A little self history with Dopamines.

[Lucy_Bella]

Being the youngest of two older brothers I do recall being very close to mom,then along came my younger sister who I love to death .. I wouldn't put it past me to have had feelings of rejection when my sister came along, she was adored by my whole family and I felt pushed aside. She was different then us boys .She wore different clothing than us and she was also treated differently than us boys..

So just maybe that could explain my earlier years of dressing, I felt rejected ( even tho I wasn't really) I felt Mom liked girls better ( even tho she loved us all the same).. I never really felt I wanted to be a real girl I just didn't want to be rejected..Well that was at such a young age how do I explain puberty and cross dressing?

Easy , I wasn't a very sociable teenager, I was bashful ,awkward , picked on by two older brothers and I had no self esteem ..My self confidence with girls was very low,I thought none were attracted to me..But I was very attracted to them..What they wore and how it revealed their shape and figure was enough to drive and teenage boy crazy.. Undressing them was always what I did with my mind so any shot of what was underneath the outfit was VERY arousing for a teenage boy going through puberty..

I remembered how the clothing felt from my younger days and it didn't take much for me to get my hands on them for brief encounters ..It worked and it wasn't long before I was wanting to do more but I grew out of puberty and started dating ..There wasn't much need for me to any longer substitute dressing for the real thing although I still had a craving to do it..Even when I finally got married I still craved dressing and my wife at the time knew..

She grew to hate my craving ( my wife ) in time but used it against me for other marital issues ..I never advanced my dressing or did it around her while with her but I did dress while she was away..The best way I can explain this would be the social part of our marriage was on a decline..We rarely were intimate and we was growing apart for other reasons but my desires took the blame .. The urge grew stronger as this was all happening ,I needed comfort and I found a way to get it..

Simple story but very true I see the "dopamines" looking back at my life... Do you see any in your life? I know people with GID don't have this issue but anyways Thanks for reading :)

[sandra-leigh]

My mother fears that my being TS is just a reaction to my unhappiness in my (only recently terminated) long relationship. The problem with that is that it doesn't explain why even before that relationship started, I really loved the time I bought some clothes for an ex, a process made much easier because I was keeping mental track of where the interesting women's clothing stores were, because I was, you know, "just curious" as to what was being sold...

Of course my mother could claim it was part of a pattern, that I had started the behaviour in response to the unhappiness in the relationship with that ex, but there were other indications years before that, and how far back can one go into "unhappiness in relationships" being the "reason" before one gets to "there is something in me that makes me this way" ?

[Katey888]

Lucy - thanks for posting such an open and honest mini-memoire :)

Aside from the fact that I had no siblings (and my wife does the 'abnormal-only-child' thing to death, before anyone thinks of it.. ;)) what you've written here could as easily have applied to me in my teenage years. I adored girls to a degree which was painful, and a huge part of that was what they were wearing - even at school but then later in my early working life through the mid-80s was a formative time for me. One place I worked employed about 150 staff - guys were only 10% of the workforce... Bliss! :) And I can remember to this day the women that made an impression on me and how they dressed...

Through that period I have no doubt that what you describe I also experienced - when I was dating the need and urge declined but never went away, and would return even sometimes when in a steady relationship. Of course, I never analysed what was happening then in the same way that I do now (absent this wondrous resource and sharing place!) and it was always something kept solidly secret for me. It scares me a little if I had thought more about it then - and had been drawn to experiment more with the complete transformations rather than just dressing... another good reason not to over analyse!

What I still can't explain through the desire for teenage girls (when I was a teenager - not anymore, obviously!:eek:) is what happened to me pre-puberty, at the age of 6 or 7 at infant school, when I know that I had my first CD experience and that memory of what I did is so strong today, along with a feeling that the need for what I wanted to do was so strong also... It's that drive that was there so early (and perhaps before, but without me remembering) that I can only put down to something innate that makes me minimalist TG... I do know I liked it as well, though...

Thoughtful post Lucy...

Katey x

[Beverley Sims]

Reading your story reminded me that many of us here seem to have led similar lives in our younger years.

I do wonder if some of what we do is circumstance as against other factors.

