Cloudy, with a chance of insights

Ask yourself this question. The answer will be potentially quite revealing. Take your time; there are no prizes. (The question is only for transgendered males!)

Would you rather be beautiful, but not necessarily passable as a woman; or 100% passable as a woman, even if that meant you were plain?

A week or so ago, I came across a new blog, On the Science of Changing Sex, written by Cloudy. Cloudy is a 55-yr old postoperative transsexual woman who transitioned four decades ago. Cloudy's blog is all about science; so much so that it could be pretty hard going if science isn't really your thing.

My first feeling on encountering Cloudy was Aha! Here is somebody like me with whom I can have a really fruitful dialogue (and indeed I opened one that day and got a response immediately). But as I read more and more of her blog, and the underlying science, I became somewhat dispirited, and it's reasonable for me here to go into some of the reasons why.

My blog here has always been about a dialogue (a dlog, rather than a blog?): about finding out more about myself, and allowing others to post their insights. Over the last year or so, I've been on a tremendous journey of insight and understanding. I've learned a great deal about myself, and about crossdressing. As you will know if you've read much of this blog, there are some themes which run right through it.

First, the theme that I don't consider myself to be all that similar to other male crossdressers out there.

Secondly, there seems to be a bewildering multiplicity of terms for people who show behaviour which is not in alignment with their birth sex. As a subtheme of this, people seem to become upset out of all proportion where discussion of their gender is concerned. For examples, see here and here. Cloudy herself admits that she has disallowed comments on her blog because too many of them were personal attacks on her.

Though I had read many theories and conceptual frameworks about crossdressing, I couldn't find one that made any sort of sense; one that "clicked". They all seemed to be full of psychological mumbo-jumbo. Well, now I think that's changed.

Before I go any further, let me state here that my intention is not to offend anyone, regardless of their perspective; I say as much on my About Me page. Secondly, I am somewhat disturbed by what I've read and what it says about me. Thirdly, I believe absolutely that science is the tool by which we can best make sense of the world around us. What that means is that no amount of wanting something to be true or untrue will make it so.

If you really want the science, head on over to Cloudy's blog and read this page. On the other hand, I intend here to chew it down a bit and present it in simpler terms.

Let's start with transsexuals. That is, people born in one sex who decide to change sex. (All of what follows is true for males who want to become women and females who want to become men, but for simplicity we will stick with male-to-female). (For a bit of a discussion about my take on the difference between sex and gender, read the comments under this blog post). Remember, this is a simplification, but it's a helpful one.

Transsexuals fall into two groups which can be easily discerned statistically. We can call them "early transitioners" and "late transitioners". For early transitioners, they display very transgendered behaviour from a very early age (e.g. a boy will persistently act and behave like a girl, even in the fact of powerful deterrents). They change sex very early, usually by about 20; and more than 90% by 25. They display persistent sexual attraction to what they consider to be the "opposite" sex; that is to say, a male (who considers himself to be internally female) will be attracted to males. They do not experience any sexual arousal from cross-dressing or imagining themselves being or becoming the opposite sex. Of transsexuals, about 10% are in this group.

Late transitioners, on the other hand, typically have gender-typical behaviour in childhood. They may experience gender dysphoria, but keep it hidden. They change sex much later, usually by 35-40, though with a wide range extending into old age. They are usually attracted to the opposite of their birth sex; that is to say a male (who considers himself to be internally female) will be attracted to females. They very commonly experience sexual arousal from cross-dressing, or from imagining themselves to be the opposite sex. They can commonly function well as men pre-transition, and may marry, and have children. They can be successful in masculine (even hyper-masculine) careers. Interestingly, they tend to have a higher IQ than the general population. Many of them remain attracted to women post-transition. Of transsexuals, about 90% are in this group, making such people far commoner.

So much for transsexuals, you might say. What about cross-dressers? The theory says that, for "ordinary" cross-dressers, like me, the difference between us and late-transitioners is not a matter of type, only of degree. In other words, cross-dressers and late-transitioning transsexuals are driven by the same motivations. Some of us go "all the way", and some of us don't.

The terminology from the literature is a bit disappointing, but if you want to read just about anything on Cloudy's blog, you will need to know the basics. Early-transitioning transsexuals are commonly referred to as homosexual transsexuals, HSTS. That's not to say they are like gay men, but instead that someone born a male is attracted to other males. Late-transitioning transsexuals (and transvestites) are known as autogynephilic, AGP, from the Greek meaning "someone who loves himself as a woman", a term which I slightly disparaged in my earlier blog post here. The reason Cloudy echoes these clumsy and unappetising terms in her blog is that these are the terms which are most commonly used in the current scientific literature.

