Can anyone explain to me what is it like to be transgender?

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This happened to me several times, but I've always got to a point where I would rather Identify myself as a girl rather than a guy. This is mainly because I describe myself being intelligent, wise, cunning and clever, and all the more fragile. And yet I can't bring myself to identify myself as the 'manly man' that society is used to having. I just feel better describing myself as a girl. I feel like it attunes to my soul (who I really am).

And so since I don't know much about transgender people, let alone how their lives are, I made this post in hopes of finding out more about the transgenderism and how it is like to live life as one.

Personally if I were to choose a way to depict myself as a woman, I'd prefer crossdressing in that case. But then again, I'm open to all possibilities.

A pain in the ass.

I think it's different for each person. Plus I'm strongly opposed to clinical "criteria" for what makes a person trans as I know how much damage such gatekeeping has done to many transfolk. Did you have a query in specific? Asking what it's like to live as a transgender person is as broad as asking what it's like to live as a cisgender person.
From what you've said, though, and the tactic that many people take when starting to question their gender, is to play with it. You said you might be interested in cross-dressing - though not at all the same thing, you might use that to ease into what it might be like to live as and be perceived as a woman, and see if it fits you. You can still go back to being male afterwards. Or maybe start mixing in women's clothing and presentation with men's and see how that goes. Do some research - would transition even interest you? Could you see yourself going through this process with everything it entails? There's plenty of info out there.
Just because you may be an effeminate guy doesn't necessarily make you trans, either. You're perfectly allowed to be a man even if you're not butch and masculine.

^ This. ^

What is it like to be transgender?

It's waking up each morning and feeling the striking discord as your brain and body reconnect and realizing that yes, you have to spend another day in the-body-that-doesn't-fit.

It's knowing that at the most fundamental level, below that of social expectations, roles and appearances, you are the sex and gender opposite the one assigned to you at birth.

It's noticing that everyone around you is so used to their inside identity and socially recognized identity matching seamlessly that they can't conceive of them being two separate attributes.

It's people who have the luxury of simply assuming that sex=gender=identity telling you that gender is a construct and if we eliminated it no one would need to be transgender.

It's people telling you that you don't exist, that you are a sinner, that you choose to be this way, that you just want attention or special privileges...and deserve to be treated horribly because of it.

It's being afraid to live as yourself because you'll get mugged, disowned, divorced or killed.

It's having to choose between living openly as yourself or staying closeted at work so your children can have clothes, food and health care.

It's feeling your connection to your body and the world wax and wane over the course of each week as your hormones kick in and fade out.

It's holding your urine for hours because you don't want to be harassed in a public restroom.

It's crying when you read that another trans person couldn't take the pain any more and committed suicide, because you understand, completely.

^ Ain't you a glass half full.
Yes being trans is a billion times more difficult, but there are some positives. Being forced out of habitual "normal" judgement, I find is one. You can't be lazy making judgements about others based on superficial stereotypes when you know for a fact how inaccurate that is for yourself. It tends to make one much more open minded and accepting of difference than the norm. You look deeper beneath the surface. Though I hate people laying the "you're so brave" trip on me as if I had any choice in the matter, in some ways they're correct - its difficult to be cowardly during transition. You know what you are and you'll do whatever you have to do to be yourself. Many people go through life faking it without the courage to be who and what they are. That fight can make you much tougher and stronger in personality/character and more sure of yourself simply because you've had to fight to be who you are. After transition, you have life experiences as a man and a woman (and sometimes neither/both, dependent on your persuasion) so you have insight into everybody, what it's like to be a man/woman/neutral in the world when to most people, this is a mystery and they can't understand, sympathise or imagine. Again, this makes for a much greater level of understanding.
Through transition too you get to see your body change and become more happy with it, compared to how it was. And that helps to teach yourself to like yourself in a tangible way, and respect and connect with your body.

Hmm, sounds like you need some maintenance there, as I don't think that's the norm. I stay pretty steady throughout, you just have to find the right HRT treatment regimen for you.

I go in bold as brass and no one messes with me. I know I get more weird looks in one bathroom than the other, so I just choose the one I'm going to get less looks. But no one has ever called me out or started something with me and if they did, they'd just be forced to stand there and listen to me exhaustively lecture from my soapbox.

I know from personal experience that you can drive NTs nuts if they can't figure out your gender. It can be like an Aspie going into a meltdown--their mind goes into a loop!! !

I'm sure many MTF types would love to be 5' 2" and 105 pounds.

Yeah...that may have been a bit heavy handed. I'm actually a "Glass is full - half air, half water" sort of person. :p

Thing is, I've lived through each of those at one point & some may never end - & that's okay; everyone's life is different anyway, right? And life is rarely that doom-and-gloom. But, I'm starting to notice something develop in our culture, and wanted to call attention to it. Call it the Caitlyn Effect: the over-glamorization in the media of being trans.

The result in many mainstream minds is a strong enforcement of a sex/gender binary. Look at who gets held up as the public face of trans people; Guys with two-day beards and abs of titanium, and women who blend well with other women on the red carpet photo platform.

The message teens and young adults seem to be picking up on is that if they are not comfortable with the rigid, binary social gender roles and expectations of their local subculture, they must be transsexual and the most acceptable option is to transition to the polar opposite.

That would be fine with me and my daughter, as we both tend to be fairly binary apart from some of our more tomboy interests. It'd actually make life easier. But so many of her cohorts actually have turned out to fall into the cited 70% who are gender variant/creative/queer. They don't need to transition, they just need room to be a blend that fits. And they are being erased to some degree in the media presentation. Even more troubling, we are seeing parents of young GV kids (ie pre-gay, genderqueer, non-conforming kids) who are picking up on the same messages and feeling relieved that their child doesn't have to stand out if they manage it correctly.

