After such a long and exhausting diversion, I would like to return to our chronological narrative of the late onset transsexual’s life and development. So far, we have reached the first cross gender experience – which usually involves the young boy of four or five wearing female clothes and presenting himself to his family.
What happens next?
A very interesting thing to know is what would happen if instead of telling the boy it was not the done thing for him to wear a dress… they smiled and said very little. I would speculate that parental disapproval at this presentation of gender change behaviour has a powerful effect on the young child, causing him to bury his deeper female self with a vengeance. He goes all Taliban on that shit.
The successful subjugation of their female side is proved by the astonishing lack of any further signs of gender variance for several years. Sure, there are some crossdreamers who talk of liking girls toys and activities, but there are also many who – even though they subsequently progress to late onset transsexualism – report absolutely no sign of femininity whatsoever after that first, ill-fated presentation.
This disturbs many crossdreamers and transsexuals with gender change aspirations because they are looking for evidence of the repressed female. They want to find the missing link between then and now that showed they were transgendered throughout childhood and teenage years. This is best shown in the novel, Electra…
It seemed that if she could investigate her past and find clear instances of female behaviour then what was happening now at the age of 28 was a logical culmination of lifelong repression. If however, she could find no such thing then this whole process seemed to be utterly incomprehensible – some kind of mental disorder that arose in middle age.
She imagined a debate played out in court with two advocates – one a transsexual rights activist called Carol (formerly Trevor) representing the case for the repressed female, the other – a slick psychiatrist called Doctor Tario who believed late onset transsexuality was indeed a mental disorder that only appeared in middle age femephiliacs.
Carol’s job was to prove that Electra had always been transgendered. The case began with Carol presenting a resounding piece of evidence: Electra’s first childhood memory: wearing a dress. At approximately the age of four Electra had arrived in the family lounge, having taken it on herself to put on her sister’s dress. Carol looked around the court defying anyone to dispute this irrefutable proof of her watertight case.
But the problem was… that was the entire case.
Carol had pushed Electra to find further evidence of her repressed womanhood. Electra had paused for thought… there were some possibly useful things… vague memories of vague fantasies about vaguely being in the girl’s class, a vague and unusual interest in fashion… but they all seemed to pale next to the classically male direction of her childhood. Her obsession with football and with war and with building things and her total non-interest in Barbies or feminine behaviour or feminine things, seemed to scream of not being transgendered in the slightest.
Electra realised that deep down, the whole – I always wanted to be a woman from day 1 – thesis, was not relevant in her case. Furthermore, she suspected it wasn’t relevant in a lot of cases and that it was really wishful thinking and the construction of a past narrative to justify a present action.
Something few people consider in dealing with this issue is that even if you found lots of signs of feminine tastes… it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You could just have been a kid with feminine tastes. I have male friends who love shopping, removing body hair and wearing an earring on each ear… it’s not evidence of them being transgendered ( mmm, though… now I think of it.) Furthermore, a hyper masculine childhood could be interpreted in a contrary way: the boy was trying to compensate for his suppressed femininity.
Therefore, as we follow the crossdreamer through his childhood we may or may not see signs of his transgendered nature… but human memory is poor and even if there were signs he probably won’t remember them. Rather like the sexuality issue, I don’t think it makes any difference either way and the search for signs is one of these unnecessary searches for validation the transsexual tries to make. Being transsexual is validation enough.
To conclude, I believe that in most cases of late onset transsexualism that first ill-fated presentation is usually the beginning and end of a visible transgendered nature in childhood. The kid feels a strong urge to present himself as a girl… he is acting on pure instinct… somewhere in his mind wants to test the waters… and that is when he learns that boys don’t do that. So he doesn’t do it. And that’s it.
And there will be very little sign of his female self until a sexual awakening in adolescence brings his femephilia to the foreground.
Excuse the audio in this video… A licensed gender therapist talks about childhood…
