Obsessesed by the Crossdressing Obsession — Failures as males?
I’ll admit that wanting to understand the origins of being trans/ambigendered is one of my personal obsessions. I’ll also admit that I have no professional qualifications (e.g. in psychology or psychiatry or neurochemistry, etc.) that allow me to make scientific judgments on this issue. I’m merely applying logic to what I observe and suggesting hypotheses. Given the paucity of scientific study of our particular brand of the human condition, I figure that’s at least a valid starting point.
The general pop psychological explanation is that we trans/ambigendered guys crossdress because we feel that we don’t — or can’t — live up to male gender role expectations. In other words, trans/ambigendered behavior is “learned†from our environment. More succinctly, it is caused by a sense of our inadequacy as males. Well, who among us would argue that we have never experienced feelings of inadequacy (call it “low self-esteem†if you like, but I despise that over-elasticized term)? But is that cause — or result?
Start with the logical question: does inadequacy in the male role always generate a desire to adopt, full or part time, feminine appearance and behavior? Obviously not. There are many men who feel inadequate as men and who never experience a desire to crossdress, much less to adopt a fully feminized appearance even part time. Feelings of masculine inadequacy generate all sorts of behaviors (many very negative), so there must be some other component for those of us who crossdress that motivates us to present feminine expression (a much healthier outlet for feelings of masculine inadequacy than say rape or spouse or child abuse, one might argue).
Also, if our desire to create a feminine image were the result of inadequacies as males, then would it not be enough for us to adopt feminine behaviors as compensating strategies? Wouldn’t it be enough to seek to develop qualities such as nuturing or cooperation that are deemed feminine? Psychologically speaking, that should enable males to overcome anxieties and inadequacies and fill the void of having “failed†at the male role. And it doesn’t involve crossdressing — so there must be something else that attracts or compels males to adopt a feminine image and persona.
Moreover, let me add that I’m not sure that we can even say that all trans/ambigendered males are inadequate in the masculine role. When I look at the biographies of many of us, I don’t see a bunch of losers — quite the opposite! I see people who have succeeded in male roles in business, the military, professions, sport, and — most tellingly — as husbands and fathers. There is no compelling reason to assume that we feel discomfort with the male role because we’ve failed at it. It seems more to me that we have given the masculine role every possible chance but that it has failed us. In short, we just don’t feel satisfied in fulfilling society’s masculine expectations.
Thus, I believe that the origin of our trans/ambigendered behavior goes deeper. It goes to our identities, our views of who we are. We feel a need to express a part of ourselves that is not masculine. We feel ourselves to have, to a greater or lesser degree, a feminine component that is part of our image of who we are. We aren’t just rejecting male behavior, but we do reject an exclusively male identity. And I think that the origins of this identity go not to what we have learned but to an innate spark of desire. My guess is that it lies in the prenatal wiring of our brains (a good bit of which gets determined, particularly for males, by the in utero hormonal environment) which helps determine the core of our gender identity.
To sum all this rambling up, I think we trans/ambigendered males are born with the proclivity to want to experience life from a feminine perspective in addition to the masculine perspective to which society and biology entitle us. As we are socialized we learn that because we are male we are to be masculine and we try to live up to that expectation. And because we are hard wired to have a feminine component, the masculine role is not completely satisfying. Therefore, due to societal pressures, that dual identity creates tensions often manifested as feelings of guilt and inadequacy (which often bear little relation to our actual performance in the masculine role). At some point, we act on that small inborn voice which tells us: you won’t be happy until you find out what might have been. In other words, until we begin to create that feminine component that we’ve always known — or perhaps better expressed, felt — has existed as an integral part of us. Personally, I’ve found that there is a very rewarding balance that I’ve achieved by admitting that I’m pretty darned good at being either masculine or feminine and I enjoy both. It’s a great feeling because it has allowed me to know and become who I a really am. I have been able to balance what I am internally with what society expects me to project externally.
Now if I can just get those around me to see that I’m a better person — no, I am more completely the person they know and appreciate — because I straddle the gender divide and more thoroughly embrace all aspects of humanity than if I just settled for what society tells me I should be, maybe my life will be complete and whole.
Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion