gay CD

[flatlander_48]

Because I'm not gay, I can't see the attraction of crossdressing in the way that I like to crossdress to someone who is attracted to men.

However, by focusing on what is a very small subset, are you missing the larger picture? I can understand curiosity and academic interest, but you're out there at the thin end of the branch.

I know this sounds like I am re-inventing the wheel, but I think it is very important for us to question our motives, to better understand ourselves, and those who are not exactly like us.

I believe the only way to REALLY understand what leads an individual to crossdress is to enter into extensive counseling. I think the chances of us figuring this out by ourselves are not good. It is very difficult to be objective about ourselves.

I will continue to examine why I feel the way I do- it is at odds with the great majority of people, and it causes problems. It is worth continued attention.

It sounds like you think that you can "fix" yourself; that if you understood the "why", you could eliminate it. Was that your meaning? Patently NOT True if it involved gender identity issues and I would wonder about dressing for other reasons (sexual gratification, etc.). Concerning the other reasons, something has happened to make it OK (or legitimate) to cross a gender boundary.

Also, acceptance of those in the other parts of our disparate community should be the same as for any religious group, ethnic group, nationality, etc. Much like Unconditional Love, we choose to accept first. Hopefully understanding comes later. But to me, it sounds like you expect understanding comes first and then acceptance. If that is the case, you may never get to acceptance.

And as a piece of information, I do have experience in Diversity and Inclusion, Multi-culturalism, etc. I was involved in, and led, various employee affinity groups for nearly 20 years. In my career of 43+ years (now retired), I worked with, for and led people from 18 different countries. I was also an active member of our LGBT employee affinity group for 12 years and our Black engineer's group for 20 years (president for 3).

To close, I suspect that for many here, being exposed to the LGBT community (or at least the T part) is their first contact with the notion of Diversity and Inclusion. Further, this isn't Talk Radio B/S. This is real stuff because it often involves people with whom you actually come into contact. What interests and thoughts we share brings us together. Our differences are something to be appreciated, celebrated and respected. All too often those who wish divide and conquer attempt to use those differences to drive wedges and we must not allow that to happen.

DeeAnn

[CandyGirl]

I speak from a personal experience !
I like what's pretty, wether it's clothes, make up or anything. so that's why i crossdress !
now treating the sexual orientation i'm attracted to woman but my mind keeps telling me that crossdressers especially if they are cute, look like woman so i can't stop my self from being turned on and attracted to them !
a normal man in casual clothes and everything ? it sure won't catch my attention in anyway possible !
i don't know how this exacly work so... hahaa

[Tracii G]

Why is it so hard for people to let go and enjoy who they are?
Who cares why, it just is.Stressing and worrying isn't going to make the situation change or get better.
Accept yourself first without that all the other issues will haunt you forever.
All the books and pie chart types with all their graphs and numbers still can't find the answer so is it a fruitful endeavor?

[PattyT]

Isn't is possible that a gay person could also be a CD? Aren't they 2 different categories? A gay person is still a male and just like the rest of the males might very well have a femine side which he needs to express. I cannot see the 2 categories as mutually exclusive.

[flatlander_48]

All the books and pie chart types with all their graphs and numbers still can't find the answer so is it a fruitful endeavor?

The short answer is no, is isn't.

I really think that when people ask why they do what they do, they are really looking for what they can change/fix/undo so that they will no longer have the desire, or need, to dress. The thing is, if reversion therapy didn't work for gays and lesbians, what are the chances that the desire, or need, to dress would go away?

Isn't is possible that a gay person could also be a CD?

Certainly. However, you're talking about a subset of a subset. From all accounts here, and what I've read external to this site, it just is not that common. If you consider it from that viewpoint, why is this even a topic of discussion?

DeeAnn

[Robin414]

Interesting point Kristin, 'back in the day' I used to think crossdressing was a sign you were gay as well but after getting out of diapers I realized gay guys don't like women, why would they want to emulate one?

Then I saw 'drag'...oh, OK, poking fun at women by going over the top, I kinda get that.

But now, I'm beginning to realize just how separate 'gender' and 'sexuality' really are. What you are and what you're attracted to don't (quite often) line up, and that's cool! ☺

[Tracii G]

It can be a revelation when you figure that out LOL.

[Pat]

Isn't is possible that a gay person could also be a CD?

Actually, I remember reading a study that held that the ratio of straight/gay/bi was the same for MtF crossdressers as it was for the general population, which made a lot of sense to me given that I accept that sexuality is different than gender. Sorry I can't cite it, but it's been a few years.

[Dana44]

In my experience, the gay folks do not like women. They want men. But some likes a boy-girl and one that i had wanted me to be very feminine. And another wanted me to be a house wife. But I am Bi and I like women better. But there are some, a very low number who will take a boy-girl and treat them right.

