Attention: the following article is orientated to those with a deeper interest in sexology and transgender theory. If you’re just looking for a quicker article on ‘sissy sexuality’ then click on the image below.
Introduction
Within a short space of time a concept can go from plausible, rational and necessary, to being utterly absurd. When I was young, for example, I believed – like Goerge Carlin – that there was an all powerful being called God who knew what I and everyone else was thinking, and that if I ever did certain things…like believe in other Gods…he would torture me for eternity with unspeakable brutality. But he loved me!
When you finally realise the absurdity of such concepts you don’t know how you ever believed such a thing in the first place. And that’s what has happened to me with contemporary transgender theory. I have come to see with absolute clarity that not only is it absurd, but psychologically damaging as well.
Self-knowledge is one of the most important qualities of a happy, enlightened human being. To use an example close to home, a transgender awakening is a major life-event. And that’s the problem with current transgender theory: there are millions of transgender people who are not only denied that rite of self-knowledge – the transgender awakening – but the transgender community actively conspires to make them think they are not transgender.
These people have different names – sissies, crossdreamers, transvestites – but they are linked by a single phenomenon – that they all identify as female in their sexual fantasies. For developmental reasons (discussed in my book, Transgender – Fact or Fetish?) the fantasy may not be an anatomical female, but there is a lifelong female identification in their sexuality. Many of these people grow up not understanding themselves because the only vocabulary they have to describe their behaviour are terms like ‘fetish,’ ‘sissy’ ‘transvestite’ and ‘paraphilia’. Unless such people become self-identified fetishists, they can’t build their sexuality and gender variance into their self-image, so they lock it away. Healthy individuals take pride in their sexuality/gender and incorporate it into their self-image, which means that by denoting sissies and crossdressers as fetishists we are contributing to their alienation. This leads to a poverty of self-identification.
Such people either exist in silent embarrassment or in communities founded on hypersexualised identities such as ‘the sissy slut.’ They have been told that their female side is purely a fetish, and thus they identify as fetishists in online communities of fetishists. This rips them away from the knowledge that they are a beautiful and unique type of human being called ‘transgender.’
Yes, I know…you’re probably shouting at your computer screens, “But they’re not transgender…In fact, most of them don’t even wanna be transgender!”
And I used to think the same. But that’s when I believed that the meaning of the word ‘transgender’ was ‘a person who identifies as a gender different from that they were assigned at birth.’ As I will explain in the next twenty minutes, this cancerous definition is not only impossible, but is responsible for everything we should be trying to remove from the transgender community: shame, division and confusion.
The Contradiction at the Heart of Transgender Theory
Phase 1: The Mockingbird Experiment
I want you to look at the following photo and imagine it’s 2012. We have a well-known transwoman, Janet Mock, and standing next to her is Alex King – a lifelong erotic crossdresser who identifies as male, and next to him is Johnny Bird – also a lifelong erotic crossdresser who identifies as male.
- Explain who’s transgender and why?
- Explain each gender variant behaviour.
Of course, your answer will be the following.
- Janet Mock is transgender.
- Alex King is not transgender…he has a fetish.
- Johnny Bird is not transgender…he also has a fetish.
That analysis may seem neat and tidy, but there’s a slight problem: you have just acknowledged a key part of Raymond Blanchard’s autogynephilia thesis: that there exists a distinct paraphilia in which a man gets turned on by dressing, behaving or looking like a woman. Right now, confirming such a paraphilia may not be a problem for you, but let’s jump forward two years.
- Janet is still impeccably transgender.
- Alex King has had a transgender awakening and is now called Alexa King. Deep down she always knew she was transgender but she was in denial, and all that sissy stuff…well, that was just some weird manifestation of her female sexuality put through the mincer of male biology and socialisation.
- Johnny Bird: still just a crossdressing sissy who identifies as male.
But here’s the problem: can we really view Jonny in the same way as before, after what happened to Alexa? We say he’s just a crossdressing sissy, but how do we know that he isn’t in denial and transgender just the way Alexa was? And there’s more…
Let’s return to the previous picture.
Unless we are going to say that the transgender condition grows out of a fetish (thus developing a full blown autogynephilia theory) we now have to label Alexa King as transgender when we look back at the 2012 photo. The seemingly fetishist behaviour wasn’t fetishist…she just hadn’t realised she was transgender. And that’s what throws our evaluation of Johnny in 2014 on its head: if we admit that there exist people with crossdressing/sissy behaviour who don´t know they are transgender, then we can’t be sure that Johnny isn’t one too i.e. a transwoman in denial.
It’s at this point that I can separate the naïve reader from the savvy, because some might say that just because Alexa turned out to be transgender doesn’t mean we have to think that every tranny and sissy may be transgender. Alexa’s being a sissy before was just either coincidental or, as she said, just some weird manifestation of being trapped in the wrong body.
