Stressed out PhD hopeful in dire need of feedback and critic

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

Hey everyone, I know I'm breaking the rule here, since it's a place for crossdressers to ask and for GG's to answer, but this is something I'd really need feedback and opinions from SO's for; since I am currently in the process of hectically revamping and rethinking it.

So... I'm hoping to apply for a PhD next year; and my research is going to be about the attitudes of female-identified partners of male-bodied, male-identified cross-dressers, related to their conceptualisation of his identity and behaviour. It will look primarily at how one’s positioning cognitively, emotionally and actionally towards his cross-dressing relates to one's comprehensive worldview: her identity, beliefs and values; and in connection with that it will also look at how counselling and support groups address it, and if the facts point in the right direction, make a case for the use of philosophical/political questioning of socially enshrines ideas of gender/gender performance/"normality" in counselling.

I've discussed in principle a bit on the forum http://crossdressers-haven.com/forums/v ... 35&t=15152" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and here is a very rough draft (that will turn very soon, hopefully, into an actual research project; I'm acvtually modifying it as we speak and will be back with a 'new and improved' version soon): https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=...8vlIE4iwzw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

At the moment, I'm just trying to think through it epistemologically and ethically, soI'm trying to sort of pre-pre-test it in the community, if this makes sense; and this is why I would love your feedback and understanding. Could you take a look at it and tell me what you think of it?

I mean in terms of:

Do you think it starts off on an OK premise? Or do you think it is problematic in any way?
Do you think it sets off to represent/give a voice to crossdressers and their SO's, as opposed to objectifying them?
Does it make or reproduce problematic assumptions?
Do you think it might benefit crossdressers and SO's?
Do you see any kind of ethical issues with it?
Purely theoretically speaking (I won't be looking for research participants for the 2-3 years to come), is this a kind of project you would feel comfortable participating in? Why(not)?

Please be very very harsh critics!

Thank you very very much

[Anita]

Hi Letitia--
I tried your link twice, and it gives me a "Bad request" error code.

[Anthony Simon]

Hi Letitia,

I got the same response as Anita, but I assume you're directing us to the place you were in your "Philosophical Conselling" thread. That does bring up google, but they're asking me to sign in - or, in my case, sign up. Unfortunately, because my computer dates from before the dawn of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth etc., that didn't work. So, without actually reading it (!)...

The problems I forsee would be:

a) Getting enough participants. Just coming here you can see how few and far between GGs/SOs are. How are you going to sign them up if they don't (much) turn up to sites like this? A secondary problem would be the ones you did sign up would be self-selecting - like how representative would they be?

2) My major problem is how you're going to order the data (assuming you get enough of it). Likely you will disagree, but I think you need to have some sort of tentative narrative to test - like of how the women actually view their CD partners, themselves and the world - going in.

Doubtless the stereotypes out there are going to play into that. But I think you also you could do with an alternative narrative to glue your data together. The danger is that without some semblance (or hint) of that the final result will be too incoherent.

[MariMar]

I Agree...... Too slow

[Ralitsa]

Just out of curiosity, are you looking only at SO's that are postively dealing with it? It would be of much more interest to me, at least, to know about the SO's that deal with it by: ignoring, denying, insisting it be kept secret, or divorcing. I think if you look at the accepting and understanding ones who are willing to participate in such a study, as Anthony points out it will not be representative at all.

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

Hi, sorry about the link, I figured what was wrong with it: hope it works now: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid= ... 8vlIE4iwzw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I'll think of a way to make it work for people who don't have a google account

@Anthony Simon- I don't disagree about a "tentative narrative"; it's a bit clearer in my research proposal- here's how I thought it out (copy-paste a little excerpt):

The main questions this research project aims to investigate are ‘How do wives/ partners conceptualise their husband’s crossdressing- and how does their conceptual apparatus translate in attitudes towards it?’ It seems intuitive that a partner who turns to the essentialising discourse of psychiatry or to the tenets of conservative religious groups when confronted with his crossdressing will make sense of it differently than one who turns to radical queer theory.

Specifically, the wife/partner’s conceptualisation of crossdressing will be mapped in relation to the following:

(A) Beliefs about/attitudes towards gender/gender roles in general: (Does she believe there are only two genders? Is gender an identity? An essence? A social construction? A performance? Should all men be masculine? Etc.)

(B) Attitudes towards gender roles within the couple: (Is offering support to her husband a duty? A means of sharing intimacy? Does she feel her husband is breaking marital duty? Etc.).

(C) Her own identity and image of self (Does she identify as ‘conservative’? ‘Feminist’?A ‘good wife’? Heterosexual, bisexual or pansexual? Etc.).

(D) Values relating to tradition, normativity and “normality” (Example: Is being ‘normal’ desirable? Is self-expression more valued than tradition? Is subverting gender norms good or bad?)

(E) Emotions associated with her partner’s crossdressing (Are they coherent with the cognitive/axiological conceptualisation?)

(F) Communities of discourse and positioning in respect to dominant and alternative discourses around crossdressing (Whom does she see as having authority in providing knowledge and/or guidance? Religious leaders and precepts? The medical profession? Support groups? Crossdressers
themselves?)

That's how, as far as I've reached, I imagine structuring data; and my research might show that it works or that it doesn't work- whatever comes up I am willing to deal with it.

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

Ralitsa- that's a very serious problem I'm quite raking my brains about; however I feel very encouraged by the fact that in, for instance, Helen Boyd's "My Husband Betty" and also in some academic studies of crossdressers' wives I came across, they did not find an uniform population of supporting wives- which means that somehow they managed to get the unsupportive-ones to participate too. I think the trick is to try to recruit participants in more than one kind of location...

[Anita]

Letitia wrote:

Specifically, the wife/partner’s conceptualisation of crossdressing will be mapped in relation to the following:

(A) Beliefs about/attitudes towards gender/gender roles in general: (Does she believe there are only two genders? Is gender an identity? An essence? A social construction? A performance? Should all men be masculine? Etc.)

...and then the other tenets follow.

I have not followed the link yet, but I wanted to comment on the ones you listed here. These seem very solid, and since I got a glimpse of what you were after, I decided to reply.

I am far from academia, so I don't know all that is expected of you. A person does not have to necessarily be part of a community in order to study it or analyze it, so you don't have to establish that to do your paper. But if you are dealing with the community itself--i.e. crossdressers and their wives/ SOs--they might wonder what your relationship to CDing is about. How are you going to let them know that you understand first-hand, without "outing" your SO?

I would not imagine that very many people would be interested in researching CDing unless they had a personal stake in it--that is, they know someone close to them who is a CD. Otherwise, I wouldn't see enough motivation for anyone to care about looking into this. That's just my personal opinion, but I think it has some validity in the real world.

So a couple looking to work with you might share my attitude. They would want to know your reason for doing this. You had asked whether your approach seemed exploitative in any way, and it seems that if your don't mention your own connection to this, people might be suspicious. We sometimes have a hard time getting members of the support group to fill out anonymous surveys--they are so closeted that they want nothing to do with anything that might expose them. To establish trust, you may need to lay your cards out on the table from time to time. Have you thought of a way to do this that minimizes risk for you and your SO?

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

I am far from academia, so I don't know all that is expected of you. A person does not have to necessarily be part of a community in order to study it or analyze it, so you don't have to establish that to do your paper. But if you are dealing with the community itself--i.e. crossdressers and their wives/ SOs--they might wonder what your relationship to CDing is about. How are you going to let them know that you understand first-hand, without "outing" your SO?

My situation is as follows: I dated a crossdresser for over 2 years; and been supportive right from the start. We eventually broke up- for reasons completely unrelated to his crossdressing and I now live in a different country (he's in Romania, I'm in the UK). We remained close friends, he knows that I want to study crossdressing communities for my PhD and he is fine with me sharing our story with other people, especially with crossdressers and SO's. In approaching crossdressers and SO's, I definitely intend to be open about this episode of my life- and about that the fact that this is, indeed, what got me into gender studies in the first place. (When I took the decision to pursue this academic path I was in a relationship with him; but not being his girlfriend anymore did not make it any less relevant to me).

What I'm more worried about is to what extent I may or may not be seen by other SO's as "one of them", or someone who understands what they are going through; my ex/now-friend were never married and we never even co-habited (although we did consider it... but life just happened otherwise). Also because I am a liberal leftie, a feminist and a religious liberal/Unitarian Universalist/nearly agnostic not bound by any sort of religious dogma, so I never had to overcome those mental obstacles some of them had to.

[Paulette]

I don't think anyone here will be able to follow the link until the URL is considerably shorter. Try using tinyurl.com.

You must provide full disclosure of your relation to your subject. Your biases and potential biases must be known.

You must find numerous sources of respondents. Even if you managed to get every SO in this board to participate the findings would not be generalizable outside this board.

You must compare responses between groups and to SOs of heteros, queers, and lesbians. Good luck getting enough people in each category to make meaningful statistical sense.

Not only are all cross dressers not the same, they often change over time regarding to transition, passing, out-ness, etc., so you may have to find where each is in the spectrum of stability.

Socio-economics is relevant: poorer CDs may present, but they can't afford transition.

I suspect your thesis is much too broad, and needs cutting down to a manageable size.

Good luck.

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

Let's try like this: http://preview.tinyurl.com/bfc4m8n" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Please let me know if it works.

(BTW, I'm currently reading Helen Boyd's "My Husband Betty" and it's absolutely illuminating; in a way I feel I want to do what she did, but academically )

[Anita]

Hi Letitia--
OK--if you're not in a relationship with that person any more, than he won't be outed by association with you. You can talk of having been in a relationship, but if you never lived with him, it would seem that it would lessen the possibility that someone could trace back and link the two of you.

