Crossdreaming : A Push Towards a Self Authoring Journey

On the road to self authorship (photo: Hemera/Photos.com)

In this post, guest blogger Janikest argues  that crossdreamera needs to develop narratives that makes sense of their lives.

Only then can they find ways of navigating a society that shows little understanding of what crossdreaming is about.

"Crossdreaming : A Push Towards a Self Authoring Journey"

By Guest Writer Janikest

Crossdreaming is a complex phenomenon with a wide variety of features and expressions from one individual to another. One thing is quite recurrent though : to the casual "fetishist" to the dysphoric "twilighter", crossdreaming is likely to come up with a host of issues, ranging from love shyness to chronic or permanent anxiety.

Wandering around forums and reading books on the topic has also allowed me to notice another common feature : The people who seem to be able to handle crossdreaming (be it finding an outlet, trying to figure out what it is, or chose to transition) share something in common. The present text is aimed at understanding what they share.

Eddie Izzard on Crossdressing

British comedian Eddie Izzard has created a meme on Tumblr based on his appearance in the Australian TV show, the Project.

Izzard is asked about dressing up in women's dresses.

Izzard gives a reply that in a very clever way exposes the way our sexist societies differ between male bodied and female bodied "crossdressing":

"No, I wear dresses. They are not 'women's dresses'. They're my dresses. I buy them. It's like when women wear trousers. They're not cross-dressing. They're not wearing 'men's trousers'."

The retort shows us what a rhetorical master Izzard is.

And he has a point: Female to male crossdressers and crossdreamers get away with dressing up as men, mostly because crossdressing women are seen to be moving "upwards" in the social hierarchy. Being a man is good.

Crossdressing male bodied persons, on the other hand, are embarrassing both themselves and their social circles by appearing as something as humiliating as a weak and vulnerable woman. Even women may despise a man who wants to be a woman.

That being said: Izzard's comment misses the whole point of crossdreaming. Putting on a dress for a male to female crossdreamer is not the same as putting on trousers for a woman who is not a crossdreamer.

This is not a practical choice. This is not about dressing up comfortably.

No, this all about using stereotypical female clothing in order to express another side of the psyche, a side that most crossdreamers and crossdressers percieve as female and/or feminine.

This is also why so many women spend so much time on dressing up as women. They use fashion and make-up to express themselves as women. And yes, one of the objectives is most likely to appear beautiful, sexy and attractive.

If all men were expected to wear dresses (as -- let's say -- the Romans did with their gender neutral tunicas) the dresses would lose much of their power to symbolize femininity.

Female to male crossdreamers also crossdress, but if they want to express their inner masculinity they have to add more than a pair of jeans.

In subtle ways, they may add masculine looking shirts, belts or caps. If their need is stronger, they may flatten their chest. Like some lesbians, they might even be "packing".

Izzard knows this, of course. But he also knows that by sowing confusion in this way, he may get some of the viewers to take a minute to reflect on the topic of sex, gender and clothing.

That is a good thing.

I have not been able to find the original program; Nor am I certain who made this animated GIFs originally.

UPDATE
tg_captioner gave me the URL for the interview. Thank you! Here it is:

A Frank Discussion of Autogynephilia

Being sexy feels sexy. That is natural.
Photo by Vladimir Nikulin

"Hopeful Kylee", a transseuxal woman videoblogging over at YouTube, has published a fresh and frank post on autogynephilia that should be of interest to all crossdreamers, also those who are not transsexual.

As me, Kylee simply argues that women too get aroused by the idea of being sexy and being attractive, of feeling desire and being desired.

How can a pre op transsexual woman not get aroused by the idea of being desireable, when sexuality is such a central part of the lives of nearly all people?

It seems to me  that too many of us has fallen for the myth that women are somehow less interested in sex than  men, less libidinous, and with sexual fantasies restricting themselves to the engaging in the missionary position with their faithful husband every Saturday night.

The sexual fantasies of women

I am currently working on a series of blog posts on the sexuality of women born women, and their sexual fantasies.

I am going through all the relevant research I can find. I am reading steamy romance novels, and erotica written by women for women.  I am also studying collections of female fantasies made by people like Nancy Friday.

Apart from the transformation part,  all the motifs of MTF crossdreamer fantasies and fiction are found among XX women. All of them, including the more extreme fantasies of humiliation and rape.

The existence of crossdream fantasies can therefore not be used to pathologize transsexual women.

