Dealing with denial

[RikkiOfLA]

Hi Kyra,

I have, over the years, written and spoken with a lot of people who have been through the kind of experience you've had these six months. Went through it myself for about 20 years, in fact.

A conflict between who we'd like ourselves to be (our values) and who we cannot escape being.

Our Christian faith encourages us to be the very best, the purest, the least corrupted we can be. Some expressions of Christianity go further, and tell us that we are not allowed to be certain things. That God does not allow it.

Meanwhile, the growing evidence coming from inside ourselves, and the voices of our brothers and sisters who are like us, and the evidence from medical science and psychology says that God made us this way.

So the first thing I have to say to you is that you are not alone. This dilemma that you are caught in didn't start with you. You are not the first person who faced it, and you don't have to face it alone. You certainly didn't create it. So you are not responsible for it, or to it.

Our Christian friends who are not transgendered may not be able to understand this. They may think that being transgendered is something we can give up, the way a person can give up alcohol or drugs. Or even the way a person can give up sweets?

And at first, it can seem that way, as you discovered. When we give up anything we like, at first we go through a "white-knuckle" phase, when the issues are resolved on the level of willpower alone. "No!" We tell ourselves. "I cannot have that, do that, think about that. I will focus my energy on something else, something wholesome and good and non-controversial." So we busy ourselves with work and family and fixing up the house and hobbies and activites and church etc. etc.

And then, I realized something.

Transgendered isn't about something I do, and so I can give it up. Transgendered is about the way I am.

I'll never be able to be "totally a man." There will always be feminine aspects of my personality. If I were to systematically try to get rid of all of those, I wouldn't be a real man. I would become an eight-year-old boy's paper-cut-out idea of a man--all macho, but no caring. No sensitivity or subtlety. A two dimensional black-and-white cutout.

At the same time, I'll never be able to be "totally a woman" either. There will always be masculine aspects to my personality too.

I'm transgendered, and always will be.

So while other people may be more comfortable relating to me as one gender or the other, that is merely their preference. Or maybe their sentimental faded dreams?

Crossdressing, then, is an art form. We use our body--our clothing, our makeup and wigs, our padding, and our behavior, to express something that comes from deep inside ourselves--the person we'd like to be, perhaps, or know ourselves to be, or even just someone we admire. Can we give that up? Sure.

But what we can't give up is ourselves. We can limit what parts of ourselves we express. That's called work. Many of us have worked for people with strange ideas. Strange political ideas, for instance. And we quickly learned not to talk politics when the boss was around. It kept the peace. When the boss talked politics we just went "uh huh, uh huh." And all the while our mind was saying "This guy is crazy!" Maybe when we got home we'd vent about our crazy boss and his crazy politics. We can do that eight hours a day; we're flexible. But no one can live like that 24/7. We have to let our hair down sometime.

So maybe we can be who we really are, just without crossdressing? Well, maybe we could, but I know if I tried it, I'd probably go through a "swishy" phase at the beginning! I'd wear all men's clothes, but they'd be the most colorful, effeminate men's clothes I could find--purple shirts, white shoes, oversized checks. I'd bring the femme voice and the femme gestures (touching people a lot, and so on) into a male personna. I wouldn't be Rikki, I'd just be Ricky. I wouldn't be gay, but I'd sure look it and act it! And I have a hunch that within a week, I'd have people begging me to put on a dress!

Church people wouldn't find that any improvement. It would just confirm a bad stereotype--that we TGs are "really just gay."

Or we could throw the baby out with the bath. Do you know the origin of that saying? It refers to "reform movements" within the Church that wanted to dispense with baptism. And the question was raised--are they trying to get rid of baptism, or do they really want to make faith in Jesus optional? The baby with the bath. I have quite a few transgendered friends who used to be staunch Christians. They were unable to divorce, in their own minds, their Christianity from the judgmentalism they associated with it. As if to say that real Christianity HAS TO judge against transgendered people, gays, and so on. The churches that do accept us can't be really Christian. And so, rather than giving up the judgmentalism they were used to attaching to their faith, they gave up the baby (Jesus) with the bath.

Or we could stand up on our hind legs and say NO. No, I'm not going to give up my faith or who I am. To give up who I am is impossible. God made me this way, and God doesn't make junk. And to give up my faith would be spiritual suicide. And I don't need to give up either. It's only other people that are putting that demand on me. For sure, they are powerful people, and there are a lot of them. They might kick me out of one church, but there are others. They might fire me from one job, but there are others. I can temporarily suppress my self expression for an hour (church) or eight hours (work), or for the sake of my extended family. But don't come over without calling first. (The socially acceptable way of saying that is "I value my privacy.") And if you hear me going "uh huh, uh huh" I'm just being polite. If you think I'm agreeing with you, you're living in your sentimental faded dreams! And then, you can quietly start to make this a better world. And soon you'll discover that you're far from alone.

[Kyra]

Hey Y'all,
Thanks so much for all the encouragement and support. You are an immense help.

First, my wife: Amber is doing very well. Our marriage is firmly cemented and I doubt that we will ever part. The bond is just too strong. Will she come back to the board? I honestly don't know. I will ask, but I'm not sure she wants any part of my CDing. She understands that I have needs that she can't understand (does that sentence make any sense?) and she plainly stated that she would rather not know about what I'm doing...at least for now. Maybe time will help. I hope so. She's my confidant, and my friend.

Second, Elizabeth, Anita and Rikki, thank you all for the advice and opening up to me. Your words ring true in many respects. I am so happy to be here again. I missed you all!

Third, an explanation: Our counsellor didn't instruct me to quit. And he didn't wave the bible in the air screaming "You're gonna burn in hell!!" He was very polite and professional. In fact, I'm not the first TV he's had. (That was good, as I was very skeptical about his experience) I found it very easy to talk to him and enjoyed our sessions. My purge was decided by me out of desire to strengthen my relationship with Amber. He didn't tell me to do it, nor did she. I saw she was unhappy and I tried to rectify by stuffing Kyra in a box. You know the cliche: You'll never know unless you try. I did.
The Outcome? Well, it's self evident. Six months of misery.

I don't feel like a failure. I feel like I cut off my arm and recently had it reattached. The ache in my heart has suddenly subsided. And as for clarity of mind...well, we'll just have to see. I'm not so sure my mind was ever really clear.

Hugs to all and it's great to be back.
Kyra

[Cathy L. Anderson]

Hi Kyra,

I guess I joined while you were gone. It's nice to make your acquaintance. May I offer my .02?

Rikki's comments, as usual, are excellent.

Except in a few cases, I am skeptical about trying to quit cold turkey. That, purging, and continuing to *suppress* the desire are, in a broad sense, violent acts. This violence, it seems to me, only necessitates the eventual resurgence of female tendencies to balance the psyche.

Human nature is not such that you can very easily or very well get people to stop desiring pleasure. God made us pleasure-seeking creatures. In fact, we seek God because of pleasure. There is nothing wrong with that. God feels pleasure in loving us! So if one were to quit, it seems like that this could best be done by discovering greater pleasure in not crossdressing, if that is possible.

You tried to quit cold turkey, and it didn't work. No biggie. The worst responses would be to (1) let that upset you in any way, or , worse still, (2) feel like, "okay, I tried quitting and that didn't work, now things are really hopeless."

(2) is a form of either-or thinking: either I must give up this desire, or I must accept it 100%. Maybe what is better is a different kind of acceptance: "I accept that part of my life process is to deal with my transgenderism. Maybe it is here to teach me something. Maybe everybody has a life issue. Maybe, in fact, everybody's life issue is basically the same, they just express it in slightly different ways."

Know thyself! If anything can help you quit, it is understanding why you have the desire. Dressing, with a sincere desire to understand yourself better, seems more than reasonable.

Cathy

[Anita]

Crossdressing is such an odd animal! We have all been part of these discussions--is crossdressing an addiction? Is it a compulsion? Well, it has some characteristics that at times seem to fit both those descriptions.
Yet at base it's a benign activity, that doesn't physically harm anyone.
There is no other activity that I can ever think of that quite matches CDing in its complexity and bafflement.

When I say "benign," I know there are at least two members here who wish it would just "go away." And many SOs would say that. I won't dispute it can have negative impacts on marriages, and it can be part of destructive ways of living. But it isn't inherent in the act of crossdressing, that these things happen.

I'm not attacking CDing here at all. I personally have benefited from it, as I've said before. I did not enter this world willingly, at all! But since I was much older than the norm when it really affected me, I already knew the "violence" (to quote Cathy) that would happen if I tried to fight it.

We don't like the idea of being out of control of our lives, and crossdressing sometimes takes us into that very uncomfortable zone! But I choose see the positive side of this in the CDers who are around me, both here and where I live. It does bring out beneficial parts of us, that would never have happened any other way. I will continue to focus on these, while still helping with the problems that do come up.

[Kyra]

Hi Cathy,
Nice to meet you too. (and I like your avatar )
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I don't mind at all. In fact I welcome the response. I never thought of purging as a violent act, but now that you've mentioned it I agree.

I'm not surprised that things ended up the way they did for me. This was not my first time at quitting. (Possibly not my last, either) But I had hoped with earnest that this would work. Why? Not for my sake. I've pretty much accepted who I am, what I am, and where I am. I wanted it to work for my wife. I hated to see her unhappy, and for a while she was. I was partly to blame. Oh sure, there were other things that added to the stress, but dealing with what I dumped on her just made things very difficult. Looking back, my 'solution' was ill fated from the start.

Hey Anita,
Girl, I totally agree with you. A strange beast indeed. If only the rest of the world could understand us.

I'm feeling much better about myself. Mostly due to this forum. Just being able to talk to my friends again is so comforting.

to all of you!

Hugs,
Kyra

P.S. - some good does come from purging... A new wardrobe!

[Violet]

Also I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Kyra. I am glad to hear that you seem to have come to some sort of terms with your need, and no longer feel the need to amputate your personality. Also that your relationship has become stronger for this episode as opposed to being weakened. It takes a strong woman to accept such an unexpected surprise. Finally, I am greatly impressed that you have found a way to integrate your faith and your selfhood, both in finding a counselor who can reflect both of these aspects, and in your own being. It is a rare Xian who can find the spiritual strength to love instead of judge (for all that that's IMO one of the foundational ideals of X's teachings) and to reverse the social conditioning that leads to self-hatreds and bigotry. I feel that Xians who are able to confront all of the deceptions and absurdities of their religion's dogmas and remain strong in their faith are the only ones who truly deserve to bear their saviour's name.