CJ wrote:The only magic pill that I know of that would help alleviate the distress of being a crossdresser--and, as we all know, distress there can be--is a combination of education and support. When I say "education,", I really mean "self-education." Obviously, this is no instant pain relief medication. It's more of a time-release capsule. And this is true of everyone, crossdresser or not; it takes time and patience and courage and determination to become the person we can be, without drowning in the process.
Sure, it's a process and "process" is the key word, the process of finding myself (or my self). But it's finding your way to that process that's the difficult thing. I mean, for me, getting some sort of sense that the thing is going (don't care to where, just so long as it's going).
While it may be true, as Nietzsche said, that whatever doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, it can nevertheless also be the case that whatever doesn't kill us can also drive us mad. As it did poor ol' Fred, who may have gazed into the abyss far too long for his own good. Because, of course, and as he also said, when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Yup, I know that.
And I think this is why many people come to a forum such as this one; they need a respite from gazing into the abyss (and from having the abyss gaze into them). Places and spaces such as this one can act as beacons and lights in the darkness. And, yes, the darkness is there, always.
I think for me, at the moment, it's more like ease the darkness. Like it's still basically dark but maybe you catch a hint of something beyond that.
It's not easy being "differently gendered." Gender variance isn't held in very high esteem by the common man.
Yeah, well, that's putting it mildly. Scares the living daylights out him, more like. I mean the whole social idea of "being a man" is constructed around lack of femininity in the character. So any idea of a functional male who presents as a female suggests all sorts of deep abysses for him (in my opinion. My God, I'm getting hot on this). Like the whole of his identity is built on a fallacy (or is that phallacy?).
If you're "sick" (or can anyway be labelled as such), then his problem goes away. Which is where I think a lot of the pathologizing of gender difference comes from.
But, then again, neither is intelligent discourse or social tolerance.
True and horrible it is.
So, to me, the common man's often ill-begotten opinions matter little.
Yeah, but...I guess I'm just one of those people who wants to live in the world and change it (a little). Dumb schmuck that I am, that means I'm obliged to deal with all this ugly stuff.
But this doesn't take away the pain we feel inside. This pain--a result of the obssessive-compulsive nature of the drive at the root of our need to express our gender identity the way we do--is a faithful companion in the lives of most of us. And it's no secret that chronic pain (even, or especially, chronic mental pain) can lead to a whole concatenation of ills; loneliness, depression, self-alienation, unmanageable anger and bitterness, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, you name it. This is the combat we face. Every. Single. Day.
Sure. I recognise that description, if not in its particulars at least in its essentials. I just kind of get fed up with facing it in just the kind of intensity that I do.
However, there is hope. I lie when I say the pain is due to the nature of the drive. It's really due to a combination of that, most assuredly, and the plain, simple fact of social intolerance. Even the psychiatric establishment is beginning (finally) to recognize--as it did for homosexuality, back in the 70s--that it's not the gender variance per se that causes a gender-variant person distress (in fact, quite to the contrary, the act of dressing--or expressing our gender identity--itself brings many of us pleasure) but, rather, the fact that most other people, our loved ones included, cannot tolerate this "freakish" eccentricity. Now, that smarts... especially given the essential harmlessness (and, to us, benefit) of gender variance. And, as people are wont to do when they feel uncomfortable, they turn gender variance into an object of derision. Thus, our very real suffering is played for laughs. But, you know what? I'd rather this than murder. It's surely the case that the Gwen Aurojos and Teena Brandons of the world would've preferred to be scoffed at rather than outright killed for the way in which they chose to express their gender identity.
I think it's a kind of war we're in the middle of - a multi-generational war fought out in Society about what the meaning of "Men" and the meaning of "Women" is. I mean that's what Teena Brandon was killed for (if you want to give it a meaning).
Having said this, yes, there's still a downside to being who we are. Nobody wants to be a slave to their own drives. And nobody wants to be ostracized. So what do most of us do? We allow ourselves the guilty pleasure of becoming the slaves to our own drives alone and in the privacy of our own homes.
I don't necessarily agree that dressing up means that I'm "a slave" to my TG drive - I mean, to me, it feels more like a
negotiated position between that drive and the "me" that writes this stuff etc..
But this just ain't gonna cut it for very long. Not for many of us, anyway. Why? Simply because the social element of any identity--including transgender identity--requires that we be seen, gazed upon, and acknowledged by others for who and what we are or feel ourselves to be. While the construction of our identity (and, as in the Tylenol television ad, this can be "whatever your normal is") is a personal, individual labour, the expression of that identity, on the other hand, is an eminently social act.
Yup, because "No man [girl] is an island" (even if "[S]he's a peninsular" - drug induced Jefferson Airplane, After Bathing at Baxters insight).
I put this forth: we are not crossdressers or transsexuals if nobody else in the world but ourselves sees this to be the case. We are not transgressing anything whatsoever if nobody sees us. Ah, but CJ (you may say), whenever I'm home alone, fully dressed, and gazing at my reflection in the hallway mirror, I can see myself, so, in the end, I still know that I'm transgressing, that I'm a crossdresser. Not so, I'll argue. The person you see in the mirror, when dressed, is an Other. The girl you see in the mirror is the projected ideal of your own self. And your own self, the one still situated (imprisoned?) in your body, is the one gazing at the transgressive reflection in the mirror. In a way, we become jealous or envious of the "woman in the mirror" even though she and we are one.
It is an Other. I don't know who this person is. Certainly, in part it is a projected ideal. But then there's a part that seems to know stuff I don't know. Stuff I would really like to know and want to get to. That part I'd say I'm envious and jealous of because it's separate from me. There is a process I have to go to to find my way to "her".
It's that very act of gazing upon the reflected woman that tells us or lets us know that we're transgressors, that we're crossdressers. And oh! how pine for the gaze of some Other upon us, some Other that isn't just our "imprisoned" self! That, too, brings pain. And a terrible loneliness.
A terrible loneliness.
Much of this loneliness can be, at least partially, evacuated when we come out of the closet, so to speak. When an Other--a wholly Other--sees us for who we are, it's as if dark clouds lift. We feel free and happy and content. For many, this can be achieved by coming to an online forum in order to share thoughts, feelings, and experiences with like-minded (or like-afflicted?) souls. For others, it requires taking a walk on the wild side in the "real" world. Either way, these are necessary steps on the road to both wholeness and wellness.
Be well and be whole. The best way to do this is to just be. The wagging tongues will eventually tie themselves in a knot and be silenced. It may take a while but we're heading that way.
Love,
CJ
With me, I think there's a confusion between reorganising my identity in terms of what I do and it terms of how I do it. And in the moment (long moment) that I'm changing there is a lacuna - That is to say a period in my life in which I'm alone. It's not just loneliness, but it's really stuff I have to do alone. It's in that sense I talk about this place as easing my darkness. But maybe that'll change. Maybe it has to.
I think I'm basically coming to a time when the feminine, creative parts of me come to the surface and are the means through which I interact with the world - rather than, as it's been in the past, the masculine, analytic parts. I'm a pretty able person and need to get recognition for that. I think, in the end, the recognition I crave will come (or won't come) through a sublimated recognition of female side of me in things that I write - and like I sort of intimated above, the woman in the mirror knows stuff about that the male part doesn't know.
I know there is a resistance to me dressing up and going into the outside world as a woman. But I'm kind of easy about where I am now.
Socrates: The highest wisdom is to know that you know nothing.
Bill and Ted: That's us, dude.
