The power of song, listen to that song again, differently

[Lesley_Roberta]

I express myself best in song, often someone has penned the message I need and sung it so wonderfully that I could never hope to say it better.

But here's where you need to think outside of the box.

Sing that song to yourself as if you were singing it to your other you.

Pick songs of course that have something pleasant about them, I can't help you if you can't find any help in rap.

Sing the song from your female side to your male half or your male half to your female side. Just make sure to listen to the lyrics a bit more closely maybe than you might.

I have a lot of songs (which my friends deride as 'chic music', clearly they are missing an important truth), and lyrically they are very uplifting when you need a lift, or reassuring when you just need someone to say something nice to you.

You will be surprised when you start actually listening to songs again through different ears.

The best part of my day has become my daily walk where I get to escape into my music, headphones on, out on a walk just me and the song. I can feel myself singing it even if it is not really my voice. But the thing is, to be able to feel like it was.

It's truly amazing how comforting it can be to hear songs as if sung by you or to you from your other half.

[ReineD]

Sharedaccomodation, I don't know if it's up to me to say anything, but you'll find that in this section of the forum members don't have male and female halves. They are transsexual and are female. Many are on their way to, or already live full time, others are planning or have already gone through SRS. Granted some people here are questioning whether they are TS, but most I think have come to the conclusion they are, it's more a question of deciding what to do about it since to take the plunge to transition means the possibility of losing family, friends, and jobs.

I agree with the music though. It's amazing how so much of it seems to just "fit". :)

[STACY B]

Sharedaccomodation, I don't know if it's up to me to say anything, but you'll find that in this section of the forum members don't have male and female halves. They are transsexual and are female. Many are on their way to, or already live full time, others are planning or have already gone through SRS. Granted some people here are questioning whether they are TS, but most I think have come to the conclusion they are, it's more a question of deciding what to do about it since to take the plunge to transition means the possibility of losing family, friends, and jobs.

I agree with the music though. It's amazing how so much of it seems to just "fit". :) Thats right ! Its all on the inside ,, Atleast in this section ,, One side fits all ,, Female ,,,LOL,,, An I also love that whan a song talks to ya ,, :devil:

[Lesley_Roberta]

Sharedaccomodation, I don't know if it's up to me to say anything, but you'll find that in this section of the forum members don't have male and female halves. They are transsexual and are female. Many are on their way to, or already live full time, others are planning or have already gone through SRS. Granted some people here are questioning whether they are TS, but most I think have come to the conclusion they are, it's more a question of deciding what to do about it since to take the plunge to transition means the possibility of losing family, friends, and jobs.

I agree with the music though. It's amazing how so much of it seems to just "fit". :)

No problems ReineD, but as it has been made fairly obvious, some of us consider ourselves transgender, and some consider ourselves transexual, and a few of us are merely confused by how some dictionaries don't think the words are any different that flammable and inflammable which by the way mean they start fires :)

I have been wondering if maybe site admins, should either make me (and those of transgender label) a forum CALLED transgender (and not transexual).

If I had the cash, and was single, I likely would be getting in line to get the operation. Because Leslie wouldn't have anyone that required his services any way, and I'd be happier with a female body that had a bit of male left in it but could be legally referred to as female.

But I'm married, and I possess a psyche that is male part time. I have obligations as a result of Leslie, and I am ok with letting him keep those obligations. Even if it means I have to voluntarily take a pass on the operation.

I am impressed with those that have taken the choice to go the change regardless of risk or cost. And I understand those that have been unable to make the choice for their own personal reasons.

So anyway, to reiterate, if you can't offer the community a transgender forum, and you don't want trangender posting in transexual, and you insist on moving my threads from the Lounge to somewhere else, I need to know just where I am expected to post. I am NOT a cross dresser. I am ok with cross dressers. One of my best contacts here is a cross dresser. I am a female, stuck in a male body wishing to wear her own clothes even if I have the wrong body to put them on. I mean, people ask 'what are you wearing?' and the answer often will be 'nothing'. Because I am also a clothes optional person. And that just makes me a female in a naked male body. I usually wear a shirt though.

I am sort of a split personality I guess, just clouds the issue and makes the labels less sticky I suppose. I'm mainly female, because Leslie is only around for a short bit in the morning.

