The following is a cross-post from the TransCanada blog. The original post can be found here: My two comments there were so long (and I did a good job, I think) that I decided to make my own blog of it. Some minor things have been altered. Comments welcome, of course.
Years ago, I hung out with a large group of crossdressers and went to drag shows and such. I was a transgresser, a gender non-comformist. I wore makeup and feminine clothing, yet often didn't try to pass as female. (It's all documented in my "blast from the past" entries, and I had coined my own term, "duplex mode" to refer to that mode of presentation.) I had a lot of fun and I really didn't care what people thought. Now that I've realized I'm a transsexual (running strong for six years), I care. Sometimes I care too much what people think.
I hate to say it, but I don't consider drag queens or crossdressers to be women.
Drag queens probably wouldn't care either way. "Hey, honey... I'm not a woman... but I look dammmmm good!"
Crossdressers would probably be a bit irate. "I'm every bit of a woman as you are." Well... if they were, wouldn't they at least have the desire to transition, even if they weren't able to?
Keep in mind that I'm also polite in mixed company, and always refer to crossdressers as women and use the correct pronouns. It would be disrespectful not to.
Near the end of my outings (in more than one sense of the word!) with my crossdressing friends, I found that they were hindering my ability to be seen as female. I was sitting at a bar with two crossdressers. One looked really good. The other... ehhh, not really. I overheard these women at the bar when I was coming back from the bathroom. "That one is a man! What about the one next to her?" "Yeah, I think that one is too. What about the one who went to the bathroom? She is kind of pretty." I sat down. They stared at me and then looked at each other, nodding their heads and smiling. Dammit! I felt so bad but I really wanted to ditch my friends and find some genetic girls to hang out with. That made me feel terrible because they were my friends!
So it would seem that you are either female inside, or not. But isn't gender more like an ocean? You know, like these Myspace or Facebook quizzes that everyone takes. "You are 80% female." So I'm 20% male? Is that because I like computers, comic books and D&D? I recently read of some transsexual woman from overseas, who said that she believed herself to be 45% male, and 55% female. Her therapist agreed with her, and wouldn't give her the letter she needed for GRS. I don't think that's right.
I would think that if you were more male than female inside, you're a man. If you're 30% female and 70% male, then you would generally have no problem being being called a man and seen as one. You would probably not experience any dysphoria. But with such a large percentage of femininity in you, that might need some release via crossdressing, or maybe in some other way. It's often hard to tell who is a crossdresser and who is a transsexual, because nobody can be sure of these percentages. This often includes the person in question.
I'm not an elitist. So many crossdressers have said that they're envious of my long hair, boobs, and that I never have to hide anything. I do think that most of them realize the sacrifices one must make in order to transition. Yeah, I have all those things, and more. But look at what I don't have. Family, friends (though I'm making new ones), being gendered as something other than what I'm trying my best to present - female, a job (I seem to impress them at the interview, and then I'm sure they run my background check and see my old name), and the list goes on and on. Some of them might transition if they didn't have to lose those things. Or maybe they just enjoy waking up in the morning after a drag show and spending a day as nothing more than the average male.
It's hard for many transsexuals to imagine wanting some "guy time," and it's hard for many crossdressers to be able to see how a transsexual could have GRS and "cut it off," since they often prize that aspect of their antatomy. Transsexuals have more of a drive to be live as a woman. It's a full time job. Crossdressers (those with a greater percentage of male than female) enjoy femininity as a part-time job. No benefits, no 401K, but then they enjoy their other job and don't want to give that up.
Hey honey, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Post a Comment