~~~ The prehistory of Sex ~~~

That's the title of a rather good book I've read a few times. The author (Timothy Taylor) looks back into our past to see how we developed as sexual creatures. There's a number of references to trannies in there too, and I'm rereading it for insights from our perspective. The title of this blog is obviously a blatant hook just to catch your attention. Worked, didn't it? :)

Clothing - a subject always dear to a trannies heart and her purse. We *need* clothing: it's either too cold, or too hot (the Goldilocks dilemma). So loosing our hair is far more important than either of those two conditions. As it's such a negative-survival trait, the bets are on that hairlessness was a sexually driven thing, just like the peacock's tail. And as women are more hairless than men, the trait is being selected for in women and men are along just for the genetic ride, so to speak. Strange then about male pattern baldness - but evolution works both ways. Anyway: it's in our genes to be turned off by a hirsute female body. Hairy Panty Wearers - stop it now! You're going against genetics, an even worse opponent than city hall.

Clothing revisited: so we get hairless as a form of sexual display. And what do we do? But go and wear clothing! But aha, says nature, you can make *clothing* the sexual display instead, because the selection pressure for an attractive mate certainly hasn't gone away. Interesting how in our culture the emphasis is also on females looking good in clothing, and males are more or less along for the ride.

Clothing item three. Taylor argues we got hairless a long time ago - maybe as much as 1.5 million years ago. Now, a trait can be genetically encoded in 40 generations or less. 1.5 million years is around 75,000 generations, maybe more. That's more than enough time for a clothing gene to be developed. Well, maybe not a clothing gene, but certainly a hard-wired response to the way that the human form is made sexually more attractive by clothing. Swimsuit contests could be a natural expression of the gene. You see where this is leading? If there's a genetic encoding to focus on clothing/appearance, then we have another genetic reason for being trannies. And that seems to account for the t-girls who are interested in the clothing side but are still hetero and have no intention of making the transformation. Worth thinking over, for sure.

Brief interlude. It seems likely that men were hunters and women were gatherers. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence for that, especially in western culture - women's immediate spatial awareness, men's ability to navigate, women's communication skills, men's taciturnity, women's emphasis on constantly balancing hierarchies, men easily fitting into a simpler cleaner hierarchy. But then it occurred to me: Agriculture had to be a female development. It just doesn't make sense any other way. And look, here's a nice bit of corroborating evidence: agricultural deities in early societies tend to be goddesses. The female fecundity thing might just be a later explanation when men had appropriated the role of agriculture - or at least, when population pressures required a lot more effort to be put in per bushel yield.

Second posting when I'm further through the book :)

~~~ Look what I've won ... ~~~

I foolishly made a bet "I will bet you anything you care to name that trannies adopt female dressing patterns based on the culture they're in, or were bought up in". Oh dear ... I should have looked up Fakaleiti in the wikipedia.

It's an interesting section, the one on transvestism. Especially how the word TV was coined, and changed over the years.

So, I've just decided as I found the reference, I can claim from myself anything that I want. Oooh, joy! What to buy, what to buy?

"That theory has more holes in it than a pair of fishnets ..."

There's a thread on UK Angels at the moment, discussing whether your trannying gets more intense the more stressed you are. The Theory of Socio-chemical Trannying, if it's worth the electrons it's stored in, should have something to say about that. So I thought I'd throw a few more rocks to see if anything broke off. And I thought I'd get that pompous old fool, Professor Alfred D. Cynic in to raise the questions.

"So, Gemma - your theory says that dressing up is all about social patterning and hormones. Pray tell, where does that leave cross-dressers who like the feel of the material, or of the sexual/erotic nature of breaking taboos?"

Ummmm .... got me there, Prof.

"Well, if you can't answer that, then what about the Angels chatter? It seems that over half the girls dress up more when under stress. Yet stress activates the Parasympathetic Nervous .. oh, what? Spare you the lecture? Tish and harumph. Even you must know, then, that stress changes the hormonal balance of the body, and certainly doesn't add to the level of female hormones, so we would expect no change or a decrease in trannying, surely?"

