Dear Gabi,
I’m having issues with Girls. I feel a lot of envy towards Girls, and it often leaves me feeling so upset I can’t focus on anything else. I feel teased whenever I see a pretty Girl walking down the hall, or come up to talk with me. It gets so bad sometimes I end up feeling really awful about myself.
I don’t want to feel this way about Girls. I know they aren’t teasing me, but I can’t help but feel inferior. Please help!
-Bennie
Dear Bennie,
I understand the feeling – it happens to me, too. When a beautiful woman catches my eye, I both admire her beauty and experience a sense of jealousy. “Why can’t I be that beautiful?”, I ask myself. What a strange sensation, to feel attracted to and envious of a woman at the same time. It’s not something I let get to me, though.
More than just a silver lining
There is a deeper level of awareness many trans folk experience because of our own gift of femininity. We have the capacity to experience thoughts, feelings, emotions, and understanding on a level that non-trans folk are generally unaware. What you do with that experience is up to you. Since you do have a choice, why not choose to see it as a positive thing? For starters, you’ll be able to relate to a potential romantic interest on a deeper level that is inaccessible to most men. Women often pick up on these things, and consequently experience a stronger love connection. That’s certainly a benefit in my book.
Reality check, and refocus attention
Women aren’t flaunting their beauty just to upset those of us who long to be beautiful ourselves. The next time you catch yourself feeling jealous because you see a pretty girl, pause for a moment and just be mindful of those thoughts. The thoughts may be there, but they do not embody who you are – they’re just passing thoughts. It may sound a little odd, but it’s true. Just be mindful of them and listen, but only for a brief moment. Then center yourself back into the reality of now. Take a moment to focus on where you are. Notice your surroundings – the ground beneath your feet, the sky above, or ceiling, buildings, etc. Look at the colors, textures, and fine details of objects in your immediate vicinity. Mentally recite to yourself what you see in as much detail as possible. Pay attention to where you are and regain conscious thought of the “here and now”. If the gloomy duet of jealousy and envy start singing their depressing tune in your mind, then wash, rinse, repeat – center yourself again using the same technique.
Be good to yourself
There’s nothing to be envious of. Enjoy and admire all the beautiful women who pass by. Be in the moment, though. Don’t allow envy or jealousy to overwhelm you – they’re just thoughts, nothing more. Remain centered, practice focusing on the here and now, and let go of that which serves no purpose other than to ensnare you in your own mental trappings.
When you get better at turning off the thoughts and tuning into now, you’ll have an easier time with things. The sight of a beautiful woman will produce less envy and more opportunity. The opportunity to maybe engage her in a pleasant conversation, consider incorporating something about her look into your own style, or just take in the sight of her beauty and appreciate the moment.
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- Crossdressing Myths & Misconceptions
Dear Bennie i know exactly how you feel on this issue and i feel the same way when i see a absoutly amazingly pretty girl walk by and as gabi said i admire her beauty but also i feel Jelously towards her for her beauty because what i wouldnt give to be able to be that beautiful
But i found that if you let small things like that bother you then your gonna end up sitting in your house driving yourself absoutly crazy because the worst thng about feelings like envy and jelously is that after some time if you let them bother you for so long then eventually they will overcome you and thats really not a good thing to have happen (speaking from personal experiance)
just as long as you find beauty in youself that is all that matters i mean who cares about anyone else in the world the only one who needs to think you are beautiful is you and as long as you like the way you look and think that you yourself look beautiful then your all set to go and all those other opinions dont mean a damn thing
Bennie, you are not alone.
Besides the complete survival guide from Gabi, I may try to make you understand why that jealousy happen. That happens simply because you want to be that girl. All we want is to break free from all this chains that society lock us in: to have a penis you got to wear certain clothes and act certain way we don’t want to. You do not envy the beauty of that girl, you envy her ability or her authorization to be that gorgeous. But you can’t. But there is an way out. Look at those pretty girls in a different way, look at them as a good reference for what you want to be, and as a goal of beauty and style. And if possible, praise them: using words to show your admiration and in thought you may think “besides all I am saying, the freedom you have to look like this anywhere you want”. And, as soon as possible, use the learning of the observed style (in clothes, makeup, gestures, accessories, shoes, …) in yourself. What you are going to see in the mirror is a beauty girl, a girl that you would envy on streets.
This discussion is SO timely for me. I identify with the jealousy completely, but I would not limit it to seeing just a pretty girl. For me, it’s all females. If I let myself go, I can make myself miserable and depressed, which happens alot. I know this is bad for me, but lately I’ve been isolating myself in my apartment for days on end because of just this problem (I am now retired and have this luxury). I don’t want to go out because, most likely, I will have to deal with the feelings of jealousy and that feeling of deprivation,ie, why her and not me? Why did she get to be born female and not me? It’s not fair! You all know the thought process. So anyway, my gender dysphoria has been in overdrive for over 8 months now and it seems to be getting worse and worse. I’m stuck here in downtown Berlin, Germany, so it’s impossible to find anyone to talk to. Thanks for letting me vent. Allison
You know me from before, so you know my support for crossedressing, not only because it’s nice and creative, but cause as I am civil enough to support and respect individual expressions even if I didn’t share them, I’d expect any self entitled civil person to do the same: you don’t like crossdressing, you don’t like a personal style? Not only tolerate it, but respect it, like I do.
That said these feelings are comprehensible, sometimes looks like the role of the men has been relatively uncreative and overly serious and plain for decades, especially between roughly 1900 and 1957 (when Elvis started to ensue). Then things started and are slowly changing.
To me the most obvious obstacles to “prettyness” (not necessarily beauty, not in both cases) are baldness and abdominal fat, the first not necessarily giving a bad look, especially with the right head shape, that sadly is not guaranteed, but removing an entire gamma of choice of looks, it removes the ambiguity and the “femininity” a little, though many women look good with short hair or bald heads. The abdominal fat, especially if too androgenetic (aka with still thin legs) sounds like a giveaway of “mean” masculinity.
Too long intro, to say how does the disphoria is not always the case, and how the spectrum of CD just like that of homo is very variable.
It might be a “straight based” disphoria though, that bias some of you into thinking you couldn be pretty in your male image, maybe just cause you love girls so much. You neatly separate your male image from your female image, without the stylish in betweens I have talked of previously. Let’s say that my point is that to me a boy can use makeup, paint his nails or experiment crossressing accessories as part of his style, to look good as a boy, to incorporate cathartic rituals so far typical of girls, i dunno, rockstars did it and some pulled it off nicely. Some things look nice regardless of the gender wearing it. Even if probably depends on the image the male in question built of himself through the years, sometimes there is a very hard gaze, a rugged image, and too much of a stereotyped fantasy image of a girl in lingerie and belted stocking, but his male image haven’t worked in style remainind relaxed, as if nothing good can be worn by them, not knowing how to dress. I sometimes picture the extreme of the 50 something man either in tank top and in slacks or in lingerie and an exagerate wig while in drag. obv no offence in this image it is just for helping you to get my point.
I think many of “you” maybe have a strict male image, that’s my hypothesis.