: "okay then what if you just dressed and did not try to be someone else and just be you the real person could you still do that, don't use an other name just your birth name in other words be transparent = open about your self . would you be more accepted .

I was talking with a friend and she said being transparent would help more in acceptance instead of hiding and the cover up that many do, plus the lies, interesting,"

Reason is because we or many of us are not full time dressers, and as Anthony Simon said while we can transparently be feeling quite feminine and be in mixed company (meaning with those who who would not accept who we are) and no one notices it can be seamless and work just fine...but were we to shock them to the core by presenting ourselves to them with our feminine quaff make up jewelry and in a dress....they would be like Stunned and not in a good way and it would permanently change any relationship with them...there are very very few truly completely open and accepting people out there. People tend to definitely hold on strongly to their social conventions and constructs and deny strongly that they are arbitrary at all...vociferously they would insist women are women men are men and never the twain do meet!!! Very sad...society is kinda sorta ebbing along ever so slowly evolving and relaxing on some of this but depending on the company you are in it still exists starkly like a walled fortress and conventions must be kept with some as they will always be. We will be dead and gone unfortunately before all of this goes away but there are certain quarters of freedom and openness and acceptance for us.

So even if we were quite all out in the open....rejection and revulsion and violent opposition will always exist for us except with some wonderful people. Makes me think of this sketch...dates me badly at the same time...oh well...
https://youtu.be/4vuW6tQ0218" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; "E's NOT DEAD! E's STUNNED...YOU'VE STUNNED 'EM..."

[Noeleena]

Hi,

Okay points taken,

So what do you need to do or can do to see acceptance, Long term or most of your life how you were seen and perceived, How can... you... change that. wear the clothes and not try to be like a woman in all aspects = like just wear a dress or skirt and top don't do the makeup shoes and adornments, your own hair no forums , in other words just put those clothes on and walk out the door as you would normaly like you dress as a male,

okay lets look at weird odd dress different or something that is not normaly seen dress in Renaissance garb show your face as though theres nothing different about you , and people see that every day say 3 months , what then would they say any thing ,

your in uniform day after day that's all people see of you , then one day you wear a dress or skirt and stand where you were in uniform what would change, day after day for 3 months ,
people see you know your face no matter what you wear,

I bet a comment would come up ...Oh you changed your clothes to day whats the detail whats going on or to that effect. you were in public seen by 100,s of people and maybe 10 commented you.

I do this all the time and is it really about im a female or male no its about people knowing me as a person they don't care what I wear , work clothes uniform Edwardian Renaissance or a skirt or dress or some thing that's different , plus Scottish a Kilt or dress or long skirt with sash and I know I attract attention part of what im about in the many roles I,v taken on , last night no exception in uniform people looked at myself whats up with the uniform ,

Those who know me looked at my face and knew who I was, basic uniform is Army dress for men all male uniform for males , where I change is I wear a black skirt in keeping as normal womens Army dress code, Navy I,d be in white skirt and top and hat tie and white dress shoes, white tights normal womens dress code, all Navy,
Yet I know some people still see me as a male who have never met me let alone talked to me. you see im still perceived as a male by some people will that change no of cause not they see what they wont to and I know my facial features are still maleish Maybe I don't know any more ,though some see me as an attractive woman ,

...noeleena...

[Anne Bonny]

I see how you have done, and that is just being straight on with it all and take the slings and arrows that may come occasionally but being your authentic self. Yes, I agree that is exactly who we should be. Thing is there are people in my life who I would lose...an older sister who is very conservative and traditional, religious but who is my sister and we care for each other. I waited until my parents were both gone never told them a thing kept it all from them they were as my older sister and another generation and would never have understood...not as strict with their religion, no church or prayer...nominal though. My other sister knows, is more pragmatic but I found she did not want to know much about any of it but did not condemn me either (It did hurt a little in one of the emails when she stated I never thought I would be asked for make up advice from my brother...so that was kind of it for me and I told her I would never discuss it with her ever again....she was also concerned about knowing if my older sister found out so I told her well if she finds out I will tell her you know nothing if asked it would not come from me)...My sons...kind of accepted but my sense is neither are comfortable with having a partly feminine father who wears a woman's kit and makes herself up with jewelry etc... The sitter and my former hospice (for my wife) all knew and were very accepting about it all which was and is still quite wonderful. Thing with true strangers and professionals and people in your employ...what do you expect them to say!? My neighbors ...well the husband doesn't really talk to me anymore thought the wife has and has come to the door but I was in my male self and anymore I try to keep it all more private and not go out the door.