Applying Cloudy's criteria (and you can follow her suggested test here) to everyone I've written about on this blog yields some interesting results. Jan Hamilton, Emma Ballantyne, Richard O'Brien, Grayson Perry, Charlie Jane Anders, "My Husband" Betty Crow (the partner of Helen Boyd), Lord Cornbury, John Pepper, Vernon Coleman; all of them fit into the AGP side. Jaye Davidson alone escapes: he isn't naturally a crossdresser, just an androgynous man who got a job once as an actress. It's much harder to categorise Billy Tipton, since Cloudy's questionnaire was designed for male-to-female transgendered people.

And there is one more person on this blog who fits into the AGP side: me. This brings me back to the question at the opening of this blog post, which was posed by sexologist Dr. Anne Lawrence, and quoted in Cloudy's blog post here. So what's your answer? Mine, if I am honest, is that it's more important (for me) to be beautiful than to be passable. I've been asking myself why this is my answer for about two weeks now, and the best answer I can come up with is that I fit the AGP side of the model. As an alternative (but less subtle) question, ask yourself: have I ever felt sexually aroused by cross-dressing? If the answer is "yes" (and for me, it is; it so is), then that strongly suggests an AGP makeup.

So much of this model fits. It fits with why I think high heels are sexy. It explains Charlie Jane Anders' quote "What's the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual? About two years." It neatly sidesteps all the different bloody terminology (which seems intended to confuse and obfuscate) for people born male who wear women's clothing ("There is more that unites us than divides us" is a frequent refrain of mine anyway). It fits Helen Boyd's painful and forthright observations about some crossdressers: eternally selfish, frequently overspending, sexually interested only in themselves (not their wives). It fits with what most customers want who go to that makeover shop. It explains why Betty Crow and Charlie Jane Anders are progressing to full-time crossdressing. It even fits my phenotype (white, successful, high IQ).


Photo: Suzi White

Why it makes me feel so uncomfortable is that I had been cheerfully going along reassuring myself that I wasn't like those "other" trannies out there; that there was something different about me; that crossdressing wasn't a sexual thing. According to this model, I am just like everyone else (perhaps a little less "affected" or "afflicted" or whatever term you prefer). This disturbs me, because the natural history (according to the theory and supported by lots of other things I've read, not least Helen Boyd) is that crossdressing becomes more predominant as one gets older (and in some cases, leads to full transition). I could previously ignore that consequence because I thought there was something different about me. I had thought that, if I was able to find just the right frequency of dressing, I would be happy in my "ordinary" life. This model suggests that point won't be reached; there will never be enough.

And if I had just a little more, of whatever it is that I have, my dressing might get out of control: to the point where it gets in the way of my ability to be a useful and productive husband and father. That's not something I relish in any way, and may explain why some of the people I've found on the Web that I have most in common with are people trying to quit crossdressing: these are people who are trying to keep a foothold so that crossdressing doesn't overwhelm them (but the science suggests we are incurable in every reasonable sense). It seems now that the reasons I find myself drawn to them is because of my sense of fear that maybe crossdressing will one day get the upper hand.

Reading Cloudy's blog has made me go and take a long, uncomfortable look at myself, and I can't say I am delighted with what I find.

The emergence of this model (proposed by Kurt Freund and Ray Blanchard) caused an enormous stink. It seems that late-transitioning transpeople (which we would now call AGP) were amazingly upset at the implied notion that they were different from (and perhaps inferior to?), early-transitioning transpeople. It provoked a storm in the literature, which continues still. I get that. I get why someone who felt worse than me about the implications of the model as applied to them could get so upset that they would reject the model completely (rather than rejecting their carefully-constructed self-image).

Until now, my "bible" of crossdressing has been My Husband Betty. Helen Boyd offers this about autogynephilia (from 2003):

The term has been described as the "Unified Field Theory" of transgenderism, but Blanchard's application of it to transsexuals is the epicentre of the debate. From what I understand, MTF transsexuals often gain pleasure from imagining their female bodies, but that pleasure is more about the fantasy of finally having a body that will match their internal gender identification. Transvestites and crossdressers also often admit to autogynephilic feelings, but because of the newness of the term and the general lack of research on crossdressers, there are no statistics. As one crossdresser put it: "Some guys are only ever in love with the woman they see in the mirror".

There is so much more to write; so many ramifications to follow to the ends. That will need to wait for future blog posts (like maybe this one).

I was able to talk to my wife about why learning about this model disturbed me. She was reassuring: she pointed out that just because there is a model out there, and that I happen to fit it, it doesn't change who I am; it doesn't change what I do; it doesn't change what will happen in the future. She was right, of course, and I am extremely grateful for this insight, which frees me from what had seemed like a gloomy inevitability.

Wants and needs

Here's a question: is crossdressing a want, or a need?

The difference is simple. I want a bigger TV. But I need to feed my family. OK, so we're not starving, but the point remains, that paying the bills is currently such that we can't just go out and buy a bigger TV. And the TV we have is fine: it even has colour, if you smack it just right. For any sensible person, you take care of your needs first, then you sort your wants, in order of priority. Do not grieve, Jim; it is logical.

Tied: hands

I think it is wholly reasonable that wants be set aside until needs are met. My father used to say that a good citizen says of society "If you take care of my needs, I will control my wants". The way he saw it going (before he died) was that too many people are saying "I must have my wants, even if that means someone else doesn't get their needs". I am not 100% sure he was right; people have been moaning about the deterioration of society since Mesopotamia. But I think it's a useful place to start the discussion.

In his wonderful book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman argues that the ability to forgo instant gratification in favour of a long-term greater reward is the emotional skill which ranks above all others, and is more predictive of lifelong success than IQ. Boy, do I have this! I'm so good at this that I can forego gratification until it never happens!

I've been considering the place of crossdressing in my life for as long as I can remember. If crossdressing is merely a want, then it's reasonable that it be set aside when it isn't convenient. That is the model that I have hitherto applied: the time isn't right; I have something more important to spend my money and time on doing. So it can wait until next time.

On the other hand, if crossdressing is a need, then it is reasonable that it be met: that other things take a back seat. The consequences of not meeting a need can be substantial. Here's Helen Boyd, in one of the defining passages in her book My Husband Betty (Boyd's italics and pronouns):

Boyd: Perhaps the most important reason crossdressers offer is that, in some sense, they must: not must as in eating and breathing, but more like in bathing and sleeping well and getting enough exercise. Crossdressing is not necessary to a person's survival, but it does seem to be necessary to his wellbeing. Crossdressing is not, as some wives of crossdressers might wish, a selfish whim. Crossdressers as a group do not give it up despite the troubles it can cause in their lives. The phenomenon is stubbornly inexplicable, a cross between a compulsion and a wish.

I am beginning to think that crossdressing is a need. Perhaps it has always been one. If you deny a need, the compulsion becomes greater and greater. Imagine going without sleep. After a while, the urge to sleep becomes overwhelming. It dominates your every thought. Ordinary things which would normally give pleasure become meaningless. Eventually, the need to sleep becomes so overwhelming that you can fall asleep doing something really important: climbers have almost died falling asleep on narrow mountain ledges; and a lot of people have been killed as a result of someone falling asleep at the wheel of a vehicle.

I have from time to time found myself so consumed with thoughts of crossdressing that I have been effectively unable to function: don't want to see friends, don't want to go out, not interested in my kids, no interest in TV or movies or video games, moody and distracted at work. Part of the problem is that, occasionally in our marriage my wife has made promises: she promised we would go together to Transfandango, for example. At first, I believe her: she finally gets it, I tell myself! I just need to hold on a little longer. I start to plan it in detail. And that keeps me going for a bit. And then she gets stressed, and I think, okay, just a little longer. And then it eventually becomes apparent that the moment is never coming, and the disappointment is crushing. We never made it to Transfandango, and now we live in a different country. She doesn't mean to break those promises: when she makes them she is sincere. But the failure to make good on them causes tremendous inner damage, a damage which she just doesn't want to hear about. (In case you haven't read all my blogs, my wife regards crossdressing with loathing: she cannot condone any part of it, and can't bear the thought or the actuality that I do it).

Untroubled: Emma and Luisa

Another symptom of need is that I find myself deeply, almost viscerally, envious of people who crossdress freely and publicly. They seem so happy and untroubled. This is, of course, an illusion! They are just people, and therefore they have sad or difficult times too; they just don't post pictures of them. I hardly feel envious of anything else. In my post about envy, I spoke about a Lamborghini. I don't feel envious of people who own Lamborghinis. But men who keep their legs waxed? Phew! I think that envy is a clue to how deeply crossdressing matters to me. (A Lamborghini is merely a want, of course, and therefore it doesn't overthrow me).

Another symptom of need is that crossdressing haunts my dreams. These are frequent; at least once per week, and for the Freudians among you they are simple, straightforward, wish-fulfilment dreams. I am in some situation where crossdressing is OK: out with my friends, speaking in public, in a job interview, meeting new people. In each case, I am lavishly and wonderfully dressed: I draw compliments and warmth and enthusiasm. People find it interesting and cool. And then I wake up, and that lovely warm rosy glow fades pretty sharply in the face of the alarm.

A final symptom of need is that, if you suppress a need, it will find its way out somehow. In my case, crossdressing finds its way out on the Internet, and I don't propose to go into any details here. But this blog is the positive, creative part. The denial of a need is unbearable and unsustainable.

Needs must be met; it's that simple. The question is how to meet my needs in a manner which is not going to cost me my marriage or my kids. You might think that is a situation which could be solved by a little negotiation: I have thought so too for over a decade without success.

