i don't know what women are. do any of you?

Please don't feel like a freak OP.
I don't think people generally go around "feeling" like women or men do they (just know logically what they are) unless it's brought to their attention in a social setting, they're thinking about the ways they fit into their gender role or when thinking about their bodies? I could be wrong of course.

The third gender stuff...it isn't a third gender really is it, if you just allow some people to perform the opposite gender role. It's not a seperate category with different rules than men and women.

I feel like a woman.

I can't put my finger on why. I don't have children yet, so I haven't done pregnancy or birth or breastfeeding. My periods are medically stopped, so I pretty much do nothing biologically that a woman does... But I do feel like one.

It just feels like an awareness, I think. I am aware that I am a woman. I don't know where it came from or when but I can't remember ever not having it.

I don't know if that helps you, OP.

I don't go around feeling womanly all day, or anything like that, although I get biologically influenced woman-feelings such as PMS, the desire to bear a child, breastfeed etc. There are things that annoy me about being perceived as a woman, but those tend to be due to prejudiced about what women are like rather than because the idea of being a woman is alien to me. My trans friends mostly talk about a huge feeling if wrongness about the make/femaleness of their body rather than the per options that go along with that, and they don't really behave vastly differently since they transitioned in any significant way. So to me, feeling like a woman means nit really having to think about it all that much because it's a label that feels fairly accurate.

I suspect there are lots of people who don't strongly identify with their socially-ascribed gender, and don't hate the thought of being the opposite sex. Gender is made into a much bigger thing than it would probably be if not for the weight of history and tradition.

Not finding it goady OP. You don't sound confused or conflicted, just that you see the gap between being the individual you are, and belonging to a social construct of 'woman'? I know that, when I am left to my own devices, I feel I am inside my head looking out. But when I am dealing with other people, I am more conscious of myself from the outside - from their viewpoint - so as 'a woman' and all that that entails. Don't know if many men feel this? They may well do.

My initial thought was that of EleanorHandbasket - which I think is fair enough as there have been many bunfights discussions on that area. However it is good that you have clarified and I think MN should keep it, it's interesting.

Well if this isn't a thinly veiled anti trans post then I apologise.

But that's what it reads as, the whole 'I don't feel like a woman despite being one so perhaps I'm not' is very standard anti trans rhetoric.

Especially what with it being in FWR.

If you've got most of the relevant body parts and live as a woman and have had children etc then it's fairly safe to assume you are a woman. Hth.

Did you look up genderqueer/non-binary? Did that fit with how you feel?

YY, GoshAnne - and the Fa'afafine of Samoa, boys who are brought up as girls and are seen as a third gender.

I dream very vividly and very lucidly, and remember my dreams very clearly. On several occasions I have dreamt that I was a man - including having a functioning penis (yes, the dreams may have involved sex at some point ). In these dreams I have behaved in ways that I would not do in normal life - slightly differently from my normal personality- but I have no sense at all of 'feeling like a man' in the dream. I acknowledged that I was a man, but didn't 'feel' any differently than how I do when I am dreaming in my actual persona. I certainly didn't feel any discomfort or revulsion at having male genitalia. This probably proves absolutely nothing at all, but like the OP, means I really struggle to understand how you can 'feel' like a woman or a man.

Chibi, you are not a freak. You are you. You don't need to get this deleted because one poster has been rude about your post - it has opened up an interesting line of thought for the rest of us.

I've got nothing to add so far, but am really enjoying the way this discussion is going so far.

I think it is interesting in other societies where they have third (or more) genders, I.e hijras in Pakistan or where people can choose to be seen as another gender, like the Sworn Virgins of Albania who took a vow and dressed and were treated as men.

Generally I don't feel especially 'womanish', though nor do I feel 'mannish'. I'm glad of my breasts and uterus as I plan to use them for growing and feeding babies, but that doesn't have much impact on my currently childless life.

Thinking about it, I don't particularly like the idea of looking in the mirror and seeing a man, whereas seeing a blond or black woman would be odd but not unpleasant. I don't know whether that's innate or some internalised 'men and women are fundamentally different' rhetoric.

I'd go with assuming I am, based partly on morphology and biological function and partly on societal response to me in general.

I agree OP. I don't recognise any feeling in myself that I would characterise as 'feeling like a woman'. I think the only thing that comes close for me is a biological urge to bear and nurse a baby. I know that it is not a strong a feeling for me as some women - it has only been a physical feeling for me on a couple of occasions.

I also wonder how much of this is an actual 'woman feeling', as I know that my DH actually feels a desire to create and nurture a child. Do we have the same feeling, but are just able to express it and connect it to our bodies in different ways? Or is it actually a different feeling?

My friend, who is biologically unable to become pregnant, also says that she has feel the same urge, both before and after she became aware that she could not become pregnant.

The only other times I really feel aware of my gender is situations like when I am walking alone at night, or competing against men at sport. That is obviously a social construct, or a recognition of different body morphology.