Another TG blog: To Get to the Bottom of Everything

Here is a crossdreamer blog I have missed: To Get to the Bottom of Everything written by Russel AKA Rebecca Reichert.

She tells the story of how she became aware of her transgender condition:

"I can't say how old I was, but I might have been around 10 years old. My family had gone to one of the local Blockbusters in the area for whatever reason and I remember that I was wandering around by myself. The one thing from that trip that sticks out in my memory was when I came across a certain movie. The movie, which I now realize was Dr. Jeckyl and Ms. Hyde, had a man turning into a woman on the cover. I believe that I was able to remember the gist of the title all these years, but I cannot honestly remember if that was added later on or not. But anyways, this movie stuck out to me before I had any idea what my interests in sexuality, being and other stuff were."

You will find that a lot of crossdreamers find a way of conceptualizing their transgender nature through popular culture. Younger generations are -- for instance -- inspired by the Japanese manga series Ranma 1/2, about a boy who due to some magic often changes into a girl.

In this there is no difference between crossdressers and crossdreamers who live as men on the one hand and transwomen and transmen on the other, as the conditions most likely are related. The dreams of magic potions, genies, lamps and spells give the crossdreamer a way to explore his/her inner woman or man in his/her mind.

Crossdreamer News

Some of you may have noticed that I have put up an experimental newspaper on transgender issues over at paper.li.

No, I am not sitting up all night editing it. The page is generated automatically on the basis on information from my Twitter account. This makes it a little risky, as the system may include stories I do not approve of. I will take the newspaper down if that becomes a problem.

Please let me know if you find anything offensive.

The newspaper might be of use to those of you that want to follow the current debated on transgender issues.

So what about crossdressing and crossdreaming? Well, the fact is that these are terms that do not generate enough buzz to fill a whole newspaper. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, remains to be seen.

The Finns remove crossdressing from their medical manual

As my regular readers will have noted, I have been seriously annoyed by the inclusion of crossdressing and crossdreaming in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

As far as I can see, crossdressing and crossdreaming are not mental disorders per se, but the psyche's way of coping with some kind of gender misalignment. In other words: transgender conditions like these are expressions of natural diversity, not perversions or "paraphilias".

I am afraid the American psychiatrists will probably hold on to their "transvestic disorder".  Here in Scandinavia, however, the trend goes in the opposite direction.

The Finns no longer consider crossdressing a disease

The Finish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat recently reported  that crossdressing (transvestism) is no longer considered a disease in Finland:

"Certain diagnoses relating to sexual behaviour will be removed from the Finnish version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) next year. The number of categories to be removed from the ICD is five, including transvestism, sexual fetishism, sadomasochism, and diverse sexual target disorders."

The newspaper notes that  harm has been inflicted on people who have felt that they have been labelled by such diagnoses.

"The major problem is that when examining himself or herself, a transvestite may have noticed that he or she has a mental disorder, thereafter starting to regard himself or herself ill", Minna-Maaria Lax, the chair of a Finnish crossdresser association says.

The paper points out that in conflict situations, for example during a divorce, the classification may have given a weapon to the other party.

The Swedes changed the manual in 2009

The ICD codes F64.1 (Dual-role transvestism), F64.2 (Gender identity disorder of childhood), F65.0 (Fetishism), F65.1 (Fetishistic transvestism), F65.5 (Sadomasochism), F65.6 (Multiple disorders of sexual preference) have not been used in Sweden since January 1 2009.

Gender Reloaded 3: Snapshots from Greece and India

The dominance model and the biological sex model compared and in transition

When writing this series I had several discussions with people on the difference between the older dominance model (where “masculinity” is defined on the basis of freedom and proactiveness) and the biological sex model (where “masculinity” is based on a sexual attraction towards the female body).  I was particularly interested in how these two models play out today in cultures outside North America and Northern Europe.

The movement from dominance to sexual orientation in Greece

Irini from Greece asked his contacts in a Greek trans and queer forum about the two models, and posted a response over at Crossdream Life.

“I am acquainted to gay people, through he lgbtq [lesbian, bay, bisexual, trans and queer] movement, but that in no way matches a ‘first hand’ experience. That’s why I thought it wise to re-post your question in a couple of local LGB forums. I got some responses from gay people I know.