[josrphine]

Hi All, Read all the threads , The one thing I don't see is if you have SO or a wife is she lesbian if she is with you. My wife said she is not but when we get together she is more excited then when she is with me as a male. Lets chue on that for a while. Jo

[Tracii G]

No because you are a male actually and she knows that.
I suspect she is enjoying a fantasy nothing more.

[flatlander_48]

My wife said she is not but when we get together she is more excited then when she is with me as a male.

Perhaps it is just the thought of breaking a societal taboo...

DeeAnn

[Ressie]

Everyone is saying that gay men only want men. Don't some gay men want to attract straight men? That would be a good reason for a gay man to crossdress.

[Lorileah]

I have no idea what this is all about. It has become a really bad modern art project where everyone is throwing paint.

Premise, why aren't gay men dressing like women? Easy answer, the same reason straight men don't. Not their cup of tea.

Premise, Gay men don't dress as women and gay men cannot or are not attracted to them. I have many many drag queen friends who are in solid relationships with their "male" partner. One just celebrated 20 years together and the DQ lives as female at home and in social places.

Premise, Stereotypic male female roles in a relationship. While most my gay friends (OMG...I said it...I HAVE gay friends...lots of them. And the don't hate me or despise me or marginalize me) have set roles in their lives, not all do and they do just fine.

Premise, no gay male (and let's narrow this to men who are "pure" gay and not bi) would ever want a CD (or TS ). Well never say never and always avoid always. I have a gay (very) friend who was interested in me before he found the man of his life. I have had two other gay guys want to date.

Premise, if your SO has sex with you while you are dressed, she has lesbian tendencies. NO! She is having sex with a man who dresses like a woman. You are not lesbian when you have that boy part and you USE it. You are a crossdresser having sex with a woman.

Again, I have no idea what the focus of this thread is. But since the title is "Gay CD" I'm going to say, let's stay with things that include gay CDs

[Tracii G]

Why would a gay man want to attract a straight man Ressie?

[flatlander_48]

Premise, Stereotypic male female roles in a relationship. While most my gay friends (OMG...I said it...I HAVE gay friends...lots of them. And the don't hate me or despise me or marginalize me) have set roles in their lives, not all do and they do just fine.

Scratch this one as I said it already...

Everyone is saying that gay men only want men. Don't some gay men want to attract straight men?

No, not that I have noticed and not from personal experience either. I think the hierarchy goes something like this:

1. Is the person the right sex? (men for men, women for women)
2. Do they possess at least some traits that would be found attractive? (looks, intelligence, athletic body type or whatever is your preference, wealth, etc.)
3. Are they available? (i.e. single)
4. Straight or gay? This is where the complication begins.
   
   1. Are you willing to invest more time (probably considerably more time) in developing the relationship?
   2. Are you prepared to deal with a low probability of success?
   3. If you are not completely out, what's the probability that the person's displeasure with you could lead to being outed?

DeeAnn

[Krististeph]

@ Lorileah and Tracii:

I knew this was going to cause some hub-bub, but I was reading a thread that talked about how many of the general public equate crossdressing with being gay just because it has aspects femininity.

Accepting the general consensus that most CDs are not explicitly gay, I simply wanted to look at it from an opposing assumption. Despite the amount of replies, I don't think this thread adds much to what we already believed.

But I think the thread has re-iterated that gender and sexual preference are fairly independent for the majority of people.

As much as some of us are very happy to simply be and enjoy themselves without question, there are those of us who are happiest trying to figure things out, for any number of reasons, but mostly, simply because we enjoy discovering things.

Thanks again for everyone's comments- I doubt I'd get such a wide range of well considered responses on any other board!

-kristi

[flatlander_48]

I knew this was going to cause some hub-bub, but I was reading a thread that talked about how many of the general public equate crossdressing with being gay just because it has aspects femininity.

The thing is, which doesn't get discussed much, is that this opinion is basically a lie. MANY gay men are very masculine in appearance, deportment and thought processes. How many times does this turn up in personal ads:

Straight acting GM seeks straight acting GM...

We've seen baseball, basketball and football (both kinds!) players come out in recent times. And as far as being masculine, professional athletes set a pretty high bar.

Once again the general public is hamstrung by their ignorance. It's much easier to believe that every gay man is a hairdresser than actually seeking the truth.

DeeAnn

[Tina_gm]

Everyone is saying that gay men only want men. Don't some gay men want to attract straight men? That would be a good reason for a gay man to crossdress.

Ummmm, for a challenge? Like how some regardless of sexuality like to get another to cheat on their partner. Maybe a gay guy becomes attracted to a straight guy, so maybe he tries to attract the straight gut simply because he likes him??