I dream.. I do have hopes of finding a very open minded accepting and encouraging woman not a frail wall flower but not a woman who would seek to command and dominate either just someone who is intelligent and laid back and who will be an equal partner...the dream would be she enjoys my feminine side as well as my masculine side as I will most definitely need that.

That's a tall order. A woman who would openly encourage me on..."oh why don't you stay dressed we're just going down the road or to visit so and so or so and so is coming over...With someone at my side who would encourage me I might begin to think about coming out more again and in going out the door as I was about 5-6 month's back.

As you know, or perhaps not nothing happened...I tried to quit but it all came back so I decided not to try to swim against the rather strong social current and to just stay inside and do so privately at home whenever I feel the desires stir...

I am not really wanting to fight the social current at this time, that's ok...it is a choice I am making. I am certainly not ashamed of who I am, not too afraid after all I have been out in public. I may change on this at some point but not now. If my wife's mother passes...if my older sister passes...That way there will really be no family who would be upset. I have no friends so moving out into the world as Anne when I am there would not be too difficult I would not be losing any friends when there is no one to lose only people who want to meet me to make friends with or to come out too to see before friends get too far along to see if they would accept or no. Oh shoot!! My son's In Laws...and I remember my son telling me she did not want to see me dressed.

I suspect there are many who will tell us to our face how nice we look...cute dress...are you happy like that? but who behind our back say and think something else entirely.

And for these reasons and the fact that well I am 59 and do not look all that good anyway....why push it? At one time
I felt I was coming very close to just coming out nearly completely....that would have been to over reach...in fact I felt as if I had over reached and was pushing myself out over my ski's then I tried to quit but problem is this IS who I am. So I am more private with it. There is no love for us in this world, or very little around this part of the country. Oh well...

Later, noleena!

[Victoria K.]

Yes it would be a wonderful world if all family and friends took us for what we are.It really is such a joke when you think about it.The ones who love us seem to think that dressing the way you want magically changes you into something different.

[Anne Bonny]

Huge double standard....people are locked in to these arbitrary social constraints by religious close minded convictions...by "but it's just the way things are honey..." It's a shame, it is a tough thing and what it means is we are the ones who have to build up a thick hide, be prepared to lose a lot of people we thought loved us and then buck the system while going through lots of people until we can rebuild around us people who do accept us and support us but society in general is still overwhelmingly opposed to our being in their view in any public space.

[Stephanie M]

The ones who love us seem to think that dressing the way you want magically changes you into something different.

I have to say I was once very guilty of that.
I grew up with a crossdressing father, and when I was a teenager and young adult I hated it. I also hated myself for having the same desires. It wasn't until I could start accepting myself that I viewed my dad totally different and all things considered I'm not the least bit ashamed of being like him because I also have his other good qualities and what we wear really isn't important.

And yes we have actually talked about it and I feel I missed so much guidance that he could have given me if I only was receptive. But at least now we
talk about even though it's rarely because life doesn't give us much free time.

Anyway I didn't mean to go off on a tangent but I wanted to respond to that.

[Noeleena]

Hi,

Okay thank you for that,., your comment of to find or be found a woman...... who see,s beyond clothes and see the person.

I understand that from the womans side, okay a tough road to travel,

Thank you

...noeleena...

[Anne Bonny]

Wow Stephanie your father was also feminine and dressed and you realized at the time you were also drawn in that direction.

I was thinking this morning about why we are brought up the way that we are? I mean we should have been brought up and encouraged to be who we are and we should have received encouragement. Thing is People are just cattle and unthinkingly trod down the path of social conventions. They are conditioned by thousands of years that if you have a penis and a scrotum and balls....as opposed to the opposite genitalia then....you will be treated and encouraged along the path to manhood vs anything in between. To society it is just self evident that men are men and women are women and there is nothing else..if you resist you are pushed to the side and are ostracized and ridiculed....better toughen up they think.

