I Am Beautiful

"Liberty is the right not to lie." - Albert Camus

Our culture insists on gender uniformity and does not acknowledge any neutral variations - only value judgements such as "sins" and "illnesses". This smug gender totalitarianism does hidden violence to dissidents and "perverts". It distorts our self-images, ambitions and dreams. We think we are alone, crazy, or ridiculous. Our desire learns to curb itself, and we come to depend on the strength of self-repression for our safety. We live in fear of being known, and such fear stifles the wish before the image of what is wished for can be fully formed. We think we are ugly before we even see ourselves, and the injustice of this, this falsehood, chokes me.

Adapted from "Macho Sluts" by Pat Califia

I think I need to examine my issues around the idea of getting plastic surgery.
Am I doing it because I don't pass to myself, or because I don't think I pass to other people? Or both? When certain people notice me on the street, is it because they think I'm a pretty boy, an ugly girl, a pretty girl, or something they can't quite figure out or have never seen before? Do I automatically assume the worst? Clearly I must acknowledge that I already pass to some certain percentage of people. But clearly it's not enough. How much more is enough? Where do I want the needle to be? 100%? Is the goal to go stealth? Isn't that another closet? If somehow I passed today, right now, in the eyes of everyone, but looking exactly the way I do now, would I still be getting surgery?

Faux Whore

Something about this blog rubs me the wrong way, like fingernails on chalkboard. Yet I find I can't look away. This says everything about me, and nothing about the author.

I think the feeling is akin to watching a cringe-inducing movie about the insecurities of being in junior high. We've all been there - and so the scenes cause discomfort because they hit so close to home.

Faux Whore, Magdelyn, I was there 10 years ago. Heck, I was there 5 years ago. I had a good 5 year run in between. Most of the "true", (but embellished, altered and conflated), back-stories on this blog are from that once seemingly endless period of my life. I guess the fact I'm still writing about it all says something in itself - am I still fascinated with the life of my former self? Or am I hoping to make epiphanies now that distance allows self-reflection?

I used to think that being a crossdressing party-girl night-crawler who explored the dark nooks and crannies of the city's teeming underground - in "his" spare time - was the best I could hope for as a young semi-closeted transperson. It was a very 1970's Lou Reed/New York take on my gender variance.
I had so much self-doubt in my gender identity because I saw a ring of truth in all those now politically incorrect ideas like "Transsexual Empire" and "autogynephilia". After all, I was a horny chronic masturbating self-objectifying scantily clad easy lay of a transvestite who hung out with drug users and S&M practitioners and orgy organizers, and I had a sharp line between my male and female personas. How could I possibly be a "real" woman?

Eventually I discovered the exit, and came to realize that my problem was that I didn't dream big enough, I didn't give society, history, nature, or myself enough credit. Or maybe I was just a decade too early, and we've actually had significant social change and political awareness in the past 10 years. I credit third wave feminism, cutting edge trans activism and books like "Whipping Girl" for expanding the idea of what a "real" woman is, to the point I felt embraced. Say what you will about those things, but they helped me personally, with real consequences. Perhaps they even saved my life.

Now that I've had my fill of all that, and time has created distance, education has raised consciousness, and hormones have changed my inner and outer realities, I'm on the verge of slipping quietly into capitalist professional empowered womanhood, with a career, the love and support of family and friends, and the trappings of liberal yuppiedom. I'm not saying I'm more evolved or mature or civilized now, just in a different place. It was fun while I was there, but I couldn't stay there forever. I live in the daylight now, rather than at night. I'm a teetotaler who goes to bed early, and puts her health and safety above most other considerations. My biggest 'vice' is that sometimes I spend too much time writing here in this fantasy blog.

So it's both painful and fascinating to see someone else go through what for me turned out to be a 5 year phase - and in some of the very same haunts. Not all the details are the same. But there are enough similarities to be like finding an old picture of yourself at 12 with zits and bad hair... or like a car wreck you can't look away from.

I'll be popping the popcorn over here and waiting eagerly for the next installment.

All Hers

Black Sissy is really pushing my buttons, in an interesting way. Her recent comments are causing me to think more deeply about my sexuality, how it's changed, and how my physical & sexual interactions with both men and women may be different, now that I'm on hormones.
My sexual fantasies now include a healthy dose of thoughts about being touched, held, and the warmth of bodies - which for me is a new focus. I also find I'm more attracted to romantic scenarios - for example, when two people are reunited after being apart, or acts of kindness.
As I mentioned previously, I'm now about 50/50 attracted to men and women. My sexual feelings for women, including transsexual women, are about the same as they ever were - a mix of physical attraction, emotional attraction, and envy. I've talked about it enough in this blog that I don't think there's much need to rehash. My feelings for men used to be just general avoidance, punctuated by occasional sexual encounters, which I think were also subconscious efforts to assert my femininity. But for the first time, I have actual fantasies about men - I imagine a firm touch by large hands, being held against a large strong chest, giving satisfaction through a langorous blowjob, being on top with a theoretical vagina.

As black sissy says,

"Hormones do have their effect. They change the chemistry of the brain.
When i'm with my boyfriend i enjoy the pleasures of the sexuals acts we share. However i also love the part before and after where we cuddle and he holds me. I love to suggle up against him in the night. On the long winter nights i especially enjoy being close to him and feeling the warmth of his body.
I didn't have those feelings before hormones even though i liked guys. And when he's away i really miss him."

The fact that she had these sorts of feelings for a man came to mind last night as I tried masturbating. After skipping around, I landed on Iowa Beverly's All Hers blog.
What she's writing about is arousing and terrifying at the same time.
I have no idea how much of the blog is fact v. fiction, but she appears to be a submissive crossdresser who has been roleplaying for a while as her wife's maid. Beverly's most recent posts are about the aftermath of a relationship-changing New Year's Eve trip to Florida. In summary, she and her wife both took on male lovers. What especially struck me is how Beverly described her feelings about her date in "romantic", and not just sexual, terms. That's the part I found arousing. Since then, her wife has been treating her more as a girlfriend than a spouse, and they're not having sex anymore. Where will all this lead?? That's the part I found terrifying.
Beverly discovered to her shock that her inner sense of herself had changed enough that she suddenly found herself attracted to a man... at the same time her spouse was taking on a lover.
For me, that opened old wounds. It reminded me too much of a situation I was in years ago, when I began gender transitioning. My significant other and I were having unrelated relationship problems, and she took on a male lover. Even though we had an open relationship, it hurt. We didn't communicate well about it. And I wasn't ready for it in the context of my gender transition. I wasn't sure if he saw me as a man, a woman, or something in between, and I wasn't sure which was more painful, more insulting, more offensive. I felt like a nebulous, confused freak who was being judged and compared to a "real man". He made suggestions to her about whether I would feel better about their relationship if he had sex with me too. Yuck.
I'm still sorting out this last part, so I don't know what my point is yet. Just some stuff I've been thinking about.

Chicks With Dicks

Social change is happening really fast these days.

The Rules of Attraction

In the comments to my post New Patterns?, black sissy said,

"Pamela, i totally feel you! Hormones changed me a lot too. I still have a healthy sex drive but it is not overwhelming. It doesn't drive me as much as it bubbles up at times. It takes longer to "do the deed" and often i don't bother to cum because it has become too much work. Plus my skin is softer and giving myself a hand job kinda hurts.

As the hormones do their work over time i find myself "shooting blanks" if i cum at all. Most of the time i think about guys and being held and squeezed and being close.

Keep writing about what's happening with you. This is good stuff."

Thanks for the feedback. This is pretty much EXACTLY what I've experienced. The only difference is that I find myself about 50/50 equally attracted to men and women. (That's a change from about 20/80 before hormones). But when I do fantasize about being with men, it's that same feeling you describe of wanting to be held, squeezed and firmly touched by someone much larger and stronger than me!