[Marcelle]

Hi Lucy,

Well for me it was a bit different at a young age. I was the only male offspring in my extended family so at family gatherings it was me and about 15 female cousins and my sisters. As the only boy, I got treated quite well by my grandparents and uncles so I never felt as though I was loved less or that girls were more valued. I do recall that I either had to come up with games to play on my own (which I did from time to time) or engage in group play in the female sorority which surrounded me (which I also did at times). I remember liking their clothes over mine and even wondering why I had to dress differently. As I got older and make male friends that part of me drifted away and while I still had feelings about dressing as a girl they were not strong . . . more resident like a nice distant memory. It was not until I was 17 when I dressed complete "en femme" for the first time that the feeling came back stronger. However, I was confused, scared and downright ashamed at how good that felt that I locked it away for 32 more years. This time when I opened the closet, I removed the door and Isha will not be going back any time soon. :)

Hugs

Isha

[Confucius]

Yes, my background is very, very similar to yours. A have an older brother, who bullied me. My mother really wanted a daughter. In fact she was hoping for a daughter when my older brother was born. Next time she found herself pregnant she used positive thinking, unfortunately she was disappointed again. It was my fault. My mom says I was an especially clingy baby. When I was six months old she found herself pregnant a third time. This time she finally had her daughter. My sister was born on Christmas morning. My mother says it was the happiest day of her life. This was the story I heard repeated many times in my childhood, and my mom would tell stories about how clingy I was, and how she had to go around carrying a baby in each arm.

My sister grew up pampered and spoiled. I grew up as a sensitive boy who thought that all parents loved girls more than boys. I grew up thinking that girls were preferred because they were nicer, prettier, smarter, and just better people. Girls just had it better in life. I never questioned my maleness. I did accepted my gender, but I only thought it was a handicap. My earliest recollections of cross-dressing was when I was 3 or 4. i would play dress-up with my mother's clothes. My mother didn't like this, and I would tell her that I was playing "mommy". I believed that my mother would love me better if I was a girl.

In my younger years my cross-dressing had nothing to do with sex. It just made me feel happy. I loved the soft, shiny clothing, and the sensation from pretty things. It was strange but I grew up thinking that all boys secretly felt the same way. I thought all boys were required to act tough and pretend they didn't like dressing pretty. I had to admit that boys had some cool toys too, and I enjoyed playing with boys, but when it came to girls, I thought they had the advantages over boys.

When puberty started my cross-dressing took a dramatic turn. Suddenly it became a very sexually stimulating activities, and it became more compulsive. Also I found I was questioning myself. I was insecure, quiet, had a low self esteem and poor social skills.

While a low self esteem and poor social skills during adolescence may be common in cross-dressers, I do not believe it makes us cross-dressers. I believe we are cross-dressers because our brains are hard-wired to interpret cross-dressing as actual contact with a female. When we cross-dress the brain goes into action releasing a host of neurotransmitters: dopamine which produces the drive for gratification, pleasure, stimulation; and serotonin which produces sensations of well-being, happiness, and comfort; and oxytocin which produces trust, bonding, social empathy, and love. The sensations we experience are real, and are biological.

So why do only a small percentage of men experience these sensations? Most men who try on women's clothing only feel silly and How did our brains become hard-wired this way? Well to answer that we have to understand the formation of neural synapses (synaptogenesis) and neural pruning. You have a couple critical periods of synaptogenesis. In fact you have more neural synapses when you are about 3 years old than at any point in your life. Then, largely through the learning process, your brain either loses these synapses or reinforces them. (Another critical period for synaptogenesis is during adolescence.) So we had conditions during these critical periods of synaptogenesis which contributed to reinforcing the connections between cross-dressing and contact with a female. This is the theory that cross-dressing is a form of synesthesia.

[Tinkerbell-GG]

Firstly, I thought I'd better throw in here that I don't see all this theory and discussion as a way to solve crossdressing, therefore 'fixing' it and making it go away. I see it more as human reflection and rather than fixing yourselves, I think you're trying to understand yourselves so you can live easier, more centred lives with the hand you've been dealt. That's nearly impossible to do when you feel there's a foreigner living inside you (that's often how I see the 'femme' side portrayed here) and you don't have a translator!

