Author: Helen Boyd

Gracie wrote this piece in response to Donna’s question about internal gender identity, and I really liked it.
I don’t feel that I’ll ever be a woman or know what it’s like to feel like a woman because I wasn’t born with a woman’s body parts at birth. I think being a woman has many meanings, but when I hear other women say it to each other very rarely is it about is it about the social stuff when a serious point is being made. Hmmm.. ok, that’s not true. Ok.. not that it’s very rare, but when I hear women talk about things that are serious and refer to womanhood it’s about growing up a woman and the bond they have because of growing up a female which leads to womanhood. It feels like the describe a right of passage. The bond I pick up on is when they share the memories of doing things they had to do as girls that boys didn’t. Their experiences being young and their bodies maturing and the bond they formed then, then being looked at by boys as girls who had something the boys wanted versus just being girls with cooties they all have that in common. Then as they matured and men started treating them as objects instead of the girls they had once been (may be the wrong wording). Some women share the bond of knowing that their bodies can create life. Even if they don’t have children they know together what that bond is like. Then there’s “a mother’s love”. I’m not sure about this one and as women get older, to me they seem to diversify.
I feel as women get older (20’s and up) there’s not as much or less of a commonality between them that forces that womanly bond anymore. The body has finished developing and so it’s more about personality and life experience. One of the last things I think is HUGE (a big bonding thing) is pregnancy. Women hold that high and proud as a badge of womanhood. I don’t think any women rejoice when menopause comes along, but again women share in that bonding moment as well.
As a TS woman I missed all of that. I may be a female, but I’ll never have those experiences that women have. Can I define that as being the end all of womanhood? No. I can just tell those women who feel like they are a woman, I feel like I’m on the outside of that chain link fence looking in at womanhood. Though I can climb that fence and be in there and some men can’t figure out how to get in there at all or would be embarrassed to be seen in there. (most women would revolt and throw them out if they tried anyway) I had to climb in to the womanhood enclosed by the chain link fence I use as symbolism here. Women were given access inside the chain link fence by birth and walked in through a gate. They didn’t have to climb in like me. So I won’t ever know what it’s like to have that feeling of right of passage. I climbed in and will always feel like an outsider when they discuss womanhood.
I feel I relate with women who can’t have children, women who don’t want to have children, women who developed late in life, and women who never really felt like they truly identified with women. There’s not many of the latter I bet, but those are the women that after I climbed the fence and got in I’d seek out. Those are more likely the women who I’ll share a lot of “me too!!” moments with.
I’m not a woman because I wasn’t born one, but I am a TS woman because like women a lot of us grew up with the same kind of bonding. We knew at a young age we were girls. We were raised boys and knew that it didn’t feel right. We tried to be the boys we were told we were and like girls who are told “be a girl or else” we didn’t listen to those threats, but there were times when most of us had to. As a gal who likes women it was easier for me to fake that part, but for the ladies out there who have always craved men and shoved it to the back of their minds until after SRS or those who knew upfront they only wanted to be with a man they had it tougher, but they were still like me because they were born the wrong sex and forced to live as the wrong gender. We have a bond that others will not ever feel. It’s our right of passage too.
I think being a TS woman is just as profound as being a woman who was born in the right body, but it’s different and I won’t ever relate with women who, as girls, were raised to be women. I feel I can understand what it felt like, but I.. well.. I’ve said the same thing over and over so I think you know what I was going to say.
Whoa… I just remembered how in 8th grade I felt my sex was wrong (another of the billion times, but this one was reinforced every weekday). I just remembered when it was time for physical education (PE) and I wanted to go in the girls locker room like the rest of the girls, but I had to go to the boys locker room. That always sucked the most. I remember there were two ways to get to the locker rooms. There was sidewalk from one way and there was a sidewalk that if you went that way you walked to the boys locker room. I can remember hearing the girls chattering and walking by and seeing the entrance to the boys locker room. Wow.. the feeling of it sucking is still there! lol.. that’s deep and weird to me.
Ok.. my rambling alert just sounded so I better stop here. I love this topic and thanks because that’s the first time I’ve written my feelings down where I hear my own thoughts about this. It makes me even more sure that I haven’t lost anything by not feeling like a woman in the traditional sense because I share a bond with other TS women that others can’t understand, just like with womanhood for those who were born in the right body. *sorry I said that so much. I was trying to avoid GG.