I've acted like a cishet man for so long I don't know how to stop
I feel like almost every social interaction I have nowadays except with really close friends is just a complete reflex to be this fake guy I made up
It's especially bad when I talk to men so I'm also mostly avoiding all my male friends but obviously I would rather not do this
I don't even know who I am anymore
yeah, meeting my bf actually helped because he wasnt judgmental. let me peel away my façade more completely.
i had the hardest time actually using my feminine voice, there was a big mental barrier against using it even though it passed very well. especially hard to deal with around family
I think this is normal. At least for me, I spent my life basically masking around people I didn't know and pretending to be more masculine/normal/not effeminate. A habit like that is hard to break. And yeah it's harder around men because usually I'm a little more worried about them perceiving me as queer.
I don't really have any good advice, except my girlfriend is also trans, but has been out for a lot longer than me, and she definitely doesn't do the man mask thing anymore. So, I think it will just get better over time as you become more confident in your presentation/appearance and spend more time presenting feminine. By time I mean it will probably take years before everything feels natural. I'm sure spending lots of time socializing with other women would help.
But also maybe it doesn't matter that much. Like for me at least I see nothing wrong with being a "male socialized" woman as long as I am seen as a woman. And that has a lot to do with what I look like than how I act.
Yeah, still presenting male in every day life, but
I feel like almost every social interaction I have nowadays except with really close friends is just a complete reflex to be this fake guy I made up
I feel this to a T. It drives me fucking nuts. It feels like I'm this insane person and it makes it impossible for me to make any new friends or form close relationships with others. It makes me feel very depressed and anxious.
Also this sounds like dysphoria to me tbh
Also this sounds like dysphoria to me tbh
Because it is. People always think of dysphoria as this physical thing and forget how much of being perceived as a woman is entirely social. Same goes for passing, HRT and surgery won't get you very far if you never find a way to act like a woman that fits you.
It doesn't have to be a classic, traditional way of doing girlyness, or not exclusively, my way of being a woman frequently boils down to being a genderstalinist death harpy eating the hearts of reactionaries for breakfast while being the sweetest cuddle monster imaginable to her found family and that just works for me. I can recommend to everybody struggling with this stuff to get more into feminism and to look at the ugly, monstrous women of mythology and fantasy, the gorgons, the furies, the hags cackling out in the bog because that's where the true self acceptance is, that's how you learn to feel valid on days where you just look like shit and can't be arsed to do all the bs routines that society pressures women into to make us harmless and obedient trophy wifes. Fuck that noise, i want to be Salome demanding a man's head on a silver platter.
Yeah, this is what worries me - that ill never figure outnhow to be a woman who i feel comfortable with. I'm like, idk how to even get there... I just feel like this weird guy who wants to be a girl. Like ugh 😑 it sucks
i feel this and yeah idk how to rly stop it most of the time. have you looked into internal family systems? i kinda see my cis persona as a protector who takes control sometimes when i feel unsafe (even for non trans reasons, something that triggers my cptsd could make regress back into them) and i try to negotiate with them to let me take the wheel lmao.
I'm ftm so I have the opposite problem of acting meek and vulnerable and as a big gay bear it has led to some upsetting social faux paus. I had to get away from most former friends to completely shed my skin but they were also toxic so
What I can say is that the longer you have been transitioned the more you'll feel like yourself.
Yeah I’m still working on not reflexively doing the various “sup bro” handshakes that I’ve drilled into my muscles over the years.
This is the worst, I keep telling myself that I'm going to just tell men that I don't do daps or handshakes anymore when they start but I can't bring myself to do all that and be so dramatic so I just spend the 2 seconds to dap them up
Yeah I feel you. It grosses my partner out when I go “bro mode” as they call it. Not because there’s anything wrong with doing it, just that they see how much of well-oiled facade it is for me.
maybe the reason has changed. It used to be a mask you used with everyone, but now it's more like code-talking? Especially if you only do it with specific groups. just a thought, i could be way off.
I think before I thought I was just changing as a person but now I'm just painfully aware of how fucking fake I am
possibly, sometimes things just need to be reframed. Those mannerisms(or whatever) aren't fake if youre doing them genuinely but still on accident. And maybe even more importantly is whether other people think it's fake which I can't say for sure on that, but if they want to be around you still then they probably don't think it's "fake".
Yes and its driving me crazy. Im not really out to anyone other than a few close friends but even with the guy friends im out to i still do it instinctively sometimes and i hate it
I don't even know who I am anymore
Me too. I just want to take the mask off
i understand this completely and find myself having to pull back when i go too deep into that persona. i don't necessarily know if i wanna abandon every aspect of who i was because there were things that i liked, but i have to be mindful of when my behavior is a impediment to other people perceiving me as a woman. i think journaling after situations in which you're uncomfortable with your behavior could really help you get a bead on where your personal line is
