Gender Identity, Ego, and why it is awesome to be a crossdresser !

[AllisonS]

The discussion about gender identity has a larger context; ego, sense of self, schemas of self. Crossdressing makes me realize more about how ego works. I like that part of it. Maybe I don't know how to search for it but I haven't seen any posts about the larger question of sense of self, and what that is, and how many you have.. LOL

Eric Berne (Transactional Analysis) theorized that we have three ego states:

Parent - the nurturing, encouraging, admonishing, judging state, concerned with what should be
Adult - the rational state, facts, reason, observation, description
Child - play, curiosity, feeling, experimenting, laughing, crying, being cute (so people like you enough to let you survive.. lol)

People move between those ego states. You probably recognize them. For most of my "adult" life at work, and at home, I have been in the Parent and Adult states waaaaay more than my Child state. I've done my fair share of playing, but in general I've been in the P, A states. My female persona (Allison or Stephanie.. I haven't decided, it was Stephanie but I feel more like Allison. My former SO middle name was Allison so I thought that might sound weird to her, but that's over now, for now) is almost entirely in the Child state. I think that is why I love to be her. She is a guaranteed trip to the Child state.

The other fun part of crossdressing for me, is how it relates to what eastern philosophy says about the ego, especially as interpreted for the west by Alan Watts. The ego, your sense of self, IS a fictional character. So why not have two? Why not have fun with it? Why not explore the boundaries of it? Are there any? Ultimately, in many spiritual traditions, you are simply released from the sense of a self that smells smells, feels feelings, thinks thoughts, does deeds.

[Genny B]

Hated sociology and psychology but I do enjoy reading your post. I would have to agree that my fem side would be my child Ego!

Genny B

[Tracii G]

Somebody's theory nothing more than that.

[AllisonS]

What they taught in school? Me too.

[LelaK]

I'm not a fiction.

[Rachelakld]

Of course my SELF is fictional, I make it up every minute of every day, normaly visualise my self before I get out of bed each day, and play it out that way if I can.
My fictional self decides if it can be bothered to be offended at anything or everything, or not bother by anything.

Actually, my "projected" self (the self you see) is actually only a very small part of my fictional self

On a smaller scale, since the quarks that make up my atoms only last a few milliseconds before disappearing, I doubt my physical self is as solid or as real as we all pretend.

[pamela7]

We've had some good long threads on this sort of thing since i joined. From the Jungian perspective, the "anima" is the largely female aspect of self not normally allowed to come through a male's behaviours/feelings/thoughts/identity. CD lets the anima in and run riot, and the anima may as well include all the unresolved inner child stuff. The point is; it's fun, it's harming no-one. The original definition of "ego" is best seen in German; "i am".

[LelaK]

Everything known of the physical world is based on consciousness. Without consciousness, the physical cannot be known, assuming it exists apart from consciousness.

[AllisonS]

I'm not a fiction.

Lela... The point is what you mean by "I". In Zen, the sense of there being an "I" is a cramp of consciousness. There isn't a little person that sits behind your eyeballs and sees sight. Seeing is real. A seer seeing is a different thing.

Anyway, one of the things I enjoy about crossdressing is it challenges my fiction about me and who I think I am. Its also one of the hardest parts about it because there is nothing more threatening than something that threatens your self-concept. Who you think you are is partly your own story about yourself, but it is in large part given to you by whatever society you grew up in.

There is a lot of discussion amongst us about gender identity and it kind of begs the question of identity of any kind.

[docrobbysherry]

This thread strangely relates very much to my dressing. Because Sherry is not real. And, both I and most everyone else recognize that that fact. Plus we often agree that she appears to be an attractive woman.

This is a 180 degrees from my entire 70 years experience as a man. Where no one has ever seen me as who I feel I really am. And, have never been considered especially attractive by others or myself.

When discussing folk,s, realities, awareness, consciousness, it,s important to realize the constant changes going on in all of us. Not just our differences in those. And, bottom line? How much does any of this matter? In a 100 years all of our realities will be gone!