Against the «common sense» of anti-rights groups (Part 1)

It is very common in anti-rights discourse to appeal to arguments whose authority lies, according to them, in “reality itself.” Thus, religious groups, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, libertarian conservatives, alternative right-wingers, liberals of dubious neutrality, and even orthodox leftists, invoke the apparently innocuous and incontestable mantle of common sense.

By guest writer Amilka González

Every time these groups obtain what they consider a small victory against the LGBTIQ population —that is, a setback in terms of human rights— and especially against the trans population, they cheer: Common sense has won! This is what happened recently in Spain with the reduction of LGBTI laws by the Government of the Community of Madrid —for a detailed approach to this situation, we recommend reading here , here and there .

Throughout the international arena where anti-rights groups strive to impose anti-rights rhetoric, the same script is repeated. The central point of their arguments is that common sense must necessarily be the guideline to follow when it comes to settling social disputes around sex and gender. And, according to them, their only interest here is to defend common sense and truth.

In this article we will try to answer several questions: What do these groups mean by common sense? In what ways can this elusive concept be understood in the context of science? What advantages or disadvantages would using common sense give us to resolve important differences in our societies? 

Let's see.

What is common sense? 

«Common sense is, as its name indicates, the unanimous feeling of the entire human race (...) of all times and all places, wise or ignorant, barbarian or civilized.» 

Amadeo Jacques. «Memory about common sense»

First of all, this is not a simple question and answering it in a non-superficial way is challenging. From a historical point of view, to get an idea of the magnitude of the issue, it is enough to know that common sense has been attempted to be defined many times since ancient times —and maybe, since very distant galaxies. 

Gender variation, normalcy, "autogynephilia" and the culture war

I was talking to the transgender blogger Joanna Santos on WhatsApp the other day and we made some observations regarding generational shifts regarding the role of transphobic theories like "autogymephilia" in the lives of trans and gender variant people.

If we allow ourselves to generalize a bit we may say that the older generations (boomers and those 50+) have had to face several challenges:

1. The oppression and shaming that is associated with such theories, when used in politics and public spaces.
2. The way these theories can be used by family and friends.
3. The way these narratives easily become internalized, leading to shame, suppression of transgender dreams, fear, anger and depression.

The younger generation, and especially Gen Z and the Millenials, more often face only one of these three:

1. The oppression and shaming that is associated with such theories, when used in politics and public spaces.

The right wing and TERF backlash against transgender rights makes this remaining bullet-point painfully visible right now, but as Joanna pointed out to me, young people today get their gender affirmed by those who matter: Friends and family. 

A new culture for the young

Younger cis people may not fully understand what being trans means, but are more likely to have grown up in a cultural setting where you respect and accept the identities of others, and where marginalized groups are to be included and not ostracized.

On our post on people's interest in transgender erotic content

Earlier this month we posted an article on the increasing interest in transgender "erotic entertainment".

This triggered Blogspot (on which platform this blog is published) to add a warning screen regarding problematic content. 

We suspect Google, who owns Blogger,  is not able to distinguish between pornographic content and articles about such content.

We take no chances regarding out search engine rankings and have therefore moved the article to another platform. 

You can read the article here.

While you are here, we will use this opportunity to remind you of our social transgender news curation channels. Get a daily dose of up to date transgender news via one of these accounts: Follow: Twitter | Telegram | Flipboard | Mastodon

Site map for Transgender World..Image by Midjourney

Transgender people, evolution and sexual mimicry

 Are trans and queer behaviors examples of "sexual mimicry"? 

Anonymous asked me the following over at tumblr:

"Sexual mimicry occurs when one sex mimics the opposite sex in its behavior, appearance, or chemical signalling. It is more commonly seen within invertebrate species, although sexual mimicry is also seen among vertebrates such as spotted hyenas. Sexual mimicry is commonly used as a mating strategy to gain access to a mate, a defense mechanism to avoid more dominant individuals, or a survival strategy."

Thoughts?

Gender variance in the animal kingdom

The concept of sexual mimicry is an attempt by some evolutionary biologist to explain gender variance in the animal kingdom.