This analysis is incorrect. Alexa previously identified as male and only realised later in life that she was transgender, so we call her a LOT: late onset transsexual. A history of cross gender arousal – be it sissification, female embodiment or erotic cross dressing – in combination with denial, is not just coincidental in LOTs but universal. Okay, maybe there are some exceptions: early onset transsexuals who were so deeply suppressed that they didn’t realise til’ they were older…or maybe some with zero sex drive…or maybe there really are a few (and I mean a few genuine exceptions), but any transgender theorist who lives on this planet and not fantasyland has figured out that cross gender arousal is not a coincidental companion to late onset transsexualism. In fact, as it statistically correlates with late onset transsexualism we’d have to call it in medical terms… a symptom of late onset transsexualism.
Obviously, this does not mean that all incidences of cross gender arousal equal being transgender…just as all sneezes aren’t indicative of flu (it could be allergies or the common cold.) However, as cross gender arousal is a symptom of late onset transsexualism it makes sense to ask oneself upon meeting an erotic cross dresser if they are transgender, because we know that such behaviour could be symptomatic of an underlying transgender psychology.
Accepting that cross gender arousal and denial are symptoms of being transgender has two profound consequences for transgender theory and politics. They are…
- Unless you believe in a theory like autogynephilia, it is no longer accurate or acceptable to label a crossdresser or sissy as a ‘fetishist’ because you don’t know if they are a transwoman in denial.
- Given that so many transgender people don’t understand that they are transgender, transgender activists have a moral obligation to raise awareness of the signs of a repressed transgender psychology, one of the most important being – a lifelong history of cross gender arousal. Due to the transgender community’s insecurity they have done the opposite – desperately running from cross gender arousal because they are scared of the ‘fetish label’.
I understand this fear, but it is pretty easy to explain cross gender arousal as a secondary effect of a biologically caused transgender condition. If transgender activists are not only ignoring one of the most important symptoms of our condition, but spreading false information (that sissies have a fetish) then I’d say we’re doing a fucking bad job. It’s like a bulimia community telling people that intentional vomiting after dinner is not a symptom of bulimia but of another unrelated disorder…in fact, not even a disorder but of a forced vomiting fetish.
Phase 2: A stark choice – either all sissies are late onset transgender or all late onset transgender are sissies
It would be convenient if the transgender theorist could now pack up and go home…after all, we’ve formulated two important learnings and probably had enough of thought experiments for one day. But unfortunately, we have only just begun to deconstruct contemporary transgender theory. Let’s return to our photo…but imagine the picture this time.
The year is 2035 and our photo is the same for the transwomen, Janet and Alexa (apart from the fact they are older), but Johnny – the poor love – has passed away. The most important fact about is that he died without ever identifying as female. He also produced an autobiography and called his love of forced feminisation nothing more than ‘a fetish.’
This is the moment where those who don’t want to label so called ‘fetishists’ as transgender will be proclaiming… “Come on…the guy had decades to see if he was transgender or not…and he clearly wasn’t. He even made a point of stating it in his biography and wasn’t embarrassed about his fetish.”
But this illustrates the paradox perfectly: the more fetishistic and embarrassing the behaviour (sissy maids, for example) the greater your desire to divorce him from the transgender movement. But the more you divorce him from being transgender the more you vouch for the existence of a distinct autogynephilia style fetish, making it inevitable that any transgender women who indulged in the same behaviour get labelled as fetishist.
You see, if the transwoman used to get turned on by the behaviour you already deemed fetishistic, she must have had the fetish…or are you going for the implausible position of two fetishes with identical behaviour but somehow different? That’s just wishful thinking. Much more likely is…they had the same fetish. Similarly, nobody’s going to buy any bogus explanations like ‘she was just pretending’ or ‘she didn’t really enjoy it’ or ‘she was just a part timer’. Both have the same lifelong history of cross gender arousal and both have the same fetish. That’s not something I want to believe or even a language I would use…but that was the place you took us by marking the sissy as a fetishist.
“Well okay, she had the damn fetish! But now she’s transgender and doesn’t do that stuff anymore… so let’s just forget about it!”
I wish we could…but look at the absurd position you’ve got yourself in now.
- You admit the existence of a distinct feminisation fetish in millions of men worldwide (be it forced fem, crossdressing or sissification).
- You now admit, because there’s no other logical alternative, that almost all late onset transwomen had the same fetish.
And now, what do you think the transphobes and the right wing sexologists and the detractors are going to say? They’re going to say… “You see! All those middle aged men who transition…they just have a feminisation fetish taken to its logical end. Just like there are amputee fetishists obsessed enough to want a full on amputation these trannies wanna go all the way.”
And then you have four options…
- Backtrack and deny they have any fetish at all, or say that only a few have it.
Counter-argument: simply not true…millions of Reddit posts, biographies, personal anecdotes attest to the strong statistical correlation between cross gender arousal and late onset transsexualism.
- Vanilla coat the erotic desire by saying that women also get turned on by thinking of themselves as sexy women (reference an experiment by Moser that proved women had autogynephilia.
