Is This a Choice?

[TSchapes]

Because I showed up in drab at my last LGBT meeting from work, I was informed by a Gay member that my dressing was a choice. I was taken aback by this, because I don't feel I have any more choice in being a CD then he does in being gay. And I don't think me controlling when and where I choose to engage society with my other side is called a choice. My brain is still telling me I'm different...

I do think that the LGBT group is tenuous at best. We are all linked by a common sexual thread. But the G & L does get the T and even the TS doesn't get the CD. And yet, I believe we need each other.

Anyone else have these types of interactions? Any thoughts on this? I don't want to start a word war here, but I am hurt by this. I'm a big girl and will continue to push for an inclusive TG agenda, but sheesh! I'm having a hard time educating my Gay and Lesbian comrades.

Sorry for the rant..

Love, Tracy

[Elly E]

Eh, I think we have a natural desire to do this. Its nothing that can be controlled. I'm more on the wanting to become a woman end of things, but I do believe crossdressing is something that you're with just the same as being gay, lesbian, or whatever other label we decide to put on people for loving freely next.

[Kathi Lake]

I totally agree. The one time I went to a transgender support meeting, I was one of the few "mere" crossdressers there. I got the "choice" thing too. Truthfully, I get much more support from my friends here - and you're from all over the spectrum! I don't see anyone putting on airs or saying one group is better than another. Then again, I'm kind of a Pollyanna that way. Maybe it does go on, but I just pass it by.

Tracy, can I ask you a question? What, exactly, do you need a support group for? Do you have problems with dressing? Do you need someone to talk to who understands? I find that most of the support I need comes from inside. Once I accepted that what I was doing was fine, my need for support went away.

Kathi

[Carolanna]

As the former president of a support group, I believe they stiffle personal growth. It's just the trading your tiny little closet for a larger one. During my tenure (which lasted for eight years) I attempted to offer as many opportunites for my sisters to go beyond the motel room door. Even strength in numbers couldn't convince the timid to venture out.

I beilieve it's my choice to live the way I do and I'm glad that no one else decides for me.

[AmandaM]

Gays can be so stupid, and as ignorant as anyone else. I have the choice to be a basketcase on meds the rest of my life, or to express my female side. Some choice.

[Bev06 GG]

Gays can be so stupid, and as ignorant as anyone else. I have the choice to be a basketcase on meds the rest of my life, or to express my female side. Some choice.

You so have a way with words Amanda. I think its just more a case of prejudice. To be honest we all have them. How often do you hear on here people critcising women for not being feminine any more, yet if we were to to come on and say guys aren't masculine any more we'd get shot.

For a Gay man to say something that insensitive smacks of ignorance and lack of empathy toward anyone else who's a bit different. We are all wired up differently and we should learn to respect other peoples way of life instead of comparing it with our own. How can any of us know what's going on in someone else's head when we can't even work whats going on in our own most of the time.

I can't really work out though why most people see thier differences as some kind of affliction that they can't help. Its almost like theyre asking for pity. Hell if I'm different to others then I'm quite releived really, and if they can't or dont want to accept that then surely thats their problem not mine.

Bev

[Deborah Jane]

I have the choice to be a basketcase on meds the rest of my life, or to express my female side. Some choice.

My thoughts exactly!!

Yes we can stop, but at what cost to our sanity?

[Melanie R]

The only "choice" is whether you crossdress or not. Regardless of the clothing you wear most of us are persons who have a large feminine component to our personas that desire to express our femininity through dressing in feminine attire. I frequently will say that when I am in male drab and presenting as a man that is my real crossdressing.

[TSchapes]

Tracy, can I ask you a question? What, exactly, do you need a support group for? Do you have problems with dressing? Do you need someone to talk to who understands? I find that most of the support I need comes from inside. Once I accepted that what I was doing was fine, my need for support went away.

Kathi

Oh, this is not a support group per se. This is an ERNG group, Enterprise Resource Network Group or some just call them ERGs. A number of larger corporations like AT&T, Ford, GM, Lucent, etc. have these. For example Lucent has a group called "Equal!", here is their organization's description:

EQUAL! is an educational and support group that addresses workplace environment issues affecting employees who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered or who have family, friends or colleagues who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.

So the up side is I'm participating in a corporate sponsored group that helps support education about LGBT issues, and we do outreach events to the LGBT community. Like we sponsored a booth at the Motor City Pride Festival last month. I work for a bank that has it's name on our baseball stadium here in Detroit (Sorry I'm being coy here, I don't want them to do a search on their corporate name and get a hit here on CD.com!).

I am out to a large number of people at work and I want to help the gay community (my son is Gay btw) so this group is a good fit. It's just that it can be so frustrating. And like you say, I'm just a mere cross-dresser. I get grief from the TS that's in the group too, like I'm some lady-in-waiting.

Oh well, I'm just letting off steam. No one told me that this path of outing myself at work was going to be easy. It's part of the journey I've mapped out for myself. And I just hope that it will be worth it, if not for me, then for those that will follow....

So it's all good.

-Tracy

[BreenaDion]

im with you on this TSchapes, that the labels are all wrong ..

Gay an lesbians should be labeled together.

Cross dressers are a sperate an different entity.

TS an TG are similar with one difference.." the Knife "

transgender is a subculture of G+L unless they go under the Knife then there a subculture of straight.

Transsexual are then called straight for they are called " Fixed "

thats my take whats your ?

Love Bree

[Aubrey Green]

It doesn't matter if it is at work, a movie, a PTA meeting, or anyother type of get together. There is one in every crowd. Apparently an expert, that knows the inner workings of everyones mind in the room. Think of it this way, they wouldn't be there if they didn't have some issues of their own. Even a professional, presiding over the meeting, would never address in a room full of people. Laugh it off and see it for what it is. A thousand people could look at a Picasso and love, but one person will hate it, and that is what everyone remembers.

[ReineD]

but I am hurt by this.

The world is filled with people who are unable to think outside of their boxes, even if they themselves have experienced bigotry. I wonder if it is a question of IQ. But, you know it is not a choice, as do many others. Please don't let someone else's ignorance get you down and instead look at the interaction as an opportunity to educate them. And if they do not wish to learn, just smile and walk away.

Cross dressers are a sperate an different entity.

TS an TG are similar with one difference.." the Knife "

thats my take whats your ?

Transgender (TG) is an umbrella term that covers everyone who diverges in some way from their birth gender. It includes TS, TM, CD, TV, Drag Kings & Queens, Genderqueer, Androgine, and any other terms I haven't mentioned.

In terms of "the Knife", the generally accepted terms are non-op, pre-op, or post-op TS. And once someone has had GRS, they are considered to be their post-operative gender with no more reference to their birth gender.

[Miranda09]

Tracy, I think there are some in that "support" group that need a little educating themselves!! Actually, I wish more straight people would visit this site and see what we're all about.

[suchacutie]

We all make choices within what our circumstances allow. Unless we are fabulously wealthy, we live within our means, and that requires choices, some of which are not pleasant.

What we don't have a choice about is how our brain was initially established. We can only work with what we have. Thus, even if I were not able to wear a stitch of female clothes or makeup or the like for whatever reason life may throw at me, that doesn't make me any less transgendered. I am what I am. What my circumstances allow me to do about it is another issue altogether.

Part of the problem here is the completely inadaquate understanding in the general public (gay and straight) of what it means to be transgendered. I constantly hear that all TV/TS/TG are gay. There is nothing wrong with being gay, but the perception of a large part of this community is simply wrong. When we start from so far back in the educational spectrum, is it any wonder that we are viewed so errantly by most?

tina

[Jenny Brown]

Because I showed up in drab at my last LGBT meeting from work, I was informed by a Gay member that my dressing was a choice.

It's a choice unless someone is forcing you to CD at gunpoint.

[Empress Lainie]

[SIZE=4]I'm completely TS, but regarding the support group, I think it helps to have people you know that like you are different from the run of mill normal "straight" hetero m and f's.

We discuss such things as how a company is supportive of transexuals, or not, and the good and bad things that happened to us over the week.
I miss them when I for some reason I miss a week. The group has given courage to some people to start their own transition. There is a joke that they converted me in just one meeting!

One thing we have found is that the tri-ess is not very friendly to the TS's, and they have even quit letting us know where they meet each week. I have however had a few good friends from tri-ess. They seem to want to just have CD's there, not TS's too.

I felt like I had truly come home at the very first meeting I went to, and that was the day I realized my persona is truly completely female, and went to 24/7 the next day.

For nearly a year we gave our facilitator a hard time about her crossdressing and wearing pants, so until we finally relented and told her she could wear pants again, she only wore skirts on our meeting days. We still joke about it occasionally.
[/SIZE]

[Joni Marie Cruz]

It's a choice unless someone is forcing you to CD at gunpoint.

It isn't the outer expression, it's the inner feeling. You can be gay and never have sex with a man. How does being CD but dressing in drab make it somehow more of a choice?

-Joni Mari

[Shelly Preston]

It's a choice unless someone is forcing you to CD at gunpoint.

Yes its a choice - tell me your joking ?

Have you any idea how many Crossdresser's have tried to give up and cant !!!

Its part of who we are.

There are those who suffer even more because they don't like the idea of dressing.


I guess we need to make this clear to the gay community too.

[Frédérique]

Actually, I wish more straight people would visit this site and see what we're all about.

[SIZE="2"]This is excellent advice. Ignorance is definitely not bliss! There are a lot of shades of grey here, in our community, and in the gay & lesbian community, but we tend to be lumped together…[/SIZE]

Ignore him.

[SIZE="2"]More excellent advice…[/SIZE]

What he/she told me, obviously had happened. He/she made a choice based on his/her experience of the local TG community.

[SIZE="2"]Then his/her experience must have been shallow, incomplete, and tainted by laziness and/or prejudice. If you can’t research something yourself, or think before you speak, you deserve to be ignored. I must say I think the word “choice” is overused these days – involuntary is a nicer word (in our case)![/SIZE]

[Jenny Brown]

Yes its a choice - tell me your joking ?
Have you any idea how many Crossdresser's have tried to give up and cant !!!
Its part of who we are.

I'm not addressing all the psychological aspects. That wasn't the thread title. The act of putting on the clothes is still a "choice".
If you want stop cd-ing, stop putting on the clothes.

[MJ]

I do not have to breathe, it is my choice.

point well said we don't have a choice

Yes its a choice - tell me your joking ?

Have you any idea how many Crossdresser's have tried to give up and cant !!!

Its part of who we are.

There are those who suffer even more because they don't like the idea of dressing.


I guess we need to make this clear to the gay community too.

again we don't have a choice

so we try to live with this and together help support each other because we have no choice

[Teri Jean]

For me it is choice and an obsession to dress and possibly transition, so if the group is having problems with my intent or future as a CD or TG then the cord is clipped. I spent a lifetime of politics at work and elsewhere and I do not need it here to. If you don't like the setting, do yourself a favor and give it a boot to the back side and do your exiting interview so they know why you are leaving. Maybe they will do some solesearching.

end of my rant
Teri

[Heather Daniels]

I'm not addressing all the psychological aspects. That wasn't the thread title. The act of putting on the clothes is still a "choice".
If you want stop cd-ing, stop putting on the clothes.

A choice? A choice?? How do you figure that this is a choice? This is no more a choice than the fact that I have blue eyes. I did not get to choose what eye color I have, and I did not choose to dress in womens clothing either. This is something we are born with, and try as we may, can not overcome. Possibly for some fetish dressers, this is a choice, but to the vast majority I would assume, this is not a choice.

[Ralph]

I'm not addressing all the psychological aspects. That wasn't the thread title. The act of putting on the clothes is still a "choice". If you want stop cd-ing, stop putting on the clothes.

I did not get to choose what eye color I have, and I did not choose to dress in womens clothing either.

Did you read Jenny's comment at all, or is English not your first language? Nobody is arguing that we "choose" to be crossdressers; it has been established up one forum and down the other that most of us have had this compulsion since our teen years or much earlier. What we can choose is when, and how often, to give in to that compulsion and put on the dresses, or makeup, or bra, or whatever. Those of us who live in the closet make that choice every day - we CHOOSE whether to go out in public in guy clothes and not face any grief from a hostile world. Yes, you absolutely choose to dress in women's clothing. What you do not have any choice in is the desire to do so. Now, do you see the difference?

[BarbiB]

There are those who suffer even more because they don't like the idea of dressing.

And then there's those who suffer EVEN MORE THAN THAT.....
Because they don't dress in consideration of the wishes of a loved one.