I know of many female dogs who will gladly hump a bitch in heat. Heck, they may even embrace a human leg in order to get attention or whatever it is female dogs try to achieve by this kind of behavior. It might not be sexual at all in that context. 

The DSM-5 updates its gender/transgender vocabulary in a positive way, but "autogynephilia" remains

The American psychiatric manual, the DSM-5 (now called DSM-5-TR) has revised the chapter on gender dysphoria. The main changes reflects a more on target and respectful language for describing gender variance. 

• The term “desired gender” is now “experienced gender.“
• The term “cross-sex medical procedure” is now “gender-affirming medical procedure.”
• The term “natal male”/“natal female” is now “individual assigned male/female at birth.”

It seems to me that the doctors writing this chapter are both willing and able to have a constructive dialog with trans people.

I am not saying that the gender dysphoria  text is perfect. Why on earth they continue to use the term “disorders of sex development” for intersex people, given the history of “gender identity disorder”, is beyond me. They did at least include the term “differences of sex development” as an alternative.

You can read the revised introduction to the DSM-5-TR gender dysphoria chapter here. 

Autogynephilia remains

What they have failed to do is to remove the “autogynephilia” diagnosis from the paraphilia chapter. 

The inclusion of this pseudo-scientific term is extremely unfortunate, and reflects the influence of Ray Blanchard on the DSM-5 process. The term is actively used by anti-trans activists to invalidate trans women. Indeed, Blanchard himself is actively helping TERFs and right wing extremist spread their transphobic gospel.

Why are trans people trans? Part 2 ( A Look at Well Known Narratives)

In part 1 of this article I explained why we need to look into what makes transgender people trans. In this part I discuss some of the most influential theories and explain why I think one of them is better than all the others.

The theories attempting to explain trans identities

 I will focus on the four of the most dominant scientific models found during the last 150 years or so:

1. The Rainbow Model
2. The Body Trap Model
3. The Psychodynamic Model
4. The Two Type Inversion Model

There is also a wide research field addressing gender roles and gender identities in the social sciences and the humanities. Gender studies have, for instance, contributed greatly to our understanding of gender variance. 

But that tradition is most often based on a given acceptance of transgender identities, and is more interested in explaining the way social systems lead to oppression based on gender. It rarely considers the interplay between biology, culture and psychology, which I suspect is the primary concern of Tailcalled, who invited me to this discussion, so I will not describe it here. 

That sort of thinking has greatly influenced my reading of the science of gender and transgender identities, though.

The Rainbow Model

The dominant model for explaining transgender identities these days is what I will call the Rainbow Model. It is a non-reductionistic model, in the sense that it does not reduce sex and gender to a simplistic biological sex binary or one single factor of origin.

Modern research has uncovered a mind-boggling complexity as regards  the development of biological sex, both as applies to the development of the body (both prenatally and after birth) and the formation of a conscious gender identity.

The Autogynephilia Theory Debunked by New German Study

The autogynephilia theory of Ray Blanchard has been part of the transgender discussion since the late 1980s. It is currently being aused by anti-transgender activists in order to undermine the legitimacy of transgender identities. A new German study proves – again –  that the theory has no foundation in reality.

If autogynephilia theory is a completely new concept for you, you might want to read the following  short summary of what it is all about. If you already know the theory, you can skip the next part.

A very short introduction to Ray Blanchard's theory about the two types of transgender women

Blanchard's two type theory on transgender women and MTF crossdreamers has its root in the late 19th century idea that gay men and lesbian women are "inverts".  According to this way of thinking a gay man has a female sexuality and a lesbian woman has a male sexuality. This is why, the story goes, all gay men are effeminate and all lesbian women are butch.

This isn't true, obviously, but it was a neat and simple to understand model. Transgender women were extremely effeminate gay men and transgender men were extremely masculine lesbian women.

This is the basis of Blanchard's category of "homosexual transsexuals" (HSTS). Trans women who love men are gay men who try to seduce straight men by presenting as women.

The people who came up with this model  faced one serious challenge, though. There were transgender women who loved women.

