Are we trying to impersonate women?

[Frédérique]

[SIZE="2"]Pardon me while I try to impersonate an essay writer…

Are we, MtF crossdressers, trying to impersonate women? Are we nothing more than female impersonators? Some of us are dressing up and trying to act like women, or, in some instances, we actively mimic women. My apologies to the many transgendered individuals who prowl this section of the forum – I assume that if you’re TG you might take offence at my little word exercise, since you approach crossdressing from a different direction, but some of us merely seek to impersonate women and dress accordingly (a thankless task, to be sure)…

Impersonate means to assume the role of, usually for purposes of entertainment or fraud: “And now for my next impersonation!” Unless you’re a drag artiste, I think entertainment is out of the question, although self-entertainment might be one desired outcome of crossdressing. Do we dress up to “assume the role” of women? Maybe we’re just trying to play a different part in this human play we seem to be stuck in – you know, I’m getting type-cast as a male, so I’d like to try a new role, and wear a completely new costume! It sounds like fun, and, since we’re only in a play, we can over-act appallingly and retreat to the dressing room as soon as the curtain comes down, or the inevitable “missiles” get airborne. Women can be role models for the MtF crossdresser, i.e. someone to look up to and emulate – I don’t really wish to take on their “role” in society, but I would like to play-act as a female from time to time…

OK, are we trying to act like women? This also means role-playing, in this thing called LIFE, a fictitious play that never seems to get good reviews. We dress up as women, and then we try to behave or comport ourselves as women, based on a lifetime of selected observations. Behave means to act in a specified way, and, in this case, many of us try to simulate an impression of a woman. We pretend to be female, or try to seem like one, and this involves acting. MtF crossdressing itself is an act, a state of reality or real existence, a true male accomplishment. Acting like a woman has been one of the major acts of my life, going beyond performance to personification – it is definitely a thing I have done, initiated by my innate love of female clothing, and it has changed me for the better. Since I built my “costume” from scratch I might as well play with the female role that I have inherited. I’m not the best actor, but I try. Does the actor have to become the person he’s playing, or can he just impersonate someone for a time?

Mimic might be the best term that describes my MtF crossdressing, since I don’t wish to actually become a woman. Mimicry is the act of copying closely, or imitating, or assuming a likeness. Over yonder I see a girl, or a woman, and I would like to look how she looks, wear what she’s wearing, and fold it into my own persona. Ok, I’m going to copy the original, from head to toe, and do the best I can – this interests me! Being an artist, I know that you learn by copying the masters (something you really like, for instance), in fact copying is what it’s all about IF you wish to get from point A to point B and achieve certain personal goals. So, I take note of what women are wearing, how they walk, how they talk, how they comport themselves, and I try to make the most sincere imitation (copy) I can. WHY I want to do this is very mysterious, but there’s a job to do, namely changing my appearance from M to F, and enjoying the difference. I mimic women, period…

Feign is another important word we can consider. To feign means to make-up, to fabricate, to invent, to imagine, to form, or to shape. I imagine myself as a woman, so I re-shape myself accordingly. I have formed an idea in my head, and darned if I’m not going to flesh it out in some way – the conception is that strong. I must do this, mainly for the fun of it, but it also frees the imagination and challenges whatever gender precepts I have been force-fed since childhood. I know what I’m getting myself into. It is my dearest wish that this creation of mine is not seen as counterfeit, or some form of abject mockery. My intentions are honorable, which is why I rarely make a public performance, preferring to spend all my time in the dressing room perfecting my deviant craft...

Few would appreciate the effort that goes into mimicry, or impersonation, or, for that matter, invention, experimentation, and imagination, yet people admire actors. It is literally a work-in-progress, this “girl” of mine, a self-portrait that I have slaved over for a long, long time. I flatter my “self” through imitation, based on reverence for the original…

Tell me - are we MtF crossdressers impersonators, actors, mimics, or are we just trying to be ourselves? [/SIZE]

[Julie1123]

Its probably varying degrees of all of those or some of those or one of those for various people.

I think for me, I definitely wish to mimic the way women look and also, in doing so, it brings out, allows me to work with a more feminine aspect of myself. So through the mimicry (no negative connotation there) I can more fully embrace myself in total. I think. It gets confusing at times.

[StarrOfDelite]

May I suggest that the word "pretense" might also be applicable. An effort to make something which is False appear to be True.

[darla_g]

My wife keeps saying that if you truly knew all the issues with being a women that you would never want to become one. I like the term emulate, provide the appearance of. That's why underdressing just doesn't cut it for me.

