How Trans is Trans

Printer-friendly version
How Trans is Trans?
By Patricia Marie Allen

The real question we are asking here is: How gender non-conforming to you have to be to be transgender?

In answer to that I think we need to define just what gender is, and when is it trans. I’ve been involved in discussion boards for a long time. Decades ago, there were newsgroups. Some of you may be old enough to remember them. The one I participated in most was alt.support.crossdressing. Many of the notable members of our community participated. The idea (to which I subscribe) was floated that gender was a spectrum; with Masculine on one end and Feminine on the other. Society mistakenly seems to think that sex and gender are synonymous. But as stated in alt.support.crossdressing; sex is what’s between your legs and gender is what’s between your ears. Sex is pretty much either or (aside from true intersexed individuals), whereas, gender is varying shades, siding from one end of the spectrum to the other.

In truth, no one is actually at either extreme end of the gender spectrum, at least somewhat from one end or the other. Carl Jung (google him) stated that there is something masculine about every woman and something feminine about every man.

So what we are discussing here is just how far away from the end does one have to be to be transgender. The next question that has to be considered is: Is that a fixed point or can a person progress, or even regress? These two questions are the heart of transgender.

From my personal observation (echoed by many I’ve talked to) is that gender is not a static condition for those of us in the trans community. Most of us, when we discover the first indication of our trans nature have reactions that reflect the societal view around us. That is; we reject the idea as being something to be avoided. Many years of denial ensue. We convince ourselves that, in the case of MTF, we are really men and this aberration present in our gender is transient… that it’s just some phase or curiosity on our part. Certainly not something to embrace.

After some time, we come to acknowledge that we have to deal with it in some way or another. Often we search for a label to explain just who, or what we are. The first and most common label is transvestite, oops that’s a pejorative, offensive term, more politically correct, cross-dresser. It’s safe. We simply cross-dress, but we’re still men… ok, so we appreciate women’s fashion to the point that we like to wear them…. BUT WE’RE STILL MEN.

I personally spent decades telling myself that lie and believing it. But as we get older, we come slowly to realize, not only will our desire to wear the clothes not go away, but the need, because that’s what it really is, becomes more urgent and frequent. The dissatisfaction with our body begins to rear its ugly head. We then are force to reevaluate our gender. Are we indeed, just a cross-dresser, or is there something more going on.

In my personal experience, cross-dressing has gone on for over six decades in the beginning; it was a diversion; then a compulsion, and finally a way of life. About thirty years ago, I began to desire physical changes and sought excuses as to why that wasn’t in the cards. About five years ago, I admitted to myself that I really wanted physical validation of what was going on inside. About two years ago, I got the opportunity to do something about it and started on HRT.

Since I crossed that threshold, I think no one would deny me inclusion in the transgender category. The question posed here then prior to that time when expressing my feminine nature by cross-dressing was enough, was I or was I not transgender?

My answer is I was always transgender only I didn’t always admit it, even to myself. Back in the day, Virginia Prince (anyone remember her) proposed that anyone who didn’t fit the strict societal binary gender, yes, even including the obviously fetish transvestite, was trans to one degree or another. Since this discussion was going on while I was working hard to understand myself, that idea was pivotal in helping me come to grips with the facts of my gender. Because of societal pressures I wanted to desperately to fit the cross-dresser label, but finally allowed myself to embrace androgynous; that is a mix of both masculine and feminine. So, in my own perception, I was beginning to accept that I was sliding along the gender spectrum.

In one post on alt.support.crossdressing I postulated that gender was like a train track. If one started at masculine and headed toward feminine, they could come across infinite stops along the way. We, that is transgender people, could get off at any of those stops… anywhere we felt comfortable. However, we didn’t have to remain there. If we felt we were in over our head, we could board the train and go back the other way to a more comfortable stop. On the other hand, if we still felt that we weren’t at our final destination, we could get back on the train and progress farther down the track to another, yet more feminine stop. This process could repeat itself as often as we felt necessary.