They attempted to solve this problem by focusing on the crossdressing of these "men". So the "transvestites" where straight men who got turned on by dressing up in female clothing – a  parallel to a fascination for rubber and leather, if you like. They were therefore put in the same category as other sexual perversions ("paraphilias" in the current lingo).

Blanchard still  thinks that both gay and trans people are mentally ill, but trans women who love women (including those he calls "pseudo-bisexual") are doubly so. Unlike the androphilic (man-loving) trans women, they are basically in love with the image of their inner female self, as Blanchard sees it. They are suffering from an "erotic target location error". They are "auto-gyne-philiacs" (broken Greek for "self-woman-love").

This means that Blanchard is expanding  upon the traditional "transvestic fetishism" model: It is not the clothing that is the trigger anymore, but the idea of being or becoming a woman.

As you can see, the model rests on one very important premise: What causes the transgender identities in the two categories (HSTS vs autogynephiles) has to be completely different. These women will have to have nothing in common beyond the desire to live as women.

If there is overlap between the two, the model's explanatory power is lost. The gender identity of man-loving (androphilic) trans women can no longer be reduced to an effect of their sexual orientation. The gender identity of woman-loving (gynephilic) trans cannot be caused by a "erotic target location error". Instead you will have to identify another factor or factors that explain their gender variance.

The German study of "autogynephiliacs" and "HSTS"

The German researchers – Jelena S. Laube, Matthias K Auer, Sarah Biedermann, Johanna Schröder, Timo O. Nieder, Peer Briken, Johannes Fuss and Thomas Hildebrandt – have been taking Blanchard's theory very seriously.

In their paper "Sexual Behavior, Desire, and Psychosexual Experience in Gynephilic and Androphilic Trans Women: A Cross-Sectional Multicenter Study" (Journal of Sexual Medicine) they make use of new data provided by 189 gender dysphoric transgender women recruited at four transgender health care centers in Germany.

The majority of transgender and gender non-conforming people experience changes in sexual orientation

Over at Mel Magazine Calvin Kasulke writes about trans people who seem to change their sexual orientation after transitioning. Research indicates that more than half of trans and gender non-conforming people become attracted to new kinds of people  throughout their lifetime.

The traditional story in this respect is the one about the trans woman who is attracted to women pre-transitioning, but who become interested in men after transitioning. Kasulke, however, documents that trans men may also experience a change in the way they are attracted to other people.

Trans men who have previously been exclusively attracted to women (and have presented as lesbians) may, for instance,  find themselves attracted to men.

Kai, a 21-year-old student in D.C., used to identify as a lesbian — until they started testosterone. Ever since, Kai has retired their previously held lesbian identity, both because they no longer identify as a woman and because they’re experiencing attraction to men for the first time.

“I think maybe before I wasn’t giving myself the option to be attracted to queer men, but now because I’m more comfortable in myself, [my] gender and gender presentation, I’m allowing myself that possibility,” they write via Twitter DM.

A new US study of changes in people's attitude towards homosexuals, tells us how trans people may gain recognition and acceptance

In the US people's attitudes towards gay and lesbian people have changed dramatically, and in a positive way. It turns out it is much harder to dehumanize sexual variation when people meet gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the workplace or among friends. In other words: The more gay and lesbian people straight people have meet, the less likely they are to be homophobic. It is a fair guess that over time the same will apply to the attitudes towards trans people.

In 2004  polls showed that 60 percent of  Americans opposed same-sex marriage, while only 31 percent were in favor. Today  61 percent support same-sex marriage, while 31 percent oppose it.

Support for same-sex marriage has increased among nearly all demographic groups, across different generations, political and cultural divides and religious faiths.

In The Washington Post Samantha Schmidt argues  that the main reason for this reversal is that gay and lesbian people started to come out in great numbers. At the same time gay and lesbians became much more visible in the media.

On women who have sexual fantasies about being men

It turns out there are a lot of people assigned female at birth who have sexual fantasies about being a man.

Illustration by francescoch.

Last year I wrote a post about what the sexual fantasies of non-transgender people can tell us about crossdreamers and those who are some shade of transgender.