Well, actually, Prof, the other half dressed less. There doesn't seem to be any clear correlation. In fact, I think the effects the Angels are reporting come from two secondary things. Under stress, you're more tired and have less time. Serious trannying needs both energy and time, so naturally some of the girls decide to put their heels up. But we shouldn't forget conditioning. The theory said that the hormonal levels would trigger the social conformity bit of us, resulting in emotional pressure to dress. Dressing up releases that pressure. And that leads us straight into classical conditioning: dressing up becomes associated with a release of emotional stress. So when under emotional stress, the learnt response is going to kick in and suggest that a good way of getting rid of the tension is to put on a really pretty frock. So it looks like you're wrong on that.

Oh dear. The Prof has stalked off in a huff, but his first point was a good one. It seems that TVs/TSs are conformity-driven, whereas CDs are sensually driven. And there's no reason you can't combine them both; why shouldn't TVs also get an erotic thrill out of dressing? I think it would be rare, though.

Any other holes? Is the theory laddered beyond repair, or will it survive a few more outings to Transmission?

The Tranny Appetite

As the last post indicated, I did a lot of trannying over the weekend. Having a cold didn't help (Lemsip did). But I caught myself today feeling faintly ridiculous at some of the things I did - standard, tranny things I normally wouldn't bat an eyelash at. I think it's fairly common; a sort of post-tranny depression. And that got me thinking. A lot. So this is a bit of a long, "Gemma-gets-up-to-the-lectern" blog.

Siobhan once said "I have to dress.". We have this hunger inside us; an emotional pressure to go en femme. Once we've had a good dress (as my friend Lisa puts it), the appetite is satisfied; the urge diminishes. Do it too much, though, and you start feeling a bit ill - like, getting the urge to wear a really dreadful M&S bloke's jumper.

Now: stop the picture there. That's a biochemical behaviour if ever there was one (the appetite to dress, not the wearing of M&S clothes, which is just plain twisted). - we're seeing the effect of neurotranmitter takeup/depletion, or some such jargon. Why is this important? Well, it's "nature vs. nurture": did you learn to be a tranny, or was it born into your genes? I think we'd all say genetic, but psychologists require a well thought-out argument and lots of proof, tedious individuals that they are. There are some interesting consequences of the theory, so let's go with it.

Let's hypothesise: trannying is related to the proportion of hormone 'T' that your body produces. That's measurable, that is, if we knew what 'T' was. I think it nicely explains the VERY broad range of trannying behaviour we see; those who have just a smidgin of 'T' (Crossdressers) all the way through to those girls who have the stuff sloshing through their system - our TS sisters. Pity the ones who are borderline cases, too - hormones are like tides, and you'd be endlessly swept from one side of the border to the other. I would be willing to bet a fair amount that this is the cause of the very high TS suicide rate; when the tide ebbs after all that sacrifice and pain, where does it leave you? Feeling like a bloke again, which would be self-destroying. But then you feel girly again. But no, back to feeling just out of place. That would be very wearying, I think, and I can't hold it against someone who one day decides they've had enough of the pain and uncertainty and draws the curtains on their story.

Anyway; what is this mystery hormone? Personally, I feel a lot less like dressing up after a stressful day when I've been racing about being very energetic and, well, male. For that reason, I'd point the finger at the female hormone family; testosterone and (maybe?) adrenaline work against them. And you may be thinking "oh, that's just the bleedin' obvious!". Except it's not; why SHOULD female hormones make you want to dress up? Beer has lots of oestrogen, but do London Cabbies go about in ill-fitting frocks? (actually, don't answer that, it won't give me peace of mind). So we're probably looking at the effects of hormones on brain structure that was affected in the womb by (guess what) more hormones: T^2.

But still: why should this increasing hormone balance make us dress? Here's my (current) theory, for what it's worth. See, I think that we primates have an instinct for social conformity; it's vital in any pack creature. Furthermore, I believe that males and females have distinct behaviour patterns (I do like the bleedin' obvious, don't I?). And that goes against a lot of Feminist thinking, but tough. So if behaviour is mediated hormonally - and (more B.O.'ness) it does, just consider the alpha male, then there has to be something inside us that aligns us with the particular social sub-grouping that our hormones dictate. Women are compelled to be like other women; men compelled to act like other men. Once more, it's obvious when you put it like that and explains a lot of things like fashion and the appeal of beige jumpers. I love it when a theory is obvious, it's usually right and so I can shut up and go to bed).

Here's where it gets interesting for us. When a male gets more of those leetle hormones, that kicks the social conformity module in; it picks up all those subtle biochemical cues, and urges the poor tranny to align with the equivalent group: women. Now, you might think that this would just mean behaving like a woman, but as any tranny knows, that's unsatisfying. We're visual creatures - consider just how much of our behaviour's based on what we see. That social module is urging us to look like the group the hormones are nudging us into. Anthropology knows this: appearance is a keystone of social cohesiveness. WE know this: look different, and you get your head kicked in. It's how a lot of racial characteristics develop; the tribe decides that 'X' is sexy and soon you can recognise anyone from the tribe, and just imagine how important THAT is for a neolithic society.

Anyway, I think that's why we dress up, the degree of intensity we have about it, and why it ebbs and floods. I will bet you anything you care to name that trannies adopt female dressing patterns based on the culture they're in, or were bought up in. Consider, ladies - do any of you wear Saris? If not, why not? They're very feminine, you know. Just don't overindulge.

Nail Polish and Eric Clapton

Sigh: nearly a week since the last post. Not so much a lack of material, but being elsewhere in the country. It's a busy time. Busy at work, busy being a tranny. There's certainly no room left for the male side of me! And who's complaining? :D

I do seem to be doing a lot. Tomorrow (Friday) I need to travel into Camden to pick up a Morticia dress for Halloween, then in evening it's the TvChix party at Pink Punters. Saturday I'll be meeting up on a date and then out to Club Wicked, a local BDSM hangout. Sunday ... (Gemma draws the curtains over Sunday!).

Then the following week I think I'll have a Tranny Halloween Party on Saturday, IF I can organise it in time. Sunday it's the local T-girl monthly meeting, there to meet with the ever-so-interesting Nina.

The week after that, I think Kerry is coming down to visit a friend, and I love Kerry to bits and will HAVE to go out wherever she's going. Saturday evening, of course, is Transmission, so it's likely that this is where we'll be going to.

The following week may well be free, but I have a feeling I've forgotten a party. If I haven't, I'll have to ararnge one! Could be that Kerry is coming down this week? Duh! I so should be blonde!

The week after that is Becky's Transpocalypse, where I will meet up finally with a number of girls who I know only through e-mail and blogs, and it's a really weird feeling that I'll have to throw away all my preconceived notions as to what they're like. As Birmingham and Manchester aren't that far apart (surely?), I'm hoping to visit Kerry on the Sunday.

The point is: there's something about being a tranny that leads to a ridiculous level of socialisation. I know that Becky's commented on it, and no doubt other girls too. It allows us to combine our love of all things Femme with the basic human need to socialise and share experiences. And maybe show off a bit too. But, girl, is it exhausting, and just doesn't happen like *that* (Gemma tries, but fails, to snap her fingers).

Which is why I've just spent an hour soaking my feet, pushing back cuticles, trimming nails, putting on polish and planning the next 72 hours in military detail while listening to Eric playing "Motherless Child". Being a tranny is NOT a job for the fainthearted.

Cannibalism

The t-girl world is suprisingly small.

• 1 in 20 men cross-dress (and I so have to dig out the source of that) - that's potentially around 1 million in Britain who have had experience of wearing clothes of the other sex.
  
• finger in air - 1 in 20 of THOSE actually go all the way? That's 50,000 who regularly fully dress up with makeup and jewelry
  
• wild guess - 1 in 20 of THOSE are out of the wardrobe - engage in some sort of activity with other trannies? So that's 2,500.
  
• Divide those out evenly over Britain - let's say 25 regions? Around 100 trannies per catchment. That feels right, though maybe a tad high, as trannies *do* travel. We're social creatures.
  
• Dividing a different way, I'd say 1 in 100 has the time, skill and patience to blog. Should end up at around 25 UK tranny blogs? Feels right.
  

So, a small world. Paraphrasing Becky, when the pool is a nice size, we're all important fish. Anyway, I *did* promise to paint the big picture of the t-girl world, and what a pretty picture it is too.

Cannibalism. In such a small community, you often end up feasting on each other. I'm sure there's some revolting species in nature which regularly has this problem, and I just don't want to know, thank you. Yuck. Today's meal is Becky. We've already had a quote from her. Also, Becky is arranging a shindig oop North, which I've been working out travel plans for. Also, I have been swamped with e-mails recently and am having to dramatically cut down my replies. I can only imagine what it's like, running an award-winning website, being an active moderator in a number of forums, building on a blossoming relationship, and (most importantly) just having bought a Shiny New Toy. I would imagine that you'd have to ignore nearly all mails sent through to you. I wonder what that does to you? What coping strategies you use? (smiles! Becky - forgive me for writing about you in this horrible impersonal way!)

Lastly, and most importantly (and what inspired the title of this blog), I am fascinated by the Google Ads that appear on Becky's web, and am determined to blog them here as a permament reminder of the constant forces of strangeness, beauty and charm that drive the world.

A while back it was Incontinence panties. I know there are some older t-girls, but I'm just not going there, okay?

As of October 15, it was birds:

"Tropical Birds: Join us in protecting tropical birds and habitat".

Pass me that Carmen Miranda hat, someone.

"Birds of Prey Handling: Experience the thrill of handling birds such as eagles, UK wide.".

Ummm, where to start? Thrill? Panic, more like. I don't trust eagles, they look like they've started the day without a nice cappuchino. Bad-tempered.

"Bald Eagles in Arkansas? They winter on our lakes and rivers. See 313 bird species annually.".

Random thoughts of migrant "snow birds" (old people moving to sunshine states) cross my mind. I'm sure the Eagles are some sort of Rotarian society in the States. Perhaps they go to Arkansas for the fishing?

Lovely; a t-blog meal fit for a Queen. Heavens knows what triggered Google down this path. Perhaps there's a big pidgeon-fancying contingent amongs t-girls? We certainly can't do the ferret-down-trousers bit. But at least it wouldn't be cannibalism.

Not down at the pub

Thank heavens for blogs, otherwise I'd be talking all of this nonsense at some t-girlfriends in the local winebar. I get to expound at depth (though can't I do it at shallow? I'm much better at shallow), and I don't send anyone to sleep unless they choose!

Something a lot shorter today. First off; the male half has been far too much in control of this blog, so time for Gemma to step back in. It IS my blog, after all, so shove off, male side!

Good, he's gone. Now, have you ever been through the "Oh, I need to tell my friends, but how do I put it to them why I dress up?" in your head? This was vexing me today. But when put into words it sounded really good, so I'm putting it down here so I can work on it over the next few days. Please - add how you feel! The more reasons I find, the better.

Why am I Gemma?

• I love the way I look! (vanity is the besetting sin of trannies)
  
• I'm a very feminine, emotive person. This allows me to express it.
  
• Walk a mile in another woman's stilettoes before you judge her. (That way, you have a nice pair of stilettoes, and she's a mile away and shoeless). I'm understanding so much about women.
  
• I'm meeting lots of really interesting people
  
• It beats watching television, that's for sure
  
• It's very entertaining
  
• I'm far better at female fashions than I am at mens
  
• It's as sexy as heck!
  
• It gets me out and about (though in a rather limited space at the moment)
  
• I can be useful to other people who are having a tough time of it
  
• I'm learning new skills (makeup, acting and website building)
  
• I'm doing my bit for the economy, by pumping large amounts of cash back into it.
  