Counter-argument: the so called experiment was a questionnaire which only a dozen or so women filled in. Of course we can all get off imagining we are a sexy man or woman, but cross gender arousal is right at the heart of the individual’s erotic being and not an added extra or some dreamy desire to be girly.
- Try and claim they have a different fetish with similar behaviours:
Counter-argument: we already deemed that ridiculous.
- Try and claim that the ‘fetish’ is some kind of symptom of being trapped in the wrong body.
Counter-argument: this works well when you talk about transwomen in isolation. I myself have written of a transwoman’s sexuality working through male plumbing and neurology and obviously something strange will come out as a result. Unfortunately, though, this is like counter-argument 3 because it makes the behaviour unique to the transgender condition – a concept pulled to pieces by the existence of millions of men with the same behaviour who don’t identify as female. They prove the existence of a feminisation fetish and it can be no coincidence that transwomen have the same erotic interest. They obviously have the same ‘fetish’. (Like I say…this is the place YOU took us…not me!)
Final consequence: once you concede that late-onset transwomen have the same feminisation fetish as transvestites and sissies, you make Blanchard’s sexually motivated transition the most plausible explanations for late onset transsexualism. Congratulations.
Solution: End the absurdity of contemporary transgender theory!
Firstly…
Let’s stop being all chicken shit about cross-gender arousal. We’ve basically let a bunch of transphobes get us so scared of the fetish label, that we are shining the spotlight on our transgender brothers and sisters hoping it stays off us. It is impossible to prove any causal relationship between late onset transsexualism and sexual behaviour UNLESS WE OPEN OUR CHICKEN SHIT MOUTHS AND START POINTING THE FETISH FINGER, THUS PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF A FEMINISATION FETISH.
Secondly…
Let’s see a lifelong history of cross gender arousal for what it is: a symptom of an underlying transgender psychology. Whether the crossdreamer realises it or not, they have a female gender core and while socialisation can overpower it in most areas of the psyche, it can’t overpower it in sexuality. As any evolutionary biologist will tell you, sexuality trumps all. Forgive the plug but…read my book and you’ll see how easy it is to explain why transforming to a female body becomes habitualised, why early onsetters don’t have cross gender arousal, and answers to other anomalies that transphobes routinely attack us with.
Thirdly…
Let’s stop centring the transgender experience on ‘identifying as’ and ‘transition.’ More and more transgender people – myself included – are going non-binary, and as well as choosing not to identify as any gender they are retooling transition as a state of mind rather than a state of appearance. You do not have to transition or identify as anything in particular to be transgender…you just have to be gender variant.
Fourthly…
Let’s be inclusive and understand that there are many different forms of the transgender condition. I’m sure there are transwomen who wince at being related in any way to sissies, but that is how the absurdity of transgender theory was born: when certain people tried to create a distinct identity, because they were terrified of the fetish label. The result is a longstanding tension at the heart of the transgender community as different groups seek to establish themselves as the one, true manifestation of transgender. There is no single, authentic, transgender experience…but a whole range of gender variant behaviours. Furthermore, ‘transgender’ has traditionally been an umbrella term for all such behaviours – including erotic crossdressing! It is no coincidence that Transgender finds itself together with Lesbian, gay and bisexual.
Fifthly…
Don’t claim that the status of crossdreamers and sissies is not important. Every month I receive letters from husbands who have either been caught crossdressing, or want to tell their wives about their sexual desire to be female, or from women who are trying to understand their husband’s behaviour. Because transgender theory is now so blinkered, and they think you have to ‘identify as female’ to be transgender, they cannot explain their behaviour in terms of gender variance. Instead, they resort to the vocabulary of sex: transvestite, sissy, autogynephiliac, cross dresser… all of which are loaded with value judgements. The result is a narrative of base desires and shameful urges. If they could interpret their experience through the transgender prism then they would understand themselves better.
Thinking of my own experience, I didn’t fly from being transgender because I was in denial, I flew from being transgender because I was in a state of ignorance. I thought ‘transgender’ could only mean one thing, and anyone who got turned on by being a woman had a fetish. That added years to my wilderness years…and then I spent a few more years being confused, thinking transgender meant you had to ‘identify as a woman.’
The only thing we have in life is time, and it is tragic that so many transgender people have to wait years to recognise and value their identity because they grow up around a transgender community that doesn’t embrace the erotic cross gender experience and fails to see it for what it is: a symptom of being transgender.
Conclusion:
People should be allowed to label themselves as they like. If a sissy wants to go to his grave insisting he has a fetish, then that’s his right. However, when people come to ask themselves who and what they are, they must make informed choices…and the most important thing is that they don’t face the stark binary of transgender or fetishist. I see it as our moral imperative to inform erotic cross dressers, sissies and crossdreamers, that we consider them as brothers and sisters of the transgender community. A sissy maid may be something of an embarrassment, but as we all know, little brothers and sisters often embarrass their older siblings.
Thus, I will finish my essay with an impassioned plea to dismantle the transgender caste system, and to remind people that transgender is an umbrella term that is defined something like this…
A person who identifies as a gender different from that which they were assigned at birth – either completely, partially or sexually.
Thank-you.
34 Comments
This essay makes sense and is refreshing and informative
Personally, as a LOT I must say that I agree with you Felix 100%
there are many of us who suppressed our transexualism due to socialisation and envirnment!
Thank you for all the logic and common sense we all have our process as you so eloquently stated
Thanks Guapa,
xx
To me the key question is whether the cross dresser would want to manifest as female in non sexual day to day activities. IOW does ze experience gender dysphoria, or is it purely sexually motivated?
Thanks very much for your comment.
That’s the point… the crossdresser may tell you that they are just a crossdresser with no desire to manifest day to day as female…and they are being sincere. Two years later, however, they suddenly realise they were in denial and that they do want to manifest day to day. One never knows if a sissy or crossdresser will, in the future, have a gender identity crisis or not.
xx
Being asexual myself (i.e. neither women nor men visually turn me on)… I have tried to make sense of it, but I think it boils down to admitting that society sexualizes female anatomy.
We enhance sex appeal with clothing and makeup (to subconsciosly simulate fertile phases).
Straight men do rate women by sex appeal… and many women do sexualize themselves – yes, even those who vociferously denounce woman’s objectification.
Indeed, Felix, I loved this so much that I ran right out to Amazon to download your latest book. Which is also terrific by the way. You have an articulate clarity of thought that I deeply appreciate.
I love you…
xx
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Thank you so so so much for making this. I remember being so ashamed of being turned on by things like forced fem / pinafore eroticism. And despite coming to terms with being trans for nearly two years now, I still find that it’s arousing. And there’s still a lot of shame in that.
Finding someone who acknowledges that these behaviors are okay and biologically healthy to express is so enlightening. You are doing the transgender community a huge favor by discussing your views – as I was sure that my hatred for myself was a result of having a fetish, instead of potentially being trans.
Dearest Nakita, thanks for your positive feedback. Slowly but surely, most transgender people with a history of cross gender arousal are starting to be open about the sort of fantasies you refer to. I would label them as the family of ‘exaggerated femininity fantasies’ and are quite logical for a female leaning person raised as a male. However, while people are more open, many trans women claim that these fantasies go away upon transition. I suspect that they don’t…probably they diminish or change…but are still there…so I find it very progressive that you acknowledge they still have some power over your subconscious.
For most people, their sexual preference is like a hand of five cards. They will have one or two major erotic interests and then a few minor ones. Although the minor ones can change, the fundamental, dominant preference seems to remain the same for a person’s life. Having shame about it is a waste of time because, like a gambler at the casino, it was the hand they were dealt. They didn’t ask for it, and you can not ask the dealer for more cards.
It doesn’t matter how weird or unusual or kinky your fantasies are, what separates sexual gender variance and transgender variance is a deeper emotional and psychological connection with femininity. As long as you have that…it doesn’t matter if its accompanied with all the fetishes in the world, that emotional and personal connection is what separates you from a gender variant fetishist.
to conclude… transgender is a feeling and a conviction and can not be invalidated because of a particular sexual preference.
Love,
F.
Very interesting read. I really appreciate that you approach a subject as loaded and complex as this one in such a rational way, but I do have one criticism. Your whole argumentation kinda hinges on the assumption that most LOT experience cross gender arousal prior to transition but you only provide anecdotal evidence of this.
Though this may well be true, I think we simply lack emprical proof of it. Maybe conducting polls on different crossdreaming communities such as reddit’s specific boards dedicated to these “fetishes” and/or other forums would shine a light on this, but as of now I don’t think your claim is entirely substantiated (as much as I personally appreciate it and would like to see it proved correct).
Thanks for commenting…I wish people commented more…so I’m grateful.
I have a very easy way to prove that all LOTs are crossdreamers: it’s linguistic. My defintion of LOT is an older transgender person with a strong history of cross gender arousal who didn’t realize they were transgender until later in life. If someone doesn’t have cross gender arousal, even if they are older, they are early onset.
My personal story, Reader’s Digest Version.
I suppose I would be a LOT, except,
My cross dressing began as a young boy. In the 50s. It continued on and off throughout my life extant. For me, it was never an issue of arousal. My family, (first generation immigrants), viewed me as a freak and subjected me to surgery as an infant and “treatments”, (read that, great-big-scary needles), from the time I was eight until I was thirteen. I grew up a “supercharged” male. But I was still crossing. I would get VERY upset with myself and throw it all in a dumpster – only to start over again some time later. A couple of years ago I got “back into it”. While I never had a homosexual thought in my life, (although my brother is gay), it’s been insanely difficult for my wife to grasp. UNTIL!
For an unrelated reason I had genetic testing done. I am XXY. I am a Hermaphrodite. Yes, I SAID it. Well, now…
Medical Dx made my married life much easier. At 66 I have no desire to have my vagina reopened. I have no desire to have my “proto ovarian tissue masses”, (my doctors’ words, not mine), removed, nor do I desire to undergo orchidectomy, breast enhancement, (my natural ones were removed many years ago), or any other “reassignment”.
