Colors in the TG'd Rainbow

[Beauty]

Ok. I realize that I am way out here in an area that I don't quite understand. But from the outside, what I see is this. There appear to be several types of cross dressers - all on some continuum of some sort or another.

There are the men who like being men and who want to wear *women's* clothing as a man - just like I like to wear jeans and clearly remain female. These guys don't seem to have a female name that they assume, they don't stuff bras or do anything else to assume a female personna. It may be because they like the lace, or its a fetish or whatever, but has little to do with feeling female underneath.

Then there are the guys who have two sides to their personality - a male and a female side. For some, the male side is more dominant, for others the female side is more dominant. These folks tend to have separate identities for the male and female sides - Some are more integrated than others, some folks keep them absolutely distinct from one another. Like my sweetie - *he* is heterosexual, but *she* is also heterosexual and therefore likes men. When *she* is sexual, it is always as a woman and never as a man; when *he* is sexual, it is always as man and never as a woman. (So, as an aside? Is this bi? Or multi-personality?)

Then there are those who really feel that they should have been born a woman and that the male personna they wear to work, etc., is the real false front.

Is that about how it goes? Or am I way off base? And if I'm on target here with admittedly broad categories, does it actually make a glimmer of difference to anyone?


BTW, I was flipping through channels the other day and saw a glimmer of a Larry King Show with a couple of TS's. He asked about danger as TS. She said that it was far more dangerous being a *woman* than being a CDer - that women are far more likely to be attacked because they are women than ya'll are being a man in women's clothes. It does occur to me that if I were to go out wearing some of the outfits my sweetie does when en femme, I would be shunned and/or attacked too. And if I was attacked, it wouldn't be called a Hate Crime - they would say I was dressed as a slut and asking for it.

Back to the grindstone...
-georgia(so)

Hi Georgia,

Wow you're really starting to understand more about the TG'd culture than some TG'd people do.

There's more colors to the rainbow, but I'll tell you mine. I'm in the middle of not feeling like I want to be a man or a woman, but not an androgyne because I have taken steps to make my body more femme.

CJ posted a link about transgenderists and it set me straight finally. I don't feel the need to dress as much anymore, but I do. I think it's because I tend to feel very content with the changes I'm making.

So I'm a CD'r and do things that make it look like I'm going to transition to become a Post OP TS Woman, but I'm not.

Sorry to add more colors to the rainbow, but I thought you should know about people like me too.

I'm really impressed with your post. It's really quite outstanding. You've really been doing your research and reading.

Beauty

[Merinda]

I agree with Beauty , great post Georgia

If only everyone could see the rainbow has many colours
If only everyone could see that not everything is black or white , but things can be a shade of grey.
There are too many people who just want to put us into ONE particular catagory ( a stereotype box ) and say thats where you belong.

Georgia ,
I thank you for understanding that we are all different

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

I agree with Georgia also. It seems to me that there are as many different kinds of crossdressers as there are crossdressers. It seems everyone approaches it in thier own way.

I susspect this is because it is not a learned behavior. We are not taught to be crossdressers. Most of us grow up entirely isolated in our dressing and do it to meet our own needs.

I myself am clearly more than just a crossdresser, but still will never transition. I dress 24/7 and spent a great deal of my life wishing I were a girl. I still feel this, but don't feel transition would make me feel like a girl.

For this reason I don't wear breastforms or a wig, but do wear makeup, jewelry, and carry a woman's wallet. I don't try to hide my voice or act more feminine than I naturally am.

