� In this diary, I record my life as a transvestite. Perhaps it will help somebody else, who finds their lifestyle doesn't quite match that endorsed by the 'tranny mafia'. Well, I've been there... and survived. The debriefing starts here.
�loves: All kinds of stuff that society thinks I shouldn't.
I met up with a friend, not so long ago. A reader of this (very occasional) blog, and a fellow transvestite, that is. Not one of those Cold War style spy meet-ups where you try to make sure you�re actually greeting the right person: fortunately we had met before, so just a quiet sandwich and a chat.
This was shortly after the BBC�s �Secrets of $ci�nto�og�� programme, and we talked a little about that. Perhaps the poor guy felt obliged to watch it, in case there was going to be �a test�. Well... I hope I didn�t give that impression. Of course, I�m always ready to talk about how batshit insane $ci�nto�og� is, so that was fun...
Anyway, one of the other things we talked about was the condition of my friend, as an unhappy human being who happens to also be a transvestite. Or a cross-dresser or a T-Girl or whatever the heck he wants to call himself. There may be subtle differences; it�s a long time since I was a real part of the �scene� so I don�t know.
Now, take it from me; dressing as a woman can be a euphoric experience � or rather, for people like us, it can be. It�s a drug. It can make you feel relaxed, and tremendously comfortable... or more. I guess it takes different people different ways, but I�d put it at least on a par with nicotine. (With the caveat that it�s probably better for your fingernails.) And if the frequency with which you need another �hit� is lower, that doesn�t make the craving any less real. It�s an addition. A damn weird one, because how can the shape of a garment make it do something different to your brain? I can�t tell you how... I can only say that it does. I�m not here to explain the addiction today (read some of my oldest posts if you want to see my musings on that subject), but I would like to talk about living with that addiction.
So: friend is unhappy, for complicated reasons that I won�t attempt to sum up, nor do I want to imply that I fully understand. Friend finds solace in the clothing and/or persona of a feminine alter-ego. So far, so good. I mean, it�s probably doing him less harm than nicotine would! However, he�s a little bit scared as to where it might ultimately lead. I suppose it goes something like this:
To the unhappy tranny, �I feel good when I�m in female mode� can become �I only feel good when I�m in female mode,� and finally �I have to be in female mode, in order to feel good�? With the end-game being that one endures considerable plastic surgery, in order to become (hopefully) a person that you want to be?
And yet, what is a person? What is a personality? Do we really only feel that we can function �right� if our boobs are inserted under our skin, rather than stuck on the surface? Would an absence of testicles (etcetera) make us better in some way? Given that this is an imperfect world where everybody leads a sub-optimal life, should we leave behind just about everything that we�ve become, and take this leap into the unknown on the off-chance that life will be better?
Which makes me think of Monty Python, of course...
Scarily, the answer is: for some people, it�s the right thing to do. The trick, of course, is to know if you�re one of those people or not. I�m thinking of Gulf War veteran Tom Hibdon IV, for example, with his garage full of guns and his armed standoff with the police. Now called Rachel Amratiel, she herself said: �I was a real dick before I transitioned.� I might also mention a young �member� of Anonymous, the movement dedicated to dismantling the Church of $ci�nto�og�: �Delicious Trap� has recently undergone a similar change. Good luck to both...
The real trick, perhaps, is to recognise the decision for what it is, and to face up to it. There�s a world of difference between a transsexual and a transvestite, but about a quarter of male-to-female surgeries are carried out upon people quite late in life, after a lengthy �career� of transvestism. You have to wonder why they didn�t either do it sooner, or not at all. Either way, there�s going to be a hefty dollop of regret, but the worrying thing, as my friend acknowledged, is the idea of ending up getting your bits chopped off for the wrong reasons.
