Does your gender change after your transition physically?

[Kaitlyn Michele]

But fantasizing about transition and operations it's not the same than doing it...................
....................It's a pity I can't sell my gender dysphoria to that guy, so both of us could be happy.

Exactly...great last line .... i would also like my job and family back while we are at it..

Fantasizing about being a woman is totally different than being one....even if you are fantasizing more about actually being female as opposed to presenting as a woman...
"one got nuttin to do with the utter" as my first boss always said..

and because we are on an anonymous message board, this particular part of this forum is a good place to fantasize about being transsexual.. it can be similar to going to a porn website

my bottom line is we make it a much bigger deal here as an intellecual discussion then it is as a practical matter and it highlights why lots of us have issues with being included in a tg umbrella concept...

and whatever is happening with you "down there" has absolutely nothing at all with whether you are transsexual or not. nothing, nada, zilch, nil, zero, zip.....

[Kathryn Martin]

Reine the issue with AGP is that it is not a condition that anyone has. It is a hypothesis, a speculation if you will about an idea that Blanchard has had.

The number of men and women who have cross-sexual fantasies is in the hundred of millions. Most of those dreams (or fantasies) occur in a sexual context. It does not make them CDers, gender variant or transsexual. Then you have people who feel compelled and derive much sexual arousal from crossdressing. It is a fetish, like being submissive or dominant or loving feet and shoes. It is interesting that you mention posting pictures and videos online of yourself in women's clothing or engaging in chat dressed. Is it really a sexual fixation with oneself as a woman or is simply that others get to witness a behavior of this person that is the driving motivation. In this regard I find even the idea of a "mental illness" concept of "being sexually attracted to yourself as a woman (AGP) or man (AAP)" useless.

The interesting thing is however, that if you have intense sexual experiences when dressed, you would remove the arousal factor if you were to dress as a woman full time. It is in the end simply a sexual stimulant.

Having cross-gender experiences is something that seems to be quite different. If you look the gender variant communities including queer, androgyne etc. sexual stimulation maybe a an accompanying factor but is not the source of these feelings. The transformation of the reproductive configuration of the body is not a driving motivator. While secondary sex characteristics may be altered to lend expression to the need not to be fixed into the gender binary to express how the person experiences her/himself there is little or no body dysphoria at play. This is always the case with transsexuals.

I think that the belief that different definitions of “woman according to a person’s individual experience” exist is a fallacy. It is difficult to pretend to have a vagina or a penis when in fact your body belies such a statement. If you go back to the fundamentals, then the generally accepted definition is that if you have a reproductive system that is female you are a woman and if you have one that is male you are a man. This is the basis of the sex binary. We all know that it is not quite as easy as that. Intersexuality and transsexualism show that there are aspects of human existence where the sex binary does not assure a person's gender/sex congruency. In this sense transsexuals must bring this misalignment into the sex/gender binary to be whole.

You have had the fortune of being born physiologically and genetically a woman. Do you feel that having breasts, being beautiful and pretending to have a vagina defines womanhood?

[Saffron]

The interesting thing is however, that if you have intense sexual experiences when dressed, you would remove the arousal factor if you were to dress as a woman full time. It is in the end simply a sexual stimulant.

Yeah, it's like becoming a policeman cause you like to dress as a sexy one when you're having sex.

[Pexetta]

I detect an undercurrent in this thread against the idea of 'transgender' as an inclusive term for cross-dressing, transsexuality and all points between.

[Kathryn Martin]

Transgender is a misnomer for transsexuality. Gender and sex are not the same.

I detect an undercurrent in this thread against the idea of 'transgender' as an inclusive term for cross-dressing, transsexuality and all points between.

[ReineD]

If is only a fetish what will he do once he gets aroused? It's not reversible, he wouldn't be able to have sex as a man never again.

Right. These are the people who fancy themselves as women, who spend their times in TG clubs or whatever, who dress at every opportunity and may well manage near full time, They may want HRT to be more feminine looking, they may even want boobs, but who always seem to stop short of SRS. They do not see their penises as birth defects at all.

I'm not by any means saying that everyone who cannot have SRS is like this. I'm just saying there are people whose definition of being a woman is different than a true TS who has gender dysphoria. There's the person that Frances has alluded to a few times. There's another person, some wealthy individual who transitioned with BA, FFS (don't know if he had SRS), and then changed back. Recently there was someone on a talk show who dresses like a hooker and who said that Propecia made her trans. How many others are there that don't make it into the news? Again, I'm just saying there is an explanation for the slew of people on this site and in other places who are so sexually excited about being women that they think they might be TS (they mistake the highs they experience as "feeling like a woman", as opposed to fundamentally feeling at odds with their male bodies the way that TSs do.

[Saffron]

Don't you hate when people talk about women like a mythical creature?

[Badtranny]

Right. These are the people who fancy themselves as women, who spend their times in TG clubs or whatever, who dress at every opportunity and may well manage near full time, They may want HRT to be more feminine looking, they may even want boobs, but who always seem to stop short of SRS. They do not see their penises as birth defects at all.

I'm not by any means saying that everyone who cannot have SRS is like this. I'm just saying there are people whose definition of being a woman is different than a true TS who has gender dysphoria. There's the person that Frances has alluded to a few times. There's another person, some wealthy individual who transitioned with BA, FFS (don't know if he had SRS), and then changed back. Recently there was someone on a talk show who dresses like a hooker and who said that Propecia made her trans. How many others are there that don't make it into the news? Again, I'm just saying there is an explanation for the slew of people on this site and in other places who are so sexually excited about being women that they think they might be TS (they mistake the highs they experience as "feeling like a woman", as opposed to fundamentally feeling at odds with their male bodies the way that TSs do.

I agree with you 100%

I think another distinction between a TS and the "other" is a marked lack of pretension. TS people don't pretend anything. We don't pretend we are GG's, we don't pretend our bodies are different than what they are, we don't pretend to "be" women. We just are and I would say the drive to transition is actually fueled by the desire to stop pretending.

[Saffron]

We just are and I would say the drive to transition is actually fueled by the desire to stop pretending.

Melissa you almost made me cry with this phrase. You hit the jackpot. I'm so tired of pretending to be a man.

[ReineD]

Reine the issue with AGP is that it is not a condition that anyone has. It is a hypothesis, a speculation if you will about an idea that Blanchard has had.

The number of men and women who have cross-sexual fantasies is in the hundred of millions. Most of those dreams (or fantasies) occur in a sexual context. It does not make them CDers, gender variant or transsexual.

Exactly. If men get off on themselves as women, they are autogynephilic which is an accurate term to describe this. If women get off on themselves as men, they are autoandrophilic. But hundreds of millions? This seems high, unless you are including in these numbers people who simply have fun occasionally in the bedroom switching roles but who do not (like many fetish CDers) take it so far as to develop an opposite sex persona to display to the world in order to heighten sexual intensity.

Then you have people who feel compelled and derive much sexual arousal from crossdressing. It is a fetish, like being submissive or dominant or loving feet and shoes. It is interesting that you mention posting pictures and videos online of yourself in women's clothing or engaging in chat dressed. Is it really a sexual fixation with oneself as a woman or is simply that others get to witness a behavior of this person that is the driving motivation. In this regard I find even the idea of a "mental illness" concept of "being sexually attracted to yourself as a woman (AGP) or man (AAP)" useless.

I don't like calling it a paraphilia either, but then it depends on the degree. I've read blogs from CDers who got themselves into such a sexual tizzy over the dressing that it affected their productivity at work, they've lost jobs, they've lost relationships, just like a sexual addiction. I believe the qualifier for paraphilia is if it causes unmanageability in someone's life, and maybe most people don't let it get that far.

As to posting pics online, there are different motives: for some people it is a sexual fixation, while for others it is a desire for validation for a burgeoning feminine self.

The interesting thing is however, that if you have intense sexual experiences when dressed, you would remove the arousal factor if you were to dress as a woman full time. It is in the end simply a sexual stimulant.

I agree, but do the fetish motivated people ever get to the point of living as women full time.? They may have lost relationships, they may spend a great deal of time outside their work dressed, they may even join forums/web sites and spend time playing around with the idea of being women, or wonder how they can obtain breasts that can be hidden in guy mode.

I think that the belief that different definitions of “woman according to a person’s individual experience” exist is a fallacy.

I had a discussion with a CDer last week. He started out his thread saying how pleased he was that his presentation kept getting better (no more cheap blonde wigs), as he casually alluded to being a woman in a man's body (looking less like a costume as time progressed), accompanied by pics of cute shoes and painted toenails. I pointed out the difference between genuinely being transsexual, and enjoying the feelings associated with a cute and sexy presentation, and that the latter was not "a woman in a man's body". I don't think he had ever put much thought into it before and he did concede that it was just the presentation he was interested in, and he had absolutely no plans on becoming a woman.

His definition of "feeling like a woman" was the thrill he obtained from seeing himself transform into his image of a beautiful woman. He only used this as an expression because he really hadn't put a lot of thought into it, and his motive for the CDing is pure fun, as it is for many of our members.

It is difficult to pretend to have a vagina or a penis when in fact your body belies such a statement.

Kathyn, maybe you cannot see that some people are motivated by this fantasy because you have nothing in your own internal landscape that even comes close. But really, if you take the time to read the threads on the other side, and you do this for years, you will see what I mean.

Disclaimer for the non fetish CDers reading this: I am not saying that everyone who identifies as a CDer is fetish, just wanting to explain there are indeed fetish CDers who believe the thrill they get from dressing is how it feels to be a woman.

You have had the fortune of being born physiologically and genetically a woman. Do you feel that having breasts, being beautiful and pretending to have a vagina defines womanhood?

No. And speaking strictly from a GG's perspective, I know that women who cannot bear children, or have had mastectomies, or hysterectomies do not become "less" women. But it is difficult for some women to experience some of these things and I did experience a miscarriage once, in my second trimester. I did feel as if I had failed as a woman. It was short lived and my friends helped me through this, but the feelings I had the day of and the few days following came from very deep within me. I felt a sense of shame for not having been able to carry the birth to term, in addition to having felt a great deal of grief over my lost child.

[Saffron]

Sorry to hear that Reine, I can't tell about losing a child, but felling like you have failed, I can relate. I felt so bad myself for years, like if I was defective, and telling to my mom I feared she could think she failed as a mother.

Luckily everything went good and now I feel so good, so liberated. Like I'm starting a new life.

[Pexetta]

Transgender is a misnomer for transsexuality. Gender and sex are not the same.

Yes, I had a feeling that total disagreement would be the result there.

[Kathryn Martin]

This seems high, unless you are including in these numbers people who simply have fun occasionally in the bedroom switching roles.....

When I talked about the hundreds of millions I meant that likely a vast majority of the population had cross gender fantasies at some point in their life, even if it was fleeting or just once. These no one would call love with a sexual component of oneself as a gender opposite to ones own. For instance all my dreams with sexual content that I remember (three in total) I was a woman except one.

I don't like calling it a paraphilia either, but then it depends on the degree.

Indeed, if you occasionally go outside the box it's one thing but if it becomes obsessive it often crosses the line to the unhealthy.

No. And speaking strictly from a GG's perspective, I know that women who cannot bear children, or have had mastectomies, or hysterectomies do not become "less" women. But it is difficult for some women to experience some of these things and I did experience a miscarriage once, in my second trimester. I did feel as if I had failed as a woman. It was short lived and my friends helped me through this, but the feelings I had the day of and the few days following came from very deep within me. I felt a sense of shame for not having been able to carry the birth to term, in addition to having felt a great deal of grief over my lost child.

I will write to you ......

Yes, I had a feeling that total disagreement would be the result there.

I would invite you to converse with me convince me otherwise but maybe not in the confines of this thread.