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Your Innvestment |
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Vol. 10, No. 1 |
October 2001 |
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HOME PAGE - NEWSLETTERS - LINKS TO OTHERS - MEMBERS PAGE |
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|
|
Your Innvestment |
|
|
Vol. 10, No. 1 |
October 2001 |
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| http://www.Innvestments.org |
Welcome to a new season for Innvestments. We have many things planned for the new year.
Coming right up in only a few weeks will be Fantasia Fair in Provincetown. It runs from October 14 - 21st. For anyone who has yet to attend it is like a dream come true. It is a week long event with daily lectures and activities. You can spend the whole week (or just a few days) living full time in the gender of your choice! Imagine not having to change back to male mode so that you can go home at night. Provincetown is well known for their accepting attitude to people of all types. The latest information from Fantasia Fair is that day tickets will be $120 and you must purchase a ticket for Saturday if you want to attend the banquet on Saturday night. For more information contact their website at www.fantasiafair.org.
Right after Fantasia Fair will be Innvestments own Halloween Party to be held at our dear friends Joan and Pat's house in Barnstable Village on Saturday night October 27th. It is a beautiful place and the party is always well attended and a lot of fun.
Our Christmas Party is scheduled for Saturday, December 1st at the Ramada Inn in Hyannis. This event is always enjoyed by the many that attend. We plan to have a Fashion Show, awards, entertainment, dancing and a buffet dinner. Mark your calendar and make your reservations as soon as possible.
For those of you who may not know Candy's spouse, Elaine has been very ill. Our prayers and good wishes go out to them.
A note from the editor. From the tone of this newsletter you may notice that it is being written by a new person this month, Brenda L. I have put in an article here and there in the past but this is a new experience for me. You may find my articles to be a little more on the serious side than our former editor, Candy, but I will make an effort to get sillier as time goes on. Candy resigned from these duties last spring and I, for one, am determined to keep the newsletter, and the group, going as strong as ever! This group has done so much for me over the years by helping me to be more free and open about my crossdressing. I am certain that it has done the same for many others. If you happen to be one of those "others" could you please help out by sending me a few new articles for the newsletter once in a while. I will need help!
Another thing you may have noticed about this newsletter is that the formatting is strangely different. That is because I am using our Internet software to assemble it. That way it needs no time consuming conversion process to put it onto our Web Site at http://www.Innvestments.org. For those members that have access to the internet you can get our newsletters online. Then you can easily print them at your own computer. By doing so you could in fact save the group a lot of money in mailing and printing costs! We can use that kind of help! Please let me know if you are able to do this and I will be very grateful.
Your
Innvestment is
a publication of Innvestments, P.O. Box 354, Sagamore,
MA.02561-0354. Innvestments is a non-sexual service organization
founded to support and to provide a socially acceptable outlet
for the crossdressing, transvestite, transsexual, transgendered
community located primarily in Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape
Cod and the Island. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint
any article appearing in Your Innvestment is hereby granted to non-profit similar
organizations provided that publication and authorship credit
is given. Any commercial use of Your Innvestment material
is hereby prohibited. Some material may have previously appeared
in print. Publication and authorship rights of material
reprinted from other sources remain with its originator. The editor/s
of Your Innvestment are not under any obligation to accept
information and advertisements. Information and advertisements
may be published in any form deemed acceptable. Any information
about services, products or sympathetic locations published in
Your Innvestment is not considered an endorsement of such
by the staff of Your Innvestment or the Board of
Directors of Innvestments. Innvestments is also know in
open publications as Cape Cod Cross Dressers.
Noelle R. (noellerose@aol.com)......President
Denise S. (denises@aol.com)..Vice President
Brenda L.(Brrendaa@aol.com)........Treasurer
Julie W....................................................Board
Candy Scott............................................Board
PO Box 354
Sagamore, MA 02561-0354
Tel.: 508+563-3160 (8 AM to 1200 Noon) Email: candyscott@capecod.net
Membership (including newsletter) is $30.00 per-year (pro-rated after January) with a $15.00 meeting fee. Meeting fees payable only for those attended. This pays meeting location fees charged to the group, and for pizza and soda or full/partial payment for food in the hotel dining room for all. New this year: By paying your annual dues of $30 and becoming a member you will be entitled to a $10 discount when you attend our major functions (Christmas and Valentines Parties). Also note that we have dropped the mail only dues because it just was not used very much.
I have always enjoyed getting all dolled up and going out somewhere, anywhere, just to have a good time with friends while en femme. The places I have been! The fun I have had! But when the fun is over it is time to put it away until the next time.
I always remember the lessons I learned from one of the first transgendered friends I had in our group, Laura. Many times we went to clubs and shows. Sometimes we would stop at my place and we would change "back" there. I would take off my pretty clothes and pack them away in my closet for the "next" time. On one of these occasions she came to me almost in tears and said she did not want to pack her things away until the next time. She in fact wanted to keep wearing them ALL the time and wake up every day like that.
So for a long time I tried to figure out why I was so able to pack my hobby so neatly "in the box" while Laura could not bear to do it. Did I have a stronger will than her when it came to controlling my transgendered desires? Did she have a stronger desire to be feminine? Was I less of a transgendered person than she was? The answer to all of the above questions was YES! We were indeed very different. She was a true transsexual. Deep down she knew exactly what she wanted right from the start. She has since transitioned completely and is living very happily at this time.
You see, Laura and I were almost at the far ends of the transgender scale. She firmly wanted to live as a woman every day of her life and was noticeably unhappy because she was not able to do so. I was, and still am, an occasional crossdresser. I get dressed up around the house about once a week and go out to the movies, shopping etc. as the opportunity arises. That could be once a month or once every few days depending on what is going on. Can I turn off the desire completely? Not really. It is the middle of the summer as I write this. The last time I was out was about three weeks ago and I have got to get out of this house!
Can someone use the "in the box" theory to make judgments about how much of a transsexual or crossdresser someone might be at heart. ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! There are a multitude of factors in that judgment and a trained psychologist can take months to form an accurate opinion on a certain person.
The point of this article is to ask you to think about how
much control you may have over the desire to dress and live as
a women.
The psychological and medical community have said that the urge
to cross dress is NOT to be considered a psychological disorder.
Thus there is no disease or defect that can or should be "cured."
The desire will basically stay with you for your entire life.
Many of us can remember instances from way back in our childhoods
when these desires started.
Can you pack it away "in the box" at the end of an
evening out on the town or shopping? This sounds easier than it
is, especially when you have felt so good and had such a good
time while in your femme mode. I have found that the longer I
have spent as a lady the harder it is to hang up the clothes and
go back. Several times I have spent four to five days at Fantasia
Fair and the end is always sad. But the reality is that there
is family and jobs to return to.
Can you decide that you will go "X' number of days (or weeks)
without getting all dressed up? The numerical side of my brain
would say that the longer you can go the more in control of yourself
you are. But this is not to be considered a numerical issue. It
is an emotional one. If you need it badly every single day you
are probably not an occasional crossdresser like me. How long
does it take until you feel you have beat the urge? A week? A
month? A year? There is no set scale here.
Are you under pressure to refrain from crossdressing by your spouse
who decides when and under what circumstances you may cross dress?
Forced abstinence is not a "cure" by any means. It can
only delay the desire to cross dress. The true urge will never
really go away. In many cases forced abstinence has caused deeper
emotional problems. The calming and stress relieving aspects of
cross dressing are not allowed to be brought out. This can lead
to more intense stress with no outlet for relief. Most of us have
heard stories about men that have gone several years without cross
dressing only to have the desire reappear. It won't go away.
Would you like to wake up everyday as a woman? Would you like
to go to work cross dressed? If so then you are indeed serious
about your feminine self.
So, finally, are YOU in control of your crossdressing or IS IT
in control of you? Suppressing your desires may not be the answer.
If you feel you are not in control of yourself then maybe it is
time for you to consider talking to a professional counselor about
your desires. Think about it.
A special room rate for Innvestments is being offered for those individuals who desire to stay over at the Ramada Inn. At this special price it is felt that the rooms will go rapidly so please call today and make your reservations. Call the Ramada Inn at the following numbers: 508+775-1153; or toll free at 800:676-0000 or 888+CAPE-398. Be sure to mention the Innvestments Christmas Party.
The price for the event is $50 per person ($40 for members).
Reserve your place NOW at this great
annual Christmas event. Send your check and/or reservation to
Innvestments, P.O. Box 354, Sagamore, MA 02561. Be sure to include
your name, address and number in party.
Here is the latest information from Fantasia Fair regarding prices for day and event registrations. For more details on schedules etc. go to the web site at Fantasia Fair. Hope to see many of you there!
The Fantasia Fair office is open Sunday from 1-5 pm and Monday thru Saturday from 9-5 (closed from12-1 for lunch). Tickets for single events and day tickets are available at the office.
We're settled on a per day registration price of $120. This includes evening events all days, except Saturday, the day of the banquet. Banquet tickets are $70. Because the banquet was sold out last year, we're giving priority to those who register for Saturday. Bonus - If you buy the Saturday day program the banquet will only be $35.
Tickets for the Monday Diversity Dinner, the Wednesday Fashion show, the Thursday film screening, and the Friday Follies, are available at a separate purchase price, $15 for the Diversity Dinner, Follies, and Fashion Show, and I think $8 for the film screening.
We would, of course, love to register you for the half Fair (FF Prices). Our budget is very tight this year because we have lowered registration rates dramatically. Early bird price for the entire Fair this year was only $450.
We hope to see you in Provincetown.
Dallas
Denny
Registrar, Fantasia Fair
Donna (Don), a crossdresser, had spent the weekend in Provincetown as his femme self at a gathering of about 100 other transgendered people. She had made many friends with similar interests and always enjoyed these weekends. It was a time to be free to dress as pretty as she wanted and to live, if only for a few days, the way a real women does. The routines of putting on makeup, changing outfits several times a day, applying polish to her nails (and toe nails), and shopping in heels all day were all a joy to her. This weekend was especially a happy one for Donna because she had won second place for best gown at the banquet on Saturday night. She felt so good about it she was walking on air.
On Sunday when most of the other participants in the weekend festivities left early Donna lingered in Provincetown. She just did not want to change back into Don's clothes. She dreamed she could stay this way forever. She stayed until the last of her friends went home and then had dinner by herself at a restaurant downtown. On the way home she stopped at a mall and bought a skirt and some nylons for the next time. Next time, she thought, wouldn't it be nice to stay this way all the time.
It was late by the time Donna arrived at her home north of Boston. It was dark so she carried all her luggage into the house, not worrying about what the neighbors might see. She was exhausted. She changed quickly into her favorite nighty and fell asleep wishing she could stay like this forever.
Don woke up the next morning with little time to spare in getting ready for work. When he got to the mirror he saw that he had not even removed his wig when he went to bed. He grabbed the hair but it would not move. "Ouch," she said. Then she looked at her face and there was no need to shave this day. Her skin was so smooth and soft. She looked further down and thought she must have left her bra on overnight. But that was not the case at all. "What has happened to me?" she kept saying to herself. She stood in front of the mirror examining every part of her body. She looked further down........
Wait! Stop! This is not that kind of an article! I told you about Donna so that I could ask you a question.
If you woke up one day as a women would you like to stay that way? Think about it.
This question was originally put to me by a TS friend several years ago.
Most of us as crossdressers are in a euphoric state when we are in our femme mode. Would that feeling last if we had to stay this way. It's true that we wouldn't have to shave our beards any more each morning. But what about all the things ladies have to do each day such as applying makeup, washing and setting hair, doing nails and shaving those legs to name just a few. Would those things become routine and disliked?
Are you afraid that if you are leaning toward a yes then that makes you an automatic transsexual? Would that be so bad? But it doesn't have to be one way or the other! I have been meeting more friends that are enjoying life living somewhere in the middle of the transgender road. They spend as much time as they want in the gender of their choice and then return. The androgynous mode, where one can be perceived by the public as either male or female, is becoming more common. Maybe you would like to spend one day as a women and the next day as a man. Or maybe you could choose to live as a women but never get "the" operation. For many the idea of a permanent operation is very frightening. It should be! There is nothing bad about delaying or avoiding that altogether. Each of us must make up our own minds and find the path that leads to the greatest happiness.
I think the real answer to my question
can best be measured on a scale of 1 to 10 rather than a definitive
yes or no. A 1 would mean you have little or no interest in changing
gender and a 10 would mean you want it very badly. Now where do
you think you would rate yourself? There is no wrong answer to
this question. Personally I think I am somewhere around a 6.5.
Think about it. Brenda
We took an unscientific survey
of this issue on our web site on the internet and here are the
unofficial results.
Rating Votes
to Date
ELEVEN..............................1
TEN.....................................1
NINE...................................1
EIGHT.................................1
SEVEN................................3
SIX......................................1
FIVE...................................1
FOUR..................................
THREE................................
TWO....................................1
ONE....................................