How to deal with not being feminine all the time

I’m a trans woman and am not on hrt. I’m not genderfluid like you are, however I do wonder if you truly like switching back to male if you want to do hrt. But I’m not genderfluid so I don’t know. But I’ll speak on the woman’s part:

I had a similar issue when I first came out to my family. I only wanted to look like a woman. I would wear makeup everyday, I wanted to style my hair so much, etc etc. Then my sister starting ridiculing me for it, saying how it’s stupid to do it that often. That’s what made me realise I don’t need to constantly ‘be’ a woman. I am one.

Some women style their hair and do makeup everyday. That’s ok. It’s fine to do that. However not doing it doesn’t make you any less of a women. I can still look like a women just by wearing certain clothes. What you’re trying to do is to appeal to society as much as possible, to try and directly show ‘hey this is me a woman’ instead of just being yourself.

Is all this stuff you do enjoyable? Yes obviously. However is it worth the hassle of doing everyday? That’s up to you to decide. Me? I would start living how you are now and occasionally dress up completely. It’s a much better life balance I think

I think being genderfluid makes this a lot more complicated but I think you can figure it out!

 

The answer in my case is at the moment..with difficulty!

I'm a trans woman on HRT whose closet door is currently flapping open and shut. I'm not out to my stepson because of legal reasons and so because of that I'm not fully out at work. But I'm out to nearly all of my friends. Indeed I recently took a beach holiday where I was 100% out (apart from going through passport control).

It's exhausting. The constant changing of clothes, the self-policing that I have to do, the constant question I have to ask myself: 'who is going to see me?'

Well just be friendly and nice to people and you'll be accepted by most folk, male or female. However, there is no getting away from it: as trans people we are a spectacle to a lesser or greater extent. I'm ok with people being curious about me - I'm a bit of a show-off anyway - but I know that many people aren't.

Hope this helps,
Beth x

 

my thoughts.

i think everyone is unique, but we also have similarities, and it's those similarities that humankind has used to come up with defining terms like "man" or "woman." i think part of the challenge of "fitting in" or even just finding acceptance, is our uniqueness means no two people see everything the same. i believe the only person we have any real control over is our self. i think we can affect and influence other people, but we really cannot control them or their thoughts and feelings.

You write: " I worry that people won't take me seriously as a woman if I take "breaks.""

There will always be a percentage of people who won't take you seriously as a woman. Only a percentage of people take any of us seriously as who we are, no matter who or how we are. i'm a gay guy and my sons and former wife do not "take me seriously as a gay person" because they have a religious mind set that doesn't believe there even is such a thing as "gay." Those same types of people will likely never take you seriously as a woman for many of the same reasons. That's just one tiny example in a world filled with different ism's, cultures and ideas of what constitutes reality. A huge portion of the population doesn't give most of this stuff any thought at all, they just respond emotionally based on how they grew up and were taught.

You write: "I feel this pressure of either being a proper woman or man, but worry that switching between the two may be frowned upon".

i do not think that it will ever go away, there will always be people who will frown upon you however you live. i think the question is can you live honestly with the pressure? I.e., be who and how you are at any given moment, regardless of the response from others?

i think in order to live a life where we are at peace with our self, we have to come to a place of self acceptance. We will never come to a place where everyone will accept us, so we have to develop coping mechanisms to deal with that fact. We can choose our friends, become a member of support groups, do therapy... do all sorts of things to furnish the world we live in. We can hide, build the proverbial "closet," act this way for that person and that way for this person in order to get a response we may want... but we can never get away from our self.