[Angela Campbell]

Can it be the idolization of women?

And Darla, if she truly knew the issues with being a man she wouldn't say that.

[Kate Simmons]

Not necessarily my friend. I think many of us are just trying to hone our craft.

[Lady Catherine]

I'll go with a little bit of all of the above.

[Nanaya]

Not in my case, and I have no interest in being anything like a girl, but...

I think that most TGs and TSs do more than just impersonate girls. A lot of women would say "There's more to being a girl than dressing and being pretty", but I say there's more to being a girl than having periods and getting pregnant. I mean, what makes TGs any less of a girl than a real girl, aside from biological things? For all intents and purposes, they ARE girls. So it's not so much impersonating than it is being themselves. That's my point of view anyway.

[ReluctantDebutant]

I believe that people are always just trying to be themselves at all times. I find it odd sometimes when members of this community say they must not really be a man because they like to do X Feminine activity or feel Y Feminine emotion and men do not do that thing or feel that way. But the mere act of them being a man doing that activity and feeling that emotion negates that concept. As to dressing up I'll look at it from the other aspect in my life where I dress up Holloween, Sci-fi Conventions, and the Renaissance Festival, Am I trying to become these things or merely express the things I like to the world? So perhaps when I cross-dress alone I am expressing what I like to myself?

[April_Ligeia]

People impersonate other people. How many times have you heard a guy talk about his father or some other role model? Deep inside everyone's psyche is a set of role models that they have been impressed by over the course of their lives, role models which they impersonate. This set of influences combined with the person's own character traits creates an individual personality. Maybe for some people it is subconscious, but that doesn't mean they aren't doing it. Maybe crossdressers have role models for "male" mode and for "female" mode, and perhaps cisgendered people only have same-sex role models, while transexuals have mostly or only role models of the opposite sex.

[lauren_m]

In some ways, I'm more of a male impersonator than a female one. Although I don't have a truly feminine build, I've always been far from masculine, and have had to make a deliberate effort not to appear feminine (or overly effeminate) in the way I walk, gesture, dance, play sports, etc. Over the years and decades, this got fairly ingrained in me. When I started spending more time as Lauren, I actually struggled with moving in a feminine manner, until I realized that it was actually more a matter of unlearning certain behaviors than learning new ones. Instead of trying to pile learned feminine mannerisms on top of learned masculine ones, I focused on lowering my lifelong inhibitions, and that's where I made my greatest breakthroughs. I'm still far, far away from being passable, but my Lauren side feels very natural for me because, in many respects, its sort of my base state, where I'm not affirmatively trying to move in a certain way, but rather trying to repress the instinct to do something different.

[Jamie001]

I am not trying to impersonate a woman. I am a feminine male and my purpose it is to just be myself.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Darla,

I would agree with your wife,

Knowing about is very different than being, Ill go a step more, being female & thinking as one there is no comparison , that is the difference between men & women .

From what i see & know many men are impersonating, & takeing on our form , heres the crunch take all the props away what is left, be honist what do you have when you stand alone with nothing on & have to bare all. & to be more honist can you all say you are a female or a woman.

My reason for this is of cause is many i know say oh yes im a woman & dress, yet there is totaly nothing there that would suggest any thing other than the person is all male,

Now Jos & i have talked about this & does know some i know & Jos has said well what was that about who was he trying to fool. certainly not Jos or myself, now had they said they like wearing womens clothes not an issue, its when they try & impersonate us then that changes every thing about the person, so why do they persist in trying to be us when they are not,

Ill not get in to the Psychological or Emotional side of this as thats very different than just the wearing of clothes,

...noeleena...

[Gaby2]

[SIZE="2"]Pardon me while I try to impersonate an essay writer…
...
Tell me - are we MtF crossdressers impersonators, actors, mimics, or are we just trying to be ourselves? [/SIZE]

I liked that one, Freddy!!! That's a wonderful self-jibe!

Of course we are impersonating, acting and mimicking females but these descriptions are nonetheless too superficial for our CDing.
For better or worse, IMHO we are all trying to get to the heart of an inclination by embracing it - some more, some less.

Despite (sometimes radical) differences of opinion, we CDers have a common and somewhat exotic bond which brings us together in a very good and caring way, exemplified by our forum.

BTW, Lauren's post really, really caught me off-guard:

In some ways, I'm more of a male impersonator than a female one...

Gaby

[NicoleScott]

Some guy is forcing the image in his mirror to make up and dress up to be as pretty and sexy as possible, according to his definitions, for his pleasure. She is at his mercy, and she has no intention to imitate, impersonate, mimic, or feign. She just obeys.

