Crossdressers-Haven.com

Forgive me if this post rambles around, my mind does the same thing.

I am going through a really bad period, not all related to my being TG, but certainly not helped by that fact, either.

BUT, one consequence of this is that I have just "given up" on trying to look like a woman. I have been living as a woman for, what?, the last 14 years, anyway (driver's licence, implants, makeup all the time, etc.), but the last couple of days, I said, "The heck with it, I am too tired of it all."

At the same time, I hardly ever wore dresses or skirts in the last 10 years-it just seemed like it drew too much unwanted attention; while real women may want to be noticed, I wanted to "blend in" as much as possible (and blending made it much easier on my job.) But blending never showed who I really was, it was almost as much of a lie as if I would have continued to live as a man. What I really am, and have always been, I think/feel, is not a man, not a woman, but rather a feminine male. (And don't you DARE be that in the United States of America!)

Maybe that was why I was so reluctant to go out in a dress or skirt before; I just didn't feel like I could stand the scrutiny (blend, blend, blend!) Better to wear a pair of jeans and a top. And it worked, for the most part.

But, like I stated, I am going through some emotional distress (understatement), and I just said, "F**k it!" (Can I say "F**k" on this forum?) The last two days I have been going out (when I need to, for groceries, gas, cigs, whatever) in a skirt and blouse and/or top without trying to look like any kind of woman-no, or very little, makeup. I just don't care anymore.

I don't know, I may add to this later, right now I just want to post it, and see what happens. I am really going nuts, I think. (Medical term)

So how is it going? Anyone notice you while wearing a skirt and blouse?

Of course they noticed me, or maybe not, I simply don't care anymore.

I just thought of why I was always worried before; I was afraid people would think "he's trying to look like a woman" (and I probably was!), now I don't give a manure what they think because I am no longer "trying" to look like a woman, I am just me, wearing what I think are pretty clothes.

I think reading the posts here, in the last year or so, helped me to come to this place; so many of you seem to be at peace with yourselves, something which I have never really been, so Thanks.

I reckon there's one or two more of us that really wouldn't mind going out not caring to look like a woman. For me, my wife wouldn't hear of it.

Hi Tracy--
I come closet to this when I come home tired in the evening, and I know I've got to get groceries, say. I'd like to do it as a woman, but I know I don't have the energy to cover my beard, and do the minimal makeup.
So the "girl" doesn't get to go out. A few times I have considered just going "as is," and it really raises red alerts for me, personally.

1) I like to know what gender someone is trying to be. The gender questioning youth don't speak to me; I like it when someone does a good job of presenting one of the two familiar genders. A woman with beard shadow is not the woman I see myself as; at the same time, I don't have that $5,000 to $10,000 to make my face smooth, either. So does the gal just sit home?

2) The thing that drove me into CDing was that I didn't want to be a "feminine male." There was no comfort there, that I could see, and no recognition by anyone. As an "out" CD I get attention, respect, and other rewards. As a feminine male I saw myself being invisible, out in a zone where no one cared about me. You're right--it is not OK to be a feminine male, in this culture.

3) I've been in that "don't care anymore" feeling, and it can be liberating. But for your sake, I hope you can move on out of the stress that's bringing that feeling to the top.

You've certainly made me think tonight.

Hi all,
A major delight of this forum is that the commentary "makes me think."
I wonder where I fit in to this "spectrum" or "continuum".
As Anita says, I don't want to be a "feminine male." I am perfectly aware that when I look into a mirror and see a reasonably attractive elderly lady, that is my imagination taking over. I look again, and see an old geezer in a dress and wig. That is reality, and I don't want to inflict that reality on the world outside.
So I have adjusted to being this imaginary lady at home. However, I have the good fortune to have an understanding SO, and I can show up for dinner at her house en femme.
Sometimes I wish I had the guts to go grocery shopping, or out to eat, dressed. I think that what I fear most is not being "read", but being ridiculed - or just the paranoid feeling of being ridiculed.
I can't complain. I have the best of possible worlds - as long as I am satisfied with adjustments and compromises.
Someday, I'd like to take a poll of how many of us are reasonably adusted and how many are truly suffering.
Hugs,
Lydia

Lydia:
Oh hon do I understand what you are saying, as hard as I try and the remarks I get from my wife (good or bad) she saids " you still look like a man in a dress". You know the mirror never tells a lie and I believe in the person who is looking back at me. So we are seniors, does that mean we can not dress up to look nice?.

Tracy:
In the times I have been out in public ( far and few) I find people may look at you and have a look on their face but in the long run they don't give a crap as long as it doesn't involved them personally.

Hi Tracy,
I understand completely how you feel. I have been feeling that way for about ten years. If you check my previous posts you will detect that my moods have been swinging back and fore like a pendulum for many months now, even years

I can think of no easy solution for you. If it were that easy, I would have followed the easy way myself. Instead I have been through the mill e.g. bulimia; self harm; messing with hormones and so on.

I need to appear externally female to satisfy the feminine mixed inside me. Your avatar looks really feminine to me. I have no doubt that your visible gender is female.

It is important to present "yourself" in public; to be honest with yourself and not to try and portray some kind of role model. As I have previously stated I am at my most comfortable in old trainers, knocked about jeans with a pretty smock top, pretty lingerie and nice perfume.

I can cover the above with a big jacket until I get to a busy thoroughfare like Princes Street in evening rush hour. Take off the big jacket, cos nobody has the time to see you. I dont go anywhere where people have the time to study you.

I dont get out much in my neighbourhood. The people around here would linch me, and I cant afford to move house.

It helped me to get counselling; and at the moment thats the only olive branch I can recommend; either that or seek the company of other like minded souls.

I really wish I could help you more Tracy!

take care

Kerri

Thank you all for your thoughts and kind words. I think this may be the worst "down" I have ever been in-as I said, it's not all about the gender issues, but that is where my focus has been all my life, from childhood on. Isn't that sad?

Hi Tracy--
In my first post, I had originally written something along these lines "You and I are looking at the same term, or way of being, and seeing a different picture there. To you it would be more desirable (in a ideal world) to be a feminine man, and to me it was a form of purgatory."

You obviously see rewards for yourself in being a feminine man, and that is independent of what anyone else thinks about it. I would hope that you can find a way to exhibit more of this, if that is your real desire.

I will say that my Ohio friends were very kind to me growing up. They didn't razz me about baking cakes, liking classical music, or drawing sensitive pictures with colored chalks. In return, I played as many sports as I could, and joined the Boy Scouts.

But the "sensitive" side of me made more and more difference, the older I got. I had no sexual confusion to deal with; the hormones at 12 made me feel heterosexual. My way of being heterosexual was to emphasize the aggressive side of me, while still being really interested in so-called "female" topics of conversation.

I believe that you identify as gay; am I remembering correctly? If so, you have a better chance of finding a way to be who you want to be.

I really worked at relationships, and talked about them the way that women talked about them. My girlfriends loved this, to some extent, but I also found that if I went too far into it, I dropped off the radar. Women wanted a sensitive man, but only up to a point. And I was always hitting that point, and it hurt. Not so much with my girlfriends, but with women I would meet as potential girlfriends. In a sense, my conversation style would start to make me "one of the girls," but this obviously didn't fit my appearance and my male aggression, so it was always a push-pull.

Again, it didn't bother me much as a younger man, but the older I got, the more it tired me. When my sisters said to me, "Couldn't you just remain a 'sensitive man', and not go to these extremes?" the answer was a big "No."

Case in point: last night I was at a birthday party, dressed male. The host couple know of my femme self, though they've never met her. Their friends don't know. There was no easy way to bring up the fact that I have another side, but I found myself hitting the wall again with the three women that were there. (It was a teen party, so we were the only adults.)

There was so much more to say to each of them, and at the same time, it couldn't easily be said by me, as a man. I will grant that maybe some men know ways around this, but I've never seen them in action if they do.
This is the uncomfortableness that goes with being a feminine male, for me.

Like many women seem to do, I want to take the conversation into more intimate territory (and by that I don't mean sexual or inappropriate stuff, but more personal/intense, certainly). But I don't want to be seen as "hitting on" married women, either, and if a conversation becomes too personal, it can be seen that way, if it's a man and woman talking. Being a version of a woman is one way around this; it takes me off the husband's radar almost immediately. That's just one way that TG works better than trying to push existing gender boundaries.

I will be interested in reading more, Tracy. Hope I have not diverted the thread too much with personal history.