So on TOP of not being accepted, (to the point of leaving most “social” media behind me), by the “TERFs” I am now actually getting some “cold shoulder” from the broader, (I “self-identify” as an old broad, but that isn’t supposed to imply a pun, here), Transgender community. To the point where I believe that maybe we SHOULDN’T refer to the “LGBTQI”, but break it down a little further.
Other than that, WELL DONE, carry on.
Desi DeCampo
Look at it this way. Everybody who’s comfortably ensconced on the other side of transition, let me ask you a question.
When did you become transgender?
Was it the day you were “diagnosed” with GD? Was it the day you had your first hormone dose? Was it the day you first had surgery?
Look, I know you feel you’re owed a certain respect for the courage and the rigors, sacrifices and effort required to transition, and hella respect, girls, major props!
But the fact remains that you were transgender before any of that happened, in your little boy bodies with that shameful penis–yes you were already transgender prior to transition! Even before you knew such a thing exists.
What if your circumstances or some irrational fear or *something* (anything) had made tarnsition not an option for you. What would be your identity?
As much as part of me despises my “in-betweeness,” I am nonetheless at peace with it, and share everything (including my sexuality) with a wonderful partner, and we are whole and happy people. I am a woman, full stop. Yes I developed a little differently, but that’s just my cross to bear, and that’s what I’m doing.
I don’t need or care about acceptance by the trans orthodoxy. I’m a free and independent thinker with a high IQ, and anybody who thinks I’m cheating or appropriating something I have no right to by living as a woman in a man’s body, I’m just glad I don’t know you IRL. I prefer the company of positive, uplifting folk, and you don’t begin to qualaify.
My dear Solan, first of all…thanks for commenting. It scares me how many people read this article without commenting.
However, I really don’t understand your comment. Of course you are a woman…full stop…we would take up arms to defend that.
xx
Previous message typed on a touch keyboard. Feel free to correct typos!
Wow.
I half-read this article about a year ago, when I was earlier {though not nascent} in my gendering. I wish I’d given it a deeper read.
I’m a non-binary person. I experience no dysphoria. I like myself. My body serves me well, and I feel pretty*. So when I started fucking around with my gender under the guidance of a very loving genderqueer partner, I didn’t really know what to think of this journey. From the start gender was wrapped up in sexuality. It was never *forced* femme as a form of degradation but joyfully and enthusiastically received femme. It made me feel expansive, boundless, beautiful, and free. I let myself present in ways I never thought were available to me.
I started seeking information on trans experiences and narratives. This was becoming a dear part of my identity. After having done quire a bit of reading I remember one day, still early on in the process, I stood in front of a mirror and felt myself beginning to dislike what I saw. Then— and I don’t know how I managed this— I said, “No, that is not my story, that is somebody else’s narrative”, and the feeling subsided. Since then I’ve wanted to change things about my appearance, even some large things, but never because I hated what I was, but because it delighted me to know what I could become.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Because I don’t follow the typical narrative, because I don’t reject wholesale the masculine elements of my personality** I felt unwelcome in queer spaces. I questioned and tore at myself for taking on an identity which was not for me. There was suddenly shame and a sense that I was abusing my privilege by “playing at” these identities {woman, trans?} which are as serious as life and death to so many, including people I love, because for me fucking around with gender brought me joy. Because I have not suffered in the way some trans people do I am far less in need of support. I’m gonna be okay. I only wish where were more voices out there saying “It’s okay for this to be joyful. It’s okay for this not to hurt. It’s okay for this to be sexy. Your identity is legitimate, and your narrative is valid”. Instead I found the opposite: voices aplenty telling me that my narrative had all the signs of a man with a fetish, and that my encroaching on gender-variant identities was grotesque. Sidenote: A big part of this for me has been that I’ve always seen male sexuality as very base {totally not fair to the men I love whose sexual express in as beautiful as the dawn, but it is what it is}, so this accusation that I was just an entitled pervert cut deep.
The thing is, I don’t feel like I’ve ever been in denial about anything. This, for me, is a choice that makes me happy and makes my life richer. I honestly believe that I could have lived out my days as a queer, weird creature whose pronouns are “he” and I would have been okay. It’s not that I *am* a woman and it’s all just waiting to flood out, it’s that I am more than male. Gender plus. Bonus gender on my gender, yes thank you. The freedom afforded by slipping outside the Standard Narrative has allowed me to explore all this in a way that has been healthy and beautiful for me, knowing that I can present and change myself as much or as little as suits me. I’ll likely spend a spell on hormones. Perhaps my presentation will one day be more predominantly femme, or maybe I’ll decide I’m happier where I am now. I would have survived as an unusual fella, but my life is so much richer for having gone on this journey, so much more beautiful. It’s a richness I wish more people could experience, and I wonder how many languish in solitude or shame because they don’t fit the handful of narratives we’ve stamped “valid”. Shamed because their sexuality and gender are not separate for them, confined because they don’t feel “out of place” enough to medically transition. It makes my heart ache to think on, and it makes me a little mad, too. You get at this in the article: in many respects I feel like people whose gender and sexuality are not separate have been pushed under the bus in a bid for respectability. I get it. I get why it happened. It still sucks.
