Why go through all the effort and risk to hide?

[Candice Mae]

On the drive home today I was thinking about the day to day life of a CD, thinking about random stuff keeps the road rage down... This is not really about why do you CD, more about what keeps you CDing. I've been on here your a long time now (5.5 years), I think I've almost read it all. But in the world of human existence there is always some thing new... The question I have is why go through all the effort and risk to CD, when it gives you very little in return? If its just sexual why not find other avenues to fulfill that need? Why worry about buying stuff, then foolishly hiding it from your loved ones. Why come out to people that don't really have a need to know? Why put your self in situations that could out you, its like you want to get caught. Its like running backwards through a corn field, sooner or later your gonna get .........

[Suzie Petersen]

That's a good question Candice!

I am curious .. what do You think the answer is?

- Suzie

[Kate Simmons]

You are asking the question from a logical standpoint Candice. There is no logic to CDing, never was, never will be. It's just there and is caused by very deep needs and feelings.:)

[Alice Torn]

Kate has said it well. I have to throw up my arms, and say, I don't get it. A gay guy i have know for 33 yrs, said he cannot understand why any man would want to put on women's clothes. if he hasn't any clue, and normal people don.t, I think i can only make guesses, that make a little sense.

[Khora]

You are asking the question from a logical standpoint Candice. There is no logic to CDing, never was, never will be. It's just there and is caused by very deep needs and feelings.:)

This. I won't think you'll ever find a actual concrete answer to that question. We just do. That's why. :D

[RADER]

You might not ever get an honest answer to that question.
For me, CDing is not a sexual thing, And i do not want any surgery to change
my sex. I just enjoy wearing womans clothes, some times it can only be a bra
and panties as I am usually under dressed.
I would love to out in the world wearing a dress, or skirt; However society forbids
that. So yes I will be dressed at home, under dressed out of my home, as it gives
me pleasure. What pleasure??? Well I guess it is the fact that I am getting away
with wearing what society says I should not wear; and enjoying doing so.
Female clothes are just so soft and smooth, and I love dressing up in them
Rader

[justmetoo]

Why? The eternal unanswerable question.

It's a need that we can't ignore (at least not for long), but why we have this need, who can say? I agree, it's not logical, but human behavior and culture often isn't. In some ways I think it's like artists or writers, who have a need to create their art or to write. We can try to not do it, but sooner or later we will want to do it again. Bottling it up just creates tension and dissatisfaction at best, and/or anger, moodiness, depression and worse.

[DebbieL]

When I growing up, and I would CD, it was about the only time I could look in the mirror without hating what was looking back. I wanted to be a girl, but it wasn't an option at the time. My parents loved me even though they knew, but they knew I needed to keep it a secret.

The reality is that dressing as a boy was the lie, trying to act like boy or a man was the lie. I hated myself, I hated my male body, I hated having to play with the boys. I was the list kid picked to play baseball, football, soccer, or any other team sport, and often the team that took me got 5 extra points for taking the liability.

I can't lie and tell you that I didn't like the feel of the clothes, but when I was able to actually able to pull off putting it all together and see a beautiful girl in the mirror, I felt that there was a few moments of truth. There was a period when my siblings played down the street, my parents both worked, and I had the house to myself. I would dress up and do the housework, laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, doing the dishes, and even cooking meals, but I would have to change back to boy clothes about 30 minutes before mom came home. She knew, and even took me shopping so that I could pick clothes I wanted when she was ready to donate them, and she even acquired a wig to cover up a bad haircut, but she only wore the wig for about a week. I wore it almost every day.

I didn't know why I had to hide, at that time. Just before my father died, he told me that mom had been told that the treatment for transgender boys like me was shock therapy, torture, and even lobotomy. Thank goodness the standards have changed, and now it's easier for those who want to transition to do so, and for those who aren't ready yet to know that it is an option if they reach that point in the future.

