This is what so many simply cannot accept. It seems that almost everyone wants to define exactly what makes someone a crossdresser, and what makes someone TG/TS. As if you can't be anywhere in the middle. And yet, there appear to be so many of us in the middle somewhere. There are clearly feelings and thoughts that put me on both ends of the spectrum. So why must I decide to be either one or the other?Originally Posted by flatlander_48
Some causes of crossdressing you've probably never even considered: My TG biography at:http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...=1#post1490560
There's an addendum at post # 82 on that thread, too. It's about a ten minute read.
Why don't we understand our desire to dress, behave and feel like a girl? Because from childhood, boys are told that the worst possible thing we can be, is a sissy. This feeling is so ingrained into our psyche, that we will suppress any thoughts that connect us to being or wanting to be feminine, even to the point of creating separate personalities to assign those female feelings into.
Where is the "like" button?
Thankful for crossdressers.com, great people here have helped me realize who I really am on the inside. (formerly michelle1)
Or...... maybe CDers are in the same basic spectrum but not fully on the female side. For many of us, perhaps we are somewhere in the middle and incorporate both genders?? @paulaQ#9 this illustrates how there is a difference between CDrs and TS's in that TS women talk most about what they don't like about being male vs how much they do like about being female, or feminine. @Tinkerbell#11.... then again, your husband and me are quite different also. I do not idolize women much. I admire them, sometimes even feel jealous and envious of them in ways, but they can irritate me often times too, the way women irritate men. My wife finds that I can irritate her by both being too much like a woman and being a regular guy. She also has stated that certain aspects of both she finds tolerable and even attractive. (not in a physical sense) but there are certain feminine aspects she does actually enjoy. and masculine ones as well.
Chickens should be allowed to cross the road without having their motives questioned
Love this thread! Such a topic is near and dear to my heart. I have dressed from a very young age up to now 28. I always knew there was something different about me. At a young age I often wished I had been born a girl. I had no clue what was wrong with me and why I had these thoughts I just felt so out of place in my body. As I aged I began to feel a great amount of shame and buried my thoughts and feelings under my male persona. College, Hunting, fishing, sports, girlfriends.... None of which I particularly cared for. I just participated because I thought that was what was expected of me as a MAN. After college I struggled to find my place in the world. 6 years later I am finally in a stable career I love, with a very loving and accepting girlfriend. Yet I still feel something is missing. I am still not happy with myself as a man. I am currently stuck somewhere in the middle. I now know and have accepted I am female at heart. I recently came out to my gf as trans and there has been some difficulty with the topic. How far will I take this I don't know. Cd or trans the line is blending more and more with each passing day. I'm hoping to start hrt soon!
As far as I am concerned the difference between me and most cross dressers is that I feel and have felt since puberty a discomfort with and dislike of identifying as male. From my reading here it seems most mtf cross dressers are content with being males but have a need to present sometimes as female. The reason I did not cross dress most of my life and did not consider myself trans anything but just suffered what to me was the ugliness, psychological and physical, of being a man, was that I did not realize until a few years ago that there was an alternative that did not require I become or even present as a woman. I never wanted to be a woman, I disliked being a man. I tended to prefer women to men and I certainly preferred the way women dressed and presented their gender to the way that men did but it seemed to me there were as many problems with identifying as a woman as a man. Well, maybe not quite as many.
Fortunately I was not alone and over the last couple of decades a vocabulary, a theoretical base, a psychological approach and even fashion has developed to recognize, identify and even celebrate people between the binaries of male and female. As far as the general population recognizing non binary, genderqueer or bi-gendered folk it might be a race to see who will be accepted first - cross dressers or the non binary. Transsexuals, to whom cross dressers and the non binary should be forever grateful, are working extremely hard for transgender rights and transgender acceptance. We all benefit from this even if we do not identify as trans.
I am very curious about the conceptual invisibility of non binary people on this forum. Very few posters seem to realize that gender identity really is a spectrum and to think and to talk always in the phrasing of the binaries of male and female skews the discussions continuously towards stereotypes. The way that very many people, particularly women and nowadays many young men present their gender identities is a mix of male and female in dress, gesture and psychology. As GGs on this forum frequently note, the way that many mtf cross dressers regard femininity has little to do with the actual lives of women and a lot to do with their conceptualized ideals of what a woman is.
