19
2010Transsexual or Crossdresser or What
A recent post at T-Central by Alice, of Alice in Genderland fame and an exchange of comments with other bloggers there led me to start thinking again about the makeup of the trans community and my place in it.
My first step was to drop in on Alice’s website and gather more info. There she answers the question posed in the title to this post, basically, “What’s the difference between a transsexual and a crossdresser?”
If I may bottom-line her multi-paragraph answer, it is: “Not much.”
Her point of view tends to infuriate some (many? most? all?) transsexuals, who see nothing at all in common between themselves and crossdressers. As one blogger put it:
I don’t see a link between the two. The former loves clothing and other accoutrements that are generally considered to be for women. The latter has a profound brain-body disconnect that requires treatment by hormone therapy and surgery. Crossdressers emulate women. Transsexuals change anatomical sex. How are those related?
I think both sides make some interesting points but frankly I have neither the experience nor the expertise to be able to know which is right, political correctness notwithstanding. But I will say that part of the gap in viewpoints comes from differing ideas of what a crossdresser is.
As an example, I am a crossdresser by Alice’s definition but not according to the blogger quoted, who considers me “bi-gendered.” It seems to me, Alice would consider everyone from crossdresser to transsexual to be bi-gendered.
I have some trust in Alice’s explanation of things, in large part because, to me, as one whose transgender path seems nearly identical to hers, her bracingly honest explanation of her own experience resonates as truth. (Please read her post before jumping to conclusions.)
Understanding the Experience of Others
And yet, I am not sure I’m prepared to discount the experiences of the gender dysphoric who profess to be (and very much seem to be) profoundly different from me, tormented by the duality of their gender and wanting one of them gone.
Nor am I altogether satisfied that I have that much in common with men who dress as women for a purely sexual and fetishistic thrill, and who I expect don’t consider themselves female for even a moment.
Interestingly, the way I see it, these two groups from opposite ends of the TG spectrum share one thing in common: single-gender-mindedness.
That leaves a group in the middle of people, like me and like Alice, who feel themselves to be both male and female.
Is There A Choice?
Alice makes the point that, under different life circumstances, she might have chosen to transition, but that she doesn’t do so because she can’t see how that would make her happier. That leads her to compare herself to a transsexual as follows:
Two people living with the same intersex condition, blessed with the same bigendered brain, separated perhaps by degree only.
I accept that there have been more than a few members of our middle group who have transitioned, but I have also seen cases of major regret at that decision. (More on that another time.)
I don’t get how someone with a bi-gendered brain would want to take drastic, expensive and dangerous action to annihilate one of their genders. That’s why I say transsexuals are single-gender-minded.
Alice’s treatment of transitioning as a choice is a bi-gendered point of view, I think. She can choose. I can choose. But if you know yourself to be female only and you’ve got male parts, where’s the choice?
My Present Conception
So, for the time being, I’m going with the paradigm of three broad groups: men who wear women’s clothes, bi-gendered folks, and women (presently or previously) in men’s bodies. [Query whether a woman in a man’s body who has fully transitioned is trans, or now simply a woman or does it matter? Any thoughts?]
I know this is a hot-button topic, and I hope there will be some constructive points of view expressed by comment.
Ariel
Your conclusion rings much truer to me than Alice’s. That post you linked to does a great job of undermining her very premise. If she were transsexual, she would have transitioned, or else she’d be very unhappy now. And by her own admission, she is happy.
At one point in my growing realization of what I was dealing with, I thought I was bi-gender (I put the hyphen in there so it doesn’t look like “big ender”). And if that had been the case, I would never have transitioned.
cdjanie
I generally agree with your comment, but there is a bit of circular reasoning in your contention that Alice undermines her own premise. She basically said that transsexuals are MTF trans people that choose to live as women, while crossdressers are MTF trans people who choose to live as men – this choice based on the balance of convenience in one’s life. There may be much to argue there, but I don’t see where she contends that a transsexual’s happiness depends on her transitioning. (Or am I misconstruing your point…)
Ariel
The balance of convenience! Wow. Sorry, that betrays a total lack of understanding. There was nothing convenient in turning my life upside down. I didn’t choose to “live as” a woman. I transitioned because my only rational choice was to be a woman and be (anatomically) female. I was unhappy being a man. I am happy now. Alice says her current life makes her happy. Not being female doesn’t gnaw at her insides. So she has no reason to transition.
