Talking with family

[CJ]

Hi all,

As some of you know by now, I'm pretty open with my own mother about my CDing and we've lately been talking more about it. These days she jokingly (I guess) says that she thinks I would've made an awesome daughter. She doesn't care, she says, if the person I am shows herself to the world as a woman or as the son she gave birth to. She's open to anything except to my being unhappy in the world. (I have a hard time convincing her that that's a load she definitely doesn't want to take on her, admittedly, broad shoulders.)

I think it's a very good thing, her being so open, because my father's quite the opposite--he wants to hear none of it. When he still lived in Montreal, I came to his house one late morning, after an all-night Halloween shift at work (where I'd gone dressed as a cocktail waitress). When his wife saw me, she was thrilled and oooohed and aaahed over me (it wasn't always like that, trust me) and then we chatted as I remained dressed. When my dad got home around noon and saw me, he went upstairs without a word, and came back down a few moments later with a pair of his baggy jeans and a shirt in his hands. "Go change," is all he said--and then never spoke of the incident again. I'm very grateful for my mother's open-mindedness (and my dad's wife is a pretty okay gal too!).

I wonder why it is that female relatives seem to have so much of an easier time accepting this than male relatives? My little brother knows but never brings the subject up and neither do I. In fact, we lived together for about a year in a big old house, back in 1997; we got along fine but he did put a rule down: "None of that Christina stuff, okay?" I very, very, reluctantly agreed, but agree I did. It was his house, after all. My uncle knows, and thinks I'm mentally ill. (Ha! His daughters think Christina is very pretty... and that their father is simply living in his own world!)

One theory I like toying around with as to this male horror at a CDing relative is that it confronts them with the possibility of having a latent transgenderism gene run in the family! I don't think that's the case (thank God! the last thing I'd want to see is my uncle in a little black number! ), but it's fun to play with idea.

Anyway, there's rambling happening here, so I'll sign off with a smile for all of you!

Love,
CJ

[RikkiOfLA]

I've noticed the same thing as Christina. Women, generally, have an easier time with crossdressing than men. Not always, of course.

I've suspected the problem is that we challenge masculinity and affirm femininity. And I think most men are insecure about their masculinity?

As society becomes more complex, in fact, men seem to be becoming a rarer breed--useful for breeding of course, but beyond that too aggressive, too prone to drinking and fighting and other bad habits.

Today a woman can do anything a man can do, with one exception. Would men be comfortable with the opposite statement, that a man can do anything a woman can do? Not hardly! Nor would women. And I don't think it would be true.

Male power has eroded to being a historical footnote, like knighthood or hand-written spreadsheets.

[Sara]

This whole idea of how women are more accepting than men is quite interesting to me. One reason I've feared coming out is that I have four brothers, and knowing how they talk and knowing there's a good dose of homophobia running loose, I cringe to think how they would react.

I have a woman friend who told me that her husband is a CD, and she is quite accepting of it. (I haven't met him, and don't know how he'd feel about her sharing that ) We're not quite close enough for me to say, "Me, too" to her, but she's very perceptive and I wonder sometimes at how well I reacted to the news means she can see through me. Is that why she told me? (Women are far more insightful than men. Women's intuition, I believe, is more than their close engagement with the world around them--most women I know don't miss much.)

Anyway, I think Rikki nailed it. Challenging masculunity and affirming feminity just ain't the way guys are supposed to think--or so says the world around us. As I've said in another context, women aspiring to male traits are applauded--seen as raising themselves in the world. Men aspiring to feminine traits or behaviors are seen as lowering themselves somehow. That's a sad commentary on where we stand.

Love,

[Danielle La Belle]

Often we have all heard at one time or another that there is a “shortage” of some particular commodity. Be it sugar, gasoline, wheat, corn and the list goes on. Never have I witnessed a “shortage” of “words.”

I say this “tongue in cheek” girls.

I have written with interest on several topics in this forum. Reading the recent entries in this thread provoked thought on my part as to the concept of [gg] acceptance vs. non-acceptance by the male counterpart in our society.

The answer I think is so long that I would dread the idea of typing the reply. So instead, I have this to offer.

In the “social majority” there are two characteristically defined sexes. Male, and female. Pretty simple by definition.

The complexity begins in the DNA and extends itself to choosing a mate. Opposite or same sex. I would like to point out that there are those that never choose a mate during their lifetime, rather they elect to “go it alone.”

Point:

With two specific sexes, programmed to conform to a specific set of operating rules by DNA, we have then established that there are going to be distinct patterns of difference in both sexes and among those within each sex.

