Letters Between Friends

By Allison Marsh




Dear Cindy,

I just had a correspondence exchange vie e-mail with a TV in England, named
Carol.  She wrote to me because I had sent some material I had written to a
friend (Vickie Terne in New York), who forwarded it to Carol.

I think the contents of the letters, taken together, might be of interest
to TGForum's readers.  The exchange is as follows:

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 96 22:25:51
From: A new friend in England
Organization: None
Reply-To:
To: good1@halcyon.com
Subject: Hello
Lines:  45

Hi Allison,
        I have recently joined the Transgen List looking for some
answers to the origins of my need to crossdress for the past forty
years or so.I was warmly welcomed by Vickie,who has just sent me a
copy of the letter you sent to Marilyn Gregson. Vickie assures me that
you would not be offended if I wrote to you personally. I hope this is
the case I do not wish to offend anyone,if I have I'm truly sorry.

This is really just a line or two to say thank you for giving me some
real answers at last. I feel so relieved that this condition is
something I was born with and is not some perverse invention of my
subconscious. I have had some difficulty in the last few years coming to
terms with something that I felt I should have grown out of in
adolescence, and here I am 50 next month and crossdressing on a daily
basis. 

I have always felt close to my 'female side' and always been a
gentle and sensitive person,really quite emotional,I remember when I
went with what is now my ex wife to see Love Story. I was unbelievably
upset.Tears began to fill my eyes about half way through the film and
continued to the end. And on the drive home,and for the rest of the
evening. Even the next day I felt myself filling up as I recounted the
story in my mind. Emotional or what? I was called a big softy but that
was ok. Just last summer I took a friend to the airport to put his 10
year old son on a plane to St Louis to visit his mother for a holiday.

I felt ok about it until he began to go into the departure area and he
became upset,well I went off again,tears streaming down my face,and I
was just giving them a lift to the airport.His father waved his son
goodbye and then put his arms around me and gave me a hug,and I cried
all the way out of the airport.What a sight.It was the unfairness of
the situation of a father wanting to be with his son but unable to be
which took me back to feelings I had experienced in my own marriage
split up some 14 years ago when my children were around the same age.

I hadn't felt that  way for a long time,thought I had experience all the
pain I was going to have in my life long ago.Still waters run deep I
guess.My life is uncomplicated now and I try and keep things simple.I
live alone at the moment and my time after work,is my own.I thought it
was time to find out who I am and gain some help in accepting and
loving myself for who I am and not beating myself up mentally about
feeling the way I feel.Your letter has helped me So Much on my journey.
My thanks to you once again for putting my  mind at ease.

Warm thoughts,.....


                        ************************

To: My new friend in England
From: good1@halcyon.com (Allison Marsh)
Subject: Don't worry; be happy.
X-Attachments:

Dear .....,

In your explanation of your feelings, you are giving a fairly standard
history for transvestites.  You are not experiencing something you should
have outgrown.  You are experiencing something that was built in a long
time ago, before you were born, which (for most crossdressers) does not hit
with full force until about age 45.  Until then, they have feelings of
being attracted to women's clothing, makeup, things that are tokens of
womanhood, and often wish they might be women for a while at a time, though
not necessarily to be one ALL the time.

This is a feeling that gets stronger, not weaker, with age.  You are very
wise to be exploring it now.  But first you must understand that this is
not a sickness, any more than male pattern baldness, or older men growing
hairs in their ears or developing heavy hairs in their eyebrows.  You see
it all the time, but you seldom stop to think that these hair patterns were
passed down in one's genetic and hormonal makeup so long ago. Not everyone
grows thick eyebrows, hairs in their ears, or baldness on their tops.  Now
wouldn't it be silly if everyone who did, felt that perhaps this was caused
by too much  participation in competitive high school sports, or by those
two years when they drank too much and smoked 30 years before?

The feminine feelings you are experiencing are not anyone's fault, nor are
they wrong.  They are simply different from what some other people feel.
They are a part of who you are-a natural state for you; that's the way your
brain was wired.  Consider for a minute how stupid it is for all our
American politicians to run around damning 10% of our population for
"choosing" to be gay.  That's the same as damning the black people for
choosing not to be Caucasion.

Our papers carried a story last week that a very large study has proved
conclusively that the chances of the next boy in the same family being born
gay  directly increases each time an older brother was born into that
family.  The chances never receded with additional brothers; they always
increase.  Left handedness is more than twice as great among male to female
transsexuals than in the population as a whole.  The hypothalamus gland,
which controls sexual drive and direction, is twice as large in straight
men than in straight women.  But that gland is only half as large in male
to female transsexuals than it is in straight women.  Conclusion:  male to
female transsexuals probably have brains that are more female than the
average female.  Was this a choice?  An over-indulgent mother?  An abusive
father?  Something in the atmosphere, like living under high-tension power
lines?

