About cross-dressing and transsexuals, and a weird dream I had last night

So I went out to Karaoke last night. Monday night after work is my new Karaoke night.

I need to sing.

Anyway in my last entry (which I did not think was very good) I wrote about being a little apprehensive about meeting a person who may or may not be a trans woman. She never showed up.

Her friend did, and was quite drunk, but we chatted for a while and then she stopped by my place after last call.

"Oh when I first saw you I thought you were a manly looking woman"

I responded "I am." Okay, so I'm not easily offended, especially by drunk people, especially by people who think they are giving a sincere compliment. It's kind of a back handed compliment though.

It got me thinking a little bit about the culture I grew up in and the culture I still live in: trans women are not as legitimate as cisgendered women. Primary transsexuals are more legit than secondary transsexuals who are more legit than cross dressers who are more legit than fetishistic transvestites.

From my perspective I was born to be woman. From her perspective I've changed, and I've done a damn good job at it.
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When I first started going out as a woman regularly I got a hell of a lot of compliments and fortunately I didn't realize (at the time) that a lot of them stemmed from people's perception that I was a man dressing as and trying to imitate a woman. Or perhaps I did, but as I told a friend the other night, when you transition you really have to turn a blind eye towards people's perception of you.

Excuse my language, but quite frankly I started looking more and more faggy in my work clothes until I reached androgynous and finally female.

Her trans friend did not show up last night and made some lame excuses. She told me how he dressed in women's clothing at work but wasn't allowed to wear make-up because he did such a bad job at it. She told me how he goes into Denny's at 3 in the morning and gets punched in the face.

Okay, it takes a lot of courage to go out dressed as a woman when you are so painfully aware that you do not look like one. At the same time, everytime someone tells me they think I was so courageous in transitioning I can't say I'm a courageous person. I did what I had to do.

I can say a couple of things about her friend, whom I have not met, based on my own experiences. First, he really doesn't have a choice as far as going out cross-dressed or wearing women's clothing at work. Second he has to be doing something really innapropriate in order to be punched in the face at Denny's.

Early in my transition when I had short hair and a much more masculine hairline (and physique) people would (very occassionally) laugh or stare at me but for the most part people don't care.

Being trans is part of the human experience and has been since the beginning of time. Even if it is the butt of jokes people are basically accustomed to seeing trans people. It isn't such an unusual thing that people will break social customs like punching you in the face. Dressing in itself usually does not make people that uncomfortable.(Of course trans people get murdered and beat quite frequently, just for dressing as they feel comfortable. I'm not arguing that they don't.)

It's the difference between drag and reality. I don't try to emmulate or imitate anyone. He's trying (and failing) to emmulate womanhood. It isn't something that can be faked.

I mean why did I start "passing" so very quickly?

I "passed" before I "passed," meaning even when it was obvious that I had been born with what would be considered a male body it was also obvious that I was authentic when dressed as a woman.

I think this is part of why I don't meet to many trans feminine people that I like.

Too many of us are trying to emmulate some abstract idea of womanhood. Too many of us buy into the idea that we can never be as legitimate as a cisgendered woman. We buy into the idea that we are claiming a gender identity and becoming something.

We buy into the idea that we're changing something.

Instead of dropping the shit that we fake in favor of something that feels more authentic, many of us stop faking one gender to start faking another. And quite frankly if you're still a fake, what's the point.

When I transitioned I worried more about being over the top girly than being too masculine. Too many trans feminine people worry about being too masculine.

Go into any lesbian bar, library, or public bus and actually look at the women you see. There are a hell of a lot of really masculine women out there.

If you're using make-up, long hair, long nails, and clothing to look like a "woman" you'll probably fail because none of those things denotes woman. Nor do big breasts and butts.

I guess it's this culture that delegitimizes people who "don't pass" that makes everyone want to look like and be like a certain ideal of womanhood rather than just be themselves.

I sat down with a group of transwomen one time and was bored to tears and actually a little frustrated listening to their conversation about how often one should get their nails done, and how they should be done, and what clothing to wear, blah, blah, blah, and this is coming from someone who flips through Glamour every month. I mean, there's a difference between being interested in fashion and trying to figure out what to wear, how to act, and how to do your makeup in order to look like a woman.

That is the difference between transsexuals and cross dressers.

And yet, painfully, many of the transsexuals I've met are like that.


I had a weird dream last night. I dreamt that I was on some sort of journey, and it was a journey that I'd been on before. At the end of a journey was a cliff that I had to scale to get to the end. I'd scaled the cliff before also. It was a difficult cliff to scale and took all my effort and will power but eventually in every previous attempt I'd scaled it. This time I started, and then paused and took a break at it's base. I waited a while and then saw that there was a staircase that led to the top and was quite easy to climb. I climbed it and looked back down over the cliff. I started laughing hysterically (at myself for having twice before climbed it when I could have taken the stairs, and at having advised others to climb it). I sat down at a table, and a fifteen year old boy came up to me. He looked like he was twelve. He told me that he wanted my help because he was going to register for highschool as a girl. I asked him if his parents knew. He said they did but I could tell he was lieing. My father was sitting next to me and said to the boy. "Well let's not do that. How about you, Nathan, (my former name) and I go get you registered."
"That's not my name." I said. "My name is Natalie, not Nathan." I spent the rest of the dream crying uncontrollably.

I don't know. It seemed like it had some sort of meaning.