The End Goal

[Martina Hall]

What's an " end goal " ?? Getting dressed up, for me, is kind of like going on a roller coaster. It's simply a little bit of fun, for a while. The ultimate is to go shopping, or partying (careful), or whatever, until my high-heel wearing feet start screaming at me. At that point, ready to retire Ms. Hyde and go back to the drab. Got to get it out of my system, on occasion. Maybe a GG can't understand this urge.

[Jina James]

No end goal for me, either.

It's just something that feels right in the moment, both now and when I started.

[Ginny Jones]

My end goal was to physically look like the girl I felt inside. This was my goal from early childhood, but I found that this wasn't going to happen and so spent most of my childhood with a deep sense of loss! Especially once the testosterone cut in and my voice dropped and I started growing stubble.

So I got used to the loss. Did the best imitation of being a man I could and got on with my life.

Then in my late forties my relationship broke up and I found myself living on my own. By this point I was no longer so worried about what others thought and started dressing in a minor way. Once I started - bang! It just took off! The acceleration was scary because I kept thinking - where is this going to end!

Of course I knew that it would have to stop at some point because I'd be unlikely to get into another relationship with a woman if I'm involved in this caper! But then once I started going out I soon discovered that women are very receptive! Wow! So anything seems possible!

So in some sense my goal has shifted with each new discovery - whilst it is also true to say that my original goal is that one that has stayed with me.

At this point I can't see me having SRS ... but you never know! What I am learning is that the journey changes my view of what's possible! I keep waiting for the backlash - for something to make me feel ashamed again - but it hasn't hit yet, and to be honest I am far more resilient now than I was as a child. Also the world has moved on somewhat - at least it has where I live.

My belief is that our dearest hope is for someone to see us for who we really are and accept and love us for it. So in my book, I guess I have to start showing the world - otherwise ... well, I'm just hiding!

Hugs Ginny xxx

[Karin]

What's the end goal? That's easy.. to be a girl.!

More specifically, to make my body and life better match my mind.

That equals 'Peace with myself'. That's the goal for me.

[Paulette]

Earlier I spoke of my understanding of myself as a CD, and the slow recognition that transition was not for me. I was and remain, like I'm told most adult CDs are, a heterosexual male who occasionally dresses up around the house but rarely elsewhere. I'm also exceptionally lucky in having a wife who happily accepts that her husband sometimes dresses. But it doesn't end there.

In our three years of marriage we have discovered that being male and female is only part of the story. There are also our sexual roles and expressions. And I don't mean role as in playing or pretending, but as in "becoming." We are both experienced actors - she in G&S light opera, and I as a comedia del arte clown and street performer. We know how to not just play a role, but how, for a little while, to be someone other than ourselves. It's like the difference between playing at being Superman flying around the house by putting a towel on your shoulders and holding yours arms out, and jumping off a cliff. It's not that you actually jump off a cliff, but you commit to "flying" it as if you were.

Of course no one can "be someone else," but good actors can immerse immerse themselves so completely into another persona that for a time they forget who they are and respond and "act" as someone else would act. It's not a matter of pretending, but of believing, of suspending disbelief, of being.

Another way of thinking of this is that we have found out how to express the less developed sides of our personas. We are neither sadists nor masochists, but in S&M terms we are both "switches." That is we can each slip into gender roles which are the binary opposite of those we were born and raised with. She can be dominant and I submissive when we make love. She can be a power bottom, and I can be femininely receiving top. This is also a transition. It's temporary and rarely more than partial, but it happens quite frequently when we make love.

As we became more familiar with this transition we noticed that it happens at other times, too. Indeed it happened long before we were aware of it. When we are both passive/receptive/submissives we share a remarkable harmony of togetherness and peace. When we are both doms we tend to find ourselves in conflict, and argue and fight - though almost never to the point of physical aggression. When I am submissive and she aggressive we find that we coordinate our needs and drives in bed as well as in such ordinary matters as choosing a style of furniture or a color for a room.

These are mini-transitions, and they are a part of life for us. And collectively they are a journey of self-exploration. Jung, Reich, and even Adler have said a good deal about this journey. Freud speaks about it mostly in terms of repression, taboo, and denial - those things that he feels are necessary to keep civilization (and oneself) from falling into anarchy. But these are also the things we must overcome and master, the dragons we must learn to ride, in order to be our true, larger selves. They provide the balance that is necessary for a fully experienced life and for our transition and journey through it.

My apologies if this is opaque or distasteful. It's just my way of thinking about being a CD and what transition - the heroes journey - is all about.

[Rhanda]

I don't have any goals except to be as attractive as I can be. To me that is to dress as I please in clothing that I like. This sometimes means that I am very feminen. When I feel like that, the makeup that I almost always wear becomes very feminem. When I dress more masculine my makeup is appropriate. That is my goal, to look beautiful when dressed in whatever mode.

Rhanda