I documented that a lot of the fantasies that are used to invalidate the identity of trans women (and that are also found among many male to female crossdreamers) are actually quite common among non-transgender women.

And if these fantasies are found among cis women, they cannot be explained as a misdirected form of male sexuality when reported by  MTF crossdreamers and trans persons.

Do female to male crossdreamers exist?

Another myth of this kind is the one saying that there are no female to male crossdreamers. Women do not get turned on by the idea of being a man or having a man's body, the argument goes.

Post from a female to male crossdreamer from the reddit crossdreaming forum.
Republished with permission.

A relatively new collection of female sexual fantasies tells another story. The book, Garden of Desires, is a follow up to Nancy Friday's influential collections of such fantasies. Emily Dubberley, the editor, is the creator of Cliterati, a British fantasy website for women.

New research shows that gender variance does not follow sexual orientation

New research indicates that as many as one third of non-transgender people may dream about being or presenting as the opposite gender. Crossdreaming is common among both cisgender, gender diverse and transgender people. But is there a connection between cross-gender dreams and sexual orientation?

In my blog post on crossdreaming among non-transgender (cis) people, I presented the research of Daphna Joel and Roi Jacobson on gender identity and sexuality of trans, queer and cis (nontransgender) people. Their study shows that there is only a very weak correlation between sex, gender identification and sexual orientation.

According to this research it makes little sense to  divide trans and queer people into distinct categories based on their sexual orientation (as researchers like Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey do):

Sexual attraction was similarly characterized by a wide range of combinations of attraction to women and to men, from attraction to only one gender, to both genders, or to none. These findings replicate results from previous studies conducted on cisgender (Jacobson & Joel, 2018; Joel et al., 2013) and gender-diverse individuals (Joel et al., 2013) and extend them to transgender individuals.

Or let me phrase this differently: You can divide people into categories like "homosexual" versus "non-homosexual" if you want to, but those categories do not tell you much beyond the fact that some people are attracted to people of their own gender, while others are more flexible. These categories are too blurry and indistinct to be used to say anything about the their gender identity.

Crossdresser, Transgender, Bigender: In Search of an Explanation

A gender variant person explores their gender identity, their sexuality and what has made them who they are, with a special emphasis on being bigender.

By Guest Author Jemimah/Jeremy

Recently I bought my first reasonably lifelike wig. This, together with some good concealer I bought a little earlier, are my first steps towards creating an ‘en femme’ persona which is not laughable. Good – but is it taking me into a different world.

Two or three years ago, when I first realised that I was at least attracted by the idea of crossdressing, I wrote a rather wild note entitled ‘why me, why now’.

I now feel the need to do something more rational and try to work over the ideas which relate to where I am – which I think for the moment is bigender. Lots of wandering the web and reading books has provided lots of theories and opinions and probably most of it is covered somewhere on the Crossdreamers web site but I wanted to work it out myself.

Brain types

Also I wanted my understanding to be based on academic, or at least unemotional, sources.

Incels, Crossdreamers and Transgender Women

Natalie Wynn, also known as ContraPoints, has posted an interesting video about the relationship between incel culture and the way some crossdreamers and transgender people experience their lives.

Natalie Wynn, AKA ContraPoints

Unless you have been living under a cosy and warm rock for the last few years, you will know that incels, or "involuntary celibates", represents a sub-culture of seriously depressed and self-loathing men who think they are  inevitable losers in the game of love.

They think of themselves  as unattractive and pathetic "betas" who cannot beat the alpha-males regardless of much they try.

This is mostly because feminism has given women too much power, they say. The women can now go for the alpha-males, all the time. And if a woman does marry a "loser," she will always cheat on him with the mentioned alpha "Chad".

The return of skull measurements

All of this despair is sometimes mixed up with a pseudo-scientific philosophy based on old-fashioned phrenology and eugenics, where the shape of your skull tells you whether you are a winner or not.