[Maria S]

I am not trying to impersonate anyone. I learn from women I come in contact with and see when I'm out and about. It's almost like how a little girl learns from her mum and older sisters to flourish into a women. She has learnt from them but still develops her own personality.

Maria

[Fiona K]

Impersonation implies buying in to the gender binary, I don't.
I'm transgendered (in the global sense of the word) and as such, I express myself in feminine presentation some of the time.

[carhill2mn]

As for me, I try to emulate what I think are the best attributes of women.

[Stephanie47]

Check the thread on "Female Alter-egos.

You cannot impersonate the person you are!

[Beverley Sims]

I used to tell everyone I was a female impersonator.
That makes it sound like an art form and not something camp, like X dresser.
If you want to get wordy, emulate could fit in there somewhere.

[Jeannie]

I CD because I like to and I just love the feeling of wearing the different types of materials and how they feel on my skin. That said I totally agree with Darla's wife. I personally will never know the exact feeling of the total woman and you cannot separate any of the biological functions from them. We can take hormones that allow us take on the outward physical and emotional characteristics of the female persona but, as I have said before until we can have babies, yes I know that some women cannot have babies but the Mothering emotion is still very strong in most women, and have to go through the monthly menstrual cycle then we can never truly be a woman. We are crossdressers (some are better that others) imitators, mimics or what ever you want to call it. I am not trying to take away from your experience in any way and I have my fantasy's too, but I am also aware of who and what I am. I love being a crossdresser and I do it whenever I want to and however I want to. This is simply my opinion nothing more. Hugs to everyone!!!!

[suchacutie]

For me there is no impersonation involved. Tina exists and she is feminine. She did not grow up as a girl so she has a lot to learn, and it's nothing more than she would have learned had she been available right from the begining of life!

I understand that some of what we consider "being a woman" is not learned in the first 20 years of life, but is built into the wiring of the brain. However, those characteristics were not cultivated in Tina for the first 55 years of my life, and what we are trying to do is to allow Tina to become concious of her feminine characteristics, to no longer push them down under those of her male side.

For us, it is a road of discovery and learning to be whoever Tina is, and not an impersonation of some foreign self then ascribed to Tina.

Having said that: I do think that if Tina were to don a Halloween costume and become someone else, that would be impersonation, regardless of the gender of that someone else .

[kimdl93]

First, since I identify as transgendered, I guess I have acknowledge that I'm doing more than an impersonation...its a matter of expressing at least a major, if not dominant part of my identity. But, for those who dress without identifying themselves as TG, I think its perfectly alright to mimic, impersonate or imagine oneself as a woman. Why not...no one has a proprietary claim on gender presentation. So dress up and role play, impersonate and pretend to one's heart's content. Its perfectly OK.

[Jaymees22]

I'm a faux women but a real person. This thread got me to thinking of something I heard a long time ago. We were at an estate auction and the auctioneer described what he was selling as "Genuine Imitation Carnival Glass" So maybe I'm a genuine imitation myself, who knows....Jaymee

[LaraPeterson]

Ah, Frederique, I'm learning to love reading your posts. You really do write very well while trying to impersonate an essay writer. I hope you know that my sarcasm is all in fun. I'm more than a bit caustic sometimes, but hey, we all gotta be what we gotta be, right?

In two of your previous posts you wrote, "I just like to wear women's clothes," and "I like to wear women's clothes." I'm probably wrong in this assumption, but I took that to mean that you had no intention or predisposition toward acting like a woman.

Now, in your missive about impersonation, you write, "I don’t really wish to take on their “role” in society, but I would like to play-act as a female from time to time…" and you ended the piece with something I genuinely appreciated, "Tell me - are we MtF crossdressers impersonators, actors, mimics, or are we just trying to be ourselves?"

For me, the answer is yes, all of the above, especially just trying to be ourselves. I realize we are all at different places in our life journey and at different levels of commitment to this "femme" thing in our lives. I believe I am more than a crossdresser but less than a transexual. That's why I came here, to try to figure it out.

As I read more and more from the various posters (I dare not say girls/ladies) I've discovered that many really believe they are women in men's bodies while others view this as no more than a relaxing time in different clothing.

I have an idea. Maybe we all need to see a good therapist. Oops, I thought I was one of those once. And then I discovered I was on the wrong side of the room.

BTW, I've been through your lovely state many times going home to the land of my forefathers, ND.

Keep 'em coming guy/girl/lady/fellow MtF crossdresser/agent of pink fog/ whatever the h.... we are supposed to be.