Paulette wrote:

You must find numerous sources of respondents. Even if you managed to get every SO in this board to participate the findings would not be generalizable outside this board.

You must compare responses between groups and to SOs of heteros, queers, and lesbians. Good luck getting enough people in each category to make meaningful statistical sense.

I had thoughts along these lines when you first posted. How many studies have ever been done of crossdressers? It's not easy to find them, first of all, even if one did want to study them. So it would seem to me that there's not a lot of statistics out there to build on. It's like you'll be pioneering and having to gather all the data yourself, if you want to support any kind of thesis. This is a very broad generalization. But the papers I've seen cite numerous previous studies and dissertations on the subject. When it comes to CDs and spouses, is there anything out there at all?

Letitia wrote:

What I'm more worried about is to what extent I may or may not be seen by other SO's as "one of them", or someone who understands what they are going through; my ex/now-friend were never married and we never even co-habited (although we did consider it... but life just happened otherwise)

This is generalization again, but when I read SO or family accounts, I'm used to seeing constant references to the person they're attached to. They switch back and forth between talking about CDing in general, and talking about the specifics of their experience with one person. In the posts I've read so far, I didn't pick up on any references to how you came to be involved in CDing. I kept looking for it, and I had to go back and read your very first post to see what your connection was.

I guess I'm saying that as a trans woman myself, I need to see more of how CDing affected you personally, because that's usually a big part of the story when a spouse or family member is writing here. It can be positive or negative, but it's there. The absence of it makes it more, well, academic, and if you want to involve the community, you may need to weave in more of your personal story than you've done here so far.

[Anthony Simon]

@Anthony Simon- I don't disagree about a "tentative narrative"; it's a bit clearer in my research proposal- here's how I thought it out (copy-paste a little excerpt):

The main questions this research project aims to investigate are ‘How do wives/ partners conceptualise their husband’s crossdressing- and how does their conceptual apparatus translate in attitudes towards it?’ It seems intuitive that a partner who turns to the essentialising discourse of psychiatry or to the tenets of conservative religious groups when confronted with his crossdressing will make sense of it differently than one who turns to radical queer theory.

Specifically, the wife/partner’s conceptualisation of crossdressing will be mapped in relation to the following:

<snip>
(E) Emotions associated with her partner’s crossdressing (Are they coherent with the cognitive/axiological conceptualisation?)

I suppose there is one basic, rather self-serving, thing I am getting at when I talk about a tentative narrative. That is I don't recognise myself in the narratives that are out there in the public domain. And I'm not sure that these narratives aren't talking about some other sort of person - or maybe the sort of person who doesn't exist in reality. Like then they'd be a projection of cultural norms/stereotypes onto CDs.

But what I'd really like is something that gave a sense that, yes, that is starting to get at what I'm about when I dress up.

Let's just say that I'm right and there is no such a narrative, reflecting the core of the CD's experience. Then whatever narrative SO's follow, they're always going to be a some distance from the core of their partner. That is, unless they follow point E) above - that is relate to their partner emotionally. Then they might intuit their way to some sort of reasonable relationship with their partner. On the other hand they might go totally the other way and go "Yeuch, I don't want any of this".

At any rate I think SOs' emotional response is a rich resource - and, although much harder to apply analytic tools to than their conceptual response, one that likely contains quality material if you can dig it out.

[Letitia_Jolie_GG]

I suppose there is one basic, rather self-serving, thing I am getting at when I talk about a tentative narrative. That is I don't recognise myself in the narratives that are out there in the public domain. And I'm not sure that these narratives aren't talking about some other sort of person - or maybe the sort of person who doesn't exist in reality. Like then they'd be a projection of cultural norms/stereotypes onto CDs.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean; could you explain? I think you're getting at something quite important that has been escaping me so far

[Anthony Simon]

Well, I'm Jewish and I'm tentatively applying the same principles to the narratives about CDing as I would antisemitic narratives about Jews. Like the point about antisemitic narratives about Jews, in the persepctive I subscribe to, is that the "Jews" in them are fantasy creations.

An example would be Shakespeare's Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice. The character just has the wrong spirit - he's just not like any Jew I know. Yet this is one of the most famous Jews in the pubic consciousnes - He's become an archetype of all those Jews out there. Because be's not a real Jew in any meaningful, core way (that's what I mean by he has the wrong spirit), the corollary is that he's a fantasy Jew IMO.

Because I subscribe to the view of antisemitism of being about fantastic images of Jews created in the minds of antisemites that allows me to see how antisemites might have been able to the appalling things that they did. They had created this image of the Jew as this fantasy, demonic being and then acted on that.

So, with CDs, it's not quite so bad. On an instinctive level, we're constructed in the public mind as something beyond the pale and repugnant (that's the nearest I can get to the sense of it). Why is that? You talk to the people here and really you can't find a reason for it. So, then, what is the reason? Is it that the public mind has absorbed some sort of fantasy representation of us?