Shifting my thoughts on gender

[Anne Bonny]

I believe I need to shift how I think about gender. Early on my wife told me "You are permanently changing how I think about you." Another statement of hers from the foggy past was along the lines of her not being able to consider me as being fully male....something like that. These two have stuck with me. And when we ourselves are driven - yes driven to put away our women's clothes to assume our masculine selves and dress like men, what drives that? is it mere desire to do so? Is there some rejection of being feminine, a gut feeling of rejection....perhaps some self disgust/shame or rejection of being female? Wearing dresses alot is helping me to think. Sometimes I think..."this is just silly, I'm not a woman...what am I doing?"

I am beginning to understand sex and gender do not matter. We are all basically the same, society, social mores, and primarily men have shaped the accepted playbook that is ingrained in each and everyone of us from the time we are born until the time we die. This makes it very difficult to think objectively, and to swim against the current which we have to do when we realize that that current is wrong. Sure men vs women think and therefore act differently, our sex dictates certain physical and mechanical implications for us, and there are instincts which men and women possess which are part of our make up, mothering, fathering, caring vs hunting and gathering which is there. If we subtract all of this men and women are equal intellectually how we think and process a problem and arrive at a solution may differ but we will both achieve a correct solution. There may be differences in our physical capabilities but we both are capable of excelling though at different things, women will perform better than men and vice versa on some tasks.

So when we realize that our gender is partly female this is valid, and remember that women are just as intelligent, capable, and are equivalent - It is alright to be female and correct our faulty thoughts. No we are not silly if our gender is indeed partly female, there should be no rejection, disgust, or shame in being who we are, this is not wrong we should feel no guilt - women live equally valid lives they are not less than men, the men who created this construct over the millinia were wrong. So when we shift back into male mode we should reject our faulty thinking, and do it just because we want to - because we are men and our gender is probably mostly masculine on balance as is our socialization....

[Absaroka]

The problem for many of us is that our wives married us without knowing this. When they find out later it is a big adjustment, particularly because CDing is something mostly men do. (a woman in womens jeans and teeshirt, or even wearing a tie in some circumstances, is not crossdressing) I've come to think of part of the definition of CDing being that it defies some cultural norm.)

[Anita]

My brother asked me the other day if I had any ideas on why people can feel such anger and hatred about anything to do with gender-crossing. I said that religious reasons could account for some of it, but not all.

My brother is gay, so he understands prejudice first-hand. But he saw that transgender brings out even more animosity then what he experienced as a young man. So he wanted to know how I saw it.

I told him that I suspect that it's hard-wired into us that making babies is THE priority for survival, and that anything that interferes with this process in any way is taboo. This would be way more than just a "cultural norm" that we're violating, because reproducing ourselves is universal--it goes beyond any one culture.

I'll note here that some cultures have seemingly come to terms with this, the most often noted being the American Indian concept of the 'two-spirited' people, but I find myself skeptical about just how well any culture accepts this. Tolerance is not necessarily acceptance.

I personally find this hard to handle, so it's not like I'm an advocate for this point of view. I just note that something of this sort seems to be going on.

[DonnaT]

My brother asked me the other day if I had any ideas on why people can feel such anger and hatred about anything to do with gender-crossing . . . he saw that transgender brings out even more animosity then what he experienced as a young man.

There is no basis in the bible to support the animosity preached by a number of religious folk toward gender-crossing behavior.

IMHO, it is the belief that gender-crossing is gay, and is a more visible representation of homosexuality, which some of the religious folk abhor. Much like public displays of affection by same sex couples.

[Anita]

Donna wrote:

IMHO, it is the belief that gender-crossing is gay, and is a more visible representation of homosexuality, which some of the religious folk abhor. Much like public displays of affection by same sex couples.

I'd agree with you on this, Donna. We can be seen as just a more blatant display of homosexuality. Gay men and women can blend in, if they choose to do so. Unless we're passing really well, it's hard for us to do it. I've heard people accuse trans women of being "in their face," and what they were referring to is the fact that they dared to appear in public, period. Just being themselves, they were considered to be waving a red flag.

There is no basis in the bible to support the animosity preached by a number of religious folk toward gender-crossing behavior.

I don't want this moved to Hot topics. Let's just say that religious folk can have strong feelings about anything that has to do with reproduction, and let it go at that.

[Davita]

My take? it has nothing to do with gender, sex, gay, not gay, dressed, not dressed. There are a lot of people that just like to hate or be afraid of things they don't understand. People like to hate differences until it all gets absorbed into mainstream society. Once mainstreamed, there grows an indifference.

Yeah it's a big generalization that I am making, but society is a generality by it's own properties. I know everyone doesn't hate us and that after there is a general acceptance of anything, there are still the diehards that can't accept anything that isn't a replica of themselves. Sad....

The bottom line is we have to keep being valid representations of our society and teach when possible. We need to be "mainstreamed".

[Anthony Simon]

Well I haven't experienced that much animosity (seeing as how I dress up in private). But my sense of it, when I have, is that it has to do with threat. That is to say there is something in me (implicitly) dressing as a woman that threatens these people. With men, I think I'm undermining their secure sense of boundaries - like they're not quite sure what a man is when they've finished with me. Unless, that is, they can decide that I'm someone contemptible and not to be taken seriously. In which case the problem evaporates. So then the animosity would be to do with protecting their sense of themselves as men.

I'm not sure I've had enough experience (other than in my family and they have disguised their motives) of women who don't like it. The one really clear example feels like I was seen as a threat also in terms of shifting the boundaries, but in this case as potential competition.

Other women do the sideways sneering thing, but I'm not sure that doesn't have other motives. More to do with undermining me as a person than to do with any particular dislike of me dressing up. In that regard, maybe, it relates to what Davita is saying.

If it is the case that all men have a bit of female in them - and this is non-neglible - then all men are a bit "womanish". But the traditional (since time immemorial) view of a man is that if he is a bit "womanish" he is diminished as a man. Not really a man at all, in other words. So it may be that, when "ordinary" men see a CD wandering about this puts the question of what a man is right in their face as it were. And, in order to get rid of all the unpleasant possibilities they get really aggressive in denial. But the real denial, underneath everything, is that the person that they see has anything to offer them in terms of rethinking their life. And this is the reason it's so nasty, the response.

Of course, if it really is the case that men have (often) non-neglible bits of woman in them (and similarly for women, only the other way up), it would actually make them function better if they owned them. Because they wouldn't expending energy on repressing them - apart from not being able to access the resources freely from that side of themselves.

Which is in conflict with what standard thinking about men says - which is that womanish men function less well than "real" men. I think, like I've said before, that this relates to the feminist struggle and that CDs are, in a lot of respects, natural allies of feminists. Like if women were genuinely considered equal to men a lot of problems to do with CDing would go away.

Maybe gays are less of a threat, in that the "ordinary" man will know he's not gay - I mean be able to sense that there isn't this latent gay part in him that might be accessed. Whereas, secretly, he might fear that he does actually have a womanish part.

[Gillian]

Since the early days of time women have been the chattel (moveable possession) of men. We still see it in many cultures today, so in many peoples subconscience thinking, why would a man want to become chattel? To much of our society today thinks in absolutes, by example, you are either male, or female. If we only define a human by their genitals, then it is easy. We know that is not necessarily a good and accurate way to measure an individual. So what sex is your brain? With not ever being given any good and accurate testing, I would not know whether I am at one extreme or somewhere in the middle. In life, I have watched everything get reduced to the lowest common demoninator often. In the area of gender, it seems that this demoninator is, what is your genitalia, and that defines you accordingly. This is a very short sighted way of doing things, but conveniant way, because sight will tell you what you are looking at.

[DonnaT]

I remember a test done once not long ago where straight men were tested for arousal at the site of TG women (IIRC) and the ones who were aroused were the ones who became the angriest.

[Carolynn]

Yes, because they felt it threatened their masculinity and they feared it meant they were latent gay, was one conclusion.

[Anita]

Anthony Simon wrote:

But the real denial, underneath everything, is that the person that they see has anything to offer them in terms of rethinking their life.

I can see that that would be unthinkable to the average man. I know that I was upset when it became apparent that I'd have to re-think my gender presentation, and I already had some understanding of it. I'd already adopted a lot of what others would consider "womanly" behavior, because that's how I was wired.

But when I saw that I had to go beyond that and start actively looking like a woman, I balked. It required a secular kind of faith; I knew I had to do it, and once I did, I found the benefits. But it was not apparent at the beginning.

So the example we set if we're out where people can see us is not a comforting one to a lot of men. It represents a strong diminishment, and there appears to be no gain in doing so.

Davita wrote:

There are a lot of people that just like to hate or be afraid of things they don't understand.

So they have to "make up" reasons why a man would do this, because they can't understand it from their own experience. The reasons they make up may be distorted and inaccurate, but what else do they have to go on? A few of them might come to sites like this to read and try to understand, but what percentage would that be?

It's not like our friends and families are out there telling people what some of the reasons might be; friends and family don't want to talk about this, for the most part. You won't see a Yahoo article on "Ten reasons why men like to dress as women." when you sign in.

Understanding CDs is not even a tiny part of popular culture, and understanding transitioning women is only a little more visible because MtFs are interviewed about their careers from time to time.

Donna wrote:

I remember a test done once not long ago where straight men were tested for arousal at the site of TG women (IIRC) and the ones who were aroused were the ones who became the angriest.

This makes me sad. If they're looking at a well-dressed woman, they'll be attracted to the female cues she's presenting. She's 95% female in appearance, and 5% male, and they're angry at themselves for responding to the 95%. It's more complicated than that, maybe, but it still makes me sad. They have to fight against themselves in a case like that, when acceptance of some kind would release energy that they have to suppress otherwise.

[Anthony Simon]

To me the really big thing about CDing in men is the social stigma attached to it - so strong that most CDs keep it secret. In my dictionary it says the word secret comes from the Latin secretus which means separate, set apart. So secret itself means kept from general knowledge, kept hidden or private from all or all but the few. So that's what society demands from CDs: "You do this, but you have to keep it private - like it doesn't exist".

That is to say, it's not just individual men, it's society at large that has a view about this. It doesn't hunt us down but, IMO, essentially wants us to stay in a box where we're ignorable. I remember asking the woman behind the till in one of my local stores where I buy cosmetics if she got other people like me coming in and she said "a lot" - and a wig store in a different area gave the same reply(well, maybe a bit less, but still significant numbers). I know this is not very scientific, but it does suggest that, because of the social stigma and associated secrecy, CDing isn't the insignificant activity that its lack of visibility in society would suggest.

I just have a feeling that the individual antagonism out-CDs experience, in particular from men, is a result of those men internalizing the unacceptability of being in any real sense womanish. So, for me, the problem is to do with why this society (and other societies throughout the ages) have decided that men have to "act like men" - which is construed, in particular as not acting like a woman.

I think a lot of it is to do with the long-term view that a society has to be "virile" to survive. A lot of that is just "history being written by the winners". Like men have ruled societies since the year dot and naturally they've concocted a line to justify it. That is I think it has to do with men wanting to maintain their power - that if it were decided that it wasn't any disadvantage for a man to be somewhat womanish (or by extent a society) to a greater or lesser extent it would be the beginning of the end. For, sooner or later, men would have to decide that actually there was no disadvantage to being a woman (I mean a GG). And that would be the end.

I.E One reason that men in particular are antagonistic to out-CDs is to do with the implicit threat to male status and power. But I don't think CDs can be such a threat unless there are real and significant "womanly" drives within the male population at large.

I'm not sure if I've completely worked this out, but I have a feeling that the reasons for men to be "top" are a lot less nowadays. I mean the way a society survives is not by winning at war or related activites. It's by being better economically. I think there is an implicit shift in the sort of qualities required from people and I'm not sure that people themselves have really worked that out.

Like the shift away from war as the key survival activity should also mean a move away from "masculine" as what a society needs in order to survive and thrive (war being the archetypal male activity).

Yeah, I know this seems a long way from CDing, in public or not.

[Anita]

Anthony Simon wrote:

it does suggest that, because of the social stigma and associated secrecy, CDing isn't the insignificant activity that its lack of visibility in society would suggest.

I wonder if young boys are getting around the parental control software and discovering that they're not alone. They won't know it by looking around at society--because this is one of the biggest secrets that anyone keeps.

I do see that some percentage of the population is aware of the Jenny Boylans and the Donna Roses out there. They're aware that there are gender problems that have to be solved by surgery and hormones, because your local paper has the occasional article on a prominent TS person. In our area, it was a Kaiser-Permanente doctor, MtF, who transitioned on the job.