Lucy-Bella, I can say my H had a very similar experience to you, hence my thread about how this simple CD curiosity that starts with such common childhood thoughts and experience of sibling competition, perceived rejection (actual rejection in my H's case as his father was deliberately never around) or a close bond with a mother or sister etc, increases into an identity. Childhood genetics and environmental influences, along with the dopamine theory seems logical, and I doubt it's any coincidence that around the age CD often starts (4,5,6) is also the age children realise their gender is permanent. I'm sure this must be hugely disappointing for boys who wanted to grow up and be like their favourite person - mom. Or maybe they just feel (as you did) that girls were allowed more comfort/attention than boys. Maybe their mother openly rejected boy behavior and preferred the apparent 'niceness' of little girls. This does happen. I see and hear it everyday among my friends parenting boys and girls and it bothers me immensely.

The saddest thing that I also see is a society that still doesn't encourage boys any ability whatsoever to be like their mothers or sisters. Sensitivity, nurturing, open communication and laughter or whatever else a boy might cherish about females is quickly sent packing when little boys are 'toughened up'. Not even their own mothers seem to appreciate this side of their son. What is there left for a boy when he wants to feel feminine closeness and comfort? Or just to be like his mother or sister who he admires? Or to feel a part of their world and not an outsider looking in? Their clothing...he can still access that and no one even need know. Plus, it's super colourful and pretty!

This is pretty much what happened to my H, and it sounds similar for you, Lucy Bella. I think the path is likely also similar for those with GD but the reasons are vastly different. They're not boys relating to elements of women they admire or seeking approval or relatedness etc - they ARE women who feel the very real fear and rejection of living in the wrong body.

Anyway, for the non GD dresser of course the dopamine you speak of kicks in due to all those happy, 'high' feelings that the dressing gives and at some point you'll cross a developmental line that all children cross, and what was once a comforting habit is now a part of you. (I so love this forum as knowing all this after reading here is fascinating. It could be wrong, sure, but there's much already proven about dopamine and brain mapping so it's also likely to be right)

And of course, puberty and all it's angst for boys who just don't develop physically as quickly as girls and yet have an intense need to be with girls (none of you are unusual here, I might add, as almost every parenting book I've gotten my hands on speaks of this difficult stage for teenage boys) and suddenly you're thinking back to how you got close to women before. Perhaps not consciously, but the memory of those feelings will always be there in the recesses of your mind. Voila, enter the lingerie phase and yet more dopamine!

And you know, one of the most interesting pieces of information I ever read in a parenting book was that it is very common for teenage boys to be jealous of teenage girls - of their fast development, beauty, easy laughter and friendships, even clothing to the point where MANY will even think it might be better to be a girl. Yes, many, not a few. So this is not unusual either. (And you all thought you were original!) The difference is, they don't have CD to get them through. Hey maybe you're the smart ones :)

Well, that's my novel on all this, lol. It's all of your fault, by the way, given all the amazing information I've had here. Dopamine seems like a perfectly logical explanation for the longevity of male identified dressing. I'm guessing somewhere in all this is the Synesthesia that Confucius writes of below that also shows how susceptibility to CD happens. I'm actually certain their are many, many little boys who move through all of the above, wearing their mothers or sisters clothing for all the same reasons, yet they don't form a lifelong CD compulsion. That's where genetics would come in as I'm also certain there's something innate at play here too, and that's where my brain literally falls out, lol. So I'm leaving that to Confucius who knows his/her stuff. (I'm not sure which pronoun you prefer, Confucius, but I think I read once that you don't like to use female pronouns for yourself? Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Well, this is Thinkerbell removing her cap. Hope I bored you all well and good :)

[PaulaQ]

Of course, this is pretty much what happened to my H, and it sounds similar for you, Lucy Bella. I think the path is likely also similar for those with GD but the reasons are vastly different. They're not boys relating to elements of women they admire or seeking approval or relatedness etc - they ARE women who feel the very real fear and rejection of living in the wrong body.


On what do you base the idea that there is a fundamentally different mechanism at play here? It'd be swell if there was a fundamental difference - it's way less scary that way if you are married to a CD. Unfortunately, even if there is some fundamental difference - how would you know? You can ask us, I guess - but we don't want to be TS either, for the most part. I am friends here with a number of trans women who I met last year. Yeah, they were "just a CD" back then.

Isn't is simpler to conclude that whatever happens in CDs and TSs is likely related, but for those who never transition, the condition is just less severe, for reasons that aren't understood currently?

