Crossdressers-Haven.com

I’m not a parent—that is, I don’t have any biological children. My girlfriend has two daughters, both teenagers. I cook for them, pick them up at school, and make the beds when they’re coming over for the weekend. I like having them around. Yet I know that my experience of Kim and Tiffany is coming from a practical side. LeeAnne’s experience of them is from the heart, and there’s a connection that she has with them that I can only guess at. I listen to her talk, and I can tell how important these two girls are to her. “Important” is putting it mildly. She would lay her life down in a second for them.

Yet I have some glimpse of this kind of feeling when I think about my other self, the woman I present to the world now and again. I see her as this wonderful being, but unless someone else has a similar experience, how they be expected to understand? I’m thinking of wives and partners, but there are also members here who don’t have a femme feeling about themselves when they dress. My friends and family may love me and have the best intentions toward me, but they don’t want to hear about what’s it like to be my other self. They just don’t. I can’t blame them for this, and I can’t make the girl self go away. So we have a stalemate of sorts. And I know it’s much more complicated and painful when it’s a spouse that’s involved.

Jon Carroll is a columnist for our local paper, and he writes about many subjects. However, if he writes about his two cats, he gets a strong reaction. People either love or hate his cat columns. So he labels them, “Here’s another cat column,” or, “Warning: cat column,” or some other tip-off.
Sometimes I feel like I need to label my posts: “Warning: another ‘Oh how amazing’ post.”

I have strong feelings about wanting to experience things for myself whenever possible. I want to honestly say, “I know how you feel. I’ve been there; I’ve done that.” I don’t know how I could easily be with a transsexual partner if I hadn’t experienced becoming the other gender myself. I know it’s possible for people to understand without going there, but I’m saying that it would be much more difficult for me.

I'm not going to give examples of all I've done to live this out, because many of the examples are extreme, and would pull attention away from the focus of this thread. I suppose I can say that going out as a woman was part of this need to become another person, and see things through their eyes.

To sum up: I recognize how tough it can be to deal with someone else’s all-consuming passion, when your own access to it is limited, unavailable, or blocked by negative feelings. I wish I had better answers for spouses, family, and friends, as to how to deal with this.

Hi Anita , it's nice to meet you...

This is an interesting thread topic. I agree its amazing how peoples views,understandings and ultimately their actions alter when they are in another pair of shoes. I'm fortunate in that I have a supportive wife and children, but I know of many who struggle with acceptance.

For me personally, since Karin replaced 'him', my viewpoint has done a complete uturn in many ways. I now find myself far more positive about many aspects of life. The glass is half full not empty? So what if people don't conform to the expected stereotypes? So what if I'm a girl in my head? And things like that. A few years ago, you wouldn't have heard that viewpoint from 'him' I'm sure. So yep I agree, having experience in or as something, equips us all with a sympathetic view.

Alas, i suspect many spouses have never had gender issues, of whatever scale of the spectrum, so won't have the benefit of inside knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding and then maybe acceptance IMO. All I can offer there, is to assure the spouse there are no 'other people' involved, that there's still attraction for the spouse etc, and above all no going behind backs and deceiving? I've read so many stories where the discovery is one thing, and then the realization of years of deceit cause the situation to escalate, as trust becomes the major issue. For some, dressing is a low level offense, but deceit is off the scale. It's just so hard to gauge.

Never an easy solution to this subject is there?

Anita wrote: I don’t know how I could easily be with a transsexual partner if I hadn’t experienced becoming the other gender myself.

I wonder what you mean?

Gender being in the mind, and being TS has nothing to do with transitioning, IMHO. Transitioning is just the how many cope with being TS, but not all transition.

So, do they become the other gender, or do they just express who they are?

Isn't this nearly the same for other TG folk, who are not TS? That is, we just express who we are.

Anita wrote: I suppose I can say that going out as a woman was part of this need to become another person, and see things through their eyes.

Same person same eyes, I think, just different experiences, yes?

Anita wrote: I have strong feelings about wanting to experience things for myself whenever possible. I want to honestly say, “I know how you feel. I’ve been there; I’ve done that.”

I wish I had better answers for spouses, family, and friends, as to how to deal with this.

Everyone has their own unique experiences. Some may be close to what others have, but no one can, for any exact certainty, say, “I know how you feel. I’ve been there; I’ve done that.”

Your answers, my answers, can only be based on our experiences and our feelings. So try not to think of it as your answers not being up to snuff. They are as good as they can get, yes?

Hi Karin--

For me personally, since Karin replaced 'him', my viewpoint has done a complete uturn in many ways. I now find myself far more positive about many aspects of life. The glass is half full not empty? So what if people don't conform to the expected stereotypes? So what if I'm a girl in my head? And things like that. A few years ago, you wouldn't have heard that viewpoint from 'him' I'm sure. So yep I agree, having experience in or as something, equips us all with a sympathetic view.

My girlfriend grew up in a very conservative religious family, and she fully supported their beliefs. Then she discovered she was transgender, and she had to make some changes. Her old belief system had no support for her new identity. When that happens, real change in thinking takes place.

I don’t know how I could easily be with a transsexual partner if I hadn’t experienced becoming the other gender myself.

I wonder what you mean?

Gender being in the mind, and being TS has nothing to do with transitioning, IMHO. Transitioning is just the how many cope with being TS, but not all transition.