I keep saying that people may not like the fact that people transition from male to female, but they are given reasons for it, the classic one being: "I'm a woman born in a man's body." They may even reject that reason, but at least it's out there in print, to be researched or discarded.

But with us? It's much more vague and ill-defined as to what drives and motivates CDing. So even if we were given a public forum, I'm not sure that we can explain ourselves in a way that makes any sense to the general public. I know because I do write and speak about my reasons for doing this, and it's rough sledding. I also know that I spare my straight male friends some of the aspects of my experience, because it would only upset them--I know this, even if I don't know all the reasons why.

So I suspect that if we did speak of our experiences more often, then men would have to begin looking at the ways in which they DO understand what we're talking about--and that would be disturbing, at least in the beginning.

I'm seeing that there have got to be more "out" CDs who rise to prominence, and that's a tall order. Because if people find about your CDing, that may be just the thing that'll keep you from attaining any prominence!

But we need more people like the mayor of Silverton, Oregon, who is not transitioning, and just likes to CD. If the local papers are going to write about us, we've got to be doing some ambitious things that they'll take notice of. That's asking a lot of us, but maybe it'll begin to happen.

[Anthony Simon]

Anthony Simon wrote:

it does suggest that, because of the social stigma and associated secrecy, CDing isn't the insignificant activity that its lack of visibility in society would suggest.

....this is one of the biggest secrets that anyone keeps.

...I keep saying that people may not like the fact that people transition from male to female, but they are given reasons for it, the classic one being: "I'm a woman born in a man's body." They may even reject that reason, but at least it's out there in print, to be researched or discarded.

But with us? It's much more vague and ill-defined as to what drives and motivates CDing.

.. I suspect that if we did speak of our experiences more often, then men would have to begin looking at the ways in which they DO understand what we're talking about--and that would be disturbing, at least in the beginning.

You know, I'm just wondering if this secrecy thing and our lack of comprehension about what motivates CDing might be related. I mean I've noticed that when I write something down it kind of gives me space in my head - so that then I can start to think about what I've written and develop my thought around it. That is even more true if I state something publically. Like then I really think about what I've said - partly so I can defend it etc. But there is also something about having declared yourself publically. And there's also the aspect of suddenly finding I've said something I didn't know I thought - like the speaking, in itself allows the freeing up of thought.

FWIW I want to say this. So OK, here goes. Yesterday I was buying some books from a university bookshop and got into this conversation with a Mexican woman who was doing some research for a book she was writing. She quoted a line from Eric Hobsbawm (famous British historian) who said "Tony Blair is Margaret Thatcher in trousers." But, as she was saying the line I thought she's going to say "Tony Blair is Margaret Thatcher in drag." When I said that in response it got a laugh from her and the two (female) shop assistants there.

When I thought about it later, I thought the reason that people laughed was that I was saying that, in their core, both Thatcher and Blair were "men" - i.e. exemplified ruthless competitive aggression. But Blair was pretending to be a "woman" - i.e. had coated it with a veneer of caring, compassionate stuff.

Of course, being a CD, the idea of a woman actually being a man inside wasn't much of a stretch. Nor was the idea of a man wearing women's clothes. But the fact is it did get a response - from those three women - like that whole very CDer approach to the problem resonated with them (that was the sense of it - like it freed up something quite deep inside them).

So, this is just to repeat (maybe) that women might actually rather like a CDer's sensibility (? to do with the lack of fixedness of gender) if it's out there.

[Absaroka]

Every society in the world divides labor and roles by gender. Many of them do it in different ways and womens work in one society is mens work in another. But all societies have some sort of division.

I think that this suggests that the perception of difference is rather ingrained, and intrinsic to our way of viewing the world. The person being born into the wrong body can be viewed as being "fixed" by surgery and thus still fits into the dichotomy. But the person who blurs the roles threatens a way of viewing the world. In our culture this also has a lot to do with power and sex, and the like is probably true in many cultures.

It's not that different from the way the womans suffrage movement was viewed at one time, or from the tremendous psychic shift required in a lot of folks to adjust to civil rights. When all someones self worth is tied up in what they are NOT, then doing away with the importance of that distinction becomes traumatic and the response is fight or flight, often fight.

It's probably worth remembering that many societies in olden days did in fact have a sort of in between category for men. They were called eunuchs.

Zari