I hope I’m being clearer.
cdjanie
Oh, no, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes here. I never meant to imply that your experience was one related to “balance of convenience.” I just said that that was Alice’s assessment of the difference between her and a TS. As my main post demonstartes, I have a tough time with her point of view on that.
susanmiller64
Crossdresser, Bi-gender, transgender and Transsexual are all different and yet the same in different ways. Mind you this is only my belief. I consider myself both a crossdresser and Bi-gender and to a point transgender but not a transsexual.
A crossdresser simply put is someone who wears something generally accepted as being something the opposite sex would wear. If a guy wears pantyhose he is a crossdresser, if a woman wears a man’s shirt she is a crossdresser. One item to fully dressing up.
Bi-gender is someone who shares both genders.
Transgender is someone who believes they are the opposite gender.
Transsexuals believe they are the opposite sex just born in the wrong body. Female mind male body or male mind in female body.
As you see it is possible to be all of the above. I love to be Susan and dress up pretty but I am male. I am not a woman and have no desire to be a woman full time. I have traits that one could consider masculine or feminine which is where the bi-gender comes in. I am a good listener and very companionate and have a sensitive side generally feminine traits. When I am male I try to play these down and show the more masculine traits and when Susan I try to come across as feminine in my mannerism as possibly.
T
My male and female sides are both part of who I am and I can slip into either roll to a point. The only difference is I know Susan is a part time girl and even when I am Susan I am not at all attracted to men. This is just my thoughts and I am sure everyone has their own thoughts and beliefs and that is what is great about this country as we are all free to believe what we want.
Wow guess I was a little long winded.
Hugs
Susan
cdjanie
Thanks for your comment Susan. I think every effort to define these terms is constructive. It is interesting how your definitions, rather than dividing up the pie, are inclusive. I do confess that I personally find the repeated overlap somewhat redundant in terms of getting to an understanding of the differing experiences out there, but the inclusiveness does have the benefit of reminding us that we are all mostly the same, and perhaps we should spend more time focussing on what binds us than what divides us.
annierose55
It is very apparent that neither you, CDJanie or Dr. Novic are TS. You guys are anything BUT. If you were you both would have transitioned.
Dr. Novic’s statement..”I say as an M.D., but not everybody is at risk for alcoholism, yet it’s still considered an addiction. Maybe crossdressing is one that only we estrogen-tweaked pups are prone to. After all, once a one of us “borrows” his first bra, he may bring on a habit that can spiral out of control and jeopardize his marriage, job, and reputation. And that, my fine, feathered friends, is what defines addiction.”, speaks quite cogently and directly to the issue of TV or CD Addiction.
annierose55
This…”Two people living with the same intersex condition, blessed with the same bigendered brain, separated perhaps by degree only.”….i a Type III TV
Cyrsti
This indeed is a “Hot Button” Janie. I consider myself “Bi-gendered” if a label means anything.
The difference between me and a post opt transsexual is hormones and surgery.
They don’t want to hear that but it’s true.
I believe they don’t like to hear I can exist reasonably well as a female in society and still go back if I desire! Without the pain, suffering, health problems and cost.
But hey, that’s just me!
cdjanie
I’m still not convinced that many transsexuals are bi-gendered, in the sense that they don’t embrace two genders. Rather, the surgery and hormones are designed to cut out one of the genders. I’m not sure about you, but the way I figure it (and this is entirely theoretical since I know of no one like this), a truly bi-gender person who went through SRS would still want to be both man and woman, but would rather approach it from the other side. I tend to doubt most transsexuals are like that.
annierose55
Further…THIS …..”“What’s the difference between a transsexual and a crossdresser?”
If I may bottom-line her multi-paragraph answer, it is: “Not much.””…IS WRONG …..BIG TIME.
