GenderEvolve - Transgender Transformation

(by Marlena Dahlstrom) I ran across this article (don't worry it's short) that argues cross-dressers typically share the following traits: Intelligent Creating and making things Intellectual Curiosity and Eclecticism Collectors/Hobbyists/Tinkerers Perfectionism Dreamers/Enjoy flights of fancy Loners (although I suspect this varies depending on how introverted/extroverted you are) which the author, a CD herself, argues typically has made CDs feel "different" from others and a bit of an outsider even before they put on the dress. It was freakily accurate in describing me. So I posted it as a poll over a Crossdressers.com where the (admittedly self-selected and unscientific) concensus is that it descibes people very well to generally well -- no one so far has thought it didn't really describe them. Interesting one FTM CD also thought it described extremely well, so we're going to post the poll in the FTM section to see if there's similar results. So what do...

(by Marlena Dahlstrom) Good news and bad news.... The good news is that a would-be novelist joined one of the online forums I belong to in order to do researching on cross-dressing for a novel where the protagonist happens to be a crossdresser -- someone who was fired when he was outed, but who has the huevos to stay in town and carry on with his life. The writer, call him Philip, was open about his intentions, when it would have been really easy to fake a profile and present himself as a newbie. He doesn't make crossdressing the centerpiece, rather just an interesting aspect of the protagonist (the focus will be on the character's professional life, and he just happens to cross-dress). Philip had a few misperceptions, which we corrected, and seems genuinely interested and respectful. In fact, he said he's rewriting some things in light what he now understands. We did let him know that a crossdresser who's out like that is pretty atypical (although Lacey Leigh was recen...

(by Michele Angelique) Last night I had an epiphany. I now understand "why". I will show you what I discovered, but first I must give you some background on where I am coming from in a spiritual sense. I have always been a deeply spiritual person, never in the organized religion realm, but just in always "knowing" we are all here for a grand and magnificent purpose. My spiritual training began in my early childhood, around the age of 4-5. Although I was baptized Roman Catholic at the insistence of my grandparents, my parents were hippies, and thus were explorers of many belief systems outside the Christian/Catholic realm. We never practiced any form of ceremonial religion, it was always more in-depth discussions and pondering among ourselves. My early spirituality was more based on Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism and Metaphysics. Our spirituality never had a "label", my parents just borrowed from various schools of thought and applied them to our dail...

(by Annette Brunette) Hello to all you lovely ladies, I thought I'd write a personalized little thingy about my own journey through the gender world. Many excellent posts have been written about Gender Euphoria and the need to maintain balance in our lives and I don't have much to add to them at the moment. I, too, went through my own period of euphoria lasting from 1995 til roughly 2004. Lately, though, the gender world has been a flat line and I've been feeling apathetic about the whole thing. So I'm writing from a different perspective, that of a burnt out CD. I still go out from time to time. But I don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Burnout? Or maybe it's a gender midlife crisis. I looked in my closet the other day and stared at all my dresses. Shocking but apart from a Pagan transgender wedding that I had attended a few weeks ago (as "space girl") I hadn't worn a dress since January, the annual "First Event" TG convention in Massa...

(by Marlena Dahlstrom) In "My Husband Betty" Helen Boyd makes an asute observation that cross-dressers often are envious of things genetic women take for granted: "They envy the easy friendship between women, the casual way women touch each other when they talk. Imagine a man gently brushing another man's hair out of his eyes while they're chatting! But women do that kind of thing all the time, even ones who aren't especially feminine." I've always envied the way one my best friends can easily strike up a conversation with another woman she's just met. Obviously, this isn't dependent on gender. My friend is gregarious while I've always been social awkward around strangers. (Yes, despite being raised in California, I'm one of Garrison Keillor's people.) But it does seem like there's a big difference to the way two newly-introduced women interact compared to two guys. The reverse is also true. I know many genetic women who envy ...

(by Dee Gregory) Where do I fit in? In a society that is still slowly waking up and trying to come to terms with the concept of transgender, how do protect my family from the unenlightened and still gently move our vision of acceptance and understanding forward? In every microcosm of society we have yet another microcosm of society. Within our transgender realm we have the good, the bad and the …uh…uh....... those who need a little more practice…. Some of us have the boldness and freedoms to carry the flag and lead the way while others open our closets only to connect the modem or network cable so we can join our sisters and friends through the cyber realm. We each will eventually have to find our own balance and place where we are comfortable (but, hopefully not too comfortable) and can live our everyday lives. I recently heard of a gal who was ecstatic because she had gone 3-4 days totally in femme and from another whom’s string of 4 straight nights of 4 hours of dressing and picture...

(by Alexis Rene Jones) A challenge of sorts was presented to me by a new friend. To present how did Alexis get here? My instant response was "the internet silly"....But have asked myself the same thing daily for years. I still don't have the answer. So come with me to the early 80's in a rural midwestern U.S. setting far away from mainstream influences of any sort . i.e. Where you have three channels on a television a antenna would pull in and a local newspaper deilvered every Wednesday. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds. As with other stories I have read about you always see "girls" who have dressed since the post diaper stage in which if you count tromping around in Mom's shoes so be it, but the Freudians will have a fieldtrip with that. The recollections are as vivid as the monitor is before me. From about the ages of 8-9 that I saw a girl in particular who was a model . This girls hair, her smile, her everything was just so intoxicating to me ...

(by Michele Angelique & Felicia Conti) Felicia got me to thinking when she recently sent out an email to the group entitled "The Yin and Yang of it all" in which she said: "I would say that the GenderEvolve group has both qualitative and quantitative mechanisms in place for evolving both the amount and quality of interaction of its members. It seems that quantitative research has more masculine, yang energy and that qualitative research has more feminine, yin energy, but that both are necessary for completeness." Felicia's perspective mirrors my own. I see importance and benefit in both Yin and Yang energy, and constantly seek to combine them. The time has come to explore the connection between the Yin-Yang symbol and transgenderism. Feminine energy is attributed to Yin, and masculine attributed to Yang. Yin and Yang are interdependent and symbiotic, and can be used to describe all mutually exclusive set of opposites, including man and woman. One cannot thri...

(by Marlena Dahlstrom) I ran across a good (and lengthy) article by a reporter for a gay magazine who went out en femme with a local t-girl group. If you're wondering why we CDs like to go out and what some of the emotional satisfaction of cross-dressing are, this gives a good sense of things. http://www.swervemedia.org/issues/swerve-2002-10.pdf (The story starts on page 12. FYI it's a 3.8 MB PDF file, so it may be easier read by downloading it by right-clicking on the link (option-click for Mac) and then opening it up.) The reporter gives a blow-by-blow account of the steps needed to look femme (the guy was even willing to shave his goatee, arms and legs) and gets help with a makeover -- although the poor dear did lay on the blush and eye shadow a bit heavy. Not that any of us have done that our first times. He observes: "A successful transformation involves more than slapping on powder and lipstick, throwing on a dress, and talking in a falsetto. As a creative art form,...