It was my contention that some would eventually ride to the other terminus, or at least as close to it as genetic females reside, and seek SRS, (from there, the return trip would become problematic) but that most would find a stop some distance from that end. At the time, I was sure that most would be well away from it; that is the percentage would be somewhere around two to three percent. At that time, I considered only full transition to be the end of the line. However, now, I see that that there are many stops very close to the feminine terminus. Full social transition without SRS and without even HRT are very close and if the individual is gutsy or fortunate enough to be able to pull it off, that counts.

What I believe is we all battle still outside pressures. Fewer and fewer of us battle societal pressure, but nearly all of us have to contend with family pressures. Some of us, in order to fulfill the need that drives us find it necessary to simply break from family. The very fortunate of us, can manage to go for the gusto with approval, or at least total acceptance of our need. I believe a greater number hold back, making some level of sacrifice for those we love. We feel the need to strike some sort of balance that maintains family and mollifies our inner pressure to express our feminine nature.

That balance, like gender, is a spectrum and we, the fortunate, travel it in the same way. I’ve made many stops home for a time. Then as family (that is my wife) became more comfortable, I got back on the train to travel to the next stop. The first stop was “Do if you have to, but don’t let me see it.” Then came, “Don’t let the kids see it.” (BTW I ignored that one) and then it was don’t let anyone else see it. After that it was don’t let any of our friends see it.

I won’t go into the mechanics of each of those stops. I will touch on the recent (last ten years) ones. I spent a long time at “go where you want do what you want, just don’t embarrass me.” At this stop, I came and went from our house, went to the local grocery store, the shopping centers and doctor’s office in full expression of my true nature. I even talked with some of our neighbors when the postman misdelivered their mail to our box.

Presently, we’ve retired and she’s signed off on HRT. I currently don’t own any men’s clothing, though some of them are on the masculine end of women’s clothes. When I talked to her about getting the prescription, I pointed out that both my father and my brother had contracted prostate cancer and that the testosterone blockers would be prescribed for enlarged prostate, a precursor to cancer and they would help stave off that for me. As a bonus, since she’s post-menopausal and has no real sex drive, I told her that one of the side effects would be the lowering my sex drive. At one point in time, she confessed that she hoped that the reduction in my sex drive would come to match her own. Her real concern was the breast development, but I pointed out it would take five years for the full effect and that at my time of life (I’m 74) that due to the lack of HGH in my system I couldn’t expect very much develop anyway.

Am I at the end of my journey on the gender express? I’d say yes, but then, remember I spent decades absolutely convinced I was “just a cross-dresser.” However, given the time of my life, I likely don’t have enough time to go much farther and at this time, I’m good with where I am. It’s a lot farther than I’d have thought when I first started trying to deal with this and finally got on the train for the first time.

Comments?

up
101 users have voted.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos! Click the "Thumbs Up!" button above to leave a Kudos

Comments

Our gender journey...

It is nice to hear another's journey. I could identify with much of what you have said. There are similar thoughts, though I haven't made the journey as I would have wanted.
I hope others find this helpful. We don't speak enough with one another as I think would be helpful.

Thanks, Patricia.

Hugs from Jessie C

Jessica E. Connors

Jessica Connors

(My) cross-dressing has gone on for over six decades

Donna T's picture

Same here. Pre-high school I didn't know what to think about my 'need'. I dressed and experimented a lot! Didn't know what or why but I continued. In high school I became scared that I was gay (I'm not) and continued with the dressing, makeup and nail polish. And during university I worried that I was trans. For several years I worried. In my era there were few, if any, places to turn to for answers. The internet sure would have helped. A psychiatrist would have probably declared me 'crazy'.

Sensational daytime TV (Springer, et al) made cross dressers more routine and introduced me to Tri-Ess... it was comforting to know that I was not crazy and that there were others like me. That in itself was a BIG burden lifted from me.

After great deliberation and much angst, guilt, etc. (many years worth) I rightly concluded I was NOT trans... which was also a relief. Looking back 60 years I'm sure I made the right choice. Maybe it's the passage of time that puts things in perspective? What was "true" when I was 14 isn't necessarily "true" now.

