Crossdressing into Transsexuality

[Inna]

OK, this just occurred to me, and it is my best illustration of a difference to date.

Crossdressing into transsexuality, and such title lies at very core of my own experience. However I don't want to make it a life story again, I will just go with my interpretation.

The difference of states between crossdressing morphing into transsexuality is just like A bachelor Boy dating cute girls and having fun time, with occasional hick up, then suddenly, beyond his control, falling deeper into one girls essence and wanting more, more of her essence, more of knowledge that she in fact is really his.
And so he proposes MARRIAGE a confirmation of his devotion, and finality of truly feeling ONE, as a family with no one else in sight. It is a daunting idea for any bachelor, to end life as he knows it, but the feeling of love is overwhelming and so he dives into this newly found reality.

And so is the crossdreser just like the bachelor boy, playing with the fantasies, indulging in the fun arts of dating a girl, but then comes time of realization that this is not fulfilling, and it is just a playful, fanciful pleasure filled scenario.
She wants more, transsexuality is a marriage, step into devotion, into belonging, into wholeness of two becoming ONE.

Before a slew of arguments will come, I will say this: Some are fine remaining a Bachelor, some want more out of the essence of being, and yet some are simply born into experience where they find out and do pursue the truth because of the friendly nature of their immediate environment.

But then.................. it is just my OWN PERSONAL opinion

[suzy1]

I think you make a good point Inna.
All I can do is relate my own personal experience.

I started as a crossdresser [or thought I was] and then, as time went by realised that it’s more than that.
The question is, did it lead to Transexuality or was I transsexual all the time and didn’t know it?

Not that I think it’s all that important, to me anyway.

SUZY

[Jorja]

I can agree with your analogy to a point. What happens when the bachelor Boy ends up getting the cute girl pregnant and she wants the bachelor Boy to marry her but he won't? Yet, he continues to date cute girls.

[josee]

I think that is a great analogy Inna.

In my life I have always thought I was more female than male, but I never got dressed all the way and went out with make-up and hair and everything else. I would wear certain items in secret or get dressed very briefly.
Once I made the commitment and went out to some cross dressing meetings, I knew there was way more to it than just clothes.

[Inna]

I can agree with your analogy to a point. What happens when the bachelor Boy ends up getting the cute girl pregnant and she wants the bachelor Boy to marry her but he won't? Yet, he continues to date cute girls.

Brilliant! I was awaiting such, Joria you have pointed out those who find them selves denying what truth lies within their hears, holding on to the frivolous of empty substance, and refusing to follow their path, even though the path unfolds regardless of reason. The child grows up, but hopefully some time down the road, those boys do realize the love and beauty in embracing truth and love.

[Melody Moore]

I was thinking about this yesterday actually...

Crossdressing = Just another casual fling
Transsexuality = Until death do us part

[Barbara Ella]

The parallels between lives making choices and commitment is a good one here. I started a short time ago and swore I was a crossdresser. Rapidly, the woman inside me has asserted herself, and I progressed to seriously transgendered with a powerful female presence. Now I am in the throes of working through the idea that this woman is more of me now than the man, and the understanding that I have to deal with feeling more womanly than male, and wanting the womanly.

I dont think starting to crossdress caused me to progress to this stage. More like it was just easier to start by just dressing and pretending, but now knowing that she really was there all the time, but severely repressed, and crossdressing was the first step in removing the repression. Not sure the progression was me wanting it, it was just there like the 800 pound gorilla that was invisible for awhile. Now i need to learn how to work with it.

Barbara

[Inna]

And so the analogy continues to hold true, for the Boy Bachelor sometimes marries his first love never dating any other. As I am sure there are crossdressers who do what they do because their feminine desires are strong but perhaps they them selves were not born a female within, just very feminine male, in such case they just remain crossdressing, for me though, crossdressing was a first real "do something about it" moment, and what was ripped to shreds in my childhood at age 7, resurfaced and was only acknowledged 35 years later

[danielleb]

I'm having a bigger and bigger problem with the term "crossdresser". Sure to any onlooker that's the easiest way to describe things as they were, but from my perspective it's wholly inaccurate.