The differences are huge. A well adjusted post-op TS is essentially a woman. A cross dressing MAN is a MAN who is cross dressing. He may beleiev that he “feels” like a woman, admabe he does, but he is still ESSENTIALLY a man.
Another hugely fallatious premise is that TS’s are “bi-gendered”. We are NOT “bi-gendered”. A small minority of us might be bi-sexual, but NOT “bi-gendered. TG’s may be ‘bi-gendered”, but TS’s were WRONG gendered prenatally and ultimately, at birth. Easily fixable using modern medicine.
I think alot of the confusion comes from mixing gender with sex. Sex is between your legs, gender, between your ears. Again, BIG difference.
cdjanie
“And God spaketh to Annie and she did know Truth, and Annie came down from the heavens and beat us over the head with her Truth like a stick. ”
For all your protestations about being a TS woman, you come off in your 3 posts, frankly, as an angry, didactic man. I have tried to present my personal views on these matters in an open and honest way with a receptiveness to the opinions of others, in an effort to foster discussion and thought. I think these issues are complex and hard; you, by contrast, seem to know everything.
annierose55
Well, Dahhlink….You are certainly welcome to your own misconceptions based on poorly mis-construed “data”, (oh I heard this or that on the web), wishful thinking, and personal self justification. Who am I to question your nelly-ness.
I can assure you that while I certainly do NOT “know everything”, I do know enough to point out a self important fool spewing self serving TG style Psuedo-Psycho-Babble.
I call your totally unsubstantiated assertion that, “(the) difference between a transsexual and a crossdresser….is: Not much”. A BLATANT FALLACY, and you proceed to stumple into another totally unsubstantiated claim about my ” protestations about being a TS woman”
Janie, X-dresser, I must admit you actually humor me. Dear sweet little boy. I am going to talk down you as you so seem to desire. These are the FACTS OF LIFE. You wish you were a girl. You are NOT. You are a boy with some goofey neural connections between your ears which cause you to “get off” while pretending to be a girl. Get RIGHT with that. That is who you are.
Be thankful that you do not NEED to go through the HELL it truely is to transform your body to match your brain. You, like Alice Novic and Jamiesgotagun have the OPTION of switching genders at will. I, and many like me did not, or do not, have that option. Why do you attempt to insult me by calling me ” an angry, didactic man”. Could it be that you feel threatened by a strong, competant and accompished women?
I do agree that what WAS being discussed is a difficult and complex issue.
Ad hominum attacks on those that do not conform to your thinking are counter productive, and tend to destroy productive discourse.
In an effort to re-direct this thread back onto the issues, I will reiterate for you the two points where I sincerely believe that you are mistaken. First of all there IS in fact a huge difference between a cross dresser on homones and a woman born with a male morphology. The second point where I vehemetly disagree is that individuals born, with what is commonly described as, transsxualism are “bi-gendered”, (however you choose to describe that recently coined term that MIGHT describe some SOCIAL CONSTRUCT).
Two simple points. You brought them up. I assert that you are wrong on both of them. Might you show me the error of my ways?
cdjanie
Two simple points. You may assert that I am wrong, but if you had not allowed your blinding rage to get in the way of your reading comprehension, you would realize that I agree with you on both of them.
Quote from my post: “I am not sure I’m prepared to discount the experiences of the gender dysphoric who profess to be (and very much seem to be)profoundly different from me, tormented by the duality of their gender and wanting one of them gone.”
Quote from my post: “I don’t get how someone with a bi-gendered brain would want to take drastic, expensive and dangerous action to annihilate one of their genders. That’s why I say transsexuals are single-gender-minded.”
As to your nasty little rant, everyone in the the TG community who reads it will know exactly what you think of them, how intolerant you are, how superior you feel. I’d bet that’s not gonna go over too well, Dahlink!
annierose55
OOOOhhhh So now the little trannie cries foul. ROFLMAO.
You mock me at your own peril.
xoxoxxo
Zoe Brain
Someone who is Bi-gendered can function adequately as either sex. Maybe better as one than another, but they can live with either. Evidence is that about 1 person in 3 is bi-gendered.
