Help? Yes But Please Don’t Take Away My Stress!

My body has become conditioned to waking up very early on a Monday morning so I can read the latest postings on TGForum. Rarely have I been so interested or provoked by an article as I was by last week’s posting by Dana Bevan. It was titled How Are the Non-Transsexual Transgender People Faring? I’m sure you read it.

I must admit that I was first drawn to it simply to find out what a “Non-Transsexual Transgender” person was. Thankfully Ms. Bevan had very clearly laid out that she define “a transsexual (TS) as a transgender (TG) person that has modified their body to fit better with society’s expectations of their congruent gender and who usually goes full time in their congruent gender.” (Congruent: in agreement or harmony)

While she doesn’t specifically spell it out Ms. Bevan implies that the rest of us, those that to any extent are part timers in our preferred gender roles and those who have not yet or do not intend to “modify their body” via surgery are Non-Transsexual Transgender persons, and she states there are ten times as many of us than there are transsexual (body-altered) persons.

For me it is an on-going sore point that from time to time I’ll hear about a genitally altered TS looking down on and disparaging those who have not come as far along the gender transformation road, or who have no intention of taking that road. Thankfully and clearly Ms Bevan is not one of those but she mentions one example in her article. I have another example. A few years ago I was witness to a promising new support group getting off the ground in the Sarasota, FL area. Things went well until the third meeting when one who identified herself as pre-op TS made the comment, “well crossdressers aren’t really transgender.” All hell broke loose when two self-identified crossdressers took great exception to the comment and the meeting dissolved in disharmony never to reconvene. Such is the sensitivity around our terminology.

The first person who commented on Ms. Bevan’s article asked, “What’s wrong with the good old-fashioned ‘crossdresser’?” That had been my reaction as well. Then I realized that Ms Bevan, intentionally or not, was moving a large group, sometimes referred to as non-op transsexuals, out of the TS category.

While I generally agreed with the thrust of Ms. Bevan’s article which was that the transgender community should continue to find ways to help the persons struggling to cope with the stress of their often clandestine activity there were two things with which I took exception. The first was the implication that one had to have altered one’s body to conform to the preferred gender to be considered transsexual. I understand that non-op TS’s live full time as women but forego the options of genital reconstruction and possible breast augmentation. I have a friend named Carol who is content to live full time as a woman, with all her ID changed to reflect that status but without the surgery. “It is nobody’s business what I have between my legs,” is how she puts it. She would be very miffed to learn that anyone would dare to refer to her as non-TS. No one I know would consider Carol anything but transsexual.

However that is a side issue. Ms. Bevan’s main concern is that the non-transsexual transgender person (AKA crossdresser) often leads a very lonely and secretive existence that is also very stressful. We have to help them lower and eliminate that stress, she contends. I agree with her that it can take a long time for one to get up the courage to get out of the closet, the apartment, the hotel room and get to a support group meeting. Then there is the chance that the support group may not be supporting her particular needs. All of that leads to stress. As we know too much stress in a person’s life can lead to physical and emotional illness.

Ms. Bevan goes on to lay out a number of positive measures that the trans community can incorporate in our practices to help and support the stressed “non-transsexual transgender person.” Her aim is to provide support and understanding with a view to relieving “our” levels of stress and anxiety. She is bang on the mark with those suggestions for many people, I’m sure. But just not for me.

Here I am going to offer a radical “thanks but no thanks.” Certainly there are crossdressers who can benefit from support and counseling. Just to know that we are not alone is important and beneficial. However as I look back on how my many years of clandestine crossdressing has unfolded I have come to realize that the stress that comes with the fear of discovery has been very important and beneficial, yes beneficial, for me.

Scientists who have studied stress tell us that it can come in many forms, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Good news and bad news apparently cause the same physiological reaction within the body. They say too much stress can and lead to a breakdown. While some of us assume that breakdown would be emotional in fact high levels of stress can lead to physical illness in an individual. Have you noticed that people who are stressed about their situation at work and perhaps add in a stressful home situation and they are soon off work with an illness.

However, many of those same scientists have also theorized that a certain level of stress in our lives is good for us. Stress helps to stimulate our body and to create positive physical responses.