I see crossdressers in general as people who enjoy dressing up and are able to incorporate that as a part of thier lives and approach it with a relatively enthusiastic and upbeat emotion. They want to be doing it at some level.

I have never had that realtionship. I only hated myself more for what was staring me back in the mirror, and for not having the right body to fill my clothes like I thought/wished/pleaded I was supposed to. It tore through me during every day in how others related to me and how I related to them and was a constant darkness shadowing my soul. I "dressed" simply to spend time alleviating the cross gender situation I was enduring. I crossdressed for the vast majority of my life and only spent minutes allowing myself to feel right. Even in those moments while I found relief, it only served to make things worse building that darkness.

So to say that in any way "crossdressing" is a leader into transexuality I think is wrong. I think in my case it was simply a symptom of transexuality, there was no evolution. I was transexual before and after "crossdressing", but not everyone is.

I'm not sure how that fits in with your whole analogy, but I can say that I feel I don't. There is no "love", certainly a like, but not in any sort of romantic sense. It's a relationship of necessity rooted in the very core of being.

[TGMarla]

....except once the vows are consumated, there is no divorce.

[Eryn]

I don't know where I lie on the spectrum, but perhaps my experience will add to the picture. I went for decades with the idea that I had an "inordinate interest" in feminine things. When I was young I thought that it was part of a male's fascination with women. Later after I was in stable relationships and finally marriage I realized that it was something more. Only after I educated myself did I realize that my "inordinate interest" had a name and that it was transgenderism.

At that point, looking backwards, I realize that I was TG all along, I just didn't have the knowledge to understand that.

Perhaps this is applicable to Inna's thesis. Crossdressing seems to be an educational phase in a TS person's discovery of true self.

[Noemi]

Inna,

You are helping me today with this. As is everyone else with their input.

When I look at my male form, it tears at me.

However, I can think through that to the other side. Which lies the reason I am this way, for my own purpose.

Not to say that any one who has transitioned is not acting on their own sense of purpose.

This is serious.

♥♥♥
Noemi

[Inna]

I'm having a bigger and bigger problem with the term "crossdresser". Sure to any onlooker that's the easiest way to describe things as they were, but from my perspective it's wholly inaccurate.

I see crossdressers in general as people who enjoy dressing up and are able to incorporate that as a part of thier lives and approach it with a relatively enthusiastic and upbeat emotion. They want to be doing it at some level.

I have never had that realtionship. I only hated myself more for what was staring me back in the mirror, and for not having the right body to fill my clothes like I thought/wished/pleaded I was supposed to. It tore through me during every day in how others related to me and how I related to them and was a constant darkness shadowing my soul. I "dressed" simply to spend time alleviating the cross gender situation I was enduring. I crossdressed for the vast majority of my life and only spent minutes allowing myself to feel right. Even in those moments while I found relief, it only served to make things worse building that darkness.

So to say that in any way "crossdressing" is a leader into transexuality I think is wrong. I think in my case it was simply a symptom of transexuality, there was no evolution. I was transexual before and after "crossdressing", but not everyone is.

I'm not sure how that fits in with your whole analogy, but I can say that I feel I don't. There is no "love", certainly a like, but not in any sort of romantic sense. It's a relationship of necessity rooted in the very core of being.

My understanding of love is quite different from the main stream, I see love as a language of truth, a language we either consider or dismiss as a nuisance. Love as being within truth, living and breathing truth with every ounce of your being, love of true self!
As to crossdressing leading to transsexuality, I never pointed to such, but one not being far removed from the other, our usual path to understanding the true nature of our being, usually does start with crossdressig tendencies in process, temporarily releasing stress of a secret, secret of a girl trapped in boys body, leading then through deeper understanding of self and perhaps as it did for me, into understanding that in fact I am a transsexual!

[Michelle.M]

The question is, did it lead to Transexuality . . .

