Did your expression change as you accepted your identity?

I think I probably became less masculine throughout my transition, even though I'm FTM. I mean, I still present masculine through my hair and clothes, but I just don't care about mannerisms, gestures, stuff like that.
I think I realized that expression and identity don't mean the same thing. I will say though that that only happened once I started passing 100%.

 

I've been paying more attention to my mannerisms, and don't tend to correct like I used to(my one friend says I was always kinda "dainty") so I guess in that sense I've gotten more feminine, and I'm also working on re-correcting a lot of mannerisms I changed.

 

Oh yes. I became wayyy more girly in terms of my appearance and clothing compared to when I first came out and started presenting.

 

Interesting question. Made me think of it a bit longer
I´d say I am more confident in simply being myself. After I realized and accepted that I am transgender, I almost stopped worrying about how do people see me or what they think of me. I still wear only unisex / male clothing and in better days I can pass without trying too hard, but I don´t feel the pressure like I felt before (like I was half the time worried not to wear too girly clothes, not to act too girly, not to have girls interests... Gosh I was stupid back then).

 

A little. I started buying more clothes from the boys section whereas my expression before acceptance/realising I was trans was solely band shirts and black jeans. My style started branching out to shirts and actual colours when I started to feel more comfortable and understand my gender. I remember getting on my college bus wearing blue jeans a couple years ago and everyone stared at me and asked me if I was alright. Definitely more stereotypically masculine now than I was then. Especially because I'm into guys so back then I used to think I had to conform to some kind of femininity for them to be attracted to me. Fuck that.

 

well I'm not out yet, but I doubt that I'll change my expression (which is fairly masculine) that much when I do.

 

For me it was less about changing my behaviour as it was that I just realized how I've behaved

 

Expression in terms of clothing: Yes extremely. Because before I knew who I was, I kinda felt like I had the bad card but I accepted it. Then I knew I didn't have to. It was part of developing into the masculine direction figuring out and making sure who I was.

And as I started to be more confident I did things that would seem more masculine, like walking that way but I would have done that before if it hadn't been so taboo to me. Same with stupid jokes.

Accoring to my character, I'm a Dean Winchester-ish stereotype. I love my car. I love my motorbike. But that comes together since I got them while figuring out.

 

In general I became a bit more family oriented and have tried to be more helpful and supportive at home. Because I'm limited in my ability to express myself around my family at the moment, this is a way for me to relieve gender dysphoria and make the life of those around me a bit better.

I think it does make sense that people adopt gender expression that reinforces your developing social gender identity in the same way that teenagers experiment with gender expression while developing their identities. Once you've established yourself socially, things change and you abandon many of the expressions you developed while transitioining. (This is the same process that cisgender people go through during their early twenties and late teens.)

Gender expression can also provide temporary relief from gender dysphoria which can make the process of transitioning less stressful for some.

 

? - 6 years: «I love dresses and ballet.»

7 - 11 years: «Yeaaa I am a tomboy and proud of it and girls are so annoying why should I play with them.» I quit "ballet" firmly, started with swimming and kayak and looked proudly in the mirror at my "muscles" (?) and wide shoulders hahah (and I was happy that I «changed the body definitively» (?) so that it wasn't "beautiful" enough for ballet anymore). Mom bought me clothes from the boys section because they were more robust.

12 years: «Whoa make up, what is this thing? Let's look like a porcelain doll!»

13 - 16 years: I gave away anything feminine except (always tied up) long hair. Jewellery was like fire; when someone tried to make me wear some, I once made a scene shouting in the metro: «I AM NOT A WOMAN». But not in a gender sense (?).
My uncle joked that I would end up driving a truck, and I agreed.
But I didn't feel attractive and worth enough for someone to love me.

17 - 19 years: «I need to be decent and adult, therefore feminine.» Feminine "socialization" and appearance was hard to mantain; I felt beautiful, but inappropriate inside, as if anyone could read me like a book and discover I didn't even know what, and I blamed this for my social isolation.
Surrending and pleasing society left a sticky and bitter sensation in the mouth.
But I was normal and attractive.

20: Weird urge to dress and behave in a really masculine way, so strong that it made me question my gender out of the blue. (+body issues)
«Maybe it's a phase, but a good excuse to try crossdressing. Or to try trying crossdressing. Or to try to find money for new clothes for crossdressing. Lol.»
And you know what? People stared at me in a positive way like never before: someone is attractive when they're themselves.
[Masculine women: arise. It's your time.]

Almost 21: I stay away from anything feminine because it feels unexplicably suffocating, so that I look (and sometimes act) like a pre-teen boy (but not flat-chested).
Now I know it's not a phase, but sometimes I miss femininity from a purely aesthetical point of view. But every time I try something feminine, it feels wrong. For ex. "emo nail polish" (?), but my hands are so little and feminine that repeating to the mirror «effeminate guy» doesn't work; I'll have to remove it...

Who knows what's gonna happen when I'll start transitioning (to what? Who knows)... I'll grow a bit my hair, I think, before going bald like an egg within five years.

 

I wear more feminine things now I've realised that I'm transmasculine which sounds contradictory but I think what happened was that growing up I pushed away feminine things because that made me "a typical girl" but now that I've accepted that I'm NOT a girl, I'm more comfortable with them. When I thought I was a girl feminininity reinforced the fact that I was a girl but now I know I'm not so it's okay.

 

Once I accepted my duality (my male side to go with my known femaleness) I found it easier to express the female side the way I want to without dysphoria. As my body transitions to a more masculine physical type (I'm on T) I still very much enjoy being completely femme in appearance. I've always had a bit of a masculine body, for an afab, and I think I'm going to be able to pull this off - masculine with a femme appearance, not too unlike Lucy Lawless or other taller, more muscular built women. If not, I'm going to have to reexamine either my testosterone use, or my choice of presentation. I really don't want to have to make a choice, though.