Leaving On The Midnight Train To...?

[Ursula Harrison]

A discussion was developing on the Introductions & Reintroductions forum. Specifically on Suzie Petersen's reintroduction. Suzie suggested that I bring it over here, so here I am. I don't know how much interest it will generate but there were at least a few people participating in the original.

It concerned an excellent article I read in Tapestry magazine many years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting the author at Esprit in Port Angles WA in 1992 but I'm sorry to have to confess that I cannot recollect her name.

The article was written years before*the term "spectrum" came into vogue. Instead the TG experience is compared to a train journey. Departing from trying on a single item of female clothing once in a while, through wearing it often, dressing in lingerie, dressing fully, wig and makeup, femme name and so on along to the terminus of SRS, full transition and living as a woman 24/7. It is not an express train and all those intermediate stages represent stations along the way. The reader is advised to get off at every station and spend a little time there. If dissatisfied* they should board the train again and continue to the next station. When they reach a place where they are comfortable they should remain there and not get back on the train.

Suzie suggested that there were in fact several trains heading for different destinations. But I do not see that as necessarily the case. The train in the article is heading in one direction. It's just a case of each of us getting off at different stops. It may be possible to catch a train heading back if you find you've travelled too far although I've never come across anybody so inclined. In any case that will become progressively more difficult the nearer you get to the terminus.

I am totally in agreement with Suzie about there being fundamental differences among us. These were addressed when I first went on the scene in the UK by support groups and other organisations describing themselves as TV/TS. Thus distinguishing between transvestites like me who want to dress as women and transsexuals who want to be women. I think that was a distinction worth making. But sometime this century we all got swallowed up under the umbrella term "transgender". I think that was a retrograde step but perhaps that is a completely separate discussion.

[docrobbysherry]

I've met 100's of dressers. And, after many discussions, I would describe their dressing as having some similarities, yes. But, we're more like a shotgun blast.:eek:

All of us going in the same general direction. But, some going further, faster, and with difference in degrees and angles!:battingeyelashes:

[AmeeJo]

I like that comparison! I have progressed down the line quite a few stops since starting my CD journey and it feels like I'm on the express train after this last year. I don't believe I will ride it until the end of the line though. I very much enjoy my time spent as a woman but I do not have any desire to stay there full time. But, you never know, I may just decide one day that AmeeJo is here to stay.

[Debbie Denier]

An interesting analogy. The train wont stop going but it could slow down.I never did purchase a return ticket. I presume most of us didnt.I agree about the support groups. I started a thread about them when I first joined this forum in 2021. A lot have folded. Most now seem to have an emphasis more on the TG and TS than CD or TV.

[Suzie Petersen]

My main objection to the "single track" thought is that it suggest that everybody is headed for transition unless they Get off the Train for whatever reason. This is along the lines of the joke that the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual is .. 2 years. I don't believe that to be true.
Doc is right that everybody is different, and it sometimes baffles me how different we actually are. I have been at gatherings where after chatting with people for a while, you realize that the only similarity between us is that we happen to be dressed as women. Aside from that, the term "Train Wreck" sometimes comes to mind! (see what I did there).


Debbie: "I never did purchase a return ticket."
I know I sure didn't buy a ticket for this! In fact, I wasn't even asked if I wanted to come along :straightface:

- Suz

[Fiona_44]

I have spent time at a number of stops along the route. Last year I finally got off the train for the last time when I reached my destination, the one where I spend 90% of my time as a woman.

[Sometimes Steffi]

The idea of their being a single track implies a single destination and each stop is more.

I don't think I'm on the transition train. Oh, maybe if the environment was different, I might have gotten on the transition express. But, now I'm happy to be "just a CD" with shopping and going out privileges.

I think we're all different. Many of us got on the train as teenages or even younger. But, some have very specific dressing rituals. Lingerie only, all the way or nothing, underdress only, out and about, full time, wife/spouse knows (or doesn't). Plus different venues, e.g., only at home, only in the car, only at night, as long as I don't meet anyone, only out of town, only alone, with some/many others, out and about, just about anywhere.

Some of us always knew that we should have been women, others only want to look like women.

[GretchenM]

The analogy is good in that it describes a journey. But from the outset it is not much of a choice as to whether one gets on or walks away. To me there are several trains with different start points and they don't all go to the same destination, but there are opportunities to transfer to another train, if only to explore that path to see if it fits or not. There is very little about the whole thing that is deterministic. It is all a multi-dimensional world.

Many of us begin with different events and that is so because we all have different factors in our environment that configure our brains to do different things such as the so called first step of trying on something feminine if male or masculine if female. (Please do not forget that this behavior is not an exclusively male club! Lots of women are members as well. ) The nature of the person's environment during the developmental years is a huge factor in developing the pattern of the initial steps. Everything from living in a primarily female dominated environment to the craziness of the Petticoat Punishment.

