Catching My Breath

Ah declare! All this attention that ya'll been showing this poor little ol' southern gal is enough to cause my poor little ol' female brain to positively swoon! Fiddle-dee-dee! A gal could get use to this.

--Kelli Roberts [using my "best" southern accent]

Seriously folks, I wanted to sincerely thank everyone who has stopped by to read my ramblings. I've only been blogging for about a month and have been amazed at how fast the blog and web site seem to be growing. When I first started, I honestly didn't think I would get any readers for months, much less blog followers and people who actually post comments. I was committed to trying my hand at this, but told myself it would probably be months, maybe even a year or two, before I heard from anyone that read my posts. There are six followers of this blog at the moment, and that is six more than what I thought I would ever have. Again, I thank you and hope you find something useful, something entertaining, or something you just like. If this happens to anyone, then this blog is a success.

I welcome your comments. Comments are moderated, but that is mainly to ensure I get a chance to read them and avoid someone posting something completely off topic.

As for the currently posted comments, I will be offering my thoughts on the famous Bible cross dressing passage in Deuteronomy 22:5, how it is sometimes a bit strange being transgendered and conservative (yes, we do exist!), and more. Comments are not only welcomed, but actively desired.

Also, on a whim, I started a web site to link to this blog. The blog is the main focus, and I started the web site in case it was needed, but now feel it might come in handy. I hope to add links and such, the sort of things that don't fit neatly into a blog, to more places that are informative and entertaining.

Special thanks to Jack Molay who has done such an outstanding job of defining, explaining, and elaborating on that little dot in the gender spectrum called "autogynephilia". I was tired of running up and down that spectrum and not finding a comfortable place to stop and enjoy. It's really helped me better define a large portion of my life. It's also led me to other great blogs to enjoy.

Plan to post again in a couple of days and hopefully post on a regular schedule.

Again, thanks everyone.

Kelli

Strange Dream Time, 3/28/2010

I love dream analysis. Many modern scientists and doctors laugh at the thought of dreams being important, but history contradicts them in this belief. The Bible is full of dreams that had great significance. People regarded dreams as omens or messages from "beyond" well into the late nineteenth century when psychology began to emerge as a legitimate science. I've always enjoyed reading the theories of Freud and Jung and still find their brand of thought and analysis relevant.

Dreams can be fun. They can be scary. They can have deep psychological meaning. They can help you overcome problems and obstacles you face in your daily life. But I have found that the most important thing to remember about dreams is this: Dreams can also be nothing more than entertainment for our minds. That dream you had once about eating hot dogs might have a psychological meaning, or it might be the simple result of you overeating before bedtime.

I've had many dreams that dealt with my transgenderism. Most of them were pleasant although I have awaken from a few and found myself sitting upright in my bed, drenched in a pool of sweat as if I had been physically running from horrible monster. Overall, I've been surprised out how mundane many of my TG dreams have been, whether they have had any sort of meaning or not.

Last night, I had a TG dream.

In the dream, I was asked to take part in a womanless beauty pageant. Oddly enough, in waking life, I have never taken part in such a production. In the dream, I was "drafted" by friends who didn't know anything about Kelli. I found myself in the odd position of trying to masculinize myself. I put off meeting with my "beauty consultant team" for as long as possible to give my body hair more time to grow back and appear more manly. I feigned ignorance with makeup and female clothing. I worked hard to keep people out of my home as I had a few too many feminine articles of dress laying about for a single guy. I took a look at the outfits my sponsors had picked out, immediately decided what I would do to look my best in them, and then did my best not to look my best. I was afraid to look like Kelli. For once, I wanted to look like a guy in a dress.

The day of the pageant arrived. I found myself putting on last minute touches (and trying not to overdo it) while the stage director hurried us onto the stage. For the first number, we were arranged like a choir for the opening musical number. I guess we didn't rehearse (dream scripting and timeline problems) and I found myself surrounded by several contestants who were much shorter than me due to their age. (In flats, I'm about normal height for a woman.) We sang the non-descript song with much energy and I constantly found myself really getting into the role and needed to remind myself I'm suppose to be a guy, not a girl.

Unfortunately, that's when I awoke.

Kelli's amateur dream interpretation: A dream strictly for entertainment purposes. Enjoy it, laugh about it, blog and record it if desired, but no major revelations or concerns to note.

Kelli

Describing My TGism...

Please consider the following picture:

I said in a previous post that I was not planning to post any pictures on my blog. That was before I came across this partial picture of a nude woman (thus making her only partially nude, and keeping my blog relatively family friendly) and realized this presented a great opportunity to describe my transgenderism.

