Hi Kersten Lee,
Jassmine,
I like what you said: I don't think I agree though, that we choose the intensity of our emotional being. This subject is what I wanted to speak to VickiCD. I have always been an emotional person. I have a high sensitivity to other's pain, and want all the time to be God and be able to take the pain away. We have talked so many times that words are our best attempts at communication, so invariably for ease of communication stereotypes emerge. One word for feminine, one for masculine. All of us would draw the line of division at different characteristics. I would pick and choose those that apply to me, whether masculine or feminine.
Ah, I can agree with us not being able to choose the intensity of our emotional being, only to the extent that we are , I feel born with it. But what we can choose is how we handle our emotions. I choose to control mine. I am like you, a very empathetic being,( Ahzz calls me Dianna Troy) which I think enables me to feel my emotions with much more intensity. I had to learn at a very young age how to control and deal with my very nasty temper. I also had to learn how to use a kind of sheilding when I am around others. I find that with this sheilding, I am able to help much better that I could if I allowed myself to feel everything as intensely as I am able to. I also find I am much happier. I am still learning how to deal with stress and my ability to feel others. It hasn't been easy, but I am slowly but surely getting a handle on it. I can see where you are coming from, but I feel that all humans share the same characteristics, outside of the physical. I consider myself an androgenous being. I share all of the "male" traits assigned to that gender. All humans have the capacity to be strong, dominant, powerful, passionate, emotional, caring, sensitive, sympathetic, empathetic, sentimental, submissive, intuitive, etc.....
I cry all the time, over about anything that makes me sad. Yet Vicky proposed I can't know those feelings because I am born a man and don't have a desire to become a woman fulltime. This might sound personal, but I know it's not. I don't feel I belong to the group Vicki mentioned.
Ah, you are also as sentimental as I am. This is another area I had to work hard to gain some control over. In other words, I choose how I want to feel at any given point in time. I know, it sounds like a weird concept, but once you learn how to control your emotions, it doesn't seem so odd. I wish I could remember who said this, "He who angers me, controls me". Ok, now I truly feel that all beings share the whole wide range of emotions. We all feel, saddness, joy, love, lust, jealousy, fear, anger, worry...Emotions are not gender specific. Alas, society has put gender labels on those as well.
I have talked about my wife, and I being ashamed to be seen with her these past many years because she has no desire to be "feminine".
She is not a passive submissive woman, so then what? She is not a woman and can never know what it is like to be a woman?
Let's see....I am a woman and I can't tell you what it is like to be female. I can only explain what it is like to be a human being. I LOOK like a woman so I get the female gender tag. I feel that it is only my physical appearance and my sexual organs that differentiate me from "male" humans.
I think our feedom will happen when as others here have said, including the last message by Jassmine that we are all humans together on this planet just trying to make our way. I would be the happiest if I weren't singled out as a cross-dresser. I want to be me without hoopla. That I could dress or not, put on heels and go anywhere in "male" clothes, wear steel toed shoes to work and smear on some bright cherry lipstick and eyeshadow, dress to the nines and go with my wife for a Friday night dinner, without my wife fearing what people would label me as. My wife without fear of how people will view her being with me all these years knowing I am a cross-dresser.
I hear ya! And I am with ya! I think the world would be a much more joyous place if everyone could just be who they are. I fear though, society is a ways away from this. People always have and always will fear what is different. How we overcome that fear is a question, I have no answer for.
We are trained by parents (not all parents), schools, churches, relatives, ethnic groups, work places, governments, our friends, our social groups that we are not ok as we are. WE MUST ALWAYS CONFORM, to the stereotype or we are outcast. We must conform or we will be alone or we can form our own group as we have done here.
Saddly, you are right about this. I was very fortuante that my parents didn't try to help make me fit in. They allowed me to climb trees and play with army men. I didn't get dolls for Christmas, I got games and puzzles. I guess they weren't sure what I would like, but they were on the money with what they did get me. In other words, they let me be me. I have raised my daughter the same way. She is her own person and I respect that.
Ethnic cleansing, bigotry, racism, sexism all stem from our definitions we create. A forceful woman is a bitch, a forceful man is an alpha male -desired by all those submissive woman. A man who prefers to discuss and negotiate rather than use muscles or superior position in the social strata is a sissy or a damn woman. A woman that appears male is a dyke. A man that appears feminine is a puff or a pervert or is gay trolling for another man.
You are right on the mark again. Myself, I would get the 'bitch" label. And I am proud to be a "bitch". Why? It is only a label and seeing as that label supposedly describes a woman who is strong and not afraid to stand up for what she believs in, I take pride in being that kind of woman. Labels are just that, a tag assigned to a person that is not understood by society. I think that once people get past their fears of being "labeled" they would be much more content. After all, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a name can never hurt me" I also feel that for society to finally start accepting humans as humans, we have to revel in our differences and give society the finger. Sigh....I know much easier said than done. But progress has been made and it CAN be done.
I don't believe any of these are true anymore even though these are what I have absorbed during my life. Until we can embrace differences and uniqueness in us all, we will not be able to embrace the differences in those around us.
RIGHT ON!!!
This discussion has been the best. It has helped me to define myself. In these discussions we are forming the basis for changes in the definitions that seem to control us.
Hugs,
Kersten
*Hugs*