For those of you that have taken high school algebra or college algebra or better still, college calculus the answer is “the devil is in the details.” Meaning, we have an inherent skill set at birth. Around the world children at the age of 2 to 3 years old adopt their native language to the point of placing two and three words together in correct syntax and no one seems to see just how amazing this event is. A common human event, language is the most complicated of learning for all humans about the same time in their growth stage around the world.!

Men accept and reject ideas, as do women, based on an inventory of information fed to them over years of development. So, we are what we hear, read and see! Women hug, men shake hands and pat each other on the back and butt (football only ha ha ).

Men are aware that too much contact with the same sex may confer to their friends and associates that they are gay. Our society makes sure that anyone of that nature is well satirized and denigrated culturally to the point of social disgrace. If I wear a shirt with flowers and designs anywhere but Hawaii, I am looked upon with an eye of suspicion.

Since this forum consists extensively of heterosexual males cross dressing as females, I would think that we all can relate to the “male” dominated world that we live in. Further, we all know from social experience at school, work and play, what is said about someone that “does not fit” the social standard of the local community.

I believe that we can be taught to accept or reject differences in people that we meet. Social scientists agree with this whole-heartedly. That while we may be wired to think one way, it is conceivable that we can be taught to think another in retrospect to our DNA wiring. This thinking has led some to believe that homosexuality is a choice. Recently, scientists in London concluded that it is hard-wired into the brain at conception as are many other DNA traits.

While my answer is not conclusive, it is only because it would take a dearth of information to explain the complicated processes that we follow as humans. Referring back to algebra and calculus, these current forms of mathematics are employed by the human brain internally as complex algorithms stored in biological brain matter and executed at the speed of light.

The fact that we see things on the surface only, lift your right arm, you do not see all the instructions that were just sent from the brain to the various muscles and tendons to the correct arm for execution. Yet they took place in a blink of the eye.

Men and women are rather complex in design and further that complexity as thinking beings involved in adapting to their community surroundings and social rules and concepts that they come to accept as “their truth” while passing through this life experience.

Yikes!

[CJ]

Hi Danielle,

Uh, okay. I'm just trying to figure out if you think women accept transgender behaviour more easily than men, especially when it comes to relatives, and, if so, why. I'm not too sure about the algebra part. Is it that you mean women are "programmed" somehow to be more accepting of this?

Love,
CJ

[Beauty]

Danielle,

Welcome home.

As usual I'm amazed by your brilliance, but this time I am as confused as amazed.

I believe I was with you, like Christina, but what was the overall point of your statement? What did you mean by your post? I'm afraid your response, though you don't want it to be, will have to be longer or chopped into parts.

btw, It's weird. I didn't know how much I'd missed you until I read your post.

Ahhhh... the sweet smell of home.

Beauty

[Danielle La Belle]

By default, women nurture and use both sides of their brain. Men typically only use one side of the brain predominately, with reduced connection to the other side. Thus the obvious [emotional] differences and the means by which each sex approaches problems and provides solutions.

Women as a given, are more accepting as they are more accepting by nature than men. Men regard anything that cannot be explained or cannot be qualified as either dangerous and met with force or played down so as to diminish it's importance.

The math part; the fact that you think you are here is only because of a chemical reaction in the brain that qualitatively deciphers the question of your existence, compares it against a reference library of information and tells you, "you are here." An age old conundrum; a class room full of people, you walk out and close the door, are the people still in the classroom as you thought before or is the room empty. You open the door to see, yup they are still there, or are they? Your mind made an analysis in biological chemical form and is telling you they are there. With the right chemical compound induced by you, you would tell me there are pink elephants in the room.

Thus, we are all chemicals, including the brain tissue floating in salt-water to permit electro-execution of the thought process. It is complicated but there are several good courses at the Master's level that can explain this more completely. I found a course title: "Biology and Human Behavior", provided by "The Teaching Company", 1-800-832-2412. http://www.teach12.com, to be excellent. After viewing this video course, these concepts that I mention will be come more clear.

"The Teaching Company" offers video classes from professors that have been deemed excellent by their peers in their field of endeavor. Never to old to learn, these courses often bring home to humanity, information that otherwise would escape our understanding in any other forum.

I cannot stress the quality and value of the courses offered by this business.

[Danielle La Belle]

Thank you Beauty! I am wiping away the tears as I type....

[Danielle La Belle]

I have just posted a recent article in [News from around the world] thread, regarding neural networks and how the brain works that might be of interest to those following the recent posts in this thread.
It has good basic concepts to explore on a general educational level making it for easy reading and comprehension without getting a headache.