There is only one sensible answer to all these things and it lies in the
interaction of the Y Chromosome and the production of testosterone by the
embryo in the right amounts at the right time, and without interference
from an oversupply of estrogen from the mother.  If all this brain rewiring
doesn't come off exactly the same for everybody, then not everybody will
have the same gender inclinations, nor necessarily the same sex desires or
practices.

You are not sick because your brain was formed in a bit more feminine a
pattern than most men's was.  If you were, think what all women would be,
poor things.

So if you are not sick, what's to wonder about?  Well, some of the things are:
        What does this difference in my brain make me want to do that I am
        not doing now?
        Could I do more of what I am not doing that I want to do?
        How much more do I WANT to do?
        How much more can I do safely?  (Job security; social contacts;
        family, etc.)
        Does this mean I am gay?
        Does my attraction to womanly things, and perhaps acting out as a
        woman part of the time mean I'm a transsexual and will want to change        
        into a woman?
        Will I change in my idea of which sex would  make a good marital
        partner?
        If I start crossdressing and like it, will I just want to dress
        more and more and more?  Is it addictive?  How will I know how to stop?

Most people just starting to explore their transgendered emotions don't
know for sure where they will end up on a scale of 0 Male to 10 Female.
Nearly all transvestites wish sometimes that they could be a woman part of
the time.  Sometimes, usually for a short period, we wish we could be a
woman for ever.
But most commonly, we wish we might have real breasts with real, sensitive
nipples-until we need to take them off to go to the beach or swim in the
pool or be examined at the doctor, or have a hot date with a woman we'd
like to impress.

Still there's a lot to explore.  You can shave closely and cover a beard
with Max-Factor Pan Stick or theatrical makeup, then learn to do eye make
up, cheek and lip color, etc.  You can start to accumulate a wardrobe of
women's underthings to wear undetected under your male clothes if you haven't
already.

You can wear clear fingernail polish without detection.  You can trim your
sideburns higher toward the top of your ears so they don't show below a
blond or light-colored wig.  You can even undergo electrolysis and have
your entire beard removed, as I have, and no one--NO ONE--will ever notice
that it's gone.  (But boy, does that ever make it easier to stay made up
without having to shave every five hours!

You can start accumulating a street wardrobe, usually (unless you're rich)
by shopping in consignment or used clothing stores.   Nobody will ever ask
for whom you are purchasing the blouses, skirts, or slacks.  Away from
home, you can even get up the nerve to try on some women's shoes until you
can assemble an outfit that allows you to shop as a woman.

You may find at each step that you are thrilled with your progress; that
you have achieved a new level of freedom.  You'll be self-conscious away
from home until (1) you get skilled enough in your choice of clothes and
makeup application to pass without raising questions and (2) you realize
that even if people do sometimes "read" you, nothing bad will happen if it
is evident that you are well-groomed and that you are trying to present a
pleasant and dignified appearance.  Lastly, when you reach a point where
you don't care, and you know people usually will not notice you as a
pseudo-woman, your confidence will radiate--people who would have wondered
will do so no longer.

Will you get addicted?  Sure; it's adventuresome; it's fun; it is mildly
sexually satisfying, though less and less stimulating; it's relaxing some
of the time, and it's very funny sometimes.  Lots of new experiences to be
had.  At some point you will crossdress enough to satisfy your needs, and
you will level off on a plateau.  That may be far beyond your wildest
dreams of possibility right now, but it will almost surely happen.

A few people, who find that life as a woman is infinitely more satisfying
than life as a man, decide to take hormones to enhance their breasts, trim
their waists, enhance their hips, and then dress and live as a
woman--perhaps even with breast implants, tracheal shaves, and vocal cord
surgery, though most transgenderists do not feel a need to go to that much
trouble and expense.

Then a few feel that they have always been women in men's bodies; they hate
their genitals; they hate every part of the male anatomy; and they will
damn well have sex reassignment surgery or die in the attempt.  But this
group of people were nearly all SURE they had the wrong bodies ever since
they were little children.

I sometimes wish I might be a woman.  But I don't hate my genitals; I
rather like them.  I still derive pleasure from them with my mate, and
I'm 70.  I think it would be a lot of fun to have real breasts, and I have
every assurance that if I did have, my mate would play with them to my
heart's content, as she does the ones I have now.  But the trade off in
embarrassment or curtailment of activities where a healthy set of breasts
would be a detriment is too high a price for me.  I just don't want real
ones that badly.  (But it makes a hell of a fantasy!)

Does it make me gay?  Well, no.  I never was attracted to men as sex
partners, although I admit to having been attracted to a couple of very
feminine and pretty transsexuals I have met.  My choice in sex partners is
set in my brain.  No amount of hormones nor playing girl will change that.
If I wee now attracted to men as sex partners, then took hormones and went
the whole route to womanhood, my choice of sex partners would probably
remain for men.  But since I am attracted instead to women, if I bombarded
my brain with estrogen, had the surgery, and lived as a woman, I would
remain attracted to women and be one of the army of "transsexual lesbians".
(I've always felt that's the way it would be, even when I was younger.
But at 70, the whole idea gets pretty ridiculous.)

Another thing you can do that is more than you are doing now is read some
good books related to crossdressing.  You can buy a copy of "BRAIN SEX" by
Anne Moire and David Jessel (1992) and find out all you need to
convince you that you are a product of your chromosomes and your hormones
prior to birth. (You also get lots of laughs, and recognize a lot of your
friends among the examples they give of how brain differences play out in
human behavior.)

You can buy a copy of "MY HUSBAND WEARS MY CLOTHES" by Dr. Peggy Rudd 
or "COPING WITH CROSSDRESSING" by Dr. JoAnn Roberts through the 
CDS BOOKSTAND.

And if you are interested in learning more about whether you might be a
transsexual, try a book called, "THE UNINVITED DILEMMA" which is also
available from the CDS BOOKSTAND.

.  It deals primarily with M to F
transsexuals, their feelings, and how they manage the change.

You can join a group of transvestites if there is one in a city near you.
TAPESTRY MAGAZINE and LadyLike Magazine lists the TV groups in all U.S. cities, and I think the
main ones in other countries.  Otherwise you can write to IFGE and ask them
about organizations they may know about near you.  I think it is urgent
that you mix with others who feel as you do.  You'll find this a tremendous
help in recognizing that your own emotions are common among many, many
people, though we don't make a large percent of the population.  This will
do two more things for you: it will put you in a position to help other
people, which will make you feel good; and it will acquaint you with many
intensely interesting people whom you would never otherwise have had an
opportunity to meet.  Your life is guaranteed to become more interesting
from the contacts you make in the transgendered groups.

Lastly, keep on writing to Vickie.  She's so witty she'll keep you laughing
with every communication.  She knows darned well that she's very smart, but
I don't think she appreciates it as much as the people the people who
receive and enjoy her correspondence.  I do know that she is very
supportive, and a wonderful person to have as a friend and correspondent.
Besides, she'll be a challenge to you to write about the lighter side of
your emotions, as she does.  It's like always playing tennis with someone
who is more skillful than yourself--you improve your game every time you
play.  (I don't play tennis, but I think I heard that at a church once when
God told me I should go and give money.)

As to your tendency toward crying, I'd guess that might come from one of
two sources.  (1) You might be just that much more female than most men are
that crying has always and always will come more easily.  (2) More likely,
you have experienced some severe traumas in divorce and family break-up
which put you in such great emotional pain that you cried as all men cry in
such pain.  I remember shortly after my divorce and the emotional tearing
that caused with my children, I was asked by a girl to attend "KRAMER VS
KRAMER", which was a heart rending story of two people who loved each other
and broke up anyway, and about the little boy who became attached to his
father as a single parent, and finally was lost to his father in a custody
battle with the mother.  That picture show was so close to home that I
cried uncontrollably all the way back to her house, and all the way to my
house after I left her.  And during my divorce, I always cried very loudly
on the freeway with the windows rolled up, where no one had no time to look
over and see the tears running down my cheeks.  That break up taught me to
cry, sometimes about pretty small things.

Each time I came home from work and opened the kitchen cupboard doors to
see what I could cook for myself in an empty house, I cried.  Why?  Because
damnit-men aren't supposed to have to cook for themselves, and I didn't
know what to fix.

I wouldn't worry a whit about the fact that you are moved to tears
sometimes.  It doesn't make you more female--just more human.

I have been asked to address a group of high-school age gay, lesbian, and
transgendered students who belong to a parent-sponsored support
organization.
I plan to give the talk while crossdressed.  The first line opens with,
"Hello.  My name is Allison Marsh.  I am a man, and I am a transvestite."
I have a terrible urge to follow that with, "Earlier this afternoon I
screwed your little sister."   But, like I said, it's a parent sponsored
organization, and a great many people in the transgendered community tend
to take life very seriously.  I might not escape with my life at all if I
start on that note.

There is some additional information you might be interested in the talk,
which is nearing it's final draft.  I'll send you a copy.

Good luck in your search for the truth as you need it to be.

                                Goodnight,

                                        Allison Marsh

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