I don't remotely pretend to know or understand being attracted to a man. Even though I have often wondered (in the past) why I wasn't with my gender issues. However, I am somewhat certain that sexual orientation doesn't block all of the rest of the human experience both good and not so good.

Why would a gay person do X? For the same reason (s) a straight person does most likely.

[Ressie]

Why would a gay man want to attract a straight man Ressie?

I don't know but I googled it for you.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sa=N&hl...+straight+guys

[Tracii G]

Ok I see your point Ressie so whatever floats your boat I guess.

[PaulaQ]

Come to think of it, from my point of view, it is not kind of odd that there actually ARE gay men who crossdress?

Well, it turns out that some gay men who crossdress are, in fact, straight women. I know several such women. And there are plenty of fem gay men. They tend to suppress it, other than drag, because just like every other place in our culture, masculinity is favored over femininity in the (white) gay male community. Grindr is replete with men looking for "masc men. no fem, fats, asians." A lot of gay white male culture is only slightly less messed up than straight white male culture...

I have become more aware of this not because I ever identified as a gay man - I didn't. I wasn't ever actually with a guy until well into transition, and I'm bisexual anyway. But somehow, I have become an admin of a local facebook group called "Fem and Fabulous" - dedicated to all feminine people, men and women. The dudes who mostly post on it are gay men. (At least as far as we know!) Sadly, they don't seem to know about the huge CD community of straight feminine men. I'm not sure how I got roped into this, but it's educational hearing their struggles with finding relationships as fem gay men.

Toxic masculinity really hurts an awful lot of us.

Everyone is saying that gay men only want men. Don't some gay men want to attract straight men? That would be a good reason for a gay man to crossdress.

It's actually a pretty bad tactic if your goal is to get laid. It's hard enough for a lot of trans women to attract cisgender straight guys, and we have all sorts of advantages over a gay dude who's CDing - like real breasts, hormonal changes, and, you know, actually being women...

There are gay dudes who fantasize about "turning out" straight dudes. Ironically enough, these guys almost to a man treat bisexual men badly - despite the fact that a stereotypically straight acting bi guy would pretty much be what they are looking for. Bi guys have it really bad in the gay community, there are fewer of them than gay men, and so they are really badly stigmatized. Gay male culture, at least here in the states, mostly worships straight looking, straight acting, stereotypically masculine or even hyper-masculine men.

BTW, there are lots of ads on Craigslist for guys who are trolling for straight men who want to be gratified, no strings attached, by a gay guy. My guess is that any man responding to such an ad is probably bisexual, and in denial or on the down low about it all. We are, in general, so screwed up in this country about sex and sexuality that it's really hard to tell what's going on with people in many cases. (There are good reasons for bi guys to keep it quiet too - it's WAY easier to be perceived as straight, and bisexuals take abuse from both the straight and the gay communities.)

Oh, one last thing. I think that several factors really drive the things I describe in this post:
1. Homophobia - particularly internalized homophobia on the part of some gay men.
2. Misogyny and toxic masculinity
3. Biphobia - again often internalized on the part of some bisexual men

It doesn't make you gay, or even necessarily bi if you experiment with someone of the same sex a time or two. One of the more toxic ideas in both the gay and the straight world is the notion of being a "gold star". That is, you aren't really straight, if you've ever so much as kissed someone of the same sex (unless you are a woman - then that's ok and kind of hot). Likewise, in the gay / lesbian world, there are "gold star gays" and "gold star lesbians" - that is, gays or lesbians who've ONLY been with partners of the same sex. The idea that somehow only having sex with one particular gender makes you superior to others is just sickening, in my opinion.

[Tina_gm]

Paula, you bring up the "toxic masculinity " something I have been very observant of as of late.

I wrote about something similar awhile back. I was inquiring if it was a national phenomenon. It is, but to a lesser degree in many places. ReineD had even found an article about the lumber sexual, which has some relevance.

The toxic masculinity I see, seems so full of general anger. Extremely closed minded super strict in belief males. Facebook posts, the redneck ways is the right way. Ones that say ladies if yes man ain't out huntin, n fishin, you got a girlfriend .

These males always have a general blank if not an angry expression. Generally rude. Now, the area which I live which is an area one would not think which would see such a substantial rise in this hyper toxic masculinity, so what I describe is not necessarily mirrored through out the country in any big extent. The homophobia and gender phobia around here is very strong. Why here, I really don't know. It wasn't always this way here.

[PaulaQ]

gendermutt - I think that several things are happening all at the same time that are contributing to this phenomenon. In a lot of ways, our society functions a LOT like a dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional families can often seem pretty healthy when viewed from the outside, at least until pressures, internal and external, upset the equilibrium of the family. That's normally when things get *really* ugly.

