Join the members of trans and non-binary forum Crossdream Life in a new chat room gathering on Saturday October 14
Join the members of the Crossdream Life forum in a new chat room gathering on Saturday October 14 at 9 pm London time. (For your local time, click here.)
We can talk about gender identity and gender exploration, gender variance and sexuality, loneliness, love and the celebration of who you truly are. This is a safe space where you can talk about everything that is on your mind.
The Crossdream Life Chat Room is hosted by Discord. If you haven't already signed up, you will find the necessary information here.
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If I may, I'd like to respectfully ask for clarification on a couple of points. I'm interested in learning your personal definitions of the terms "crossdreaming" and "truscum" as I've been seeing both in various places around Tumblr. I had never heard of either before a short time ago, and I've been trying to ask a few people what they mean to them. Thanks.
Crossdreaming is a term I came up with in collaboration with other transgender and transsexual people.
It refers to the phenomenon that transgender people may get aroused by the idea of being their target sex.
The medical establishment has used this phenomenon to invalidate especially trans women by calling them “transvestic fetishists”, "autogynephiliacs" and more, in essence reducing them to perverted heterosexual men.
This has led to a lot of infighting in transgender circles, as some transsexual women have tried desperately to avoid the stigma associated with crossdressing and crossdreaming, presenting as “the classic transsexual” who has no desires of this type.
Denying such feelings have often been a prerequisite for getting past the “gatekeepers” and get access to surgery.
Needless to say, “the perfect trans woman” is a replica of the 1950’s house wife, a woman with a low libido and no “dirty thoughts”. The fact that women assigned women at birth may be as sexually driven as men is of no relevance here. This is about stereotypes, and not about real life.
The reason I coined the term was not to establish a new “identity”. If I am to identify as anything in the LGBT arena, it is as transgender. No, the term was meant to help transgender people discuss these feelings openly.
In my opinion crossdreamer fantasies are natural expressions of a hidden or suppressed sex identity. Sex (as in sexual) is a natural part of sex (as in identity). Read Julia Serano’s book Whipping Girl for a good discussion of this "subconscious sex"!
Truscum is a tribe of transsexual separatist. They are related to the older generation of separatist trans women described above, but has a different history. Truscum is a recent variant, this time dominated by much younger female to male trans men, and found on tumblr mainly.
Truscum is another attempt at creating a distance between the “true transsexuals” and other transgender people. Unlike their predecessors they do not avoid the word “transgender”. They do, in fact, try to occupy the term, by forcing other gender variant people to stop using it. In this way they hope to avoid any association with crossdressers, crossdreamers, genderqueer and other people they call “non-binary” or “gender non-conforming”.
The reason they prefer “transgender” to the medically correct term “transsexual”, is that they associate transsexual with the porn industry. In short: This is a movement driven by a desperate need to avoid embarrassment.
The litmus test for calling yourself “transgender” is, according to them, that you suffer from “gender dysphoria”, a medical term which refers to deep psychological suffering caused by a misalignment between mind and body.
The problem with all of this is that there is no clear border between crossdressers and crossdreamers on the one hand and transsexuals on the other.
Most trans women have been both crossdreamers and crossdressers. How else can they fantasize about having sex as their true selves? A similar movement is found among trans men who originally identified as, for example, masculine butch. They used to be active crossdressers and crossdreamers before transitioning.
A lot of crossdreamers and crossdressers are deeply gender dysphoric (and diagnosed as such), so by forcing crossdressers and crossdreamers out of the transgender family, they are — in fact — expelling gender dysphoric people. They are distancing themselves from the people they define as their own kind.
I believe they are right when they claim that there is a biological core to gender dysphoria. I am gender dysphoric myself and find it very hard to believe that all this suffering is caused by a sexual kink or “social construction”. But that does not mean that we are facing two distinct tribes of gender variance.
As is often the case in life, we are instead facing various shades of grey.
I look at all gender variant people as my family, from the casual crossdresser and crossdreamer on the one hand to the post-op trans man or trans woman at the other. Because we are family!
See also: Truscum and the transgender war of words.
I'm actually pretty rustled by the people reblogging my post from crossdreamers. I would hate to have anyone think I believe all the people I described are trans, or have valid identities, or that I in any way accept girlfags as kin to gay trans men. The point of the post was not "all identities are beautiful and valid," it was that gendered expectations of expression are shit but dissolving trans resources to make room for people who don't need to alter their sex serves absolutely no one and we would all be better off to focus on dismantling restrictive narratives rather than trying to subvert gender with more fucking gender. I am tired of repeating myself.