The idea is that women are attracted to hypermasculine men with hypermasculine skulls. This understanding is based, I  suppose, on quasi-Darwinistic theories where masculine looks signal that the man is a protector with good genes. You know, in the way the male with the biggest tail is the coolest dude on the block in the world of peacocks.

This leads to a psychological no-win situation for those who believe they have a feminine, weak, skull. If this is the case, there seems to be literally nothing you can do to find true love and happiness. Your inferiority is inborn. End of story.

It is Time to Break the Vicious Circle of Transphobia

A look at how transphobia and homophobia cause male to female crossdreamers and transgender people to behave in ways that  confirm the prejudices of the narrow minded. It is time to break the vicious circle of transphobia.

The circle of transphobia is a circle, so you might start anywhere along it's curve, but let us for simplicity's sake start with childhood. In this presentation I will present a male to female crossdreamer and someone who has a clear female gender core (to use Felix Conrad's term). Much of the same applies to female to male crossdreamers and those who are somewhere in the non-binary and gender fluid parts of the gender continuum.

1. Childhood gender dissonance

A young male assigned gender variant child, will -- as the surrounding culture increasingly demands adherence to the expected roles of gender -- start to feel some kind of dissonance between what feels right and what parents, peers and friends expect.

As the kid learns the ins and outs of language, they may try to express this unease, buy telling their parents that they are not "really a boy" or by trying to express their dreams by other means, most likely through play. Preferring Barbies to toy guns has become a bit of a cliché in transgender narratives, but there is something to it.

Telling your Girlfriend About Being a Crossdresser or Crossdreamer

Last week I got an email from a male to female crossdreamer and occasional crossdresser who wondered what and how he could tell his girlfriend about his gender variance. 

Illustration: nuravectorgirl

His girlfriend had taken an open approach to his story, but was hesitant about the crossdressing. Now he was looking for ways of explaining his feelings to his girlfriend.

He is using male pronouns.

He also wondered if this crossdreaming would progress into something more, like in wanting to transition and live as a woman. At the moment he expresses no need to transition or dress publicly as a woman.

Here is my reply:

I wish I had a simple answer for you. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) there is so much variation among crossdreamers that it is hard to foresee what is going to happen in the future.

There are, as I see it, two main reasons for this:

1. Gender variance is a continuum, and whatever it is that triggers these dreams and desires come in different forms and intensity.

2. Some crossdreamers are on a journey. They gradually find out that they are somewhere else in that landscape than they originally thought. There is -- for obvious reasons -- a lot of repression going on.

There is a lot of variation among crossdressers and crossdreamers

I our survey of crossdreamers we found that 1/3 reported severe gender dysphoria (in the sense that they could be considered transsexual, and transitioning would be one possible solution).

I reckon that another 1/3 lives in what I have called the twilight zone, being some shade of non-binary or gender queer, while the final 1/3 feel comfortable in their assigned gender and their crossdreaming and crossdressing is more like a trait spicing up their life.

Tomboy or trans: The main misconceptions in the current transgender debate

On April 18 Lisa Selin Davis published an article in the New York Times called My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy.  She was clearly annoyed with the fact that some people think of her gender-nonconforming kid as transgender. Davis believes that her child is just that: non-conforming when it comes to gender roles.

Photo: Digital Vision

I have included some links to the following debate below.

Needless to say, TERFs and other transphobes have tried to use this article to argue that transgender activists are trying to turn perfectly normal cis kids into trans kids, and even entice them into transitioning.

There are even arguments about being trans becoming "trendy", which -- given the 40 percent attempted suicide rate among trans people -- is both stupid and insulting.

There are three fundamental misconceptions that drive this debate.

Transgender is not the same as transsexual

Davis and others seem to believe that the word transgender means transsexual, in the sense that a transgender person wants to -- or should -- transition and live as their target sex.

This is not what transgender means. Transgender is an umbrella term for all types of gender variance and have been so since the early 1990s. A tomboy (a girl that expresses stereotypical masculine traits or interests) is transgender by this definition.

On Quantum Desire and why we need a new sexology of gender variance

Felix Conrad pondering the sexuality of
gender variance.
(Photo: elwynn1130)

Felix Conrad, spiritual leader of the Transcend Movement and crossdreamer philosopher per excellence, has written a new book on sexuality and gender variance called Quantum Desire. 

