Why is crossdressing so frightening?

[drushin703]

sarahcsc:

This past Saturday my neighbor caught a glimpse of a tall (six foot two in four inch heels), stockinged, angular figure, walking at a fast past thru the yard
and quickly slamming the door shut.Out eyes never met but I am sure he was thinking, who else could it have been but Dana. I dont know what I feared the most. Him
finding out that I crossdressed or me, letting him down, for being a crossdresser. I am currently out to no one in my family, friends or neighbors.Yet I frequent
all the local drag clubs and gay bars where drag queens and crossdressers congregate. I am not ashamed of who I am and I absolute love being a crossdresser
but on reading the other posts, thats the paradox were trying to confess here.We love ourselves, we hate to disapoint,we fear being found out, we loathe being
embarresed and we CANT stop.

Regardless as to what he saw, what anyone might say or think, who laughs or lampoons or finds my actions rediculous, I shall continue to crossdress
.................to paradise....dana

[bridgetta]

because humans are frightened monkees.. we build walls around us to seperate us from nature.. homes.. with cement.. .. naturality is a threat... the fake reality humans have created is an illusion that is killing us.and will soon make us extinct.. if we dont adapt...

[Kerstin]

For me it's the two R's: ridicule and rejection. I guess the ridicule would be the easiest thing to deal with, but the rejection would cut like a knife. But then those things might not even happen, so it boils down to fear of the unknown.

[Sallee]

It is good that you helped him and proved you were a nice person and not a mad crossdressser looking to pervert everyone

[Joanne f]

There is the lack of understanding as to why someone would want to alter the natural balance of things but instead of trying to understand the person who is doing it they turn it around and start to think about themselves and think that other people will start to judge them for mixing with someone like it , so they become fearful of how they will be judged .

[Double Sided Card]

I think just in general cross dressers are portrayed and shown off as perverts and freaks, like Buffalo Bill the movie silence of the lambs. The reality of it is that of those who are cross dressers are often times very hidden among the population. Also I noticed that even though I cross dress I generally do not like to see other men cross dressing. I guess that is just a double standard.

[Sandra]

Joe/Jane public is frightened of anything that they don't understand.

[RADER]

I think many people fear crossdressers because they're afraid it might be catching.

I do believe the drug companies are working on a pill as we speak.

We all see women wearing mens clothes, no big deal. But when a men wears a dress we are labeled a freak. Society has been brought up to believe that a man
must be the Macho type to bring in a living for the household. A man in a skirt
is just not macho enough to accomplish that job.
Society might never lose site of that myth, but we must never give up the
chance to prove that a man can wear anything like a woman can.
Rader

[PretzelGirl]

I am more inclined to say it isn't about who comes to mind when you say Crossdressers. My wife and daughters wouldn't come up with any of the names above other than maybe RuPaul. I think that any derision comes more from ignorance. And that is why I am always here saying that education is the key. How do they know to call a MTF ma'am? Education. How do they know there is no difference in us outside of the clothes? Education.

[busker]

I think if we had religion-neutral education where anything that is relevant in society ,if not discussed extensively, is at least discussed, as people grew up, this would not likely be a problem. As you have pointed out, we don't fear the possibility of a gambling problem because gambling is sort of everywhere with lotteries nearly universal, so as children grow up, gambling per se is not a big deal. If we could have teachers discuss the entire range of people in the world from males to females and all that is in between, there would be less trouble and fear. But where to find those teachers who do not let their personal bias enter into their teaching? Would schools allow it? By making things ordinary, we take away fear. That is the complaint about violence in the media--we get immune to it by example. If children grew up gender neutral they wouldn't fear their friends who one day said they were gay or cross dressers. It would be changed in a generation but how do we say that from now on, everything will be different throughout the world. We can't even agree that women should have universal abortion rights and contraception should be available to all of the proper age, and that medical insurance should cover this. how on earth are we going to say no one should fear a crossdresser when we can't take care of the basics.?

[Valerie1973]

Why are people afraid of snakes? I say, why ask why.

[Foxglove]

Why are people afraid of snakes? I say, why ask why.

If you've ever seen a rattlesnake, I think you'll have your answer. I've never heard of a TG person biting somebody, but I suppose it isn't out of the question. I don't know how venomous their bite would be.

