Crossdressers-Haven.com

Since I told my family about my crossdressing (see:http://crossdressers-haven.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5076), I have been thinking about references and resources that I could refer them to for information about crossdressing. Sure, I can "google" crossdressing and come up with tousands of links. But, which ones offer real information? And what about books? My mother isn't very computer literate but she does read a lot.

Since I haven't seen anything that looks like a comprehensive listing of good books and/or web sites related to crossdressing, I thought it might be good for us to list those we have seen here, in a single thread, for all of us to refer to.

So, I will start by listing the books I have read:

My Husband Wears my Clothes by Peggy J. Rudd, Ed.D
Crossdressing With Dignity by Peggy J Rudd, Ed.D
Male Femaling - A grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing by Richard Ekins; Rather dry and very clinical but interesting.
The Bliss of Becoming One! - Integrating "Feminine" Feelings Into the Male Psyche Mainstreaming the Gender Community by Rachel Miller

Also, this website has some good articles (thanks Virginia for pointing this one out to me!): Crossdressing Support

So, what books and/or web sites would you recommend to your family to read for information about crossdressing?

Love,
Kathy

Hi Kathy,
As a wife of a CD, here are a couple of sites that answered alot of questions for me
http://gendertree.com/ http://www.rainbowtrail.info/directory.html

Both of these sites have some wonderful articles that you could print out .

You might try going to Amazon.com and doing a search for books. They seem to be few and far between. I have only read My Husband Betty.

Honey (SO)

There are a number of links that you might find useful in the Links section of the forum.

Sites like:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/ ... velyn.html
http://www.geocities.com/senorita_cd/
http://www.marybethsanford.com/sec500/pg01.html
http://www.marybethsanford.com/sec500/pg06.html

Thanks Honey(SO) and DonnaT! This is a good start.

Let me clarify what I'm after here. I had PM'd Beauty to see if she knew of a single list of useful/informative books and or web sites. Yes, I know I can go to Amazon and search for "crossdressing". But, out of all the books listed, which ones really are informative and give a fair treatment of the subject. I also know that the Links section of the forum has a wealth of good sites but many of them are beauty tips and such. I'm looking for informative, educational sites that we could refer family members to so that they may learn about crossdressing.

Beauty suggested that this might be a good thread to start here. As it grows, it would become a single comprehensive listing of educational/informative books and websites. Frome here, we can either pick and choose some sites to send family members to or just refer them to this thread and allow them to browse the sites on their own. While browsing this thread, they might even become interested in what else this forum has to offer.

So, what have you read or what sites have you visited that you would trust to give your family to read?

Love,
Kathy

Kathy,

DonnaT has already added a link to my personal web site (see her post above), {THANKS Donna} so I won't add another. From what you're saying it SOUNDS like what you're looking for is plain old down-to-earth information in a non-clinical format. That's what I've tried to provide - and in a CLEAN environment that doesn't pose the threat of embarrassment to those who might access my site.

If your mom isn't all that familiar with operating a computer you might entertain the idea of printing out some of the information there and giving it to her to read. There are also some links available on the site that were carefully selected due to their candor and informative value.

Please do let me know if you find the information useful - support, understanding, and educational value is what it's out there for.

Dixie

OK Kathy, I thought you were asking more for your family situation.

The book mentioned my Honey is also a must read, especcailly for CDs and their SOs.

I bring it up again because you can get it directly from the author, and autographed.

See http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/?page_id=277

Confessions of a Gender Defender : A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered by Randi Ettner

A customer reviewer wrote:Having recently come to the realization that I was seriously transgendered myself it was with a fresh viewpoint that I read this book. What I found in reading this work was something that truly touched my heart and soul. The descriptions,both through Dr. Ettner's and her patient's eyes, put into words the feelings and emotions that I have just started to come to grips with. Dr. Ettner shows the love and compassion that seem to be missing in so many of the books written about transgender people. Rather than filling the book with dry clinical terms and emotionless analysis of why these people are who they are she instead chose to show the depth of both her own feelings towards this group of people and the depth of the client's emotions as well. As a result, in the land of stodgy works that treat transgender people more as lab rats than people ,thus choking out all emotions or spiritual matters, this book reads like a breath of fresh air. Since emotions play such a big role in how someone with a gender identity issue lives their lives and sees themselves a book without them is missing a large part of the story. Some people might criticize the lack of "scientific objectivity" in this book; personally, I find that in eschewing this the book is much better at getting information to people than if it were full of clinical methodology and analysis.

The book, due to its very nature, is an easy read and yet is so compelling due to the viewpoint and style of its author that I think most readers will find it hard to put down. The mix of sadness and joy that fill this book will touch the heart of almost any reader, whether transgendered or not. I will caution readers that if you get embarassed easily by crying in public don't read this book in a public place; I don't come to tears easily and I cried several times while reading this book.


Overall this book does a big service in trying to describe what has been a very difficult and often shame filled subject and make it into just another facet of human expression and existence, with all the highs and lows and joy and sorrow that come along with any form of being human. It demystifies who transgender people are and helps others understand that they are just trying to find happiness and live the way they strongly feel they must. In addition to helping those who are not transgender understand better the book also helps those of us who find ourselves to be this way to better understand who we are and why we feel the way we do and that we are not alone.


This book is the one book that I would recommend without hesitation to anyone either trying to come to grips with their own gender status or for those trying to understand others in this situation. Brava to Dr. Ettner!

Gender Loving Care by Randi Ettner, W W Norton & Cosd

Amazon.com wrote:This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding and treating gender identity disorders. It provides an overview of the field, including history, etiology, diagnosis, research, and treatment of these conditions, primarily transsexualism, where a person feels trapped in the wrong-sexed body. Filling a huge need in the field, Gender Loving Care combines theory and application to assist medical and psychological professionals who counsel the transgendered. In addition, her words will hearten and enlighten people with gender identity disorders, as well as their family members, loved ones, and employers.

True Selves by Mildred L. Brown, Chloe Ann Rounsley

Amazon.com wrote:Filled with wisdom and understanding, this groundbreaking book paints a vivid portrait of conflicts transsexuals face on a daily basis--and the courage they must summon as they struggle to reveal their true being to themselves and others. True Selves offers valuable guidance for those who are struggling to understand these people and their situations.

Using real life stories, actual letters, and other compelling examples, the authors give a clear understanding of what it means to be transsexual. They also give other useful advice, including how to deal compassionately with these commonly misunderstood individuals--by keeping an open heart, communicating fears, pain and support, respecting choices.

Hi Kathy,

From time to time our Gender Centre publishes the names of books, along with the reviewers comments, such books as they consider to be above average in their content, information and ease of reading in laymans terms. One such book is " Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity. Tracie O'Keefe and Katrina Fox (eds). John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco. Reviewed by Niko Lekay.

The reviewers comments are as follows:-

"I read this book for a reason, to help me understand, so I can help my friend and his/her family. To understand how older transwomen, playing the role of a male bastion of society, experience and manage their self-discovery and the presentation of their sex and gender. I raced through the book, jotting down the notes that rang bells.

The layout of the book is unstructured, reflecting the nature of diversity, so that stories of male-to- female, female-to-male, and androgyny are interspersed with stories of older and younger people, complete and incomplete transitions. Had the editors structured the book into sections, I would have read only what I wanted to, and would have missed the rest. What this book offers is stories that may be close to what you want to hear, but it also forces you to understand how richly varied people are.

A book like this one saves you from feeling that you are alone. But while there is comfort to be found in stories that resonate with your own experience, there is the additional possibility of discovering what you did not know. The "real desire that dare not speak its name" is where many of these stories begin. Rebecca writes "I struggled to understand myself because I did not have a language that adequately described me". The work of making sense out of language and ideas that contradict what we intuitively know is hard enough, but so much harder when fear, secrecy and isolation are added to perplexity.

It is difficult to imagine, to those for whom sex and gender are taken for granted, like the ground we stand on, just what it is like to not to have that. Many of the people writing for this collection call it a curse, and they are jealous of "normality". Rebecca says she was envious of girls her own age over their dress and appearance. She resorted to secretly trying on some of her sister's clothes, with the result that she became fascinated by signifiers of difference. In most of these stories, this fascination is not tolerated, and so begins a roller coaster ride of denial. Trying on clothes, hairstyles, ways of walking, being in secret. Coming close to declarations, or to being discovered, and so a flight back to the script that "normality" prescribes. It becomes a "typical purging pattern" that lasts for years, damages relationships and builds layers of guilt. A pattern that fiendishly asserts itself at the worst of times. As Rikki says, "when my life and relationships were not going well my desire to cross dress increased". To read so many voices saying the same thing might make it a bit easier to imagine and to understand.

In two of these stories I find sentences that marry perfectly. Christine Burns writes: "It wasn't the prospect of change that terrified me, but the consequences". Melanie McMullan puts it directly: "who will accept me as I am?"

Certainly the Internet is a godsend, as a way of finding acceptance, of developing self-understanding together with others, but it isn't enough. One of the nightmares is what will happen if abandonment of existing relations is not an option.

Jennifer explains that:, "my relationships to significant others are an integral part of my 'authentic self' , but we [she and her long-term partner] have not found a model for maintaining these relationships while going through transition".

Those people who most need this book are those who are most uncertain, or their loved ones who are trying to understand. The stories of success, of looking back and measuring up the cost and saying it was worth it, are encouraging and give hope and confidence. But we also need to hear of doubt, of failures, and of the determination to keep trying to find a way that is responsive to our unique circumstances.

In a letter to Polare (June-July 2002) J**** writes: "I became fully aware … of the distress my wife was going through … Before I slept that night, I realised I could not carry on. I felt I had more to lose than I had to gain … was I transsexual, or just on amid-life escape trip?" Jennifer shows how she is still finding herself now, that even as she writes she is still making mistakes.

So she writes that even recently, "it was easier to tell myself and my partner that I was a cross dresser than to admit the possibility that my core gender identity is feminine". Perhaps as a consequence of this uncertainty, her partner tends to see her gender expression as a 'hobby' to be tolerated, to be kept in its place, but not encouraged.

There is much to learn from these stories - both for those engaged in finding themselves, their sex and gender, and for those close to them. Christine Bums puts it in a nutshell: "I had to learn to see the curse as a gift, and so I've set out to teach people what I see".

This is not a position based upon ideals, although it sounds like it. It is based, rather, on the gritty reality that to find the 'real me', one doesn't have to be socially suicidal, that one has the right to privacy, that one may choose the time, the place and the company for coming out. And the last story impels us to return to the beginning as one realises this selection of life-cases is an on-going transition, a re-entrant roller coaster pattern of dilemmas to solve.

Finding the Real Me does not attempt to present a series of stories showing methods of achieving "success" in transition. There is no simple way to find the "real me". Some people found the "real me" and went on from there.

For others, it is never a matter of ridding the real self, but of creating it. "

Some people, both young and the more mature, may find this book of immense value.

Kind Regards,

Sally.

Hi Kathy

Heres a site I have found useful for explaining crossdressing to family and friends.

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/article ... dress.html


Joselle

For the parents:

Parent Guide: An Educational Booklet

http://www.dcchildrens.com/dcchildrens/ ... guide.aspx

Our Trans Children

http://www.youth-guard.org/pflag-tnet/booklet.html
or
http://www.youth-guard.org/pflag-tnet/booklet.pdf