Hi Darlene!!!
Bushong's comments do indeed apply to me. First, I have always been "me". I do not have a male side and a fem. side, I am just me. But I started building a "male" presence to interact with the world when I was in elementary school for my protection in school and to avoid, I don't know, aviod disappointing the expectations of my family? Did you know even families can be blind? The costs of a male personality projection can be high, very high, for a TG.
In my early years in that school I was called a sissy more than once, as I preferred being around girls (and at that age they would let me), did not care for the pickup games of sports, though I would play at some of the imagination games like Cowboys and Rustlers and "War", but was relatively uncomfortable with the roughness and attitudes that were expressed by the boys. Did not like to wrestle, or try my strength against my "peers" (very primate behavior, that, just watch young baboon and chimp males) and came to not like being touched by them. I had to protect myself by building a mask, and that is how I thought of it, and I did this very deliberately, watching other people and picking and choosing things that I could live with. When you have to do this so deliberately, you have insights into human actions and behavior that others your age never have, and sometimes never develop.
As I got older and entered highschool, I knew I was lying about myself, and because I was and am very aware of who I am, and I am basically honest, I found I couldn't project attitudes and feelings too much at odds with mine (I felt I would go crazy if I tried). I found I could use smiles and good humor, project an open and accepting attitude toward people when they approached me ( both of which are true parts of me), but never felt confidence enough in the effectiveness of that personality to do the approaching. That by itself wasn't nearly enough. I deliberately selected non confrontational body language, and often just "had nothing to say" if I felt a bit uncomfortable and left the scene if I got too uncomfortable. I was never a leader, never a follower, just had to sit on the edges on the outside and fade into the background. Others I have read about had full highschool careers, playing sports, dating, all the other highschool things, but that was not me. I had to learn to not touch. I have always been a "patter", on the shoulder or back to reassure someone, and just for the human contact that we all crave but so often do not get, and that was not acceptable in highschool in boy social order, and is not in a work environment largely either.
I learned the walk, to lead with the chin and shoulders, and to let the shoulders swing slightly, elbows out, but not to swagger (aggressive posture, attracts unwanted potential violence) and to sit and stand so as to take up space, and essentially project a personal space boundary (very male primate behavior
), but not to the extent of aggressiveness. That, by the way, is a fine line sometimes. Pitch your voice low, make as much a rumble out of it as possible, and guard against exuberance, and don't show soft feelings, and most of all don't ever let them make you cry. Learn to "close up", to make your face show the expression of teens that is impasive, non revealing, and in some instances sends the message "don't bother me right now, I'm thinking or in a bad mood". That was around male peers and male teachers.
I was more relaxed around a group of girls, and women, in fact I was pathetically happy when I could be, but even there I was never part of the group, only there for some purpose, but even that was better than nothing at all. But still had to project that sense of personal distance to help protect myself. It would have been all too easy to let down that defense completely in that company, and then I would have completely been undone, exposed and I had already learned that was not something that would have been acceptable. I even had to keep up the mask, mainly by withdrawing behind it, around my family, and that was hard. Have I told you families are blind to what they don't want to see in their offspring?
I took refuge as often as possible in books, retreating behind them so I did not have to interact, taking pressure off the mask, and I would put my entire attention in them and lose myself in them. Sometimes I wasn't even reading, but was thinking instead, just had the book open so I could have an excuse to not participate in, well, whatever! I also had to learn to "laugh" at sad parts of a movie, and more than once I was glad it was dark in the movie theatre as that part of the projection didn't work alot of the time. Ever tried to laugh scornfully through tears? Not easy! But don't ever let them see you cry!
By college, and in part as a result of working in public in a grocery store, I had things down pretty well. I achieved a minimalist male mask that minimumized the lies I needed in order to display behaviors that allowed people to accept me the way that made them comfortable. There were attitudes I could express (whether I believed them or not), gestures I could use, manner of walking that would vibe male and had become almost second nature, and even though I knew keenly that I was lying when I projected male, it was necessary to my continued good health and family and social relations. You learn to project confidence so you can get work, for example.
But there were boundaries I could never cross. Things like I never even tried to establish any dating relationships, as that would compound the lie beyond my ability to accept; and on more than one occasion, while having essentially been forced by circumstances to be in a male group in a typical male situation (group showers in boot camp; with a group that starts flirting with girls in a blatent way, often lying through their teeth, and that made me uncomfortable; at a bar in Japan, the Phillipenes and Hong Kong where there were "bar girls" to "drink and socialize with" who also had a second career or sideline and were aggressive in trying to ply it) where I was acutely uncomfortable, and I would use various strategums, often flimsy even to my ears, to get myself away from the situation. I was vulnerable at those times, and though it might not be remarked on, it was noticed by several of my peers, as you could clealy see by the looks of confusion on their faces.
Certain situations of built-in social expectations, like when I was in the military with a uniform, or in my work role as the "authority" or "team leader", makes it easier to function in that the mask doesn't have to be so complete. I think that is one reason that TG people are often in places like the military, police and firefighters, as it gives them a masculine image, an immediacy of identity, and an opportunity to take risks and appear macho. Risk taking hobbies, racing motorcycles, parachuting, are also macho activities that can reinforce the role.
This got longer than I intended, and I don't have time to edit it down. Looking back over what I have written, in a somewhat disjointed way, as long as there are certain parameters (professional position, attitudes and expressions of male behavior) where people can see and interpret what they expect to see in a "male personality", it is possible to be accepted as male. The costs can be high. I have always held back from the more intimate sorts of relationships and friendships that might reveal too much. The lack of that kind of closeness has always been a part of my costs.
But remember that behind the mask, TG people always have the sense of just being themselves, no matter who that may be.
---TC
