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A run for the roses! Well, not exactly, but we did have a winner’s circle in the meeting room that evening…some twenty of us gathered together for both companionship and a discussion of what the next year might hold in the way of activities. But first, the usual details of who was there and the agenda…gracing our activity were Barb (now where’s my key?) Van Horn, Becky, Kay and Nancy, Leslie and Martha, Marsha and Doneene, Mary Alice, Missy and Rene, Rosemary and Theresa, Shana, Sue and Terry, Terri, Tiffany, and Yvonne and Linda.

After a round of introductions—done while we were compiling a list of pizzas to order—we handled the mundane: the election of officers for the coming year. There were no nominations from the floor (translated that means nobody was mad at anyone else, at least mad enough to exact revenge by nominating her for an office…) so the motion was made by Becky to nominate Mary Alice for Vice Chair, Linda for Spouse Representative, and Grace for Secretary-Treasurer…noting that Marsha would become Chair and that she, Becky, would move into the Director’s position and Terri would become the Membership Chair. Mary Alice seconded the motion and the motion passed.

Becky then provided additional information on Grace’s continued recovery and the progress she has been making and encouraged members to continue to support both Grace and Mary Jo in any way they could.

The discussion then shifted to the development of a tentative program for the coming year. Becky noted that she had been the recipient of such a projected program when she took over last year and that it was a great help—while not everything came off as planned, actually more occurred than was originally projected and we had a better chapter because of the "power-down" concept…another sign of our growing maturity as a chapter.

Following up on that side-bar comment, Linda noted that while only about seven members remain of the original 26, considering that in volunteer organizations over a one-year span of time one-third remain, one-third move on, and one-third is new, CES has indeed gone through some difficult growing times and has matured gracefully into a stable organization.

Following that, the membership moved into discussing what they would like to see the Chapter accomplish this coming year. There were two major categories—monthly meetings and extra-curricular activities. The tentative outline of meetings and activities follow:

Shana made the suggestion that throughout the year we introduce theme nights and those who wanted to participate could do so by selecting and wearing feminine styles related to that decade…after some discussion the membership agreed that it would be a fun thing to do so while no specific dates were designated at the meeting the following dates are provided for chapter consideration.

September: the 80’s

November: the 70’s

January: the 60’s

March: the 50’s

May: the 40’s and before…

Extra-curricular activities

In addition to the regularly scheduled meeting nights and their scheduled events and focus, there were a number of en femme extracurricular activities suggested. These included the following:

Martha then raised a significant point—there needs to be a telephone list of spouses to whom concerned spouses can discuss this situation in which they have found themselves. She made a number of excellent points about the concerns, fears, and worries that crop up on nights other than meeting nights and that cannot always wait till the meeting night comes around. Linda acknowledged that she is always available for such calls but that there does need to be a number of other spouses who can assist. It was agreed that "one-size-does-not-fit-all" and that the telephone list needs to include a broad range of attitudes so that the concerned spouse can find individuals who are familiar with her concerns and worries. Becky said that she would start work on developing such a list and would have several names—hopefully—available for the next meeting—which would be addressing spousal concerns and information sharing.

The business portion of the meeting concluded about 9:15 and many members stayed around to visit and to enjoy themselves.

I want to share my thoughts and experiences as a transgendered person, in hopes they will in some small way, connect with and help others in their journey.

I chose the title, "Out of the Box", for several reasons. The foremost reason is it has been only since October of 2000, that I have emerged from the ‘box’ of my closeted existence as a transgendered individual. So, I am OUT for the first time in half a century of hiding. My life of secret longing was one analogous to having a chronic low grade fever that could and did spike into a full blown trauma at any moment. Years were spent wondering why I desired to be female, but I had no one to talk to. I was in a claustrophobic box of my own making, reinforced by my fears of discovery, ridicule and shame. Yet, I knew, whenever I had the opportunity to dress as a woman, it felt RIGHT. How could this be? The answers were waiting, but I had no resources to discover what they were. In future sharing, I hope to chronicle my experiences, especially as they pertain to my faith and the friends who have helped me so much.

The second reason for being "Out of the Box" is to deal with the issue of expectations and roles. We all experience this in our lives. Our parents present the first set of expectations, with the first one related to our birth gender. From there, our roles as child, student, teammate, friend, lover, employee, mate, parent all are formed within our families and the society at large.

I am not a scholar, but more an intuitive person. My responses to the roles I have lived out and the expectations on me have been instrumental in shaping me and my personal identity, as it would anyone. As an only child, I became a ‘people-pleaser’. It was safer to be a chameleon in order to fit in situations and avoid conflict. I had no siblings to give me the experience of how to argue or negotiate. To this day, it is painful to be in the midst of stressful situations. My gender difference was submerged to avoid any chance of conflict. This made me very closed emotionally, and over time, affected my marriage. When I finally reached the point I could no longer hide, it was mostly because of the damage it was doing to my ability to be completely open to my wife. As a result of sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings, we are closer than we have ever been in 32 years of knowing one another. Do not get me wrong; it was not easy! We cried, talked, prayed and studied for months before resolving this challenge to our marriage to reach the place we are today. It is to her great credit that she was so loving and willing to hear me out and challenge her own preconceptions to bring us to such understanding.

Finally, being "Out of the Box" means I am trying to build a new life as a transgendered person that includes my feminine persona. That includes finding opportunities to go into the ‘real’ world and live in female mode. I am developing friends outside the ‘closeted community’, taking in growth experiences like the seminar at Mount St. Mary’s College in Maryland, where three other T* sisters and I taught a class en femme on Gender Identity Issues. I recently helped represent my support group at the True Spirit Conference for F2M individuals, and I attended the Lake Erie Sister’s conference last November. It means I have had the joy of developing a personal look and a style. It means going OUT to restaurants, shopping, concerts, museums, even to church en femme. It has meant making the effort to visit face to face with two local pastors to ask them to consider what their position should be in bringing the gospel to the transgendered community. It means sitting on a sofa in a living room next to the mother-in-law of the hostess of a house music concert, who has no clue who I am, and being willing to engage in conversation, as a woman to another woman. I have dreamed my whole life of this kind of ‘normalcy’, and now thanks to the help and encouragement of others, I am building a new type of life.

The final point in being Out of the Box is renouncing the Box of ‘LABELS’.

I do not know which of these many initials fit me. Am I CD? TG? TS? No, I am ME. By throwing off the tyranny of the labels, it frees me to live what is best for me, not being in the box of others expectations, even the most well-meaning of people. There is no agenda to follow, no timetable to meet, no schedule of events to run through. My focus is on being the kind of PERSON God has made me. Whether dressing in male, female or mixed clothing, I am finding what counts is how I am as a person. Do I encourage people? Am I helpful and friendly? Do I leave behind a positive image as a person, so the next time someone meets a transgendered individual, they will not prejudge him or her as a ‘menace to society’?

Ladies and gentlemen, I love to get dressed en femme---dressed up, down or sideways! I am still in the 'adolescent teenager' phase as far as my intense interest in clothing and makeup is concerned. Not an easy task for a 50+ year old. That is one more box I am coming out of. To be fully feminine, I desire to join in the sisterhood of Genetic Girls in authentic ways. Yes, it is called 'passing' and it is my goal. I have vowed to be as honest as I can to anyone brave AND courteous enough to question me, but actually, I am asking OTHERS to get out of their own ‘boxes’ of prejudice, ignorance, bigotry and hate, to see me as a person. I assume there will be more than enough disappointments and dangers along the way (I will be sharing some that have already happened) But as one dear sister has taught me, optimism is often the most reasonable way to view life. Great things happen when we push ourselves ‘Out of the Box’!

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One of the ways we try to understand an abstract concept is by defining categories that describe our understanding. When we say that a person is black or white, German or Italian, Muslim or Christian, we are using categorical definitions to describe that person. Sometimes that helps us understand more about the person. If we understand the definition of the category, it helps us understand the person.

Valuable as categories are, they can also stifle our understanding. If we let our understanding of categories become too rigid, they can lead us to misunderstanding and incorrect conclusions. This is especially true when a person has characteristics of several different categories. How can we come to an understanding of who Tiger Woods is using categories? Tiger is part Caucasian, Thai, Chinese, Native American, and African American. To say he is any one of these categories, is to be mostly wrong about who he is.

We in the transgender community have used categories to describe others and ourselves in an attempt to understand who we are in relation to others. We use terms like transvestite, crossdresser, transsexual, etc., to describe different variants of transgender behavior. J. J. Allen (The Man in the Red Velvet Dress) describes no less than eight different categories, each with its own defining characteristics.