But even before that there is the probability that we all have a genetically determined predisposition to be receptive to a more or less transgender alignment. It is entirely possible that that is just the way humans are. Please remember the definition of transgender is very broad and most certainly includes crossdressers and the deniers that they fit the definition based on their behavior but choose to not engage in that realm. It can even include some who have never crossdressed and don't even realize they have a lot of opposite gender behaviors - purely androgynous people that can work in either environment without experiencing gender dysphoria. The old gender binary kind of thinking has been replaced with other concepts, but it hangs on simply because it is simple even though it does not really apply to anyone.

The bottom line has been found to be that essentially everyone is a bit transgender in that everybody carries at least a few of the neural configurations in their brain that are most commonly seen in the opposite sex. Some though have a whole pile more of those than others and they act accordingly. But through brain plasticity we are able to move around within those constellations and behave in ways that are compatible with both the characteristics that are stereotypically associated with our native sex as well as those associated with the opposite sex. And how much of each we do bring into play at any given time is largely dependent on the environment we are in or, and this is important, the environment we create for ourselves and not necessarily by choice. Thus genetics that creates a very rough and flexible boundary with vast amounts of possibilities intertwines with the environment we live in to generate how we react to that. Amazingly though it is not a one-way street from genetics to reaction from environment. It is a two-way street because environment can modify the genetics by inducing the turning off and on of various genes. Thus Nature and Nurture are entangled to such an extent the pathways can go in both directions or even follow paths that take you on a tour of many continents. Research has shown that only about 2% of the population does not have the neurological capabilities to implement opposite sex gender traits and it is suspected that even they are at a pure gender train station for a short stay before they move on to other stations that are more blended.

Thus some of those stations on the train journey are places were a pure form of gender sense and expression can be experienced for awhile before continuing on the rest of the journey where male-like, female-like, and blended behavioral traits and characteristics is the norm, but in proportions that are constantly shifting in accordance with our experiences.

It is a rough analogy that is easy to follow as an outline of the course of our lives and the changes that occur, but the fact is there a lot of cisgender people also on the train. And that is necessary because gender traits and characteristics, their active blending at any particular moment, and what territory they span is different in everyone and is constantly shifting around as we experience new things in our lives. Our lives in the gender world is an entangled mosaic formed out of the entanglement of nature and nurture. Perhaps there is nothing linear about it.

[Debs]

I spend further up the track about once a month, but always come back to my previous station.

[Lucy B]

Ursula,
I think that’s a really good analogy. It certainly sums up my progression down the line.
Like a lot of people I went to the first stop in my early teens. Another stop by the end of my teens.
I pretty much stayed there for about 40 years.
I seem to have bought another ticket about a year ago and moved on a number of stops in quick succession.
If I’m honest I never expected to get anywhere near this far along the line, but I’m not planning on going backwards any time soon.
Of course that may change if my train makes it to the “wife finds out” stop!

[Bea_]

A train is not a bad analogy but to me I'd picture it more as a freeway with multiple exits and potential routes to a destination and any side trips on the way. A freeway analogy suits my idea that I have more control over the route, the speed and any stops I choose to make. I always seem to be the odd-person-out but that's how I imagine it.

[Heather76]

I like the train analogy and can easily see the different stations I got off at. I know the station I'd like to reach and, while it may take me some time to get there, it is the one where I'll permanently get off the train. That is the station where my wife and I agree I can fully dress anytime I want and anywhere I want so long as this part of me is never disclosed to family and friends. There are many times I'd like to go shopping, to a movie, for lunch, etc., dressed. Of course, those trips would have to be 25 miles or more from home. I'd like to be in wig and makeup at home on a regular basis. I neither want to be a woman or live as one. I simply want to dress like a woman as much as is possible. I love everything about wearing bras, forms, panties, dresses, stockings, makeup, etc.

[DianeT]

I side with Suzie on this one. As far as humans go, I don't find one-dimensional explanations convincing, since they fail to capture the diversity of the crowds they pretend to depict and necessarily make wrong assumptions since they are based on a one-size-fits-all paradigm. My dressing has many more dimensions than the reference template has on display, for example the fact I don't go out should mean that I didn't reach that scale on the ladder, while in reality I am simply headed towards many other directions that do not involve that particular step. As for transitioning as the end game, it is at this point just a theory due to a serious lack of data. There are no train stations in crossdressing. More an archipelago of islands where you can draw your own map, and every map is different, for each of us. I am not you, you are not me, and in full honesty there is no "we", the crossdressers. There are just individuals who happen to share some common interests, and who decide for various reasons to declare themselves members of a group.

[GaleWarning]

Joe Walsh sings a song about his addiction to alcohol, in which he likens his life as an alcoholic to being on a runaway train, rolling to the end of the line (ie death).

He chose to get off the train.

I like that analogy. Especially when it is applied to many marriage situations described on this forum, including my own.

[Genifer Teal]

I think too many people hesitate to take it to the next level out of fear that it just could never work or that maybe they are not ready for that next level for whatever reason perhaps looks maybe something else. I think this might be saying to follow the train wherever it's taking you regardless. You might really enjoy the next stop and if you don't you can always go back to the previous stop.