Musings from my everyday life...

I include the opening remarks to Anne's new book without commentary:

"One day, around 1987 or 1988, I spent the afternoon in a reference room of the Robarts
Library of the University of Toronto. I was trying to find a word—or failing that, to
invent one—to denote a phenomenon I had gradually apprehended during clinical
interviews with many biologically male patients interested in sex reassignment surgery.
That phenomenon was the tendency of certain males to become erotically aroused by
the thought or image of themselves as females. The word I finally invented, after fruitless
searching through various kinds of dictionaries, was autogynephilia . I could
scarcely have imagined, on that long-ago day in that quiet room, that I would be writing
the Foreword to a complete book on the subject 25 years later.

My early writings on autogynephilia were published in specialty journals with
limited circulations. They were intended for a small readership of clinicians who
specialized in th…

Why suffer? Indeed that is a good point and I think I have addressed it in many of my blog posts.

Firstly, to address AQV’s comment, a 3 year old cannot be a paraphilic so this is one of the main reasons I absolutely refuse to buy into the autogynephilia arguments that Blanchard and Lawrence use to explain late transitioning non homosexual transsexuals. I, as a very young child, had a connection to something which was innate and natural to me and it won’t be cheapened with sexual arguments of paraphilias and target error. That’s a blind alley which does not compute with me at all and never will. Whatever the source of my gender confusion, it is not grounded in abnormal sexuality akin to pedophilia or sadomasochism – sorry. The research backs me up in that all transsexuals fantasize about feminization whether they admit it or not and the tendency in front of therapists has been to deny or downplay this aspect in order to appear more legitimately suited for transition. I am 100% with J…

I received a series of comments from Robyn P, AQV, Marian and Pat that had me reflecting today and yesterday. Thank you all.

I know I take everything much too seriously and am the worst kind of self critic. It is my nature.

How does one come to terms with their transgender nature and make it work for them? This is my challenge. The internal conflict has been showing up in my blog postings as I go through my thought process of how to settle into a comfort level with my gender identity.

On the one hand I enjoy every minute of my time as Joanna. The guilt is gone and I can bask in the internal peace that it brings. On the other hand I am still conflicted of how that new reality of feeling should find a practical and permanent role in my life.

This conflict sometimes has me thinking I must choose one life over the other; ie. live as a woman or live as a man. Shit or get off the pot because you can’t do both. But isn’t that what being transgender is? Having a foot in each camp in some sens…

Perhaps clarificatons are in order.

I am not a casual crossdresser. I have a rather advanced case of GID and as Anne Vitale and others agree its not about anything else other than gender disphoria. By their definitions I am a transsexual because I suffer from GID and have for my entire waking existence.

I was attracted to girls from the age of puberty but was sensitive, intelligent, creative, shy and a bit of a loner. Sure I do not fit the androphilic early transitioner model that some people refer to as a classic transsexual.

Plenty of people like me have transitioned: Jan Morris, Kate Bornstein, Chloe Prince, Anne Lawrence, Kay Brown, Jennifer Boylan.....the list goes on. All of them have lives as women; whether successful or not I can't say but they didn't transition for fun. Whether you label them transitioned AGPers or not it does not affect their daily reality so it becomes almost a moot point at this stage.

But I do not base my destiny on other people.

I struggle e…

It is no longer much of a mystery to me that I am actually a repressed transsexual. I have come to this conclusion very slowly and very deliberately and I now know it to be true. The only question that remains is what if anything to do about it on a practical level.

Kay Brown, an advocate for the Blanchard model, defines an autogynephilic transsexual thusly:

“The prototypical autogynephilic transsexual was accepted as a boy as a child.  She was often a “loner”, finding her hobbies and reading to be more rewarding, but still willing and ready to participate in rough & tumble play.  She often envied girls and observed them more often than most masculine boys.  As she entered puberty, she began erotic cross-dressing in private, often masturbating while dressed, usually with lingerie.  She found this shameful and hid her cross-dressing as best she could.  She entertained thoughts of living as a woman, often in very idealized situations.  As a young adult, she dated women, often findin…

It’s funny how I am becoming more emotional these days. Everything has been magnified.

I cry more easily but I also anger more easily. But it’s not anger from internal rage or depression it’s just that life tastes fuller to me because I experience it with a fuller palette which is available to me now.