Rules: 1. Always post the rules 2. Answer the questions from the person who tagged you 3. Write 11 new questions 4. Tag 11 people and link them to the post 5. Tell them you tagged them.
Asked by frodothedodo
1. Who is main your idol/role model?
I think as long as you don't try to be anyone else and be a good person that's all you can be. Try and take inspiration from people who are doing some good in the world.
2. What do you want most for your next birthday?
Umm, Robert Downey Jr?
3. Do you have any pets? (if yes, what?)
Not anymore. I used to have mice and then a cat. I guess my next option is a dog (or rats, they're adorable).
4. What is your favourite food?
I love roast potatoes and so one time when I was like 6, I asked my mum if I could have just roast potatoes and gravy for dinner. To this day, best meal I've ever had.
5. What is your favourite tumblr blog?
I hate you! I guess Miles Jai. He's one of my favourite youtubers and he always makes me smile.
6. How many followers do you have?
I think I only have like 25. And I'm pretty sure most of those are porn blogs...
7. Are you single or in a relationship?
Single.
8. What is your favourite film?
I can't pick one so I'll choose three. Metropolis, The Dark Knight and The Goat (Buster Keaton short). Phew that was hard.
9. PC or Mac?
I use a PC but the way it's going I think I'll have a Mac please!
10. Playstation or Xbox?
PlayStation. I don't actually have one but I want one.. I don't live in this century.
11. Who is your favourite music artist, and why?
My Chemical Romance, because they are the most screwed up bunch of misfits and they've never judged us for being the same. (Wow I didn't think my heart could break anymore).
My Questions!
1. What's your favourite blog?
2. What movie/tv/book character do you think is the most similar to you and why?
3. Do you have any pets?
4. Who are your 3 favourite bands/artists and your favourite song by each of them?
5. Are you more shy or outgoing?
6. Do you have any special talents?
7. What's your favourite movie?
8. What is your favourite place in the world?
9. Favourite TV show?
10. What was your dream job as a child?
11. If you could travel back to any time and place where would you go and why?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Crossdreaming: Its Transphobic Roots, and Current Transphobic, Cissexist Content
Crossdreaming is a relatively new term created by Jack Molay. Jack Molay is person who was assigned male at birth, and currently identifies as a man who dreams about having a female body.
“There are men (like me) that fantasize about having a woman's body and get sexually aroused by this.” [1]
"It is more than a little confusing, because -- even if I cannot for my life think of having sex with a man as a man -- my female self has no such scruples”
Jack Molay is a cisgender man. With the use of his website it is also easy enough to deduce that he is white, and heterosexual. To make this clear, he is a white cisgender heterosexual man who writes primarily about transgender, and transsexual issues. It is clear to any transsexual, or transgender woman that his narrative is different from our similar yet still varied backgrounds.
Now then, onto the theory.
Crossdreaming is based on Ray Blanchard's theory of autogynephillia. Blanchard's theory is a theory which forwards that late (after childhood) transitioners who are not attracted to men are not real transsexuals but men with a paraphillic mental disorder. If you need more information I suggest using Google to look up the term. It is not supported by the accepted standards of care for transsexual people, is rejected by the transgender community, and not accepted by both the American Psychiatric Association, and American Psychological Association. Many in the psychological community have discredited Blanchard's work and his theory is regard as junk science.
Beyond Blanchard, Jack Molay likes to quote Anne Lawarance, a supporter of Blanchard's work, to describe autogynephillia. To see why this is a problem reference the above paragraph.
Julia Serano, in her The Case Against Autogynephilia, had this to say about the theory:
"...there were flaws in Blanchard's original papers, including that they were conducted among overlapping populations primarily at the Clarke Institute in Toronto without nontranssexual controls, that the subtypes were not empirically derived but instead were "begging the question that transsexuals fall into subtypes based on their sexual orientation," and that further research had found that a non-deterministic correlation between cross-gender arousal and sexual orientation. She said that Blanchard did not discuss the idea that cross-gender arousal may be an effect, rather than a cause, of gender dysphoria, and that Blanchard assumed that correlation implied causation. Serano also stated that the wider idea of cross-gender arousal was affected by the prominence of sexual objectification of women, accounting for both a relative lack of cross-gender arousal in transsexual men and similar patterns of gynephilic arousal in non-transsexual women. [2]
Serano also criticised proponents of the theory, claiming that they dismiss non-autogynephilic, non-androphilic transsexuals as misreporting or lying while not questioning androphilic transsexuals, describing it as:
"tantamount to hand-picking which evidence counts and which does not based upon how well it conforms to the model" [2]
The article at Wikipedia also had this to say in an a summation of Serano's criticism:
Further criticisms alleged that the theory undermined lived experience of transsexual women, contributed to pathologisation and sexualisation of transsexual women, and the literature itself fed into the stereotype of transsexuals as "purposefully deceptive", which could be used to justify discrimination and violence against transsexuals. [3]
You can read the entire paper at provided citation. Suffice it to say that noted trans woman, and activist Julia Serano does not agree with the theory of autogynephillia.