Not as far as I can tell. Too many studies indicate that we're pretty much born this way.



. . . or was I transsexual all the time and didn’t know it?

I think it's this. And for what it's worth, I have met many crossdressers who, by experiencing at least a small part of their own femininity, have come to the conclusion not just that they are transsexual (well, yes, that) but more importantly that they are free to be themselves.

In my case, I never identified as a crossdresser. I never actually dressed to any extent until I came to grips with the realization that it was time for me to transition.

[Andie Elisabeth]

The question is, did it lead to Transexuality or was I transsexual all the time and didn’t know it?

Well I didn't crossdress in past except for one or two times when I was home alone and approximately same size as my mom. I sort of always [since (junior?) high school] knew that my brain operates differently from men's.

EDIT: Crossdressing itself as presented by gals/guys in CD section is for me really an uncomfortable blindfold that highlights differences
between my brain and body. It also feels wrong because I can't be a girl, not even part time (deeply closeted and most of the school year
I have a roommate and two bathrooms for 100 or so people) and there is a fear.

Sorry if I am babbling, I can't sleep and it's 2 am.

[Bree-asaurus]

If you are transsexual, you were born transsexual. Just because you weren't aware of your condition doesn't mean you didn't have it.

If you are a transsexual who crossdressed, it's likely because crossdressing was the only way you could express a fraction of yourself while suppressing everything about yourself to fit into this judging world.

[Kristy_K]

If you are transsexual, you were born transsexual. Just because you weren't aware of your condition doesn't mean you didn't have it.

If you are a transsexual who crossdressed, it's likely because crossdressing was the only way you could express a fraction of yourself while suppressing everything about yourself to fit into this judging world.

I would agree with this also. It just took me 50 years to admit or accept it.

Inna you have such a wonderful way with words....

[Inna]

If you are transsexual, you were born transsexual. Just because you weren't aware of your condition doesn't mean you didn't have it.

If you are a transsexual who crossdressed, it's likely because crossdressing was the only way you could express a fraction of yourself while suppressing everything about yourself to fit into this judging world.

I'm LMAO because place and time I was born into, word Transsexual nor Transgender did not exist neither Crossdresser nor Transvestite, this was a country kept in darkness and seemingly 50 years behind the west. Admittance of being gay was near death sentence, so telling someone that I felt like a girl would have been taken as a serious mental illness, I would not be here telling my story, so Bree you are right about transsexualism being intrinsic and natal, however understanding of such needs medical-psychological information to put the puzzle together.

[Debglam]

If you are transsexual, you were born transsexual. Just because you weren't aware of your condition doesn't mean you didn't have it.

If you are a transsexual who crossdressed, it's likely because crossdressing was the only way you could express a fraction of yourself while suppressing everything about yourself to fit into this judging world.

I think this is a more accurate assessment. I don't see a whole lot of choice along the trans spectrum, particularly for transsexuals. And while I have personally given up worrying about the "why" so much, I believe that this is something that occurs early in development, almost at the cellular level. A percentage of the population is, and always has been, transgendered. Some are transsexual, others are something else. I hate using negative analogies, but in a way it is like cancer. Some get it and some don't; some walk away with an easily treatable type and some need chemo and surgery. Luck of the draw.

[Bree-asaurus]

I hate using negative analogies, but in a way it is like cancer. Some get it and some don't; some walk away with an easily treatable type and some need chemo and surgery. Luck of the draw.

It is what it is. I will never see being transsexual as a positive. I will see my strength in dealing with my transsexuality as a positive, but I would never wish this on another soul.

[Debglam]

It is what it is. I will never see being transsexual as a positive. I will see my strength in dealing with my transsexuality as a positive, but I would never wish this on another soul.

I know, or at least can understand what you mean. I can be a real "Pollyanna" at times (at least when I don't feel like crap myself) and think that you can really find something positive, or at least useful, in the most arduous circumstances. Well, at least sometimes. . .

[Sara Jessica]

I understand it's hard to say there's anything positive about being a transsexual...or transgendered in any sense. But when that is all one knows as their POV, it's hard not to see it as a beautiful perspective once you come to grips with it.