It is a shame because our genitalia are nothing more than a physical component that can be very different than who we are on the inside. Some are 180 degrees apart, some some lesser degree.

Who on earth is hurt when and if a little boy is allowed to dress as his sisters do and is encouraged on in the direction he needs to go? I believe ultimately we land where ever we land and for myself that is more to the masculine but with a good measure to the feminine.

Who is hurt because I am sometimes a more feminine person? Why do the cattle in our world try to use a stampede to clobber us or to try to use force and resistance to deny what is a reality which cannot be denied which is that gender varies for many... men and women!

Men are not allowed because Men are always far above women in every way and women are always less than men in every way in status, in every way---this is what we are having to fight against this is the crux of the unspoken taboo, it may not be verbalized, there may be protestations that this is not it at all because men and women are equal in every way but the truth is that looming like an enormous monolithic wall behind us is this unspoken "truth" or taboo. It is absolute B.S. it is arbitrary and it is indeed untrue because sex and gender do not matter as human beings we are all equal we have the same level of intelligence and we may think differently and take a different path to a correct solution which may itself vary some but men and women are equal...so why are little boys and girls like ourselves not allowed to be who we are? They should be and could be if society could just be shaken out of it's zombie like march carrying on it's arbitrary and unconscious unthinking conformity to a social mold that is not true based on the appearance of our genitalia instead of basing it on who we are inside.

It is who we are inside that is far more important than the physical genitalia we are born with.

Now...the vast majority of people do fall within this social mold, but those who do not are subjected to oppression, so that we wind up mentally damaged...look at how conflicted we are by the life we have been forced to lead as we are forced to question ourselves...we are all suffering a complex from a lifetime of oppressive rejection that says we cannot be who we are. We wind up conflicted, fearful, disfunctional, halting, and we suffer mentally from this unnatural complex we develop from a lifetime of rejection. We are damaged and terribly hurt and wounded inside by it all. It's a sad thing to be made to suffer as we have been.

But, If we work on it some of us are able to find a place for ourselves even as the pain and the hurt are still carried deep inside and are able to find a space for ourselves while there is still life left to us for us to live. We can be who we are...I have found that in my own home, and with a few people...and I have hope that I may be able to build around myself people who do love me because of who I am as a person, for who I am inside.

We each need to be able to be whoever our authentic self is...I have never drifted to full time in either part of who I am I know some do find a blended, melded single full time gender for who they are but I have not, not yet anyway and my entire life I have found the majority of myself residing on the male side of things more than on my feminine side. I wonder if that would change with an encouraging, open and accepting partner who desired my feminine side too? I don't know. I do believe we are damaged that we have been damaged because of how we have been treated as we were brought up and have been forced to conform to a social idea of who others insisted we are that was never true, you cannot force someone to be anything else but who they really are and when we varied from what they wanted we were punished severely and brow beaten to hide and to persist and be someone we simply never were fully...it never fit for us, not fully.

Hum...could be in an absolutely perfect world I might find a melded identity in the middle of the gender range and I would probably be...hum still moving one way and then the other at times I think...our moods and desires are always in flux yeah I am gender fluid...or as a person at times I feel stronger and more on the manly side, and at other times luxurate and fully enjoy being in my feminine.

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Wow! Suppose...just suppose we were told by everyone...."OK...just be who you are." Imagine being loved just the way we are, for who we are by everyone around us...or at least by the key people in our lives... "Oh, nice dress! That's pretty...you look good in that." "Ok, let's go..."

[Victoria K.]

Well written Anne and so true.So tired of the way people are conditioned to act.If a man kills someone! he still less hated than some man dressing as a woman, it makes no sense.This is the reason of hiding all my feelings most of my life and the reason i will no longer do that.Went to get blood work done today with my long painted nails in full site and not caring one bit of any reactions.Being open and myself has brought me my happiest times ever spend here on our planet.My wife has a hard time with it so don't dress totally a woman when she is around.Still hoping in time she will adjust, there is no going back for me! only forward.

[Anne Bonny]

Right! We should simply be free to be who we are...all the time.... It is difficult for others to understand us they feel this is simply who I am but they will not allow that this is simply who WE are! They are not able to let go of the age old social ideas that they believe are absolutely above questioning. They are not true though, and have never been true all through history people who are like us have been as we are while they are completely unwilling to let go and to admit their social construct is and has always been completely artificial and arbitrary.

