Hi Lisa,
For a late in life Transitioner like myself,there will inevitably be something of the past that remains with you.As the anonymous replier says this is something that cannot be denied.-denial is a major feature of a Transgendererd persons existence. Personally there was a point in time when I could only go forward with my life by not denying that I am a Transexual.Its undeniable that as a M2F Transexual there I will have been both Psychological and Physiological imprinted ,whether its testosterone, or the male heirachy taunts "go rattle his cage" or society expectations men work and do wars , women have babies..I found that the mindfull approach is useful for dealing with this situation. Yeah I can chop wood , etc but its just to get fuel for the burner not as a male expression.Sometimes I think there is a bit of "Theatrical excess movement " in the Male Mode.
So to the Question "Do transgender women feel masculine or male at times?"
Answer: I feel the effect of past memories,and and cannot deny some of my physical features as more male, but nearly all of the time I am looking forward as Donna and feeling that way.Its okay to have a sense of being able to look back , but knowing you can control your own life to go forward in the direction you feel is right.
Hi Lisa,
Guess we we are all works in Progress ;-),-I often think its a shame that some people and parts of society dont get this and would prefer to stop progressing and remain in the past.For me being Transgendered as a Transexual is declaring that I dont want to progress along a path determined by other peoples expectations of me as male.The biggest thing in a transgendered person is getting that space and time to develop and express yourself to counteract what for me was the false imposition of birth Gender.Must get on today I got of work to do , garden harvest of plums,gooseberries and beans to process ,House work and making a water feature sculpture [Art Commision].
As far as the gray area goes, I know sometimes I've questioned myself being bigender. I'm either one extreme or the other in that case. I guess I would put it as, I mentioned how there was one guy I was willing to be a girl for. Well, that girl side of me was pretty much house-wife material. (Ugh....) Whereas my male side is all masculine and would want his girl to be feminine. I often questioned if me being bigender was actually a split personality, but it wasn't. (At least, I wasn't diagnosed as such).
I agree with Donna that we're all works in progress. I keep working towards being "man enough" but I'm not sure when or if I'll actually get there.
The only case I can think of as far as me wanting to be "woman enough" is with sibling rivalry and breast size way back before I came out as trans. Always wanting to look absolutely perfect like the people I saw online. Of course, coming out as a transman, I realized that bigger breasts are the last thing I want lol.