Call me a Pollyanna along with Deb but I'm also right there with Bree. I would never wish this on anyone, yet I couldn't imagine having any other perspective than this.

Being who I am...what I am...is such a pain in the ass. But what a glorious pain in the ass it can be most of the time.

[KellyJameson]

I think of crossdressing as something I "do" not who I "am" but it is who I "am" that decides what I "do"

I was not transformed by the crossdressing turning me into who I was not, but showing me who I already was (transsexual) by experiencing what was already there, it did not take me out of myself but deepened the experience of "me" so was not used as escape from masculinity but the expression of it's absence which is "me" so I was more "me" when I crossdressed than when I did not.

I am not a feminine man but a masculine woman that was male bodied.

I like my masculine "traits" but these "traits" are not my theme.

Crossdressing among other experiences gave me the language to know who I "am" when who I "am" is not who everyone told me I was and my relationship to crossdressing changed as I learned who I "am" so stopped "doing" crossdressing and just "dress"

Crossdressing is a tool and serves many purposes.

There is movement toward understanding and than there is arrival which is understanding.

[Michelle.M]

It is what it is. I will never see being transsexual as a positive. I will see my strength in dealing with my transsexuality as a positive, but I would never wish this on another soul.

Sometimes I feel the same way, but most of the time I do not. Although I experience problems due to my being trans I have never seen my transgender identity as any sort of affliction. I am what I am (and as you say, it is what it is).

I derive my strength from seeing myself as gender gifted rather than gender dysphoric.

[Rachel Smith]

I think you make a good point Inna.
All I can do is relate my own personal experience.

I started as a crossdresser [or thought I was] and then, as time went by realised that it’s more than that.
The question is, did it lead to Transexuality or was I transsexual all the time and didn’t know it?

SUZY

I agree with Suzy on this one. The crossdressing showed me just how much better and comfortable I feel when I present as female. It just feels RIGHT, so to me the crossdressing didn't lead to transsexuality it just helped me to realize what was there all along.

Hugs
Rachel

[LeaP]

... I have never seen my transgender identity as any sort of affliction. I am what I am (and as you say, it is what it is).

I derive my strength from seeing myself as gender gifted rather than gender dysphoric.

I agree. I simply am. It took a long time to see how my psyche differs from cissexual individuals, though. I am different, but couldn't get to exactly how or why. So I turned inward.

Having come to terms with it, I find myself in a better state, but it's still hard to see worth in something viewed by the larger population so negatively. It colors my view of myself, though oddly not my view of other transsexuals.

[kimdl93]

For me, there has certainly been a pronounced "progression" and I sometimes wonder if I'm simply revealing what has always been there or if somehow, by allowing myself to express this part of myself, I'm also re-wiring my mind in some manner. I don't know the answer, obviously, but I do know that I don't want to go back to being a bachelor.

[max]

I sometimes wonder if I'm simply revealing what has always been there or if somehow, by allowing myself to express this part of myself, I'm also re-wiring my mind in some manner.
I wonder the same thing sometimes.

[Tammy V]

I started dressing in my mom's things at a pre school age. I continued sneaking around in her her things when I could and was caught a few times. This is not how i was going to be I was told. When i left home after college I thought about dressing a lot but rarely did it. I would get into someone's closet when i could but was scared to get my own things. When I got internet access I began to look at places that could help me out, do a transformation etc. I wanted to know how i would look as a woman. I could not afford to travel to anywhere i found online so one day i went out and bought a wig and some makeup and an outfit or two and started experimenting. The genie was now out of the bottle and could not be put back in. i got a few makeovers and learned to present myself then started going out. I was too restricted as to when i could dress so i came out to my wife and told her I would be dressing at home now as well as going out. it was never a sexual thing for me but i felt a strong need to continue progressing. To my surprise she stayed and the more freedom I gained the more I wanted. I had never liked being male but now i had an alternative and felt I was getting in touch with my true self as never before. I began to really, really hate having to be male at all and before long I entered therapy and realized I was transsexual and needed to transition so i have started that process. The only regret about it was I let fear and repression hold me back for so long.

