On Cross-dressing and Transgender

There are, in my opinion, a number of levels to cross-dressing and transgendered tendencies. (For the sake of this essay, I will only deal with Male to Female, mostly because that’s the side I know best).

The first level of cross-dressing I call Mild. At the Mild level, a man occasionally has a desire to dress like a woman. He may indulge this desire on occasions, but rarely does it cause him any great distress if he cannot. Many men at this level may call cross-dressing a hobby, no different in their mind than other men taking up golf as a form of relaxation. For this reason, they rarely have much guilt feelings associated with cross-dressing. They may have a female name to use when dressed, but have no particular attachment to it. Lastly, they have no desire to change sex, or becoming feminine in any serious way.

The second level, I call Moderate. At the Moderate level, a man has a much stronger desire to cross-dress, and may suffer from distress if that desire is prevented. The man may still call it a hobby, but it has become a hobby that requires a lot of his time and attention. They may have at least some amount of guilt associated with it, and may occasionally have periods of “purging”, and “binging” where they get rid of all traces of the cross-dressing, only to go on a buying spree to replace what they have gotten rid of. This is the level that best describes at least some men who are regarded as suffering from a fetish. Their female name is more important than at the mild level, and some at this level have positive responses to the name totally apart from when they are dressed. At least some of the men at this level may seek help in controlling their desires, and/or try and find an acceptable outlet for their need. Lastly, they may at least consider techniques to be more feminine, but still identify as male.

The third level I refer to as Serious. At the serious level, the person suffers from significant distress if prevented from cross-dressing. It cannot really be called a hobby at this level, and indeed has more in common with addiction. The man may have serious amounts of guilt associated with dressing, and are much more likely to have “binging” and “purging”. They may still be classified as suffering from a fetish, but they also may be regarded as at least mildly transsexual They will have a positive reaction to their female name. They are likely to seek help, either to control the desire, or to bring the desire to life in a practical way. Lastly, they have seriously considered or taken steps to be more feminine, and may refer to themselves as girls at least some of the time, and may use terms such as “part-time girl.”

The fourth level I call Critical. At this level, the person is utterly addicted to dressing, or being as feminine as possible. They may suffer from a great amount of guilt, and “purge” , but almost always return as soon as feasible. They are often regarded as being transsexual. They will have almost as positive reaction to their female name as to any item of female clothing. They will often seek help, but attempts to control their desire will usually fail, and will end up having to accept it as part of who they are. Lastly, if at all possible, they will take whatever steps they can to be as feminine as possible, and although they may still call themselves a “part-time girl”, it might be more true to say they feel like a part-time boy..

The last level is Total, otherwise called Transsexual. Dressing isn’t all that important except as part of being accepted as the female they feel like they are. While they may still suffer from guilt, and purge, the desire will no be denied forever. They regard their female name as their true one, and the male name as a disguise. Eventually they will seek help or be forced to do so. All attempts to repress the need to be female will fail. They eventually must become female, or suffer. They may retain some aspects of their male lives, or none.

On Magically Changing Genders

Poof! You’ve just magically changed genders. What’s next? Well, what happens next can vary a lot, depending on a number of factors. (For the purposes of this essay, we will only deal with male to female transformations). First, did you want this to happen? If you were a typical guy, and happy being one, this transformation represents the biggest challenge of your life.

The only non-magical equivalent might be losing your male parts suddenly in an accident or due to disease. Suddenly, one of the fundamental ways you defined yourself - as a male, has been changed, and you are left trying to navigate the fallout. Whether you succeed depends a great deal on your resources - both external and internal.

Dealing with the internal resources first, how adaptable a person are you? When faced with great stress, can you keep going? Without this ability, your chances of success drop considerably.

Secondly, what kind of external resources do you have? Do you have family, friends ? Are they able to believe in your transformation, and will they stand by you? Your chances of success increase greatly if you have this kind of support.

On the other hand, you may have wanted this to happen. If you at least fantasized about being a girl or if you always knew you were one, this transformation is the answer to a prayer, right?

Well, not so fast. There are a few other factors to consider.

