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Lately I’ve been feeling deflated, just like that tire on my sister’s car. The latter was fixed, but is there any hope for THIS inflatable doll? I don’t know – I go through spells around here where I wonder what I’m doing, or WHY I’m doing anything. I would also say “Why do I bother?” but let’s not be pretentious...
I often wonder if GGs also experience something like this? Trying to look pretty, do the things you love doing, and not only does it not get noticed by the people you want to notice, but you DO get noticed by the jerks. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why so many women just give up and wear pants most of the year, and wear shorts when it's too hot for pants.
Cross-dressers often have an additional twist of complexity. Trapped with one leg on each side of the gender fence, it's very easy to get tired, bend the knees, and get hurt pretty badly.
Transsexuals know that they WANT to be women, that they are women trapped in boy's bodies, and have to decide whether they want to go through all of the pain and expense required to transition. If I could be heavily sedated while doing electrolysis, laser, et al, and be assured of little or no paint, AND have the insurance company pay for all or most of it, I'd make the switch in a heartbeat. I'd be a big ugly broad, but at least my body would find my mind.
But since that isn't an option for me, I have to deal with the consequences of maintaining both male and female presentations. Even going on a business trip can mean some tricky packing. If Debbie doesn't get out once in a while, she takes it out on Rex, and skills and capabilities associated with Debbie are no longer available to Rex. On the flip side, going out as Debbie means that I have to be able to create an effective presentation as a girl which takes time, money and patience.
The other thing that's a bear is the consequences. For transsexuals, it often starts very young. We can lose friends, get bullied, get sexually abused. We can lose friends, family, girl-friends, lovers, wives, and even children.
If you know you are transsexual, then it's just a price you have to pay. On the other hand, if you are just a transgendered cross-dresser, and only doing it part time, with no desire to make a permanent change, it can be very cyclical.
One the drab days, the thought of doing all the work to get dolled up just makes you tired, and you don't want to make the effort, but the thought of never being pretty again is terrifying.
On the pretty days, the process of getting made up and dressed creates vitality, passion for life, and going out to a social event and putting it all on the line can make me feel incredibly alive, authentic, and powerful.
Sometimes the conflict just seems so overwhelming that the thought of having to spend the rest of your life without ever being able to be pretty again - is enough to make you go for the bottle, or drugs, or even suicide.
I've been through all of it, and the only thing I know for sure is that the best thing I ever did was come out of the closet and start to experience the world as Debbie. I wish I could have done more earlier, and now that I know what's possible, I wish I had shared "Debbie's Secret" with some of the friends in high school and/or college. I know that they were open minded, and thanks to facebook, have found that many would have supported me even back then.
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Case in point - I recently reached out to a few other members by way of PM’s, as I often do, if only to reinforce my own feelings of beauty and wonder about crossdressing. One of these members was relatively new, declaring that she loved the place and was happy to be here at long last (sound familiar?). This, combined with a parallel course (career path) much like my own, and an appreciation for prettiness, attracted me and inspired me to write a little something – I go through periods where I feel like writing about most anything, you know. I’ve been meaning to write THIS for a few days now, but my enthusiasm has been waxing and waning...
I don't get PMs often here, but when I do, it's usually from people who have private and personal concerns, which don't need to be discussed in a public forum. I try to respond as quickly as I see them, but I'm not on every day, and I don't often have time to craft a carefully worded answer that addresses all of the issues. Your message here is something that I think most of us deal with. It deserved a really good and positive answer.
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So, I began a little relationship of sorts with the aforementioned member, only to be deflated by a subsequent PM reversing the previous “glad to be here” position. Yup, it seems as though too much written feedback (via posts) wilted our little flower, and now, quite abruptly, she’s thinking of leaving. Naturally, I soon became the only reason for the person to stick around, but future posting will be curtailed, I’m told. Well, that’s too bad, but I’m beginning to feel like the girl with a blank dance card around here – kindred spirits are so rare, and so flighty, that they seem to be scared of their own CD shadow. So much for reaching out, eh?
I can certainly understand that. I first started discussing my transgender issues on usenet newsgroups about 30 years ago. I participated in both net.motss and net.women (later moved to soc.motss and soc.women). Motss was members of the same sex, for gay and lesbian issues. The women's group had several threads discussing feminine and masculine roles and stereotypes, and there were many transgendered posters who were quite willing to share about how aggressively they had been forced to play the masculine roles, and to suppress all feminine traits as completely as possible. Several transsexuals began posting and sharing their experience of transitioning. Back in those days, AT&T and IBM were about the only companies that were transgender friendly, and even those transitions were handled very delicately, often involving a transfer, relocation, or department changes. The fresh start often meant a drop in pay and promotion opportunities for a while, but it gave post-ops the ability to enter the new group as their new gender, without having to explain who they were before.