Take skydiving as an example. I love to watch film of skydivers, particularly those Go-Pro videos of people in free fall. No matter how composed they look it must be very stressful for them as they count the seconds until the chute deploys and they are on their way to the ground at a safe rate of descent. Heck, I would be highly stressed until both my feet were on terra firma. When first time sky divers, including those who have jumped in tandem with others describe their feelings they describe the rush of excitement they felt in their body. That rush is caused by their body’s chemical reaction to stress. Stress comes with anxiety. So many people in so many ways seek thrills in dangerous activity. Many seem to want to partake in increasingly risky activity to gain that increasingly elusive stress level.

Many of life’s activities can cause us stress. It doesn’t have to be sky diving or mountain climbing or extreme skiing. The stress can come from everyday activities and the level of stress caused by an activity for one person will be completely different for another. I think nothing about driving on an Interstate highway. A person I know gets so stressed by it that she will do everything she can to avoid driving even short stretches of any limited access highway.

Here are a few things that have caused me stress: caring for ill and dying parents when there is nothing that can be said or done to make their situation better, a relationship break up, driving while very tired on very snowy and slick roads, thinking I have no alternative but to make it to my destination by a certain time. I would have gladly given up all that stress in an instant.

However there are a few activities that cause me stress but I love it: downhill skiing, playing ice hockey, watching my children and grandchildren play sports, getting up to speak in front of a group, watching one of my favorite sports teams play an important game. When I started downhill skiing I was thrilled to propel myself down the “bunny hills.” Then came the Intermediate runs. Now I still love those long cruising runs but the real thrill and stress comes when I tackle the black diamond and double black diamond runs. I’m not so good on the steep runs. There is a frequent likelihood that I could fall but I love it just the same. I also love that the sense of danger keeps me on top of my game.

So it is, I have discovered, with my crossdressing. Except to a very few people I am a “closeted crossdresser.” Only two living people of the perhaps thousand people who know me as a male also know me as Linda. I prefer it that way. With all the recent trend of t-girls coming out to their friends, work colleagues and family and getting largely positive reactions I have thought about self-disclosing. Now that I am self-employed the financial consequences of coming out are minimal and I could rationalize that if a person doesn’t like me as I really am he or she was not much of a friend in the first place. However I decided against self-disclosure. It is that same stress that is holding me back. Frankly I love the stress that comes with clandestine dressing.

Here is the thing: I worry that if I didn’t have to be secretive about my dressing the thrill would be gone. For example many years ago I was in a shopping mall dressed as Linda when I saw two women I knew from the office where I worked as a male. They were coming toward me. What a rush! Would I be recognized? I was able to duck in to a store and watch as they passed by. My heart was beating rapidly and I felt a lump in my throat. In a little time the sense of danger passed and I was able to calm down. While I feared for my exposure in retrospect I loved the sense of danger and the resulting survival. It was like heading down that double black diamond ski run only to feel the exhilaration of reaching the bottom. It must be something like those skydivers feel as they free fall only to feel a great sense of relief once back on the ground.

Just as with thrill-seekers in other activities one trouble with craving the stress of crossdressing situations is that as we conquer one fear it ceases to be stressful and we move on to other challenges. What was once a challenge becomes ordinary and what was once considered out of reach becomes the new challenge. I love it like that. But how far does it go?

Here are a few examples drawn from crossdressing activities in my life.

One final anecdote to show how the stress of crossdressing can be exhilarating: A few weeks ago my wife went out of town to visit family. (She knows about Linda and she knows about my occasional “dating.” We have worked that out.) She took our one car. I was stuck in the condo, all dressed up with nowhere to go. I was dressed and made up but a certain thrill was lacking. To spice things up I put an ad on Craig’s List offering myself to a nice man who could come pick me up. I said we would just meet at first. In no time I had several responses, including two that looked promising. After a further exchange of messages I arranged to meet with one of the men outside an office building near the condo. What a rush! It was still daylight. There could be neighbors around, neighbors who would not know this strange tall female. I was able to leave the building without detection (one stressor down), meet the gentleman who turned out to be really nice so we engaged in some light sex play in his car (another stressor down). He dropped me off and I retraced my way back through the condo complex without any encounters (another stressor down).

Turn back the clock and put me in that same condo 40 years ago. I would have felt the same stimulation of stress just from putting on some lingerie. Now it takes a clandestine encounter to gain the same level of stress.

I would not want it any other way.

Tags: adrenaline, closeted, crossdressing, featured, opinion, stress

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion