Will the CD desire ever evolve?

[kimdl93]

Another way I can think of to gauge this is the "boy to girl ratio". I'd say my brain is 75% boy because I like cars, engineering, math, sci-fi, although I'm not a big sport fan. However personablity-wise, I'm 50-50 between boy and girl as a Gemini.

Does that makes me a more reliable CD?

Honestly, I don't think that the items you mention are any more exclusively male than shopping is female. Society has traditionally pushed men one way and women another, but even that is changing. Today more than 1/2 of all medicine and law students are women. But to your initial question, yes, CDers evolve. We don't all start life from the same point, and we don't end up in the same place. What I sought from CDing 20 years ago is different from what I seek today. Then, I underdressed and was besieged by fear of discovery and guilt. Today, I can dress publically and accept that most people who see me as a cross dresser.

[SweetIonis]

However, since people change and develop themselves, I'm wondering will the design for CDing ever elvolve? Is there a clear bondary between CD and TS? Or it's a boundary for each individual to draw?

Any thoughts?

I explored this concept and I believe that it's possible for a CD to become a TS.

[Nolwenn Elizabeth]

I'd be up for switching to female only if I could be biologically female and I could switch back when I wanted. Of course that isn't realistic. IRL, I only want to CD. And only privately. Someday, I may want to go out dressed up but that would be as far as I would ever go personally. I have no interest in TG-ing. (Is that a word?)

[flatlander_48]

Another way I can think of to gauge this is the "boy to girl ratio". I'd say my brain is 75% boy because I like cars, engineering, math, sci-fi, although I'm not a big sport fan. However personablity-wise, I'm 50-50 between boy and girl as a Gemini.

Does that makes me a more reliable CD?

Actually that is fairly close to how I think of myself. The only difference would be that I'm a big motorsports fan. Long before I started to crossdress, I noticed that my approach to solving engineering and design problems was much more intuitive than based in hard facts. The intuitive part worked to narrow the possibilities before the logic and structure took over. Going from memory, but in the Meyers-Briggs Personality Indicators, there is a section that evaluates Introvert vs. Extrovert. Most engineers come out heavily biased toward Introvert. I scored almost dead center. Very uncharacteristic and perhaps related to having an identifiable female side.

I also agree that it would be unlikely for me to want to transition as I do like the male side quite a lot. Some things that go unquestioned as a male would cause a reaction as a female. As times evolve, perhaps there will be no difference, but I think we are a long ways from that.

All that said, would is be fun to be completely female for a short time? Yes, it would be a very interesting experience but it might not be like you'd think. I am 62 and I have spent all these years essentially as male. I think there's a lot of subtlety that is learned and absorbed by females over their lives. I would not have that and I don't think you can get it in a short period of time.

[Rianna Humble]

I explored this concept and I believe that it's possible for a CD to become a TS.

Fortunately, the facts don't support this outlandish notion.

[SweetIonis]

Fortunately, the facts don't support this outlandish notion.

I have put forward rationale, that will be difficult to dispute rationally. The only thing I have seen so far is unsubstantiated emotional outbursts.

[AliceJaneInNewcastle]

I have put forward rationale, that will be difficult to dispute rationally. The only thing I have seen so far is unsubstantiated emotional outbursts.

I just had a quick scroll through the thread and all that I can see you having put forward is a proposition without any rationale.

While a person who is a TS can deny their need to transition and tell everybody including themselves that they are only a CD, short of a physical change to the brain such as a stroke, there is no research that I'm aware of that indicates that a person who was psychologically only a CD can become a TS. What does happen is that TSes in denial cease denying their need to transition, giving the impression that a person who previously claimed to be only a CD has become a TS.

[Samantha43]

Will the CD desire ever evolve?

I have been crossdressing for 35 years or so, and my desire and goals are basically the same as they were when I first started. There have been times when the desire has peaked, and times when it wasn't there at all, but it has balanced over the years. At times when I am in a peak and the pink fog has a pretty good hold of me I have thought "wouldn't it be cool to really be a girl". Then the pink fog clears and I wonder why I was thinking that.

I couldn't live my life as a female. I want to run away whenever my wife has bunch of women over (Dad called them hen parties ). I really hate shopping.....malls are little pieces of hell on earth and I stay away from them. A woman's thought process is a complete mystery to me, I've been married for 23 years and I still can't figure her out. I just wouldn't fit in.

I'll live my life as a male and enjoy all of the male things I do.

I'll also enjoy my unique hobby!

No evolution here.

[SweetIonis]

I just had a quick scroll through the thread and all that I can see you having put forward is a proposition without any rationale.

While a person who is a TS can deny their need to transition and tell everybody including themselves that they are only a CD, short of a physical change to the brain such as a stroke, there is no research that I'm aware of that indicates that a person who was psychologically only a CD can become a TS. What does happen is that TSes in denial cease denying their need to transition, giving the impression that a person who previously claimed to be only a CD has become a TS.

Alice, I welcome your civil response and frankly, I'm thankful for it. I opened another thread where I put forward rationale, supported by well known psychological principles as to how this is possible. However, I thought about it, and after seeing how some who are actually TS feel that such ideas put them at risk, and after it was pointed out to me that this was the life that they actually have to lead, I decided to stop an in depth discussion in this forum. Although I got some very vicious and vindictive responses, I my heart I really and truly care about all of these individuals. I would rather hurt than to think that I have done something that would cause them some substantial harm in this way. In particular these ideas could give rise to the notion that these psychological principles could be used to reverse the process. This could potentially cause a lot of unnecessary havok and as such, I don't think it's worth me repeating it.

Now that said, as to your point. I would say that depending on how you define a CD and a TS then what you say is true. What I mean by that is that if you feel that it's impossible and the only way it could happen is that the person was a TS all along, then the definition itself excludes the possibility. But that aside, I would say that a person who finally came to that conclusion would always be able to look back and find evidence to support that it was that way all along. It is possible, BUT NOT NECESSARILY THE CASE, that this COULD be explained due to a need to resolve a dissonance that is in their mind. Here's a link that explains the concept in case someone is not familiar with it:

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

I realize that not all persons will take this route. There are some, I will be bold and say the majority, have this tendency strongly from birth and it just becomes more and more reinforced over time, one way or another. However, I feel that there are some cases where the person is not quite there. In these cases I feel that there is a phase where you have two gender identities that exist simultaneously. To me a person in this phase is not, strictly speaking a TS. Here you are likely to see a substantial conflict arise, and depending on how circumstances play out with respect to conditioning, one of these identities could, but not necessarily, prevail. In this case I would suspect that the dissonance caused by the conflicting identities could be resolved in the person's mind by saying it was that way all along.

What do you think?

[Rianna Humble]

I just had a quick scroll through the thread and all that I can see you having put forward is a proposition without any rationale.

Equally, in his unsubstantiated drivel, Ionis ignores the well documented cases of children who have been brought up as if they were the opposite gender to their natal sex - thus undergoing the sort of conditioning that he puts forward as his argument - and who by the time that they became adults have rejected the conditioning and insisted that their gender is equal to their natal sex.

He also wilfully ignores the equally well documented cases of intersex children who have had female organs removed shortly after birth who have been conditioned to believe that they were male and who in adulthood have found themselves needing to revert to their true gender despite the barriers that had been placed in their way.

[LitaKelley]

It's definitely evolved for me.. When I first came to this forum I thought I was just a crossdresser... and I progressed on to living full time as a woman and am out every day as a woman, and in the beginning stages of transition... I actually despise the term crossdresser if/when someone applies it to me.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

If you stick to the idea of crossdressing as a behaviour, then it depends on why you crossdress...

There is no basis to say a person that crossdresses for any reason OTHER than being transsexual will develop into something different....but each person must somehow figure it out for themselves WHY they dress...
and both crossdressing and transsexuality are socially and culturally unacceptable, even hated ...so the core reason can be very difficult to understand for a young person.

people who confuse "development" into transsexuality are missing the point the "being" a woman has absolutely nothing to do with what you wear, what you like to talk to about, how you shop....etc...etc... it's just a simple thing....you just are..

so if it turns out that you are crossdressing for the reason that your actual internal identity is the same as a genetic female.......it's very possible over time you will realize that dressing is not "just dressing", and your male life will become more and more difficult to bear...it's also a common misconception that a ts "knows when they are 5 or 6"... ask yourself right now everything you "know" you knew when you were 5... it's certainly possible to know as a small child...but its very normal to just push those thoughts out of your brain for many years.....my earliest recollection was seeing a transsexual pictured in time magazine when i was 10 years old and i wanted so bad to "be her"... even then, i dismissed the thought as best i could and compartmentalized all my cross gender behaviour until well into my 30's/early 40's...

the idea that you can be indoctrinated into femaleness ignores the real world concept that pretty much every middle age transsexual in the world DESPERATELY tried to stay male, DESPERATELY tried to enjoy all the positive benefits of maleness, all the power, all the privilege, all the great things about being a guy just don't internally register and many have attempted to die rather than "switch"...and most of the ones i know (including me), still love lots of the traditionally male things..
the idea that you can develop INTO transsexuality, or be pushed into is exactly the OPPOSITE of the real life experience of being ts...

I used to love the idea of "pink fog"...but i learned being ts is the opposite of pink fog..it's a pink steamroller crushing the life out of you.

[flatlander_48]

It's definitely evolved for me.. When I first came to this forum I thought I was just a crossdresser... and I progressed on to living full time as a woman and am out every day as a woman, and in the beginning stages of transition... I actually despise the term crossdresser if/when someone applies it to me.

I don't think that evolved is the right word. You were always a person who should be on the road to transitioning. Crossdressing was only the first step on that path to discovery. It allowed you to break the rigidity around gender and begin to see yourself more clearly. Similarly, you cannot make a person gay. You are what you are, whether you admit it or not...

[SweetIonis]

Equally, in his unsubstantiated drivel, Ionis ignores the well documented cases of children who have been brought up as if they were the opposite gender to their natal sex - thus undergoing the sort of conditioning that he puts forward as his argument - and who by the time that they became adults have rejected the conditioning and insisted that their gender is equal to their natal sex.

He also wilfully ignores the equally well documented cases of intersex children who have had female organs removed shortly after birth who have been conditioned to believe that they were male and who in adulthood have found themselves needing to revert to their true gender despite the barriers that had been placed in their way.

Rianna, ignoring the insult, I think this is a better response. What I would say is that the initial degree to which the person is pre-disposed to such behavior would determine the amount of conditioning needed to effect such a change. In some it might be impossible over the course of a lifetime.

Having said that, let me give you some background on how I came to the conclusion that it's possible for a person's gender identity to change.

Around the time I was 16 to 17 years old I went through this intense phase of questioning who are we, what is the purpose of life, and what is the causality of cognition. At around 19 I had come to some basic conclusions that form the foundation of my thinking in this regard to this day. As a result of those conclusions, I see the phenomenon of self identification in general to be a mental construct that is malleable. Interestingly enough, around this time I worked as a lifeguard at a municipal swimming pool one summer. One day when we were at lunch, this guy that I knew, who was very athletic and very popular with the ladies, had a brother that came up who was very angry at him. Now this guy (not the angry brother) had been in prison for a while. Some further background is that he is black, and had been expelled from school in the EIGHTH GRADE for having sex, at school with a white girl. So the angry brother began saying all these nasty things about him. He then narrated how he had caught him in bed having sex with another man. At that point in my life, I was shocked! I never imagined that he was capable of doing something like that. However he did not deny it, and confessed right there in front of everyone that what his brother said was true. Now not too long after that, I had some rather lengthy conversation with several people that had been in prison for a substantial amount of time. It appears that prison CAN, but not necessarily have the effect of altering a person's perception of their gender identity. I had thought it, but after those conversations I was convinced that gender identity is something that can be significantly changed.

Now I really had not thought about how it relates to a CD becoming a TS that much until that thread was posted concerning CD or TS in which we had our little exchange. After that I thought I would explore the concept and posted a thread where I laid out the principles that could cause this to happen.

[AliceJaneInNewcastle]

In these cases I feel that there is a phase where you have two gender identities that exist simultaneously. To me a person in this phase is not, strictly speaking a TS. Here you are likely to see a substantial conflict arise, and depending on how circumstances play out with respect to conditioning, one of these identities could, but not necessarily, prevail. In this case I would suspect that the dissonance caused by the conflicting identities could be resolved in the person's mind by saying it was that way all along.

There are plenty of theories, and this one of yours would be as good a fit as the theory that a person is in such deep fear-based denial that they suppress their transsexuality. Where it may fall down somewhat is in the assumption that the two gender identities exist as an innate part of the person.

Dual personalities or gender identities are a creation of the conscious mind, used to assist in defining a boundary between two sets of behaviours. Such 2-mode behaviour is certainly not restricted to transgender people. In fact, it occurs in everybody to some extent. The way you behave at work is different to the way you behave in your bedroom, and the separate behaviour sets are constructed by the individual in order to fit into social expectations, etc. A transsexual who is suppressing their real gender identity will create a persona with its gender matching their natal sex.

It's interesting to note that as they age, a lot of TG people who maintained separate male and female personae cease to feel the need to maintain that separation as they mature. Some, like me, find it convenient to use their "other" name in the 3rd person in conversation, such as when discussing their female clothing preferences while in public as a male.

Equally, in his unsubstantiated drivel, Ionis ignores the well documented cases of children who have been brought up as if they were the opposite gender to their natal sex - thus undergoing the sort of conditioning that he puts forward as his argument - and who by the time that they became adults have rejected the conditioning and insisted that their gender is equal to their natal sex.

He also wilfully ignores the equally well documented cases of intersex children who have had female organs removed shortly after birth who have been conditioned to believe that they were male and who in adulthood have found themselves needing to revert to their true gender despite the barriers that had been placed in their way.

All of that research appears to indicate that gender identity is fixed at birth, even if it is suppressed for part of the person's life.

It's definitely evolved for me.. When I first came to this forum I thought I was just a crossdresser... and I progressed on to living full time as a woman and am out every day as a woman, and in the beginning stages of transition... I actually despise the term crossdresser if/when someone applies it to me.

Your experience is consistent with that of quite a few of my personal friends and acquaintances. I know many who have moved from considering themselves CDs to being full-time, including one who went from deliberately very hairy and closeted to full time and having had FFS to the point of not being able to pass as male, in literally under a year.

[xErica]

I read this and agree with both sides.... sort of. I thank you are are or are not there is no "evolving" BUT it can seem as an evolution. For those in full denial of being TS the baby steps in admitting to yourself can SEEM to be an evolution. As for me im trying to "discover" myself. I am in the beginning of my journey and after 32 years of hiding from myself, what is a lie and what is the truth is hard to determine. Finding where one fits into the TG community is a mentally draining process. I do not care about the label that may come with it. It's hard to take the first steep into CD. Once you have and you get that feeling of inner peace next comes confusion and fear (at least for me). I understand calling it evolving though it's more "self discovery" or "self realization" in my opinion. I thank that to much time is being spent on the word "evolve".

e·volve (-vlv)
v. e·volved, e·volv·ing, e·volves
v.tr.
1.
a. To develop or achieve gradually: evolve a style of one's own.
b. To work (something) out; devise: "the schemes he evolved to line his purse" (S.J. Perelman).
2. Biology To develop (a characteristic) by evolutionary processes.
3. To give off; emit.
v.intr.
1. To undergo gradual change; develop:
2. Biology To develop or arise through evolutionary processes.

i am undergoing gradual change and i am working something out. to me it fits the definition. but when the word is used it only in one way, because that is the primary way we here it.

but to answer what i believe was the question witch was if you CD will it inevitably lead to wanting a full change. (correct me if im wrong Samantha) I am new to this but I believe that that the answer is no.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

a transsexual "is"... you "are" or you "arent" transsexual... there is nothing else to it...
if you are ts, what you do about it, how you cope with it, whether you crossdress etcetcetc are different for all people...
a person that crossdresses and then realizes she is doing it because she "is" transsexual did not evolve into being ts..her understanding of her herself and her situation evolved..

the difference is important because so many of us (Ts/cd/tg) feel alot of negative emotions around our behavior, and accepting yourself is a huge part of feeling good about yourself.

[xErica]

a person that crossdresses and then realizes she is doing it because she "is" transsexual did not evolve into being ts..her understanding of her herself and her situation evolved..

Kaitlyn that is what i was trying to say thank you

[SweetIonis]

There are plenty of theories, and this one of yours would be as good a fit as the theory that a person is in such deep fear-based denial that they suppress their transsexuality. Where it may fall down somewhat is in the assumption that the two gender identities exist as an innate part of the person.

Dual personalities or gender identities are a creation of the conscious mind, used to assist in defining a boundary between two sets of behaviours. Such 2-mode behaviour is certainly not restricted to transgender people. In fact, it occurs in everybody to some extent. The way you behave at work is different to the way you behave in your bedroom, and the separate behaviour sets are constructed by the individual in order to fit into social expectations, etc. A transsexual who is suppressing their real gender identity will create a persona with its gender matching their natal sex.

It is certainly an assumption that two different gender identities exist innately. However I would also put forward that it is also an assumption that gender identity exists at all innately. I really had not thought about it, but right off the top of my head I could put forward the notion that gender identity does not exist at all innately and what really exists innately is a set of desires and cognition itself. Then at birth cognition, at a conscious and sub-conscious level, CONSTRUCTS gender identity around those desires to fit into the various gender roles that are aligned with those desires. If that set of desires go contrary to what the environment has defined for the roles appropriate for the person's birth sex, you would see a gender construction opposite that persons sex that conforms to the person's desires as well as possibly a construction that fits what the environment has defined as appropriate. Now that's off the top of my head.

Even if we assume that one gender exists innately and an alternate gender can be constructed what it says is that multiple gender identities can exist simultaneously even if one is synthetic. Therefore there would be no reason why we could not also equally assume that multiple gender identities can exist innately. If we can observe that two can exist in an extrinsic fashion, they should be able to exist simultaneously innately.

I almost forgot, but I also wanted to say that if we assume that there is an innate gender identity and that one can be constructed, we should also consider the possibility that a construed identity could come to dominate the innate one. In that case it would be difficult to determine which was construed and which was innate, because as I mentioned before, the person would resolve the resulting dissonance by saying that the construct was the innate one.

Equally, in his unsubstantiated drivel, Ionis ignores the well documented cases of children who have been brought up as if they were the opposite gender to their natal sex - thus undergoing the sort of conditioning that he puts forward as his argument - and who by the time that they became adults have rejected the conditioning and insisted that their gender is equal to their natal sex.

He also wilfully ignores the equally well documented cases of intersex children who have had female organs removed shortly after birth who have been conditioned to believe that they were male and who in adulthood have found themselves needing to revert to their true gender despite the barriers that had been placed in their way.

I want to bring this into sharper focus. On closer inspection, neither of the cases that you put forward involve the type of conditioning that I mentioned. The type of conditioning involved here is closer to classical conditioning. In classic conditioning there is a stimulus presented to cause a particular type of behavior. Whereas in operant conditioning the behavior is voluntary and is done to evoke the stimulus. In your cases the dressing is imposed, whereas in what I purposed the dressing is voluntary.
Not only that but recall that the assertion was that a CS could evolve into a TS, not that an arbitrary child could conditioned to a gender identity that opposes their natal sex. The latter would be considerably more difficult and again, might not be possible over a lifetime. However, I would say that if you wanted to be totally unethical and brutal, if you tightly controlled the environment, paired innate unconditioned stimuli with the appropriate conditioned stimuli, and imposed severe negative reinforcement along with gracious positive reinforcement, somewhere over the course of a lifetime you would start to see substantial progress, even in the most difficult cases. However, that would be highly unethical and criminal.