To set your mind at rest, this is not a public service announcement about birth control or an announcement that I have finally decided to ‘grow a pair’ by renouncing my male status and taking those wonderful little pills in the hope that I’ll, er, ‘grow a pair’ but, rather, the age old question about whether, confronted by a plate containing two pills, we’d take the red one or the blue one. The whole idea originally came from the film ‘The Matrix’ where it was a metaphor for choosing between uncomfortable truth (the red pill) or blissful ignorance (the blue pill).
It’s a question that pops up on trans-themed forums from time to time and it can take various forms – for example the red pill erases all memories of biological sex and the blue pill erases all thoughts of being anything other than one’s biological sex. Many of the versions of this are firmly rooted in fantasy and consideration of one’s preferred option becomes a philosophical exercise. But today I want to consider an interpretation of the question that is not completely without the realms of possibility from a crossdressing perspective. In this scenario, the pills work as follows:
Blue: all urges to CD disappear and although memories of past excursions over the gender divide remain, there is no longer an emotional imperative to act on them. We can think of this as a metaphor for some of the practical strategies we can adopt to deal with the urges and turn our back on CDing.
Red: basically a placebo which has no effect other than to leave the whoever takes it with the feeling that they have made a positive choice.
I’ve been in discussions surrounding this a few times and, each time, my response has been emphatically blue. This whole business has blighted my life and nearly cost me my marriage and I would have gladly taken anything to make it go away.
This would probably be one of the all-time shortest posts on Kandi’s Land if I’d stopped there but I have to confess that I’ve been having second thoughts.
The blight on my life has been real and I’ve always wondered how others in a similar position have declared that their transness is a gift. From the earliest time that I tried on a pair of my mother’s tights/ pantyhose I’ve been fighting a battle. The first salvo happened within a minute of experiencing the wonder of nylon against my still hairless teenage legs – things happened ‘downstairs’, quickly reaching their predictable climax for the first time in my life. That was two firsts within a minute of each other! And that particular battle raged for some years, on the one hand loving the sensation but on the other believing that I was nothing more than a deviant turned on by the whole business. And there was collateral damage too – the fear of getting that sort of reaction when going anywhere near anything vaguely feminine, let alone trying it on. At that time, I would have given anything to get my hands on that little blue pill.
I could perhaps theorise that my transgender proclivities affected my dating drive – the feeling that I wanted to be the girls I admired subconsciously preventing me from pursuing them with any seriousness – although being turned down by the majority of the girls I asked out probably had more to do with it so I’ll move on.
When I met Mrs A, it really did feel like I had taken the blue pill. There were absolutely no urges and a growing sense of relief that I had finally managed to put it all behind me. Seeing Mrs A in a cute dress and heels pushed any thoughts of emulating her right out of my mind and my sense of relief was palpable. But in many respects, that relief was short lived. It would only be a matter of time before a programme featuring some aspect of transgenderism appeared in the TV schedules or a photo of an attractive woman appeared on a double page newspaper spread with the headline ‘I was born a man’ and I sensed that my past was catching up with me. It wasn’t a case of wanting to cross the divide, at least not in the early days, but the abject fear that I would give the game away if Mrs A made a particular comment. Guilt about the whole thing grew and, on occasion, became crushing. How I wished that I had been able to get my hands on that little blue pill as soon as I realised that I was different. That battle would have been over as soon as it started and I’d have nothing to feel guilty about now I was living a conventional life (or at least trying to).
But the battle intensified and after 18 years of marriage in 2009, I once again experienced the joy of CDing. By now, there was no sexual angle, just a deep seated feeling that it somehow felt right. Of course, it was anything but somehow right and led to four years of deception until everything came crashing down in late 2013 and I had no option other than to confess all to Mrs A. That blue pill would have been very handy in 2009 when it all resumed and even handier from mid-2014 when Mrs A issued a cease and desist ultimatum and I had nothing but willpower to help me deal with the urges.
We all know that this never goes away so it was inevitable that, in mid-2019, I couldn’t hold out any longer and picked up where I’d left off leading to another 3.5 years of deception. Where was that blue pill when I needed it? And even when I had to confess for a second time and Mrs A gave her blessing to DADT, I realised that there remained significant challenges – not least because keeping it away from Mrs A (as she wanted nothing to do with it despite giving her blessing for it to continue) remained as hard as ever – and taking the blue pill was still an attractive proposition.
So taking the blue pill should have been a no brainer but, as I said at the outset, I’ve been having second thoughts.
Whilst, to my knowledge, no such blue pill exists, there is an equivalent – psychotherapy. These days, of course, seeking psychotherapy to deal with urges to CD is on rather shaky ground because it skirts around the edges of conversion therapy. Is helping someone deal with the urges to CD by using a strategy other than giving in to those urges conversion therapy? In my book it’s an important therapy for those who want it and, as I am now approaching the time when Mrs A will retire and the already scant opportunities I have to express my feminine side will dwindle to negligible levels, I was starting to give serious thought to seeking a therapist who could perhaps guide me to a place where I no longer need to CD.