Transsexuals are by definition not Bi-gendered. If they were able to function adequately as their assigned gender at birth, they wouldn’t have to transition.
Where it gets complicated is those who are not Transsexual, but exhibit some other gender variance. And Transgender, as opposed to Transsexual, has not been studied enough to make any statements with any confidence.
cdjanie
Thanks, Zoe, for your input. Would it be possible for you to point me toward that evidence that 1 in 3 is bi-gendered. I would love to know more.
Zoe Brain
See Bi-Gender and the Brain
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html
The evidence is mainly from those who are intersexed. Arbitrarily assign an IS infant a sex at random, and 2/3 can live with it rather than 50%.
That varies with the exact IS condition, but it appears that 1/3 of people are unalterably male, 1/3 unalterably female, and 1/3 can adjust adequately, could live with whatever they’re given.
klyde
Hell hath no fury like a TS compared to a CD. What makes them so angry is deep down they know such comparisons are valid.
cdjanie
Klyde, darling, I would love to give you a big, sweet hug.
Shirley Corning
Hi, I’m bigender or Two-Spirit as defined at Wikipedia.com which is fairly rare if you go by their figure of 3% of the transgendered genetically male and factor in that all male Ts lumped together represent about one in a hundred men. So 1% times 3% works out to one bigendered in at least 3,333 men without counting the fact that not all Ts are transgendered which drives the odds against it even higher. See their definition of transgender and the fasinating sub sections like “Transgender vs. transsexual” where they say that transsexuals take issue with the term transgender because Charles “Virginia” Prince, the founder of the cross dressing organization Tri-Ess and coiner of the term “transgender” did so because she wished to distinguish herself from transsexual people. In “Men Who Choose to Be Women,” Prince wrote “I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former”. She lived full time as a woman for decades but had no sexual interest in men. Just by geographical luck I lived close enough to attend the same Tri-Ess chapter meetings she did for several years in the 90’s and a few conventions with her also. The beloved old battle axe loved her “girls” as she refered to all the heterosexual cross dressers in Tri-Ess and was a staunch defender of the rights and interests of all the LGBT communities.
I thought I was just another heterosexual cross dresser back then but time has revealed that I’m really gender dysphoric as in very dysphoric yet I’m not a transsexual candidate. I consider the surgery a pointless amputation of a perfectly good organ in my case and taking hormones chemical castration. On the other hand I’ve done everything else I could to feminize myself. My beard is long gone as is my arm hair, chest hair and much of my leg hair and my eyebrows shaped all by electrolysis costing several thousand dollars and a lot of pain. Both ears are double pierced and I wear a lot of gold and diamonds. I’m always at least partially cross dressed and have been for a little more than two decades now. In all that time I haven’t once worn men’s underwear or socks and surprised a few doctors and nurses with the lingerie I was wearing. I’ve worn nail polish in bright colors and acrylics to work for years and it even got me fired once. I was warned it was considered unprofessional but refused to take it off. All that combined with the many adventures of me as Shirley fully cross dressed out shopping, dining, dancing, attending meetings and conventions and of course doing the company sponsored Halloweens several years is a lot of gender bending action.
So that brings us to an interesting point. I’ve already stated I’m not a transsexual candidate yet if you handed me a magic lamp and the genie came out saying I could have three wishes my very first one without a doubt or any hesitation would be to have a real woman’s body, preferably pretty good looking in her early twenties. Ha, ha. I’d need time to think about what I’d do with the other two wishes after that. So let’s say I got my first wish and I now had a woman’s body. My homme self Gordon would not be destroyed, forgotten or rejected. He would gladly take the back seat instead of me and let me drive the rest of our life. Gordon and I are like two mostly overlapping circles, indistructable spirits of the same soul. While we share the same memories and knowledge we have characteristics and personality traits that are distinctly different. As a woman I might be a little cold hearted towards men who look down on women or use and abuse them because I wouldn’t be above teasing them out on a limb just to watch them drop like rocks when I let them go. Oooh, mean lady.