One of them is your new appearance. In most stories, a transformed person finds themselves beautiful, sexy, and often their own dream-girl come to life. But is that a given?

For example, you could find yourself female, but grossly overweight, or maybe with the face not even a mother could love. Would changing genders under those circumstances be worth it? I suspect that even for a true transsexual, they might hesitate to accept such a trade-off.

Another issue you must face is your identity. Did you acquire female I.D.? Can you get some easily? If the answer is “no”, you are in for a rough ride.

Imagine trying to get a job without a social insurance number, or proving you’re a citizen without a birth certificate, Very suddenly you could become a “non-person”, and have a rough future ahead.

Another problem to deal with will be your wardrobe. If it didn’t change when you did, you will need to replace it, but how? In a lot of stories, a female friend/girlfriend/wife will assist you, but what if you don’t happen to have one handy? And what if you don’t also happen to have a large budget available to purchase a new wardrobe?

You might be stuck for months or even years having to buy one or two items at a time, depending on how much cash you have on hand at the time, and have no one but sales clerks to give you advice on what styles or colors work best for you.

In short, magically changing genders can pose as many hurdles to overcome as changing gender the mundane way. But these difficulties can be met, and overcome, if a person dedicates themselves to the task, and is lucky enough to have help.

Good luck!

On Grief

Life is full of disappointments. - some of these are very large - our trust is betrayed, our innocence is taken from us, our lives are forever altered. Some might seem small to an outsider but still wound us deeply, even if we do not admit that wound to ourselves. Each disappointment changes us, and our view of the world and ourselves is forced to take a detour that we never expected.

Like a mirror broken and glued back together, the cracks in our self-image remain visible, and the scars on our soul may be sutured, but remain tender forever after. What I am talking about is grief, even if we don’t call it that when dealing with some losses, that is in fact what it is. These moments of grief can overwhelm us, the waves of emotion may get too high, we may stop swimming and drown.

But, even if they do not, they change us, wash us on to the shore of an unknown country, a country of change. If you have ever looked at a list of the things that cause stress in people’s lives, the one thing that they have in common is change. - death, divorce, moving from place to place. We are being forced to leave behind the familiar and enter the unknown. We do that every day, even if we don’t realize it - each morning is full of new things, each sunrise lights a completely new experience.

But, because we treasure the familiar and fear the unknown, we try and hold on to the past, even when it was hurtful.. But the door to yesterday is locked behind us, and no amount of strength or desire will open it again to allow us to alter what has occurred. We are left with grief, and only each one of us individually can navigate the path through grief - the denial, the anger, the bargaining - out to the other side, the land called Acceptance. To do that, however, we also need the support of others, their encouragement, their understanding of our need to grieve until we are ready to move on.

Thinking about grief, I believe that most books on the subject are wrong. They talk of the stages of grief as though grief was a step ladder, go up each rung, one at a time, until you reach the top. But, at least in my experience, grief is more like a journey between two mountains down into a steep valley. The path is rough, there are places where you could trip and fall, places filled with darkness and shadows., time when the path ahead seems blocked and detours have to be made. But, there can also be moments of discovery, times when you find something hidden in the valley that no one from the mountain tops can see, a place of stillness and peace that helps you refresh yourself, so you can carry on toward the other side.

Every person’s grief is unique, intimate even. Even when the same circumstances happen to two different people, they will process it in totally unique ways. The way each person handles the grief will depend on their histories, their attitudes, the amount of support they receive, and even their body and brain chemistry. Having said that, there seems to be some temptations that are quite common when dealing with grief. One of those is denial. We become like little children, closing our eyes to the event to wish and pray to make it never so.

But grief will not be swept under a rug forever. Like a disease in the body untreated will continue to fester and get worse, so grief will grow as long as it is not faced. This temptation remains as long as the hurt does, it is always present, ready to swallow us if we allow it. Something I must do when I am grieving is force my eyes open, refuse to deny it, and instead to acknowledge it, because only then can I begin to treat it. This requires a certain amount of bravery, a willingness to being vulnerable.