===

(As a final amusing aside, when I typed Do not grieve, Jim above, it came out as Do not grieve, Kim. It would put a whole new spin on sci-fi's greatest bromance if everyone kept calling the captain Kim. It's life, Kim, but not as we know it. It's worse than that, he's dead, Kim! By golly, Kim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day! Live long and prosper, Kim.)

You can find the original location of the photo of the girls on the train here at Flickr. Emma regularly posts short videos of herself here on YouTube . She has received over 4.5 million hits, and I have blogged about her here and here.

What sex is your brain?

So what sex is your brain?

I've been struggling to figure this one out for my whole life. It's quite clear that I seem to have strong aspects of both male and female in my personality.

The traditional view of gender behaviour is a bit like this. At one end of the scale, there is woman: emotive, nurturative, capable of multitasking. At the other end of the scale, there is man: structured, assertive, dominant. You can be somewhere in the middle, but you can't be both. Masculinity and femininity are exclusive. To become more masculine, one automatically becomes less feminine.

This model is simplistic, and wrong. It's not sophisticated enough. A more useful model is this one, where masculinity and femininity are independent traits. An individual can therefore be either mostly masculine or mostly feminine; strong in both at once, or even not particularly strong in either. This diagram plots masculinity and femininity as two independent bars on a chart, but it would work equally well to plot them as two dimensions on a graph.

Before I go further, let me be clear that this model says nothing about the gender of the person you would most like to go to bed with. In other words, this model describes gender behaviour but not sexuality.

I think this model is much more helpful for me. Among other things, I know I can do some of that masculine stuff really well: think logically, take a leadership role, be structured and organised. I also know I can do some feminine things really well: I am emotive and nurturative and compassionate. If you want to test yourself, the BBC has a free online self-test, in which you can compare your scores against 1000 responders who identified as male, and 1000 responders who identified as female. You can take the test here, though it takes a while to do the full thing. If you want to discuss your results, please post them below.

My results for this test were very interesting (at least to me). The results show that when it comes to masculinity, I am substantially above average across all categories. One way to interpret that result is to say my brain is more masculine than the average man's brain. When it comes to femininity, I am also above average in all categories (less so than for masculinity). One way to interpret that result is to say that my brain is also more feminine than the average woman's. Therefore I seem to score very highly for both masculinity and femininity. This seems to fit with the way I understand myself, inasmuch as I have been studying my own behaviour for almost four decades.

But once again, it's not as simple as that. For one thing, this test is not properly validated, although it's a clever and interesting diversion and the results are thought-provoking. In addition, I am sure people fluctuate in their performance and mood: I know that some days I feel very girly and other days I feel very manly. That might or might not influence my performance on the parts of the test.

Secondly, it makes no correction for IQ. I know my IQ, and it suggests I am likely to be intrinsically good at doing these sorts of tests. In other words, I am likely to have artificially higher results in both parts because of IQ, not gender alone. My final annoyance with the BBC test is that, although it displays the results for masculinity and femininity separately (which is great), on the last page it tries to boil that down to the linear scale above! It tells me my brain is 25% male.

Most recently, I've had my personality extensively and professionally assessed. Although the test gave results which I think fit very closely with my own views above, and seem to be very predictive of my reactions in some circumstances, the results made no mention of masculinity or femininity at all. I found that most refreshing. It fits with an even more fluid model of human behaviour, which I have tried to illustrate here.

In this model, there is no such thing as masculinity and femininity. There is only behaviour. The graph shows that genetic males have a tendency to do some sorts of things, and genetic females have a tendency to do other sorts of things, but there is a huge overlap in the middle, where just about everybody is. My hypothetical (male) figure here has quite a lot of overlap with the female behaviour range, but could for the same or very similar level of masculinity have a very different level of femininity.

What are these graphs counting, or showing? Nothing, except some hypothetical quality of behaviour. In themselves, the terms masculine and feminine are pretty meaningless: there is no absolute scale against which to judge either of them. The only way they can be defined is recursively: masculinity is what men are like. What are men like? They are masculine.

I think all of these models are attempting to make sense of an extremely complicated phenomenon. The subtleties of human behaviour and motivation are far too elusive to be nailed down in simple graphs, no matter how complex the test. Having done all these tests, I have come to a much more complete understanding (and acceptance) of myself as a whole person. I know that Vivienne isn't some alter ego of me: she is me. She cannot be suppressed, or got rid of, and she brings me a suite of skills and attitudes which have proven to be very helpful in my life.

But it's one thing to accept myself: what society thinks is a whole different ballgame.

Addendum: 28th April 2012.

Thanks to John, who posted below, I have found an insightful and interesting blog post by Jack Molay, which can be found here. It explores these same themes from a slightly different angle and in much greater depth.