I know from associating with various "normal" guys that if you present them with such a beautiful woman (clothed or not), you will hear responses such as: Whoa! Dang! Check out the [insert favorite body part here] on her! What I wouldn't do to her in bed! Etc., etc. The old notion that guys generally have one thing on their mind when dealing with women seems to be true. Guys generally take great pride in their sex drive.

For a transgendered person such as myself, that is normally not the first thing I think about when I see an attractive woman. If I like the clothes she is wearing, I'll find myself thinking That would look good even on me! or I'd have to work on my waistline before I tried something like that on. I might find myself envying her hair or her figure. I've known women who completely changed their look just by knowing how to use makeup correctly, and I have always been amazed by that. Or I might find myself wishing that I could just be myself (female) and do what she is doing, whether it's walking down the street, having a cup of coffee in a cafe, or working in an office.

Instead of aspiring to manly ambitions, goals, and models, like becoming a great sports hero, scaling Mt. Everest, or having my own private harem, I was born with some "crossed wires" so I would much rather aspire to be pretty, successful, and attractive. Instead of the little boy idolizing his big brother, I'm the little girl idolizing her big sister. Freud said men have penis envy. I've got Venus envy! That's what makes me (transgendered/autogynephiliac) different from guys.

An incredibly strong fantasy life is one of the hallmarks of autogynephilia. These fantasies of mine can leave me physically aching in my desire to be female, yet a sense of relief when I leave that fantasy world and face the real world as a man. Even "leaving" my fantasies for reality is not the end of the story as I personally keep some fantasies with me at all times (more on that later). Autogynephilia is as much if not more so in the mind rather than the body, and those thoughts and desires sometimes seem to take on a life and energy that I just can't seem to stop.

In a world filled with all makes and models of women (sorry for the car terminology), there is no end to the inspiration of my fantasies. For those reading my blog who are transgendered, how many times have you turned on the tv and seen an ad for some amazing body fitness product that used a beautiful model in a bikini. That model spoke on how the fitness device got her into the sexy shape that she now enjoyed and you thought to yourself If only it would work that well on me! I doubt very seriously that "normal" guys have thoughts like that.

When you take a step back and look at a situation like mine, you have to smile a little and possibly even laugh a little. There are people out there with various character quirks and hang-ups that sound ridiculous, but have debilitating results. My "quirk" sounds just as silly as some of theirs -- I like to dress, fantasize, and take on the role of a woman. By the grace and guidance of The Good Lord, I've learned to live with this "quirk" (even embrace it at times) without debilitating results, going out of my mind, or chopping off unnecessary body parts.

Kelli

The Same Although Different

In reading the past few entries, I feel I've covered enough ground concerning why I think this blog will be a bit different from most, and why I feel a bit different even within the TG community. I'm sure I'll be writing on this subject again, but I also wanted to say something about how I seem to be the same as most everyone in the TG community.

I noticed that, gender wise, I was not like other children early in my youth. I remember I wanted to play house with the other girls in pre-school. In elementary school I hated sports. I was something of "my own man" throughout public school, just being myself and coping with whatever consequences that brought on. People who didn't like me considered me a loner or the "creepy quiet guy". My friends, the people I hung out with, considered me one of them, and didn't notice anything unusual about me (and thus negating the loner and "creepy quiet guy" labels).

I kept pretty quiet about my feelings. I remember finding quiet time alone with a box of old knitting and fashion magazines. I would stare at the ads for "breast enhancement creams", figure enhancing female undergarments, the latest fashions for spring, and amazing sex secrets to attract any man. I remember noticing my body was changing as I was physically maturing, and I wondered why I couldn't mature into a beautiful young woman. That is what I wanted more than anything else at the time.

When I was about ten years old, I saw a story on the news that shocked me -- a man on the local police force was undergoing a sex change operation and would be returning to work as a woman. I thought to myself "That could be me!"

Like many young TGs, the moment I moved away into a place of my own, I began working on my feminine side. Back in the days before the internet, the most common place to start was the local "adult bookstore" (more appropriately called the "local porn dealer"). I found a few transgender-themed porn magazines I could tolerate (I'm not a big porn fan), but within those magazines I actually found ads for legitimate businesses and organizations that let me know transgenderism was not something to be placed under the classification or "perversion" or "adult porn industry".

I began buying copies of the magazine from I.F.G.E. (I forgot what it was called back then), CrossTalk, and others. Thanks to the contacts section, I was able to find a cross dressing group about 90 miles from where I was living. I carefully contacted them and my progress continued.

There were setbacks along the way. A couple of times when I moved, I completely purged myself of anything Kelli. When I look back at all the clothes, books, and magazines I destroyed, I consider it a great tragedy, especially now that I know how silly it was to purge myself of those things. Transgenderism does not go away simply because you deny it.