When you have disphoria it’s like living life under a cloud which dampens everything. Simply dealing with it in more concrete ways has made all the difference in the world to me.

The freedom to cross dress without shame or guilt has freed me as a person and literally saved my life. The pressure to limit myself was simply too much to bear for all those decades. Eventually something had to give and, ironically, it ended up being a stroke which became my saving grace.

So everything tastes fuller and better and now I can concentrate on living life to the fullest.

The initial need for co dependence which I was experiencing after my break up with N is finally gone. I now realize more than eve…

Robyn P sent me some comments so I thought I would address some of them in this blog entry:

I try and analyse how I feel when I am out as Joanna. I try to put my finger on why I want to present as a woman and why I enjoy it so completely.

There is comfort and there is joy and it’s undeniably a positive experience for me. Yes I enjoy the clothing: the earrings, the heels but there is more to it than that; and certainly more than a sexual experience.

I don’t think it rests in my having had a bad childhood either. I had a normal childhood with loving parents who encouraged me to behave as a boy. I don’t recall being dressed up or emasculated in any way. I always felt an affiliation to the feminine although I was not effeminate per se. I knew how to behave as a boy but I was more sensitive than most boys.

I am an artistic person and there is a creative aspect to creating a feminine presentation.

Why do I need to present as a female when I am her and she is me? Because part of feeling fe…

Living alone really does have its advantages.

You get to do things when you want and how you want to do them. You grab meals when you want (with less prep time and clean up) and you can pick up or drop something at a moment's notice. You are on your own timeline.

There's also a lot of time to think.

You reflect on what you want to do with the rest of your life. What your goals and aspirations are and what you really value going forward. You get to truly know yourself.

Had I not had this opportunity, I would not have been able to heal my damaged psyche. What I thought was already repaired, was actually still very much in need of tending to.

I also get to truly decide how much of my life spent as Joanna is important to me. What is my balance point and will I want to live full or part time.

Without the solitude, I would not be able to truly reflect on these things and so I am grateful for what I thought I would be afraid to experience. Fear has been replaced with curiosity …

There’s no more origin analysis left to be done. Once you have eliminated the guilt and shame there is only management left.

I am no longer interested in the source of my disphoria because I realize that it can only now become a futile academic exercise which, in this particular case, has very little to go on in terms of hard evidence.

As I learn to adapt to my new life both as a single person and an accepting transgender person, I am finding with the passage of time some peace finally settling in.

The last 9 months have brought me much gut wrenching self analysis. I have often talked aloud to myself during this period; wrestling with both my emotions and my intellect. There has been some “why me” self pity but along with that much needed growth.

The fog of denial that we live with daily invariably stunts our growth. In the absence of truly facing the truth there is a constant hurt and confusion and loss of self esteem which perceived failure often brings. If you are to blame for how…

Yesterday I was at the local mall getting a couple of things when one of the girls employed at the luggage shop stopped me in my tracks. I have seen her smile at me before and I had greeted her a couple of times in the past. This time she smiled again and I stopped to comment on how nice the day was.

She smiled and leaned over and said “do you mind if I tell you something?”

I responded “not at all please go ahead”

“I think you’re really cute and so much more feminine than regular women. My cousin works at the food court and she also finds you very cute!”

For a second I was taken aback since I know I pass with the other ladies I deal with in the mall but apparently not with her and her cousin. In the past I might have tried to cover up and say she was mistaken and that I was a woman or take offense and blush but this time I smiled right back and said to her:

“Thank you so much you are so nice”

I then proceeded to give her the shortest possible mini education on transgender people; bas…

Brilliant analysis and writing and more evidence that we should not be looking at transsexual classes but instead only gender disphoria period! thanks Anne! (this is my last post from her brilliant site):

"It is with dismay that I continue to encounter individuals with gender identity issues using the terms Primary and Secondary Transsexualism as diagnostic indicators. The terms show up repeatedly in Internet chat rooms, in the Internet news groups, in my email, and by individuals presenting to me in my private practice. The individuals who self-identify as Primary Transsexuals are usually using the term to mean that they are "Benjamin Type VI, true transsexuals." Those who self-identify as Secondary Transsexuals are usually trying to diminish their condition and to find some way to deal with their gender dysphoria without having to face the possibility of transitioning. As we shall soon see, neither term has ever had anything to do with severity or prognosis. There is n…