There are several emotions that can be associated with grief. Of course, one would expect to feel sorrow, or sadness during the grieving process. The emotion that seem to surprise people is Anger. But it does make sense. A wounded animal is often more dangerous , even to those trying to help. When we have been hurt, there is a temptation to lash out and hurt others. Sometimes, we can use anger as fuel to help up move forward for a while, but it becomes an anchor, tying us to the event and keeping us fro being able to continue to climb.

Worse, our anger can cause us to hurt innocent people who love us, and only want us to get better. Far too often I have allowed anger to cloud my judgment, and have become enraged at petty events that were not worthy of such a response when examined by the cold light of day. I have felt like I was trapped, unable to escape the pain, a feeling of an injustice done to me that should be revenged, and the cry of “its just not fair!“ has escaped my lips.

The only way I know of to get rid of this weight is to cut the cord of anger, give up my “right” to seek justice for myself, and leave the hurt behind forever. Like denial, this is not something that only occurs once and then is over with. I have to continually do it over and over again, for as long as the hurt remains.

If we are fortunate enough to avoid or pull ourselves out of the trap of denial and leave behind the weight of anger, there are still some other pitfalls we can fall into and get stuck while on a journey of grief. One of these is Bargaining - we try and negotiate away our pain, trade our grief. Denial and bargaining are related, because we are still not acknowledging fully the events or circumstances. But, while denial is inward-looking, bargaining is usually outward looking.

So who do we bargain with? Well, for some of us at least, it involves a higher power, God. I have seen lifelong atheists and sceptics take to prayer like ducks to water when faced with grief. Sometimes, that prayer is even answered - the cancer scare turns out to be wrong, the relationship we thought destroyed or lost is restored. But, more often than not, the heavens remain silent on the subject of our grief and we are forced to carry the burden, heavy as it may be.

The good part about bargaining is that we have started to realize that the situation is not in our control, that we cannot change the event that caused our grief. But we are still looking for an easy way out, a way to get around the mountain instead of putting one foot in front of the other to climb it, however slow our progress upward might be. I am beginning to climb out of the valley of grief.

I am not at the top by any means, but at least I am climbing now, and am no longer satisfied with waiting for someone or something to just pull me up. I can now hear the voices of encouragement from others, so please, keep cheering me on.

Origins #1

Author’s note: This is the first in what might be a series of short essays about some of my favorite fictional universes. Today; we’ll take a look at the backstory of the Land, the world of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

The story of the Land, and the larger world that it is a part of, begins with a Creator. The Creator sought to make a living world, so first he used white gold and wild magic to forge the Arch of Time, as a place for his world to be made within, and a bridge of light to connect it to himself.

At first, all seemed well. The world slowly took shape, and the Creator’s children crossed the bridge to dance in the sky of the new-made world.

But then disaster struck. The Creator looked at his world, and saw terrible banes buried deep in the earth through no will of his. He thus realized that Despite, his shadow or his brother, had been at work, and so he wrestled with Despite, finally throwing it through the arch and in the process broke the bridge of light.

Thus both Despite and the Creator’s children were trapped, and could not return, as long as the Arch stands.

But Despite was weakened, and for a long time the land had peace, as the great Forest grew.

Yet not all was well, for into the land came three spirits - the Ravers, who could possess bodies, and they attacked the trees.

The children of the Creator decided to sacrifice one of their own to create a guard for the trees, who would later be known by men as the Colossus of the Fall.

The forests were thus protected for a long time, until Men came to the land.

As Men cleared the forests, the trees responded by taking some of the energy of the Colossus to create Forestals, strange creatures that seemed like a blend of trees and humans, and who wielded the power of the Earth itself - Earthpower. These creatures became the guardians of the forest, which slowed the destruction of the trees, but it was too late.

The Ravers had returned.

One of the Ravers possessed the king of men, and shocked by his sudden cruelty his wife the queen began a revolt against him.

She gathered heroes to aid her, and the greatest of these was Berak, the bravest and the best that the kingdom had to offer.

But even Berak could not defeat the forces of the King, and during one of the battles, he himself was wounded, losing the last two fingers of his right hand.

Defeated, bleeding, and desperate, Berak fled to the foot of Mount Thunder, a place of ancient power, and begged the Earth below him to help him, offering his life and service in exchange.

And the Earth responded.

The top of the mountain opened, and great creatures of pure flame called Fire Lions came down, and swept away his enemies.

True to his word, once the battle was over, he gathered the survivors of his people, and began teaching them the way of Earthfriendship. He then replaced the monarchy with a Council of Lords, with himself as the High Lord. Despite that title, he ensured that the office of the High Lord was one of cooperation rather than dictatorship. He then forged the Staff of Law, as the ultimate expression of Earthpower.

Generations past, and the people slowly repaired the damage their ancestors had caused, and each new High Lord seemed greater and more powerful than the last.

And soon, they also had allies.

For into the land came Giants - beings almost twice the size of a man, who were sailors who had lost their way home, and now lived on the other side of a great swamp.

Soon, with the Giant’s help, the people had built Revelstone, a massive city made out of rock, a place that could also act as a refuge in times of trouble.

More time passed, and then another group came into the land, the Haruchai, who were fierce fighters from the high mountains. The Haruchai disavowed weapons or magic, relying on their extreme physical skills, and they wanted to challenge the Lords, who were at that time led by a new High Lord, a man named Kevin.

But Kevin won the Haruchai over, so much so that they took an oath of service, an oath so strong that Earthpower entered them, and some of them became the Bloodguard - sleepless, ageless, and stern.

But just when Men had all but forgotten evil, a being arrived at Revelstone. He appeared to be human, and named himself Lord Foul, but despite the name, he proved to be a holder of much knowledge, and Kevin came to trust him.

Then, one day, he sent a message to the High Lord, saying he wanted Kevin to meet him in the swamp because he had secret information to give him.

Despite his trust of Foul, Kevin doubted, and instead of going himself, he sent some of his most trusted aides in his place.

As Kevin had feared, it was a trap. His aides were killed, and Foul declared war on the High Lord.

And very soon, he was winning.

Eventually, Kevin was desperate enough to try something unheard of.

He challenged Foul to meet him at Mount Thunder, and recite with him a deadly spell, the Ritual of Desecration.

To help limit the damage he was about to cause, he sent the Giants back over the swamp, and had the Bloodguard take the people as far away as possible.

He met Foul at the mountain, and they recited the ritual together. Kevin knew he would die in the spell’s effect, but he thought that at least he would take his foe with him.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

Because Foul was not human, he was Despite, and could not be destroyed by any spell.

The Land was devastated by the spell, and lay in ruin for some time.

But finally, the people came back with the Bloodguard, and seeing the damage, they decided to take an Oath of Peace, to never again fall into the passion that led to Kevin’s decision.

They were cheered when the Giants returned and bearing a device that they came to know as the First Ward of Kevin’s Lore, something he had prepared long before. They would soon learn that all of his knowledge and wisdom was recorded on the Wards, of which there were seven, and that when they had mastered the first, it would reveal the location of the next.

They set up a new council with a new High Lord, and despite the loss of the staff of Law, began working at healing the ravaged land.

Meanwhile, the Despiser, although not killed, had been seriously weakened, and could not threaten the Land directly for a very long time.

But as he recovered his strength, he decided he wanted to do more than defeat the new Lords and take over the Land. He wanted to escape the Earth, to get past the Arch of Time and take his fight to the Creator once more.

But to do that, he discovered he needed white gold, and there was none anywhere in the Land.

Then the staff of Law was found by a creature called a Cavewight, named Drool Rockworm.

And Despite saw his chance to acquire white gold, by having Drool summon a bearer of the metal from whatever world had the substance.

And a bearer came: Thomas Covenant, who had once been an author, husband, and father - until a diagnosis of leprosy took all those things away.

Abandoned by his wife and child, shunned by the small town he had grown up in, and isolated on the farm he had once shared with his wife, he struggled to continue to find a reason to live.