Anyway, back to work. Text wall over.
*{though I am inherently somewhat androgynous; maybe I’d have felt differently if I found myself in a more characteristically male body}
**{which is separate from the masculine baggage and problematic behaviors being AMAB often bestows, which I am gradually doing my best to shed}
I’m publishing this comment as a separate post. Please contact me if you want it attributed to your name or pen-name. xx
Thank you so much for this article which does really make sense to me as someone who is non-binary, lives in a feminine headspace, has had for a long time an interest around the sissy side but who felt the regular narrative with its path toward transition didn’t apply to me and felt marginalized within Tg spaces for having some of those sissy connected fetishes.
I find the article quite interesting, even if not everything in it is clear.
Concerning the examples of the three effeminate men, it cannot be assumed that Johnny might be a real transgender “because” Alex is allegedly one. Actually, there is nothing clearly indicating that Alex is a real transgender just because he became particularly obsessed with it. It is absolutely crucial to keep in mind that some transgender people did violently regret changing their sex because that was not really what they truly wanted. One thing is to feel aroused by the idea of becoming “hopelessly” feminine; another thing is to be really feminine or wishing to spend the rest of one’s life as a woman on a daily basis.
That’s why I believe that contrary to what the text takes as a given, it is not “ridiculous” to consider the possibility that some of the same symptoms may in fact have starkly different meanings. That’s how I really fail to see why so many people hate the concept of autoginephilia. What’s wrong with it? Some men do in fact feel pleasure with the *idea* of acting like women. On the other hand, I don’t understand why does the author dismisses that autogynephilia can exist in women – because if it can, then autogynephilia is a real possible bridge between the condition of being male to the land of real femininity. One way or another, it is obviously fundamental never to forget that autogynephilia in men does have a sense of surrender in it. Does that same excitement continues to exist if such man finally becomes an XY woman? If the voyage itself is more exciting than the arrival, why avoid the trip?
Moreover, it is repeatedly said all over the article that to be labelled a fetishist is somehow degrading. Well, in science, value judgements cannot be taken as obstacles to conclusions. To consider that being a fetishist is degrading is, in itself, a value judgement. I mean, so what if a sissy is a fetishist? Or a monster? Or a pervert? Who is determining that to be a fetishist/monster/loony/pervert is bad in the first place or just “out of the question”? I am not implying that to feel aroused by effemination thoughts is fetishism. Actually, it is an entire way of feeling, not comparable to the pleasure that a given object can offer. One may have a fetish with skirts or high heels, but that’s different from fantasizing a whole type of relationship and so the concept of paraphilia fits a lot better in it. Anyway, I am just saying that if it is fetishism, then it is so. One way or another, it remains undeniably strong and most probably it cannot be “cured”. So, to call it “fetishism” or white chocolate or a glove in the snow won’t change it a bit or make it any less powerful and, more importantly, central, when it is the very first and most intense form of sexuality of a given person.
As in all aspects of life, Religion can offer a solution. In the ancient world, some important Goddesses – Cybele, Atargatis, Tanit, Hera, and probably Venus, Hekate, Ishtar, Argimpasa, Diana – had effeminate priests that in some cases did castrate themselv es to honour the Goddess(es) before spending the rest of their lives in women attire serving the Goddess(es) (Cybele’s galli). Symbolically speaking, the resemblance of this with what the typical crossdresser fantasises and feels is absolutely striking. The same sort of worshipping and ritual still exists in India today (see Bahuchara Mata’s hijras). The solution I am talking about here is not to explain the existence of effemination through religious myths but to remember that this ancient human behaviour can be as dignified as any other, regardless of the label it gets.
What does excite the male crossdresser is the surrender to what seems to be Femininity, I mean, the idea of femininity that lies in the mind of the crossdresser. It is culturally feminine to wear a tight skirt. But… is it feminine to feel erotically excited by wearing a tight skirt? Or is that specific excitement a product of a male mind in contact with cultural femininity? One way or another, it comes from the feminine «radiation» and so, symbolically, it can be defined as an influence from a feminine archetype or, ultimately, a Goddess.
Thanks so much for your comment. It would take me a century to respond to all the many interesting questions you raise. I hope you find my answers in other posts. xx
Thank you for your answer. I look forward to read some answers to these comments here or elsewhere in this site.
I’ll try to keep this simple. I am a lifelong “trans” person with a recent official diagnosis from a top expert, and authorisation for HRT, but I am married to a hetero woman (in as much as any woman is hetero) and also I have a deeply curious mind.
So important points have influenced my slowing down of “transition” to “enjoy the view.”
Firstly it seems to me that as a refractory condition found deep back into history, it must be in some way “adaptive” for the individual or group.