It's my own unique combination that makes me feel like me. It is my beleif that every crossdresser does something similar to meet thier own individual needs.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[DeeDee]

A very interesting thread...iI must apologise for not posting recently...social and moral obligations. In my opinion, there is no set route we take. Many of us are older (sigh) and if we had the internet resources and the information it provides earlier in life, we might have taken a different direction. But we are who we are. Myself..the last year has been a "watershed" year for me...I've finally met others. And I'm still exploring this. I'm confident of my sexuality, but, being DeeDee is a new and wonderful experience that I enjoy sharing with others now (in a non-sexual way)
And like beauty has said..I've done the same..taken a few more steps to enhance my femme side, but have no desire now to go overboard. Afterall...we stiill have to survive in this cruel world.
Ok..I know this wasn't the best post...my mind and my typing are always out of sync:)
DeeDee

[Daniel]

Georgia pointed out three categories for crossdressers:

CATEGORY I: There are the men who like being men and who want to wear *women's* clothing as a man - just like I like to wear jeans and clearly remain female. These guys don't seem to have a female name that they assume, they don't stuff bras or do anything else to assume a female personna. It may be because they like the lace, or its a fetish or whatever, but has little to do with feeling female underneath.

CATEGORY II: Then there are the guys who have two sides to their personality - a male and a female side. For some, the male side is more dominant, for others the female side is more dominant. These folks tend to have separate identities for the male and female sides - Some are more integrated than others, some folks keep them absolutely distinct from one another. Like my sweetie - *he* is heterosexual, but *she* is also heterosexual and therefore likes men. When *she* is sexual, it is always as a woman and never as a man; when *he* is sexual, it is always as man and never as a woman. (So, as an aside? Is this bi? Or multi-personality?)

CATEGORY III: Then there are those who really feel that they should have been born a woman and that the male personna they wear to work, etc., is the real false front.

I would consider myself between categories I and II. Although I do stuff my bra, and do want to feel female underneath, it is very temporary and I don't have a femme name - and I'm not sure if I have a full female personality like my male one.

As a rainbow, this should be a CONTINUUM of colors. If I called category I red, category II yellow and category III blue, then I would be orange. Now, some people similar to me in that department may be red-orange or yellow-orange, and various degrees of reddish and yellowish orange.

Now, taking from my own system, I guess green would be someone who has some degree of "male" personality, but the female one is more dominant. This person might be dressed as a woman the vast majority of the time and even work as a woman, yet not want a sex-change operation because he sometimes wants to go back to Mars for a little while.

And purple, I guess, would be someone who DESPERATELY wants to become a woman, and would contemplate suicide if forced to remain a man for long enough.

So I think that the best illustration of that would be a strip of color that spans the colors of the rainbow, with smooth gradients from red through orange, yellow, green and blue, to purple. The three category descriptions given here would have arrows pointing to the pure red, yellow and blue on the rainbow.

I guess the pure red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple correspond to the types I, II, III, IV, V and VI on the Benjamin scale, respectively.

[Georgia(SO)]

Thanks ya'll, for the pats on the back.

-g(so)

[Cathy L. Anderson]

Some are more integrated than others, some folks keep them absolutely distinct from one another. Like my sweetie - *he* is heterosexual, but *she* is also heterosexual and therefore likes men. When *she* is sexual, it is always as a woman and never as a man; when *he* is sexual, it is always as man and never as a woman. (So, as an aside? Is this bi? Or multi-personality?)

First, thanks Georgia for a thoughtful post.

Concerning multiple personality: A distinction can be made between multiple personalities and multiple personality disorder. The former is fairly harmless, and I think most everybody experiences this to some degree. So, yes, I think when a CD has a separate male and female persona, that is pretty much a case in point.

Note I gloss over a distinction between multiple personalities and multiple personas. A persona is a mask one presents to the world; the personality is, in a sense, the mask we wear *for ourselves.* I think having multiple personas is a fairly good way to interacting with the world--it can show a high level of personality organization. Things get more iffy when it comes to multiple personalities. The key, I think, is that there must remain some part of the personality which is constant and, to a degree, in control of the various personalities.

Multiple personality disorder comes when the personalities are completely dissociated from each other--so much that one doesn't even remember what the other does.

So I guess I've portrayed a continuum here between multiple personas to multiple personality disorder, with multiple personalities being in between.

Concerning bi-ness, I think most psychologists since Freud have accepted that everybody is at least latently bi--that is, genetically we have dormant (or active) programs to respond sexually to both males and females, and in both an active or passive role. Maybe one reason (among others) some men CD is that it provides an opportunity for repressed homo-erotic feelings to come into consciousness. Of course, that doesn't mean they have to (or should) act on those feelings. But letting them into consciousness gives one more control over them.

[Daniel]

Regarding the comment about a woman wearing jeans and clearly remaining female... these days, many pants are designed exclusively for women. Jeans, too. A man would look silly wearing them. It's enough that certain pants from a very feminine kind of women's clothing store are enough to be considered crossdressing attire. Even jeans!!

I guess that clothing that I wouldn't be caught dead and buried wearing in my male mode is EXACTLY what I'm looking for when I crossdress.

OK, adding some more comments. I can edit this rather than double-post. I found a link to the Benjamin scale I was talking about:

http://www.geekbabe.com/annie/feature/benj.html

I would say I'm mostly Type II, leaning a bit toward Type I. This makes my color a slightly reddish orange.

[Georgia(SO)]

Thanks Cathy, for saying (let's see if I can get this thing to quote) -

Concerning multiple personality: A distinction can be made between multiple personalities and multiple personality disorder. The former is fairly harmless, and I think most everybody experiences this to some degree. So, yes, I think when a CD has a separate male and female persona, that is pretty much a case in point.

This is what I see in my sweetie and his other half, and what I see in some of the folks on this forum. It is both disconcerting (there really is a sort of 3rd person in the relationship) and understandable. And I agree there is a vast difference between multiple personalities and multiple personality disorder. From what little I know about it, the disorder does include total disassociation between the personalities and one personality does not seem to know what the other has done.

OTOH, I see some similarities in what my guy says about his other half - mostly stuff like he likes women as both lovers and friends, but she really doesn't like women, either as lovers or friends. He says that when *she* is ready to surface, there's not a lot he can do about it, although I do know he controls it better than he thinks he does. Mostly what I see, though, is that sometimes its Tom in a dress; often it is someone completely different inside Tom's skin - and she doesn't necessarily have to wear a dress - she sometimes shows up in his boy clothes and mustache. But there is a considerable difference between him and her. Now she does not seem to be a fully formed personality, much as those people who have multiple personality disorders do not have 3 or 7 or 21 fully formed personalities. The other thing that I see that is in common with the more publicized disorder is that the other personalities seem to crop up in times of stress as a protective mechanism.

Thus, it occurs to me that those people who have both a male and a female personality are somewhere on the continuum of multiple personalities (far more harmless than the actual disorder). I am not saying ya'll are nuts. I think that, just as everything else exists on a continuum, the range between multi-faceted personalities (think Madonna/Whore) to multiple personalities to multiple personality *disorder* is a continuum.

I don't suppose this really matters in the long run, other than somehow it is easier for me to get my brain around it this way - probably because I have a lot of sides to my personality (and it probably could be said they are distinct multiple personalities too) -- mine just all happen to be female, so it isn't as noticeable.

Thanks very much for addressing an issue I thought I was seeing.

-g(so)

[Anita]

This is a very interesting thread. Thanks, Cathy, for that breakdown of multiple personalities. I tried to explain that to someone, and got lost in a verbal jungle. You make it clearer to me, and so I might make it clearer to someone else.

In the beginning, family and friends were asking me, "Is this a multiple personality thing?" and I was saying, "Well, no, but it kinda is, too, I mean, it's like this..." and then me and the listener would both get confused.

Georgia, I liked the original post that was quoted to start the thread. I also like what you said in the one above--you may have mulitple personalities, but if they're all female, it's not as apparent to others.

I think I have some of that tendency, too, but I was getting frustrated because none of my male personalities were expressing "me" very well any more. I was in my late forties, and I knew all of those varieties of myself pretty well. Without really knowing it, I was getting angry because I kept hitting a wall where I couldn't go in my emotions or my behavior.

I wasn't aware of suppressing the girl within, but I didn't allow her much room, either. After all, what could she do in the world? I had no idea there were people doing the things we talk about on here. To have dressed at home would not have solved my problem with wanting to express more of myself. It hit me all at once--that I needed to buy the clothing for the woman inside, and that I had to let her go "out."

