It's OK!

As I wrote in the last Cyrsti's Condo post, there is plenty of room to differentiate cross dressers and transgender women.

An example is one of the professed cross dressers who comes to one of my transgender support group meetings. She is quite attractive and seems to be quite secure in who she is. She says she is satisfied with a life that has her looking like a cis woman part time and living like a guy the rest. Yes, she is married.

Granted, to be able to live like she does, one has to have an understanding spouse.

I wonder too, if the number of trans nazi's who drift through the group, influence her too. Several just aren't pleasant people and don't seem to be secure in their Mtf transition. One is even a total "IQ-45"(Rump) fan, which I can't come close to understanding. She went through SRS several years ago and just has a level of meanness which doesn't lurk so far beneath the surface.

Of course, being trans is not just a trait you somehow acquire, I believe you are born into it...or not.

The cross dressers in the group profess having the freedom to dress or not, but a transgender person doesn't. The difference being, a cross dresser wants to look like a cis woman, while a trans person wants to be a cis woman. Or live the life of one.

Some, like the person at the meeting, are fortunate to have been able to transition well enough to step between the genders. Most just aren't.

Either way, it's OK to exist together. Cross Dressers and transgender women are just as different as drag queens are to us.

More Cross Dressers Versus Transgender Women

Here in Cyrsti's Condo last week, we examined briefly, the subject of cross dressers and how they relate to transgender women, if at all.

Some feel cross dressing is simply a fetish activity which is essentially harmless, while others are fairly sure being a cross dresser is a gateway to becoming transgender over the years. Paula Goodwin sent in an interesting comment:

"Paula GoodwinDecember 28, 2017 at 1:10 PM

I think we are all part of the same family, different expression of the same issues, different situations, allowing different levels identity expressions.

Of course our different situations also mean we have to find conformation of our identities in different ways. Today I can go out into society socialising, shopping, working and play authentically, much of this is inaccessible to the cross dresser, who is only allowed outings on high days and holidays, or maybe not at all. For them the selfie may be the only authentication they can receive.

Our social group is more than happy to have cross dressers, non-binary, full time, part time and any other expression of trans as members, ~ and we try to be nice to each other."

Thanks Paula!

I think, there is also a certain amount of friction between the two groups because they are so radically different. 

More on that later!

Meeting of the Minds

Yesterday marked the first time ever I was able to assemble two out of three or four of the most important people who helped me along with my Mtf transgender transition.

Liz was off of work for the holidays and made the journey with me to my VA therapist who initially approved my request for HRT. Some four plus years ago.

My partner Liz of course was instrumental in always viewing me as a woman, trans or not. She also helped me ( and or pushed me) into doing all the work to change my legal gender markers (possible).

It meant a lot to me to tell both of them how much it meant to me and of course, they were gracious and deflected all the praise back on me.

We LGBT trans women know though that throughout our transgender journey's, there are more than a couple of individuals who help us along. Knowingly or not.

I have written many times here in Cyrsti's Condo of my deceased wife of twenty five years calling me the "pretty, pretty princess" who only wanted to experience the fun part of being a girl, without ever knowing what cis-women really went through.

I took the direct hit and set out to figure out what she meant and, over the years, finally understood . The levels of gender communication alone were nothing I had ever experienced of course. I never had to.

She also taught me the hard way to take the time to express what you feel to loved ones while they (or you) are still in this world. My wife passed away quite quickly and unexpectedly. If you have something positive to say, you better damn well say it!