On breasts, and not wanting them, and gender issues

[violsva]

So on most days I am mostly female. The amount of "mostly" varies. And then there are days like today, when I woke up okay but felt vaguely wrong between my legs, and then this afternoon read some stuff about boundaries and thought about a very mild incidence of boundary-crossing last night and was suddenly horribly aware of my breasts.

Yesterday I was perfectly happy in a lacy purple camisole and a men's button-down shirt. Today I've bound my chest but kept on the women's t-shirt saying "Don't be trashy, recycle." I look like a guy borrowing his sister's clothes and man, am I happy with that.

I've always been uncomfortable with my (D cup, gah) breasts, but the rest of this only showed up later. I've been having increasing gender identity questions for the last five years. But most of that time I was female with occasional switches into androgyny, while in the last six months or so I can sometimes ignore it but mostly my femininity is noticeable and makes me uncomfortable.

But it's a physical thing, not really a social one. I'm okay with presenting as female (usually butch, but female) and people treating me as female so long as they aren't trying to hit on me.* It's mainly just my body that's giving me issues. This doesn't seem like it should make sense.

My psychiatrist reminds me of my mother, and is clearly Christian, so I have not been comfortable even bringing up my sexuality with her. Which is fine for someone I mostly need for prescription writing purposes, but if this keeps up I might look into counseling, I guess?


*So far as I know, women don't hit on me. But I'm really bad at recognizing flirting, so I wouldn't know if they have been. I would probably be perfectly fine with it if they did, even though I really don't like when men do it. But, you know, I'm not interested in men right now, so that's reasonably logical.

Discussion of gender identity and body dysphoria above.

That's about as far as I've got, here.

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

I spent years thinking my only issues with gender were social, which is kind of funny when you take into account the fact that the first real sign that this was going to be a thing for me was the absolute horror I felt regarding the approach of puberty.

On a scale from "fun" to "miserable", I think I would rate gender identity questions "unquestionably very interesting, and yet not so enjoyable that I would mind having an answer someday, or indeed, right now". If you feel similarly, much sympathy -- and sympathy also on the dysphoria and the less-than-comfortable psychiatrist situation.

[violsva]

I would hate being treated like a girl in a more sexist society, but I've managed to avoid the worst parts of that. Or not notice them; I can be pretty socially oblivious at times. So I'm okay with being treated like a person who is female. But on the other hand I really like it on the rare occasions when someone mistakes me for a man, so what do I know?

An answer would be nice, yes. I'm so used to trying to figure out things about my brain on my own, but I have noticed recently that talking about it is useful. Thanks so much for the sympathy, and the same back.

[brynplusplus]

You may, or may not, find this of interest: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22364652

Our Sean has this, but being a many makes it much more difficult to know what happens in the brain.

[violsva]

You know, I don't normally put mush stock in left-right brain theories, but if VS Ramachandran does i may have to reconsider that. That's really interesting, thanks!

[brynplusplus]

You are quite welcome. Yes, it is the Ramachandran that made me take it more seriously.

And do let me know if you would rather I did not comment on the old entries.