Is Cross Dressing an Addiction?

Back in the day, I did consider the allure of cross dressing to be an addiction. Seemingly, the more I admired myself in the mirror, the more I wanted to do it. If it was only an addiction though, why did it lead to leading a full time life as a transgender woman?

As with anything else which happens when you tinker with human gender, all of this gets very complex. In my case I think gender dysphoria played a major role. When I cross dressed for a brief amount of time, I was able to relieve the gender pressures I was experiencing but only for awhile. When I "rebounded" back to my day to day male existence I was usually depressed and often mean.

It literally took me years to understand what was really going on in my life. Slowly but surely as I continued to become a more accomplished cross dresser and explore a feminine public existence, I began to feel more natural as a woman. Ironically, at the same time, more and more information on being transgender was becoming more accessible. It seemed, gender doors were being magically being opened for me when I was ready for them.

All of this became even more intense the closer I came to coming out full time. Factors such as the extremely tragic passing of my wife coupled with the Veterans Administration suddenly deciding to accept and treat transgender veterans allowed me more opportunity than ever before to attempt a Mtf gender transition.

As they say, the rest turned out to be history. I succeeded far better than I ever could have imagined.

Now, as I like to do, is present another viewpoint on cross dressing addiction from Connie:

"Remember that old cigarette commercial, with the slogan: Are you smoking more, and enjoying it less? Well, for many - including myself, at one time, the question might be: Are you cross dressing more, and enjoying it less? Not that cross dressing is an addiction, but it can certainly be intoxicating. For myself, it was not the act of cross dressing that seemed an addiction, even if I did spend a lot of time considering the possibility that it was. My addiction, though, was actually all of the conniving I did in order to cross dress. I was only fooling myself into believing that I had everything under control, when, in doing so, I was destroying everything and everybody important to me. That's probably the top indicator of any kind of addiction, and my transition really began when I finally realized what I was doing; I'd reached my "rock bottom." I dislike labeling and defining stereotypes, but I never was a cross dresser. I cross dressed to survive, and then I transitioned to thrive. While I may still hold some admiration for cross dressers who can easily compartmentalize their male and female lives, it just is not who I am. I also admire those who realized early-on that transitioning was what they needed to do. I don't recommend doing it the way I did, as my "transition within a transition" truly came down to "cross dressing more and enjoying it less."

As always thanks to all of you for taking the time to visit Cyrsti's Condo and to Connie for the comment!

Merry Christmas!

I hope this holiday season finds you with your blood family or chosen family and you are not alone.

If you are be sure you can change your life for the better. Reach out to the nearest LGBTQ center and see if they can help!

Thanks for stopping by the blog and I wish you the best of the season!

Cyrsti

A Natural Woman?

Anita Noelle Green is the current title holder of Miss Earth Elite Oregon and a 2018 Miss Montana contestant. She’s also transgender, being the third openly transgender woman ever to compete in a Miss Universe pageant program, the first in the Montana edition’s history.

When Green prepared to compete in the Miss Oregon contest, a United States of America Pageants event, she learned that her application was being rescinded and her entry fee was being returned, with their director, Tanice Smith, telling Green that ‘this is a natural pageant.’

It's not surprising ridiculous statements such as "natural" still apply to transgender women or trans men. 

Without being very in depth, there is no such thing as a "natural woman" all women are born female.  Transgender women are no different than cis women.  We were just born a different way. 

Green has filed a federal lawsuit in Portland, Oregon.

Don't Try This at Home

This comes to us via Connie and the New York Post:

"He’s a real momma’s boy.

A man was arrested in Brazil for dressing up as his 60-year-old mother in order to take her driving test for her, reports said.

The driving instructor realized the person in front of her was Heitor Schiave, 43, in a floral blouse, painted nails, make-up and a wig — and not his mom, Maria.

“He tried to be as natural as possible. He wore lots of make-up with his nails nicely done and wore women’s jewelry,” instructor Aline Mendonca told Brazilian outlet G1, according to the BBC.

Schiave apparently decided to step into his mom’s shoes after she repeatedly failed the driving exam."

Already?

I  spent a sleepless night recently thinking about many topics. After a while, my mind came to thinking about this upcoming years' Trans Ohio Symposium. After making the initial determination I was going to apply again to be a presenter, I began to think about the all important topic.

The title of the topic is so important because it draws people into your workshop. You normally compete with four others for people. If the topic sounds boring you can expect quite a few less visitors. An example was two years ago when the organizers put me in a huge round room and only five people showed up. Last year though, my workshop was in one of the smaller rooms and it was nearly full.

Very early in the process, I am thinking of doing something like this, "A transition within a transition. The cross dresser to transgender experience." I am going to the trouble of writing it down now so I won't forget it.

By the way, the Trans Ohio Symposium doesn't happen until May but the committee in charge asks for submissions early in the year.

It's probably time to get started.

Alexandra Grey

Yet another transgender woman making a difference!

From Wikipedia:

Alexandra Elisha Grey (born January 4, 1991) is an American actress and musician, best known for her role as Melody Barnes in the Fox television series Empire (2015–present). She also had recurring roles on Amazon's Transparent and currently plays Denise Lockwood on the NBC TV medical drama Chicago Med.

A Wealth of Riches

It seems recently I have been overwhelmed by the possible amount of material I have received for my Cyrsti's Condo blog. Believe me though, I am not complaining. Often I go weeks on end trying to come up with something to write about. Over the years I have somehow come up with over six thousand posts. Thanks to all of you such as Connie, Paula and Mandy who help out with content too. Then there is everyday life.

For example, Thursday night Liz and I went to the Christmas party for transgender-cross dressers and their families. I had a very good time as most of the people around our table I had known for quite a while, Several were cross dressers from small towns in Indiana who were complaining how hard it was to remain in the closet where they live. On the other hand, we were able to sit close to the very accomplished 80 year old role model I have mentioned in the blog before. She has done an amazing job of being accepted in society as her true self.

Liz did manage to take one selfie to share. I know it's not the best quality but it is all I have.

Also on the plus side, Liz managed to win the "split the pot" lottery which everyone could pay to take a chance at. So we were able to recoup the forty dollar per ticket amount.

This is just a small amount of items I want to share with you all and we will get to a couple new transgender women who are making a difference.

Plus, we have another couple of events coming up this weekend, one never knows what will happen to write about!

Alexandra Billings

From Wikipedia:

Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, teacher, singer, and activist. Billings is among the first openly transgender women to have played a transgender character on television, which she did in the 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In The Beginning.

The Past

As impossible as it is to dwell on any changes one could have made to change a life, we transgender folk seem to always do it.

Take away the fact we are trying to do one of the most impossible things to do in a life (changing a gender) and it turns out we trans people are always trying to figure out a way to have done it better.

One example is timing. Those who transitioned later in life, like me, always have the nagging ideas such as what would have happened if we would have attempted the big move earlier in life.

The easy answer for me is I probably could have accomplished so much more. I spent so much energy and torment trying to live with my gender dysphoria.

When you factor in all the outside factors such as family, society, etc, it just hurts my noggin to even think about it.

My example is if I would have followed my first finance's lead and told the Army I was gay when they came a knocking during the Vietnam War draft. She gave me the option of serving or her. As painful as it was at the time, if I had chosen her, I would have missed out on such tremendous life experiences as having my daughter and traveling over three continents in three years on Uncle Sam's dime. Now I'm happy I didn't choose her!

Still it wasn't good enough. At times I resent the years I spent just trying to live up to the macho code. I can rationalize it all now though by thinking I was just ahead of my time. I was just waiting for the world to catch up. As far as transgender community goes, the good "ol" days weren't so good. After all, I remember men being arrested for just dressing like women.

I could go on and on about the torment of growing up as a boy wanting to be a girl but none of that does any good anyhow.

Maybe I should just keep thinking about how things are, not how they should have been. I am happy where I am now. If you ever would have asked me how it all would end up to this point, I would have not believed you anyway.

Dwelling on the past is useless anyway.