Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 22:37:46 -0700
From: Amy Goodloe <agoodloe-AT-women-online.com>
Subject: Re: "My dear, it seems to me that you are in a muddle."


At 8:38 PM -0600 7/8/96, Karen Chapdelaine wrote:
> Why does it seem so "easy" for me, and yet it seems so hard for
> so many of these individuals, most who have never identified
> successfully as male?  If it were such a cakewalk, the decision
> would be made and it would just be.  And yet my friend must
> prove her femaleness to herself over and over, trying to feel "real."
> In fact, her self-doubt undermines her "realness."  I have seen
> most of this in young women as well, but not as pronounced.

Perhaps this has something to do with how you are perceived in the world.
I'm guessing that you are generally perceived as female, and treated
accordingly -- with little to no question ever raised about your gender.  I
will further guess (although I admit to knowing nothing about you) that
your appearance is generally "gender typical," meaning that you don't dress
exclusively in "men's" clothing, wear your hair very short and slicked
back, have visible facial hair, etc.

Women have considerably more freedom than men to dress in "gender neutral"
clothing, but if you combine a "man's" suit with a "man's" haircut, and a
somewhat butch demeanor, but have visible breasts or makeup, you are, I
would wager, significantly more likely to attract negative attention for
being of an unidentifiable gender.  And if this attire and demeanor is what
comes "easily" to you, what suits your personality more than, say, dresses
or long hair, then you will undoubtedly have some issues about feeling like
a "real woman" b/c the world won't perceive or treat you as such.

I know countless butch women who have spent most of their lives wondering
if indeed they "are" women, b/c they so don't identify with everything
typically considered female -- they don't have the same feelings, the same
desires, the same wardrobe as the women that are paraded in front of them,
on TV, in movies, in magazines, as symbols of what "woman" is.  Yet these
are women (i.e., they're not men mistaken for women: they're not FTM
transsexuals), although the culture they live in repeatedly asks them to
"prove" that they're women (I have one friend who often has to flash her
breasts at little old ladies to prove she's in the right bathroom).

And this same culture asks the same of anyone who claims to be "woman,"
whether it's an adolescent girl or an MTF transsexual.  If you pass easily
as a "woman" chances are good that you don't have the same questions about
your gender that others do, that you don't have the same need to "prove"
your woman-ness, both to yourself and to the world around you.  The MTF TS
women I know who pass most easily as women are significantly more
comfortable with their femaleness, for example, than many of the butch
women I know.

I've been lurking on this list for a while and am really enjoying it, and
didn't really intend to speak up but the post above just caught my
attention -- at a moment when I had some free time!  My knowledge of french
feminism is not vast, however, so I will probably happily return to lurking!

--Amy

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