Crossdressers-Haven.com

Hi!! At some point in the past, when Julie M. was indicating her intent to go to a support group meet (which she did, and posted about it), I promised to provide comparative info on another support group when I was able to be in town for a meeting. That was tonight.

This group meets in Oklahoma City, OK, and is sanctioned by a group of therapists and moderated by one of them. There were 11 participants on this night. Five were FtM's, four were MtF, and two were SOs of one or another of the TGs (one woman and one man). It was enlightening to hear some of the problems of the FtMs, some of which sounded familiar, and some of which were unique to their situation. Much of the discussion (since a FtM was the facilitator responsible for bringing up a topic for the evening) actually centered first around a prosthetic device, called a Packer, that simulated the appearance of male organs in the clothes. It seems that possession of one of these devices increases the self confidence of the TG in casual social contact, since they feel that women (and some males looking for rivals) steal glances at the crotches of men's pants, and pass judgement on whether or not to engage them in conversation based on that and casual and surreptitious touches through their clothes. This stimulated a short discussion on this perception; the view was shared by two (1/2) of the MtFs and the only GG (non therapist) in the room. I found it interesting that in general the discussion was dominated then and in other areas by the FtMs, much as you would find in a normal mixed encounter group. The therapist was responsible for trying to keep a balance by shifting around and asking for input from others.

During the break and after the meeting, I also found it interesting that the MtFs gravitated together, and the FtMs joined in on a passionate discussion of the recent football game between two state rivals, and the fall cleanup at their yards and houses and a thorny leakage repair problem (one is a plumber). The MtFs were more interested in discussing choice of surgeons, therapists, costs, and the source of the clothes being worn by the only two dressed MtFs. Sterotypical? (No, no, no, I do not mean the others were nude, just in drab)

All the FtMs presented male, and all but one did a decent job passing, two outstanding. The exception had a large bust, and it was too painful to bind them back. Three related recent incidents were they did not pass, and this did bother them a good deal. None of them care to consider leaving the area for jobs where no-one knows them, believing they should just be accepted for who they try to present, somewhat unrealistic in a couple fo cases.

Among the MtFs, three are planning to relocate two after surgery, and one before and after. One MtF is already very pretty, young, and Asian, with the boyfriend, and has had some alteration while on a trip to Thailand, but still lacks GRS. One other is actually intersexed, and has had recent GRS due to emergency problems with the slightly more dominant male-like sex organs (incomplete testes), and is now approaching the problem after a fait accompli and before the Benjamin standards would cover the situation. She has entered counseling after the surgery to help her adapt rather than the reverse. Socio-economic status ranged from decently well off with a good job, to poor and on economic assistance. Hope this is of some interest to someone.

Carolynn,

Thanks for the report. It's interesting the group had more FtMs than MtFs, even though I have recently read the ratio in the general population is something like 2 FtM to 3 MtF in the transsexual category. (Crossdressing has been estimated at several thousand MtF to every one FtM.)

I just recently read an account of a MtF TS who chose to focus on AFTER the surgery rather than before and up to it. It was interesting to read what life is like after you have surgery. She likened it to being reborn and having to learn all over all the things we take for granted growing up. It's a perspective anyone considering transitioning needs to look at.

Will you be attending any more sessions? I am unsure I belonged at the one I attended. They seemed not to care about passing, even though one mentioned being self conscious about her Adam's apple. For me passing is a must and becoming invisible would be preferred. I would never want to live life as an obvious transsexual. It's hard enough to live one as a crossdresser!

I'm looking forward to hearing more accounts of future sessions. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Julie!! I think I will return at least one more time, as I do have some questions that may have answers there.

The FtMs are very concerned about passing. They all addressed their feelings at being suddenly "mammed" when they felt they were doing so well. Three who have been in the program longer than the others and been on testosterone longer have dead on voices, ways of sitting and gestures, while another is earlier in his transition has problems with C cup breasts too sensitive to bind back (can't do surgery for a while, and has just been approved for hormones) and tenor voice, though his word use, intonation and projection (speaking from the chest) is great. (I asked him if he would like to do some trading of body parts, ). To make matters worse, he is a college student, and though he has not had a name change, he goes by his middle name which can be male or female. But still, he is the one that doesn't pass well, yet, but is very motivated. Three have had breast reduction surgery. In the US, that runs from 10,000 to 12,000 USD! None of the guys present had full GRS, but the three most advanced have had hysterectomies. Most are dubious about the ability of the plastic surgeons to give them something that will pass in the shower, and though they have had hysterectomies, two made sure they kept their clitoris so they can still have an orgasm, something that is very important to them. The other wishes he had done so, but I got the impression his surgeon was not experienced in the process. In some ways the adaptation for a FtM seems easier than for a MtF, but just on the surface. There are still lots and lots of adjustments and insecurities to face.

Among the MtFs, excluding me since I am very early in the process, one has had some surgery and has been on hormones for over a year. She is the Asian girl, and is young, very pretty and passable except for brow ridges needing to be abraded (hurts to think about, huh!), which is on her agenda. She is supporting herself and saving for her surgeries by dancing in a club, several nights a week, and working at some unspecified job by day. She was dressed in boots, boot cut jeans, and a black top which showed hints of her charms. Her actions are femme, and very natural. Her voice is soft, but still too low, and kinda slides like a teenage boy sometimes in extended conversation. She is the one with the doting boyfriend who has known her for some years. She is what a therapist would call a "classic transsexual" in that she has been very vocal and insistent on her course since her childhood, and started crossdressing in public at an early age.

Another MtF has been on hormones for about three months and has "sensitive little buds" as she put it, and a 'stache, still in the closet at work, but is naturally very feminine in gestures and way of talking (coworkers likely think she is gay), though the voice is a bit deep (not even trying to modify it, she plans on voice surgery when she gets the adams apple shaved.) Walking, hand and arm carriage, from the rear, she already vibes girl, so the 'stache is a surprise, and she get's mammed over the phone and at drive through order takers with her voice. She just sounds like she smokes (which she does). She is late 40's, short (about 5'3") very slight in build, has two kids and an ex wife, and will fully transition when the last one is through college, in about two years. The kids know, and have accepted that is what will happen with dad. He plans to do the whole enchilada, then come home and go stealth with a new face, new voice and body. Except for the 'stache, he has had a combo of laser and electro, and is planning for the the mustache to be last.

The third, the one who is intersexed, has a long way to go. Her surgery was a couple of months ago, and she is still sore and was wearing loose sweats for comfort. As I think I said, she had surgery after she was diagnosed with her partial formed testes being cancerous. She had female and male internal organs, but neither formed fully, nor functional, and her surgeon and a therapist recommended she become fully functionally female. Her surgery was done locally, and I think maybe not too well? She grew up in a guy role, and still vibes guy mostly. Says if she had not had the problem with the testes she would likely have stayed that way out of inertia as it's what she was used to. She had insufficient skin in the penile/scrotal area and they took a skin graft from her abdomen and inner thighs, and this is the part that gives her pain more that the GRS. She mentioned her dialation schedule and the mess. She has long hair, and her figure was already somewhat developed in the hip area (pear shaped body) before surgery just from her own mixed up hormone cocktail. She was not wearing makeup, and had decided to come to the meeting on the spur of the moment. She is angry at the circumstances that left her as she is, angry at the surgeon and therapist (thinking now she should just have had them off and forgot about the rest of the surgery since it wouldn't have changed anything, like sex activity, she has been asexual since the apparently small male equipment was not functional anyway), and in general has lots of issues to get through to be comfortable in her skin. She is a computer programmer who was self employed (contractor) and currently has not worked since her surgery.

So yeah, I guess the same thing in a way. Speaking from an intellectual point of view, these support groups are fluid Julie. It is definitely not a social organization. The support group is a place to vent I think, and sometimes to remind people they are not alone. People come to them to get what they need, then they go away and may not ever be back, but it is there for them. The other MtFs were very accepting, very curious, and very open. The guys were, well they were guys. Most are early in their transition, and a few never even tried to cross dress before their diagnoses. The one I am thinking of I have yet to meet, as the heavy rain of last night likely kept her away. She was only diagnosed a year ago after two suicide attempts, and it took some time to discover why, she had buried it so deep in her psyche. Talk about denial!!! (Gossip among the MtFs was very, ummm, femme?)

I am to have lunch with a TS that has been in LT for over a year, and is trying to save for her surgery. That will be in a week or so, when her schedule will allow. She gave up on finding a good job and started her own business that requires her to travel and have interaction with people all over the western part of Oklahoma, not the most accepting place in the world. I will let you know about her attitudes then, if you like.