The OP's question, and forgive me LeighR if this is not true, seems to presuppose that discomfort with one's gender requires acceptance and transition to another through gender reassignment surgery and/or HRT; or a dogged acceptance and resignation to one's gender as described by what one has between one's legs. But I would suggest that the majority of people who feel gender dysphoria go as far as they need to to overcome this dysphoria and that increasing numbers inhabit a gender and express a gender that is not quite at the binary. I think you will find this more common with ftm trans people than mtf but I read of and see images of trans people all the time who who are not presenting or trying to pass as a gender that was not the one assigned to them at birth. Even in this little town I see plenty of people like this although doubt that if I pull them to one side and demand to know if they are trans they will be anything but baffled. When I go to cities I am surrounded by young people of indeterminate gender and more than a few older ones.
Gender identity and expression is much more subtle and complicated than many of the discussions here would suggest. Perhaps this is a result of the population posting here being over 35. Perhaps it is a normal result of a certain exclusionary thinking that often occurs when people closely identify themselves with a group. Perhaps cross dressers are actually highly gender conforming within their cross dressing. I don't know.
It seems to me that the simplest breakdown of the difference is cd's are interested in doing things or adding things to increase femininity. Ts women think more about removing that which is masculine. At least this is my observation.
Just a few points,
1 a ts isn't a man who wants to be a woman. She is a woman. (Or a man if f2m)
2 if you aren't ts you cannot understand it at all.
3 if you aren't ts thank your lucky stars
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
In light of what others have said, I had been obsessed with trying to understand what category I fall under or what group of people I should socialize with here. My personal experience has shown me that this isn't something that really matters to me. I am grateful to all of those that are more open to the public about what they do and I hope to be in that position someday. I am grateful to all of those on this forum for the kind of acceptance I can't get in my own personal life regardless of where they may fall on the gender spectrum. Maybe it is my own ignorance but I don't understand why we obsess over our titles or categories anymore. We are all on the same side here. We can all fight for rights of this community at the ballot box or promote understanding without outing ourselves by treating everyone with respect and courtesy. Uniting is a far better idea than trying to define these categories that are dynamic and come in such a diverse spectrum. Was I ranting? I think I was ranting. Haha. :P
Angela, I disagree that not being a TS leads to no understanding at all. Granted, there are certain things about TS that I will not be able to understand, like how almost all TS have a strong dislike of their genitalia. Or how many will go to any length in order to become the opposite sex that they were born as. My observation has been that generally it seems that TS are more concerned with shedding the male, whereas CDers tend to desire to add female elements to their existing existence. Probably because internally TS are already comfortable about their internal femininity, so it is a matter of shedding what they do not like or want.
With Gender lets say men are RED and women are YELLOW, But then some have a little bit of yellow to mostly red and they are red orange. Then an equal mix and you have orange, then mostly yellow and you have yellow orange. I think that those of us who have varieties of orange, will have some understanding. Maybe not a full understanding, but some.
Chickens should be allowed to cross the road without having their motives questioned
The reality is that gender dysphoria can manifest itself in many ways, and all our stories are different. There are lots of common things we share, and any one of us who are TS will share lots of things in common with other TSes when it comes to GD, but not necessarily everything.
Also, it often takes lots of introspection and hindsight to break down the walls built as we were in denial to see the truth about ourselves.
I announced to my parents at the age of 5 that I was a girl, and my parents made it very clear to me that I was a boy. I learned from that day onward that I should never vocalize anything with regards to my gender identity.
I wanted to grow up to be a woman at age 8, but I never felt I could tell anyone because I thought people would think I was crazy.
At the age of 8, I became jealous of girls. I wanted to be seen as one of them, and to dress like them. I wanted to wear pretty dresses, makeup, and women's shoes.
From age 13 onward, I identified with female characters on TV shows and movies, but I could never talk about that with anyone because I felt like they wouldn't get it. Afterall, I am supposed to be a boy, and boys and girls are fundamentally different, so if I felt like a girl no one would get it and they would think I am crazy.
From age 13 onward, I had recurrent deep feelings that I am really a girl on the inside, but once again could never talk to anyone about this. Everyone would think I was crazy, and no one would understand. If I told anyone they would be very worried about me that something was seriously wrong with me.
From age 13 onward, I hated my body hair, my beard, and thought my body was the most disgusting, repulsive thing in the world. I felt that even if I could be hairless, that my body would still the most repulsive thing in the world.
I wore women's clothes privately from the age of 13 onward. Once again, I took every effort to make sure I would never get caught, and I never got caught.
From age 13 onward, whenever I saw a good looking girl, I wished I could be her. Unlike men, who want to sleep with her.
My parents noticed feminine mannerisms in me when I was a kid and a teenager, and I learned to repress those so that no one would ever figure out that I had gender issues.
When I had crushes on girls, I felt an emotional attachment to them rather than a desire to have sex with them. I felt like and wanted to be equal.
I would frequently fantasize about being a woman having sex with a man, yet I would claim to be a straight man.
I didn't even know what the word transgender was until the age of 22. I became fascinated with sex changes when I first heard about them as a teenager, although my first impression of a sex change was Liz Carmichael, a wanted fugitive featured on Unsolved Mysteries, so I thought that I must be a con artist in order to transition, so I shoved it down even more.
Every time I bought men's clothes, which were obviously from the men's section, I would have to ask my mom or the store clerk if they were men's clothes. I was so afraid that if I chose women's clothes that people would figure me out.
Every time I heard a story about transition, from age 22 onwards, I felt like I understood them, they understood me, and that I seriously wanted the opportunity to transition myself. I felt like transition was not in the cards for me due to life circumstances of being financially dependent on my father while in grad school.
I got my own apartment at age 22, and continued to dress as a girl privately, behind closed doors, for many years. I thought I was a closet crossdresser, and I hoped to keep it that way.
At age 30, my mom once told me that I had a deep man's voice. I was internally crushed. I looked down my hands and fingers and I felt like I saw slime pouring down my hands and fingers. My hands and fingers looked and felt really gross at that moment. A similar moment happened in 2013 when a GG kept pointing out how she's a woman and I'm a man.
Every time I read about crossdressers, I never could relate to the part about crossdressers being men who like to wear women's clothes.
Society told me that I am a man, and I blindly accepted what society told me. It was like society handed me a script, and said to follow it. I followed it as best as I could, but it was incredibly difficult for me to do so. I especially couldn't follow the lines about dating, relationships, and marriage.
When a psychic I used to consult for personal help started pressuring me into dating and marriage, I buckled. I became suicidal and prayed to God every day that I would die and be reincarnated as a woman in my next life and all lifetimes thereafter - every day from November, 2011, until August, 2013.
I dreaded having to "man up for real" and being a married man without even occasional crossdressing would be torture for me. Even the thought of being in a relationship with a woman who accepted CDers didn't appeal to me, because I would have to pretend to be the man that I am not, and go against my own fundamental nature.
Even though I fooled many people and people took me for being a regular man, I feel like some people subconsciously sensed the girl in me, leading some to tease me about being gay or a girl. This also lead to men not asking me to sponsor them in AA. This lead to women feeling a level of comfort around me that they would normally get around another woman. They might have not seen anything overtly feminine, but I feel they sensed it on a very subconscious level.
When I came out to my home group on Friday and showed myself as Michelle for the first time, three people told me that I was the most relaxed they had ever seen me in the entire 7 years they had known me. When one of them, a middle aged man, saw me for the first time as my authentic self, he told me that I "look real". The same guy later told me that in all the years he knew me, he felt that I appeared stiff, unrelaxed, and as if I was hiding something; as if I was keeping some big secret.
So yeah, I always knew, but I was in denial. I built up walls to repress myself, including the closet CDing wall. Now I am tearing down those walls and realizing that I did in fact know all along. But I did what I had to do to adhere to the script. I guess I could follow the male script until I got to the romance scene, then I realized I could no longer fake it.
I am in my first ever relationship, with a transgender man, who knew me only as Michelle. Sometimes I doubt if he is the right man for me, but at least now I am willing to try a relationship. If he's not the right one, I will find someone else.
Now I am no longer following any script, and I refuse to follow any more scripts. This includes the "soccer mom" script.
Last edited by Michelle789; 09-01-2014 at 05:58 PM.
I've finally mastered the art of making salads. My favorite is a delicious Mediterranean salad.
Posting Permissions