[CJ]

Hi again, Danielle,

Thanks for elaborating a bit; it makes a little more sense to me now. I'm curious, though, as to whether you think that culture (socialization as opposed to a hard-wired brain) has nothing to do with women's and men's attitudes and views concerning the acceptance of gender-variant behaviours.

The reason I ask is that, although it seems to me possible, as you say, that much of who we are and what we do may be "hard-wired," that hardware is obviously sometimes "short-circuited" somehow. An evolutionary psychologist will no doubt tell you that there isn't much of a gain or an advantage to be had, for the species as a whole, in homosexual or transsexual behaviour. Hence, it probably isn't "hard-wired." Could it be, then, that it's the "software," the program, that gives rise to atypical behaviours? If I understand rightly what you're saying, Danielle, you think that that part of us that we most cherish (our individuality, our sense of self, our mind, our rich connection to our own past) is a by-product of chemicals and firing (or, in my case sometimes, misfiring, ) neurons?

That would frighten me, if it were true. I think that would also be too high a price to pay, for me, to see myself (and others) that way. I couldn't help but consider that as a way of avoiding any personal responsibility for who I've been and who I've become over the years. Plus, I'm just not willing to let society off the hook so easily. Society has an equal share in the responsibility of "molding" its members, no matter the results of that process. And that begins with the way we're brought up as children.

That my attraction to women is genetically hard-wired I can believe. That my need for self-preservation as well as my pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain is part of our nature I can also believe. I can't, however, agree that my need to express my deepest identity outside the limits of our specific social conditioning is also a genetic given. Social roles change; genes don't.

I think I understand your point of view, Danielle (and realize that I'm made richer for your having shared it with us ), but it may be that I'm too much of a dreamer (or a coward) to ever want to reduce myself to a mere complex of physiological processes.

To go back to the original question, yes, there I agree with you that it's probable that women are "born" to be more caring and nurturing than men are. Even so, that doesn't mean that we, as a culture, shouldn't make room for the rich and wonderful diversity of the possible ways of "being" in the world. I'd miss all you girls. Hell, I'd miss myself!

Love,
CJ

[Danielle La Belle]

Science and romantic notions do not mix well. Consider this. You may have a “beauty mark” on your buttocks but for the most part, others may see if more often that you do. Your soul is that beauty mark. All we ever see for the most part is the “space suit” that your soul is wearing. We each have an anatomical space suit so that we can be seen by others in this physical universe. We can come in contact with others physically and spiritually and have the opportunity to experience this physical world through our “space suit.”

Good, bad, or indifferent, your entire human makeup is based on that 3lb floating gray matter we call a brain. Encased in a hard calcium shell, (skull), this matter contains all that we think we are and all that we think! By introducing chemical changes, in the form of electrical impulses we can get you to remember or forget events, places, your name etc. My introducing chemical changes via the blood stream, we can control a blood clot that is causing a headache, or make you hallucinate and see little pink elephants.

We consist of two basic factions: DNA genetic instructions and information that we collect during our entire development and growth stages into old age and finally, our demise in human form. We must separate religion (faith based theory) from mathematical science (physical sciences) to remain faithful to the concept of independent study and development.

YES. The firing of our neurons, and the order and process in which this occurs is a primary cause and effect or our being human. We have built electro-mechanical computers (pc’s) to reflect on this concept. Hardware and programming software that can perform the same task over and over. The exception is when we look in the mirror; we believe that the reflection we see is ourselves. No other living thing on earth can do that. BUT, that is still our brain, searching its indexed database of knowledge and returning an answer that makes sense to us.

When looking in the mirror as Danielle, I still know that Daniel is right there as well. One and the same. They cannot be split or separated. If they are, then we consider myself to be with the diagnosis of split personality and not split being. A recognized medical condition that has its foundations in the chemical processes of the brain.

Depression is nothing more than chemical imbalance. That is, a condition where by the brain is no longer in it’s usual chemical state that produces what we think of as “normal” healthy feelings. “Normal” is different for everyone but there is a range that we can call normal for humans. Take a ruler, 12 inches in US measure, and consider that the majority fall in between 4, 5 6 7 inch area. People that are in the 0, 1,2,3 area are outside the norm, and those that are in the 8, 9, 10,11, and 12 areas are outside the norm. Going backward and forward in those two latter groups creates the appearance a greater extreme behavior from the center that we have come to think of as the “normal” zone.

If you think that you are in charge of your life and experiences, then why do accidents happen? Accidents are events, physical and mental, that occur without your permission or control for the most part. Right place, right time, is not just words; it is for the most part, fact. You may be capable of running your Country, but your not, why? That is my point there.

When I dress as Danielle I am making a choice, or am I? Am I compelled by “routine” or do I just like what I see and feel as Danielle? How do I separate my sexual feelings for a woman and then see Danielle in the mirror a pretty and pleasing. Only a human can do that on this planet and only I can make the decision about this matter via my brain searching the information index and deciding how to apply the information coming I from the mirror.

This can go on and become so complex that we would need the best minds in the world to help sort it out. There are those that say, “just accept things as they are, you are not about to change or alter things on your own.” We know that we can make change, but at what price do we pursue it. At what level of recognition do we consider this?

The questions that have been coming up in this thread are excellent! Unfortunately, no one, including myself, has all the answers yet. Every answer leads us to 10 more questions. The answer to all of your questions is that somethings are hard-wired via DNA, some are learned through experience. All are chemical in nature.

My last comment in this reply. For anyone that has masturbated and enjoyed sexual intercourse with a loving partner, the energy, the synergy, the overwhelming chemically generated feeling in the brain cannot be gotten through the former. No device, no external stimulation can compare to the ultimate mental release that takes place between two loving, caring partners. No way, no how. This heightened chemical response is reserved for loving, caring partners only. Now that is the power of the chemical brain at work! What is the phrase, “that just blows my mind.”!!!

P.S. When I smile at myself in the mirror as Danielle, my chemical endorphins kick in and I feel at ease, a sense of comfort and "do no harm to anyone" feeling..........but I know whom I am disguising. The mask comes off with soap and water and I return to "my" day to day reality.

[RikkiOfLA]

Danielle writes...

P.S. When I smile at myself in the mirror as Danielle, my chemical endorphins kick in and I feel at ease, a sense of comfort and "do no harm to anyone" feeling..........but I know whom I am disguising. The mask comes off with soap and water and I return to "my" day to day reality.

Is crossdressing is a disguise or is letting our true selves emerge?

For me, it is very much letting my true self emerge. I look in the mirror and I feel a sense of pride and relief, that I can finally be myself. While I do have some valuable, strongly developed parts of my personality in my "male side" the core of my being is female. I look in the mirror and feel I am, at long last, the person I always was meant to be. I feel whole.

How do others feel about this?

One of the things about putting on a disguise is that I always feel relief when I can take the disguise off. I feel like I can be myself again. If crossdressing were a disguise for me, I would feel a sense of relief when I took my makeup and finery off and put on male clothes again. But I don't. It's the opposite--I feel that relief when I can take the male clothes off! For me, male clothes are the disguise.

Anyone else feel that way?

[Sara]

Oh, my.

Step away to powder your nose, and who knows what will break loose? :o
All the BIG QUESTIONS are here--nature/nurture; free will/fate, the nature of intelligence, thought; identity, the very nature of being.

The chemical view of life is correct, it seems to me, without being right. I've heard it said we're made up of chemicals worth about 75 cents US, mostly sea water. Virtually everything we do, even every thought can be explained as a chemical reaction. But we're all so much more than the sum of those parts. And while it's the job of philosophy to try to sort that out, philosophy must almost of necessity be incomplete. While some biologists attempt to explain life as no more than chemical reactions, some 20th century philosophers attempted to reduce it to mathematics. Both get themselves inside a logical box.
We can hardly explain why proteins exist, never mind genes, never mind life, never mind [i]complex[/i]life, never mind, most of all, sentient life and self awareness, love and hate, and all the complexity of being human.
Some would argue that our existence can only be explained by intelligent design--a euphemism for a deity. I don't agree, but I'm not exactly an atheist either. I guess I take on a sort of Taoist view--once you try to explain something, you lose touch with its essence. Its like trying to put in words why a piece of music makes you smile or weep, or march off to war.
I love this discussion, because it gets at such core questions. Everyone has such provocative ideas and questions. Danielle, you set us off on an interesting chase here. :!:
Rikki, as to your question, and it is a good one, I wonder about that. When I shed my feminine clothing and go rejoin the masculine world, there's always a bit of relief--this is, after all, how the world accepts me, with a large dose of regret--it's not who I'd like to be. Whether what makes us what we are is more nature than nurture or the other way around is in some ways less relevant than this perpetual effort--one undertaken by all thoughtful human beings (except for those living under the cloud of the Four Horsemen) to understand ourselves and our place here before we shuffle off, sans everything. It's why we have religion. And this sort of conversation helps in this unending quest.
Wow, these are the deepest conversations I've had in a long time. And there's no anger, even when we disagree! I wonder, Shannon and Sharon, if you knew what you were creating!
Gosh I love this place and all of you here.

Love,

[Danielle La Belle]

Sara:

Somewhere in my ramblings on this forum I said that there is a distinct difference between "debate" and "argument." To "argue" a legal brief etc is to present a point of view. To debate is considered the same application without the legal remedies provide by law. But, to "argue" with the point of trying to change some one to the point of "change or else" attitude well, I think we for the most part in this forum we choose to debate or present our argument for discussion.

I would like to think that this forum draws people that understand the difference and are willing to forego the need to pummel someone into submisssion over any particular view point. I read ever word that others write and try to come up with something rational and mature.

Further, I think that if someone feels better in their alternative role such as RikkiOfLA stated then she may be more along the lines of TS than CD. The CD's that I have met seem to accept the idea of m2f role changing and then of course reverting to their male role as more comfortable. I think that gets a great deal of discussion among the T* community in general. There are those that would say a CD is clearly making a choice by behavior and should be capable of stopping the behavior at any time. Where a TS person is more comfortable in the alternate role that they chose to portray than in their birth role.

I have a silly saying for my adult family members, "have penis, will dominate". I say this "tongue in cheek" since my spouse likes to make that a deciding factor in allocating me the job of decision maker, repair person, laundry person, trash person, and a host of other jobs that seem to distracting for her to do. That is, my anatomy has put me into a specific category for many functions that either party could perform if one is so motivated.

Ah, a story for another time I suppose, I do wander from time to time.

Hugs

Danielle...........

[CJ]

Hi all,

Okay, I'm really hoping I won't be "timed out" on this one, but here goes.

I absolutely agree (leaving metaphysical issues aside for now) that we are material creatures and, as such, are subject to various natural processes. I know that, in writing these very words at this very moment, electrical impulses and chemical reactions are occuring everywhere in my central nervous system; that my butt is sore from sitting on this chair because of gravity; that I'm trying to organize my thoughts with the help of a handful of logical and mathematical principles; that the fact that I even have fingers with which to type these words is a genetic grace. So, check on all that. What I object to, is the idea (so eloquently described by Sara) that all this is all that I am. I'm more than that. We all are. The day neuroscientists and neurophilosophers manage to explain, irrefutably, how a thinking, feeling mind arises from a 3lb mass of living tissue is the day I'll take up eating Big Macs again. And, if science succeeds in explaining away consciousness, then those who practice it have missed the point.

The other question, the one posed by Rikki, is much more intriguing, I find. Rikki admits to some relief when en femme, Sara to a bit of relief when back in boy mode, the one most people know and accept her as. I tend to feel both relief and disquiet simultaneously and in both instances, as screwy and mixed up as that sounds. I like to think of gender as performance, a social act, if you will. It's no less an act when I "perform" the gender roles aligned with my physical sex. Even in boy mode, those around me don't have true access to my deeper self. And I think that's true of everyone. The "actor" or "actress" (in the case of GGs) that we are will always elude any attempt at definition, psychological, social, or otherwise--because it simply cannot be put into words (poets and artists come close sometimes). And I don't mean being an actor in the sense of "pretending," not at all. More in the sense that even our very faces are masks, beyond which mystery lurks. There's a deep part of me that no one will ever know, that no one can ever know. It's that part of me that is "genderless" in a way, that part of me that enjoys being both masculine and feminine, seperately or at once.

This, perhaps, is where spirituality comes in; we all share in this deep sense of self--and it's this very thing that we all have in common that gives us both the opportunity and the desire to connect with other people and to create bonds with the world we inhabit (the very meaning of religion, from the latin re+ligare, to "re-attach." To connect, to "anchor," so to speak. In looking at the world around me, I sometimes think it's what we need most... and what we're least successful at doing.

Anyway, philosophy begone! The original question: Why do women find it easier to accept gender variant behaviour than men? I think Danielle's got a point when she says that an answer only produces ten more questions! But, in my view, perhaps women are, by nature, more inclined to compassionate nurturing than men. Hence their tolerance and acceptance. Case in point, from another thread in this forum, where a GG speaks:

It took me awhile to get out of my own feelings and realize what HE's gone through in his life as a result of CDing. (Kay SO)

As far as the question of who it is I think I see when I look in the mirror. Just me. Suede skirt and pumps or frayed jeans and cotton shirt, it matters little. It's still. Just. Me.

Love to all,
CJ