Became another long one. sorry
Love, Carolynn

I will claim novice position here!!! but in reading these posts, I have to ask myself how I would feel at these sessions and from what I read, I would feel out of place. I am a hetrosexual, crossdresser, I do not take horomones and at this juncture do not even remotely consider SRS in any form. Among these folk I just don't think I would fit in or feel comfortable as I would not be able to empathize with where they were coming from either M>F or F>M. It appeaars that their "appreciation" of the challenges that they face are beyond my scope of understanding. I need more superficial "work." How to sit, how to stand, walk, gesture, nod, smile, dress, etc. I guess that is coming from and understanding of who and what I am and nothing more. I doubt that a plain, vanilla CD'er could really contribute positively to a session with folks in that situation, becasue after the session "we" can go home, transistion back to "el hombre" and burp, fart and yell at the referees for a bad call and even throw a beer can at the TV = television!
Just on CD'er's opinion and I would like to see yor responses!
Love ya,
Virginia

Hi Virginia!!
Thanks for the post. I have read and thought about it, and actually, in your own inimitable way, I think you do have an appreciation for the differences. I see CD and TS as having a lot of the same problems, when it come to the necessarily secretive manner we hide parts of ourselves, and in how denying or burying that necessary part eats at our health and happiness. A MtF and CD also have similar problems in learning to pass, as you say learning to walk, sit, stand, hold a glass, eat, put together an outfit appropriate to an occasion, tasteful makeup and to know when it is needed and when it should be enhanced, and all the myriad of behaviors that tend to separate the genders socially. For the MtF that can be part of the process of unlearning a lifetime of behaviors that formed a persona to deal with the world, and those new behaviors will form a basis for the everday part of the rest of their lives. For a CD as you are describing yourself to be, they are a set of temporily used, learned behaviors that lets them present as a woman, I think.

For both groups, some have an easier time of it than others thanks to happenstance of genetics, and sometimes sympathetic and supportive family members. In most cases for both, there is guilt, fear of exposure leading to fear of unjustified disparagement on the job and socially, fear of unjustified violence, fear of losing the people closest to you on whom you may have depended for love and support, and fear of being percieved as a failure and for being less than you seemed. For each, testosterone can provide a message of defeat that wreaks havoc on the body, causing a loss of self image that is hard to overcome. And there we begin to find a real difference. It's harder on a TS.

A CD can go in the closet and dress in private or find circumstances like social groups and friendly clubs where gender bending is OK whether blending, physical passablility, is possible or not. He might live out a life of relative satisfaction, sitting astride both "worlds", as you suggest, and getting what he needs from both. A kind of a hobby mixed with a compulsion, sort of. His happiness likely depends on the acceptance of this aspect of himself by his SO and family.

For a TS needing to transition, it is more like breathing, and being unable to pass, to be herself is the same as a noose around the neck, gradually choking whats left of life out of her. I have only met a few other TS so far, but their stories are so very much the same. Most of my generation learned a male role out of self defense when they were young, trying to adapt and keep their teeth intact. Sometimes the role is only applicable to certain limited situations. (I was struck last night that the FtMs were doing the same thing I had done as a youngster, learning behaviors that were applicable to a male role, and I could actually appreciate and critique their efforts, comparing them to what I know. Perhaps not too oddly, they were often better at some aspects than I have ever been despite my experience, mainly because they are male between their ears and I'm not.) The TS in hiding may come to hate the role, the deliberately learned comments and responses that give them a social male persona. These become automatic through repetition, and they often come to hate themselves as that role. If they are of my generation they may hide it a long time, and it can result in a depth of unhappiness and depression that has the individual striking out, maybe hurting someone, usually emotionally and sometimes physically, (often themselves) trying to relieve a hurt they can't vocalize. They may have found someone to love, fathered children, like the person I spoke of above that has two she has put through college while pushing her own needs into the background. In the best of circumstances they tend toward selfless nurturing as parents and partners, traits often associated in our cultural mileu as feminine, rather than selfish. It is no accident that sites attempting to help TS make sense of it all actually have a large section on the concept of selfishness as a good thing for a person in their circumstances. I am so very glad that it seems easier for the younger generation of the eighties and the nineties, and we are seeing younger and younger transitioners. Parents are often not too accepting still, but there is more information and more overall knowledge, and more therapists with the needed skills, and even counselors in some of the large schools able to recognize the characteristics and steer them to help.

Throughout their younger years there is confusion and in the confusion there is emotional pain. A CD may dress up and hide it from his family for years, and feel guilt, and think about it some right after, and wonder what's wrong with him, and then push it aside and participate fully in the rest of his life. In contrast, a TS is a pretender, living a lie, trying to be what they aren't. They are always on guard, always aware of the little slips they make, and always checking their displayed behavior against others, as a learning process. Or they try to go their own way, they hide behind a wall of silence, non interaction beyond the absolute minimum, a mask of the inane or jokester, and/or sometimes take solace in drugs or alcohol, become a rebel, or if the school is good and large, they can take refuge in the artistic crowd, the strange ones, or the computer geeks. Often they live in denial, sometimes engage in dangerous, risk taking behavior; if the effects of testosterone are good enough, play physically demanding sports and take on the role of jock, build up their bodies while hating themselves and trying to bury what they see as a weakness. As adults, they become soldiers, policemen, firemen, especially the dangerous service orientation of firemen. They may have limited to no sex drive due to this confusion, and they often seem to be Don Juans, going from girl to girl, sometimes with sexual encounter, often not, but mostly as a mask, unable to really establish a relationship, though some do eventually as a sort of compromise, or due to actually falling in love. The one thing they are not, is comfortable with who they are pretending to be, no matter how long they do it.

Sooner or later, and that often in mid-life, there is a breaking point, a recognition that to live any longer the way they are is not going to be possible, and it is either expressed as transition, often losing everthing just as they feared, for the opportunity to be at peace, or their peace comes in an early death from heart attack or stroke, from stress, high blood pressure, and if some researchers are right, early cancer. Or it can be addiction to drugs to blur away the pain and then death, or other self destructive behavior, such as "a tragic single car accident taking the life of it's only occupant", or a bullet in the brain, an overdose of sleeping pills, hanging in the garage, and that I suppose ends in a kind of peace too, but of sad desperation. I think that end is rare for a CD.

And yes, therein lies the difference Virginia. A CD can come home, remove his girl clothes, and yell invective at the referee in peaceful happiness. A TS is never at home, never at peace, until they are themselves. And if that one is a FtM, he will join you in drinking beer and yelling invective at the referee, with gusto!

Wow! Eye-opening stuff, gals! Excellent posts! Thanks to all.

Love,
CJ

Dear Carolyn:

Thank you! Together your two posts comprise one of the most concise (and one of the best) discussions of its kind that I've ever seen (and, my dears, I've been around a while). I was especially interested to read about the F2Ms and find about some of their unique problems and concerns. That group is so little known and so often ignored. And yet, in many ways those folks are even less accepted than the more widely known M2Fs.

I think I'm like a lot of T people in that I have a foot in two camps: By shorthand classification I supposed I'd be labeled as a het CDer, but I know that the connections in my heart and my brain to the feminine gender are stronger and much more complex than simply the clothes I prefer. At the same time, whatever gender dysphoria I feel isn't so severe as to have been a source of major unhappiness and depression. When I encounter someone who is a TS (either pre- or post-op), though, the only discomfort I feel is the result of suppressing the impulse to immediately hug them strongly and say, "I know. I know."

And, yes, I realize such an introductory move wouldn't be well received, both because it's way too forward (and weird), and because most of the TS folk I've met or corresponded with would be thinking, "The hell you do! You couldn't possibly know." They'd be right, of course -- on both counts.

On a lighter note, I was interested to hear the perception among some that guys check out each other's "packages" -- either openly or surreptitiously -- as a way to gauge potential competition and/or establish a pecking order (pun noted but not intended). As far as I can remember, I've never given so much as a glance toward another male's "equipment" (except perhaps in a locker room setting, where some guys go out of their way to make a display of themselves). Now I find myself wondering if those F2Ms are just imagining things, or if my lack of interest is just one more point deducted from my score in the masculinity derby.

Thanks again, Carolyn, for your lovely posts.
......Tamara Segunda

Hi TamaraSequenda!!!

Actually, the only RG in the group admitted to checking out guy's packages too!!! Just for different reasons! Glad you found the posts of interest.

Love,

Carolynn