Because of this, I sometimes feel the need to point out - sometimes strikingly - the difference between being uncomfortable with one's social gender expectations and one's internal sex/gender identity not fitting one's body.

Only semi-OT: New study shows while brains have many sex-dimorphic sites, the overall pattern is not a binary of "male brain" vs "female brain" but rather a mosaic of spectra. The aggregate being two overlapping bell curves, or a dumbbell curve. http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavi ... tudy-finds
So, of course the media is representing it as, "the brain has no gender" because if it is not a binary, it can't be defined at all.

I'm sorry, I haven't herd of the MTF acronym, could anyone please tell me what it stands for?

Male to Female.

And I echo a lot of what Edenthiel and C2V said. It can be a nightmare dealing with the dysphoria and not being socially accepted, but it does make you a stronger person inside. Transition demands that you at least put serious thought into fathoming yourself out. You come to know yourself more.

I was referring to my first comment, not your reality-check, btw.

That's where you find genderqueer glee. I love people referring to me with three different genders, sprinkled liberally with apologies and backtracks. I don't help them out. What I am to them is their business, not mine.


Yes, just as many transmen would just love to be 6'4 and 200 pounds of pure muscle. But for a select few lucky buggers, that's always going to be the way for trans folk.

It's very true. There is growing awareness about genderqueer folks, whether they need to transition / deal with dysphoria or not, but it freaks even some trans people out who see nonbinary expression as a threat to their femininity/masculinity. Plus what really stands my hair on end is the apparent "trendy" aspect of gender variance among young people. The whole trans is the new gay thing. Ugh. Then of course you have the ever-charming "not trans enough," accusation toward genderqueer people, others believing they should "pick a side and stick to it," and if they are not wholly a man or a woman, then they're not really trans and just making things up.
Maybe there needs to be more genderqueer/variant popular examples. I understand the pressure on transwomen to be traditionally attractive and desirable, but the sexualisation of transwomen is bad enough already with fetishists without Caitlyn Jenner making this such a big focus in her very public transition.
It is of course perfectly fine to be a tomboy or an effeminate guy without being trans, or gay. You still identify with your body, and to some extent your social gender, you just slide more one way along the scale than the other. Go ahead and push the envelope. An effete man who loves makeup and wearing dresses can still be just as much a man as anyone.

Yeah, it's a pain.

But I could never talk socially before, and have never fit in for so many reasons.

So other than making it harder to find a job, making bathrooms a nightmare, and making it much more dangerous to be out in public(which I never really liked, anyways), I'm not that much worse off than before, as far as society goes.

I guess I was kind of safe in public before, until I had so say something, and now I'm just not comfortable at all in public.

But I'm happy with myself now, and I spend all of my time with me, and only some of the time with other people, so that's a good deal

And I'm lucky I work with intelligent people who at least leave me alone, and some are even friendly, so that's nice. Especially considering I'm completely non-binary, dress rather distinctively at work, and couldn't conform to a gender presentation or mannerism if my life depended on it

Yeah, That is very true to me. Whenever I see myself at the mirror I can't help but to feel as if my soul is saying "That's not who I am!". But whenever I imagine myself as a woman, I feel right at home with my body. would that be what many of you are calling "Dystopia"?

IZ means that i have to constantly look where i Can Show myself where im Safe where i have to Put mental make up on all the time

Um...What?

It's a lot of little things that add up to a greater conclusion about your gender identity.

It's like having a hunch about something which is true but doesn't exist as a concept in your culture yet.

It's like living in your head most of your life and being a stranger within your own body, piloting your body from within, because your brain must dissociate to protect itself. It can't take in the physical reality of what it "knows" ought to be a male body but perceives, like a waking nightmare, as woman's body.

It's like forgetting you have breasts and knocking them into things because they're not part of your internal body map.

It's like studying your classmates to learn how to perform the gender roles you know you must master in order to avoid being ostracized. Learning how to sit like a girl, ask questions like a girl, walk like a girl, what you can and cannot be interested in and show know-how or knowledge of as a girl.

It's like creating a duel identity, a version of you that the world will accept, that you try for decades to bring to life. It's getting lost in the fake identity, sacrificing your true personality, ambitions, and dreams and perhaps nearly losing your life to it.

It's like never being at home in your body, and always performing the gender the outside world's expects, even to yourself, trying to erase traces of anything trans about you but finally realizing you can't do that without completely erasing yourself.

And then it's weeks and months and years of questioning, gathering information, doubting, experimenting, regressing and growing, and learning to accept yourself--your painful past, your confusing present, and your uncertain future because now you've found hope.

Then you find it's like feeling the calm, relief, joy, and wonder of finally seeing your body, with the right face emerging in the mirror. It's the satisfaction and peace of discovering what it's like for others, who don't have to hide from their bodies, to just exist. The revelation of what it is to be comfortable within your own space. You become attached to this body of yours, this thing you spent your life struggling against, and you start caring about its health. You start to dream about the future you used to dread. You learn to be present in conversations and experience things instead of observing your own life passing by. You learn the joy of being called by your name, of having strangers see you for a man, the bitter sweet feeling when women see you as an outsider and men see you as one of their own.

There's no way to make another person feel what being trans is like, for me, and there is no one on this earth but you who can tell you what your feelings mean.

There are so many ways of being human. There are so many genders and for each of them, a myriad of gender presentations.

The best thing you can do is to be free and open your feelings and thoughts while trying out different things. Listen to yourself and use that as your compass.