Their answers (plus the few things I know) add up to this:

The way homosexuality is perceived in Greece (an -probably- in most southern Europe) is ‘mixed’ and ‘in transition’:

Gender Reloaded 2: From power to biology

My series on an alternative view of gender continues

The gender belief systems

A belief system is a relatively coherent view or understanding of how the world works. It contains certain “self-evident” truths that are not questioned by the people sharing the belief system. 

Before Kepler it was, for instance, considered self evident that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the planets moved in perfect circles around it. You did not discuss why the planets had to move in perfect circles. They were closer to God and God was perfect: Hence they had to move in  perfect circles, where each point of the curve was at an equal distance from the center.

The same applies to sex and gender. Different societies have different belief systems with different given “facts” that all adhere to, including priests and scientists. If you allow me to simplify a bit, I would argue that there are three major belief systems of relevance to this discussion. 

Model 1 The dominance model of sex and gender

The most widespread model of sex and gender is not the one most of my readers know from school and upbringing. Most of you come from Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries, and they are all dominated by Model 2, the biological sex model.

New crossdreamer blogs: Adventures with Autogynephilia and AGP Partners

In case you missed these new crossdreamer blogs:

Adventures with Autogynephilia

Michael has put up a new blog on his life as a crossdreamer. This is what he says:

"I am a man who erotically fantasizes about becoming a woman. Some call this autogynephilia, others crossdreaming. This blog is about my exploration with my own Autogynephilia adventure: what this means to me, who I am, and how I find happiness."

In one post he touches upon experiencing crossdreaming as a kind of addiction:

"This blog is about self discovery and I'll continue to ask questions to help frame how I feel.  I do not think that AGP is a sexual addiction, but that I was addicted to it.  The first step in my AGP adventure has been to try and break this addiction...to starve the beast.  That struggle is for a later post, but to get to the true me I feel that I have to push myself in directions I've never gone."

You can read more here.

AGP Partners

Susanne's blog, My Husband is an Autogynephiliac, has been to great help for both crossdreamers and their partners.

Here is a new blog written by Rebecca, who has a transgender sexual partner with "AGP".

She says:

"This is a blog where I will work to explore, understand and heal my emotional challenges. And, more importantly, map out our journey moving forward."

and:

"I've had a lot of dreams, fantasies and assumptions about my life shattered in the last six months. A lot of pain, anger, tears, rage, fear, frustration, anxiety, confusion, and more fear. I've been lied to. And I have screamed mean things. Its not been pretty. I also love more intensely than I ever have. And more intensely than I would have if none of this had happened."

I am really looking forward to hearing what these two have to say.

New transgender crossdreamer group in Second Life

Crossdreamers seem to find their own ways of expressing their inner woman. 

Crossdressing is one way. Writing transgender fantasies and captions is another.

With the advent of the virtual world Second Life, however, many crossdreamers found a new place to explore their other self,  letting it express itself through their female avatar.

Some of the members of the Crossdream Life forum have now decided to establish a kind of Crossdreamer club in Second Life.

Crossdream SL

Sienna Blau over at Crossdream Life writes:

"We are starting a Crossdreamer group within Second Life, and it's called Crossdream SL

Second Life has been an incredibly powerful and transformative experience for us, so we want to share it with our fellow crossdreamers.

A small group of us have already met and are becoming good friends in world... SL allows us to overcome the gender obstacles separating us from our dreams and the geographic realities separating us from each other.

Gender Reloaded 1: What makes us men and women?

A new series on how our understanding of sex and gender affects us all.

This has been a strange journey. I started this blog in order to find a language and a story that could make sense of what I and others like me feel. In the process I have come to doubt nearly everything I have been told about sex and gender. 

It is clear that what crossdreamers (people who get aroused by the idea of being the opposite sex) and other transgender people experience does not fit into the dominant world view.

In this journey I had had great help form my readers and online pen pals. One of them is Natalie, the sexologist from Thailand. She gave me extremely valuable input in the development of the Slider Model of gender and sexuality.  We have had an email discussion going on our understanding of sexuality and gender that I have found very illuminating. I am going to share some of the main points with you now.

What is the dominant understanding of sex and gender in this day an age? First of all: There is more than one. Most of my readers come from Northern Europe and North America, which colors our idea of what is considered normal in the area of sex, sexuality, sex identity and gender roles. Looking into what others believe are “self evident truths” may help us get a better understanding of ourselves.