It was the single hour of life. I could experience only once every day. It always began with a ritual of disrobing, an uncovering of my silent femininity. Beneath the colorless pyjamas and the cotton singlet was a girl, a pretty little girl with soft But I was not quite complete.
To be fully revealed, something had to be hidden. To be whole and total in my Otherness, something had to be covered over, put beyond the tyranny of sight. Something which didn't belong on the body of a little girl . . .
My mother was something of a magpie, a hoarder of clothes and toys and a thousand nameless items that could only have meaning to a loving parent. An entire family history could be found in the cupboards and wardrobes of that long ago house. History's where there was one drawer for sox and another for tights, for pullovers and frocks and jackets; little gendered domains where the clothes were sorted according to age and sex. Pieces of my family's past, neatly folded and stored away with camphor and potpourri. My sister had been a little girl once . . .
I pulled on a pair of pink cotton briefs, covering over the Part Which Didn't Belong. Now I was complete, whole, my OtherSelf. I smiled a little girl's smile, sweet and innocent, and walked bear-legged over to the chest containing the skirts and frocks. I found a bright yellow sun frock and slipped it on over my head. I've always loved the feeling of a drop-waist, falling over my hips. I fastened up the buttons at the front and walked to the middle of the room. For one brief hour. The hour was never long enough.
Some things I can convey through words, the emotions and sensations common to all intelligent, sexual beings. There was arousal, naturally, huge and pure and direct - arousal unhindered by shame or self-loathing. There was the thrilling touch of unfamiliarity. There was the sheer pleasure of play and performance, the simple, uncomplicated joy of unrestricted expression. In maturity, we forget how to play, how to enjoy ourselves, how to have fun. Then there was the thrill of being naughty when no one was watching.
Although there are no words which describe how transition made me feel, some come extremely close. Ecstasy is one. It was not a libidinal ecstasy however, for although sexual excitement was always present, arousal was never the specific aim; I never e Euphoria is another word which comes to mind, a sense of joy and well being and bliss. Yet gender transition was not precisely euphoric, in as much as I have never experienced anything like it since childhood, even during chemically induced states. What other terms can describe it? Rapture? Exaltation? Triumph? Revelation? These feelings and sensations were incorporated in the transition, but underlying all of the emotions associated with those early episodes of transgenderality was something.
Like many other TGs, I started acting out little domestic scenes; wearing the aprons I found in the kitchen. I grew tired of playing housewife after a few days; even at the age of four I wanted something more exciting.
Like many children growing up during the 1960s, my primary access to sexuality and gender role modeling came through the medium of television. I patterned my Transfeminine identity on the images I was exposed to in American situation comedies and drama. I miss the sixties very much.
Being a dedicated political feminist, I have no desire to return to the misogyny and rampant homophobia of the period. Still, I miss the sixties nonetheless. Damaging gender stereotypes aside, the sexuality represented in the popular culture was often farfetched. The sexiest thing on television was the sight of a young woman in her lingerie. Censorship authorities would allow no more (it rarely, if ever came even that far), but this was appropriate for the society: a girl in her bra and knickers was (and still Then there were the classic Hollywood fetishes. Long ebony dresses, neon red lipstick, cascades of luscious blond hair, interminable varieties of crossed leg-shots (no, it didn't start with Sharon Stone), showing midnight black stiletto heels. The heroes were always clean and ruggedly handsome: even the Rebel Against Society was an archetype of masculine good looks (remember James Darren as Moondoggy in Giget?). They generally represented them as 'good' men - intelligent, hard working, and law abiding. As outlined above, movies and programmes I saw on TV heavily influenced my performances, which gave me an enormous variety of feminine role models; romantic, dramatic, naughty, heroic, strong, almost everything a girl could be.
I would argue that the popular cultural representation of women during the 'sixties conformed to an ideal rather than to a stereotype. Although the television industry seemed to employ an unlimited number of actresses specializing in vacuous bimbo roles And, as mentioned above, they still represented women as Objects of Desire.
Women and their bodies are constructed, within the forms of Western culture, as objects desired by men. The male looks, the woman is looked at. Men make love. Women are made love to. This process of cultural construction While such examples are contemptible for their exploiting of women's bodies.
Nor is being desired necessarily a bad thing. No woman needs to be an object of pornographic desire; for example, intellectual and material power are extremely desirable qualities in either men or women. Desire, and the Desire to be Desired, are both Even today, heterosexual men often fall into the trap of being the subject of desire. For most, the acceptance of this patriarchal structure is a psychological and sexual cul-de-sac: men are generally unwilling to see themselves as desirable. This is, of course, a fraudulent, homophobic Patriarchal confidence trick. Being desired does not make one less than a man: ask any gay male. Nor is a desirable woman inferior to the men who desire her. We might argue, where does the MTF fit into this structure of multi sexual desire?
Children begin to assimilate notions of gender differentiation early on, usually within the first twelve months of life. Later, during the phase Freud called the Oedipus complex, the child normally identifies with one sex or the other. Gender is not me. By the time I began to cross-dress, I had grasped the prevailing cultural models of gender difference, and understood, in a basic, childlike way, the implications of Desire. Like all children, I Desired to be Desired, I wished to be loved completely. I wanted to be desired.
Fantasy played an integral role in the emergence of my Transfeminine identity. I wished to be the Object of Desire. My cross-dressing performances gave me access to that wish, and for a child, fantasy is reality. Biologically, I was a little boy. Or so it seemed.
Transfemininity is a consequence of the child's initially asexual wish to be desired; to be the center of the universe. Desire is not necessarily erotic at this point. We live in a society where being a woman is equated with being desirable: the Other is perceived as having the ability to gratify the Subject's every wish, particularly the fulfillment of sexual desire. Transfeminine fantasy involves the activities and emotions children usually associate with being loved or desired: being watched by others, being chased and caught, being caressed, cuddled, kissed or tickled.
Transvestites, transgenderists and transsexuals are all characterized by an assumption of Transfeminine desire. The MTF transvestite expresses his/ her demand for desirability through cross-dressing. Also by adopting the gendered lifestyle and sexuality of a genetic woman.
In my case, the transition rituals and fantasies became increasingly more complex as each year went by. Like many transgenderists and transsexuals, I struggled with my gender identity, unable to relate to the world as a man, unable to pass in the world. The Desire to be Desired is stronger in me now than ever before. Hiding and assuming the phallus, I have come to the cusp of femininity. What was once symbolized through infantile fantasy and ritual has become reality for me. Reality is constructed; m I am reconstructing my body, transforming it into a biological signifier of femininity. Once I achieved transition through the medium of clothing; now my transition is one of hormones and chemicals; a much more gradual transformation, but a permanent change... Self = OtherSelf.