[Vickie_CDTV]

On the flip side, too often it is claimed transvestites (regardless of their motivations for dressing or how often they dress) are inevitably "doomed" to become transsexuals (which is certainly not true, and we have older members here who have crossdressed their entire lives and have never identified as transsexual.)

[Lorenqt]

On the surface, I started dressing as a kinda sexual outlet, but the more I think about it, subconsciously I was expressing repressed feelings.


It is what it is. I will never see being transsexual as a positive. I will see my strength in dealing with my transsexuality as a positive, but I would never wish this on another soul.

I totally agree with that. Some days are okay, but there are times when I have to dig deep down to find the strength to go on.

[amandaturner]

I cannot remember a time even going all the way back to my early years when I did not identify with being female. So I guess what I am saying is that I believe, from my experience, that some of us are born TS but I can't say for sure if others "graduate" from CD to TS.

[Donnadcd]

I agree with Suzy on this one. The crossdressing showed me just how much better and comfortable I feel when I present as female. It just feels RIGHT, so to me the crossdressing didn't lead to transsexuality it just helped me to realize what was there all along.

Hugs
Rachel

I agree. It's when I'm wearing guy clothes that I feel that I'm "crossdressing" .

[ReineD]

I seem to be on this kick today throughout threads in the forum, advocating for a more comprehensive gender and sexuality curriculum in our schools now that we understand so much more about all forms of intersexuality (physical and/or brain gender variances). I like to think that if more children are taught about non-binary gender, fewer transsexuals will be in denial and delude themselves into thinking they are CDers, and hopefully they will realize who they are at a much earlier age. The internet and forums such as this one help as well.

This was nearly impossible even a short 30-40 years ago, when homosexuality was still considered a mental disease.

[Bree-asaurus]

I seem to be on this kick today throughout threads in the forum, advocating for a more comprehensive gender and sexuality curriculum in our schools now that we understand so much more about all forms of intersexuality (physical and/or brain gender variances). I like to think that if more children are taught about non-binary gender, fewer transsexuals will be in denial and delude themselves into thinking they are CDers, and hopefully they will realize who they are at a much earlier age. The internet and forums such as this one help as well.

This was nearly impossible even a short 30-40 years ago, when homosexuality was still considered a mental disease.

Education would definitely help. I knew that there were men that would dress up as women, but I thought crossdressers, transsexuals, transgenders and transvestites were all fancy ways of saying that. I had no idea that I could actually be one gender internally and the opposite sex externally. I had to learn all by myself that there was a condition for people like me...

Then again, I knew what being gay was from a young age, was even with a boy in middle school, and I was still able to repress the idea that I liked men until my 20's.

[ReineD]

Then again, I knew what being gay was from a young age, was even with a boy in middle school, and I was still able to repress the idea that I liked men until my 20's.

Ah! But you were in your 20s when you came to terms with who you are, not your 40s, 50s, or 60s! :)

[Bree-asaurus]

Ah! But you were in your 20s when you came to terms with who you are, not your 40s, 50s, or 60s! :)

Yes, but I also had the internet to help educate myself! Something 60 year olds didn't have when they were 20 ;)

Just kidding around :D

[robyn1114]

Yes, but I also had the internet to help educate myself! Something 60 year olds didn't have when they were 20 ;)

Just kidding around :D

You've actually got a good point Bree, the internet has make it easier to explore and educate ourselves.

[amielts]

I guess what the OP has said is certainly true for some cases.
That said, some crossdressers are TRUE crossdressers who do not want to be female!

[elizabethamy]

This is such a thought-provoking thread. As a sucker for political speeches, I was deeply moved the other night when Michelle Obama said, "Being President doesn't change you; it reveals who you are." I feel that way about dressing -- when I first did it, two years ago, it instantly changed my life not by enabling me to acquire a new "activity," but by revealing something very important about who I am. Often I wonder what would have happened if I had never tried it, therefore having never known that I had deep gender issues. So has the crossdressing caused me to be (or approach, or consider) transsexuality? No, absolutely not, but without doing it I would have kept this secret from myself.

