A Tale of Two Threads (What the Dickens???)

Hi, Guys and Girls!

This isn’t really a proper thread—which isn’t to say it’s an improper one. I’m not that kind of girl. What it is is an analysis of two threads that were started recently on this forum:

[1] “How far will you go to be feminine?”, started by Katie Barns on 19th April, here:

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...to-be-feminine.

and [2] “Do you want to be a girl or just look like one?”, started by Kate Simmons on 21st April, here:

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...-look-like-one.

I was interested in these two threads for this reason: one member on this forum informs us from time to time that she’s worked with lots of TG people, and in her experience all CDers in their heart of hearts really want to transition.

These two threads basically address this question: do CDers really want to be women? I looked at the replies given on these threads and kept score. When asked whether or not they want to be women, what did our members say?

One difficulty with keeping score was that not everyone gave a clear “Yes” or “No” answer to the question asked. You’d have to read their reply carefully and try and judge their intent. In certain cases, in reading a reply I found it impossible to judge the respondant’s intent. So I simply ignored that reply. But obviously, this procedure would leave room for disagreement, and if someone else wanted to go back and do their own analysis of these threads, they might come up with somewhat different results than I got.

But to look at the threads individually:

[1] Katie asked the question, “If you could take a magic pill that would turn you into a woman, would you take it?” There were 44 more or less clear replies to this question, which I divided into four categories:

(1) Those who declared they wouldn’t take it. (16 people gave this answer, which works out to 36.3 %.)
(2) Those who said that perhaps they would, or perhaps they would have at some time in the past, but who found good reason not to do so at present. (4 replies, 9.1%.)
(3) Those who said they definitely would, or definitely would have at some time in the past, were it not for circumstances which ruled it out. (8 replies, 18.2%.)
(4) Those who declared they certainly would take it. (16 replies, 36.3%.)

To give you an example of the sort of judgement calls I made: a few people said they’d take the pill, if there were a second pill that would change them back to male when they wanted. I judged these people to be replying “No, they wouldn’t take the pill.” Firstly, because Katie wasn’t offering them a second pill, but secondly, because they wanted to be “part-time women”, and there’s no such thing. A woman is a woman full-time. There’s no switching back and forth.

At any rate we see that 36% declared they would take the pill. We might have a case for lumping in the Category 3’s with the Category 4’s. We could construe their replies as meaning that in their heart of hearts they really would like to be women. And this is what Our Beloved Member is claiming—that CDers really want to be women. But even if we lump the two together, we still only get 54.5% saying they’d like to be women—which is hardly all CDers.

[2] Kate asked the question, “Do you want to be a girl or just look like one?” There was a greater response to her thread (94 replies that I could score), perhaps because the magic pill question has been asked before and perhaps some people who’d previously answered the question didn’t bother to answer it again.

At any rate, I again divided the replies into four categories:

(1) Those who said they only wanted to look like a girl. (46 replies, 48.9%.)
(2) Those who said that perhaps they would like to be a girl but would settle for looking like one. (6 replies, 6.4%.)
(3) Those who said they would like to be a girl but would settle for looking like one. (14 replies, 14.9%.)
(4) Those who said they wanted to be a girl. (28 replies, 29.8%.)

Only 30% clearly said they wanted to be a girl. However, again, I think there’s a case for combining categories 3 and 4, since in many cases those who said they’d “settle for” looking like a girl only said so because given their circumstances, actually being a girl was out of the question. And again Our Beloved Member was claiming that in our hearts we want to be girls. So combine the two, and we still have only just under 45% who want to be girls.

One person who replied to Kate’s thread stated that her question was the one that would divide the forum into two camps—and she was right about that. We see that those who replied to either of these two questions pretty well divided down the middle. To be a girl or be a happily CDing man—we split pretty evenly on that question.

So I think we can safely say that these two threads refute the claim made by Our Beloved Member to the effect that all CDers really wish to be women. Only about half of them do—on this forum, at any rate.

Best wishes, Annabelle

This is definitely an "Irish" thread.
I think everyone needs to read the original post carefully before replying.
In my own humble opinion, when people reply to a post they are already biased one way or the other.
To wet my finger and put it in the air about 50% are happy as they are but if you put the squeeze on them and look at the practcalities of the situation only about 30% would want to transition. It is a bit hard to change lifestyle if you have not been practicing it for a considerable time.
The intersexed and transgendered population is probably about 5%. Those that are young and have strong desires for change would be about another 5%.
So I would say that about 15% of people here would seriously undergo a change.
I personally would not, but I know 2 girls that made the correct decision 25 years ago and they are very happy.
A couple of others I know still have a masculine physique and are moderately happy. Mostly because of their appearance they do have down days.
Now I have sounded off I will print the post out and digest it properly.