I find some songs just seem sort of nice imagining one half of my dual nature singing to the other.
I was originally going to put this in Lounge, and just figured why bother, they keep moving them from there on me.
Maybe the site has too many moderators not talking with each other. I don't know if that is true, not even sure how many mods there are.

[ReineD]

No, we're not going to create new sub forums. lol

As to the difference between TS and Transgender, I won't get into all of this now, but you could have a look at the many threads about this in both the CDer and the TS section. Be prepared for a lot of reading. :D

Also, this might help by way of an introduction:
http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?162497-Some-Common-Trans-Related-Definitions

Edit - OK, I suppose to speed things up a bit, I can tell you that TG is an umbrella term that covers anyone who is not cisgender. Many TSs do not consider themselves under the TG umbrella since they are solidly on one side of the gender spectrum as women ... they don't see themselves as trans-anything. Anyway, CDers are transgender, although many do not like to use that word because they believe it means "transsexual". I'd say that many if not most of the CDers on this board do dress primarily for identity and not fetish reasons and if you read their threads, they feel just as you do: would transition if they could, but won't because of their family obligations and also because they don't feel they are solidly women, like you.

Maybe a more accurate way to think of yourself would be as "bigender" or "dualgender", which is what many CDers are.

Edit2 - Just noticed this:


... and you don't want trangender posting in transexual, and you insist on moving my threads from the Lounge to somewhere else, I need to know just where I am expected to post.

You can post where you want to, but it is helpful to read the section rules first and also know your audience so as to not offend. It's just not a good idea to come into the TS section referring to the readers' male and female halves, since the readers here don't experience this. Such a thing is best said in the CD section where it applies.

[Lesley_Roberta]

So what it comes down to is you don't consider me transexual enough to post in the transexual forum, even though you won't find a shortage of people here that think transgender is the same thing.

The whole label game really turns me off to be honest.

I'm human, I have a male body as original equipment. And I likely could bore you to tears with some very complex very lengthy reading on the subject of the human mind.

I've read the threads by the way.

Yes I know the sub forum transgender won't be created, it's a pity. I had to ask, but I knew in advance it would be futile.

Futile, the process of attaching labels. I hate labels. I am not religious and I am not atheist, but people insist I have to pick one. I am not right wing and I am not left wing, but people insist I have to pick one. I have no race other than human. But people insist the word race can apply to a shade of skin or a place of origin, or a cultural division. Nope, I am ONLY homo sapien, otherwise known as human, terran or earthling which is how an alien would refer to the whole lot of us.

I might meet with the shrink and he might tell me all sorts of things. I doubt he can tell me why my race specifically the males of my race, have for so many thousands of years systematically treated women like crap. Some would likely consider me a form of misanthropist, but really, I only hate men/males.

I am at my wits end here.

I am NOT a cross dresser. Being told to go post there and not here is really accomplishing nothing for me.
Just because I have sufficient capacity to honour my word to my wife that I will deny myself something I desperately need for her sake, doesn't make me less transexual than a person that is going to have the operation regardless of the consequences.

Transexual, transgender, freak, wierdo, they are all divisive terms if we let them do that, divide. Society largely will spit on this whole forum equally. I can line you up a long audience that thinks were all going to burn in their hell.

"Many TSs do not consider themselves under the TG umbrella since they are solidly on one side of the gender spectrum as women ... they don't see themselves as trans-anything." MANY as a term is not ALL, it is only a portion of the whole. If I had to pick a term, I'd say I was female, just female, only female 100% female, and I have a male body to spend time in. During the morning, Leslie is male, just male, only male, 100% male, and his time share is about 4 hours out of the 24.

He has never posted here. Doesn't want to post here. And I am sure glad he doesn't. He's rather vicious when angry.

Maybe this forum has too MANY sub forums for that matter.
The place is called Cross Dressers actually.
It could just as easily be called People in the Wrong Body.

[ReineD]

I made no comment about your gender identity. I said that in this section of the forum, the people whom you addressed as having male and female halves, don't. It is insulting to them to be addressed this way. They see themselves as women. If you want to address your audience as having male and female halves, the people in the CDing section (not here), will understand and align with what you are saying.

I did, however, suggest that bigender or dualgender might be a more accurate description for you to consider, since you did say that you have a part-time male psyche and the term "transgender" that you applied to yourself is ambiguous. The term "TG" covers everyone who is not cisgender (CDs, BGs, DGs, genderqueer, DQs, DKs, and a host of others). If your aim is to communicate to others where you fit in the gender spectrum, "transgender" by itself is not descriptive.