Thanks for taking the time you did to look at the issues I brought up here. I’ll try to answer them.

I didn't become the other gender permanently, but I have gone out as a woman. So I understand what it feels like to pass, or not to pass, for instance. There was no equivalent to that in my 50 years as a man. So if LeeAnne gets upset about not passing, I have parts of my own experience to share with her. I'm not just saying, "Gee, that's too bad." and then drawing a blank on something else to say.

So, do they become the other gender, or do they just express who they are?
Isn't this nearly the same for other TG folk, who are not TS? That is, we just express who we are.

You're correct, Donna, and LeeAnne would say that, too--that she's just being who she always was inside. To the rest of us, the point at which she makes the decision to present that woman to the world is a big change, though. That is a big bone of contention. Her ex-wife and family say that LeeAnne just "suddenly" decided she was a woman. No, she always was a woman. Yes, she did 'suddenly' appear as a woman one day. But she had been planning it for a long time.

I suppose I can say that going out as a woman was part of this need to become another person, and see things through their eyes.

Same person same eyes, I think, just different experiences, yes?

The different experiences are the key. By becoming a different person in appearance, I experience things I never could if I had not changed my look, (and my gender I.D.) I would never have known how vulnerable women can feel late at night in a marginal neighborhood, for example. Then I found myself in one, as a woman, and the knowledge was right there. I didn't have to imagine how it would feel--I experienced it for myself. My male self had never experienced vulnerability of that type, no matter how sympathetic he might have been to women's concerns.

Everyone has their own unique experiences. Some may be close to what others have, but no one can, for any exact certainty, say, “I know how you feel. I’ve been there; I’ve done that.”

It's never exact, but coming closer to the mark is a big comfort. Our going out as women is a good example. You and I may not have had the exact same experiences, but you know what I've gone through in a way that gives you something to say in this thread. If you'd never gone out dressed as a woman in a public place, your answer to this thread would be very different.

I think we all have an example of some topic that we all care about or feel deeply, and it just makes most people we talk to feel uncomfortable. I have at least four topics like that in my life, including being a girl part-time. When I meet someone who has experienced one of those four topics, I can connect with them on a whole different level. I sense that they aren't going to shut down after two sentences. They are not afraid to open up to me more than usual. That's such a gift!

Your answers, my answers, can only be based on our experiences and our feelings. So try not to think of it as your answers not being up to snuff. They are as good as they can get, yes?

I do hear what you're saying here, Donna, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. It's the frustration of seeing spouses and family in pain about our gender expression because they have no way of seeing something similar in their own lives. LeeAnne's family members can't imagine what it must be like to feel what we feel. So it doesn't exist for them--it's not real.

Powder is a 1995 film about a boy, nicknamed "Powder," with incredible intellect, telepathy, and paranormal powers. In one scene, a sheriff’s deputy has just shot a deer, and it’s lying on the ground, wounded. The boy is anguished about this, and he goes over and touches the deer and the man at the same time. The man appears to have a seizure. Later, he tells people that the connection forced him to feel the pain and fear of the dying deer, and that he can’t bring himself to take another life.

That’s idealistic, and that movie really spoke to me. If one member of LeeAnne’s family could feel what she does in such a direct way, there would be a change in how they treated her. They might choose to suppress that new knowledge, I suppose, but they could no longer deny to themselves that they understood.

One last example. I’ve never seriously injured anyone, but I have been involved in violent situations. People do not like to talk about times when they’ve been out of control and gotten in fights with spouses or friends—it’s often a painful thing to remember. I don’t like the times I’ve done it. But more than once, I’ve been able to make someone feel better about what they’ve done. By telling my own story, they know that I won’t judge them or be uncomfortable with what they’ve done. I’ve been there, and they can tell by my words and feelings that I have. That is an acceptance that I can’t fake—it comes from experience.

Well, just to be perverse, here's something from an entirely different angle. In the film version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" there's something called the "empathy gun". Point this at someone and he's immediately obliged to feel what you feel. It features in the climax where Marvin (the clinically depressed paranoid android) points it at the bad guys who immediately expire from despair. But, at one point it also gets pointed at Trillian (the heroine). It has no effect on her. Why? "Because I'm a woman," she says.

So that's pretty much a standard view - that women are emotional and intuitive - and empathic. Like a lot of their process is intuiting what someone else is going through and basing their reaction on that - whereas men are supposed to be rational, analytic and so forth, reaching their decisions on the basis of logic.

I'm not myself convinced that men do really reach their decisions like that. But the point is, generally speaking, they have to believe they do that in order to fit into the stereotype. Women, on the other hand, are perfectly happy to do it out of instinct.

So, the point being, if you present as a woman - or otherwise free up your feminine side as a man - this allows you to free yourself of that male stereotype and..."walk a mile in someone else's shoes".

This may be of value to me personally, in that I feel my intuitive side is still somewhat buried and I need to have access to her to make my way in the world properly.

I've read the discussions and I could talk a bunch of deep stuff, but getting back to Anita, I just want to say one simple thing about what I have experienced and heard from my friends.

It's one thing to accept a friend as a transgender person and enjoy them as my friends enjoy being with me. My friends have also said that if there mate was trans, they were not sure how exactly they would deal with it. Ro, my better half of 38+ years, has had lots and lots of years to get used to me and I have had lots and lots of years to understand her feelings. To summarize, it's one thing to be friends with a transgender person than be married to one -- so true.