The internet has been heaven-sent in my opinion, for people like us. If it had been around back when I was undergoing counseling, I often wonder how much further I could have gone in those sessions (the sessions went very well, I'm glad I went, and I recommend counseling to those who need it).

Long story short, I'm now much happier. There's more peace between my male and female sides, and since I came to the conclusion that neither one of those sides is going away, this is the best possible outcome for all (myself and those around me).

Kelli

3-24-2010 Misc.

I need to mention a few odds and ends here...

1. I got my first blog follower! Yay! [Dancing as a woman at the moment, because when I dance as a man, I look like a dork.]
2. Is Larry King still alive?
3. My secret claim to fame -- I once lived next door to Barbie.
4. I'm currently following several more blogs and hope to add them to the list in the right hand column soon.
   
5. I'm trying to start the rumor that the owner of the Cadillac Ranch originally wanted to use Edsels.
6. I have never seen an episode of American Idol.
7. I'm a huge fan of Ranma 1/2. It was the first Japanese manga I read and makes me laugh out loud. I'm still searching for those cursed springs in China....
8. Did they ever find a rhyme for "orange"?
9. I enjoy dreaming of everyday life in my Maidenform Bra.
10. All the women agree -- I've got great legs!

Kelli

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Now that I have put things more or less into a frame of reference by using Kelli's Simplified Dictionary of Scary Words, I need to explain another highly important aspect of my being. In fact, it is the most important aspect of my being. I am a Christian -- born again believer, follower of the way, a member of those who have been redeemed, one of the saints, etc. In my profile, I actually go one step further and state that I am a conservative Christian. I am a member of a "mainline" denomination (you pass by our church buildings and schools everyday) and was saved in my youth.

WAIT!!! DON'T STOP READING YET!!! THERE'S SOMETHING I NEED TO EXPLAIN!!!

Okay. Let's look at Kelli's Simplified Dictionary of Scary Words to put my religious beliefs in context.

• conservative Christian -- holding established and/or moderate views and interpretations as found in the Holy Scriptures (Bible).

Nowhere in that definition will you find any mention of transgenderism, autogynephilia, cross dressing, or transexualism. Using common interpretations of the Bible, you will find very little, if anything, on those subjects.

On the flip side of the coin, transgenderism, autogynephilia, cross dressing, and transexualism make no demands that a person observe any sort of religious or philosophical belief system on anything.

BOTTOM LINE: Christianity and TGism (transgenderism, autogynephilia, cross dressing, transexualism) are not at odds with each other. A man putting on a woman's silk blouse, or a woman putting on a favourite piece of male attire does not make them a sinner!

Now immediately, there are many out there that are going to say "Yay! Kelli Roberts said I could dress like a woman and attend my favourite Pentecostal/Church of Christ/Methodist/Baptist/Presbyterian/Catholic/Salvationist/etc. church and it was okay!" My response to that is "No, I did not say that, and, no, you probably could not do that." That opens up a whole other can of worms, and I'll have to deal with that in another post.

What I wanted to do in this post was to let you know that a lot of people (trans and non-trans) have issues with many things that, in the sight of the Lord, don't warrant issue status. A transgendered person is not sinning by dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex, but a person falsely accusing that transgendered person of sin, is actually the one who is committing sin. It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but I am committed to ridding the world of both scenarios. God's Word was designed to bring good things to mankind. In the hands of sinful man that message is sometimes corrupted and looses some of its goodness.

Kelli

Definitions

Way back in the "dark ages", back before the internet, back before anyone had ever heard the word "transgendered", back when people who were undergoing sex change operations were front page legitimate news, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (okay, not that far back!), I began coming to terms with my transgenderism. I realized that I did not fit into the gender norms of the day. I realized this was causing me personal harm and confusion. I realized that the only way to make this "problem" better was to admit I had a "problem" and begin working towards a solution. [NOTE TO ACTIVISTS: When I used the word "problem", I used it in the context of how I viewed my situation in the past. I no longer view transgenderism as a "problem" as defined by current modern usage.]

The first legitimate treatises I found on gender confusion were a couple of books in a large university library. At the time, the books focused on two distinct classifications -- cross dressing, and transexualism. It's time now for the first entries in Kelli's Simplified Dictionary of Scary Words. These are simple definitions of words as I use them.

• cross dress -- to wear clothes of the opposite sex.
• transexual -- a person who either strongly desires to undergo, or has undergone sex reassignment surgery.
• homosexual -- attraction to the same sex.
• heterosexual -- attraction to the opposite sex.
  

