Originally Posted by Bree_K
Denial and suppression can be wickedly powerful and persuasive bedfellows, clouding the soul, obfuscating identity, and deceiving and concealing the true self.
Denial and suppression can be wickedly powerful and persuasive bedfellows, clouding the soul, obfuscating identity, and deceiving and concealing the true self.
Anne,
You are so right. It seems that all of your posts.thread started are right on.
Fulfilling a Lifetime Dream of Living as a Woman in My Adult Years.Ten Years Living 24/7 as a Mature Lady
My Love of Cat's Eye Frames, Bangles, Red Lipstick, Nails, & Cheeks, Comes From My Mother - An Irish Beauty
I'm Always Rainbow Proud
How are headaches and being transexual even remotely related? lol...
Categorization is human nature, not male nature.
It's easy, do you fit the definition or not? OMG LABELS!!!!
Oh no oh no! I can't be described by a label because... because... the world will end!!!! Don't you pigeon hole me with labels, I'm not female! I'm not human! I'm not a carbon-based life form! I'm not a collection of molecules! I'm just ME!!!! WAAHAHHHHH
:D
If you don't care who you are and are just being yourself, that's totally cool. But some people HAVE to define who they are, because they need that label to live within this system so THEY CAN BE THEMSELVES. I can't just walk around saying "I'm not transexual, I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm just me! Oh, but please prescribe me hormones! Please allow me to change my gender so I can live my life as my true identity! Please let me get SRS so I don't have to live with this incorrect body!"
If you don't need to and don't want to label yourself, hurray for you. But respect that some people HAVE TO to survive.
Last edited by Bree-asaurus; 03-11-2012 at 09:22 PM. Reason: used wrong word
That's interesting actually, did she give a reason why?
To quote Bob Dylan, "I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them." I was told 15 years ago by a transsexual that I would eventually get over my denial and start transitioning. Hasn't happened yet, but that sort of condescending attitude has always irritated me. While my dressing is very much an expression of my gender identity, it's complex and for me it seems that transition to full-time woman would create more problems than it would solve. I have some gender dysphoria but only occasionally, and not overwhelmingly so. Aside from too much body hair, I don't have a problem with my male body. I don't strongly identify as either a man or a woman. I'm me...and I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.
I knew two people that never crossdressed. They just didn't care. Being a girl isn't about the cloths and they just... didn't care. I don't know what else to say lol.
Maybe they had other outlets for their identity while they were repressing who they were, or maybe they did a better job of repressing than I did. I spent a lot of time alone so I wouldn't have to pretend to be a guy. I would also crossdress. Those were the two ways I could relax and be myself but I could still repress everything else and pretend I was just a normal boy/guy.
I'm kinda late to the thread and haven't been here for a while, but I'll throw in my :2c: worth.
I am in my late 40's and consider myself a crossdresser. I have read in this thread several times that if CD's could go back in time, they may have made different decisions. I have wondered the same thing over the years and can only speak from my own experiences.
I met my best friend when I was barely 19 and in college. We married a few years later and had two wonderful children. Being a father and husband have been the most rewarding experiences of my life. She's still my best friend.
My crossdressing had the potential to become much more than crossdressing when I was younger. I am so thankful for the path my life took.
Sami exists when I need her to. My wife (best friend) is very understanding and supportive. The male me leads a full and wonderful life.
Life is good.
I've heard the famous "two years" joke........as in " what's the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual?.......two years"!.......meaning the process of transition.
I'm a latent crossdresser who has been out & about in public for three years, I never thought such a thing was even remotely possible. I'm even doing without the wig these days as of late.
I am also NOT a transsexual. I'm just a gender-fluid person who is midway through life. That's my comfortable space. I'm just not happy with the constrains of gender that society imposes.
It's been theorized that transsexuals sometimes have brain wiring that is not of their birth gender. That maybe true but it is still a theory.
It's also been theorized that transsexuals are cisgender, not transgender.....they just happen to be the other gender. I can agree with that.
Yeah... there are ideas floating around on what's actually different in the mind/brain, and what causes this mismatch. I don't know... all I know is that who I am does not match the body I was put in. For whatever reason I am who I am. And at this point in time, the only way to fix it is by changing the body to match the mind. Maybe one day we can fix the brain or inject a virus that spreads the correct genome/chromosomes/whatever through our body... but until science is that awesome... hormones and surgery it is!
Transvestism is not a layover on an inevitable destination to transsexualism. Many of my TS friends have had one hell of a hard time trying to transition etc. in their lives, and I can understand why one might be in denial about being a TS, it is not a road one would want to have to take.
However, not all of us who dress feel we are in the wrong body, or ever felt that way. Some of us only want to dress occasionally, or to put it another way we have a finite appetite for dressing. I was visiting with some trans friends this weekend, en drab, and I get the usual grief about why I don't feel an irresistible urge to dress like most others there. I can take it or leave it, I am fine with being a male and I am not ashamed to be seen as a male regardless of my friends' gender orientation. Not all of us are TS, not all of us hate being male. One can indeed like dressing occasionally, and still feel like a male. Amazing but true.