Antonia has asked him a few questions.

ANTONIA: Is it really necessary you write another book on crossdreaming? What’s this...the hundredth?

FELIX: I’ll ignore that! Anyway..it’s the ninety eighth.. Yes...absolutely necessary. Most of my work has been about the seismic tremors of a transgender awakening: trying to understand why I feel that I’m a woman...how valid is that feeling... and how I can live with it? So, basically, they’re about transgender psychology. This book deals with gender variance as a sexological phenomenon.

ANTONIA: And why the change?

FELIX: It’s a question of survival really. The transgender crisis screwed with my mental health and I had to sort it out...and I sort my head out out by writing. Now that I’ve turned a corner with my gender issues I can write something that’s been on my ‘to do’ list for quite some time: a sexological analysis of crossdreaming.

Also, I think that one of the fascinating things I’ve discovered recently is that when I got on top of my gender issues I started to see my desire to change gender as more of a sexual thing. Now, I don’t want to overstate that...because I’ve been irrevocably changed by my transgender awakening - but something’s shifted. It’s this quality of gender variant sexuality that gave me the book’s title: Quantum Desire; as fucking crazy as this may sound...it seems that the way you observe our sexuality can change it.

ANTONIA: But come on Felix, don’t be shy...that’s not the only reason you wrote it...hasn’t there been a certain Spanish beauty who started off this quest?

Prince as a Crossdreamer, and What it Means for the Transgender Debate

We have lost Prince, AKA Prince Rogers Nelson, one of the biggest pop artists and composers in modern history, and I find myself marvelling at the fact that the world is mourning one of the most well known crossdreamers of all time. People do not seem to mind that he was one!

Prince in a female pose on the cover of Lovesexy

Mr. Sexually Explicit

Prince had very limited inhibitions when it came to presenting his sexual fantasies in lyrics. This was, after all, the man who told us about his Darling Nikki that "she was a sex fiend. I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine".

Nikki was partly the cause for Tipper Gore founding  the Parents Music Resource Center in the US.  This led  to the use of "Parental Advisory" stickers on album covers in that country, assumedly protecting children from harmful content.

So yes, you can safely say that Prince caused controversy as a person who made "dirty lyrics" and as such was classified as a "pervert" by those more emotionally restricted.

But he was never slammed, as I can see, for being a crossdreamer or someone making gender-crossing sexy. When going through all the obituaries and articles, I can't find one single negative reference to this topic. Searching the Net I can't find one single page where Prince and the stigmatizing and invalidating concept of "autogynephilia" are mentioned in the same paragraph.

"I'm not a woman, I'm not a man"

People do use terms like "queer," "ambisexual," "androgynous" and "polysexual" when writing about Prince.

 This makes sense given lyrics like the ones found in "I Would Die 4 U", a love song with strong religious or mystical overtones. (Video here. Full lyrics here).

Prince sings:

I'm not a woman
I'm not a man
I am something that you'll never understand

Then there is the famous Prince symbol or logo, which unites the male and the female  in one glyph.


But most commenters discusses this kind of gender-crossing with respect, or at least some positive fascination.

People never use terms like "transvestite", "transvestic fetishist" or "autogynephiliac", in spite of Prince dressing up in clothes that are undeniable feminine.

A Creative Transgender Vocabulary - from Butch to Woodworking

Photo by Jayfish, Thinkstock

Here is the final post in my Crossdreamer Vocabulary. In this post I include the remaining letters of the alphabet (W and beyond) as well as entries that have been suggested by others (and me) since the first post.

Remember that these entries are not so much dictionary definitions as mini blog posts on topics of relevance to crossdreamers and transgender people.

Butch

A butch is a lesbian woman who expresses a strong masculine identity.Her masculinity is real, and her butch appearance is her way of expressing that identity.

In spite of what many people believe, she is not necessarily  imitating men, although she will often make use of clothing of symbols associated with male masculinity. She may also express some of the personality traits associated with men. Many butches will, for instance, stress the role of being their lover's protector.