It took almost a year to accept this radical notion, but it worked for me. I also found that I wasn't as critical of my ex-girl friends or my other women friends. I was no longer looking to them to try to express all of what I felt inside. I was able to take on some of my own need for feminine qualities.

[Absaroka]

I liked your post and the thoughtfullness expressed in it. I suspect that there are other dimensions to it as well. For example we don't discuss drag queens here but there is a dynamic involving entertainment in their case. Yet we must ask why they chose that particular mode. And then there is something called autogynephilia which as I understand it basically translated into "be your own girlfriend" There are probably other aspects as well. Helen Boyd wrote a real good tretise on our spectrum in her book my husband Betty.

However I want to respond to something you wrote. I am I certainly hope preaching to the choir here. Dressing like a slut does not justify being physically attacked. I don't care if you are naked, you are not asking to be beaten or attacked with weapons.

Crossdressers are attacked because we challenge people's notions about the status quo. We are different and different is frightening to some. If we are attacked we will be beaten but likely not raped.

Women are raped because the rapist is angry with women. they may also be raped because they challenge the status quo.

In all these attacks the intent is to make the victim the attacker's punk. To subjugate and humiliate them thereby increasing the attackers power and illusion of safety and control. None of it has much to do with sex which is why rape is considered by law enforcement as first of all an act of violence and only 2nd as a sexual act.

Hugs

Andrea

[Daniel]

I know dressing like a slut, GG or TG, is not asking to be attacked or raped. But, at least, I still do think that it is asking to be ogled. But still not asking for people to comment out loud all day about it. But I still highly recommend the ability to handle some comments if you decide to dress like a slut!

DISCLAIMER: I'm no expert. This is just my two cents.

[Georgia(SO)]

Thank ya'll for all the comments. I hope that those who read but did not comment found some things that were of use to them also.

So, moving on in the deep philosophical vein of this thread, I thought, this morning as I was getting dressed for a day of bumming around in jeans and a man's white dress shirt, why is it that society thinks I'm cute as a bug in a rug in this clearly male shirt, but thinks ya'll are comical in my girl clothes?

There are two thoughts running through my brain before I have to actually do something useful today... The first is that women's very feminine clothes often *are* rather silly looking - ruffles, dotted swiss, swirly skirts, etc. are just kind of fluffy looking and the juxtaposition between them and a halfback sorta guy is just comical whereas the juxtaposition between the clean lines of a big man's shirt and a feminine redhaired girl is just *not* comical... No harm intended, no foul.

I am, however, afraid that it is deeper than that. I am afraid that it is somehow reflective of society's view of women in general. That somehow we accept frills and ruffles in a woman, because we subconsciously (as a society, not as individuals...) expect women to be sillier, fluffier and less...uh... less what? Just less? And that somehow this acceptance of woman as silly, or fluffy, makes that halfback in dotted swiss look comical, whereas I look like a little girl playing in her daddy's clothes?

Basically, I think I'm wondering what philosophy is at play here? I don't believe that the problem is solely the way that society looks at cross-dressing men. I believe that, underlying it all, is the way that society looks at genetic women. Ergo, when you choose to present as a woman, you get hit with the double whammy of society's lesser expectations for women, as well as a serious lack of understanding about why in God's name you would want to present as a *woman* of all things...

Of course there is the societal expectation that men are never silly, etc. But what lesser expectations do we have of women that it's ok for a genetic female to be air-headed and fluffy, but not ok for a genetic male. And what lesser expectations do we have of women that it is acceptable for a genetic woman to *step up* to the level of a genetic male, but not acceptable for a genetic male to *step down* to the level of a genetic female?

It does occur to me that ya'll have the opportunity to be able to see society's view of gender roles better than most. I wonder, too, if those of you who can convincingly pass find that the male you and the female you are treated significantly differently.

-georgia(so), ready for the essay test

[Georgia(SO)]

You scared me there for a moment when you said my post gave you chills - I thought maybe I had inadvertently offended. Glad that wasn't it. That said, I have thought a good bit about why male cross-dressers are always played for laughs in popular media. If you are old enough to think back to Uncle Miltie in drag, and compare him to say Lucy, you find the same silliness, with a totally different take on it. The only thing that I can see, stepping back and looking at it anthropologically, is that we subconciously accept and/or expect silliness from women, but not from men. Says more about our society than I really wanted to know.

