[Alice]

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For most of us, I believe the inner desire is to truely be a woman.

I don’t have a desire to be permanently or completely a female.

I find males absolutely repulsive and I think that part of my reason for dressing is to escape my own ugly male persona and bring out the (hopefully) more attractive female persona within me.

I thoroughly enjoy achieving a realistic illusion but becoming a female completely would cut me off from the rest of my life. I can’t even imagine how I would cope with that!

Alice

[Alice]

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there is some very good advice here concerning what is appropriate to wear.

If you can’t find the answer to something, choose the right forum and ask the question!

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what colours will suit my skin tone?

Hope this helps with this question at least:

viewtopic.php?p=2909#2909

Alice

[Alice]

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With reference to this there is lovely quote from Vicki Lee which sums up the Tranny journey.

“The journey does not always start at the beginning,
It does not always get to the end,
You can get off, you can get back on,
You can go forward, you can go backward,
But if you have a ticket you will always be on that journey.”

I’m also reminded of the line from Hotel California “You can check out but you can never leave.”

Alice

[Alice]

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I find that the easy answer to that is not to venture public. I am quite happy to relax at home dressed fem, with my wifes blessing. Saves any chance of embarrasment.

Good for you. I really mean it.

Transgender is a very wide continuum. If you are happy to stay at home and dress, you are in the best position possible. I used to be happy to just do that, but later found that I really wanted to dress and go out shopping.

When I got involved in politics and thought that I’d have to supress my desire to go out, it only increased my desire. I finally came to my senses thanks partly to girls in the TgR chat room who made me face the reality that there was no way that I wouldn’t be outed if I was involved in politics. I’m much happier now that I’ve walked away from politics and I intend to start getting out again in the next couple of weeks.

I was actually fully dressed while in the chatroom yesterday, which is a first for me!

Alice

[Alice]

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What you are saying if I get it right, is that there is discrimination against ts/tg people and to avoid the consequencees of this all girls, ts and cd should dress 100% passable at all times when out and about. In other words because they can’t identify us as ts/cd we are safe from discrimination.

Yes. It works for me, and seems to be the best solution anywhere in suburbia.

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In one dimension I can see the sense, but are we really dealing with the underlying discrimination? Perhaps being able to be identified as ts but just behaving normally and interacting with people helps reduce the underlying discrimination in the first place. I am not wedded to this viewpoint but it sounds just as reasonable.

Perhaps by mostly respecting social norms and only gradually breaking down the prejudices, we have more chance of long term acceptance than if we try the full frontal assault approach that you appear to be alluding to.

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Also the discrimination I was referring to was between us girls esp ts vs cd. I think you are confirming that it exists in bucket loads.

I admit that I have issues with some people. It is certainly not limited to a subset of the transgender community.

When I make it clear that I am heterosexual and happily married, I object to sexual advances from a non-TG male just as much as from a CD or TS. You think that this is unreasonable?

I also object to being told that, being TG, I must be sexually interested in men. You think that my objection is unreasonable?

I am not biased for or against CDs or TSes. Every indiividual finds a place on the TG continuum that suits them. Over time, I think that almost every one of us will shift to different points on that continuum. Sometimes that means that someone who thought that they were only a CD realises that they need to transition. I have met some such girls on TgR over the years. I certainly haven’t become biased against them for transitioning!

Alice

[Alice]

Learning to talk in a feminine tone is quite easy. It takes several months for it to fall into place but is quite easy to do. Once you learn it, it takes a few seconds to change gears from normal masculine voice to femme voice. The hardest part for me is that, if I’m not speaking for a while, I find that my vocal cords relax back to male mode and I have to try to shift gears without making a sound and hope that when I speak it’ll come out right.

Changing ones choice of subject, vocabulary, usage and inflections to be feminine is much harder.

Alice

[Alice]

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I have a few questions here though. Why should it be a concern whether one of us presents as fully femme, androgenous or as a male dressed femme?

I’ll remember that question next time I get read because I happen to be in a shop at the same time as someone who has made no effort to be passable.

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The distiction seems to confirm that the discrimination I alluded to is well entrenched and accepted.

Like it or not, the general public do discriminate against us. You can be different without inflaming public bias against transgendered people.

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Is there a percentage of time spent being passable that is acceptable or not

Yes. 100% of the time when in public.

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and is there something wrong with being noticed as different?

No, as long as your being different doesn’t adversely impact upon other transgendered people.

That should generate some lively debate.

Alice

[Alice]

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cough… just a crossdresser………

Be careful when pulling a phrase out of context. There is always the risk that you will adversely alter the implied meaning.

When read in context, I think that the statement is slightly insulting to crossdressers but it is a turn of phrase used every day by TSes without any intention of it being an insult.

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It’s an interesting point. Many of us who don’t intend to transition fully feel that there is a prejudice held by those that transition fully against those that don’t. Hijacking the discusion totally I ask you all…is there such a prejudice, a sort of ts hierarchy, or are we egalitarian to the core?

There is prejudice within the transgender community in all sorts of directions. It isn’t just a “CD vs TS” issue. We have the “dress for sexual gratification vs dress to pass as well as possible” issue and a whole host of other “dividing lines” between sub-species.

The important part is that we, as a whole, need to be able to communicate effectively with each other and be supportive of others within the transgender community because the wider community still see us as basically one group of fruitloops.

To bring this back on topic, perhaps the CDs who go out in public and the TSes out there would like to indicate how much of the time they actually present themselves as passable females as opposed to presenting themselves as androgynous, or worse, as men in womens clothing. While I have no doubt that many make an effort to pass at all times, the public perception I have encountered appears to indicate that the ones who are noticed are those who present themselves in public with an obviously male face either devoid of makeup or poorly made up, often a perceptible bust line and clothing somewhere between androgynous and female.