We hide because there is so much to lose, partly because we have gained so much while not disclosing our secret. If know one knows and we get married, have children, have a career, have standing in the community, and gain money, property, and respect, there is that much more to lose if we disclose the truth to those we have deceived so long. Often, it's only after risking it all that we find the courage and freedom to begin to come out into the open.

Even for those who are not transgender to the point of wanting a sex change, there are still the desires to maintain a more feminine appearance, including such things as shaving our legs, managing eyebrows, and even wearing nail polish. We worry that we might make the mistake that would give us away, the make-up removed in a hurry that isn't completely removed, the little hint of nail polish that escaped the acetone, the brow that is too thin, the earrings we forgot to remove, or even the feminine gesture or action, the melodic speaking, that give us away.

What we don't realize is that we often don't truly hide that well. We either become almost comically male, talking sports and trying too hard to be macho even though our hearts aren't into it, or we reject the male trappings. Eventually, even my friends encouraged me to be "Debbie in the suit" because the more I allowed my feminine nature to be expressed, the more authentic and effective I became.

Have you ever wondered, which is the REAL cross-dressing, dressing as a man because we have to? or dressing as a girl because we want to?

[Katey888]

Who says it gives us "very little in return"...? :)

I see a huge range of behaviours and underlying motivations here (I might post Bolich's 'Categories' later, but I'm rushed now...) from fully TS folk, down through convincingly presenting TGs who would like to be 24/7... partial dressers, underdressers, social dressers... I was trying to think of an analogy for this and I suppose were a bit like smokers... :eek: Y'know... like there are social smokers, smokers that do it for style, 60-a-day folk that are totally dependent, people that do it because they say it relaxes them, folk that hide it from their families... and yes, some that even find a sexual kink in it.

Like some of them, a lot of us would like to find a way to stop it, but we can't... not because we're addicted (well... maybe some.. ;)) but because we are driven by differing degrees of TGness that provides an irresistible motivation. Those of us already in a long-term relationship have more potentially to lose by not hiding (I don't think we need to go into the historic reasons why so many of us have hidden this socially stigmatised thing) - and those of us who only need to do this sporadically (like myself) can effectively put this away - safely and securely - for quite long periods compared to others... but the return when we are able to do it is... fabulous! :D

Why do you keep doing it, Candice? Why, why, WHY???? :)

Katey x

[Jeri Ann]

If you have read almost every post for the past 5 1/2 years, then you would have read the answers to these questions several times.

[Lily Catherine]

I can't and won't think up a rational response. I believe it's an emotionally governed process, like a nagging voice of sorts at the back of our minds. In the name of taking responsibility and acquiring agency over my cross-dressing, I labelled it a habit first, something I could control and, for the sake of societal conformity, hopefully restrain. I successfully did the former.

To say the least, I tried too hard on my own part to project a sense of 'tertiary' masculinity so I could have a semblance of keeping up with 'the jocks', if that can be considered a means of hiding. Nobody knew I cross-dressed for the sake of it, but then again I never exactly got asked about it. To me, I was keeping the stone in my heart away without wearing said stone around my neck. Even if it took effort and bottling up, the high I initially got once I started wearing a wig was worth it all.

[Teresa]

Candice,
It's the question I've finally got tired of, which is why I'm trying to be more open with my CDing ! After so many years I do want to get more out of it ! There really is a lot to enjoy about it once you accept and come to terms with it ! It's just convincing the others around you !!

