how would you describe CDing to a community?

[Kathy]

I love your letter, CJ. Very well written and spoken.

I'm sure it would play well in a university newsletter or a magazine such as Vogue.

But in USA Today, people would never get past the first stanza. They'd have to think too hard to understand it.

[Lorna]

I'm afraid I'm too blunt these days . . . I'm not even sure we need to explain "what and why" because we just "are." besides, I think one of these days society will no longer have a check-off box for "sex" -- enough people will begin to realize its as stupid as the former requirment of people to indicate what their race is. This needless classification of humans gave others a reason to discriminate. Only when gender doesn't need explaining or classifying, we'll really be free.

Here here!!

Plus I like your bluntness... don't ever lose that.

[Rebecca]

Hi Girls,

An excellent idea. I haven't got any direct input as yet, but have thought of a couple of points worth considering.

When I used to go on stage with my dad, he would say "Don't educate them, entertain them". With that in mind, I think the average person reading an article could very easily fall into the 'them and us' scenario if they felt threatened. By that I mean challenging what they have decided is right or wrong. If we can see deeper on a subject, we don't want to scare them off. I suggest trying to find a way of giving people something to relate to, empathise with, even a little humour etc, etc... win them over.

My thought is, we should let this run a while till we have a good sounding of all ideas and then begin to sift through. I would love to feel we did something special and not rushed into it too quickly.

Sounds a great idea
Love Rebecca xxx

[Alexandra]

Here here!!

Plus I like your bluntness... don't ever lose that.

thanks Lorna!

[Tea Cake]

My voice-----could be the voice of your best friend, your buisness partner, your husband or just a stranger that passes you by on the street.

My voice is the voice of 5% of our community's population.

It might suprise you to know who I am. The things I've accomplished and the style that I live my life might leave you with no idea.

This part of me----that includes me in a unique 5% part of our community----has been a challenge for me to understand.

Although I did not chose this aspect of my personality ----I have chosen to try and discover where it leads and what it can teach me about being a whole human-being.

I am 5% of our community's population and being in a minority has taught me the value of tolerence.


The 5% I belong to know how .
to value the support that we can give each other---


sometimes by just simply
accepting someone who is very different from ourselves.


Think about what you say and how your attitudes are----whoever you are speaking to ---your best friend, your buisness partner, your husband, or just a stranger on the street----might be a part of the same 5% of our population that really do believe in world peace.

There are very interesting things to be learned about this. Like all learning, it must be approached while realizing first what you don't know. You might be suprised what you can learn about your selves from us.

Like how Freedom only exists with the outward acceptence of others. Freedom in this community is all of our responsibility.

The 5% of the population I belong to are VERY good at living up to this part of freedom . Are you?


------------------------------------------------------ --Tc

[CJ]

Great post, Tea-Cake! Would that the 5% were more the 95%!

Love,
CJ

[VickiCD]

Excellent post Tea-cake.


Who we are.

I am a man.
The differences ring out far and near.
Yet we only hear the echoes of where our place in society starts and ends.
Boundaries set by color, sexual preference and race, I hide my tears and face.

Ashamed of my individuality, I search for something odd something different a chance to end the rage, how much will it take to stop the hate?

We walk in disbelief of what we really are, scared by our denial of what we've done and who we are, disgraced by the color of our face, we play make believe.

Lost souls, lost lives taken in a great storm, cast down by war and hunger
we think we are supreme, we are nothing.

Do you know who we really are? Of flesh and blood we are the same. Only my true appearance as that of a woman is tame.

Walking with the knowing, that a great day will arise, when we fall down on our knees and whisper, "Why"?

Love

VickiCD

[NicoleL]

Great thread, Tea-cake! But I have to admit that I haven’t given the idea much thought before now (you’re making me think Tea-cake, and as often as not, that leads me into trouble!) I’ll cast my vote with Elizabeth’s excellent letter. It addresses the points I would consider important directly and clearly. On a personal level, however, my response is much more in line with Alexandra’s.
For the life of me, I can’t think of a more benign and harmless activity that a man can engage in than cross-dressing, although I can certainly think of many more activities that people openly engage in on a daily basis that are genuinely harmful to others…. and they want me to answer for something as innocent as the clothing/make-up I wear!?!?

I don’t think so.

[Lorna]

That's just beautiful, Tea cake! I wish I could articulate myself that beautifully...

