[bryony]

#2 observation was that my desire to crossdress decreased, which upset me a bit, though I felt great. Maybe the fact that I retired at almost the same time had something to do with my attitude, though I was honestly anticipating having more time to spend crossdressing, thus the fact that not feeling like crossdressing much was a bit disconcerting.

Hi Patti,

search for the string "testosterone toxicity" - you'll a reference, and probably the text, of a paper by Dr Anne Vitale. It's a symptom of what she calls having a "transsexual brain", caused by insufficient androgen exposure in the womb. The theory goes that having a female brain without sufficient estrogen causes it to want to express femininity in other ways. Taking estrogen rebalances it and makes the desire/need to cross-dress go away.

Her paper talks about how, for some poor people who have gone the orthodox route up to and including passing the "real life" test and GRS, they find that they want to go back to being men, start taking androgens and immediately start wanting to cross dress again.

It's an interesting read.

B.