What am I?

[Jenny85]

I apologize in advance for the wall of text.

I've been reading the non-member section of the forums for a few weeks now, but just today joined as a member. I know that to many of you labels mean nothing or very little, but I've always been a very label oriented person. I can understand things much more easily if it has a name.

As I search the internet at lists of criteria or definitions of what it means to be a crossdresser or a transsexual, I only seem to see things that would exclude me from these groups.

I was born a male, and I grew up in Texas. My entire life has been about trying to make myself more of a manly man. I've never really succeeded in that area. But to say that I am uncomfortable being a man would be incorrect. I like playing the male game, aka the macho chest bumping, the bravado associated with trying to be the alpha male in a group. I am not disturbed at all by the fact that I have male genitals and I find quite a bit of pleasure from them.

That being said, I don't identify as just a male. I wear women's clothes, in private or with my wife, and I know that I have a female side that is begging to come out. I see women on TV or in person and wonder if I could wear what they're wearing or how good it would look on me. The clothes themself hold no sexual interest. I like putting on makeup and shopping for clothes on the internet. I feel very feminine most of the time, but I suppress it because I'm supposed to.

When I was young I was raised by my mother and sister. I have memories of wearing their clothes, and having my nails painted. They thought it was funny and cute, but my father was horrified. I lived with them until I was 10 years old at which time I moved to live with my father who did his best to rectify all the things my unacceptable mother's side of the family did to me.

I learned about sex from finding my father's porn stash. It was all very vanilla generic male - female sex. I remember frequently watching the videos and identify as the female. I would always wonder what it feels like as the woman or to be with a male. Even into adulthood most of my sexual fantasies involved me in the female role. I read porn stories online and identify only with the female. Despite the fact that pretty much every sexual fantasy I have involves me receiving a penis or being submissive to a woman, I fully enjoy having sex with my wife. I'm good at it, maybe even great. I'm almost always ready and willing to be the dominant sexual partner with my wife.

I feel like I identify as both a straight male and a bisexual female depending on which part of me is switched on at the moment.

I've talked about this with my wife and she wonders if maybe I'm just a bisexual male but have invented the female side to allow myself to be bisexual because I have such internal hangups with male homosexuality because of my upbringing. To be clear I don't think I'm a homophobe, but it disturbs me greatly to look at myself in that context. When I'm dressed as a woman, I feel like I am a woman. And for me in that way I have had experiences with a man and it does not bother me.

I don't know how many of these are correct if any, but I see these kinds of statements online frequently:

It is unlikely that you're a transsexual if you don't want to transition.
It is unlikely that you're a transsexual if you have little or no dysphoria.
It is unlikely that you're a transsexual if you have sexual fantasies about being a female.
Crossdressers are men who identify as men but like women's clothing because it feels good.
You are a trans fetishist if your interest in transsexualism developed out of a sexual fantasy.

I have read very little on the subject of bigender as information is hard to find on the subject.

I'm very confused. I know I'm not a female, I know I'm not really a male, but I don't know exactly what I am and it bothers me.

I can guess that the most common response will be that I should see a gender therapist, but for both financial and fear issues that probably will not happen until I can't stand it any more. The only negative impact on my life from this at the current time is confusion and uncertanty.

Jenny

[KellyJameson]

It may be possible that you are confused because you are using labels wrong.

Do you associate being feminine with being submissive ?

If so this is where your mistake is.

A woman can easily dominate a man sexually with her vagina so her being penetrated is not a submissive act but I think many men make the mistake of assuming because the woman is being penetrated she is the one being dominated.

She may experience the act as threatening but she does not open her legs because she feels submissive but because she is submitting to a power in another that arouses her or as an act of service.

A submissive woman is childlike from being harmed in childhood and this is not natural to her sexuality.

A man experiences being penetrated as being submissive because of how he identifies with the words submissive and dominant but women have an entirely different emotional relationship to what is a submissive and dominant act and experience.

In my opinion it does not really occur to most women to even entertain the concepts because they are more concerned with survival and living thier lives.

The term Alpha is a male concept and need.

Masculine power and feminine power are not the same so the emotional relationship men and women have to the experience of being submissive and dominant are not the same.

I think you like the experience of being sexually submissive as a man but you are confusing yourself by labeling it as being feminine.

I see this continously being done on the forum because it is innate to men to think the experience of being feminine is the same as being submissive.

Also the inverse is true with men who think being feminine is being dominant but once again it is defined by male ideas of power and powerlessness.

I would recommend you first understand your sexuality by completely accepting whatever that sexuality may be but try to do it without any feminine props to use as an excuse or to give yourself permission to be submissive.