So back to reality. I exist and am as real as Gordon but I wasn’t born like him. I was created. Assuming that’s true how do you create a spirit with a personality of it’s own that becomes a permanent part of you? It’s so simple. Abra cadabra! Poof! Your an actor assigned to act out a role. It doesn’t matter what the role is. Just pick a name for this character and start to imagine how you’d behave as this person. Now get into the role and act it out. Actors are very good at this and rarely forget the roles they’ve played. They can drop back into a role at a moments notice. Now take the role to heart and love it, enjoy it and act it out as often as you can for years. Oh, oh. Now you can’t forget it either nor can you let it go. It’s a part of you at the very heart of you. You love it and wouldn’t let it go now if you could. Wella! You’ve created another spirit that’s a permanent part of you. So when Gordon got fully crossed dressed he picked a name for me and started to imagine how he would behave as me. Just like a person grows up defining and refining themselves along the way I’ve developed into the femme person I am today and I rejoice in expressing myself like most people do.
Well that’s it. I’m done. I’m not hidden. You can find Gordon and I with separate profiles on Facebook or email me at shirleycorning@aol.com.
Goodnight all and I hope you have a very happy new year. :)<<
cdjanie
Thanks Shirley for your comment. I am a bit confused by your various descriptions of yourself, first as “just another heterosexual crossdresser,” then “very [gender] dysphoric”, and finally simply an actor who has assimilated her role into her spirit. I just figured that if you were gender dysphoric, it meant that being female was not a role but a natural way of being; it was being a male that was more the role-playing.
I am also interested in your view that despite wanting to be female – even believing that you are, for all intents and purposes, female, you see SRS and hormones as grossly inappropriate for you. Does that put you into agreement with Alice or is your concept (as I suspect it might be) quite distinct from hers?
Shirley Corning
Thanks for your response Janie. It’s nice to here from you. I can see how putting those statements I made together is confusing and even contradictory so let me put them in the right time frame and perspective. The idea that I was just another heterosexual cross dresser is what I used to think. For the first several years I was out and about as Shirley it was as if the doors had been blown off the closet and I was in candyland so it seemed. I was absolutely thrilled and delighted to find I could really go totally girly at long last. I was super charged I was so happy and the energizer bunny couldn’t even keep up with me. This went on for several years starting about 1990. Suddenly candyland seemed to melt down and nothing seemed good enough anymore. Discouraged Gordon withdrew me and I no longer went out or got fully dressed except for a few Halloweens then he stopped that too. Gordon wanted to be a real woman and let me be in control all the time. Only that would be good enough anymore. Since such a physical and genetic transformation isn’t currently possible and God doesn’t appear to grant such wishes in our lifetimes I resigned myself to the back seat. Gordon would just have to drive the rest of this life. Living with what appears to be an insoluble problem and suppressing me is of course not good for one’s mental health. So Gordon got depressed about it and stayed that way most of time until this year, 2010, when for no particular reason the cloud of gloom lifted substantially and he’s felt almost ok most of the year. So he started to socialize again contacting old friends and family he hadn’t spoken to in years. In the process I came up as a subject and in trying to explain my existence raised the gender issue again which required an in depth review. That was quite upsetting because the uneasy truce between us was broken as a result and we were at war again over time and resources. I’ve been pushing him hard for live time as me and he has been slow and reluctant to give it. Taking a thought provoking good hard look at Gordon and I again has raised some startling revalations.
A) Your quite right. Gordon has been an actor all his life when it comes to fulfilling the social norm expected for a boy and then for a grown man. Living as a man does nothing for him. He has no interest or pleasure in it. Nevertheless he is a unique character with an identity and personality of his own.
B) Right again. Gordon is gender dysphoric. As Shirley, being a woman and having a feminine personality comes as naturally to me as breathing. As such I could hardly be more comfortable. However I didn’t begin to exist as an entity until about December of 1989 when Gordon gave me a name and started to imagine what my personality and character would be like. It was not an act and I blumed quite naturally.