You've raised a great topic, very debatable, with no clear 'one size fits all' answer. How trans is trans? It depends... and it comes from something inside of the person. If people and "experts" can't agree on what's a transvestite (in this decade), then the term transsexual is a thousand times more confusing.

"The term transvestite was historically used to diagnose medical disorders, including mental health disorders, and transvestism was viewed as a disorder, but the term cross-dresser was coined by the transgender community. In some cases, however, the term transvestite is seen as more appropriate for use by members of the transgender community instead of by those outside of the transgender community, and some have reclaimed the word."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvestism

Maybe finally know what you are NOT puts you closer to knowing what you ARE? I think Big Closet is a great source of info, advice to many. I'm glad I found it.

Thanx for posing the question.

Hugs...

Dee

Donna

I remember

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

I remember being upset when it seemed that the transsexual component of the Trans community co-opted the term "transgender" as synonym for transsexual and seemed to take offense when someone not seeking SRS used it as a descriptor for themselves saying they weren't transgender, that they were just pretenders.

While I'm on HRT, I still don't think of myself as transsexual, though I do claim transgender status. Interesting how a group of people with so much in common can be so divisive amongst themselves. One of the things I like about Big Closet is the inclusiveness of the community. I know we have several stripes of trans hanging out here and I've yet to see the old arguments that ran rampant on the newsgroups and other sites of the day.

Kudos to Erin and crew for creating such a site.

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt

Still true

Donna T's picture

I happened onto this story and comments by chance a year later. It's still true today. Right?

Donna

Fully Transitioning Was A Huge Mistake

I never expected to be able to breach this subject on this site.

I'd known in my earliest memories (4-5) that I felt like a girl. Was it because the men I was exposed to were such dicks? They were awful, abusive, sexist, rapists and on and on. So, very early on, I hated men and hated being one. I'm 72 now and looking back, I see that my transition 15 years ago was an overreaction, and I'd have done better dressing on Friday nights.

Is it all my fault? There are a million extenuating circumstances, so who can say?

I've been reading Teddy's, "Trials and Tribulations..." and it has given me much food for thought. It has pushed me to do a lot of my own reading and thinking. I have discovered that this story is not any sort of fantasy, I don't think. From reading and talking to others, my own estimation is that I am Two Spirit, of the Navajo type. The LGBT community has their own version of it, but to me it does not match up with the Navajo version.

In the last 15 years, I have lived exclusively as a female, and am blessed to pass so well that no one confronts me. It has taken a long time but it is finally very clear to me that I still have a strong male component, though have not had sex since I came out. Though there have been very seldom private sexual episodes with my mind being firmly female.

Had I known about Native American thought on the subject, I wonder if I could have established a relationship with the Native American community?

In my case, briefly, I had severe PTSD from awful childhood abuse experiences and when they demanded treatment, the Psych. folk misdiagnosed me and said I had GID and got me on several experimental Psych. meds. in heavy doses that made me extremely suggestible and that led to transition and SRS. Now days, a decade later, they would have treated the PTSD and there would have been no transition.

There are several reasons that I would not have survived without transition, one being that the DSM of the day listed GID as a mental disorder and that got me tapped into all sorts of financial aid. And, the Trade I had previously worked had my body so busted up and worn out that I was no longer able to do it. Getting early retirement was nearly impossible in that day. So, my transition was not ALL bad.

Much peace

Gwen

Well

Generally if someone says they're trans, that's enough for me.

I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D

However

For my journey, I never was a man or a boy. I never thought of myself as one, and never related with them. I never believed I was "MTF" I liked "FTF" I was a girl born with a penis, and my dysphoria didn't like that so I got a vagina/vulva instead and it's wonderful

I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D

very good

Patricia, Thank You for a really well written article. You have hit the idea of transgender right on the head. I to fit right in Your railroad stops scenario. Hope all is well and will see You soon.

So what is the difference

between TG and transsexual, I hit a point in my life where I was ready to end it due to dysphoria, But I got my brothers kids when he committed suicide and I found I could not do that to them again, I had not crossdressed until that point, so I transitioned as fast as I could. I was lucky in that I was never very masculine and make a presentable woman, unfortunately I drew the shot straw on the HRT bad side effects and had a hemorrhagic stroke, and will likely spend the rest of my life paralyzed on my left side. C'est La Vie.? Odd thing is I can Handle this better than my dysphoria.