Interesting statistics and thanks for all your hard work. I think I know which member you are talking about and in her defense, she has stated several times that she does not think that "all" CD's want to transition. However, what I think eventually bothers "most" people is that she loves to regularly drop her statements like that and on other topics into interesting threads to see what type of reaction she can get out of all the rest of us. Stating that she is here only for the fun of it, I think she also likes to create her own fun, sometimes at the expense of the innocent looking for support and not sarcastic tough love.

Being one of the ones that clearly stated she would rather be a girl. [And one who started one of the original threads], I didn't do an analysis of the responses. I am glad someone did. Thanks. I remember that there were quite a few that said they would but their life is already set and they would not hurt the ones they love by changing.

Maybe the question should have been worded differently like; 'would you rather have been born a female' and only accept yes or no answers. That might give us a clearer idea of the percentage.

But if that percentage was born female would they understand what they have. Since most cross-dressers have both a male and female side would these GG's have a male side emerge to still be TG and cross-dresses as male. Of course as Sheldon [big bang theory] would say, that's just a different universe.

Now I am thinking to much and have given myself a headache. :)

Wow, this certainly settles my question as to if anyone looks at this stuff, especially if the issue is presented in a slightly different way. I did want to find out if other folks were willing to share their real feelings on this, sometimes it's hard to draw that stuff out because we seem to be surrounded by the "glitter" part of it and not too many folks really express their deep feelings.

From my perspective, it's doesn't really matter what "cards" we were dealt as far as physicality, it's what we do with what we have to work with and what we learn about ourselves and others along the way. Human dynamics are by far the most complex and by far the most misunderstood as we all tend to make assumptions about things and people. The easy way of course is to simply just ask, but it seems we are not designed that way and need to go the long way around the building to get to the corner.

My bottom line and intent by asking these thinking questions is to demystify all of this and make it easier to be accepting of ourselves and others. If we were all the same it would be one hell of a boring world, no? I thrive on diversity myself as the key to it all is really personal choice. We need to take responsibility for our choices and live with the results.That doesn't mean we cannot have fun being who we are though. I was well pleased with all of the thoughtful responses to that thread my friends. Carry on. ;):)

If the drawing was from a random sample of CDers and there was no real preference, fifty percent would have said yes and fifty percent would have said no. Or possibly, one third yes, one third no, and one third undecided. Considering the bias in the sample, it still comes close to the random results.

Interesting analysis Annabelle, but you couldn't compensate for biased data - as you clearly knew already. If I'd known, perhaps I would have weighed in - but I've tired of the topics in the posts already, so chose to ignore. I suspect that many of those in the 'no' category have similarly tired of these questions and are more likely than the 'yes' crowd to weigh in, but have no data to back that hypothesis either. Still, I appreciate the work you went to and find it somewhat thought-provoking.

Miriam

My response to these kinds of questions is that there's a gulf between fantasy and need. One arises from male identity, the other from female. Both are interesting psychologically in their own right, but, with rare exceptions, only those that arise from a female identity ever become reality - and few of those. If the implication is that those CDer who "want" to become women are actually transsexual, I'm not so sure. I'm even less sure about the notion that those who said they absolutely would take steps would, in fact, do so. Why? Because they haven't. The magic pill exists. It's hormones, in transitional dosages.

Lea

I wear women's jeans and shorts almost exclusively when I leave the house. The only exception is when I go to work where I am required to wear a uniform. Do I qualify as a CD? I can assure you I have no desire to be a woman in any way, shape or form. Does it make any difference that women's jeans and shorts simply fit me a lot better? Reallllly! Unless I am willing to buy men's where I usually have to get the waist an inch or 2 too big in order to fit me through the hips and thighs. Of course, I also almost always wear a 2 inch heel or better when wearing shorts and just running shoes if I am wearing jeans. NOW do I qualify as a CD? Or am I just a guy who likes to show off his legs which I have worked very hard for for many years btw. Absolutely nothing else womanly or feminine, makeup, wig, bra, etc. when I leave the house.

Am I a CD or not? Does it matter what anyone calls it? Some who dress fully might simply call it strange.

Now you can see the trouble with trying to label or qualify people into convenient categories. We are all different in so so many ways.

Thank Goodness.