Most of us have who have a transgender nature have struggled with understanding our transgender feelings, and what they mean to our future. We find categories interesting, educational, and sometimes comforting. By finding a category of transgender expression that matches our own feelings, be believe that we have come closer to that understanding. We may take comfort in the fact that we belong to one category of transgenderism, but not another. Haven’t we all heard someone say, "I’m just a _____ . At least I’m not a _____ ."? Suddenly we have taken a descriptive categorization that can be useful, and somehow turned into a barrier to understanding. We find transsexuals looking down on crossdressers, crossdressers looking down on transvestites, and transgenderists trying to walk the line between all of us.

My personal journey of understanding leads me to believe transgender people are more similar than different. We differ by degrees more than the quantum categories imply. We all share some degree of gender dysphoria, where there is a conflict between our gender and our physical sex.

Recent scientific theory suggests this gender dysphoria may be the result of hormonal interactions during prenatal development of the brain. The part of the brain that is essential for sexual behavior (central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis- BSTc) is larger in men than in women. Genetically male transsexuals have been found to have a BSTc that is the smaller size characteristic of females. In effect, the transsexual may have the brain of a female and the body of a male, which would explain the feeling often described by transsexuals as being trapped in the wrong body.

My own sense is that we transgender people all have some degree of gender dysphoria. Somehow our gender identity is not fully congruent with our physical sex. Gender dysphoria is most pronounced in transsexuals, less so in crossdressers, and maybe more or less so in all variants of transgender behavior.

Gender therapists use several evaluation techniques to assess the extent of this gender dysphoria continuum in individual clients. The first evaluating tool I encountered was the Cross-Gender Questionnaire by Richard E. Docter and James S. Fleming, which was published in Randi Ettner’s book, Gender Loving Care.

(Also available at: http://www.geocities.com/~rainbowgyrl/NFNJ/NFNJ-RDoctor.htm)

This questionnaire provides an evaluation in four areas: Identity, Feminization, Arousal, and Gender Role. I completed the questionnaire just for fun. I was only slightly surprised to find that my gender identity is somewhere between transvestite and transsexual. My score conformed with transvestites in the areas of Feminization and Arousal, but was more characteristic of transsexuals in the areas of Identity and Gender Role. Up to that point I had identified myself as a heterosexual crossdresser, the genteel term for transvestite. But I had questions about that identification because there were parts of me that didn’t identify totally with that classification. So my conclusion based on this simple questionnaire was that I am primarily a crossdresser, but I may have some transsexual tendencies.

The COGIATI test is designed specifically for the uncertain pre-transitional Male-to-Female gender dysphoric. It is reported to be a comprehensive gender dysphoria test, to help the gender dysphoric individual determine a reasonable self-definition from which further action can intelligently be taken. COGIATI was created to help people understand what gender issues mean, and provides suggestions on what to do about them.

My results using the Moir-Jessel 10-question test were similar to those on the Docter and Fleming Cross-Gender Questionnaire; that is, about halfway between transvestite and transsexual. So I worked through the 65-question COGIATI, hoping for something more definitive and reliable. My results were:

Now that is a classification that makes complete sense to me for my situation. Previously I had been trying to fit myself into the crossdresser category, which denies the sexual arousal of the fetishist as well as the transsexual’s compulsion for complete transformation. But I couldn’t fit myself into the transsexual category either, because my gender dysphoria is not so intense as to compel me to seek permanent transition. Unlike the transsexual, I am not convinced that I am a woman in a man’s body…. I’m just a person who would much rather live her life in a woman’s body.

It gives me a great deal of peace to know that it is okay (dare I say, normal?) to be somewhere in between. I am comfortable with the idea that I share some of the characteristics of others who manifest some degree of gender dysphoria. It no longer bothers me that we may be different in some respects, for I know we are more alike than we are different. I am no longer threatened by what behaviors others may exhibit. No do I fear those behaviors might be nascent in me. There is space for all of us to exist, wherever we are on the gender continuum.

This fits in well with my spiritual faith, which teaches us that we are all one, and that we are to love one another. We may define categories of people—European, left-handed, intellectual, liberal, Hindu, transgender, or whatever. While these categories may be useful in describing people, they can also result in erecting barriers to understanding. When we use these categories to describe, we just need to remember we are all more alike than we are different.

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