Alice

[Alice]

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I don’t dress any more. I live on my own so can dress any time but I haven ‘t had the urge for some time – maybe a year or so. I’ve been dressing since I was a teenager now I’m in my 40s and I’ve changed.

I’ve found that my desire has always varied over time. Sometimes I will make a huge effort to dress frequently in spite of having to leave other important things not done. Other times, I’ll force myself to do other things even though all I want to do is dress. I have had periods of a few months or so where I wasn’t interested in dressing but I’ve always found that sooner or later, the desire comes back as strong as ever.

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I still keep all my gear ‘just in case’ but I’ve thought about getting rid of it.

Aside from the possibility that just spending time on line in places like this is enough to replace actual crossdressing, I doubt that you’ll ever escape it.

Alice

[Alice]

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I was wondering how many girls go online dressed as a guy. What I mean is are you or are you not in femme mode when on Tranny radio, especially chat? or do you just log on? Do you feel more femminine when in the chat room when you are dressed, or does it not bother you?

An interesting question.

Regrettably, I rarely have the time to dress and do makeup. Yesterday, I made the decision to go into the chatroom instead of doing makeup, partly because I was too tired to do anything except sit down at the computer and type.

I think that I’ve actually gone backwards over the past 3 1/2 years or so (did I mention that I have a 3 year old child?). I used to go out shopping occasionally and go to Seahorse meetings as often as I could manage. Eventually the 2-hours each way drive to Sydney got too much and I stopped going.

Hopefully sometime next year my life will be more my own again and I’ll start dressing far more often.

In the meantime, at least I get to chat to girls who do dress often.

[Alice]

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Here, as in all forums that have private Instant Messaging functions it is generally considered the height of rudeness to IM someone without asking first in the general chat area however in the general context of friendships formed in places such as this many consider that asking first doesn’t apply to them if they have IM’d you without rebuke on previous occasions.

So perhaps the solution is to increase the verbage in the opening page for the chatroom to explain this.

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The really annoying part of most of these IM’s is that generally the chat is of the kind that can be dispensed with in General Chat anyway

Correct. What I have noticed, though, is that the first thing they do is ask if I have a partner. If they had looked at my profile, they’d know I’m married.

I think that this question is to see if you want to chat about stuff that doesn’t have a PG rating!

Alice

[Alice]

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Some of these progress to become TSes, while others remain CDs..

Whilst I agree with most of what you have written, I do disagree with this. A person simply does not progress to “become” a TS. I believe that you are either born TS or you aren’t. Crossdressing is a whole different world to being transexual and one doesn’t lead to another.

You’re right. I didn’t write that as well as I could have. For many TSes, CDing is a denial phase that they go through. They try to pretend that they are only a CD, sometimes for decades. Some never leave that stage of denial while others overcome the denial to become the woman that they know deep down they should have been all along.

I have personally been accused of being a TS in denial because I dress “too convincingly for a CD”!

Some experts say that CDs and TSes are often indistinguishable early on. The stages of behaviour can be the same even if the motivation is totally different.

Alice

[Alice]

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Here, as in all forums that have private Instant Messaging functions it is generally considered the height of rudeness to IM someone without asking first in the general chat area

Ah. Okay. None of the girls who have done this to me have asked first.

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The really annoying part of most of these IM’s is that generally the chat is of the kind that can be dispensed with in General Chat anyway i.e: ‘Hi’ ‘How are you?’ ‘How is the weather there?’ etc.

Anything like this should go in the main chat window. As long as girls set their text colours so that we have a range of colours, it’s quite fun to have 2 or 3 crossed conversations amongst 6 people, with everyone participating in all of the conversations.

I’m more concerned that some girls seem to think that the chatroom is for finding someone for virtual sex. It isn’t and the rules clearly say so.

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To my knowledge you cannot disable Private Chat individually at will it must be done by the moderator and would affect all users.

The chatroom is not php. It’s a flash app. The same issue probably applies, though.

Alice

[Alice]

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Does anyone else get the same sheer pleasure when they are fully transformed so much that all you want to do is all fem.

Isn’t that the essence of why we do it?

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I have no problem when males make advances to me but my ultimate pleasure is when I am enjoying the intimate company of another trannie/crossdresser.

I’m quite the opposite. I find males quite repulsive and I crossdress to escape the repulsive male within. Nothing could be more repulsive to me than the thought of intimacy with a male, regardless of my own appearance or theirs.

I quite enjoy the social company of other crossdressers, regardless of how well or how poorly they pass. The simple fact that they make the effort to present themselves in a feminine form is the important thing. They, like me, are making an effort to hide the male within. Intimacy would ruin that.

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I realise that there are the purists who say that sex shouldn’t be part of your transformation but I disagree strongly I believe that sex is a natural progression when you are fem.

I’d say that depends where you’re going. There are many destinations on the transgender road.

Sex is typically one of the very first parts of crossdressing. It is something that some never progress past, being content to wear underwear and dress no further.

Some progress from this towards the direction of dressing provocatively deliberately to seek sexual interaction. This direction, taken to its extreme, can take the form of CD or TS prostitution.

Others progress instead towards passing convincingly and comprehensively, often losing the sexual aspect entirely. Some of these progress to become TSes, while others remain CDs. Most remain interested in sex, but separate it from their gender presentation. The TS extreme of this can be the post-op who breaks all connection with their past and re-establishes themselves as if they are the genetic female that they appear to be.

Alice

[Alice]

Oh, another one I forgot.

Reset the time until a digest is emailed when users log in or read the forums.

I often receive a digest while I’m still on the site!

Alice