CDing: A Lifestyle Choice or Genetic Dilemma

There has been an excellent thread discussing in great detail possible genetic and environmental causes for our crosssdressing. I do not want to rehash everything that has been said before. There is an underlying reason why we are searching for our roots as crossdressers. Having the "nature vs. nurture" question unresolved causes some anxiety for some of us. (I wish I could say, "I am what I am..." and go have fun. This certainly is the quickest and easiest answer to the "nature vs. nurture" question.)

Here is the dilemma as see it:

If crossdressing is genetic, that is, there is some gene, some chromosone, something given to us by our parents then:

• It would relieve a tremendous amount of guilt some of us have. ("I was born that way and there is nothing I can do about it!") No more need for therapy...
• It would be easy to determine who really is a crossdresser and who isn't ("by using our simple home t-test at only $39.95").
• It would be easier (possibly) to obtain civil rights specifically for crossdressers.
• It would be easier to explain crossdressing to our spouses and families.

If crossdressing is a result of our upbringing then either:

• Crossdressing is a lifestyle choice. I am deciding to live my life in a certain manner. I am in complete control and I can choose to stop crossdressing whenever I want.
• Crossdressing really isn't a choice because when I try to stop, I get <depressed, stressed, anxious, stressed, angry, stressed, moody, stressed, frustrated, all of the above, etc.>. This is not good because then crossdressing starts to sound like an obsession, compulsion, or addiction.

We keep ping-pong-ing the "nature vs. nuture" question around because we know that we really don't like some of the potential answers.

Maybe the question is wrong when we focus on "nature vs. nuture". Maybe the real source for crossdressing is something I will call the "R-factor" to describe the unknown, common thing linking us together. The "R-factor" isn't one specific characteristc but a huge set of characteristics blended together some of which were given to us by our parents and some were part of our upbringing. The number of characteristics and their timing when they happened make them almost impossible to identify. However, we all have this "R-factor"...

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist, therapist, or doctor (although I was a nurse one Halloween...).

Robyn

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Originally Posted by RobynP

[*]It would be easier (possibly) to obtain civil rights specifically for crossdressers.

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It's really important for general society to realise that civil rights are always still covering choice. Religion is a choice and yet it is a protected Human/Civil Right.

Even if CDing were entirely choice it would be covered by free expression. Homosexuality is likewise a valid Human/Civil Rights issue whether biological or choice.

We need everyone to realise this. That the border of our rights is only other peoples rights. It should never have taken centuries for Women and Non-Whites and now Gay and Transgender to get full real equality and equity in rights privileges and law because the same reasons have been at the core of every Civil/Human Rights argument for hundreds of years! And the same objections to each and every one of those struggles has been raised against each one.

What we need is people to stop quisling and saying 'Rights for you today but not for you as you make me too uncomfortable' each and every generation and just darn well give them properly to everyone.

Maybe one day they should start teaching kids in school what rights really are, where they really come from etc so that we can stop wasting time and resources and subjecting people to generations of misery having to perpetually fight for the same basic common equality for each group that everyone should have had from birth to natural death.

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Originally Posted by Katie B

Our opinions are irrelevant, it's the facts that count.

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Most agreed.

And it's a pity to reading so often on this forum something like that :

"It can't be this way, because my opinion is it doesn't or won't work for myself (and it is as if I don't care at all the opinion of all others...)".

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Originally Posted by Katie B

then it explains why nobody so far has found a clear correlation between CDs and their brothers born of the same parents, and also why nobody so far has explained how some of us were brought up in accepting homes and others in repressive homes.

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I'm most interested by this remark of yours.

Beacause there exist a fact that requires further explanation :
why the first born child (in families of 2 or more childs) are more prone to crossdress that the last born ?

Please, consider, this is only a SLIGHT effect :
First born boys have only 1.5 time more chance to CD than last born ones.
It can't be considered as a very important difference.

I wonder it one of the many involved factors is the accepting/repressive home. Probably first born childs (boys) are more pressured to be standard men, not androgynous ones, and last born more free to adopt a more androgynous look if they want to.

That would trigger more first-born childs to seek for escaping pressure, and especially through CDing.:2c:

What annoys me most about the nature vs nuture debate is that it tends to ignore or belittle idea of personal choice. My personal belief is that everything is a choice. Certainly both genetic and environmental factors make certain choices easier and more natural than others, but everything is still a choice.

Hidden within this nature/nurture thing is the idea that "one size fits all." In other words, if being gay, or being transexual, transgendered, or being a crossdresser is a choice, then it must be the wrong choice! And you're obligated to "choose something better." Well, this is just crap. I choose to be a crossdresser. Nothing is making me do it. I'm doing it because I want to, and for me it's absolutely the right choice!

