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To Be ...or Not To Be

There are two huge questions we face as we go through the "stages of MtF gender transition."

One of which is the pesky "passing" question. If you go back through all the very old Cyrsti's Condo's posts you may notice an inordinate amount of them have to do with how I looked. Over time though, I became less and less obsessed  and more concerned with how I felt. In addition, you probably noticed, many of the pictures I use are dated.

Connie noticed: (Thanks!)

"You forgot to take a selfie?!? Now, that marks a point of transition. It's a long way from being obsessed with taking selfies, anyway. Although I have never been one for taking selfies, it seems to be a pretty popular thing to do within the trans community, especially among the cross dressing faction."
I think there is a certain sense of pride in all the work it takes to transform one's self from a man to a woman for a selfie at least, and rightfully so. The problem becomes when you  have to take the selfie out into the public's eye and deal with reality. I remember all the times the mirror told me I looked devastatingly good, just to be totally devastated when I would be immediately busted. It's impossible for a picture to hold up a standard when you add in all the angles and movement of real life.
Over time though, I personally was fortunate enough to be able to grow out my own hair enough to do away with wigs and gain enough confidence from it to move forward in my transition to another stage. I am aware too, a cross dresser or transgender woman can do the same with a quality wig/hair piece.  
The end result of course is how confident you feel and if a picture helps, why not? 
Often, to be...or not to be is just in the eyes of another anyhow.
I believe now I have crossed into another stage of transition where much of the public automatically views me as a woman and it is up to me to screw it up from there. Which is the topic of another upcoming blog post here in Cyrsti's Condo and answer the second question.
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Connie said…
Mirrors and pics are two-dimensional. Depending upon them to affirm a trans woman's femininity leaves that femininity two-dimensional, as well. One of my favorite things to say is that a trans woman can't really see herself fully until she sees her own reflection in the eyes of others. Reaching the third dimension requires much effort - even more than all of the primping and posing it takes to make a good picture. Simply attempting to achieve a physically passing appearance becomes, at some point, a flat existence.

I know there are many who would argue that their cross dressing experiences are not flat and two-dimensional. They might say that their feminine self is nothing more than an extension of their three-dimensional male self. I understand it because, well, "been there, done that." As for myself, I had reached a point where even that was making me feel flat - no matter what gender I was showing myself to be. Even when I was living 80% as my feminine self, I was really no better than 50/50, because I had to be ready to make the change, either way, sometimes at a moment's notice. I felt like I was in a limbo, and I was not a good example of a woman or a man. Yes, I was cheating myself of a full, three-dimensional life, but, worse than that, I was cheating family and friends of my full self and the attention they deserved. Showing myself in a selfie, or, more to the point, as a selfie, was selfish and disingenuous. That is not what I ever want to be again.

Maybe, someday, I will reach a fifth dimension - about the time of the dawning of the age of Aquarius? (dating myself once again) :-)
December 21, 2017 at 12:13 PM
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