Just out of curiosity, and out of a desire to help, what is your definition of a crossdresser? Maybe we're just getting all caught up in differing definitions?

I know that the term "crossdresser" literally means a person who dresses in opposite gender clothing, and it insinuates a solid male identity. But, if you read carefully the posts in the CD section, you'll see mostly people who do dress because they also have a feminine identity. It's a lot more than just about the clothes or fetish (even though there are also people who call themselves CDers and for whom at this point in their lives it is about the clothes or it is a fetish). The term "crossdresser" is old, and over time just in this forum we've established many many variances, many points among CDers along the gender spectrum, and in fact, the term "crossdresser" has become just as ambiguous as the term "transgender".

Once you begin to dig deeply enough into this community, you'll see that we need way more words than we have in order to accurately describe everyone. You mentioned earlier about a "transgender" section. Just about everyone here is transgender, except perhaps the strict fetishists (there aren't many as far as I can tell), and the fully female TSs who consider themselves to be female and not trans. :p

At any rate, no one here is telling you who you are. I merely advised that while in the TS section, you not assume that your readers have male and female halves. The members in the CDing section will better relate to this concept than here.

[Lorileah]

I thought this was about how you could interpret music differently from different views.

Shared, Riene is trying to show you that in the general forum area there are a myriad of people, not all of whom are TG even. And I don't ever remember the TS section as putting a limit to how TS you are (although some members would probably like that). so just a simple rephrasing of the OP would work. I get your drift here. I can even make it deeper because I think many people don't "hear" the words at all. They hear lyrics (and some don't even hear all of them) but they don't connect. I see your point about how one day you could hear the song as saying one thing and the next day hear something else. It is a good point.

BTW, everyone here has had posts moved or deleted for being in the wrong place. It isn't personal. :)

[ReineD]

Yes, I know it's supposed to be about music, but the original post also brought up the notion of male and female halves, which is contentious in this section of the forum. And when the OP brings up more questions, it's kinda hard to leave them hanging. :p

[Lorileah]

and sorry I misspelled your name Reine, i before except after C ....

[MC-lite]

@Sharedaccommodation: If I might make an observation. This particular post may have been better off being made in the lounge.:o

And ReineD is right. I don't have a "male" side. I consider myself a tomboy. Any GGirl raised like me would be a rough-and-tumble tomboy with a sensitive side.

Just like me. :)

As far as music goes, I like Jazz, fusion, and New Age (space) stuff. As long as it has no lyrics. I can't stand listening to most of the music of my generation. It's just one bad memory after another. Even now when I hear certain songs, I get really uncomfortable and my skin starts to crawl.

One song that still causes me to well up and has made me cry on a number of occasions is by a band called Dream Theatre. It's called "Wither".

Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpMDEQSwXjw

:Miki.

P.S. For a few years now, I've been referring to myself as "Transgender" when in fact, I'm not. I'm a Transsexual. And I have the members of this forum to thank for enlightening me. :)

[Lesley_Roberta]

This is following a PM from ReineD where she has earned substantial points with me.

I don't wish to offend anyone anywhere on the site by making references that might not be entirely correct or welcome.

I have a male body, it's impossible to ignore this truth in myself. But if you ask 'me' Lesley, she will tell you she is entirely female. Even though an observer would remark, but you are a man, I mean, you have the body, you can't be 100% female.

But I respond with, is a person that has had the operation 100% female with just the loss of a **** and set of balls and some hormone treatment?
What about men that through trauma accidents have been injured and lost that gear to non voluntary removal. Are they female just because they don't have those parts?

That is why I am ok with saying I am 100% female when 'I' am here, as my identity resides between my ears, not between my legs. And when I give up the space to let Leslie have his moment, I am NOT here, he is. And he acts, and talks and behaves like a typical cliche heterosexual male. And he whines and he moans and he complains like any real man when his manhood malfunctions. And I suspect any wife here knows exactly what that sounds like :)

I think everyone here is precisely who and what they say they are. Because they would know themselves better than anyone else.

I would be very unhappy if I were making even a single person here in the transexual sub forum uncomfortable with my posts. Never my intention.

Following this post, with the permission of all the current participants, and any future ones, I would like to just return to making suggestions of my own findings of songs that might make the listener feel good. I never listen to music for any other reason.