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I can understand it, in fact I went through the same thing when I first began posting on forums like this. You extend yourself, or declare your feminine intentions, only to have your precious hopes dashed unceremoniously by unexpected responses or a dearth of responses. Many friends, or prospective friends, have come and gone. I don’t mourn their loss any more, in fact I expect people to vanish – I half-expect to hear from a previously loved one (an old friend) with this message: “Are YOU still here?” Yes, I am, and I wonder why sometimes, but this is a very mysterious meeting place indeed...
Part of the problem is that there is an entire spectrum within the transgender community, ranging from the cross-dresser who only gets dressed up in their own bedroom when the wife is away, to the post-op transsexual who has decided that they will risk exposure by helping others to make the decision of whether or not to transition, and to help them understand the process of making the transition if they choose to transition.
Very often, a newcomer makes lots of mistakes. They may not even know the difference between a fetish, a drag queen, a female impersonator, a cross-dresser, a transsexual, a she-male, and a post-op M2F transsexual who is essentially the woman she has always wanted to be.
Worse, they may thing that if they identify as one, that they can't make a move to some other spot on the spectrum. Even post-op girls sometimes dress in drab, sweats, or baggies.
[QUOTE}Here is some unsolicited advice for newbies:
First of all, you need to develop a thick skin, much like sloping armor on a tank that can deflect incoming shaped-charge projectiles (didn’t know that I’m a military historian, didya?). Many people, let’s call them individuals, have a different ”take” on crossdressing, at odds with your own. I’ve been in more defensive struggles than I can count around here, some passionate and some half-hearted, but it’s all counter-productive blather that can wear down one’s reserve. Better to remain who you ARE, so you need to protect yourself on the battlefield of verbosity...[/QUOTE]
any newcomer to any new community has to deal with finding and accepting the "Norms" of that culture. A newcomer may be thrilled to finally have a chance to talk to others like him. I remember thinking for almost 10 years that I was the only boy who ever wanted to be a girl. I went to therapy but the therapists REFUSED to ever allow me to START a discussion about wanting to be a girl. When a friend took me to a gay bar and I met my first drag queen, I wanted to meet her and I told her that I always wanted to be a girl too, and she quickly explained that this was strictly for shows, that she never wanted to be a girl. That drove me back into the "drawer" for another 8 years.
We often forget in this group how painful it was to be alone and transgendered. Whether it was just wanting to wear the clothes, or wanting to switch bodies with even a reasonably attractive girl, it was something most of us had a hard time sharing. Many of us were bullied, and about half of all transgendered boys have tried to commit suicide and felt they should have died. And for each of those who tried, it's a safe guess that another two actually died. So much of this was because there was so little freedom to express ourselves, to dress the way we wanted to, to be pretty, to play with dolls instead of guns, even if only once in a while.
I find it interesting that there are all these anti-bullying campaigns that have come up as a result of people being bullied to the point of suicide, yet teachers, faculty, clerics, and athletic programs feel that it's perfectly OK to bully a "Sissy" even though most of those who triggered the anti-bullying measures were gay, lesbian, transgendered, or bisexual.
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If you made it this far, thanks for reading my “rant,” for lack of a better description – I like to look for certain types of MtF crossdressers on this site, and I often reach out to them, if only to express a mutual desire to be a certain way (call it feminine, if you must). Some individuals are very perishable by nature, so I advise caution, as well as patience – I can certainly NOT be here, just like I AM here now. There is no difference between the two, but, for now, we can meet each other as “fellow” explorers, mutual experimenters, and like-minded pioneers moving towards an undisclosed destination. I’m glad to meet YOU, for I spent plenty of time in the wilderness alone. Please stick around...
Sometimes "rants" are perfectly appropriate. If there is one community that really has no business trying to stifle diversity of opinion, it would be this group here. So many members of this community have expressed their times of pain, of being bullied, of wives or girlfriends who couldn't accept them, of losses, of frustration, of anger, of fear, of loss. This is not really the best place to tout right wing fundamentalist "traditional values" and "traditional gender roles".
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Do you ever wonder why you’re here? Or why you’re STILL here? What’s it all about, darling? :idontknow:
Some of it is payback. So many people in my own life were so supportive when I most needed it, and there were so many others who were cruel and terrifying. Others shared their experience and it gave me hope at a time that I was ready to let go. If I can help someone else get through those uncomfortable feelings and get to a point where they can make an informed choice and deal with the consequences and have the freedom to really love their lives, then I should stay around.
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Oh, one more piece of advice – if you write something more than one paragraph in length, please don’t bother “warning” me about a LONG post! Haven’t you seen any of my things?
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