In the case of our society, there are several dysfunctional dynamics in play:
1. We (mainly meaning white people) DO NOT talk about the problems in our society, or even acknowledge them in many cases. (This is especially true of problems of race.)
2. Much of the activity that goes on in the society really works to meet the needs of a VERY small number of people. The rest of us attempt to meet our needs in various unhealthy ways:
2a) We take pride in our status and privilege over those deemed "less than us" by society. Even if our superiority isn't tacitly stated, we depend on it for our self esteem
2b) We consume many things we don't need - material things, alcohol, all sorts of things. This mirrors what the people on top do, btw.
3. When something goes wrong, we look for someone "less than" us to blame and sometimes to punish.
4. Any information that contradicts your beliefs is a DIRECT attack on your very existence.

So things like marriage equality and the greater visibility of trans people and fears about immigration generate a huge amount of backlash because they are issues about people viewed by many in society as being "less than". The real issue, and what I think makes many males, particularly white males, angry is that over the past 20 years, there has been little to no improvement in wages in the US, and many, many jobs have been eliminated or moved overseas. This creates huge frustration on the parts of many people, but particularly men, who are used to being on top economically, at least relative to others. There isn't much they can do about any of these big, macroeconomic things, so they lash out at people they can reach - LGBT people, women, immigrants. At least they don't feel they can do much about the big things that are giving them misery, because to do so would upset the hierarchy in which they participate, the system they've bought into. And point #4 that I make above says that basically admitting you are mistaken about something is simply unacceptable.

So given all that, many men feel left with little else to do except lash out. Some women feel the same way - after all, most of them have bought into the same system.

People rationalize all this stuff in a variety of ways - politics, religious views, etc. I don't mean to belittle any of those sincerely held beliefs people have, but in my opinion, they are just window dressing. Most of this stuff is about control and position and hierarchy, and a number of factors have contributed to damaging those things for a rather large number of people, particularly men. Their beliefs simply justify what they do about this frustration, again, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong - most of them have good reason to be angry. Their anger is simply focused on the wrong people, for the most part. These men have been told "work hard - you can be wealthy!" and are discovering that there aren't any jobs, and if they do get one, they pay today's prices with wages that have largely stood frozen for 20 years. They feel they are moving backward, because they are. In that light, "gains" by others, even if the "gain" is really a remedy to an awful societal abuse, are bitter things to watch. Because, after all, our society is founded on abuse - treating those folks badly should be OK. But instead, "those" people gain something, while "the average guy" feels he is losing. That is simply intolerable to an awful lot of men.

I've tried to steer clear of specific political or religious talk in the above. Really, those things don't matter - what is key to focus on here is the cycle of abuse in this country, and how men who are used to getting away with being abusive are suddenly finding themselves little better off than the folks they've long felt were their inferiors - their targets of abuse.

When little Johnny, the scapegoat of the family, the kid who NEVER does anything right, suddenly gets some perceived reward, but Daddy isn't getting what he perceives he needs anymore, well, Daddy is just going to be pissed off about that, and little Johnny is going to get the belt.

[flatlander_48]

There are gay dudes who fantasize about "turning out" straight dudes.

Similarly, there are men who fantasize about doing the nasty with Sophia Vergara or Rihanna, for example, but the probabilities of that coming to fruition may not be that much different. It is not unusual to want what we cannot have. We also have to remember that there are folks that like to play with fire. That could indicate that perhaps the Thrill of the Hunt is more powerful than the actual physical attraction.

Ironically enough, these guys almost to a man treat bisexual men badly - despite the fact that a stereotypically straight acting bi guy would pretty much be what they are looking for. Bi guys have it really bad in the gay community, there are fewer of them than gay men, and so they are really badly stigmatized. Gay male culture, at least here in the states, mostly worships straight looking, straight acting, stereotypically masculine or even hyper-masculine men.

As a bisexual, some of the persistent pieces of B/S that crop up are the "...improves your chances on Saturday night..." and "...you're just in denial..." lines. Never fails to chap my ass because the viewpoint is that bisexuality is not a real and specific state. When you hear that within our own community, you know that people don't have a clue. Simply put, all bisexuality means is that when you consider having a relationship with someone, gender is maybe 3rd or 4th on the list of gating factors. For heterosexuals it is 1st. The reasons for that are no more known that why people are gay to transgender. It just is.

Likewise, in the gay / lesbian world, there are "gold star gays" and "gold star lesbians" - that is, gays or lesbians who've ONLY been with partners of the same sex. The idea that somehow only having sex with one particular gender makes you superior to others is just sickening, in my opinion.

Sort of reminds me of General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove saying "Purity of Essence"...

These men have been told "work hard - you can be wealthy!" and are discovering that there aren't any jobs, and if they do get one, they pay today's prices with wages that have largely stood frozen for 20 years.

Known by some as The Wal-Mart Syndrome...

DeeAnn