Posted by wendy larsen
March 12, 2007
Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs
993 views
Sunday, 11 March 2007
I'm the kind of person who thrives on cognitive input. I want to know "Why is the sky blue?" If I can't know, I look at possibilities. This weekend I had three days alone, broken up by a migraine headache. Some interesting thoughts passed through my head. I hope I can remember the three major ones.
1. Are the hemispheres of my brain dominated by different genders?
I've always suffered from a severe compartmentalization of my brain. For example, when I was no having a CD moment....I forgot I was CD until the next time it hit. I would forget about people, but when something reminded me of them I would remember all about them. It was there, just not out front. I have theorized that the brain might have biological switches, like electronic transistors, that turned parts of the brain on and off. These switches would have different thresholds of activation and perhaps special circumstances (severe pain or fear or threat setting off a violent fighting behavior....a berserker)
I have noticed something startling about Wendy. She thinks differently than He did. She takes the same data and comes up with a different "correct" answer. It's not any less logical. It's that the value system and premises that process the data are different. Symbolic logic makes this very easy to understand.
But there is something else. Wendy has a different creativity. Wendy actually sings better (not well, but better). Wendy has an enhanced ability to do makeup, put outfits together, critique other's outfits. Wendy communicates better and is less disturbed by hostility. Wendy listens to music.....a lot. Wendy is open to things that He was not. Food, music, colors, fashion, art, etc.
Now, of course, part of this is because I surpressed a lot of things that were not "manly". Part is bad attitudes I learned from my severely dysfunctional father. But I wonder. The change is so dramatic and complete and involves accessing other brain hemisphere areas that I didn't use or use well before..... We know that the brain is masculinized during the in utero period. We also know that this may not be complete. Lets consider a step further. Could one hemisphere be more affected than the other? Could one's dominant gender be affected by which hemisphere is active. The physical structure/functioning of the brain affects the way we think....but the way we think can also affect the physical structure/functioning of the brain. Repetative behaviors and thoughts create "superhighways" in the brain....what we do in practice is what we do in reflex.
So if the hemispheres are different gendered, then one's functioning in many areas would be affected if you shut off the switches into that area. Reactivating these switches at a later date would result in a dramatic change in skill levels in many areas. They could also result in activation of a supressed "female" brain area/hemisphere.
Now, what if....something about aging lowered the activation threshold of these bioswitches? Could this expain the significantly large number of 40-50 yr old males whose transgenderism becomes active and more powerful. Could it explain the appearance of "secondary transsexuals"
In the past few years I engaged in some determined behaviors to alter my mental habits. They could have affected me or been affected in a number of ways. I worked hard to control my anger....the result was that I discovered feelings that had been supressed. I embraced those feelings and perhaps closed switches that I normally kept open...activating areas of the brain that were kept supressed or dormant. I began to find different and multiple solutions to problems....sometimes they were in conflict with each other....yet both were "right"...logically correct. Just the mere fact of supressing frequent anger could have had an effect on my brain. Who knows what those chemicals were doing or inhibiting.
I do know that the longer Wendy is around the more changes occur. I don't always know why this is happening. I also know that "immersion" periods where I am able to let Wendy "run loose" without inhibitions create dramatic changes in my thought systems and feelings. Certain approaches to the human condition would say this is Wendy "breaking out" and demanding the life she was denied decades ago. Some would say it's the need for increased stimulation on a higher level as the "drug" of crossdressing becomes less effective...the "irrational" desire to risk exposure by walking out of the house en femme and risking discovery. When I studied abnormal psychology the text book taught 4 parallel viewpoints as to what caused these dysfunctions and how they should be treated. In some cases, more than one was involved. This is because of the wonderful adaptability of the brain.
So there is no simple answer to my question....but symptoms give me enough reason to look deeper and see which hemisphere the noticably affected areas are in. I'm interested in seeing what others have experienced in this area as their gender identity shifted.
2. My self-perception while en femme and what I want to wear is changing over time.
Thinking hard about my past, I realize that when I first started to dress en femme I was certainly limited by what I had to wear. It was what I had access to....everyday gg clothes. In my teens they actually fit fairly well for some years. But those are what I WANTED to wear. What the women around me wore. However, my first time dressing, pre-teen, I was identifying as the female partner in a "simulated" sexual encounter with another male.....because that is what felt right before society "kindly" informed me I was supposed to behave differently. So, given the choice, I chose the female role and dressed for it. I was not crossdressing. I was dressing for the gender I felt right in.
At some point, as teenage testosterone crashed down on my brain, dressing took on a very strong sexual nature. That remained for years. Well, sex is what young males are all about. Self identity at the time may have been affected by the surpression of my feminine "side" due to social pressures and a lot of physical and emotional abuse that "encouraged" me to become more macho than the rest to stop it. I don't think I was imagining myself in the clothes I wore, but a fantasy female partner. When the sexual release was obtained I would be horrified that I had taken the "risk" of wearing the clothes and I could not get them off fast enough. Even when I was older and living alone, this continued. During this period, while limited in what I had to wear, there was a definite tendency toward sexy/slutty clothes. And I was crossdressing.
At some point, in my early thirties, I sucummed to the urge to go out of the house en femme for the first time.....a drive in a car around my neighborhood in the early morning hours. But one thing continued. When the crossdressing "event" passed, I forgot about it until the next "attack" hit and I was compelled to dress again. There was no ongoing "need" to dress regularly, despite the fact that I had plenty of money and a house of my own to dress in.
I entered a relationship of great passion. I wanted nothing to create a risk of losing this person. I disposed of my wardrobe. It was not a classic "purge" as it was not accompanied by guilt...in fact there was some disappointment....but my love was so strong that I was willing to make the sacrifice (of course, I was not undergoing an "attack" of driving need to dress at the time and, had I , afterwards I would have proceeded to throw out my wardrobe anyway). I had a much better sexual substitute and was still firmly self-imaging as a aggressively heterosexual male. My partner dressed wonderfully. A real lady with a strong fashion sense. I learned a lot from her and her library about clothing, male and female, and about fashion, social class and culture. I was dressed in Brooks Brothers suits, an Armani dinner jacket and Polo shirts ( could wear a different one to work every work day of the month). At work, as a nurse, I was perceived as a doctor by those who saw me in my non-uniform clothes.....and none of it meant anything to me other than being business world "armor" to put on to do battle in. I still preferred to wear sexy female clothes, but I was learning girlculture that would have an effect on me later.
I then hit a period where I was having the opportunity to spend time alone, a much broader range of near-my-size clothes to wear, for longer periods of time. I began to deal with anger issues and to feel again....to face what was hidden behind the anger. I began to dream that I was in drag...and later realized that I had been dreaming I was a woman. I began to identify as a woman when I was dressed, despite a continuation of the dominant sexual flavor of the crossdressing, for crossdressing it still was.....but something else was emerging.
And then I found Trannyweb. And my life changed forever.
It took me two days to realize and instantly accept the fact that I was transgendered. From then on my feminine side rapidly emerged. Almost two years ago she began to take over running my life and making the important decisions. Three years later I'm considering living openly as transgendered. I'm already out to some close friends. Now this has had a parallel change in how and why I dress. From a sexual experience it has become a need to dress as I do everyday things. Getting made up and choosing a wardrobe became more rewarding than the act of being dressed. From dressing and then changing back to drab it has become a need to dress and live for days in a female role. And it was no longer crossdressing. DRAB became crossdressing. DRAB was boring and depressing. DRAG was relaxing and opened Wendy up to grow. Long periods en femme caused sudden dramatic insights and growth in my feminine side.....which did not go away when I was back in drab. I can actually remember the day that this change was first noticable. I had a week alone in the house....the first day I did my makeup it was way way better than it had ever been before....because Wendy did it...not Him. A different part of my brain did my makeup, chose my wardrobe and planned my week. The sexual dominance of the experience began to fade and the female experience grew. Fantasies became erotic rather than pornographic. A different gender was having fantasies. And now, I am always female in my mind when I'm dressed. My brain refuses to acknowledge what male anatomy is there, to the extent that I always sit to pee when I'm en femme. I become acutely uncomfortable if I urinate standing. My body image is female......and when I change back to drab I have extended periods where I ignore that anatomy....just blank it out.
I was still fearful about being discovered....as transsgenderd, not a crossdresser...but this was starting to change as well. As I let Wendy grow and run my life....I changed as a person. I liked myself more and so did my former fiancee. I came out to her. I wasn't just accepted, I was encouraged....because she loved Wendy. Our relationship, formerly contentious and unhappy became warm, friendly, open and free of fear of each other. We had fun together. All the time. I acepted my transgendered nature more and more. I reached the point where I could not consider living the life I had before. I refused to give up Wendy. I would rather have died. Gradually I realized that I was giving up a lot of Wendy and that I might need to live openly, perhaps in West Hollywood. Perhaps living, as a transgenderist, en femme or, at least, gender bending outside of work....if not 24/7. A trial period...say a year. See what happens to Wendy with that kind of freedom to be herself...living openly in the community, surrounded by other t girls. I knew I had to risk losing friends if that was the price I had to pay to be myself at last. I stopped being afraid of being "outed". I still avoid it for the moment for practical reasons...but I no longer fear it. I know who and what I am and it's their problem, not mine. I won't give up my life any longer to make them happy. I'd rather die free than in prison.
This weekend I was alone again. I dressed the first night and looked in the mirror. I saw a mature, elegant woman, not the young women of my previous images. The makeup and the outfit and jewelry were well put together. I looked like an upper-middle class gg of my age would dress. I looked good. It looked right. It FELT right. I was happy. My fantasy was about being out at a t-girl club, chatting with my friends at Trannyweb in that non-sexy, ladylike outfit. Sitting and socializing. I decided I wanted a shorter wig, better matched to the look. Looking good, as a woman, had replaced looking sexy. It's been a long road to get back to where I knew I should be as a child. I would be more unhappy about Wendy's missed childhood and life....but I'm so happy to be here now with my SO that I would not change it for the chance to do my life over.
3. [fails me now but I'll ask Sundance tommorow what it was i told her yesterday :-) ]
