A life of feminisation fascination

Me....Cheryl Sussex

Over the last few years I feel I have come full circle regarding my outlook on gender. As a very young child, pre school years, I decided that males and females were in fact the same. The only difference was the clothes that men and women presented in. My brain also decided that these 'costumes' that provided the gender difference also permitted the wearer to behave in a certain fashion, either masculine or feminine. Such a belief from myself as a young child was entirely understandable. Adults know that the costume that you wear dictates how you behave. If you're a policeman in uniform on duty you'll be in work mode commanding a level of respect compared to the same person dressed casual at a social occasion.





Such a simple ideology dreamt up by a young child meant that becoming a member of the opposite sex could easily be accomplished. Where this original thought came from I really don't know. The presented image of the female either adult or child, together with the permitted behaviour and emotions that were allowed by females was very appealing to me. So my brain fixated very early on the ability for me to experience 'girlhood'.





I will now share with you some random transgender memories which have stuck in my mind over the years.





Cheryl Sussex

Doing my early years of school life I soon learnt that such desires could never be made public, and needed to be kept under wraps. I remember playing in the playground once and a girl came up to me and said 'You scream like a girl', I was so ashamed. It was as if this girl had seen what was on the inside of me. My manner at the time was just like any other boy, or so I believed, however I was very shy. Another thing I was ashamed about was that I could never throw a ball over arm like the rest of the boys. If I attempted to throw a ball overarm it would only travel a very small distance. The other kids teased me saying that I can't move my arm right and throw like a girl. Sports days were an embarrassment.





My parents moved house a few times, when I was very young, which meant I had to go to a number of different schools, which didn't help with my shyness. One thing I noticed was that at each school I went to there was a 'girly boy'. Oddly enough these boys played with the girls and didn't get picked on by the other boys. I remember being totally fascinated with such feminine boys at school. I didn't befriend them as this would be a serious risk to my own acceptance. Why was I so fascinated by them? Well here was a young boy my age who was expressing a behaviour pattern, girliness, and he was dressed as a normal boy like me. He didn't need to have the costume to enable him to act like a girl, nor did he act ashamed as he was simply being himself. I would watch and admire the feminine boys from afar whilst at school. At one school the resident girly boy was playing a game of kiss chase and he caught me which meant he had to kiss me. I had to put on an act of struggling as he gave me a big kiss in front of my friends much to their amusement. I secretly liked the kiss, I was eight at the time.

Cheryl Sussex



As I grew up and went to the local comprehensive (12 to 17 years), I noticed the local feminine boy was not treated very well at all expect by the other females. The males would ridicule anything different and of course he was. I was still very fascinated by such feminine males, but this feminine boy who was girly in every way to the extreme also had a sister in the same year. They may have been non identical twins. What was strange about them both was that she was exceptionally masculine, she was dressed as a normal girl but had the behaviour and manner of the other boys. She was never teased like her brother.





So my private study of gender through feminine boys or masculine girls was all I had to understand my own concepts of gender. To make matters even more confusing the 'twins' when they reached leaving age they both presented as heir assigned gender. He was no longer girly and she was no longer boyish. Both had gone through their own internal transformation. Maybe this was forced upon then in order to conform? I will never know.





On leaving school there were two social icons who renewed my fascination with cross gender behaviour. Boy George and Marilyn. Seen here is this short clip (actors playing Boy George and Marilyn) from the BBC drama 'Worried About the Boy', which is a must see. There are full versions of the film on YouTube to watch.









In my late teens I had developed twisted testicles. Yes this is exactly what you think it is. The blood supply is cut off and the testicles die if untreated. The pain was so great that the doctors 'saved me' from castration. Looking back I often wonder if it was my own body rejecting the masculinity that was to come.



It was also during this time that sexchange operations made headlines, usually in the Sunday tabloids. With the usual very unkind comments, which would result in transphobic arrests by police if they were printed today. Tula (Caroline Cosey) was the beautiful Bond girl who used to be a male, Stephanie Anne Lloyd who used to be Keith Hull made the headlines with her sexchange too. With Stephanie's story the newspapers printed some form of untrue bizarre story regarding the events leading up to the sexchange. They stated that Keith has contracted a rare tropical disease and that the only cure was to take oestrogen and have a sexchange - how bizarre. Stephanie later reinvented herself and became the owner of the chain Transformation shops in the UK.





Another unusual story was Stephanie Robinson, who I first learned about through her modelling and her appearance in a TG magazine. Stephanie was particularly interesting as she did not fit the usual narative. The following is from Reuters





Stephenie Robinson, a British transgender police officer born Stephen, never felt like she was trapped in a wrong body and never dreamed of living life as a woman.





Robinson’s transition from man to woman began 35 years ago with one doctor’s diagnosis that the reason behind her unmanageable sex drive, suicide attempts, violent outbursts and occasional cross-dressing was simply because Robinson should have been female.





Stephanie Robinson

The doctor proposed three treatment options to the then-26-year-old computer engineer: brain surgery, aversion therapy or female hormone treatment. .





Desperate not to be sent back to a psychiatric hospital, Robinson decided to try female hormone therapy. The estrogen treatments addressed her psychosomatic issues, which ranged from hypersensitive skin to a violent temper that, at one point, prompted social services to threaten to take her children away.





But Robinson was far from being overwhelmed with joy.





Stephanie says, “The impact of estrogen taking is that you will feminize and there’s no way out of that.”









Cheryl Sussex today

I myself have been feminized to a certain degree and have used estrogen to bring about an inner peace. Which has its own problems in its self. I have written many times about my oestrogen use estrogen to bring about an inner peace. Which has its own problems in its self. I have written many times about my oestrogen use here and here for example.





One of the sites that I always like to promote is CrossDreamLife which is a friendly forum for gender questioning people. The forum is also a good support centre for those who can't transition as it's simple not an option in their lives. There are plenty of case studies on there from others who experience cross dreaming. Cross dreaming describes the thoughts and feelings of the desire to express the inner woman. Many have found peace and a 'solution' to their situation.



Another event in my life was to explore all of the transgender feminisation fantasies out there through the medium of video.



Another event in my life was to explore all of the transgender feminisation fantasies out there through the medium of video. Tranisa was formed almost 10 years ago and introduced us to the fantasies previously reserved only for print, TG Captions and stories found on the net. It was difficult to move fantasy to film as when filming you are presented by the walls of reality all around you, however our actresses really got into the stories and made it real for the viewer, no matter how outrageous the story. I even appeared myself as a male who is feminized in the story, this was usually when the booked male actor got cold feet and didn't show up for filming.

So at the beginning of this blog entry I said I have come full circle with my view on gender, as I now feel like I did as a child that we are all the same, and that gender does not really matter. Male and females are the same, I know in reality men and women are very different, but to aid my sanity I have decided that we are all the same. We can be who we want and we can express who we want to be, subject to confidence and social situation.





As previously said I have feminized myself to a certain degree. This has probably influenced my thinking somewhat. Before using estrogen I really could not see the wood from the trees. Everything was quite a mess in my head. However as I previously have stated in blog postings I have 'yo-yoed' on and off hormones over the years which I know is not good for me, but they seem to be the only thing that genuinely helps me.





Take care everyone.....





Cheryl x