(And now I think I need to go shopping and choose some new lace panties, or maybe a cute little skirt, or a little black dress, or maybe some shoes ... )

Well I don't see the delima... I have no idea why I'm driven to crossdress... And call me shallow.. And maybe I am.. But for me at least.. Needing to know something that is almost impossible to find out... And spending the time and effort.. I just don't even want to go there..

Even if I did find out why.. Would that change anything going forward? I doubt it. Not for me. I'd still be driven to dress..

So basically.... If it doesn't add value or doesn't change my life going forward... Then knowing why just isn't worth the time spent.. I'd much rather spend that time helping someone.. Or improving myself .. Playing more ice hockey.. Or even going out enfemme.. Yeah.. Less time wondering and more time doing!! :)

But that's just me..

" Yes"!

( Or possibly, " No").

Interesting thread even if it has been done many times in many ways.

Whether it is genetic or congenital makes no difference because that simply puts it there as part of our being. If it is a lifestyle choice, then some of us have made it at an amazingly early age.

But consider this: Everyone has a certain broad spectrum of gender preference that simply exists within his head. Usually a man's spread is on the masculine side of the middle of the gender spectrum. However, this is not always the case just as there is no such thing as an average person. So, we find our gender spread a bit to the feminine of the mid point. We can then choose how we react to this; we can dress or we can shove it away. Denial results in stress and so many of us who are on the fem side, choose to dress and cook in the kitchen.

What I think I just said is that we need to separate the "who I am" from the "what I do". In many respects the "who I am" is a birth gift; the "what I do" is my free choice.

Having been a scientist my adult life I would like to know why. I would also like to personally thank whatever or whomever made me this way. I feel sorry for guys that can't experience what we do. When stressed I either go shopping or, if circumstances permit, get into some nice women's clothes and feel so relaxed.

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Originally Posted by RobynP

• It would be easy to determine who really is a crossdresser and who isn't ("by using our simple home t-test at only $39.95").

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Being trans, to me, has always seemed similar to dyslexia - it's impossible to draw a line to say someone is and someone isn't, consequently there is a wide variation in the numbers estimated who have the condition? 10% isn't uncommonly suggested, but this includes many with only a slight problem.

You can't see it when you look at someone, you can't measure it and sufferers tend to be self-diagnosed.. Sound at all familiar?

In my resaerch I have found that science is now presenting facts that there are 9 sets of chormosones possible for the human body. Thats right 9 not 2. People are starting to accept Gay as born that way, I feel it'll be a little longer and they'll start to accept us as born this way.

How many of us have purged? Only to have this thing of ours reappear with a stronger drive. When we accept this part of ourselves, do we not find things working out better for us? Like when you are trying to do something differently then the instruction say to do them and it just won't work or go together easliy. When we do stop and read the instructions it all works out. With ourselves we have no instruction booklet, all we can do is find the combination of items that fit and works. When we feel good about ourselves do we mot work better and perform different tasks better?

Myself, I was born this way!!!

Hugs Sandra

This type of thread had been done several times before but I've never really participated because it can get quite contentious. However, just for the record, I lean towards the hormone wash theory, which in turn makes us predisposed to CDing, followed by some sort of trigger (usually in childhood) to activate it :2c:

this is not a choice. I too lean towards the hormone wash theory, which in turn makes us predisposed to CDing, or being ts followed by some sort of trigger (usually in childhood) to activate it so very true.

It puts me into a funk when I focus a lot of time trying to figure out why.

I am at peace when I just allow myself to feel self-acceptance no matter what.

I choose peace.

Both, or either, or neither, I haven't got a clue as to why I'm a CDr. I stopped analysing myself a long time ago and started enjoying being myself.

As has been posted here many times before, we have no evidence as to the cause of one becomming a crossdresser. I doubt that any of us would choose this lifestyle, but as long as we're here let's enjoy the ride!

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Originally Posted by trannie T

I doubt that any of us would choose this lifestyle

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Who knows ?

In specific polls, there are always people who choose the option of - would they have the choice to be born again - to come as a GB with CD tendancies (just as they feel now), and not as a standard GB or a standard GG.

Everyone are different. That makes me deeply feel 'que tous les choix sont dans la nature' (every choice are expected), so that I would be very surprised that NOT some of us "would choose this lifesytle".

As for me, if faced to the choice to be born again, I consistently answer that I want I was born a girl.
However, it's very difficult to answer such a virtual question.
And the truth is I really enjoy very much my present condition of a part time TGirl.

Life has brought me about all I wanted as a man, except I missed lifelong the persistent feeling to be a pretty girl. The unique way to get all I wanted as a human being is to be the part time TGirl I am now.

I sincerely believe to live the best of two worlds. Most probably it can be the best lifestyle at all, at least for myself (but I'm convinced not to be alone to feel this way).:love:

I might have guessed that from an early age (I have been a child very early at school and academic studies).
And I remind having consistently felt that CDing ADDED me something I wanted, and was nothing of a problem, even if I was told by the DSM to be rather mentally ill.:devil: