Trannys of the world realise that Transsexuals represent a real threat to your identity. I know it’s an eye catcher but people are getting us so mixed up, but in reality we are worlds apart. This applies even more so in recent months because there has been an explosions of Transgendered stories in the media. The acceptance of the TS had now moved over the Tipping Point. They are now a hot topic, which I am sorry to say we will never be! People such as Caitlin Jenner, Laverne Cox and Kelly Maloney have all hit the headlines and their bank accounts by coming out and exposing their lives to the assembled media. As a result they can get their story across that says ‘I was born a man but have always wanted to be a woman’. This is an easy concept to grasp and explain, however our Tranny narrative is much much more complicated and difficult to get communicate.
How do we explain to people who have never experienced the feelings we get when we are completely transformed for the first time. How can you say to someone it juts feels/felt so right. Its innate to me. I am in a frame of mind that allows a hidden side (my so-called feminine or femme side) to emerge and I feel so calm, relaxed and yes, sexy when in this vogue.
Susie my partner who runs the Chateau Femme dressing service likens it to the times when as a teenager she felt such a transformation of herself when she put on adult clothes, make-up and heels. In effect she was no longer a child. She says she felt so different and sexy. This was part of her becoming a woman. It felt so right to the ‘new woman’. I can identify with some of that but you have to add the layers of sexuality and the complete release from the restricting bonds of maledom for a short period of time are also part of that high.
I have alluded in my previous blogs about sexuality and what it means. In this case it does not mean that you are dressing for erotic purposes, though many do get turned on (this is called Transvestic Fetishism), nor is it about your sexual orientation. What I mean by sexuality is the capacity for you to move down a female route that can blur the male and female sides of our personality. Yes of course we can have sex in girl form but that does not necessarily relate to our inherent gender which to Transvestites tends to be Male Plus (or should that be Male Minus) and this does change your sexual perspective.
However to say the words ‘sexual perspective’ immediately implies a Tranny has changed their sexual orientation and this is where the understanding of the Tranny goes soooo wrong! Yes I would agree that we become more playful and that our attitude to both sexes is not black and white but inside us is a fun-loving person that somehow, through a different look, is allowed us to approach life in general with a much more open attitude. It is as if somebody took the shackles of the ordinary day folk off us and allowed us to examine and experiment with the whole gamut of experience. We like the blurred lines between male and female but only for a short time.
Because we in effect are ‘Gender Queer’ and fairly fluid (almost schizophrenic) in our persona it is very difficult for us to be understood or accepted. Society likes to put people into boxes Male and Female. In particular TS’s even tend to look at TV’s as a lesser being than they are. You are not a real woman like me! The problem is their issues are with gender but yours relate to a temporary change of mindset and the two are rarely good bedfellows! We queer the pitch for TS’s in what they see as their struggle for acceptance. They feel, with their recent acceptance, that we are now hanging on their coat tails, when in effect there are so many more TV’s than TS’s and they were quite happy to join with us before they gained their own identity. I don’t think we really seek acceptance in the way they do, we are looking for appreciation of how we look, because tomorrow we will be Bob again. Our dressing actually gives us a much stronger personal identity than that grey-haired man in the corner of the pub with the half of lager. We get noticed and we enjoy the acknowledgement and ultimately the fun of pushing this barrier!
Oops just re-read all that and realised its sounding like a psychology degree thesis. What I am trying to say is that it’s not really clear why we dress and where the motivation comes from. Almost every Tranny I know has different reasons for doing and a different route they arrived at dressing. But the one thing most of us have is that from time to time it is an incredibly strong motivating factor in our lives and we are constantly seeking a new experience
As you know I have been a member of several TV groups as well as seeing the many TVs that come through Chateau Femme. The vast majority of girls come here because they have an innate want to dress as it releases another side to their persona. Dressing gives them a new lease on life, a different perspective that allows them to be someone different for a short, fun period of time. They love that change of mindset that allows them to look at life from a different sexual perspective. They can relax more, they feel more in tune with themselves by casting off the expectations of society on what a man has to be. Because they are being nonconformist in their nature they do not have to adopt society’s social moires, instead they can be themselves. For some like me they like both the boy and the femme side and endeavour to keep them quite distinct. For others they start to take on more and more of the femme side into the male world and create a type of androgen that allows them have a certain harmony between the two sides.
I am also convinced this desire gets stronger as we age and our testosterone levels decline so a different balance of male and female hormones exist in our bodies. I also maintain as we get older the work/life balance changes, the kids fly the coop, we become more objective about life and don’t worry so much about society thinks. We realise we have been depriving ourselves of something and want to try a new route. So we take stock and realise this is something we have put off that we need to try. For many this embarks them on a roller-coaster ride that is full of fun, anxiety and intense personal analysis. At the end of all this turmoil we tend to come out and say ‘THIS IS ME’ like it or not. To some this acceptance takes many years to others the first time they dress it says everything. From there some do go down the TS route realising that is another layer for them or that purely they just feel better living as a woman instead of the high social pressure of conformity to the male world. For others its just a great bit of fun. TS’s are in turmoil we are party animals.
The TV is a player, a fun lover who just enjoys the pastime of being the girl. In its early stages you can see that teenager who likes to experiment with aspects of their sexuality. It can push you down routes that you may initially see as fun but ultimately realise are not you. There are a lot of dead ends in this voyage of self-discovery.. A TS tends to know where her ultimately goal is. The TV is constantly striving to find out why they are like they are, constantly asking questions, trying new things and exploring infinite possibilities thrown up by the femme side. For the TS it’s a real-time change they desperately want to be. For the TV its a real buzz to explore new horizons and new experiences, to boldly go….! (By the way that is the most famous split infinitive) It’s a war of two very, very different types of people who appear on the surface to be similar but deep down are worlds apart.
The worst thing for a TV is that so many TS’s start as a TV or with a TV group only to disown the ‘girls’ she met as friends because she feels that now they are not genuinely like her and are not part of ‘normal society’ I have seen it on too many occasions and it hurts that people we befriended helped and trusted now kick us in the teeth. We TV’s hate this and feel let down as we helped someone down their path but are now rejected for being freaks or disingenuous. So girls stand up for the TV and make sure you say I am a Transvestite not Transgendered! But our time will never come…hurrah!
Some do it very quickly, for others it takes a couple of days for that change of mindset. For some it’s the wig for others its shoes we all have different drives but there is no doubt when dressed we find ourselves in a altered state of heightened excitement which as the years progress becomes much more internalised than that thing in your pants! For some of us however this desire of being physically turned-on never goes away. This is the core reason why many dress and this can lead to an altered state of sexuality that we would never have in boy mode. This allows us to fulfil fantasies that we would otherwise leave in our minds, it somehow gives us permission to experiment behind the mask of the girl. For a lot of us this is where we stop and allow ourselves just to enjoy this for what it is.
Tara's Transvestite Blog 