There’s a lot in this thread that I agree with. But I don’t think it’s all one sided. I’ve had a HORRIBLE experience about 10 years ago when I was first ready to come out of the closet. I found a local organization where I lived at the time that had a changing space, a social club and a cross dressing shop and I went down there to introduce myself (in guy mode.) it took weeks of mustering up courage to do so, and when I did, it was to date the worst experience of my life. I was treated like DIRT. Even worse, a gay man walked in at the same time as me who wanted to enter a drag show, and I was all but shown the door so they could help him. They ignored me, spoke down to me, and made me feel like I was worthless. I’ve told this story before, without naming names, but **** it... it was Wildside in Toronto. This experience put me back in the closet for 10 years after spending two decades coming up with the courage to seek community.

Now, that said, I feel like people who identify as pure CDs exhibit similar but opposite behavior. My personal belief, borne from nearly 40 years of reading and academic self searching is that there is a spectrum and we’re all on it. CD fetishists on one side, and TSs on the other. I personally believe that it stems from the same sense of gender misassignment, but that we get that to varying degrees and it’s our ability to learn what it takes to live a happy fulfilled life that defines how we need to express it in order to be happy. I feel lucky that I’m able to live my life in a happy healthy way with only needing to be feminine 25% of the time. I truly feel nothing but compassionate empathy towards those for whom that will never be enough because it’s a TOUGH GIG.

Now, in the same way that the TSs are constantly pushing for the CDs to recognize that there is more than a hobby here and that there are real motivations that drive it, the CDs often argue that there is nothing transgender about them... it’s a fetish or it’s a hobby. The TSs often push way to far and in far more absolute a manner than is merited, but I think they have a point. Conversely, the CDs often speak in a way that demeans the transgender experience as if it’s some kind of disease that they don’t have. These are two polarized arguments arguing about black and white in a world of shades of grey.

I personally think that both black and white extremes need to recognize the shades of grey. I think that the extremists on BOTH sides are responsible for the incongruity in the community. Until that happens, the fracturing will continue and get worse.