Originally Jack stated:
“Again: the reason I have found the term so useful, is because I recognize my own life in these descriptions. That does not mean that I necessarily [sic] will accept the theories that lies behind these terms.”
He later noted he no longer supports the term autogynephillia, but that has not deterred him from using it as the basis of his theory of crossdreamers. That's correct his theory is rooted in a poorly regarded transphobic and cissexist theory.
If Jack Molay wanted to solely claim this identity for himself and other men like himself who fantasize about having a woman’s body for the purposes of sex many of trans people and I would probably not care. The issue is that he continually attempts to redefine transgender, and transsexual narratives from a cisgender and heterosexual perspective with a junk theory that has historically oppressed trans women. All while simultaneously using problematic language such as:
transgendered
I find it hard to understand transgenderism without the sex.
the fact that transgendered men get sexually aroused by imagining themselves with a female body is pretty obvious
I mean, look at "genuine girls" biological women
most genuine XX girls (natal women)
why the idea that M2F transgendered fantasizing about being women
There is no denying that something has gone wrong in the lives of male to female transsexuals (also called "transwomen"), She is after all trapped in a man's body, even if her personality may be sound. [3]
At this point it should be evident that Jack Molay is not in touch with the transgender community. He does not understand us, and does not understand what we find offensive. If it’s not apparent, let me break it down for you.
Transgendered
See: beckdrop's explanation
I find it hard to understand transgenderism without the sex.
He can’t imagine being a trans person without sex. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in how being trans is about far more than just sex.
the fact that transgendered men get sexually aroused by imagining themselves with a female body is pretty obvious
Using the term “transgendered men” to mean trans women should be obvious as to why it is offensive. Not to mention his reinforcement that our bodies are not somehow already female.
I mean, look at "genuine girls" biological women
most genuine XX girls (natal women)
Despite crossing out and having used scare quotes around genuine girls, biological women is hardly any better and still comes from a place of cissexism. The same goes for his use of XX, and “natal” women. To see a more in depth explanation on this please see this post of mine.
There is no denying that something has gone wrong in the lives of male to female transsexuals (also called "transwomen"), She is after all trapped in a man's body, even if her personality may be sound.
Using MTF transsexual while using both scare quotes on an incorrect form of trans women is also mildly cissexist in that it fails to explicitly just call us women.
To summarize, Jack is writing from a cissexist perspective and coopting a history of transsexualism imposed on us by cis doctors. He uses offensive terminology, and repeatedly makes it clear that he is not part of our community with phrases like “So why the idea that M2F transgendered fantasizing about being women get aroused should be offensive, I don't know. It is a sad fact, though, that the medical establishment used to frown upon these things, and that M2F transgendered kept quiet about it. They often pretended to be sexless women trapped in a sexless man's body.” In which he uses they and refers to us an outside group.
Perhaps what angers me even more that his use offensive terminology is his coercive inclusion of trans people into this theory. At what point Jack Molay decided to make crossdreaming supersede identities under the transgender umbrella I do not know. However all of his recent blog posting include transsexuals and other transgender identities as a subset of crossdreamers or forces cisgender identities into transgender identities. This is both highly offensive and wrong. His work continues to present itself in a cissexist manner and is an obvious appropriation of the transsexual and transgender narrative.Particularly the oppression of trans women. At best he is appropriating the theory of transgender activists for a cisgender fetish, and at worst he is appropriating to establish and monetize a theory of the behavior of cisgender and cissexual persons' sexuality. Regardless crossdreaming is just as transphobic and cissexist as the theory that it is based.
Crossdressing photography book hopes to improve transgender awareness in Japan
Japan has a strong and thriving transgender culture, covering the whole spectrum from occasional crossdreamers to gender dysphoric transsexual men and women.
CL posted this article on a new photo book about young Japanese male to female crossdressers over at the Facebook girlfag/guydyke forum. If anyone still believes in the stereotype of the crossdresser being an old perverted man in a frock, this should convince them otherwise.
And if anyone tries to sort these transgender girls into "real transsexuals" and "fetishists"... Don't! You are missing the point!
But isn't Naoko Tashibana sexualizing the young transgender? Maybe he is. But being a young girl is also about exploring your sensual side of being a woman. Why should it be different for trans girls?
Wishing to be attractive or beautiful does not a make you a pervert. It makes you human.
