Not That Old Joke!

Q: What's the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual?
A: Three years.

Or five years.  Or two years.  However you heard it.

I've been thinking about this a lot.  There are differences between the two.  And yes, I'm going to call it "two".  I'm going to limit myself to born males, although my gut tells me it works the same for those born female.  My gut is unreliable at best.

My two categories:
Transvestites (TV): men who enjoy wearing women's clothing.
Transsexuals (TS): men who believe they should have been women.  I'm phrasing this badly; it sounds like I'm belittling that belief.  I am not.  I'm just not sure how to describe a TS properly, without using a word like "believe" or "convinced".  "Men who want to be women" is wrong.  I'd love to hear from the ts community, to help me acquire the right words.

I'm using TV and TS for the trans- comparison.  If you have a word you prefer, feel free to make the substitution.

First, TV is a fetish.  TS is not.  That's one difference.  Maybe you're TS and at one time the clothes caused arousal.  They do feel nice.  I think the novelty of wearing silk and satin and lace would cause arousal in civilians.  Maybe you're TV and you don't find the clothes exciting.  I bet they did once.  That's what kept you coming back to them.

Second, TV and TS are separate.

You don't go from TV to TS.  You might go from denial to TS, or from "testing the waters" to TS.  I think if you're TS you know it.  Maybe not now, but eventually (hence the old joke I started with).

And you don't go from TS to TV.  You might go from confused to TV.  When I was little, I wanted to be a girl more than anything.  Well, that's not true.  I went through the "if I do this, tomorrow when I wake up I'll be a girl" phase and I bet many of you did too.  But I didn't really want to be a girl.  I wanted something that was beyond my grasp so I applied little kid logic.

"I want to wear a dress."
"Only girls wear dresses."
"Therefore, I want to be a girl."

A classic deductive fallacy.

Would I have been happy if my wish came true?  Maybe.  Maybe if I were a girl from age three or four I would have been a happy, well-adjusted mom today.  Maybe I'd be an unhappy woman, wanting to fit in but really not interested in men, as much as I think I should be.  Maybe I'd miss being a crossdresser.

But we're not discussing wishes here.

I'll be coming back to this in the future, probably after I get a bunch of e-mails and/or comments telling me I'm full of crap.  I'm open to discussion, and I'll be happy to debate.  I might be full of crap.  But I think my two basic points are right.

---