Secondly for 9.999999% of that history true biological transition was not an option. So all strategies and narratives that “fall short” of this are highly valid, in fact biological transition might be a sideshow, what evr a nice feeling it might be for those of us “on that train”. Especially very late in life, as I am. But hold on, late in life secondary sexual characteristics lessen, I can “pass” now more easily than I could at any time since I was adolescent, this is only in part because I both more deeply understand the “inside” as well as give myself permission to inhabit it.
When being interviewed over time by the specialist gender unit I went first, with my wife, in male mode, partly for ogistical reasons, much more because, having been married and living with this for at least 25 years, it was an issue and a challenge for both of us. This was the situation for three visits Dra Zelia Figuereido the Psychiatrist, head of the unit and top specialist here in Portugal, never offered any questioning of the validity of this, but her psychologist coworker, never caught my eye, she gave off the “feminist lesbian” vibe.
Then I went as “Serena”, I came in the door, crossed the romm and they almost fell off their chairs. At all levels of communication they interacted with me as totally female, in contrast the chilly psychologist almost never lost face contact, I was “one of us”, nt a “trans” but a woman, minimum makeup.
So what was happening? I had crossed from the male into the “forbidden zone” of women “in plain sight. Not only that, visiting my friends in the hairdressers that morning, for a little styling on my own fairly short and thin hair, but saved by from male pattern hairloss (thankyou prostate). They, experts in “womanhood, sorcerers in their own right in a way, also exhibited this total instinctive embracing.
I have since journeyed deep into the implications of this, including, ironically exploring the ultra sissy maid persona, on my fertile principle of “walking towards my weird” the experiee has been astonishing, bearing in mind that I am someone who, much earlier in life, was deeply involved in buddhist meditation under a highly esteemed indian master, at a time when one could work with hm in person, and other “occult” schools, always dismissing my transgender fantasies and experiments as “distractions” or “weaknesses”.
For some years now I have known that, no they, she is the main event.
I was sitting with my ordinary shrink, who referred me to Dra Zelia originally five years ago (I tried for “treatment” 24 yrs ago, but retreated, understanding that the profession knew little, and I had other issues like PTSD from past stuff that needed treating before i was strong enough to visit this important issue.
I was going over my recent eperiences, but in no detail, she is primarily my “meds technician” of that generation who finally got their hands on tools to save the lives of bipolars and the like (more paleolithics caught in the wrong time) She said “Steve” I was in male mode, as I am in general in the “profane” world of late, “you are a shaman”. I said “I don’t like that word, it is abused by folk who have no understanding of what it means” Neopagans understand less than east asian cosplayer in this.
But we sissies, if we ditch the post shakespearian narrative, we have that magic door just close, we can, having proved that thing, can be bridges across other deep divides. We thrive on the differences, biological and cultural, between genders, they are to us like the poles of a battery, the greater the difference, the more the charge. Just as in deep history, when even the language was different in many ways for men and for women, when a man who even saw women weaving in ancient persia, was put to death for stealing their secrets.
When I first spoke of “Serena” (a name given to me by my wife decades ago, when she was very unsure, as was I) to my sister, she told me of a friend of hers, a fellow lawyer, who had most successfully transitioned m-f, looked great, was “accepted” by those around her. Two decades later, my sister came across her at a conference, asked her how she was, they were close enough for her to be candid, “If I was to go back, I would not have bothered, I am well, but I never got what I really wanted, that feeling of sisterhood with women.” I think in some way that was because her friends, lawers, concentrated on her rights, for that was the prime narrative around gender dysphoria then, none of them were sissy, cis or trans, or were ashamed of it if they were, or did it “only at the weekend”.
I got that feeling the first time in this phase that i ent out and mixed with women who were friends, but women who majored in femininity, including Dra Zelia, a lifetime specialist in sexology, my age, and an unrepentant “frilly babe”.
It was not short, nor simple, but real fairy stories never are, and they are rich with fear and taboo, for it is fairyland we are talking about, we are fairies, the real kind, not the victorian version, we are oten frightening, and those who do not have the inheritance, die if they dance with fairies.
If you have read this far, thankyou.
Of course I’ve read this far…and I’m truly grateful for your extended comments. However you decide to live…I wish you happiness. xx
https://www.facebook.com/serena.de.lima.kane discretion is wisdom’s shield.
Early onset trans woman. Typical narrative. New from around 8-9. Told parents around 18. Started hormones at 22. That isn’t that young by todays standards but was back 18 years ago when I started taking hormones.
Anyway I did and still do have a history of cross gender arousal. Having transitioned hasn’t changed this a bit. It has shifted focus from the ‘forced feminisation’ focused fantasies to the ‘hyper feminine / sissy’ focused fantasies. I guess because having done the hard yards myself I no longer need anyone to ‘force’ me and take the burden of the responsibility away from me.
My theory was always that our sexual arousal stimuli are set, or at least tweaked, around adolescence. For me that meant I was effected by stories of young boys being forced by their ‘evil aunts’ to be girls. The horror of it all! The humiliation and shame of it all!!