• ...
  

Gemma's Understanding of Trannyness

- pt.ii

I've been thinking a bit more on Why. "There are no reasons when you're a Tranny"? "I don't believe it", to quote right back. It was a nice bit of labelling earlier, but in the end just that. Something that scientists tend to do, and has always irritated me. That, and having the fashion sense of a sloth, and in some extreme cases the external fungal growths too. I could never be a scientist, I'm far too fragrant.

Perhaps the ornate bush of t-girl behaviour needs pruning. Trim it back a bit, and we'll start seeing the structure underneath it all. There's the desire to wear a dress. Odd one, that. There's the desire to be as convincing as possible. And then there's just good old fashioned desire; t-girls seem to be a promiscuous lot.

That sexuality bothers me, mainly because there's one school of thought that says transgenderism is essentially a fetish: a behaviour linked to sexual gratification. I certainly know *I'm* not sexually gratified. Really, it's quite offensive as well as dispiriting: I would hate to think I was missing out on something nice. No, I think there's a far simpler explanation. The majority of our behaviours are culturally determined by repetition and example. We grow up and imitate those people who we think or are told we are like. Except we've grown up as boys. When we switch into female mode, we leave behind a lot of our conditioning, though fortunately things like toilet training remain.
Given the human being is a lusty old thing (see Bonobos - FAR more likely to be our third cousin than Pan Troglodytus), all those repressed feelings and impulses come out. Which confirms another little theory of mine: that we're basically bisexual, but on a sliding scale. How handy, in evolutionary terms, when you find that you have a shortfall in females in the tribe but can rebalance that sexual energy in M:M relationships rather than engaging in some internal warfare to grab the girls. I can't comment on whether F:F is down to the same cause, because it also looks like eminent common sense to me.

Well, I must say it's nice to have fended off THAT nasty "fetish" explanation of tg-dom. What about this "convincing" thing: is that a primary t-girl thing? Of course not; it's perfectly explainable in terms of personal and shared values. Once you start trying to look feminine, that's the scale you're going to measure yourself against. And people like to do well in things they value. They'll look in the mirror and, to varying degrees, dislike parts of their appearance and try to change it. They'll also compare themselves against their peer group. Whether it's the sophistation of your interior design or the prettiness of your frock, it's the same old thing. Interesting to note that post-op TS's change this value, and as a general rule look far less delectable.

Which leaves us with the desire to wear a dress. It's certainly an emotional desire, though it's a secondary expression of something else - we've not been wearing clothing long enough for it to have been seriously encoded in our genes. Though the thought of Cro-magnon man in a rather fetching leopard-skin bikini is fun, it takes the notion of a Hairy Panty Wearer too far.
So let's cut to the chase and suppose that the attitudes and emotions we class as "feminine" ARE genetically encoded (on to a winner here, this is a testable theory), and that it's not on/off but (like sexuality) a sliding scale, and TVs just express more of it? But "a little bit girly" just doesn't work because our appearance is male/female, so we have to flip completely into female mode. Dress-wearing is because dresses are the sole-perogative of females in western society; trouser suits generally are avoided.

So, I'm going to test this out and see if t-girls express or show more of the male emotions. Hey, it's not much of a test, but then - I don't have the fungal growths to be a proper scientist.

Gemma's Principles of Human Psychodynamics

I'm a bit of a renaisannce girl. While that sounds impressive, it really means I just have a short attention span, and so wander from subject to subject, grazing on the juciest material before moving on to pastures new. My worldview is therefore shallow and broad, which is why I diet.

One abiding love for me is the human condition. Self-love is a love that conquers all, and close to every t-girl's heart. As so much of what I write is based on some conclusions, I thought it might help/be interesting to write about one such conclusion. You may disagree with some of the underlying assumptions, such as the principle of Evolution. If so, I have this lovely bridge for sale near here, belongs to the Queen and she's appointed me principle agent, would you like to buy it?

Evolution. We didn't spring out of primordial ooze, except on a Sunday morning after a night's clubbing. The nervous system is layered. Organisms start off with simple feedback mechanisms (e.g. amoebas: heat=bad, move away) then add in various types of memory. I need to brush up on my feedback terminology, but there's a state at border conditions where you can rapidly flip between two behaviours if the signal varies mildly (hysteresis?). To solve that, when you "flip", you adjust the criteria needed for the next "flip". Our amoeba friend, once it starts moving, will carry on moving until the temperature drops quite considerably (for an amoeba. Less evolved creatures like sunbathers will endure far higher levels of discomfort).

All this should be sounding familiar. It is. They're called emotions. They allow you to enter a different state and continue operating in that mode. Of course, we think of emotions as a lot richer than just that, but that's the evolutionary basis of them. At some point, an inner state arises too, and that adds to the feedback system. Feedback systems with many inputs are horribly unpredictable. Oddly enough, so are people.

All this is leading somewhere; bear with me. So, we've got our complex emotional infrastructure motivating our actions. Then, blow me, but some bugger comes along and invents detailed self-awareness, a.k.a. intelligence, a.k.a. pain in the arse. Now, here's the humourous thing: it's an override switch, so that those nasty emotions can be ignored if there's an evolutionary benefit to it. It's worked pretty well. But it also has to be insulated from the emotions so it can function correctly, so it starts getting delusions of grandeur imagining it is the WHOLE of the organism. What are all these irritating feelings doing here? Shoo, shoo!

If you don't believe me, watch yourself for a day. After every action, consider: did you intellectually choose to do it, or did you start off with an impulse then follow it? It's the latter. Impulse leads conciousness by something like 5ms - you can measure your brain, and every time you *think* you thought of something, some other part of your brain spikes into activity before the bits that make up you get going. Eeek! There's someone else in control! Either it's a defence mechanism, or a nifty bit of neurological wiring, but for our sanity we seem to be programmed to ignore this issue. Schizophrenia looks like a breakdown of that mechanism, but the afflicted have it bang to righs - they ARE being fed thoughts. Except they're coming from within.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the intelligence is a back-seat driver. It's there to help out the whole body, is is NOT the whole body. The emotional side has a far higher claim to being 'self', except it doesn't have any concept of 'self'. Nicely ironic. Astute readers will see one of the motivations in being Gemma: handing control back to the emotional side, something that gals seem to be far better at than guys.

So there you have it: the back-seat-driver theory of conciousness. That nagging conciousness that says "you're mad to do wear that dress" is the mental equivalent of the mother-in-law, so ignore her^

(with apologies to the decent, good-natured mother-in-laws everywhere. God bless all three of you).

Self reflection

Self-reflection #1. Blogging. No doubt the future will consider it normal, but it's strange coming from an era where personal diaries were personal. But we all want to be understood, so I can see the point. I've been reading Siobhan's stream-of-sometimes-conciousness today, and am in awe of someone who can blog while very much the worse off for alcohol. Well, most of the gaelic poets did their best work with a bottle in hand. Ah, 'tis the Irish in her. A whole bottle, by the look of it :)

Self-reflection #2. The linnaen trannie classification lasted about 5 days before being discarded. Oh, the relentless pace of scientific discovery, it's quite worn me out.

Self-reflection #3. This more-or-less marks the 6-month point for me as Gemma. I'll have to work out exactly when I appeared, because parties are fun. Now: my hair had got a bit ratty (and why do I suddenly feel like an android talking like this? It IS my hair. Clothes are an extension of personality, right? Wigs too). Anyway, ratty hair: new wig. So, I made an appointment and got on really well with the ladies in there, looking just to get a replacement. Instead I fell in love with a style. A style that was NOT like my old style (picture to come soon). This feels like betrayal, it's weird, scary and new. It's also a lot softer and more feminine. More woman, less girl. Brr ... I've just gone all shivery thinking where the next six months are going to take me.

How will it feel to see a different "me" in the mirror? It's almost like within this t-girl has been a t-woman waiting to emerge, and I can't quite get my head round that. Where will it end? Time to step through the looking-glass, Alice.

Philosophy on life

1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.

2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.

3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn't lie to you.

4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.

5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.

"We speak little if not egged on by vanity"

While not the quote I was looking for, it's far better for this blog. Last post was very serious and academic. I return to my TV roots, this one's "me, me, me".

TVs (and TEs) are notoriously vain. TS's mostly seem to have left that behind, and CD's don't really care because looking girly is not their aim. T-girls are supportive of each other's vanity, too - on Flickr the girls make a lot of encouraging noises about photos - some very deserving, others less so. I suppose we have to be vain, because vanity (in this case) is pride in one's appearance, and appearance is the be-all and end-all of our raison d'etre, so naturally we're focussed on it.

So it was with great glee and gratitude that I found out that I'd won transdate's t-babe of the month. This came on a week when lots of people had written saying how great they thought I looked. (don't worry; this ego pops in a moment). I'd more or less dropped out of the trannying scene for the two previous months due to bad conjunctivitus leading to depression, which made me question the whole t-girl thing. I think I'd seen the site and thrown my photo in to the comp in a moment of hubris, but then thought that the idea of me being a t-babe was laughable - heck, I was planning on putting all those clothes away in the attic. But it never really leaves you, so I've been getting back into it and testing out some personal theories, such as: what we do is often self-reinforcing. So, could I reinforce trannying behaviour by being tranny? The answer was a resounding "yes", which gives food for thought on the old "tabula rasa" argument, and for the sanity of someone who treats their psyche like an experimental lab rat. Remind me to tell you of when I tried to give myself schizophrenia; fortunately I failed. I think ...

Anyway, last night I didn't know that I'd come top, but the thought that I might was a huge sop to the ego and my vanity was ascending near-record heights. It was "Transmission" night too, so I did the whole two-hour prepare cycle, and I have never had such a difficult time with eye makeup. Three times I put it on, and three times it looked rubbish and I wiped it off. My eyelids were raw at this time, so I just did the best I could. It looked dreadful: I am ashamed to say that I was not some gorgeous t-girl, but seriously approaching bloke-in-dress. The girl who does photography at Tx carefully worked me out of any shots, in fact. I complimented one couple on their lovely fetish-y attire, but sadly they actually couldn't find words to return the favour. My ego was suitably deflated, and the irony of it all this morning is making me smile.

I'll end with another quote, and if you don't appreciate why I'm using it, read the whole poem. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!".

Little Boxes, little boxes. Preferably containing shoes or hats, but this time containing trannies.

There are different flavours of TV, and I've been trying to come up with a "tranny spotter's guide" for ages. It's the real reason for this blog. Classification helps us make sense of the world and reduces a complex situation into easily managed chunks. It doesn't have to be literal-true, the question is: does your classification aid or hinder your understanding? Anyway, there'll be another one along in five minutes, so we shouldn't get too attached to our theory.

"Think like an anthropologist". What groups can you make out in the whole transgender world, based on behaviour? Noticable groups I've seen are:

1. wear female clothing for sensual reasons
2. strive to appear feminine using clothing and cosmetics
3. strive to adopt female emotional attitudes
4. undergo medical alteration to adopt feminine characteristics

That's pretty much how trannies see things, with the exception of the emotional one - but emotions aren't as obvious as the other behaviours. Now comes the contentious part: labelling these. If anyone reading this disagrees, don't just flame. Put down your view of the world, and let's get a good dialectic going. I'm going to use standard terms where possible; let's call the groups:

1. crossdresser (cd)
   
2. transvestite (tv)
   
3. transemote (te)
   
4. transsexual (ts)
   

Only 4 is univerally accepted. 1 and 2 get swapped around a lot. 3 is medically recognised, but under the term 'transgender' (tg) which is pants because that word also means the whole spectrum of cd/tv/te/ts - 'transemote' fits the latin(?) naming convention. The category will probably be shouted at; many tvs will say that they feel feminine when dressed. Girls, that's not the point. Transemotes copy how women interact, change the language they use, alter their body language, open themselves up to a different emotional landscape and so on. I'm pretty sure there are a few gay guys who are transemote without being tv, so this doesn't have to be a linear "progression" (you may see this as a stairway to heaven or pathway to hell, as you see fit). Let's play about with the idea and see if it does anything for us.

I'm pretty sure this classification is right, because any distinct social group becomes cohesive and lays down them/us boundaries. Each of the groups does this for sure (though 'transemote' is still a bit hazy). The labels also work; all the 'trans-' are trying to achieve varying degrees of feminity. The order is, I think, significant in that it represents the difficulty and committment needed. The following is humour; switch yours on now.

Crossdressers regard all the others as nutters; "you're a boy, accept it". The others regard crossdressers as just playing at being tg, hence the "hairy panty-wearer" (HPW) tag. Transsexuals either think the others are really transsexual but are deluding themselves, or can't understand why they do it. Transvestives see transexuals as weird and scary (it's what they could become). I haven't asked anyone what they think of transemotes yet; this post is work-in-progress. Transemotes can't see the point in just dressing if you're going to stay the same person inside.

<PREACH>Sociologically, these are all perfectly valid points of view while being total bollox - same mountain, different sides. Let tolerance and acceptance be our watchwords lest they be denied to us in turn.</PREACH>

A note on 'transemote'. It fell out of the classification based upon observation. It could well be a category that behaves almost the same as tv, so I'll wrap it back into the class. But now that it's out, it feels "right". I was trying to work out why many tvs dressed, but really stopped short of trying to look seriously convincing. Other girls push it as far as they can. That 'transemote' category might be the answer but I don't know; I'd welcome your observations on this because my experience is *very* limited.

There. I think I've achieved what I set out to do: divide and conquer the whole transgender world. And I got to invent a new word; fame and fortune beckon. Probably with a one-fingered salute.

Give a girl a soapbox, and she'll stand on it.

Only to fall off because her heels are too high. And did you know there's a scientific formulae which shows the size of heel to wear based on the activity you'll be doing that evening and how much you plan to drink? Which sort of misses the point, I think - heels aren't MEANT to be practical. Those whacky scientists, they need to get out more. In heels.

This seems to be a bit of a Billy Connolly. I *had* meant to jot down some thoughts on responsibility, a word I can never spell let alone manage. But I can't get blogger to show my last post. I suppose it's my responsibility to sort it out, but sometimes it would be nice if things worked as you expected. Dream on, girl. [umm, just twigged. "Refresh". Duh!]

Responsibility. A while ago in a local tranny mailing group, an increasingly distressed set of mailings went out from X. X (an older tranny) had a strong desire to cross-dress, and eventually confronted the family about it. Tears, shouting, raging conflict. X wanted to move out and find herself, and pleaded with the group to put her up while she could find her feet. When the group didn't respond, X got very upset.

While I really feel for X, what did she expect? T-girls have more responsibility than you think; it's not all lippy and chardonnay. There's a duty to our friends, families and career. All of us agonise over who to share our wonderful/guilty secret with. The UK Angels are currently discussing telling children. Mostly, the answer is not to, because it's probably bigger than they can cope with. If you're going to tell your family, then you accept responsibility for the consequences, responsibility for telling them in a way they can handle. I wonder if that's why a lot of us are so "me, me, me"? Because outside the community we're always thinking "you, you, you", and we need a little attention for ourselves?

Anyway, once the fat was in the fire, rather than accept responsibility and try to sort the problem, X then tried passing responsibility onto the community. No wonder the girls were reluctant - gosh, I want to use really unkind words here like "albatross", "leech", "bunny boiler", "emotional vampire", which is so unfair to X, but that's how I felt when I saw her pleas. It would have been a huge burden, and I deeply admire those girls who DO shoulder other people's responsabilities.

Being a tranny isn't all eyeshadow and high heels, you see. Even if there is a formulae to tell you which pair to wear responsibly.