Wendy,
Thanks for the interesting posts.
I've often thought about this, too. When I first started looking on the Net for kindred souls almost a year ago, one of my first stops was "that other crossdressers forum." It soon became apparent to me that, with all the flame wars, arguments, and downright savagery I found there, I was dealing mostly with men in dresses. Oh, there were exceptions. But that's all they were: exceptions. I didn't want to be part of a community of men in dresses (in the sense used by Debbie Hahn). I wanted to be with a group of people who, because they were crossdressers or transgendered, were able to tap into that part of themselves normally shunted aside by a strict adherence to male gender socialization. It became painfully obvious to me that a man could wear makeup, a wig, panties, and a skirt as well as go by a feminine-sounding name and still be ruled by his testosterone-flooded brain. I mean no disrespect to those of my brothers here who are fine and feel secure in their masculinity, whatever odd article of women's clothing they choose to wear for pleasure. They're not who I'm referring to, here. I'm talking about those who consider themselves women (the autogynephiliacs, if you wish), yet behave like ill-raised brutes. (Yes, I'm sure there are also GG's who behave like ill-raised brutes, but they tend to be the exception.)No, what I was looking for are individuals who, though genetically male, like myself, have found ways to transcend the limitations--affective, psychological, and spiritual--imposed upon them by normative gender boundaries. As a man, I wanted to be able to tell another man that I cared what happened to him, that I loved him, that my heart ached at his sorrows and his losses, and that my soul rejoiced in his own joys. Not just to feel this, but to say this to someone. Although, as men, we can (and do) certainly feel this, we're handicapped by our upbringing when it comes to expressing it. Women aren't. So, ultimately, crossdressing (or transgendering my soul), to me, becomes a convenient fiction, one that will, ironically enough, allow me to be as real as I can be with other people.
Of course, this isn't the best or most perfect way to do this (as Suuzin pointed out a couple of months ago, when she said that this need to crossdress is an unfortunate result of social rigidity), but it's the best that my own soul has been able to devise, given that rigidity. And, this, from a time before I was even of school age. It's so much a part of who I am now that I couldn't change it no matter how hard I tried (this is the one aspect that Suuzin and many SO's often fail to grasp). I wish I lived in a perfect world. I really do. But the road to despair is paved with unfulfilled desires. So I ask myself this: what, then, are those of my desires I actually can fulfill? Well, one of them is to accept and love the people around me for who they are, to care about them, to encourage them to see their own beauty and strength. To tell them that I love them. Regardless of whether they're men or women, transgendered or not. Men resist doing this. Women don't. That society condemns me for the fact that I feel I can only do this by welding myself to what is most traditionally feminine in me is one thing; that I would condemn myself for it is something else entirely. Something I will no longer do. Conformity kills.
Having said all this (and to come back to the original point), clothes do not make the man... any more than they do the woman. Heels, silk, and the scent of lipstick can be just as much of a prison (for both women and transgendered men) as is the inability to express emotions and feelings of love and caring. It may be that, to an outsider, I'm just another man in a dress, but the one who never gives himself or herself the trouble to explore what's behind my gender facade, merely on the strength of such a summary judgment, is a person in a straightjacket. And that, my friends, is a lot less comfortable than the tightest, black satin corset.
Love,
CJ