Gender identity has nothing to do with feeling submissive as female or dominant as male.

In my opinion it is a very serious and dangerous mistake to match up gender identity as being submissive.

There is no such thing as a naturally submissive female when you use the word submissive as defined by men. It is absolutely and completely different and almost impossible for men to understand.

It is also natural for you to enjoy crossdressing if you experienced it with your mother and sister because through the crossdressing you experienced inclusion so love and acceptance along with the emotional feelings that you will re-experience in the present from the past.

Crossdressing would elicit feelings of comfort and association.

In my opinion you are a healthy bi-sexual male with a strong male identity who is uncomfortable with his submissive side.

You have confused the experience of being submissive with that of being feminine and labelled it gender dysphoria.

In my opinion you feel shame about the submissive aspects to your person because you were shamed by your father and it is possible the submissive side was partly created by your relationship to your mother and sister even though I believe we are predisposed to being naturally submissive or dominant at birth as an aspect of innate temperament.

Explore your sexuality and why you are conflicted first and than any gender identity issues will be easier to understand.

These of course are only my own opinions and therapy to understand sexual dynamics shaped in childhood is always recommended when there is shame, guilt or any other destructive emotion associated with sex.

[pickles]

You could be genderfluid, that is you back and and forth between male and female.

[Badtranny]

Jenny I think you laid out your case pretty well.

Perhaps you don't have a gender problem at all? I'm no expert but I can't imagine ANYBODY going through what me and my sisters go through if they "like playing the male game, aka the macho chest bumping, the bravado associated with trying to be the alpha male in a group. I am not disturbed at all by the fact that I have male genitals and I find quite a bit of pleasure from them."

I had a similar upbringing as you (southern macho) and I don't find ANY commonality in the quoted statement.

My snap diagnosis is the same as your wife's. You're attracted to men and simply can't deal with it. This is not uncommon with your background. I had a very difficult time accepting myself as gay and then finally transsexual largely because of my childhood repression.

No offense I hope, it's just my honest feeling from your post.

[Jenny85]

I should have added that I have no problem being submissive to my wife or females in general. I have many experiences and fantasies that involve myself as being submissive to females as well as men. It's just that the fantasies about men usually tend to have myself presenting in a female fashion. If anything my father created my submissive personality because of how overpowering his personality is. I do probably associate my being female with being submissive to some degree though.

I do definitely have a strong male personality, but I tend to view my male personality with humor. The way I act around another male is nothing similar to how I act when alone or with females.

I continue to give serious consideration to my wife's theory that I'm creating this persona to allow myself to be bisexual. I dress as female without feeling submissive or sexually aroused. I don't see females as exclusively submissive, nor do I think that being penetrated is in and of itself submissive, though it can certainly be. My wife has a strong submissive side that we entertain frequently. Most of the time when we have sex we are equals. I am attracted to my wife when dressed.

It is hard for me to separate the sexual side from the nonsexual side because I am a very sexual person. Though my needs are not great, I do very little without some thought of sex. Also because my first conscious thought of identifying as female was directly linked to viewing pornographic movies. And because that was such a private way to indulge my fantasies they have become linked to some degree. It is only in separating the sexual from the nonsexual that I become scared or confused. For me, the thought that I want to dress or identify as female in any way other than sexual is what has prompted the serious inventory of my life so far.

I really hope that I'm not offending anyone, because after reading some responses I feel that posting in this forum makes me kind of a faker or poser. If my issues are truly just of a sexual orientation nature then this is probably not the best place to post.

Jenny

[Aprilrain]

After puberty my CDing took on a pattern that looked something like, some how get clothes, dress up, try to spend as much time as i could dressed, masturbate and then purge. There were variations on the theme but that was the general trend. All my sexual fantasies were me as a female with a male regardless of weather I was CDing or not, even when I was having sex with a woman I'd imagine myself as a woman quite often but not all the time. I uesd sex with woman to try to validate me as a male, I'd say to myself "see your not gay, your not a sissy you like girls!" but as soon as I was alone my sexual thoughts would return to me as a female with a male. Rather than feeling as though I was a girl I viewed the "wanting to be a girl" thing as a crazy fantasy and just avoided the whole issue, mostly with booze and drugs. Once I finally accepted myself and just said "yup, I'm a woman and I like men" dressing ceased being sexual.

[melissaK]

Labels are overrated. Stop trying to find a perfect one.

It's like this, there are 7 Billion people on this planet right now. No two of them have the exact same DNA, not even the twins.

So how many gender labels are there?

It might be ok to just be you. Skip the labels and just lead YOUR life YOUR way.
Get a copy of Kate Bornstein's "My Gender Workbook." The old edition is still around and new one us due out in March.
Then read it.
It will help you deal with your perceptions of uniqueness, and help you learn self acceptance if that's what you want.

[melissakozak]

You are who you are and you just figure out what your needs are to live a fulfilling, happy life...forget the labels and the categories....

[Jenny85]

For me, labels are too important to dismiss. If I am a cat but I don't label myself as such and hang out with dogs, I'll get eaten.

[ReineD]

You sound like my SO (who identifies as dualgender), except for this part:


And for me in that way [dressed as a woman] I have had experiences with a man and it does not bother me.

To clarify, my SO was single for about 10 years in between her last long term relationship and me, and she was free to explore, experiment, and develop. She did experiment with men and discovered that the reality of being two male-bodied persons together, shattered her illusion and it was a turn off.

I would follow Kelly's advice to see if you can feel an attraction to a male without any of the femme props. If so then you are bisexual. But if you cannot enjoy a sexual experience with a man without appearing as and feeling like a woman, then given the other things you've said you might look into autogynephilia, which in my opinion is the fifth type of sexual attraction: the love of oneself as a woman, whether through autoeroticism or using a male as a prop.

[Rianna Humble]

I am dismayed by the number of people who by saying words to the effect "labels don't count" are dismissing Jenny's attempts to understand herself and where she needs to go from here.

The path that Jenny needs to tread if she is transsexual is totally different to the path that she needs to tread if she is in fact cisgender and/or bisexual. If she listens to the advice not to concern herself with what she is and pursues transition for the wrong reasons, there could be devastating effects both on her own life and on her family.

Having reread Jenny's posts, I would sincerely doubt that she is transsexual and would support her intention to explore further her wife's idea that the female persona is a coping mechanism to help her deal with being bisexual.

Jenny, even if I am proved right and you are not transsexual, that does not make you a poseur nor a fake for asking the question here. The main reason why this is an all-member section of the site is to allow people who are unclear about TS issues to ask questions and, as in your case, explore whether they might be TS or not. Just because the answer proves in some cases to be that they are not does not place the person at fault for asking questions.

You are welcome amongst us, I hope that you find your answers.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

thanks rianna for your excellent post.

i hope jenny you can figure things out...if you can't see a gender therapist meet some ts and cd people directly... find an event in your town , or attend an event ..drive up to pennsylvania for a conference( ithink there are 2 coming up)..go to southern comfort in
sptember(atlanta i think)...btw...you don't have to register if you can't afford it...just go to the hotel and hang out at the bar...practically everybody at the hotel will be ts or cd and the cd's will all be dressed...\
otherwise these questions may swirl around in your head...

"do stuff"...go out dressed...spend a weekend in your home dressed...do whatever you can think of to express your femme side and decide for yourself what it means to you...

all these steps are productive...in the future maybe you can afford therapy...and the more you look at yourself with a clear head, the better you can take advantage of therapy

[melissaK]

@Rhianna, I see your point. I might have overstated my argument about labels being bad. =:-0 I mean labeling is what we do all the time to identify patterns. And we even label things that don't fit the patterns - as data outliers and such.

But @Jenny85 you seemed frustrated by the labels. At some point labeling is frustrating if there isn't a label made for you. Then, there's a temptation to wear a label and make yourself conform to the other characteristics attributed to the label, and being who we are not, generally causes up long term problems.

And that is sorta the point of Kate Bornstein. She chased labels throughout her life, and found none fit her very well, or she fit a lot of them even though they seemed incompatible. She adopted the phrase "Gender Outlaw" to show others that they don't have to fit an existing label, or at least not for life. Hence my recommendation for her workbook. (workbook @$25.00 shipped, is about what 1/4 to 1/6 to 1/8 the cost of a single counseling session?)

And @ReineD's account of her SO, you can see a similar story of someone not quite fitting all the characteristics of a labeled group, or at least having to change labels as she experienced being in the group she though she belonged in.

And I know at 13, I thought Christine Jorgensen was ME!! And then I snuck more time reading the book when no one at the drug store was watching, and I learned she went on to have male boyfriends - ewww yuck, I thought. I liked girls, not boys. So I thought I must NOT be a transsexual. So it left me completely bamboozled as to what I was. And at that point the labeling of the gender binary system left me in the lurch. At that point labeling did me more harm than good.

It was years before the transsexual literature and its labeling was tweaked to apply it to anatomical gender change only, regardless of sexual orientation. I think it's important to understand that labeling and using the term TS is still a contested area.

My mental "gender" is female, my "natal birth anatomical gender" is male, my desired physical presentation is "female," and my sexual orientation is "lesbian." Is that TS or not?
I'm on HRT 5+ yrs and have B cups and womanly thin body hair - does that make me TS?
I still present as a male - does that make me not TS?
I still want to present as female, does that make me TS.
(These are all rhetorical questions, please don't try to answer them).

Here's an analogy. I want to paint my room green. Go to Home Depot, Lowes and Walmart and ACE Hardware and collect all the green paint swatches.
How many do you have? 50? 60? 70?
Thus, there are plenty who at some point dispense with all labeling efforts and just go live their life.

And the even the idea a transsexual has a particular path to follow may be too rigid. *We just finished a thread somewhere this week that covered some who start HRT early, before RLE, before electrolysis and SRS; and how others went CD, electrolysis, RLE, HRT and then SRS. *

Jenny if you don't think a label fits, IMHO you shouldn't worry so much; you should spend time living your life and exploring your interests as so many here have recommended. By doing you will figure out whether a particular label fits or if you're a Gender Outlaw.

[Jenny85]

These are some very good points. I feel not like I must find the perfect label for me, so much as find a label that is a close approximation of me. I have some friends in Atlanta that I'll be going to see later this year who are very well versed in TG/TS/CD matters. I suppose I was hoping to be able to speak with a little more confidence to them if I had a better understanding of where I fell in the TG spectrum.

I'm thinking that I am probably not TS. I do not identify as only female. I personally believe that I am further along the spectrum than CD though as I believe I have a female half of my brain. My wife agrees with me when thinking back about my behaviors and reactions to things and the way I operate that there is something more than just a male personality.

If the closest label I can get is TG, then that's fine with me. I can figure more out later. I guess I was just hoping there was someone on the forum just like me who could relate to my issues personally. Note I was hoping, not expecting. Also, the concern that I would latch on to a label and mold myself to fit is a good concern. I do have to consciously stop myself from doing that much of the time.

Thank you,
Jenny

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Jenny there are lots of people here that will relate to you personally...keep typing...you'll start connecting with more and more people....check the cd section too...
+++++

There are two types of people in the world...people that think there are two types of people and people that dont..
this can never be settled but its worth talking about.....its not a problem or disagreement as much as its a communication issue...

i view accepting yourself as ts to be rational and constructive.. ..saying transsexual is a just label does not do justice to what being transsexual means anyway.
we all have our inner dialogue and varying levels of self acceptance...that's half the battle (3/4 of battle??)
but the label and your expression of that label is central to how your identity is reflected back at you...

..the path is not rigid as much as its proven...


you can go on and live your life as the woman you know you are , but still not transition...but the rewards will be different for you, and you may or may not be ok with that over time ..if ts, more likely not...

when you say i am me, and don't label me, how is that reflected back at you?? living a life where no one "knew" i was a woman nearly destroyed me... that's partially how i KNEW that i had to accept my own identity...

accepting the label of woman was a long hard road but totally worth it...
having my gender reflected back at me on a daily basis fulfills me in a way i could not comprehend until i did it...

its interesting because for gender fluid/queer people this is an ongoing battle because people don't know how to relate to someone that is overly androgynous or someone that goes back and forth all the time...its something that is easier to express than it is to have others authentically react...

in the end, thats why i am a huge fan of just doing something to express what you are feeling and see what happens..getting out and having people react to you is hugely helpful in stopping those circular inner thoughts in your head...

[Andrea J]

I agree that it is important to follow what you feel is right rather than try and fit yourself into an ill fitting gender label but if you want to talk labels have you considered:

Genderqueer or non-binary. Which includes:

Bigender, Two Spirits, Trigender, Pangender: Both man and woman.

Nongendered, Genderless, Agender: Neither man nor woman.

Genderfluid: Moving between genders.

Third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender.

(From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer)

[Wildaboutheels]

Sounds to me like you want /NEED a label, any label.

As long as the label isn't bi or gay.

Worrying about being labeled one of those I believe is THE biggest fear here of closeted CDers. [who want out]

Most adults [both male and female] want to believe that WE are in full control of what we like and don't like. WHAT/who we are attracted to and what we aren't. That we have full control of our "desires" in mate selection and have full control of WHO we pick for partners but it just ain't so. We might apparently sit at the top of the food chain [for now at least] but ONLY because we learned to walk on two feet and nothing else. Our Animal Instinct/s still has a huge grip on most of us in so many ways. I think anyone with an IQ over 10 realizes that people are BORN gay. Not something most people would or could really choose. I think being bi might not be so cut and dry... bi most likely being some combination of Nature + Nurture.

At any rate, there is nothing WRONG with either label.