On male to female crossdreamers and how to establish a romantic relationship

How do you establish a loving relationship to a woman if you are a male to female crossdreamer dreaming of being a woman?

There has been a lot of politics on this blog lately. That is necessary, I am afraid, given what people say and think about crossdreamers. But today we are going back to the basics: to the lived lives of crossdreamers. 

I will share an email I got from a reader with you and add my response. I think this is an exchange many male to female crossdreamers will find familiar as well as interesting. 

Do add your own comments!

The life of Josie

Josie from over at Crossdream Life sent me following story:

"I'm thankful to finally have a name attached to this conditon and know that there are others, but I still feel sometimes so confused and conflicted. I'm sure that in this community my story and my questions are common.

When I was a little kid I don't remember being one of those that insisted that I was a girl. To my recollection I was fine being a boy, but I was always 'soft'. I've always been passive and introverted. 

Iused to play with my sister and her dolls and saw nothing wrong with it but I did boys stuff too. I always liked to play sports but never excelled at it. I was always picked on by the alpha males in my school, especially in junior high, and I was never successful being a romantic interest for the girls. I was just too shy.

Dreaming of skirts

When I remember my AGP feelings starting to make themselves known was around puberty. The girls in my class started developing hips and breasts and I was thinking "That's pretty cool, I wish I had that too." By the time I was in high school I secretly wanted to be one of the girls. 

I went to a Catholic school with plaid skirts and I would fantasize about being one of the girls in those skirts. God bless those skirts! lol 

How radical feminists are using the autogynephilia theory to persecute trangender people

The new year started with a storm of radfem controversy. Radical feminists was again on the warpath using any weapon available to stigmatize trans women. And now they were using the autogynephilia theory to tell the world that transsexual women are not real women.

"Contrasted Faces" in Samuel R. Wells, New Physognomy, or Signs of
Character, Manifested through Temperament and External Forms (1871)
The drawings illustrates the superiority of the English race over the Irish.
Similar tactics are now used to stigmatize gynephilic trans women.

"Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can never hurt you."

There are those who believe in this maxim.

There are also those who believe that any presumably "scientific" theory is objective and neutral and therefore removed from the messy and emotional thing called life.

In this context the "autogynephilia" theory of Ray Blanchard -- which argues that androphilic (men-loving) trans women are effeminate men , and gynephilic(woman-loving)  trans women are "paraphilic" heterosexual men -- cannot hurt you either.

WHAT IS PARAPHILIA?  As many of the readers of this blog will know, Ray Blanchard believes all male bodies persons who get aroused by the idea of being the opposite sex are "autogynephiles", whether they are transsexual or not.  This means that all male to female (MTF) crossdreamers are classified as "paraphilic". If the crossdreamer is bothered by this paraphilia, he/she is considered to be suffering from a psychiatric or mental disorder.  Note that Blanchard defines paraphilia as "any intense and persistent sexual interest other than sexual interest in genital stimulation or preparatory fondling with phenotypically, consenting adult human partners."  Basically this means that anyone who do not follow his personal understanding of correct homosexual or heterosexual love making is paraphilic.

Scientific bullying

Those who know the realities of school yard bullying know better, however. As do those who have read their history books know that "neutral", "disinterested" and "objective" studies have been used to systematically to confirm stereotypes and suppress marginalized groups, being those women, black people, Romani, Jews or homosexuals.

Members of these groups have been hospitalized, sterilized, lobotomized and gassed in the name of science.

The autogynephilia out of jail card 

I see that some of my fellow crossdreamers believe that this does not apply to them, or -- at least -- that it is possible, somehow, to stand outside this flow of history and establish some kind of safe haven where they can be what they are, without caring about what others think, say or do.

Since they are not transsexual they believe the autogynephilia narrative  may help them stay outside the fray.

Well, the radical feminists have now thoroughly debunked that illusion.

They are now actively using the autogynephilia theory to label all gynephilic male to female crossdreamers and transsexuals (called "heterosexual men" by Blanchard and the radfems) as homophobic and misogynistic perverts.

A young transsexual speaks out

There is a new generation of transsexuals out there. Many of them are young lesbian or bisexual transwomen, exactly the kind of transwomen Ray Blanchard called "autogynephiles".

Unfortunately for Blanchard the new generation does not live up to any of the sexist stereotypes of his theory.

They report early childhood memories of gender dysphoria. They transition young. And for those of you who find this important: They also look feminine.

All of this confirms what I have said for a long time: The reason gynephilic transwomen used to transition later than androphilic transwomen, was that they could not use the gay and lesbian culture for support and as a door opener.

Instead they have desperately clung to the identity of their birth sex, as this has seem to be the only way to find someone to love in particular and respect in general.

Thanks to the Internet this is changing. They now find the support of others facing the same challenges as themselves online.  There are also developing their own language and their own narratives to make sense of themselves.

This development goes hand in hand with a trend towards more tolerance in general, as reflected in the increasing number of countries and states accepting gay marriage and ending the pathologization of trans people.

Below find a video made by one of the many new transbloggers, namely Kristin, who blogs as casey4441 at YouTube, and who writes under the name of Krista444 over at Crossdream Life.

Notice how she has liberated herself from the traditional narratives of what it means to be trans. She stands firmly on her own two feet. God bless her!

You can see more of her vlog-posts over at her YouTube blog: Life of a Transgender Twin.

By the way, she is working on an ebook on transitioning. You can sign up to be notified when the book is ready here!

In Memory of Those We Lost

Suicide is the greatest threat crossdreamers face. What can we do about it?

Last summer there appeared a heart breaking post on one of the male to female transgender/crossdreamer caption blogs: Yvonne's Caption World.

The message read:

"My name is Mark. I am Yvonne's brother.

I am afraid I have to bring you the sad news that three weeks ago Yvonne decided to take her life

She left a note saying that she felt she could no longer go on living (in her words); 'in between two genders, dysfunctional in one and unable to become the other.'

She did not feel she had anyone to turn to. I wish she had given me a call."

Her site is full of captions and stories reflecting the dreams of a gender dysphoric crossdreamer. And yes, it seems obvious to me that Yvonne was a transsexual woman. In the upper right corner of her blog you will find a request for support for her transition.

Suicide among crossdreamers and transgender

We have actually no idea of how many crossdreamers take their life every year. The reason for this is that most crossdreamers are invisible, not only to health personnel  but often also to their loved ones. Often those left behind do not know what really caused their family member to chose this option.

We do have statistics for registered transgender, however, and I have reason to believe that great many of those registered as such are crossdreamers (transgender is here an umbrella term including a wide variety of gender variant people).

"I feel pretty!" (On the "Autogynephilic" Woman, Erotic Crossgender Fantasies and More)

"Oooh, I am such a sexy autogynephile!"  (Photos.com)

Is the crossdreamer dream of an attractive body really that different from what cis women experience?

One of the basic building blocks of Ray Blanchard's "autogynephilia" theory is that male to female crossdreamers and trans women who love women  are sexually attracted to their female selves. They get aroused by the idea of being a woman.

Blanchard and his followers  sometimes go as far as defining this as a separate sexuality, one that comes in addition to heterosexuality and homosexuality.

While gay men are attracted to men and heterosexual men to women, the "autogynephiles" are reduced to  narcissistic autoerotic wankers.

The self-admiring crossdresser

The proof is allegedly found among male to female crossdressers who get aroused when dressing up as women, admiring themselves in the mirror. It is the erection that gives them away.

And it all sounds so believable and common sense. After all, real men and real women do not get aroused by the idea of being a man or a woman, do they? No, they only get aroused by being with another man or woman, not by being (by) themselves.

Besides, real women do not get erections. They are hardly aroused at all.

Beyond the stereotypes

As is often the case in the gender and transgender debates, this whole argument rests on  ideas that become very problematic when you look a little closer.

There is, as far as I can see, no reliable research on such autoeroticisms  among non-transgender men and women. That is, there is a lot of research on autoeroticism (defined as "using your own body as a sexual object"), but most of it focuses on regular masturbation, which is no longer considered a mental disease.

Revised Reddit Crossdreamer Discussion Forum

Reddit logo

There was a time when digg was the hottest thing in social media. Not anymore. But one of the copycats, reddit, is thriving. It has become a very useful tool for sharing and exploring online information.

Users may add links for information and discussion or general comments. The entries are organized into areas of interest called "reddits." The front page is the main reddit, and other areas are "subreddits."

There has also been a very active forum or subreddit for crossdreamers, called the Autogynephilia sub, for sharing of crossdreamer resources and the discussion of crossdreamer and transgender topics.

This  sub has now been divided in two:

• Crossdreaming, which will focus on questions, discussions, support, and community for those with crossdreaming tendencies
  
• Genderotica, which  will contain captions, images, stories, movie recommendations, etc. with a focus on transgender elements