I have written before about what I called the Tranny Ratchet; the idea that the addict has to keep on upping the dosage by getting closer to their feminine ideal. This can be done by buying new things, by doing new things, and by effecting changes to their bodies. If you read trans-whatever websites, you will quickly see that trannies are obsessed with the idea of a �scale� of trans-ness, and the supposition that one is progressing along the scale. Trannies gleefully report their �firsts�; first time out �dressed�, first time this, first time that...
One issue here is that the notion of a progression of �firsts� leads one towards the getting your bits chopped off endgame, and pursuing a �high� doesn�t sound like the right reason to do that... but another is the effect that all this has upon the rest of the family. None of my business, what goes on in somebody else�s family, of course, but from my happy position as a transvestite-in-remission, it�s depressing to see the Tranny Ratchet at work in somebody else�s life.
Step back for a minute.
Years ago, I bought a high-technology gadget, and being well on the road to becoming an engineer, I did what any engineer would do: I didn�t confine my admiration of the new purchase to merely using the gadget. Instead, I took it to pieces, to see how it worked. Being sixteen years old at the time, and with technical skills not matching my aspirations... I promptly fucked it up. Because sometimes, when you take something that works perfectly well and that hundreds of thousands of other people are happy with, and you tinker with it to see how it might be made to work better... you end up spoiling it. This was back in the eighties, when high streets still contained shops where people actually knew what they were talking about, instead of just selling assorted barcoded boxes of Chinese-made shit, so when I took my ruined gadget back to the shop, the proprietor fixed it for me. Free of charge! And he kind of understood my need to take it to bits and see what was what... but I�ll never forget what he said to me:
�You can�t put an old head on young shoulders.�
Nowadays, of course, I have a much older head. (And older shoulders, too: the right one is killing me today!) I have learned many engineering skills, and perhaps the most important of them is the science I call �leave the bloody thing alone.�
One of the things that I don�t believe it�s wise to tinker with is marriage. Lots of 20th century intellectuals � some of them quite clever people � tried to improve upon the formula. There were open marriages, m�nages � trois, a resurgence of polygamy, peace �n� love tribal arrangements and who knows what else... but the thing that works best, from what I have observed of the world around me, is when two people commit to each other and work to make it work.
It seems obvious to me that marriage (in fact, let�s say any long-term relationship) isn�t going to work well when there�s a third element of excessive significance, whether it�s a mistress, the family priest, heavy drinking, cocaine, or anything else. We�ve evolved to work best when we pair off, and the two halves of a successful couple will have derived an arrangement whereby they each fulfil different roles, but still have some things in common.
Transvestism introduces a third element. It�s an addiction, and it disrupts the gender roles that the couple had previously settled into. Also, the Tranny Ratchet means that any agreement that is made will be under constant pressure, because the guy is going to want to shave this, pluck that, sleep in a babydoll nightie, or whatever...
As with my mid-eighties gadget, I tinkered with a mid-nineties relationship... and I fucked that up, too. The long-suffering Lucy did her best to understand and accommodate my feminine side... but in the end, we had to go our separate ways. The Tranny Ratchet meant I simply couldn�t be trusted. Fortunately, Lucy was only my fianc�e at the time, and our family comprised nothing but an elderly cat... but it still hurt like hell. I pondered killing myself ... and decided not to. I think it was four years before I started dating again.
I can only talk about my own experience; my statistically insignificant sample of one guy, one broken-off engagement and one marriage that I would describe as �so far, so good.� In my admittedly limited experience, some things work best when you don�t mess with them: you just accept the notion of �good enough� and get on with something else. Am I 100% happy being 100% male? No. But I�d make a horrendous pseudo-female... so I leave the bloody thing alone. Facing the world from beneath a thin layer (okay, quite a thick layer) of MAC Studio Fix wouldn�t have made my life any easier. The grass is greener on the other side. Big deal: I�m not a herbivore. Besides which, we�re told that the grass is always greener on the other side, and I�d hate to go through another break-up, and find myself looking back and wishing...