C) Gordon wil speak on this one. In 1989 I was under considerable stress and began to clam up so my wife sent me to see a psycologist. On the first visit my viewpoint was so unrealistic and in denial that I told him first thing I didn’t know what we were going to talk about because I didn’t have any problems. He said, “Bullshit Gordie. Everyone has problems.” After a few visits I finally felt safe enough to confess my undying obsession with women’s apparel. I told him I didn’t think I was the only one but that I’d never find people like me because they were in deep hiding too. He smiled and said they were easy to reach and gave me the name and number of the only contact he had, a post-op transsexual psychiatrist of all people. She sent me to a weekly meeting of transsexuals in Santa Monica, a group called Androgyny. It was open to everyone but only transsexuals showed up. I attended for a while but did not cross dress there. I got a real good look at what transsexuals go through and was appalled. Their road is paved right through hell. I learned enough to understand their plight and was very sympathetic. As for me it was thanks but no thanks. When someone told me about Tri-Ess for heterosexual cross dressers I was all ears. That sounded like just the right thing for me so off I went to make contact with them. That’s what convinced me I didn’t want to go the transsexual route.
D) Back to me, Shirley again. Item A was a recent realization and item B came as a shock recently also because I had never applied the term gender dysphoric to wanting to be a woman. Duh. That’s just what it is. This last item with those two was enough to send me running back to my current counselor whom I haven’t seen in a couple of years. Fortunately she’s very good at it. Gordon is heterosexual and even the idea of kissing a man is revolting to him let alone doing anything sexual. Give me a woman’s body and I’m not so sure anymore I’d just keep to myself. I’m afraid if I was in the right mood I could really go wild. Why would I think that might happen? Because my fantasies scream it and I even dream it. It’s always of me, Shirley, doing just about everything you can think of with a bunch of men and women and even having a boy friend who likes me to be promiscuous. My counselor’s office is in Burbank and she couldn’t help but laugh when I said I might screw my way from here to Hollywood and back but as per usual she had some good advice.
The stuff about actors getting into a role was used as an analogy because there is a similarity in using the imagination to conceive a characteristic or behavior which is what Gordon did initially to dream me up so to speak but I took it from there growing and developing as I went. Doesn’t everybody? Also like the actor though certainly not the same I can switch between Gordon and I at will. As for what Alice had to say there’s a lot of truth to it but I think at least a couple points were left out that should have been mentioned. For instance the concept of the primary and secondary transsexuals discussed by Dr. Richard Doctor of Cal State Northridge who specialized in the study of the T community. The primary transsexual knows almost from their first concious moment that something is wrong. The secondary transexual doesn’t typically come to the conclusion they’re in the wrong body for their gender until midlife. As for hormones, intersex, genetics or misdirected self love as the opposite sex I just don’t know and would need scientific proof to buy it.
Gordon will take it from here. Alice wrote, “…no particular childhood events or exposures have been correlated with crossdressing or transsexualism.” Really?!?! I’m a classic example of having a childhood event that nailed the idea home. At the tender age of 3 I knew one thing for sure. I was attention and approval starved. I could feel the hunger. My parents had separated and weren’t around much. I craved their attention and approval most. I didn’t know why they weren’t there but came up with an explanation. There must be something wrong with me to keep them away. I blamed myself. So first I lived with my mother’s parents in Brooklyn, NY, then with my father’s parents in New Jersey. Neither experience was good and no one gave me the attention and approval I tried so hard to get over the two to three years I was with them. While in Brooklyn a babysitter took me to I believe the Presbyterian church where my parents had married. I was in a small theatre with a stage and other children were there playing. I saw three little girls all done up with pretty dresses and they seemed to be getting lots of love, affection, attention and approval. That’s when the grass first started looking greener on the other side. I only remember it because they were getting what I really wanted but I wasn’t a girl so I thought nothing else of it. Sometime later something innocent but really dumb happened to me. My mom’s sister, my aunt Pat, who was only twelve at the time decided it would be great fun to dress me up as a girl. I got a little dress, some lipstick, my hair done and I don’t remember what else. She then paraded me out in front of my grandparents who were sitting opposite each other. I specifically remember looking to my right and seeing grandpa Fauble sitting there on a sofa. He did not look happy and obviously did not approve but said nothing which was normal for him. Before I could look to my left to see grandma she scooped me up and showered me with love and affection laughing and hugging me rocking and saying how cute I was and what a pretty girl I made. Oooh, big mistake. It made me remember the little girls at the church and what do you suppose I was thinking, “Oh! I can be a girl too and get all this attention and approval just like them! OK. I want to be one too!” Congratulations ladies. You just planted the seed in that little boy’s mind that will forever haunt him and grow. So no such thing as a correlation to a childhood event or exposure?!?! I emphatically disagree. Something can happen to dramatically alter your life’s course and that certainly is what happened to me.