Hi Tracy
It's bad enough having problems in our lives plus we have to worry about how we have to dress to go out on top of it. It is sad.
I feel also like a feminine male and my sexuality is lets just say ambiguous.I wish you the best of luck in solving your problems Hon. I must say you look great Tracy. You're intelligent, tall and thin,have beautiful hair,wide set pretty eyes and a nicely shaped face. It's a shame you can't be who you are and dress like you want and go about your day. That alone is enough stress and doesn't make life any easier and I'm sure doesn't help when you have other problems in life. I wish I had a magic wand to help you Tracy. Try and keep the faith. Love ya. Hugs and big smooch. Keep us posted Hon. It's so nice to feel happy but sometimes life make it so hard to do.

Love
Jeannie

Hi Tracy,
You know that you have obtain some physical aspects that some of us are envious of and you have chosen to start down a path that some of us wish we could. It would appear that you have reached a point where Tracy has to ask Tracy a very important question and the answer(s) are not to be taken lightly: WHAT MAKES TRACY HAPPY?"
List those things that make Tracy happy! Then study them and reflect on them and disect them. The how's and why's of what makes Tracy happy.
You have heard it here before and here it is again. Life is too short to be unhappy! Regardless of whose feelings you may hurt (other than your own). The song: "Don't Worry -- Be Happy!" Is looking pretty making you happy? Does "blending-in make you happy? Does acceptance of Tracy by ??????? make you happy?
Once you determine what makes Tracy happy then the next part -- How do I obtain that happiness? That becomes the challenge but easier perhaps than determining, what makes Tracy happy! In other words once you know what the problem is, it becomes a lot easier to fix it. Of course there is the old adage in juxtaposition "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
I think your sisters here can really help you with fixing it, but we are going to come up short in helping you find what it is that makes Tracy smile and feel good about herself and want to continue on her "Magical Mystery Tour."
One suggestion that was promoted was get involved with "us." Even if you have to drive a couple of hundred miles once a month. Go out and meet face to face with others of our "ilk!" We are nice folk -- as you already know.
Good luck, honey and keep us "in the loop!"
Love ya,
Virginia

I remember years ago seeing a movie called The Naked Civil Servant. It was about an effeminate male homosexual and his journey to self acceptance and how to present himself to society. being about a homosexual man of course it got tagged with that but many of the same issues would apply to a feminine heterosexual man.

As for the feminine side Anita I am wondering what you meant. Maybe it is because of some of my experiences, but I find that talking with some women I can be very intimate and yet non sexual. Usually this has something to do with the length and quality of the relationship.

An example. The other night I stopped by the home of the woman I post about here occaisionally. We sat and watched TV for a while and talked in the commercials. In 15 minutes we covered her sisters life, her nephews institutionalization, her mothers health, her efforts to let another male friend know that she likes him but doesn't want to sleep with him, what her cats had been up to and the state of the wall paper upstairs in her mothers apartment.

I don't know what is different for me. I like to know whats up with her and enjoy listening. Thats about it. Of course it took time for the friendship to get there. The conversation would have been about the same if my wife had been there.

This is a woman by the way who is also good at male bonding. When she tells me she is seeing someone new I usually ask "Well did you F*** him yet? How was he?" and if she says yes I ask about positions and details. She used to ask me the same thing till I got married.

When it was time to go I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then asked when the last time she'd had an attractive man give her a kiss before she went to bed. Too long was her reply.

Then I went home and told my wife who's response was that it was nice we had gotten together since we hadn't seen each other in a few weeks.

I don't think of this as my feminine side. But is this what you mean or do you mean something else?

Absaroka

Over the years, I have had several female friends. I thought of them as friends with whom I could pass the time and exchange confidences. I never revealed my CD habits to them, and otherwise we chatted freely - almost like two women chatting. We regarded each other as friends without any sexual undercurrents. Two of them, I remember, remarked that they were pleased not to be treated as sex objects, but simply as good friends.

These ladies were also friends of my wife (now gone over 10 years), with whom I had a happy heterosexual and monogamous relationship for 50 years.

My point being that there is no reason why a man and a woman cannot have a solid friendship without biological sex involved.

Hugs.

Lydia

My point being that there is no reason why a man and a woman cannot have a solid friendship without biological sex involved.

Hugs.

Lydia
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"I".......have always had, sister friends all my life. I know of one right now,..I talk to a lot,..on the phone, being states away,...and has been like a sister to me since the 80's.
another I haven't seen for a bit,..I have known since we were 16 yrs old.


I thought everybody had extra sisters.....even when you're an only child like me.