I don't make this point to upset anyone, but look - being TS is the only medical condition where people who love you actively DISCOURAGE you from seeking treatment. If you are going to second guess whether or not someone is "just a CD, always a CD", or "needs to transition", it seems to me that you could do them a disservice, sometimes a really huge one, if you guess wrong. A lot of us who are transsexual have put off our transition until we could no longer bear to live in order to keep relationships. It seems probable to me that at least a few CDs get dumped because their SO is sure they are transsexual. So to prevent that - the denial is reinforced, and even those of us with really pretty serious medical problems defer treatment. It really is incentive to lie - both to ourselves, and to our SO about the seriousness of our condition.

This is just extremely dangerous. It could get someone killed.

[Tinkerbell-GG]

Honestly, maybe they are the same condition Paula. Maybe it stems from the same genetic place but in varying levels and in different ways. What I do know is what my H lives with isn't the same as someone as you in terms of how he feels about himself in the gender he was given. He actually loves being male. Always has. What he didn't understand as a boy is why all the female stuff, like the pretty clothes or cooking etc, was out of bounds, too. Why did we get to keep it all for ourselves? I guess while your level makes you a woman in a man's body, my H is the equivalent of a Tom Boy - a boy who likes being a boy but who also likes girl stuff.

And this is where my mother lioness attitude steps in as I truly loathe that we're still living this way. We're still neatly separated in what we're allowed to socially do with our lives. The separation, of course, is completely unbalanced and while boys have a rigid pile of everything tough and manly and unemotional and stoic, girls have the pretty, soft, conversational pile...oh, and we also have all that boy stuff, too! So girls can more often grow up as complete, three dimensional human beings while boys get to be one. As the mother of boys, this makes me livid!

And to show how painful it still is out there, I heard a mother I know tell her little boy in the park the other day to "quit behaving like a silly girl." Yep, she said that, and she's not the first, nor will she be the last. I informed her I personally found that insulting as I just happen to be a girl, and she laughed and shrugged and said it's just a silly saying.

No it's not. Girls are not an insult any more than boys are one dimensional robots who only like khaki!!

Rant over. :)

[ReineD]

Honestly, maybe they are the same condition Paula. Maybe it stems from the same genetic place but in varying levels and in different ways. What I do know is what my H lives with isn't the same as someone as you in terms of how he feels about himself in the gender he was given. He actually loves being male.

Tink, I'm not sure how this thread got to be about transsexualism, but if you do want to find out more about the differences between transwomen and crossdressers, you could ask in the "Ask A TS" thread in the TS section. I've no doubt that most TSs will tell you there is a world of difference between the two.

[Tinkerbell-GG]

Thanks Reine, I might do that as this gets all twisted around sometimes and I don't want to offend anyone writing about the non GD crossdressing. But for my H, he's never shown anything but what Lucy-Bella wrote of and what she wrote about the dopamine seems fairly logical as my H seriously says he has no GD (I asked him again and told him he really needs to be who he is regardless of me. This got him mad as he thinks I don't believe him!)

Anyway, he's just a guy who wants to inexplicably look like a woman for all the reasons I and Lucy-Bella wrote, and of course the sexual stuff at the top of his list that we're never meant to speak of, lol. I found Lucy-Bella's story spot on (H and I have chatted about this stuff) and while there may be similar genetics at play to the TS, I suspect most crossdressers who identify with this thread are just men with a little extra, so to speak :)

Sorry for thread stealing Lucy. You can have it back now x

[ReineD]

my H seriously says he has no GD (I asked him again and told him he really needs to be who he is regardless of me. This got him mad as he thinks I don't believe him!)

Believe him.

I also read too many posts in the beginning from people who believe or who want others to believe that everyone has the potential to be TS (they don't) and I made the mistake of NOT believing my SO when she told me that she wasn't. :p (Sounds confusing, sorry).

Your SO knows himself way better than anyone here does. :hugs:


So to get the thread back on topic,



Simple story but very true I see the "dopamines" looking back at my life... Do you see any in your life? I know people with GID don't have this issue but anyways Thanks for reading :)

Lucy, I sometimes wonder if some people think they might have GD when they don't, when instead they might be going through a rather severe Pink Fog.

Probably both things happen: some people temporarily believe they might be TS when they're not, while others are in denial about being TS. This is why it's so important to find a GOOD gender therapist and not one of the quacks out there.

As to the dopamine theory, I do believe that intense release of pleasure chemicals can rewire the brain.