But this thread brings up the question of whether increased cross-gender "activity" will push one into transition. This is exactly what my wife (and most of our SO's) fear. Don't go to a conference, a TG night out, a CD/TG bar, even a gender therapist, or these things will show you that there is a world out there that you want to embrace. Stay in your little closeted corner, thus preventing the kind of cause and effect scenario that this thread discusses.

So while I doubt the "cause and effect" concept, I do think the "reveal and go further into understanding and possibly action" phenomenon is very real.

elizabethamy

[Kathryn Martin]

People should also be taught about body or physical dysphoria and among those sex incongruence. I agree with you that this a educational issue.

I do not believe however that this would in fact inflate the number of transsexuals in our society by much.


I seem to be on this kick today throughout threads in the forum, advocating for a more comprehensive gender and sexuality curriculum in our schools now that we understand so much more about all forms of intersexuality (physical and/or brain gender variances). I like to think that if more children are taught about non-binary gender, fewer transsexuals will be in denial and delude themselves into thinking they are CDers, and hopefully they will realize who they are at a much earlier age. The internet and forums such as this one help as well.

This was nearly impossible even a short 30-40 years ago, when homosexuality was still considered a mental disease.

[kimdl93]

...But this thread brings up the question of whether increased cross-gender "activity" will push one into transition. This is exactly what my wife (and most of our SO's) fear. Don't go to a conference, a TG night out, a CD/TG bar, even a gender therapist, or these things will show you that there is a world out there that you want to embrace. Stay in your little closeted corner, thus preventing the kind of cause and effect scenario that this thread discusses.

So while I doubt the "cause and effect" concept, I do think the "reveal and go further into understanding and possibly action" phenomenon is very real.

elizabethamy

I've wondered about this phenomenon myself. I know that I was aware of my gender differences at a very early age. And I suppose that succuming to curiostiy could appear to have prompted subsequent effects. Still, I suspect that if you put a non TG individual into a satin slip (as in my first experience), they most likely won't feel anything except perhaps embarrassed. Every threshold I've crossed over the years could be seen as encouraging or accentuating the desire to go farther, but its equally possible (and I think more probable) that the desire to express my feminine nature has been driving me towards each of those thresholds. Its not a provable proposition one way or the other, of course.

[Kathryn Martin]

I think of crossdressing as something I "do"

Crossdressing is a tool and serves many purposes....

Kelly, I just wanted to point out that crossdressing is a misnomer, it presumes that you are dressing cross-gender rather than as a reflection of your gender.

[Kathryn Martin]

The gift of gender is just that. Every living person has it. I wonder whether being incongruent is really a gift but rather a disability. In the same vein, being not gifted with one or the other gender but born in a sea of fluidity in regards to your gender is an affliction, that causes those who bear it doubts, questions, depression and the continuous question of how to reconcile their primary innate gender with this sense of being lost at sea. We should stop identifying as dysphoric or gender depressed. For transsexuals the nature of the depression is rooted in incongruence, for gender variant persons it is rooted in the sense of being adrift between genders. So the correct term should be incongruence depression and gender drift depression.

Once this is understood we could in fact begin to resolve the specific health care issues involved for both conditions.

The trouble with the justification of "gender gifted" is that it cannot meet the self experience most of us have. If you look around the forums here the affliction aspect abounds. People are hurt often existentially by their condition and fight and struggle like few in our society. Statistics also show that the burden being carried by either makes both conditions in their own way a life or death matter.

Healing for transsexuals and acceptance for gender variant persons can only be found in educating with discrimination what these conditions are.

"gender gifted" sounds to me more like a justification to find an anchor for being adrift. What needs to be said in this regard would essentially require a whole essay to develop the concepts necessary for a real understanding.


