I posted the following in response to a query about whether we can be ‘upbeat’ about the gender we were assigned at birth – and if perhaps we could, whether it might not make things easier for our partners.

I had a good male role model. Dad is pretty well balanced – no over the top macho crap, but a good representative ‘man’/father/husband/etc… In many respects, I am much like him: my views on family / raising children / my work ehtic – all from him. And, as a husband and father, I have very much succeeded in being a ‘man’ like him. But there has been this undercurrent of dissatisfaction with it all. I know how to do it – ‘be’ a man – but it just doesn’t resonate for me. All of my qualities I attribute to my father are as important for women as for men – important for any person in fact. But the role of ‘man’ in society is so much more than an handful of personality traits and that’s where the rub is.

For reasons which our limited language will not allow me to articulate, ‘man’ simply doesn’t work for me. I silently cringe just a bit when the label in used in reference to me. It carries assumptions about me which are not correct. It positions me in society in a place where I do not see myself. It sets up expectations which I am not able to fulfill – to myself or to others. It implys I’m something which I am not.

I don’t ‘hate’ the idea of being a man: it’s just not something I can rally behind – at least for me. That trying to ‘be a man’ has caused the conflict in my life that it has, I cannot be ‘upbeat’ about having been gendered as such.

Perhaps, for those who identify as ‘only crossdressers’ (what that actually means is questionable) it is possible for them to embrace being a ‘man’ and I can see where that would be reassuring to their partners. However, I question whether people who are ‘more’ TG are able to honestly make that claim.