Until he was pulled into the Land, and because he also had lost the last two fingers on his right hand, he was seen as Berak reborn, as well as the wielder of wild magic from the white gold wedding ring he still wore.

But he was convinced that he was experiencing a dream while recovering from being hit by a police car on his last futile trip into town, and resented the demands the Land would put on him.

And so he would take the title of the Unbeliever, but his time in the Land would change him forever ...

The beginning ...

Author’s postscript: If this intrigued you, check out the books, called collectively The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. If you liked this, please leave a kudo and a comment..

The care and feeding of huggles.

As a writer, I love words, language. And one of the things I love best about the English language is its flexibility, its ability to absorb new words.

Well, I have a new word for you all, and I rather hope it catches on.

Ladies and gentlemen, and those inbetween, may I introduce to you, the huggle.

Yes, I know that the word has several definitions according to the Urban dictionary, but I have a completely new one to share with you.

Meet ... a huggle.

Huggles are very odd critters, because their whole reason to be is to hug.

They take psychic energy produced in hugs as their main source of food.

Huggles come in many sizes from microscopic to as big as a skyscraper. They can alter both their shape and size as needed to arrive at their destination in time to deliver a hug.

Huggles are virtually indestructible, and are very single-minded. If they are sent to give you a hug, a hug is what you are gonna get ...

Despite these traits, huggles dont live very long when not hugging, and they also usually disperse if they fulfill a specific hugging mission if it was challenging enough.

Nobody is really sure just how many huggles there are in existence, but there is at least one huggle factory that is producing huggles night and day - and that’s me.

So if I send you a huggle, please be kind to it, and let it do its job. Otherwise, I will just have to send you lots more ...

HUGGLES for everybody !

What is my Transition about?

What is my transition about?

Well, it might be easier to start with what it isn’t.

Its not about sex.

Let’s make something really, really clear. I don’t fancy boys. Never had a crush on one as a kid, never had butterflies in my tummy about talking with one, never dreamed of having one kiss me.

So put aside any thoughts about me making myself more attractive to men. Its just not the case.

As for being a transvestite, well, the simple fact is that I dont get any sexual charge from women’s clothes. None. they are just what a woman wears, so that’s what I wear.

To further that point, its not about the clothes.

I wear pants and a shirt most days. Dresses and skirts are saved for special occasions - just like most women my age. Yes, there are times when I want to be more feminine, but I’m a practical woman , and so end up in comfortable, durable clothes. And as for underwear, that’s even more practical, as the only person who will ever see them is me.

Its not about attracting attention.

My happiest moments during this transition have been when I’ve gone out and had no special attention paid to me. I was seen as just another woman going about her business, and it was marvelous. That’s one reason I’ve picked the wardrobe I have, so I dont get people staring at me.

This isnt about making people feel sorry for me.

Anyone who knows my story knows I’ve had a few bad things happen to me. But I know others with lives that make mine look like a walk through the park. I’ve been pitied, while it can feel good to have someone empathize with me, a person gets tired of being the object of pity pretty fast.

I’ve thought more than once that I know people are judged by how they treat “the least of these”, but I would be just as happy if “the least of these” was somebody other than me. Frankly, I would like to be worth more than just pity.

This isnt about my rape, or “hating” being a guy.

Look, my memory of those years is beyond hazy, but some things I can recall, especially now that I’ve started working on recovering from my assault. And my best recollection indicates that I blamed my wanting to be female for my rape. In fact my memory suggests that my rapist used that desire as a means to help keep me under his control.

I believe, and what evidence I have supports this, that rather than creating “Dorothy” to deal with the rape, I buried her along with the memories of the rape, and tried to create a male persona to function in the day to day world. The more I recover from what happened to me, the more Dorothy began to emerge, or rather re-emerge from hiding. That’s a close to proof of this as I can produce.

So what’s my transition about?

Well, I’m hoping for a sense of peace, a feeling of being in the right skin for the first time in my life. I’ve already started to get close to that, having a relaxation of tension and generally a better attitude towards life in general. I’m a BETTER person now, by any measurement you care to make, and that’s what this is all about.