I agree. I simply am. It took a long time to see how my psyche differs from cissexual individuals, though. I am different, but couldn't get to exactly how or why. So I turned inward.

Having come to terms with it, I find myself in a better state, but it's still hard to see worth in something viewed by the larger population so negatively. It colors my view of myself, though oddly not my view of other transsexuals.

[Claire Cook]

Inna’s thoughtful thread is touching a number of us. I’m in the company of Suzy, Barbara and Kim. More and more I am realizing what has probably always been true .. that I have a gender ID question. No longer do I feel that wear women’s clothes when I am “en femme” (I’d rather call it ”me”) – I’m wearing my clothes. Looking back over my life, I’m recalling things that clearly said “something is different” without coming to grips with it. Yes, I’d love to have breasts and hips, and fantasize about having a vagina. But I’m not considering transitioning for a number of reasons.

So, following Inna’s analogy, are we still bachelors, or is there a third possibility .. like having a long-term partner, rather than a marriage?

[LeaP]

The gift of gender is just that. Every living person has it. I wonder whether being incongruent is really a gift but rather a disability.

Incongruence is no gift. It's a state that induces self-doubt, leads to depression and destruction, and is disbelieved by those who don't experience it, including those closest to us, leading to a profound alienation.

Some gift.

[Angela Campbell]

I guess I knew there was somehting different about me from around 4 or 5 years old. Of course then I did not know about transgender issues...in fact no one did in the early 60's. You were either normal or you were "weird" or "a sissy". Well for me I was a sissy. I was always embarrassed and tried my best to hide it. I knew all along I wanted to be a girl from as far back as I can remember. I liked to play with the girls in the neighborhood, I liked playing with dolls not baseball. I was never very strong or athletic but was very creative and had a great imagination. I was not like the other boys but was expected to be. I was picked on relentlessly too. Beat up and pushed around because I was smaller, weaker and not at all aggressive. I learned early to hide what I really was from everyone. Funny thing was I did not mature quite like other boys either. Puberty was mild. No cracking of my voice, very little hair growth and the genitals stayed fairly small compared to other boys going through the same thing. Looking back now I see that I was really a girl in a body that was somewhat less masculine than all of my peers but not quite feminine either.

When older I did crossdress when I could hide it. Even then I knew it was not a sexual thing as much as I wanted to be a girl. No I would not wish this on anyone. It for me is a birth defect that is not acceptable by society, and especially not by my family. At 55 years old it is too late to transition and I couldn't cause the trauma on my family. It would destroy their world so I alone bear the burden of this birth defect. I am learning how to look more like a female now and I will do so on occasions where I can keep my little secret but it is the only time I feel normal. Yes I accepted the fact of this long ago and have crossdressed as a male for my whole life and have passed pretty well as a man. So I guess I am an actor for the world and a transexual and a crossdresser.

[elizabethamy]

We should stop identifying as dysphoric or gender depressed. For transsexuals the nature of the depression is rooted in incongruence, for gender variant persons it is rooted in the sense of being adrift between genders. So the correct term should be incongruence depression and gender drift depression.

Once this is understood we could in fact begin to resolve the specific health care issues involved for both conditions.

Healing for transsexuals and acceptance for gender variant persons can only be found in educating with discrimination what these conditions are.


These are powerful ideas, Kathryn...if a day were to come when gender variance was well understood, and when the depression that lots of us have was known to be rooted in gender issues...if these things were true, our wives would be more inclined to be helpful rather than fearful; our employers would also be more supportive; we wouldn't have to feel like hiding, doubling our shame and living in secrecy; we would have more options other than transition or not. The medical profession needs to lead, we need to tell this story, so that understanding gradually grows, that there are lots of different degrees and variances of our (ahem) "gift," and that there are an equal number of things that can be done to help us.

I feel trapped in this binary -- transsexual or married guy hiding it all, and I bet a lot of "crossdressers" feel that, too. The lid must come off the secrecy and shame!

Gee, I hit that exaclamation mark so hard it messed up my nail polish.

elizabethamy