Non-transsexual crossdreamers

As for the rest of us? Well, having erotic male to female transformation fantasies does not prove that you are wired like a woman. I guess you could argue that these fantasies draw on instincts and mental figures common to both sexes.

Still, the existence of women like Kylee, tells me otherwise. As she points out, the desire to transition is for her much more than a desire to be a sexy woman. It is much more fundamental, much more comprehensive and applies to all the aspects of being a woman.

This makes me suspect that also non-transsexual crossdreamers share some, but not necessarily all, of the trans women's fundamental identity.

The pure and the impure 

Kylee indicates that there may be two types of crossdreaming (my word, not hers).

Warrior Princess - On Using Hypermasculinity to Kill Off Your Feminine Side

Kristin Beck, before and after

A new fascinating book covers the life of Kristin, born Chris, Beck, an American Navy Seal who ended up transitioning.

The book,  Warrior Princess A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender, should be of interest also to non-transsexual male to female crossdreamers. It gives a clear example of what has been called "hypermasculinity": attempts at suppressing a feminine side by getting involved in stereotypical male interests.

I have no way of definitely knowing whether Kristin Beck is or has been a crossdreamer (in the sense of having experienced sexual fantasies of being a woman pre-op), but she was definitely a crossdresser while  male bodied.

She was also married with a woman, so I guess we can say she had a lot in common with many of the readers of this blog, whether they are transsexual or not.




Hypermasculinization

She is not the first MTF transgender to have joined the military to toughen up and become "a real man". Military male bodied persons are twice as likely to be transgender as civilians.  Still,  I do not think there are many crossdreamers out there who have joined special ops like the Navy SEALs in order to support a fragile male identity.

The fact that many gynephilic (woman-loving) male to female transgender often chose stereotypical male occupations has been used to "prove" that they are not real women. (This implicitly means that female firefighters and fighter pilots are not real women, either, but let us put that aside for a moment.)

Family members and friends may also push them into traditional masculine occupations in order to have them "cured" of their crossdreaming.

This is an old tactic, often used for  homosexual men (and women). The idea is that if you force them into accepting activities "appropriate to their sex" they will rediscover "their true selves", or -- if not -- they will be conditioned to accept their fate.

This does not work for the gay and it does not work for crossdreamers, but as long as people can make themselves believe that this is a question of will and character, and not the result of an inborn trait, I guess both family members and crossdreamers will continue trying.

Laurence Anyways -- a Transgender Journey

Poster for Laurence Anyways

Laurence Anyways is a French Canadian film from 2012 that should be of great interest to the gender dysphoric side of the crossdreamer community.

Laurence, the protagonist, is transsexual at heart, and finally comes to the conclusion that she can no longer live as he, and wants to come out as a woman.

"I'm not gay," Laurence explains to his girl friend Fred. "It's not that I like men, I'm just not made to be one."

This is not primarily -- or only -- a film about being transsexual. The main focus of the story is the relationship between Laurence and her girl friend Fred, and how the two of them tackle the upheaval of Laurence finding herself.

This is a truly a love story. Fred tries hard to adapt to the new life of the person that she deeply loves.

But this is not a love story of the pink poster Hollywood type. It becomes extremely hard for the two of them to make their love story fit the script the people around them are used to and expect.

It is not a secret that a significant percentage of marriages and love partnerships ends when one of the two transitions. This is a story about the kind of challenges such couples meet and what these challenges do to them.

Melvil Pupaud plays Laurence

The film was made by Xavier Dolan, a Canadian actor and filmmaker.

Here you have an homosexual man making a movie about a gynephilic transsexual woman, who befriends a group of gay drag queens.

Needless to say, Dolan doesn't give a damn about the script written by Ray Blanchard and his crew. I mean that in a good way!

The fact that the movie is made by a gay man may explain, a couple of the few unexpected elements in  the movie.

On lesbians who watch gay pornography and what it means for transgender crossdreamers

Did you know that many lesbians watch gay male porn?  

I didn't either, before I saw the movie The Kids are All Right with Julianne Moore and Anette Benning as a lesbian couple with kids.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian
mothers liking gay male pornography

In one scene we can see the two of them watch a movie with men having sex with men in order to get into the mood.

By accident, their son finds the movie later on, and in wonderfully akward scene we see how the two parents try to explain what this is all about.

In the name of fair use I have taken the liberty of embedding the relevant scenes here. (This is not office material.)

And yes, this has a lot to do with crossdreaming. Read on!