Back to identity, personality, behavior and character for a moment. Janie, don’t you behave differently than your homme self? I wonder if most transsexuals would claim they never had a masculine side. I think if you’ve expressed or done even one
masculine thing then you have a masculine side and the same for the feminine side. Don’t we all know as human beings the difference between masculine and feminine behavior and characteristics? Can’t anyone act one way or the other if they choose to even if it’s only in jest or any other reason? I think so. Yet from what I’ve known of them I don’t doubt for a moment that a true MTF transsexual is a real woman in mind and spirit even though it isn’t yet possible to genetically make that transition totally complete. Neither do I doubt the true FTM transsexual and I have met one. So I sit here and say I have two distinct identities, one low key masculine one and one very lovely feminine one, existing together in one mind. They aren’t split personalities. They overlap like two circles can. Even if I went the transsexual route and transitioned to the extent that’s possible today Gordon wouldn’t disappear or cease to exist just because I’m front and center all the time. Virginia Prince was as close to transsexual as you can get having had breast implants, taking hormones and living full time as a woman for decades but she didn’t even try to forget Charles occasionally mentioning what Charles would think of that or what he’d do in a particular case. So as much as her feminine side dominated her life she was bigendered too.
Well the night is almost over and I feel like I’ve written a book so back to you it goes. I hope I’ve adequately answered your questions and cleared up most if not all the confusing points I initially made. I look forward to your response and I’m perfectly willing to go over anything else you’d like to discuss. It’s been a distinct pleasure Janie and I’m glad to have met you.
With kindest regards and a couple of hugs oh girly one,
Shirley :)<<
cdjanie
Thanks for sharing so much of yourself, Shirley. We are all of us some combination of masculine and feminine, but only very few see fit to assume the role of the gender opposite to their birth gender. Even fewer still are so uncomfortable with their original equipment that they need to have it removed. Is it a continuum or are these distinct and separate groups? As the comments here aptly illustrate, it depends on your perspective, I guess.
Shirley Corning
Birds, rare birds, very rare birds and the rarest birds are all there. Let’s forget the individual perspective and get scientific and analytical. How many billion people are on this planet today? Even if you include all that came before them and all there are to come there are no two individuals who are exactly the same. There is no continuum, only catagories we’ve defined to drop people into and the human race seems to have tried it’s best to catagorize everyone every which way. The best we can do is to define or subdefine another catagory like primary and secondary transsexuals for instance. So I looked at the catagories defined on Wikipedia and found the definitions of bigendered and Two-Spirit seemed to fit me the best but that’s just me. I suspect from what you’ve said and what I’ve learned so far I’m a pretty rare bird though not as rare as the transsexual. So I’m quite curious Janie. What catagory and definition do you feel you best fit into and what about it doesn’t fit if anything? I’d really like to hear what anyone else has to say on the subject.
Well the new year is a little more than six hours old now and though I’m a night owl I’m ready to give it up and go to bed. I love you all my sisters whether croas dresser/transvestite, transgendered, bigendered or transsexual. .
cdjanie
I’d really like to hear what others have to say also. I’ve been describing my feelings on this and previous posts and I’m just not sure of the definitions of many of the so-called categories, which change depending on the site or person. Also, my understanding of my own experience changes over time. SO, I’ll leave it to others to label me if they must. I’m just a plain old t-girl in my book – the most general term I know.
Shirley Corning
Sounds good to me Janie. Let’s hear it folks. What do you think?