But so far, I’ve been able to resist the idea of seeking professional help. Whilst a significant factor has been the fact that psychotherapists charge for their services and the costs soon mount up, I was also hearing a little voice in my head questioning whether I really wanted to walk away from this.
I’ve tried walking away in the past. I’ve lost count of the number of full and final purges I’ve done but it’s at least five and possibly nearer ten. It felt good at the time but then the grief set in and frustration levels rose until I could stand it no more and restocked. Perhaps, in those days, psychotherapy may have helped although I suspect that it would have only postponed the inevitable for a little bit longer rather than enabling me to draw a permanent line under my feminine life.
But in recent times, something more profound has happened. For a long time, my CDing was just about the clothes. I liked the sensation of the softer clothes against my skin and enjoyed letting my mind wander into the hypothetical world where I was female. The scope of my outfit choices was very narrow – just stiletto courts/ pumps and a knee length dress – as that was all I needed to fuel the fantasy. Dressing sessions were usually short – perhaps one hour or less and nothing much to write home about, so to speak. But then something happened that upended every preconception I had about my CDing…
I met Amanda.
I don’t remember exactly when I ‘met’ her for the first time and I would also go as far as to say that it would take further ‘meetings’ before I realised what had happened. No longer were CDing sessions just about wearing clothes for a few minutes, now it was like reconnecting with an old friend, someone who I could recognise and who I grew to love deeply. When I walked to the mirror and saw her smiling back, she looked as pleased to see me as I was to see her. And as I got to know her better, I wanted to show her my world – a world that eventually started to become her world.
I watched with a sense of pride as her confidence grew, taking herself into situations that I never in a million years imagined she could ever cope with. I saw her blossom as she developed her own style and realised that it was her, not just what she wore, that defined her femininity. I felt her yearnings to be seen by others and shared in her delight when her wishes came true. I experienced deep happiness as she was able to experience womanhood in a way that had been denied to her for so long. I saw first hand the way people she interacted with warmed to her. And I’ve never been happier than the day when she was finally able to declare ‘I’ve got this’ and live her life in her own right rather than hiding behind my identity.
How could I even think of consigning her to just a memory?
Of course, the preceding paragraphs were fanciful and poetic in nature but read between the lines and they had more than an element in truth in their message. Giving up CDing was easy – just purge everything and try and weather the storm – and even when the inevitable restock happened, it was a different outfit, different hair and just didn’t feel like reconnecting with an old friend. But now, if circumstances conspire against me, I miss ‘her’. Granted, I’ve got photos and if I want to try out a new outfit, AI comes to the rescue but nothing compensates for being able to experience life through her eyes. And perhaps most telling is what I depicted as her declaring ‘I’ve got this’. Gone are the days when her arrival was in a suitcase, hidden behind my male exterior and her emergence was a hurried dash either out of the house or past a hotel receptionist in the hope that no one would make the connection between my two sides; now, ‘Amanda’ can be a person in her own right, introducing herself as herself and interacting with others on her own terms.
As my life progressed, I’ve often wondered what it really was that I was looking for. I learned early on that wishing I was female is not the same thing as wanting to take steps to become one, at least as far as is possible for someone with XY chromosomes to do that. On the one hand, I looked on women with envy, yearning to be a part of their world, but on the other experiencing the feeling that I didn’t really belong there with perhaps a sense of relief that I always had the fallback of being male. Looking for answers can be hard enough at the best of times but ten- or even one hundred times more difficult when the question isn’t clear.
And yet in recent times, I’ve had a clarity of thought that eluded me for so long. I just wanted to stop suppressing half of my personality and allow it to flourish. I wanted others to see me as I see myself, however I happen to see myself at a particular point in time. I wanted the reassurance that my chromosomes do not need to stand in the way of me living life on my terms. I wanted to experience acceptance for who I am and be reassured that it’s OK to be different. And above all, I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and love what I see.
Life isn’t perfect, though. ‘Amanda’ still has to be hidden from those closest to me and, more often than not, she has to accept that she cannot spread her wings and be free, despite her pleas to the contrary. The blue pill remains the easy way out and like all of the other people who once featured in my life but no longer do, I know that my memories of her would fade in time. But in my heart, I know that I have so much more to experience in her persona and even if I didn’t, why would I even consider drawing a line under something that brings me a level of happiness I just don’t experience in my normal life.
So whilst I could take the ‘blue pill’ or in realistic terms seek psychotherapy to help me overcome my need to openly express my feminine side, my biggest worry now is that it would be successful. I want to embrace the inner woman, not consign her to oblivion because the truth is that, without her, I’m only half a person. And so, in the full knowledge that the red pill is nothing more than a placebo, I’m happy to make that choice and take it. Its benign nature won’t change a thing and I’ll still face exactly the same challenges that I do at the moment. There’ll still be times when the blue pill will seem to be a far better option but there will also be times when I’m able to experience the euphoria of being who I really am.