Butches may often hook up with more feminine "femme" lesbians, but butch/butch relationships are not unheard of. If you are searching for simple models of sex and gender, this is not the place to look.

Photo by Scott Griessel, Thinkstock

The reason crossdreamers should study the loves of butches is found in the similarity between some female to male crossdreamers and lesbian butches. Some (but in no way all) FTM crossdreamers express a masculinity similar to the one of butches, the main difference being their sexual attraction to men as opposed to the lesbian desire for women. This tells me that sexual orientation is not the only way of approaching the mysteries of sex and gender.

Note also the similarities between the butch/FTM trans man debate and the discussion of the relationship between crossdressers/crossdreamers and transsexuals on the other. There is no clear border between being butch and being a female to male trans man. Many trans men starts out as butches. In the same way many  trans women start out as crossdreamers. In spite of this, transsexuals and non-transsexual gender variant people spend a lot of time distancing themselves from the other group, most likely because they fear that the other group implicitly threaten their sex identity.

Many butches crossdream, in the sense of getting aroused by taking on the traditional male role in seduction and love making. The art of "packing" strap-on dildos as part of the ritual tells me that this crossdreaming also includes the bodily aspect.

Cultural dissonance

My friend Natalie from Thailand suggested that I include the term "cultural dissonance" in the transgender vocabulary. She writes:

 "This one I feel refers to how many enlightened and educated transgender and other gender-variant folks and even homosexuals/bisexuals suddenly feel a sense of total alienation/isolation in the respective cultures they are brought up in after they learn about their condition either from internet or from other sources. 

"Not because of the fact that they are different from the norm (which they anyways have felt forever) but because of the simple realization that their society is not aligned along the way they feel it should be to accommodate such a huge gender and sexual diversity, and also the awareness that such a massive change may not even take place for long unless a huge cultural war takes place soon.

A Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary, from "Top/Bottom" to "Twilighter"

Here is the fifth part of my Crossdreamer Dictionary. You can read the first entries here!

I found this photo by nensuria over
at Photos.com. It was tagged "Concept
of Domination and Authority." The fact that the
tie is immediately associated with
 dominance, says a lot about how
many read the roles of
men and women.

You may consider each of these entries a mini blog-post in its own right, all covering topics that should be of interest to crossdreamers and other transgender people.

Are there any crossdreamer phenomena, feelings or ideas you think is missing? Please add them as a comment!

Top and Bottom

More than 70 million copies have been sold of the "mommy porn" novel Fifty Shades of Grey,  not only proving that a significant proportion of women  find the idea of bondage and BDSM tantalizing, but also that most people find this phenomenon completely undramatic.

Fifty Shades of Grey echoes the preconceptions that there are two kind of people in the world: "tops" and "bottoms, "dominants" and "submissives".

Men are supposed to be on top, while women are supposed to give themselves passively to the man. You will find such  hierarchies among gay men and lesbian, as well, and even there being the penetrator may sometimes seem to be "better" than being the "penetree". The reason for this is most likely that sexual dominance is mixed up with social dominance.

To make this clear: There is no correlation between your social power and bedside preferences. Really! Nor is the "bottom" always passive and reactive in bed. And yes, there are female tops and male bottoms, and many seem to thrive in both roles.

Although there is a lot of variation, there is reason to believe that many male to female crossdreamers are -- in fact -- "bottoms". They want to be at the receiving end in bed, and the closer they are to the gender dysphoric end of the spectrum, the less pleasure they take in being "the man" in bed.

Historical picture of Japanese
femme and butch. From flickr.

This causes obviously a lot of frustration for the MTF (male to female) crossdreamers who are attracted to women, as most women expect them to be the proactive one.  There are practical solutions to this, pegging being one of them, but not all heterosexual women are comfortable with this kind of role play.

As for the female to male crossdreamers, it seems a majority of those at the gender dysphoric end of the spectrum dream about being the dominant seme in the gay male relationship, and not the more submissive uke. However, I do not have sufficient data to confirm this.