So what is the difference

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

In a word, none. That's the take-away from the article. Transsexual is just the final stop on the tracks; the one after transgenderist (living full time as a woman without surgery). Once there is surgery, there's no getting back on the train to go back a few stops.

For the rest of us, there's always the chance, or the opportunity, for us to back track. But none of that really maters as far as the article is concerned; we're all transgendered.

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt

(* shrug *)

I used to spend all my time trying to figure all this stuff out and to figure out where I fit and why.

But now that it's been a year or two since going full time, I no longer care. The terms and the distinctions are really just a convenience, a shorthand. If I were to try to really explain what I feel I am, it would take too long and nobody'd want to listen to it all. (And besides, if they asked me a few months later, they'd get a different story.) So I just call myself a "trans woman," or, if I want to be really wordy, I say "I'm living as a woman." The gory details I save for my therapist and for the few people who actually want to know more.

For me, the important thing is that I've found a way to live that is so much better than the way I was living before. I don't care what anyone calls it, as long as they don't get in the way of me living my life the way that feels best to me.

I've heard that there are people out there that want to regulate who can call themselves "trans" or "transgender" or "transsexual," but I've been fortunate enough never to have to deal with them. And if I did, I would just dismiss them as clueless jerks; I grew up in a Hell of being judged and found wanting and wrong and generally invalidated, and there's nothing anyone can do to me now that comes even 1/10-th of the way close to that. I'm on the down side of life, and I don't want to waste my few remaining years trying to educate the ineducable.

As they say, living well is the best revenge. (And it doesn't eat you up with bitterness.) While they're judging and snarling, I'll be living my life and having a gay old time. (Or should I say "a lesbian old time"?)

Transgenderism - transvestism - transsexualism?????

Where doo-ooo I start.
Well, just about anybody who's been on this site more than a couple of years will have a pretty good insight of my life and pathway so it's no use banging on about it again, here - or indeed anywhere else. Seventy three years old and having truly walked-the-walk!
Yes, I believe, (and it's only my belief - I'm not going to argue the medicals cos I'm past that now.)
There are two sexes, cos' sex is between the legs and I just rub along with that concept.
Gender is 'between-the-ears' and as I understand it, what's between the ears makes us firstly human then what we see of ourselves. My sex is pretty much a mammalian thing, a metabolic thing but my gender is a function of my humanity and it is pretty much a cerebral construct.
To quote Voltaire, - 'I think, therefore I am'.
Thus to extrapolate the logic in that observation it follows that:-
I think and feel I am feminine therefore, in my head, I am feminine or even female.
People who cannot relate to my cerebrality or humanity are not worth sharing discourse with.
These days, I'm more interested in an individual's ideas, not his physical presentation. Perhaps that's a consequence of my age.

bev_1.jpg

What does "trans" even mean ?

When trying to understand trans-.... I start by wondering whether "trans" means "across" as in "transatlantic", or "exceed, surpass, excel, outdo, outstrip" as in "transcend" ?

Two boxes are enough for many people to feel comfortablish in the one they are assigned at birth, but is there any reason to head directly for the other box if the first one starts be be restricting ?

Last week's New Scientist once again debunks the myth of male and female brains: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132190-100-how-neur...

Article wars

erin's picture

For every article I see in commercial media "debunking" neurological gender differences, I see two or more articles in real science journals talking about new evidence that such differences are not only real but go right down to the biochemistry of the cells. Maybe it's observer bias.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

I have enjoyed the comments

as much as the essay. i have spent many hours, if not years trying to figure myself out. Still haven't succeeded, Whatever it was it was all too real. I tried to ignore at a very real risk. I am an electronics tech by trade and inclination, It jived very with my childhood desire to be a scientist. As for TG and Transsexual , I suspect it is a potato/potateo question, While I think of myself as TG, it doesn't matter. I am an advocate for people fighting the struggle, and hope to stay that way. I just need to survive my current life problems.