Man in a dress

[Anonymous]

FTM here, I still have not taken any steps towards a physical transition, but have told my parents of my gender dysphoria. They have….. accepted it to the best of their abilities, let’s just say that.

I have recently stopped going to church as often, another story but relevant to what I’m going to say. My parents still want me to go with them and ask me constantly, and occasionally I will, just to please them. However, church dress requires me to wear a dress or skirt and my parents will not let me go without wearing one.

I know it could be difficult for some of you to imagine, since many of you are MTF and have always desired to wear women’s clothing to fit more with your gender. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, you may understand exactly what I’m talking about, just on the other side of the spectrum. But I want you to try to imagine for a second, being a male, your typical boy, and being forced to wear women’s clothing. How humiliating it is to be forced to wear a dress, how  emasculating it is, how wrong it feels, how it feels like someone violently shoving a square peg into a round hole.  This is what it’s like for me every time my parents ask me to go to church with them. Most of the time in my day to day life I can get away with wearing boys clothes and my parents don’t mind, but at church there is no choice. And they always have such a hard time understanding why I don’t want to go.

I’m sure you have all felt this way in some capacity, even if it’s in the opposite way. Was it ever humiliating for you MTF girls to wear a scruffy pair of work jeans? It’s even embarrassing, even though you know it’s what everyone around you expects. Wearing a dress makes me feel terrible, even when I wear a pair of men’s boxer briefs underneath so no one can tell I’m still wearing men’s clothing, it’s not enough. Even for a few hours during church sessions it’s more than I can bear and by the end of it I’m always in a terrible mood and just want to break down and scream.

My parents try so hard to support and accept me, and I am grateful for that, but they will never understand, and that hurts.

[Karen Michaels]

Son, I understand. It’s the same for us. In fact, I use that very analogy to explain gender dysphoria. I’ve ask my wife if she would consider going to a trans accepting church so I can attend and serve honestly as myself. Unfortunately, she’s not quite ready for that yet. That’s something that you can at least look forward to when you become an adult. In the meantime, maybe you can get away with a kilt. If that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.

 

 

 

[Rüe Ariás]

Hi Xelyn!  I understand your story and dilemma.  I think in this case you might have to sit down with them and compromise.  Maybe tell them you will be there for them, but eventually need to start your physical transition and give them a date and then you can start the countdown.  I know what it feels like to want to do what’s best for everyone around you. The time for you is overdue. Tell them they will notice a big change in your overall happiness. Let them know how healthy it is for you to be the person that has been inside of you all this time.  I pray for you, my friend.  Take care.  BIG HUGS for you!!  Hope this helps. Love, Rue. xx

[𝓜𝒾𝓈𝓈 𝓒𝓁ℴℯ́ 💋💋]

I’m sitting here talking to my daughter about religious traditions and attire is one of them.  Looking a certain way became an issue at my old church.  Fortunately the new leadership was able to win over hearts to understand how that stance was keeping people away who couldn’t even afford to dress the “expected way”.  Clothing standards are a stumbling block any which way you look at it.  Short of indecent exposure or something with hateful language on it, you should be able to wear what you want or in some cases can.

[Tory Bailey]

While I know you wrote this a while ago, I was thinking about it today and wanted to share my thoughts.

Clothing has been an important development on my journey.  Ever since I was young I despised male jeans.  Why I was never sure, whether it was the fact that they hugged my rear in the wrong way, or that I found belts uncomfortable, or that they were too stiff in the crotch and didn’t give me a way to adjust myself when it bothered me.  And it bothered me a lot, but that’s another story.

So I refused to wear jeans in grade school.  I wore shorts as much as possible, and when I couldn’t I wore sweatpants and later windbreaker pants.  And people thought it was weird, and that I looked dirty and poor, but they were the only boy pants I felt comfortable in.

As an adult, I had to start wearing certain pants as a work uniform, and I made myself start wearing jeans to make my wife happy.  But there were still days when my work pants felt so bulky and heavy by the time I got out of work that I had to change into shorts as soon as I got home.

Then came my epiphany, and soon after my wife found she had mistakenly bought herself a pair of jeans that were longs.  She offered them to me and I was happy to try them on.  I couldn’t believe there existed a pair of jeans that ever could feel so comfortable on me.  The softness of the fabric.  The way they conformed to my body.  The way they felt so lightweight.  I never wanted to take them off.  In fact, I insisted on wearing them out of the house.  I have actually gotten in trouble because I will wear them out of the house.  They are still my favorite pair of pants, though I am trying to aquire more.  And I’ve been dying to get a dress, and I feel that younger me would’ve loved to wear dresses over workout pants if they’d tried.  Because I would’ve been plenty free of belts and constrictve clothing.

Now I don’t know how much my preference of women’s clothing to men’s has to do with what gender I identify as, since my discomfort in men’s clothing started long, long before I truly questioned it, but I do understand the idea of not wanting to wear clothing when you’d rather wear something else.  It got so hard for me this past weekend, I couldn’t stand the thought of putting on any pants other than my favorite pair, and I ended up going to the movies in women’s pants.  And my wife’s best friend and her family saw me, and now I need to be a lot more wary of that.

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