05-04-2012, 01:09 AM
Thank you for your reply and for being so frank about your own position. I am new here but was looking around here for a little while before I registered and a few weeks more before I posted. I did come across some of Anne Vitale's material, and you own theory seems logical to me.
In replying to you I started off by writing a long autobiographical screed which was too long and disclosed more than I was comfortable posting in a public forum. I hope the more limited comments that follow are useful.
You may like to know that I took the COGIATI test for what it is worth and got a score of -120, at the male end of the androgyne category. To my mind that seems about right. I had a problem with the test since it assumes that the respondent is a crossdresser, and I never really have been although I am attracted by the idea. I have tried on bras in my much younger and slimmer days. They seemed silly with nothing to fill them and I never went further. Hardly a strong compulsion, although more recently I have considered getting another bra when I actually have something to put in it.
I had a great deal of anxiety and other problems from my late teens onward when I thought I must be a homosexual, and it was only in my late thirties that I finally resolved that I was not, and concluded that it might have been an issue of delayed maturity. I now wonder whether what was bothering me was in fact an issue of gender identity. I have always been fascinated by androgyny. Curiously, J. named her parrot Loki, the god of mischief, because we did not then know her sex and Loki the god was androgynous. After 15 years she laid an egg thus settling the matter.
I am surprised to find how many of the genetic males here are over 50, and I wonder whether as in my case their own gender issues only came overtly to the surface as their testosterone levels declined? Moreover unwanted gynaecomastia has become so common amongst aging males, for whatever reason, that it provides camouflage for those of the same age group who welcome and induce or enhance it.
I would also comment that complete erectile disfunction does not necessarily end the physical side of marriage, with goodwill and mutual effort to find a solution. After all, same sex female couples manage to get along fine without that function.
AP
"Experience is what you have just after you needed it most".
In replying to you I started off by writing a long autobiographical screed which was too long and disclosed more than I was comfortable posting in a public forum. I hope the more limited comments that follow are useful.
You may like to know that I took the COGIATI test for what it is worth and got a score of -120, at the male end of the androgyne category. To my mind that seems about right. I had a problem with the test since it assumes that the respondent is a crossdresser, and I never really have been although I am attracted by the idea. I have tried on bras in my much younger and slimmer days. They seemed silly with nothing to fill them and I never went further. Hardly a strong compulsion, although more recently I have considered getting another bra when I actually have something to put in it.
I had a great deal of anxiety and other problems from my late teens onward when I thought I must be a homosexual, and it was only in my late thirties that I finally resolved that I was not, and concluded that it might have been an issue of delayed maturity. I now wonder whether what was bothering me was in fact an issue of gender identity. I have always been fascinated by androgyny. Curiously, J. named her parrot Loki, the god of mischief, because we did not then know her sex and Loki the god was androgynous. After 15 years she laid an egg thus settling the matter.
I am surprised to find how many of the genetic males here are over 50, and I wonder whether as in my case their own gender issues only came overtly to the surface as their testosterone levels declined? Moreover unwanted gynaecomastia has become so common amongst aging males, for whatever reason, that it provides camouflage for those of the same age group who welcome and induce or enhance it.
I would also comment that complete erectile disfunction does not necessarily end the physical side of marriage, with goodwill and mutual effort to find a solution. After all, same sex female couples manage to get along fine without that function.
AP
"Experience is what you have just after you needed it most".