[Lucy_Bella]

Lucy, I sometimes wonder if some people think they might have GD when they don't, when instead they might be going through a rather severe Pink Fog.

Reine, I can't answer for others but I can for myself.. Yes, I did and if you look back at some of my post from the start of my membership I was confused,I was new and needed understanding with what was going on with me ..Many here had me believing I was on that road to TS or I had GID.. I just didn't feel like I was..




As to the dopamine theory, I do believe that intense release of pleasure chemicals can rewire the brain. They have linked this to be true when treating Parkinsons Disease ..When SOME patients were treated with "dopamine agonist" they started cross dressing ..When asked they said they have never had the urge or done this in their past..http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=179737&resultClick=1

Tinkerbell , you are fine and as I value Reines input on threads I do yours as well..I respect the fact you are trying to learn about this for your "H" and not running from him/her.. I didn't have a Fem name when I first joined this forum and it caused people in here a lot of grief on the original name I had so while in Rome....Well I chose this name for the good of the community and yes I do prefer to be addressed as a he but since we are in here neither he/her really bothers me..Thanks for your replies:)

Thank you everyone who has replied so far I really enjoyed your input and I can see that there are similarities and that's the reason why I posted this ..But I also see that some of us dress for totally different reasons ..

[Lorileah]

let's get back on track k?

[CarlaWestin]

Being the youngest of two older brothers I do recall being very close to mom....... I wasn't a very sociable teenager, I was bashful ,awkward , picked on by two older brothers and I had no self esteem ..My self confidence with girls was very low,I thought none were attracted to me..But I was very attracted to them..What they wore and how it revealed their shape and figure was enough to drive and teenage boy crazy.. Undressing them was always what I did with my mind so any shot of what was underneath the outfit was VERY arousing for a teenage boy going through puberty..


I did as I was told...I built a person out of images from somewhere else...a perfectly made facsimile of a boy, and then a young man, and finally an older man. And I lived quietly in the background of that man, like a passenger, while that “character” I had created lived what should have been my life...

These two quotes are similar to my experience. The coddled youngest of five, growing up exposed to images and influences as my older brothers played around with girls and adventures. I knew what I craved with those early bursts of testosterone but the awkward shyness kept me socially stymied.

And then, I just decided that the other dumbasses were investing way too much time and energy trying to get physically close to girls and putting up too much with their demeaning games. So I just started being my own idea of the girl of my dreams. Overstuffed bras, tight tops and no challenging interaction. Of course, the scenarios grew more complex and creative to keep up with the quest for "dopamines". But, with age, this has refined itself into the crossdressing that I so enjoy now. Looking back, I have no regrets.

[Wildaboutheels]

"Brainwashing", more or less. It's par for the course for girls to receive far more "attention" when little, than boys and these Forums are full of such tales -being a female will get one more attention from "everyone". Undoubtedly because females in general are far more social than men, at ANY age and we all naturally think they need more attention, praise and "coddling" when little. A logical, natural assumption.

As females get older, they have further "power" [over most men] because they likely develop curves and breasts and hips, thighs and curvy a$$es. "Sharp" females learn to use the "right" clothing and makeup to make them even MORE attractive, which gives them greater power over more men. Most CDers use most of the aforementioned so they can LOOK LIKE a female.

Men don't get either one of the above. But they are likely bigger, stronger and faster than most females and they also get the ability of slam, bam, Thank ya ma'am. They also get greater ability to "think logically" [as long as their "little heads" don't interfere] and greater ability to put aside their "feelings" when making decisions.

An even tradeoff?

Obviously, it's working, at least for now. We ARE overrunning the planet.

Our male brains DON'T distinguish between solo Os or Os with females. They reward us "magnificently" with a cocktail of unique chemicals [just like booze, cigarettes, cocaine or a zillion other things] EVERY time we have an O. Our brains WILL remember HOW we got to the O part, whether it was 20 or 50 years ago. [the CDers "high" just from putting on/having on "female items"]

Crossdressing is a "live" way of preparing for/having an O when we don't have a partner and/ORRRRRRRRR, the current partner is UNwilling/UNwanting.

Very common ^^^ in most Relationships.

It also fits the pattern of most here.

NGC's Brain Games makes all the above crystal clear and undeniable... but you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Our Brains control much of what we think, do and say to help protect us from ourselves and/or make us feel better about ourselves. [in the case of the very small portion of CDers who feel guilty and /or ashamed for using female clothing items as tools]

Tools, no different than men's magazines or porn.

Few females watch/enjoy porn or CD, because CDing is mostly VISUAL.

This site would fold up in short order w/o pics...

[PaulaQ]

BTW - when I was a kid, I got all the attention because I was handicapped. It was very unfair to my sister, but pretty much unavoidable - I was really messed up!

As far as I know, she doesn't cross dress.

[Lucy_Bella]

If I could just be a little more clear over this thread.. First of all my apologies to those who identify with "gender" my thread was not directed at you :) ..But I will admit there are some similarities ,perhaps, gender is also something we also discover at such a young age ( not to mention those who define it better as they age to fit them better.. :)

I am aware of that ..So please don't take my story wrong as in suggesting this is true for you..I know it's not true for everyone . I will also add I started puberty later than average ,maybe because there was enough testosterone around with my two older brothers..

Thanks for the replies

[PaulaQ]

Oh I understand where you are coming from Lucy, and believe me, no offense or anything taken. I just disagree that you get to wriggle out of "gender" so easily. :p ;) :hugs:

[sometimes_miss]

Isn't is simpler to conclude that whatever happens in CDs and TSs is likely related, but for those who never transition, the condition is just less severe, for reasons that aren't understood currently?

The problem with that is, it's unlikely to be true. For some, it does start during fetal development. For others, it happens later. Declaring that it's all from the same cause is simple; and, it's most likely used by people who want to believe it's true, so that they can feel that a whole lot of other people are just like them, that they're just in denial about it all. And we've read that so much in these types of forums and newsgroups for decades now, and I'm sure more than a few guys here have been told by gay folks that we're all simply in denial, that we're just all really gay if we'd just give it a try, we'd surely accept it. Baloney.

I've read way too many case histories for it to be all from the same cause. To put it another way; although the end result may be similar (so are all the cases of pneumonia, despite being caused by different things), the causes are as different as they are for people who are depressed. For some, it's all chemical, and a simple pill will make it all go away. For others at the opposite end of the spectrum, it's all situational, due to extreme traumatic psycholocical events, and unless those events are addressed, no amount of chemical treatment is going to make that person feel better, because as long as those people can still think, they're going to be upset by whatever happened to them. And for some, it can be a combination of both. Each case must be examined on it's own merit.


They have linked this to be true when treating Parkinsons Disease ..When SOME patients were treated with "dopamine agonist" they started cross dressing ..When asked they said they have never had the urge or done this in their past.
And of course, we have another 'SOME'. Which is a perfect illustration of what I'm saying; not to mention, a previously existing disease state, Parkinsons (and god only knows how many other influences existed within those individuals, as well as all the side effects that are not brought up because we weren't interested in those, only the crossdressing incidence!), which of course can influence lots of other things in our bodies. It all goes to illustrate how easily some people can jump to conclusions when desperately searching for the 'smoking gun' cause of their target problem.
Or, the potential for odd results can be skewed by the patients themselves. I can only wonder how many tg/cd/ts people would love to (either consciously or subconsciously) have some outside physical trauma, chemical exposure, drug side effect that they can tell people is the reason for their GID condition. All because our society makes it such a stigma to behave the way we do, and do it's best to make us feel bad about it.
I understand it all, I really do. After all, I spent what, several decades of my life trying to find the answers to my own messed up personality, and wasn't exactly thrilled about what I found, either. I'd love to find some treatable cause, for myself and so many others that could do without all the additional stress this can cause in our lives. While I understand the rational of all those who embrace, even celebrate their GID state, maybe because it's best way that they can deal with it, I haven't been able to figure out a way to do that, and live happily with the potential downsides to being 'out'.

[LilSissyStevie]

How did our brains become hard-wired this way? Well to answer that we have to understand the formation of neural synapses (synaptogenesis) and neural pruning. You have a couple critical periods of synaptogenesis. In fact you have more neural synapses when you are about 3 years old than at any point in your life. Then, largely through the learning process, your brain either loses these synapses or reinforces them. (Another critical period for synaptogenesis is during adolescence.) So we had conditions during these critical periods of synaptogenesis which contributed to reinforcing the connections between cross-dressing and contact with a female. This is the theory that cross-dressing is a form of synesthesia.

This works for me except I do it for different reasons. Age three being a critical period is interesting. When I was three I had three huge traumas. The first was when my unemployed father took me and my two sisters to his favorite bar when he was supposed to be watching us. On the way home he passed out drunk at the wheel and slammed full speed into the back of a stopped city bus. My sister went through the windshield and I bounced around in the back seat. I don't remember the wreck but I remember being in the emergency room with my unconscious sister next to me. Her head and leg were wrapped in towels and they were soaked in blood. A nurse came in and took her away. I was sure she was dead. I didn't see my baby sister anywhere so I thought she was dead too. I somehow thought this meant I was going to die. I was banged up but it turned out there were no serious injuries to me or my baby sister.

The second major trauma was a few months later when my father (now working) came home drunk in the middle of the day and attacked our babysitter with a claw hammer. He beat her pretty bad about the head and shoulders and I witnessed the whole thing. Blood everywhere! Total madness! I thought he was going to kill us too. After that incident he was sent to the state hospital for the criminally insane.

The third thing that happened that year was my mom was doing laundry and went outside to hang some clothes in the clothesline leaving me alone in the kitchen. We had an old wringer washer that had the cover off the wringer mechanism. I was fascinated by the gears turning round and round so I got up on a chair to investigate. Next thing I know, my hand was getting smashed and ground up in the gears. Four operations later including the harvesting of some parts out of my leg, I had an ugly but usable hand again.

Be patient, I'm getting to the CDing part. Maybe the worst thing that happened that year was, since my dad was in the nut house and my mom had to work full time to pay bills, my paternal grandmother came to live with us to be our nanny. She was a drunk and a sadist. For reasons only she knows, she singled me out for torture while she doted on and pampered my two sisters. She would whip me for frivolous and arbitrary reasons. She would make me stand in a corner for hours on end and if she detected any movement she would add on hours. One of her favorite tortures was to have me fold my own clothes. If she could find the slightest imperfection (never failed) in how they were folded, she would dump all my drawers on the floor and make me do it over. This would go on all day until she got bored with it. It was like this all day every day as long as she lived with us.

What I did to cope with all this trauma was to detach myself mentally. I found I could go into a trance like dream state. My body was there going through the motions but "I" was only there as an observer. My favorite fantasy was to see myself as a girl because I thought I would get treated better. I could work myself into a euphoria thinking about tripping through the flower beds chasing butterflies in a light yellow dress with a big fluffy petticoat and white patent leather shoes. I had highly idealized and romanticized notions of femininity but that's what worked for me. So that's what led me to try on my older sister's clothes. I found that wearing them was a portal to my happy place.

Years later when I reached puberty I found that I could only get aroused sexually if I imagined myself as a girl and/or in a completely submissive position. My main kink isn't transvestic fetishism, it's femdom. I need a woman to dominate me sexually and I need to feel "feminine" (emasculated) according to those idealized romanticized ideas I had as a kid so I can find my happy place. In the BDSM world I guess the equivalent would be subspace. "Better" living through chemistry.

Thanks gramma!:straightface:

[samantha rogers]

This has been an interesting thread. At the risk of being attacked from all sides, let me (foolishly) wade in...:heehee:
I think there is a lot of information out there all related to trying to understand why there is crossdressing and why there are gender issues and causes and similarities and so forth. Some comes from the medical world as in the studies of dopamines, while some comes from the world of psycho therapy, and some comes from other places. Some of it contradicts other parts. It is still,from what I can see, an unresolved matter. Folks on one side, with an understandable bias, use whatever science and anecdotes to support their view while those on another side do the same, each with different results.
I am not surprised.
The human brain is the single most complicated object yet discovered in the universe.
Is it any wonder we have not yet figured it out?
What I have figured out, is that there are many variations in this big and amazing TG world, including straight and gay, fetish and fashion, underdressers and drag performers, those for whom SRS is a lifesaver and others who would never go there.....and every other glimmering beautiful facet of this amazing diamond like world you can imagine.
I have also figured out that in the face of all the troubles we all face in a world that still disapproves of what we are all part of, that there is far more that unites us than separates us. That we all need understanding and support and love...and that means that there just is no "one size fits all" answer that fits (they never do).
H L Mencken once wrote:
"For every complicated problem, there is a simple answer.......and its wrong"
Lol
He was right.
Hugs to all of you, on all sides of the question!:heehee: