Reading all this reminds me that people are not rational creatures; rather they are rationalizing ones.
Reading all this reminds me that people are not rational creatures; rather they are rationalizing ones.
ALWAYS plan for the worst, then you can be pleasantly surprised if something else happens!
"The important thing about the bear is not how well she dances, but that she dances at all." - Old Russian Proverb (with a gender change)
Hi Kim,Originally Posted by KymberlyOct
To your original query I can respond with an understanding of the field as I am educated in psych side of the house and have many colleagues who deal/dealt with gender identity issues. The common belief among psychologists (including those with various levels of understanding of gender identity issues) is this spectrum theory. However, it is posited on observations made by psychologists who deal mainly with TS folk. Now there are some TS folk who know from the start they were born in the wrong body and there are others who wander toward that epiphany after years of struggle, confusion, guilt and utter chaos . . . I was one such person. When this hits you like the coyote having the roadrunner drop a piano on his head . . . you don't know what to make of it so you grab tenuously at something . . . I must be CD. However you quickly realize that the clothes do nothing to quell the chaos, perhaps for a mayfly existence in time but in the end the confusion returns. It is not until you truly understand that is about being who you were meant to be (in my case a woman), that you stop thinking about heels, dresses, make-up and whatnot and start thinking about just being.
So to bottle the genie, from a research perspective it is plausible that this conception about a spectrum is predicated on psychs dealing with TS folk who are confused at first and when the conversation about crossdressing comes up . . . well . . . it seems we all start there at some point so it is probable that researchers in the field are going to define a neat spectrum to place people along in an effort to diagnose. My take on this is that this is a "red herring" or an extraneous variable which has no bearing on TS folk and where we are in the grander scheme of things. Specifically, the field is confusing dressing which is most likely the first step in expressing the person you need to be as some sort of "gateway expression" to being TS. Vis a vis that assumption . . . then CDers are on the same spectrum. This is an erroneous assumption IMHO because it is unlikely most of the studies have included a true control group . . . actual CDers. More specifically, men who just like to dress up from time to time but know they are still men. It is more likely any studies included TS folk at varying levels of transition who are not presenting as the target gender but know in their heart of hearts they are the target gender.
Bluntly put but spot on IMHO and mirrors what I have seen in the literature. This is not to say CD folk don't have gender issues but it is not the same as trans folk (again . . . my opinion). When I transitioned in my life, I didn't all of a sudden take on a new personality (e.g., stereotypical feminine traits), my personality stayed the same because that is the way personality is . . . stable and consistent through life (with the exception of significant life events which can alter for a period of time). I was always a woman and personality reflected that . . . no not my mannerisms, my walk, my talk and whatnot (societal constructs folks) but who I am, how I react to things, interact, see the world and whatnot. This is what I see as a big difference between TS and CD folk. TS folk don't become a new person as their target gender, they become the person they were always destined to be. CD folk take on a mantel of the target gender but always return to their preferred gender at the end of the day.
Dana,
To be specific, I don't present as a woman at work . . . I am a woman at work and that is how I am perceived. Don't get me wrong, I am not a stunning beauty by any stretch of the imagination and I have no "passing privilege" but people see me as a woman because that is who I am. It is not about the look, what I wear, how I talk, walk or whatnot it is about me knowing I am a woman and projecting that to the world writ large. People use the proper gender pronouns, refer to me by my proper name and just see me as a woman.
Cheers
Marcelle
This is a helpful post. I'm quoting and parsing to help organize my thoughts in response only.
Me too. I'm planning on a support group meeting and/or making some friends from here. Never been much of a bar person and it seems like the goal for many in going to bar is to find a sex partner or perhaps someone to date.
So they were talking about stereotypical guy stuff. Was that a function of being in a bar; typically superficial light discussions are had, and those conversations differ based on gender?I went several times and to different places but I nearly always discovered the same thing, I didn't fit and I couldn't understand why until some more self discovery later.
The thing is there I was in a place full of trans people but they were men in dresses, now when I say that it's not meant as dismissive many looked terrific, some really pretty and totally passable but that is just 'expression' when I engaged people in conversation despite looking every inch a feminine woman they wanted to drink beer, talk sports and women. Mentally they were men.
If I was blind and couldn't see the outfits then it was no different to going into a regular guys bar (if you ignored the chat about what they were wearing).
I'm trying to think about conversations I've had with both men and women work friends, or at parties with either gender, which is about as close as I can relate to a bar convo. Seems like we always try to find commonality- what's going on with work, politics, family issues, home projects, etc. With my female friends I can think of a significant difference- their romantic relationships. Never came up with guy friends. I have zero interest in sports so that's never a topic of commonality. my sister in law is a big baseball fan, and my sister a big basketball fan, so if I was interested in either I suppose we would discuss both.
Those sound like topics of commonality for a room full of cross dressers. I get why it would be of no interest to you.My point is most of these men had no identity/gender issues they just had issues with society not allowing them to express the look/clothes they liked. Their need was to be allowed to show their feminine style, it was all about the clothes never how they felt internally identifying as a man.
I would hear stuff like "Why can't I wear a skirt and heels at work" rather than "Why do I struggle to bond and communicate with the men at work".
Here's where it gets very complex for me. Above Sue wrote that (I'm paraphrasing) that her gender indentity starts with her internal feeling that she is a woman. I've read that plenty of times on here. Check/tick. You believe you ARE a woman. No issue. I've seen at least one thread, iirc in the GG section, asking what it feels like to be a woman. I'm really hung up on this concept. Because I have no idea what gender identity feels like. Do I feel like a man or a woman? Yes. I don't know. I feel like me. I discussed it with my cis gendered GG wife, who didn't get it either(and she's a pretty smart, intellectual person). Do I have some stereotypical traits that were stereotypically assigned to women in the late 20th century in Western European and American culture? Yes. I'm relational in my dealings with other people. I can be emotional when watching sappy movies. I care about other people's feelings and moderate my language and tone when speaking in an attempt to not hurt their feelings. my emotional intelligence is pretty high and I can read non verbal cues fairly well. I have always had platonic girlfriends and felt more comfortable in deeper relationships with them. I try to empathize with what my kids are feeling and measure my response accordingly when they need discipline, or a hug. or a joke. There's a bunch more.The vast majority of Crossdressers are like this, they have lots of issues with expression rarely any issue with identity, wanting to look like a woman is not the same as being a woman. How many would be women if they could only ever wear trousers and we're average looking with a flat chest? Take away the feminine look and most are not interested.
If expression and identity are in the same spectrum then every human sits in that spectrum making it irrelevant.
If the spectrum is gender expression then sure fetishists and drag etc but I don't belong there.
If the spectrum is purely trans identity then OK I accept I'm down one end of it, but I don't accept male identity fetishists or Drag in that spectrum we have nothing in common.
Does that make my gender indentity more female? I don't know. I also like cars(I am not the stig). and working on them. and driving them. and driving over stuff off road. and hunting. and home repair. and spending time with family. and sci-fi (david tennant was the best doctor).
All of which are still stereotypes. Yes they can be associated with either gender. My wife like gardening. and home repair. and art. and spending time with family. she likes cars but more on the aesthetic side rather than performance interests. Our roles in life are very, very similar.
So again, do I feel like a man or a woman? Yes. I guess. I feel like me. Z wrote that most CD's conflate identity with expression. maybe. I think the two are inexorably linked, at least for me. I wrote above that I feel an nagging in my head that drives me to want to present as a woman. I have a need to wear makeup and a wig to look like one. The clothes are part of the package, but not a focus. I get some level of satisfaction when I do so. It alleviates the nagging. Does this make me feel like my GI is that of a woman? I don't know, I still feel like me. My personality doesn't change en femme. Then I take it all off, I sigh in my head, then a while later, the nagging returns.
Does this make me a transsexual? I don't think so, but maybe. Maybe the more I do it, or the more I go out and live that way for periods of time, the nagging will get stronger and stronger, and I will get depressed or anxious or otherwise feel so much dysphoria that I will decide my only option is to transition. I kinda doubt it, but I'm not close minded to the concept that's within the realm of possibilities. I've never identified as a female, but there have been times I wished I was one.
So for now I identify under the TG umbrella, my gender compass is wobbly and I think my gender ID is somewhere in the middle of what I consider a continuum, with cis on the poles at both ends.
Yes, I'm sure there are many agendas at play, and some of them don't have the best interests of trans people at the root.Right now the spectrum to me just feels like a nice easy way to marginalise all the weirdos together hence why I don't like it.
Excellent post Marcelle.
Hi Nikki
In regard to conversations this is something I have learnt.
Men tailor their conversation depending on what gender they are mixing with and most GG will never see this. Nor will a CD unless joining a group of men who believe they are a woman.
As soon as a woman leaves the group the conversation becomes very different, guys talk to me now completely different they will discuss feelings and family for example which is nice but it's nothing like it was when I was accepted as a guy. That suits me fine because that's a more natural conversation to me.
It's now the opposite but years ago we would go out as a group the conversation would be great as a mixed group at some point the girls and boys split, instantly the conversation changed and suddenly it's eg nothing but Motorbikes for the next 40mins I couldn't function in that way of conversing. Now I belong with the female groups it's just different, women communicate differently and it's hard to explain unless you experience it from both perspectives.
It is an interesting dynamic the same was true at the CD gatherings despite dress everyone went into male convo mode albeit with the freedom to talk about feminine things.
In regards to your point about what it is to be a woman I can answer this:
I live as a woman and I no longer question my gender I just am, I spend no time thinking what percentage of feminine or masculine I am, I just am now. Is that a woman? All I can say is I didn't feel like that as a man.
So in a way I know I'm a woman because I feel right and being a man felt wrong.
Rather than asking if you are a woman internally perhaps look at if you have any issues being a man? (Removing any interest in clothing).
Last edited by becky77; 07-02-2016 at 07:47 AM.
B, thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I'm not aware of any issue I have being a guy. Other than the nagging in my head, which is not discontent with being a guy, but rather a need to see myself en femme. which I don't understand
Then you aren't TS Nikki. Which is a good thing what you need is friends and a place to go to express this feminine part of youB, thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I'm not aware of any issue I have being a guy. Other than the nagging in my head, which is not discontent with being a guy, but rather a need to see myself en femme. which I don't understand
Transition well it can be done but I have no idea why someone would want to be a full-time crossdresser but it happens. There is no right or wrong way to live as long as you understand the reasons for your actions.
This subject of who is really transsexual seems to come up all the time, probably because there are so many crossdressers who contemplate transition. Saying it's all just a "spectrum" avoids many hard questions anyone thinking about permanently changing their gender should address head-on. You have to ask yourself if you want to live your REAL life as a man or as a woman, and if you’re willing and able to go through the many, many hardships of legal, medical, and social transition. Do not theorize your way out of doing the work or you will regret it.
Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hairstylist you like.
Agreed and agreed. I have no desire to transition, and no desire to be TS. I just thought about it 25 years ago, and today consider myself on a journey, open to the idea that I have no idea where it will lead, but like I've consistently written, I serious doubt it would lead to transition. I don't want to
DeeAnn, I am not going to traverse back through threads. The point is that you have contradicted yourself from reply to reply, not within one reply. Look, I get non-binary and I know that not all do. I do a ton of work with in the community and I have a ton of friends that are non-binary in one "subtype", so to speak, or another. When they are will to share, each has been able to clearly explain their feelings to the point of where I learned. Or they said they were figuring it out. This does include expression being different on a daily basis because expression and identity are two different things. But if the narrative moves around, it is confusing and starts to diminish the strength of what you say.
On the subject of spectrum, I see two definitions being discussed and want to pull them apart.
One is where a person starts on one end being male (in a MTF case) and traverses across as they figure out who they are and stops at some point on this line. This *might* apply to some people, but it lays too many assumptions out and I agree with Misty as it is not a good description.
The other is picking a point on a spectrum of man to woman identity (in recognizing Zooey's distinctions) where one end is man and the other woman and the spectrum allows points where a person can describe their identity (lets get away from feelings as that can cross borders of what that means). So a person never moves across this spectrum, they live on a point and don't move at all. In reality, we can be wrong as we learn who we are and correct ourselves as we figure it out, but it isn't sliding across the spectrum, it is using a point to help understanding. So for example, my identity is completely at the end of "woman". I have a friend (female identified at birth) that described their identity to me and actually wrote this spectrum on a white board and said "I am here". The spot was about 2/3's of the way from woman to man. That helped me a lot. They are consistent in their stating this and living it.
So in the first description of spectrum, we create a path that not all take, so it can be misleading and a bad instructional tool for someone starting out who may feel they need to follow it. In the second description of spectrum, we have a tool that helps a person identify their identity in relational to man and woman and it is something you put a tack in and say "there" and not "I passed through that" or "I feel that way on some days".
Sorry, if you are unwilling to point out where I have erred, then I have to believe that I have not and I consider this to be just unwarranted misdirection.
DeeAnn
Economical = coming up short and inconsistent. It isn't my job to go back and come up with what you said. Notice you are being called out by multiple people and no one is backing you up? Here's your sign....
If you want to complain, then you need something specific to complain about. So yes, it is your job to point out what you are objecting to. Otherwise the only conclusion is that it is no more that wasted bandwidth.
Let's be clear about something. What I write is absolutely what I believe, how I perceive things and what I do. I am always completely honest. The discussions here don't work otherwise. But, that is not to say that I expect agreement. I can only speak to my situation and that may be understood, not understood, agreed with or not.
The point I was trying to convey earlier has a parallel. Many Crossdressers here rail against the notion when someone points out that they are under the Transgender umbrella. My only guess is that they are automatically associating Transgender with transitioning as is done in the popular press. Anyway, they vehemently reject the idea that they fall under the umbrella. As this relates to me, the point is that I wasn't saying what I said because I was rejecting the idea of being a Crossdresser. What I said reflected the differences between how we define Crossdressers and what I think, how I behave and what I do or have done. While it may be possible to dismiss one or two anomalies, when you have a bunch, you can no longer make the case. So, I rejected the idea of being a Crossdresser not because I might have some difficulty with it, but because it leaves A LOT that is unexplained for me. The criteria just doesn't fit and I see no way in which it can. That is the simple truth of it.
I can't explain this any further, so if it isn't understood, I can't help it.
DeeAnn
Last edited by flatlander_48; 07-02-2016 at 10:38 AM.
I pointed it out even though it isn't my job. At this point I am bowing out of this. Your self importance and inability to listen to anyone is taking me down a path I don't like to be. I fight for our rights and as I said above, I totally affirm non-binary identities. I am done with this side bar and will only reply to the spectrum portion of the discussion.
I find it interesting that these discussions often turn personal. I do try to be as honest and as straightforward as I can be. What I write is the truth as I perceive it. On those rare occasions when I have said something of a personal nature, it is in reaction, never in initiation.
I have covered the previous point about Crossdressers. If there is anything else where someone believes that I have contradicted myself, then please point this out. Otherwise there is nothing to which I can respond.
DeeAnn
You know you are transsexual when you need to transition and take those steps to do it. Everything else is immaterial.
"When failure is off the table the only thing left is to negotiate levels of success" M Hobbes
"Never Let your Fear Decide Your Fate" Awolnation
"A new dawn destroys the tranquility of the darkness" Steph W
and once again, one person turns a whole thread about themselves. I am tired of a comment being made or a question asked which then takes the whole thread off topic. Responding once is acceptable, then to keep on harping at each other is not. We have a bloody PM system, use the damn thing and keep to the topic. With apologies to Kimberly and all the others who actually contributed to the topic, this thread is now closed.
Listen carefully to what is said, quite often you can hear what is not being said
The joy of correcting a mistake can bring pain to another
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