Does anyone else have or had a problem creating and maintaining a female self image in your mind? I can barely do it if at all, and it can be a little distressing. I can only see myself as the overly masculine body that I currently have.
I’m not on HRT nor presenting as a woman in public. Maybe if I was my self image would change?
Thank you for sharing that. I don’t have anything useful to contribute, but I felt compelled to say that sharing that part of yourself is a very wonderful thing. It certainly gave me a glimpse into a lived experience that is very hard to really put myself into beyond an intellectual level. I felt what you said in a way I haven’t before. That’s a beautiful and powerful thing.
So, again, thank you.
that’s so sweet of you- I have so much more to say about this topic, and what I wrote was an embarrassing mind dump rather than an organized piece of prose.
I actually have poetry I wrote I could share, sometimes I feel they say more for me than my prose can.
If you have any questions anytime my inbox is open, btw - I’m a pretty open book and like thinking things through, so ask me anything, really.
EDIT: here is some of my shitty poetry, it’s meant to convey the idea, it’s meant to be practical that way rather than primarily good poetry.
I am some kind of woman the aspirational kindHow does estrogen feel like a crackling TV fuzz bubble wrap circling your breasts and hips more a kind of awareness than a sensation a spotlight an irrational happiness a full-body smile“Gender identity”
Hidden from the senses Inferred shadows Constraining, defining, shaping Without a trace Like water wondering about the shape of a bowlGender
A story of you Told by others Repeated and retold to yourself Weaving fact and fiction Ever changing and immutableWomanhood
A lie concealing The sublimeTrans woman A disciple of womanhoodWoman in their eyes Why not mine Gender outside me Trying to find the door To let it insideI think you underestimate your “eye” for poetry.
How does estrogen feel like a crackling TV fuzz bubble wrap circling your breasts and hips more a kind of awareness than a sensation a spotlight an irrational happiness a full-body smile
That one in particular, that’s some good shit right there. Evocative, descriptive, emotionally honest. I’d be proud of that one if I had written it. It paints and feeling with words and that is what poetry does best.
I personally dig simple, short poetry anyway. It’s harder to pull off, but when it works, it hits harder. Yours work, at least that’s these do.