[Elizabeth]

Tea-Cake,

That was outstanding, I love the continuing theme. How well thought out. Very much describes my plight. Thanks for this thread.

Vicky,

Your poetic grace just blows me away. I have never been poetic, so I appreciate it when it applies to me.

CJ,

Your writing style makes it apparent you are adept in your ability convey an idea in the most precise and beautiful way. However, you are way over the heads of most americans who are lucky to read at the third grade level, which is what I believe most major news media shoot for. For my sake, our sake, please don't stop being you, and continue to dawn us with your beautiful style and insight.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Kersten Lee]

This is not a submission for the letter.

This is very difficult for me. All my life, I have normally gravitated to minority views. The minority view changes worlds. All religions, all countries, all major real or theoretical discoveries, I believe originate in a minority supposition or belief. As the minority grows in strength, if valid,
it eventually becomes the majority until shaken from below by another hated minority voice.

When the deeply thought out and fighting minority cross over to the majority, the lazy and less intelligent hangers on gravitate to be part of the majority. They must belong to the and believe in the majority. Obviously the majority must be right. Right?

It is one of the saving qualities of this country that the minority is continually becoming the majority. The last election would have destroyed lesser peoples and countries. Absolute power always corrupts. The minority original thinkers on either side of a subject help us all to remain in a precarious balance.

All of you people here are the most thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate, and interesting people of any that I have known. We are a most wonderful group of people to take up space on this planet. We have great discussions on huge and widely varied subjects. In my life, only my wife, my therapist and a close personal female friend, can I talk to freely and consider wonderful ideas.

I have to admit I must not be the greatest saleman for minority ideas. I don't believe in my fifty one years have I ever converted anyone to my
crusade unless they already wanted to go there.

I do hope this project does help people in pain and suffering like I was. For myself only, I feel I do more in the public vain by getting my nails polished with the woman and girls and displaying toes and shopping and talking to strangers about myself when in male clothes. I hope that I get the confidence to go out dressed more than every 3 or 4 months. I find I have made a lot of friends by being myself and being honest.

I think cross-dressers will always be a minority and I am very happy to be counted with this group.

I loved all the drafts so far. I liked CJ's line to the effect, I wish you luck in figuring out me and wish you success in knowing yourself. I hope that wasn't a bad paraphrase, CJ.

Hugs and kisses,
Kersten

[Virginia]

All I can say right now is, you girls are marvelous!!!!!
Love ya,
Deborah

[Loretta Ann]

Hi all,

I meant to get around to this thread earlier, but didn't until now, I don't know that much can be said that hasn't been already said, So I will not add anything here. What I will do is start another thread where we might be able to get some measurement of the success of the ideas put forth here.

[NicoleL]

I’m going to resist my inclination to view people in general through the lens I created in response to the small number of genuinely nasty people in the world (see my previous post in this thread for an example of my-version-of–that-tendency). When I go out dressed and made-up, it can be a bit surprising to people, and it’s sometimes all I can do to resist my tendency to react defensively to their usually-obvious struggle to figure out how to deal with an oddball like Nicole.
I once had to go into an auto parts store made up en androgyne… with make-up. The clerk was visibly upset. “Oh my god, this is f***in weird” he said, staring at the floor in front of him. He wouldn’t even look at me. After a moment I said “ya, it is, isn’t it?”. Then he chuckled just a little, lifted his head and looked me in the eye with a crooked grin on his face. So compelling was his grin that I had to respond in kind. He completed our transaction giving no sign that anything was out of the ordinary. I pocketed my change, and as I picked up the bag he looked me in the eye again. “Take care, man” he said. Care indeed.
People are people. The people around us want their difficulties-in-the-moment accepted and acknowledged as much as we do. They are just as fragile and battle-weary as we are. Since they seek acceptance just as much as we do, I suggest that we give it to them, allow them to think what they want, so long as they’re reasonably polite.
If we want to be part of the community, we can do it much more effectively by creating that community ourselves, rather than insisting on inclusion with convincing arguments. If we give the people around us the acceptance that they crave, we may well end up a part of a community much larger and more diverse than we imagined possible. It could include such unlikely folk as the banker, the grocer, and maybe even the guy behind the counter at the auto parts store. Care in-deed.

-Nicole.

[Tea Cake]

Nicole,

THat in an excellent post on community...and how such simple interactions in our lives can mean so much.
---------THanks!------Tea-cake