OTOH, you said,

I have not really gone out in public en femme much. But that is mostly because I feel quite vulnerable as a female. It's not so much that I'm worried about being read, but fearing how different the world will look and feel through the eyes of a woman.

That's interesting. I agree that men and women see the world differently, and I happen to love that aspect of gender. I think that the world, in general, is better for that multiple viewpoint. How the world would look at me as a man, however, could be very unnerving. It reminds of the book "Black Like Me". I have to tell you, if I were able to pass as a man for just one day, I would do it just to see if mechanics really do talk to ya'll differently!

-g(so)

[CJ]

Hi all,

Not sure how I missed this thread. A fine one it is.

There's much food for thought on this page. I see three themes, here. "The Varieties of Transgender Experience" (with apologies to William James), personas and personalities, and the status of women in our culture. All are fascinating.

As for the "typing" of transgendered identities, even the scholars and academics cannot agree, let alone "front-line gals" such as ourselves. (See, for instance, http://trans-academics.org/forum/index.php?act=idx) Still, it's fun to try coming up with new ways of looking at such identities. All I know for myself is that I enjoy sliding around on such a continuum or rainbow. The thought of being "locked into" a given gender is loathsome to me.

About personas, yes, we all wear different "masks" for different occasions. We've always done so. I keep coming back to the following point but that's only because it's endlessly fascinating to me: for the ancient Greeks, in love with the theater (where all actors wore masks, without exception), the mask was, precisely, that through which the personality was "heard." The Romans later called this the "persona" (literally, the "sound-" or "voice-through"). Although I remain myself at all times (can it ever be otherwise?), I don't always "act" the same way, depending on whether I'm with, say, a bank president, or a friend, or a homeless stranger. So, yes, "Christina" (or "CJ") is one of my personas. But here's where things get prickly. Part of my distress lies in the difficulty I encounter when trying to establish with some certainty who is the "actor" and who is the "mask." Am I really, deep down inside, Christina (who's pained at having to daily masquerade as "Daniel")? or am I rather Daniel who--in order to fulfill some deep-rooted psychological, emotional, and social needs--plays the part of "Christina"? In my case, the jury's still out. That the jury's been deliberating for close to forty years now is immaterial.

A word of caution regarding what people call "Multiple Personality Disorder" (more appropriately called "Disassociative Personality Disorder"): the jury's still out on that one, too. Although it's generally accepted that such a disorder exists, not everyone in the field of psychiatry agrees about its origins, its impact, its treatment, its treatment outcome, nor even on its validity as an identifiable disorder.

Regarding the status of women and its relation to the "absurdity" of heterosexual men wanting to present as women, don't even get me started on that one again. It raises my feminist hackles! It's so obviously true that not only women but the feminine, in general, has long been devalued in our culture. Things have started changing over the last few decades and, as far as I'm concerned, that change cannot come soon enough. As with much else in the life of cultures and societies, the pendulum swings (even though it swings but slowly, in a way not usually discernable within a single lifetime).
More radical feminists don't much like crossdressers and transsexuals because they see this "transgender culture" as just another way men are trying to co-opt or re-appropriate for themselves what properly belongs in the realm of the XX chromosome. (See, for instance, Janice Raymond's The Transsexual Empire--a book often reviled in the TG community). While I wouldn't go that far (so far as I know, my own crossdressing is far from a deliberate choice on my part), I will agree with Georgia's musings regarding the way some will consider a man who presents as a woman to be somewhat unintelligible or even laughable, as though he were somehow "debasing" or "lowering" himself. You can never, ever debase yourself by clinging to what is most true in your own soul. Of course, this doesn't really count in a culture fixated on, and obssessed with, appearance and not depth.

Sorry, folks. I'm ranting again. Anyway, excellent thread. I consider myself fortunate to be a part of this group.

Love,
CJ