It doesn’t matter that having grown into a woman (happily) makes forced crossdressing or crossdressing at all redundant. It is still where arousal triggers are buried in me. At best it shifted slightly. No longer any dress would do – since I wear them semi regularly anyway. Now it is the sissy dress. The hyper feminine. The absurd level of femininity that makes a mockery of a woman and especially a trans woman (yes I hate that our patriarchy paints all femininity as weak, less and worthy of shame).
So yes I am an early onset trans sissy. I am happy to accept the label autogynophiliac. Works for me.
Thing is I know many trans girls. ALL of them in the secret hours of the morning admit they loved this cross gender arousal before during AND after their transition.
We know though that the medical gatekeepers need to hear the ‘correct’ answers to cover their asses so we give them what they want to hear. Hell I can still recall back 20 years ago being coached on IRC (internet relay chat) how to answer the questions so I wouldn’t be refused hormones.
Until we get self determination this nonsense narrative of ‘woman trapped in a mans body who never gets aroused crossdressing’ is never going to go away.
P.S. I like the label of “the family of ‘exaggerated femininity fantasies’. That sums them up perfectly.
P.P.S You are definitely not alone in your line of thinking. MANY trans girls I know feel this way and know this stuff though I guess few have bothered to write down the ideas as you have.
P.P.P.S The hierarchy of transgender people with crossdressers and sissies below is just elitist crap. If you ever hear someone declare they are a true transexual or a primary transexual run away.
I can completely see the logic that upon transition the hyper feminine becomes even more sexy as femenine has already been achieved.
Thanks for your extremely reasonable points.
Xx
Got me thinking! My whole life I identified as cross-dresser or a sissy but thinking over my life I cannot think of any time I did not dress as a girl starting as early as 12 or so. I may very well be transgender. It makes prefect sense to me.
Most profound, perceptive, and said so well, I wish I had said it first! But I greatly appreciate you putting that entire concept to words. Consider me a loyal ‘follower’ and I will now read everything you post. Thank you!
Oh my gosh, I just commented again and forgotten that I had done so months earlier! Oh well, it just confirms that I truly do support your essay and logic!
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I’m 24 years old and I have cross gender arousal since I was like 13/14 years. I have thought about being transsexual before but I never really took this idea serious. I had a gender identity crisis recently and I overall came to the conclusion that I’m pretty comfortable as men and I don’t see myself as women in day to day activites. I want to be a father, I want to do sport as a men, I don’t want to shave my beard, loose my muscles or penis and I have an amazing circle of masculin friends with that I’m feeling even more as men. And I especially not really turned on about being an old women one day.
The main reason I got into this gender crisis is just because I read cross gender arousal is a symptom of LOT. So now I’m afraid of becoming a LOT with real gender issues in the future. I know that it is difficult to predict if I will become a LOT but this fear kinda keeps me back in planning my future life. I might find a beautiful women, get kids and a nice job and suddenly my whole life is destroyed because I realize I would rather be a women.
I LOVE fantasizing about being a BEAUTIFUL YOUNG women having sex with multiple men and I don’t really think this will ever go away.
How should I deal with my cross gender arousal at this state ?
Dear P, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
You are right that at this moment you can not predict whether your sexual fascination with being a woman will later graduate to a full on gender identity crisis. However, even if it does, you can still make exactly the same choice you have made now (that all things considered – life as a man is what’s best for you.)
In other words, developing hard LOT does not mean you have to transition and all the rest of that stuff. It means you go through the same dilemnas and choices you’ve already face – BUT WITH GREATER INTENSITY. However, despite that intensity…you can still use analysis and reason to understand that the best thing for you is to remain living as a man.
You are also right that it will never go away (the sexual fantasies.)
Therefore, the fact that you are already – at such a young age – so clued up about the situation means that you really have hope to get solid control of your transgender nature rather than let it control you.
Like addiction or grief or many other existential conditions you will have to work hard to keep un top of the problem but you definitely can do it.
So, my final advice is to relax about the cross gender arousal. Enjoy it…and also understand that it will make a part of you forever fem. Enjoy that, too. But…also learn to be a good male lover and husband and – later – father.
Good luck and keep in touch… (and read my book https://www.amazon.com/Jedi-Mindtrick-Your-Gender-Dysphoria-ebook/dp/B01KPT0LC2 )
Oh my gosh! THANK YOU! Thank you for putting to words where I have failed. Your logic is seamless and spotless! I am transgender, at 59 yet undecided about if I will do more than just my prescribed feminization regimen. I have always considered myself a transvestite and I actually LOVE the word TRANS-VES-TITE! YES! No sense in me repeating or restating everything you wrote. You covered it ALL like a total pro writer and overall champ. I agree with you entirely. I have thought out much of what you handled and came to the same conclusions. I have always been a bit irked by the snooty self-proclaimed transsexuals who distance themselves from cross-dressers in an overt high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou ‘peasant fetish trannies”. You know it because you covered it! Man will I be saving and referencing your wonderful, insightful, profound and highly astute examination and essay!