[Aprilrain]

But I respond with, is a person that has had the operation 100% female with just the loss of a **** and set of balls and some hormone treatment?
What about men that through trauma accidents have been injured and lost that gear to non voluntary removal. Are they female just because they don't have those parts?
.

SRS is not about the loss of anything! it is about gaining something you KNOW you should have always had.

Your statement about hormones belies your lack of personal experience with the subject. I suggest you try estradiol for a year and then speak about your experience. Its not about body modification its like SRS for your brain.

You bring up a good point, NO. One does not become female because one has lost or never had proper male parts. Charles Kane is an extreme example of what happens to a man who attempts transition. here is a guy who transitioned based on the deluded notion that woman had it easier in this world (yeah I know, where the hell had he been for the last 10,000 years??) Anyway he transitioned back to male because that is what he is.
In the case of an accident or birth defect there is no cross gender identification so no desire on the individuals part to live as the opposite gender.

OH right!..... yeah i like music too

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Whether meant that way or not , the OP is about a male side and a female side...it could not be any clearer.. that's not a transsexual "concept"

...seemingly it was misunderstood
and that makes sense until i read this..

But I respond with, is a person that has had the operation 100% female with just the loss of a **** and set of balls and some hormone treatment?
What about men that through trauma accidents have been injured and lost that gear to non voluntary removal. Are they female just because they don't have those parts?


That is why I am ok with saying I am 100% female when 'I' am here, as my identity resides between my ears, not between my legs. And when I give up the space to let Leslie have his moment, I am NOT here, he is.

These comments simply do not resonate with women that are transsexual..and the first one is really borderline offensive and is similar to the kind of stuff we deal with from cisgender haters while we try to improve our lives...

you are right in saying that you are who you say you are...i have total respect for that...but if in my mind i'm a kumquat, but i say sometimes i'm not, then i'm just a girl that thinks she's a kumquat...and my posts in the kumquat forum are gonna be read as such..

[elizabethamy]

I keep waiting for the chance to say: "you're wrong, Kaitlyn Michele!" And this isn't quite it...but I can say, as someone who has so recently discovered her true self, that perception is shifting (and no estradiol to help it, either)...The OP resonates with me because I am hearing songs differently now, listening to different (almost all female) artists without deliberately doing so, just gravitating there, and feeling a sense of understanding of the female perspective, which would have been at least partially walled off from me during the (50 million) years of denial and repression, when I almost exclusively listened to male artists. Hmmm.

So maybe the OP doesn't have two "sides" but is growing and shifting and is feeling it through the music. Art often finds ways to travel around and under the conscious blockade that we so often put in its way.

But damn it you are right, Kaitlyn Michele, that it's not about different sides or people within. One self, -- that's who we're meant to be, whatever the gender or mix of genders, whether the body matches it or not.

Rock on.

elizabethamy

[Lesley_Roberta]

I wish I didn't have to so frequently make such an overt effort to state, no offense is desired and I try my best to avoid it. I am not fully expert on my situation and it is rather unfair to hold me to standards that might ne fair of a person that has been on this forum for more than say a year and has a few thousand posts to their credit.

I am convinced if my wife said Lesley I can't cope seeing someone I love go through life so unhappy, arrange the operation, I want to see your smile again, that I likely would just shift to being depressed to hear how much it would cost and the crushing weight that being able to afford it likely would be so much harder than getting friends and family to understand my need for it.

Half the time I am glad of my sunglasses so that people can't see me crying as I walk along the street because the music is simultaenously so beautiful, yet so tragically far away and depressing feeling too.

What good would it be to me, to be able to be openly transexual and too broke to do anything about it.

[Sophora]

What good would it be to me, to be able to be openly transexual and too broke to do anything about it.

I am going to key into this statement because this was me. I thought I could never get the hormones, the surgery or anything else. However instead of dwelling on stuff like that I started to do what I had to do(nothing immoral or illegal tho).

I moved back to PA(which I hate) to pay less in rent by living with my folks(who is no way supporting in this at all) while working a job. I also found out that I qualified for VA benifits(which my mom and therapist starting to nag me about). So I don't have to worry about payment that way. After June 9th(baseball game with my dad so I will spend money unfortunately), I will putting the majority of it in a saving account(saving for my surgery yay!).

