I ended yesterday‘a post with a question: if I can find joy in just occasionally seeing myself as a woman, why would I want to upset my whole life and go through the emotional and physical pain of transitioning?
Is this a good question? Or is it just my protective brain once again trying to prevent me from taking a risky step? Could be both?
Assuming it is a valid question to ask myself, what are the arguments for not transitioning?
I have managed to live my life with my secret for decades and I am fine. When I do get to dress femme, I like it and it brings me happiness, and occasionally real joy. Real life is mundane and I am sure that dressing female all the time will not bring me perpetual joy and happiness, it will just be my normal. With suitable underwear and the right style of clothing, I can achieve the outward appearance of a female body shape and look pretty good (mainly thanks to the advantage of height relative to size). I don’t need hormones or surgery to do this, I am doing it already. I can do little things in secret to help me feel a little feminine without anyone else noticing. There is no need for me to take any drastic steps or come out to anyone with all the consequences that would bring.
Is that my best option then? Don’t be trans, don’t come out, just cross dress and keep it secret.
I suppose that could be the answer if all this is about is appearing and feeling feminine for myself.
If that is all that matters in this, then occasionally cross dressing and a few feminising touches is enough for me. Isn’t it?
Actually, I’ve just realised that I’m not having any new thoughts here at all, this is just me going back around the whole “am I trans enough?” loop yet again! How many times am I going to keep doing this?! Argh!!!
Sorry to waste your time dear Reader.
Right, let’s try to salvage some point out of this post.
Because occasionally being me in secret is not enough.
I felt absolute joy in seeing myself in the new dress and I was in a changing room cubicle with no one to share the moment with and then shortly afterwards I had to change to male clothing and go back to my normal life. That joy is too lonely. Going to see my friend was nice, but again a brief time and hidden away from view at her house. Nice but lacking in freedom.
If I am ever to be free to express myself and to be free to go out and live any kind of life as me, then I have to be out. Living in secret means either hiding away or risking discovery and neither is good.
Nor is wearing a dress, however pretty the dress may be, getting to experience living life as a woman. I long to be a woman not to merely look like a woman and that means experiencing being a woman.
Women think, feel and experience differently to men. Hormones would give me that, and there is no other way of accessing that experience.
Women also experience the world differently because of how society treats them and whilst a lot of that is bad (and I am fully aware that I have benefited from male privilege to get the life I have) it is only by being in the world as a woman and inhabiting that life full time that I will discover what that means (for good or bad).
I cannot deny that there is also a physical yearning. I want to experience what it is to have a female body and especially to go through the puberty, which was the time in my life when I first felt that I should be a girl. I can fake a female body shape with my padded bra and waist cincher but even if I think I look good, I know that it isn’t real and I’m just pretending. Faking it also doesn’t work for the beach, swimming or if I were ever to be romantic with someone en femme. There is only a male body there in reality and the illusion of femininity is broken when I take off the bra. So there are both emotional and practical reasons to take hormones. However, I do have to admit that the idea of having (and particularly developing) breasts is a big attraction and part of the dream. It is also a part of my fantasy landscape and this does worry me. If there is an element of wishing to have breasts because I fantasise about that, does that make it wrong and invalidate everything else? I think that’s a question for another day.
The question of reassignment surgery is multifaceted too. This, for me, doesn’t have a fantasy aspect but matters for emotional, practical and societal reasons. For me, it’s emotionally and psychologically important to be wholly female. It’s a bit like faking the figure with underwear; it may look like I’m a woman but I will know that I’m not. Assuming I do hormones and develop breasts, I can’t feel complete or that I’m a woman if I still have male parts. The practical reason is simple; male parts do not fit comfortably in female underwear and are obvious in things like swimwear and leggings. The societal reason is that I don’t believe that I can be accepted nor trusted as having the right to access female spaces if I have male parts. I know that isn’t universal but there are enough objectors out there for it to feel like an issue. For myself. I need to feel entirely female to fully be able to feel I have the right to be there too.
The social side is then the other important factor in why transition is needed and occasional cross dressing just isn’t enough for me. Put simply, I want to be one of the girls. I relate more to women but as a male, there is not quite the access all areas pass for female friendships. There are things that they won’t share with a man, understandably, and always at some level, an underlying suspicion of an ulterior motive. I could get past “you wouldn’t understand, being a man” if I were living full time as a woman; and the perception that all men are a threat to women would reasonably be countered by not having any male parts.
All things considered, there are many good reasons to transition over just doing what I’m currently doing. There are still doubts though.
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