"She", not "he", guys

[BrianR]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

Ibby, in-forum, has mentioned his 'feminine side' and/or 'feeling female' (I paraphrase).

Is this the same for you, and -- if so -- can you describe concretely what this means?

That's kind of hard to answer, as I am not sure how a man feels. I know how I was told that I should feel by the men in my life and that was at odds with what I did feel.

I cannot really speak for Ibby. She will have to answer for herself. But I will venture to say that Ibby is not a transsexual. She is further to the male side of the gender spectrum than I am. She is exploring her identity and looking for her place in the world. That's fine. I know where I belong.

My feelings are those of a female, judging by what women and therapists (I've had several over the years) tell me. I do know that I do not and never have fit in with men. I just don't have a lot in common with them. Even as a child, I stayed closer to my mother than my father. I preferred being in the kitchen cooking to watching football with the men. Wine to beer. Talking to playing. In short, I displayed feminine traits from an early age.

When I discovered that clothes can change the way I feel, oh BOY! I went to town. But in private while I explored this new avenue. I quickly learned to be ashamed and to feel guilt. This is something that I continue to struggle to overcome. What I finally realized, is that women's clothing felt natural to me and men's clothing felt unnatural. This holds true today and forever.

I hope that answered your question.

Pam

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by BrianR

I cannot really speak for Ibby. She will have to answer for herself. But I will venture to say that Ibby is not a transsexual. She is further to the male side of the gender spectrum than I am. She is exploring her identity and looking for her place in the world. That's fine. I know where I belong.

I take exception to that... i sure as hell know where I belong too. I'm a bit of a tomboy, but that doesn't mean i'm not trans*.

[BrianR]

Originally Posted by Ibby

I take exception to that... i sure as hell know where I belong too. I'm a bit of a tomboy, but that doesn't mean i'm not trans*.

Transgender, yes. Andro? Probably. Transsexual? You have given me no indication that you wish to play for the other team. Please forgive me if I missed something. I do not doubt that YOU know who you are. But you have not specifically told ME that definition. Last I checked, you were exploring. That's fine. If you have arrived at a conclusion, I missed the announcement.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Pam

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by BrianR

Transgender, yes. Andro? Probably. Transsexual? You have given me no indication that you wish to play for the other team.

Maybe I'm a little confused about your separation of terms here. In the circles I move in within the community, there isn't such a separation between the definitions. What defines the difference, in your parlance, between transgender and transexual? Are transexuals only those that desire SRS? Is transgender a particularly different category than transexual?
As far as those members of the (twenty-something, queer-as-in-fuck-you, anti-establishment) trans* community that I'm familiar with are concerned, the demarcation of "transgender" versus "transexual" is entirely a matter of whether the trans* person using the term prefers one or the other to describe themselves. as in, I prefer being described as transgender or just trans* rather than transexual, but I don't make a serious distinction between the two terms beyond which I like better.
The fact that the trans* community - to what small extent there's anything resembling a "community" - is so disparate and constantly shifting, it's sometimes hard to put together a unified set of terms and language. I hope i don't come off as belligerent, I honestly don't understand your distinctions here - how can I be transgender, but not transexual? The only set of definitions I've heard that seem to encompass your distinction is whether or not I plan on having SRS. Is that what you mean by saying I'm one but not the other, that I don't "plan to play for the other team"?

[Sheldonrs]

Here is a link to some articles written by a friend of mine regarding mental sex in terms of story development:

http://dramaticapedia.com/tag/mental-sex/

She is also transgender.