This raised as many questions as it answered. I now had clinical definitions of the day, but I didn't seem to really fit either one of those definitions. If I had a choice in the matter, I would have chosen cross dress, as it seemed safer and simpler, but my gut feelings leaned towards transexualism, which I found a bit scary and with less than satisfying results.

I kept digging. I began visiting "adult bookstores" (more aptly called "porn stores") and buying what I could find on the subject. Apart from the surprisingly large amount of porn I discovered on the subject, I did find some legitimate and helpful magazines. These magazines introduced me to some more satisfyingly applicable definitions.

• transgendered -- a sort of blanket term for those in gender identity situations.
• tranny -- generally a pre-op transexual (one who has undergone partial sex reassignment). Usually used in a pornographic context.
• she-male -- see "tranny".
• female impersonator -- male who does his best to present himself as a woman to the point of fooling his audience into thinking he is a woman. Generally used in the context of stage shows.
• drag queen -- think female impersonators on steroids. They generally present over the top caricatures of female personas.

I took on the term "transgendered" to describe my personal situation. Again, I still had not found a definition that really fit my situation, and it was causing me lots of grief (which I'll mention in other posts). I saw a therapist for over a year who asked me what I thought I was. I told him I was afraid I was transexual. To my surprise, he said he didn't think I was transexual, and in the end he helped me with lots of other problems I had which had masked my true problems and fogged my reasoning. It's a good case of what a competent counselor can do for you.

A few years later, the internet came along. I continued researching and studying on my situation. I told myself and others that I was a cross dresser and met many other cross dressers, but all the while I felt that I didn't completely fit the mold. It was like trying to fit a sexagon into an octagonal hole. I finally came across a term that seemed to explain my situation perfectly, and wouldn't you know it, it is fairly new and controversial. That term is autogynephilia.

I came across Jack Molay's blog which is now called Crossdreamers, and it made perfect sense to me. Here's the definition:

• autogynephilia -- a man who fantasizes that he is a woman.

I believe I have come across a definition that finally applies to me, and I'll be writing more about it later, but at the time I first came across this person's blog and read their thoughts (he goes into lots of detail and professional language), bells, lights, and whistles began sounding in my brain. I had an epiphany of epiphanies. I had finally discovered what this roadblock was in my life, and I could deal with it and move forward.

More later....
Kelli

Intro & Observations

Hello cyber space!

I'm Kelli, the humble author of this humble little blog. Please bear with me as I'm still new at blogging. This is sort of an experiment for me.

I'm no stranger to the internet. I've been out web surfing (in a favourite bikini) for several years now. The internet is a wonderful place for people with transgenderism and gender-related issues. However, I've noticed disturbing trends among many of the prominent websites that are out there:

1. A lot of website authors are very dogmatic in their gender-related views. They claim to speak for the majority and anyone who questions that is quickly shouted down.
2. I have been to several sites that claim if you suffer from gender-dysphoria, the cure is sex reassignment surgery (SRS, sex-change) and that if you refuse that "cure", then you are a liar (you do not suffer from gender-dysphoria).
3. There are sites that claim that you are either a cross dresser or a transsexual. There are no other options.
4. There are sites urging you to be political for gender-related issues, such as demanding the right to dress anyway you want, and pushing for socialized medical sex-changes for everyone.
5. And, of course, there are sites treating the various gender-related subjects in a pornographic context.

As you can probably guess by now, you will not find any of that on my blog or website.

First, I welcome all views on gender-related issues. I might not agree with them all, and I might tell you where I disagree with them, but I will not shout down or tell someone their feelings are a mistake (which you can't really do with feelings and emotions anyway).

Second, I believe there are many "cures" and "treatments" and "living arrangements" for people with gender-related issues. You find the one you want to follow -- don't let someone else make important life decisions for you.

Third, I believe there are so many different labels and diagnosed conditions along the gender spectrum that trying to limit them to fewer than four or five causes more harm than good.

Fourth, I don't push my personal views or desires on anyone. I freely state my ideas and thoughts. The listener is free to do with those thoughts as he or she wants. Like I said in my profile, I'm a conservative Christian (the offering plate will be passed before the sermon).

And finally, there will be no pornography on this site. I don't believe the subject matter should be freely discussed around children, but at the same time, I think if a young person were to wonder across this site, they would probably fall asleep from boredom before they read too far. Don't look for any pictures (I don't even plan on putting a "regular" picture of myself up) and don't look for any steamy stories. I've stopped going to many sites because they devolved into pornographic story and picture collections. I find real life "steamy" enough and will use discretion in dealing with that.

I'll do my own wading into the waters of gender confusion and ambiguity, thank you very much, and I'll post what I find. If you disagree with me, that's fine... it won't hurt my feelings at all. If you agree with what I have discovered, then I am happy to have found another brother or sister.