You Better Work (Supermodel)

I've thought about doing this kind of post for a long time but I wasn't sure how to approach it until now.
This entry is about all the subconscious stuff that swirls around the idea of finally crossing over and going to work in a skirt and heels...
What will people think? Will they laugh me out the door? Point and scream 'pervert'? Look down on me? Sabotage? Cold shoulder? Will I be sexualized? Fetishized? Judged? Not taken seriously? Demoted to the bottom rung of the identity ladder? Accused of bringing masturbatory habits into the workplace? Banned from both restrooms?
I felt that before I let this out of my subconscious, I had to make sure I was able to articulate the strong difference between reality and fantasy.
Here's the disclaimer:
MOST transgender people get discriminated against in the workforce. In fact, this may be the number one reason that the number of full-time TSes and post-ops is so vanishingly small. Economic forces work strongly against it.

And I think one of the reasons for the discrimination is the aura of "pervert" that hangs around the cultural idea of transgenderism.
That's a reason I hesitated to do this topic until I could find the right way to explain it - I wouldn't want this blog to hurt 'the cause' in any way.
So this blog entry is not about what would really happen with a transsexual/crossdresser/transvestite in the workforce. Rather, it's about what people may worry would happen, in the dark recesses of the subconscious. It's about all those twisted cultural ideas & prejudices already floating around out there, that we pick up on and internalize.
Well, here they are, turned around and spit back out. Sorry if my commentary spoils the show.
Without further ado, on with the program:


Imagine yourself going to work for the first time in a skirt and heels after years of presenting yourself as a man. Everybody wants to take a look. Would you be paralyzed with fear? Constantly adjusting your prissy uncomfortable outfit, and looking in the mirror in self-doubt?





Women's office attire is already fetishized by many men. Imagine what happens when you add a cross-gender element to it.




Is this what people imagine will happen if they let a 'tranny' into the office?
I bet some of you reading this dress up in sexy office outfits and do this in private. My theory is that you do it because the testosterone coursing through your veins causes you to fetishize your internalized repression.




Is this how they'll imagine your morning routine getting dressed...?



...And driving to work?



Would your mere presence cause the men in the office to visualize you 'blowing the boss', or a boyfriend, like they do the other women they work with? Can they handle thinking about you, a formerly male co-worker, in that way?



Do they imagine you run home at the end of a day of 'playing dressup', to 'relax' yourself?



Is sexual harassment the 'best' outcome you can hope for? After all, at least they're firmly acknowledging you as a woman. :/






I leave you with a few glimpses of reality... the girl on the left, above, is how I like to think I'd dress.

Supper Club

Remember Monique from Wild Night At the Tranny Bar II?

I had an interesting dream about her last night.

In the dream, I was at a supper club - the kind with the white tablecloths on round tables, with candles, wine glasses and all that jazz. I spotted some friends way down at the very front, near the stage, left of center. As I approached, I saw one of the people at the table was Monique. She got up from her seat and gave me a big hug and a kiss. Then the kiss turned into us totally making out. In the dream, it was quite hot and delicious.

Then I was sitting in her lap. Between sexy kisses she was gently needling me with little questions - pillow talk in public. And this is interesting - the only question I remember is that she asked me why I showed up there 'disguised as a boy'. I became aware that I was wearing my male professional attire and must have come there straight from work. She was poking at me for still living in two worlds.


Now, dream interpretation: For one, this is notable because I rarely had any erotic dreams before I started taking hormones.
More importantly, though, I think that when I examine what's going on in my mind, I find that to me, Monique strongly represents freedom and youth. Especially gender and sexual freedom.
I've never met anyone transgender who lets it all hang out like she does - and I've definitely learned a couple of life lessons from her - to worry less about what other people think, to be more bold about expressing my desires, to enthusiastically embrace my unorthodox sexuality.
It's too bad the real Monique isn't like the dream Monique.
For one, I'd probably never run into her in a supper club. And she's got a rap sheet. She's a bit rough around the edges - which is definitely part of her charm - but it assuredly means she's not the girl for me.


In other news...
I really need to change the title of this blog.
I'm not Chronically Masturbating anymore now that I'm chemically gender transitioning... and for that matter, it's not really considered 'Crossdressing' at this stage of the game either. I guess I'm still a Pervert though.
I need something with a nice ring to it that reflects my new reality. Any suggestions?
"Fantasies, Dreams and Erotic Reflections Of a Gender Variant Person?"