And even before that, I was living full-time, even with little to money to my name.

Now enough about me. It seems to me that you live in Canada. I don't know anything about the health care system there but I thought Health care was free. Couldn't you start the hormones through the government-funded health care?

As for the title of the thread, I have been hearing the songs differently. Some songs I have taken off my ipod as they no longer sound good as I thought they did and others are placed on because they sound better(Never in million years would I think I would have "Mickey" by Toni Basil on a playlist).

[Lesley_Roberta]

Yes Canada where everything is free :)

Actually, it is mostly especially if you are like me just plain poor.

Disabled since 94, I am basically a ward of the state. My income is handed to me, I don't earn a bloody cent. I support my wife and son by our being supported. Buit not everything is free, for instance, dental. Never been able to understand why any other part of my body or mind is fully covered but not teeth.

I have not checked out the nature of the expense, just one more factoid my badly mauled psyche likely can't handle. As it goes, my memory is crap, so stressed out I can't maintain concentration worth a damn. Remembering to take one medication once a day takes a major effort. If I were to find out the process was covered, well it would be nice to find that out I suppose.

I live in modest conditions, nothing in town is technically cheap, but I at least have a landlord that isn't a swine. The man is a rare example of a person worth my respect. I don't have any way of asking for help from mom, she just doesn't have it to give. Brother and sister, well I couldn't ask them to put their life out of whack for me for this. The biggest hurdle though is the wife. Would she want to let me do it? She's still sooooo new to this like me. Not easy finding out your over sexed randy as hell husband, the guy that thinks heaven is a log cabin on a mountain side a swift flowing stream, oh and nothing but girls in baby doll nighties bare assed interested in sex in the sunlight whenever all day long :) And then you find out that person is really only there in the early morning, and is gone the moment the testicles are emptied. Otherwise, you have a person that wouldn't mind being one of the girls in the nightie. Not as randy, but, well it is a massive sudden shift. Suddenly you get told well it's possible you could escape the ever present need for sex...... if he got an operation and became a woman.

Somewhere, I must be able to write a very interesting anime series on this whole crazy drama that is my life. I'd draw the manga if I was any good at the art style.

Speaking of anime and manga, one of my great loves, is AMVs anime music videos, the merging of the two mediums, popular songs and carefully chosen scenes that in some cases are just mind blowing for how much better the song sounds when you can close your eyes and SEE the song as relayed through very accurate seeming visuals.
Lady Gaga (a performer oddly enough I just hate) has done a song called Born this way. Done to some amvs it is a song I can almost call a rallying cry.

Here's a link to just one example of how I have been able to feel a small bit better about my life that is so entirely stupid sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3-AXSnWC2E
When I listen to the song, I see the anime, I am NOT seeing Lady Gaga and her weird fashion sense. I don't even associate the song with her. I picture the song about me, and I see myself in the girls in the video.

And here is a song, connected with a show called Shugo Chara, a basically girl's anime. The song is all the more impressive when combined with a show I find very important for the message it holds significant. Charas are the eggs of your heart, your dreams essentially, and the heroine of the show uses her powers to go around protecting the as yet unrealized dreams of people around her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDf68kPdYvc&feature=fvwrel
I enjoy the song mainly as it is pretty, it is romantic, it is very girlie sounding. It is not something a guy would routinely listen to. It's the chic music my buddies normally complain about hehe. When I hear it, it takes me to the show that I have watched. I have no idea who the song's original artist is. Not important to me. I call it the Shugo Chara song.

[Starling]

...What good would it be to me, to be able to be openly transexual and too broke to do anything about it.

It doesn't cost much cash to be "openly transsexual," by the way. HRT averages under fifty dollars a month--and next to nothing in Canada?--and you don't need to have surgery and electro to live as you feel inside. If you haven't already done so, get: an inexpensive non-Halloween wig; silicone forms (under $65 for a perfecty serviceable pair) if you'd like a jump-start; and a basic, age-appropriate wardrobe. Then, step out your door and walk around in the world. You don't have to do everything at once, but if you're not even starting, then it's not the money that's keeping you back.

Pardon me if I stepped on your toes, Shared, but I've been where you are now. And although I have plenty of unresolved family issues, I go out and live whenever I can. It's my RLE on the installment plan.

:) Lallie

PS: Your next post came while I was composing this. Now I'm not so sure how apt it is to your situation.