Crossdreamers on Facebook

I have put up a page for this blog over at Facebook.

My hope is that we can use this page to generate more interest in -- and understanding for -- crossdreamers in the world's largest online community.

Visit the Crossdreamer Facebook page and click on that Like button here!

Are all crossdreamers transsexual? Is Jack?

In a discussion over at Crossdressers.com the concept of crossdreaming has come up, and I see that there are some confusion about what my position is as regards the nature of men and women who get turned on by the idea of being "the opposite sex".

Photo: Erik Reis, photos.com

auto andrea writes:

"He [Jack Molay] propagates a theory that aims to positively accommodate gender-dysphoric autogynephiliacs, by basically reducing the condition to transsexualism. Those autogynephiliacs who have never experienced gender-dysphoria, he implies, are repressed transsexuals."

I can see why auto andrea has come to read me this way, but this is actually not what I say.

What I have said is that all crossdreamers most likely have something in common, and that this "something" most probably has a biological core.

This does not mean that all crossdreamers are transsexuals -- repressed or not repressed. The fact is that I think only a minority of crossdreamers are truly  transsexual, in the sense that they completely identify with their target sex.

Dysphoria, Crossdreaming and the Politics of Gender

In this guest blog post Joanna Santos argues that we have lost ourselves in the politics of gender. She recommends another approach to gender variance, on based on tolerance and compassion.

By Guest Writer Joanna Santos

Lili Elbe undertook sex realignment surgery in 1930.

Gender dysphoria has likely always existed as part of the human condition but much of our understanding and interpretation of what it is gets lost in the cacophony and noise coming from all directions.

In today’s society, we have lost ourselves in the politics of gender and have forgotten to go back to the source.

Fetishists and Classic Transsexuals

On the one extreme you have fetishists who argue that their activity is sourced in their own natural psychology and have no problems agreeing with Ray Blanchard that they are engaging in a paraphilia of their own choosing.

They have no issue with admitting that they are comfortable with their fetish but at the same time insist that gender dysphoria cannot be sourced in biology and is a purely psychological construct.

On the other extreme you have the older generation so called “classic” transsexuals who argue that they alone suffer from a complete psycho sexual inversion and are true women seeking a correction which will return them to a state they should be in naturally had there not been some cruel mistake made. Anyone else is an impostor or a “man in a dress” and their worst fear is that their “womanhood” will be invalidated in the eyes of society by merely being associated with the loathsome transgender umbrella.

Harry Benjamin: Between the Extremes

The problem with both of these positions is that they ignore the people who live in between both extremes; the research by people such as Harry Benjamin as well as numerous studies and interviews involving post transition transsexuals.