[Jacqueline Winona]

Needles scare me to death, can't look at them, hate to think of them. Snakes, I run away from but can handle if I have to.

[sarahcsc]

Thank you all for your comments and it has certainly shed more light on the topic. I have read all of them and there were some key points to summarize here.

1. Fear is generated within ourselves and it reflects our fear of public rejection and ridicule
2. The public fear the unknown and crossdressing is one of them. They would rather put up with gambling or cheating or homosexuality.
3. Wives would much prefer their husbands cheating on them than having them as crossdresser
4. Most of the public people don't care because they don't comment
5. There are very rigid expectations set upon men by society

I told my ex-GF that I may want to go out en Femme these days and it drove her crazy. She wanted to see a psychologist or psychiatrist because she felt my decision would drive her mad. She is one of the reasons why I couldn't come out totally... She was so worried that her friends might see me and she wouldn't know what to say to them.

I understand that the public doesn't care and I think if we dressed well enough, they wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. Some of us look so good that guys would hit on us. Yet I am not very concerned about the public but rather than the people closer to us.

It is our friends and family that suffers the most and they couldn't tell me why. :s

[phballet]

i think your summary is a real good one.

gender construct is a terms that some people came up with to sound all academic and important:> (bah...)

the reason for bringing this up is that pple have argued that gender is a performance (i have the references cuz i have studied some stuff in this area...but i dun wanna bore you:>) in the sense that we learn how to act in a certain way according to our biological sex (which includes how we dress). Going against this script is seen to be "not normal" and the degrees to which each society reacts to such pple differs from place to place and across time.

Like many have said its frightening to some because they are going against what was taught or imparted to them as what they should do or how they should dress. As you have pointed out this fear is "within us" but happens because of what goes on "outside" of us....like for example as a boy growing up we were taught to play with monster trucks and not dolls, that we should be strong and athletic not dainty and softspoken (in other words that we shd be masculine not feminine)

So even if you and i would agree that crossdressing doesn't really hurt anyone as compared to having an affair or being a murderer or whatever, this rationalization does not come as natural as "performing" according to the gender script that society has "written" for us. Thats why pple run out of reasons to explain why crossdressing is wrong on this basis and always end up with ".....uh....its just weird..."

hope this is not too confusing:> just my two cents....could be wrong!

[sarahcsc]

Hmm... I think your explanation is definitely plausible!

I have to point out that crossdressing or transexualism is not viewed negatively at all in certain countries, in fact, in Thailand, it is almost cool to be transgendered! How bizarre!

[Acastina]

More people are afraid of public speaking than they are of death. Crossdressing is public speaking on steroids, so to say. It is simple embarrassment that no one wants, CD or non-CD alike. Overcoming this fear should be liberating but getting there is all the challenge.

I guess I'm the exception, pretty fearless about both public speaking and crossdressing. No substitute for time on the track for either endeavor...

[PretzelGirl]

It is interesting this is a thread on fear. I think fear makes us think of crossdressing as the worst thing in other people's minds. Our wives would withstand us cheating before crossdressing? That is a hard one to believe. There are many of us here that have accepting wives or wives who say "not in front of me" and I'll bet they wouldn't put up with a minute of us cheating. How about we have a better opinion of ourselves?

[sarahcsc]

I have found that my fear is of people finding out. Once they know, my fears are gone and I am bold. I never transform. Being seen as a girl doesn't mean that much to me. I just love their clothes!

(taken from another thread)
I totally agree with this actually... Again, it is the fear of the unknown. We stop fearing once it is out in the known. Which begs the question, what do people mean when they said they're not ready? I think people will get ready once they're exposed to the truth! We will never be ready for the unknown because we don't know what are we preparing ourselves for!!

It is interesting this is a thread on fear. I think fear makes us think of crossdressing as the worst thing in other people's minds. Our wives would withstand us cheating before crossdressing? That is a hard one to believe. There are many of us here that have accepting wives or wives who say "not in front of me" and I'll bet they wouldn't put up with a minute of us cheating. How about we have a better opinion of ourselves?

Imagine a husband said he was cheating with another woman and the wife goes "its okay as long as you don't do it in front of me". lol