I know when I first came out I was just admit.I'm Just a cross dressers . 5 months later I'm in Seattle seeing how long I can be en feme .
Business is the the art of extracting money from another mans wallet with out resorting to violence
9 out of 10 Dr say I'm sane. The 10th one never made it to the hearing. Did you know that California has drop bears ?
First a groom then a bride. Never again.
You are definitely correct... and I thought this was pretty common knowledge!
There are far more crossdressers than there are transexuals and they are definitely two separate and distinct things.
(...and for those of you who think I'm pigeonholing you by saying that... I'm not. There is the whole spectrum of transgender for people who don't fit in as crossdressers or transexuals. And if you still can't live with that label, then sure, you're just you :D )
Brilliant. Excellent observation.
Yes! I totally missed this post. A very good way of describing the difference!
While I disagree that all CDs are closet case TSes, in fact I still think they are a minority, I can see where there are enough to give one this impression.
I think you have a pretty good read on that, "type" of "CDer" who will eventually transition though. Much of what you write rings true to my situation. I wish for mine and my wife's sake that we would have HAD all the cards to lay on the table! Had we known where to go for better information things may have been different. We both had our fears and that held us from the truth, from finding "all the cards" I had a bad therapist and conflicting emotions regarding transition, I desperatly wanted it but honestly believed that there was no way that I could be a TS. She just wanted it to go away (at this point we are only talking "CDing" I would have denied wanting to transition) like so many wives she was torn between wanting to please her husband, wanting him to be happy, and WANTING A DAMN HUSBAND! I think the iceberg analogy is good however its not just the SOs who can't see what's under the water, the iceberg was invisible to me as well. We were both standing on the bridge of the USS Denial, full steam ahead! neither one of us was lying, denial is believing something that is false. Our marriage was a mess and my transsexualism was just one part of that whole cluster****!
My advice to all:
Meet a transsexual...know her, or his pain.
Hey, we could have it a lot worse.... but yeah, it sucks lol
I edited it, lol!
There's another possible denial reason, no one wants to willingly take on pain and suffering.
It's probably going to be easier to deny it.
Last edited by whowhatwhen; 03-11-2012 at 10:57 PM.
What is the difference between a Cd and a TS. 5 years. Ok bad Joke . But most of the girls I knew when I first came out are full time . But Seriously I think deep down when you first come out you have a sense of who you are .Odd thing is all the single or divorced trans folks went full time . Verry few of the ones that were married and kids did that. None of them stayed married . One Girl I know even got full custody .,
Business is the the art of extracting money from another mans wallet with out resorting to violence
9 out of 10 Dr say I'm sane. The 10th one never made it to the hearing. Did you know that California has drop bears ?
First a groom then a bride. Never again.
Nope, I'm happy where I'm at.
I got a bunch of friends on HRT, and a few who have done SRS......we are all not the same. The people who think about transitioning think about it all the time....For me, I think about what's the next bad-ass note or chord I can play on my guitar.
Oh no, I must've written that post badly o_O I didn't mean you specifically!
I meant "your" in general, which still may be wrong but my brain is fried.
Sorry, fixed :P
I must meet a different breed of TS's. The ones I know are happy and really didn't go through all the angst (that is what I assume was meant as pain, not the surgical part). They knew what they wanted, worked toward that end.
And they keep sending me applications to join (OK not really...they think I should tho.)
The earth is the mother of all people and all people should have equal rights upon it.
Chief Joseph
Nez Perce
“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” - Fred Rogers,
whowhatwhen, peace and love.
Being diagnosed transsexual is a very frustrating experience. Wearing the clothing is nothing but a Band-Aid. For real trannsexual people, the attempted suicide rate is something close to 42% ....words from TS rights activist Mara Keisling.
It may be fun or comfortable to wear a dress, but when you know you don't belong in the gender of your birth , it eats at you like full blown cancer.
Last edited by NathalieX66; 03-11-2012 at 11:11 PM.
Posting this again, I seriously suggest seeing the video or, better, reading the book. It is somewhat complex, but not that bad to comprehend.
http://www.amazon.com/Billion-Wicked.../dp/0525952098
To answer the question directly:
After you've been through that, it'll be clear that the 'triggers' that set off fetishistic cross-dressing can overlap inborn offset bodymapping, which is where gender identity comes from. However, remember that, as with all other 'systems', they're parallel to each other but not connected.
In laymen's terms, what that means for people born trans, is that the 'freedom' one gives to themselves when they crossdress lets them have the headspace to discover that they're trans all along. The crossdressing itself doesn't cause it. That's why fetishistic cross-dressers don't "become" transsexual. There's nothing more to be discovered. They just get their rocks off on the cross-dressing.
Lastly, know it's not 100% black and white, since they're unconnected. For example, a person can have, say, only a degree of a trans nature, but plenty of a fetishic crossdressing nature, making it rather confusing (especially since almost nobody knows this is how it works), or the opposite, a person with a strong trans nature can still have a slight crossdressing fetish, making them doubt their own feelings.
Clear enough?
I doubt anyone's going to have the patience to go through the video, even though that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Trust me, having a little patience is worth it.
Last edited by Sophie_C; 03-11-2012 at 11:19 PM.
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