Women fear...what that we want to take over their role in the relationship? We want them to take over and be the man? We want them to to let go of being the yang to our ying? Women who come into a marriage agree to what they thought they were entering into with us so If we cover up who we are and lie...be that out of fear or whatever reason then we have broken the trust...had they known this was different than what they wanted....it is our own fault. We do have to be absolutely truthful to a partner about who we really are inside before we enter a long term relationship or we may find the other person wants out because this is not what they thought going in. The truth is...some of us may indeed want to be in the traditional woman's place and role in our relationship, we want to be a wife and have a "husband"...or we may want that sometimes or part time, or we may simply want absolute equality ... I go for that one...but whatever we must be truthful in who we are, who we present ourselves to be should be who we really are...honestly earnestly and without fear to them, to our lover and partner just as they are who we desire as well if they are being as honest, earnest and open with us as they expect us to be to them.

How much do you love your partner? I loved my partner and she loved me very deeply...even so she told me "It changes how I think about you." It was she said a breech of trust...that I had lied...that I was "the other woman" and that I had been unfaithful to her.

It is a really really huge deal...if you are not honest and upfront no matter if that person walks away do not hide it or lie to yourself because you do not want to lose them...the truth is and do not deceive yourself is that you are a transgendered person.

It may not mean the end of a marriage or relationship but it is very rare they will ever be fully accepting, enthusiastic and encouraging or desiring of any of it...you will probably get Understanding this is something you cannot do, though they are unable to understand it, they may grant tolerance under certain rules but deep down they will always wish you were the person you presented yourself to be to them before you married or entered your arrangement.

I am thinking that what we must be willing to do is to continue to under dress at times so that when we are intimate they will see we wear panties, that we shave our legs and wear polished toe nails, perhaps have pierced ears and wear a bra from time to time...why? Are you going to not do this when you decide to be with this person? Is there any better way than to simply be ourselves when we are dating? Then we will find the right person for ourselves by being completely who we are in the process of getting to know them...that is how it should be.

[Victoria K.]

Yes i understand and agree! When we married way back,i was the way i am inside now but really didnt think much about being a transgender.True even then i had a strong feminine side but i thought it would not go as far as it did.If i felt the way i do today! i would of explained it to her then.All i can do now is deal with today and hope for the best.

[Stephanie M]

Wow Stephanie your father was also feminine and dressed and you realized at the time you were also drawn in that direction

It wasn't until puberty when I started getting the feminine feelings. Up to that point I had no interest in anything girly.
As soon as I hit puberty is when my feminine side materialized and at the same time I was entering the stage where you don't want to be like your parents so it was quite a contradiction within myself. I really tried to suppress it and I suppose my disgust at my dad at that time was really disgust at myself.

[Anne Bonny]

Hum...it all plays with our head doesn't it...lot going on there. I started moving in this direction when I was old enough to be aware of it and to want it which was around age 9, I do believe rather than earlier. The age of awareness...hum.

Funny the different stages we go through as we grow and mature...puberty....identity....becoming our own person and differentiating from our parents...well somewhat anyway.

As for coming out to your wife within an established, loving, and very strong marriage with a strong bond....wow...I will say the outcome will not be optimal. What I got was this...She understood I could not help being this part of who I am, and that I had to have the freedom to be this part of myself sometimes. So I got tolerance and there were ground rules. I was not to do it in front of our boys. I was not to share it with anyone and once we were alone in private with the curtains drawn I now had the freedom to be this part of myself sometimes. Of course I still had to read stress and emotions and circumstances... moods...but! when everything was hunky dory I was allowed out of the box for a few hours at times and things did improve a little over time but it was never really full enthusiastic acceptance with her desiring any of it...no she understood it and there was tolerance but she was not angry or irritated. Yeah...I was allowed to sleep in feminine sleep wear when I wanted to. In truth if it had gone away or had never been she would have been over the moon. So once my wife passes and I start to meet women...I am going to have to accept that I will be going through quite a few women and that I may never find one who is willing to be with me because of who I am.

[Stephanie M]

Yeah it messes with the mind. As Waylon once sang I've always been crazy, but it has kept me from going insane