[marilyn m]

i have beaten myself up about this for many years,
now i can dress whenever i want to i have started to wonder could i be a
female trapped in a male body, and i have been fighting this forever, with this conclusion
sudden peace came over me, it was a wow moment x

hi candice youre right, thats part of the fight, so hard dealing with others attitude and adjusting
to there needs, i understand you, iam convinced lol
dont need to adjust anymore what a relief :rose2:

[Marcelle]

Hi Candice,

But isn't the "Holy Grail" of questions here . . . WHY? To be honest I don't think there will ever be consensus. Each of us may share some common ground along the TG spectrum with some being further along the path than others but we are each individuals who come with our own baggage, requirements, desires and needs and we take away what we need from this thing. For me it is about being who I need to be "boy or girl", For others it may be about correcting one's sex with their internal gender, while for others it may be purely sexual. The one constant I read here on this site is we do what we do because we feel compelled to do so (reason aside) and it is not going to go away . . . so giving it up or quitting is not an option.

Hugs

Isha

[pamela7]

I'm sure it's all been said before. :-)
Why do people carry on with CD-ing, or theft, or secret addictions or any other habit considered socially unacceptable (rightly or wrongly)? - in the end, to be caught, to be "outed", so its there, in the open, and everyone knows. It's like a big game of "hide-and-seek" and depending on how good the hider, sometimes hints need to be given to the seeker, especially if the seeker is not looking.
Yes, I want to be dressed 24/7, wherever, yes I take risks with that. Why? Because once I'm caught, eventually everyone will know and the real me can present to the world. And of course that will upset other people. But as King Canute showed his followers, he could not make the sea go back, the tide will come in.
And so it will.

xxx Pamela

PS, Isha, "Holy Grails" are my day-job.

[msniki48]

Debbie,

I have been away for several years, trying to avoid the obvious,[ this is my 1st post in a long time ] for all the reasons you have just mentioned. I don't think you could have said it better. there is too much to loose as life goes on, but we still want acceptance, so we try to enlarge our inner circle of friends and family that are accepting.... the larger the circle, the more I can be myself...but there comes that place where some of these people don't have a need to know, and ....do you really want to chance it as they could create problems at work, or socially, or in the family.

it is a delicate balancing act that we do.

PS: a big part of this is our generation [ i'm 63]. my grandson is discovering he/she is TG... and there is a different degree of acceptance in that generation....they are not going to support meetings except for guidance, they are going to clubs and expressing themselves to a much greater degree.

hugs

msniki48

[kimdl93]

As commented before, we are getting something in return. While the reward isn't a physically tangible thing, it's certainly present as the oft mentioned sense of calm, peace or satisfaction. For me, and many others I'm sure, there is also a sense of being myself in the truest possible way. So, the short answer is that when I am dressing and presenting myself as a woman, I feel good...good about myself, good about life. That seems a satisfactory answer.

[JessMe]

Hi Candice!
This really is a great question! Ignoring "why we dress", but focusing on why we hide it, I can only offer my own personal opinion based on my experiences. Firstly, I hide it from all but a handful of friends and family, because most of them would either not understand or not accept me being TG. The people who do know, however, were carefully chosen because they seemed like the few that were closest to me, and also not likely to have a problem with it. In all cases, with the exception of my mother, I was right. By coming out to those few people, I gained acceptance and also, it just feels really good to be able to talk about it.
I don't judge anybody else for their reasoning behind dressing, but for me it isn't anything fetishistic, rather it's a freedom to express the way I really always feel, though I have to suppress it for a large portion of my day-to-day life, or risk losing a lot of people and things I value.

[Cheryl T]

So little in return???
I have to totally disagree with that statement. If it weren't for this part of me I wouldn't be able to express all the emotions and feelings that I have. My femininity creates the balance that my life needs. Without it I am generally overbearing, short tempered, angry and intolerant. Realizing so many years ago that I felt this way gave me an outlet for the gentler side of myself and freed me from having to be totally Macho which I always hated. Yes, I hid, felt guilt and shame for many years, but now being open about who I am has united both aspects.

[Jean 103]

Why is a question I have given up on, it’s probably because of some chromosome, event, or bump on the head. I just look around and it’s easy to see what I have lost. Grained is another thing, it’s not something you can put a number too. So for now I have decided to embrace the fog and see where it leads me.

[Suzie Petersen]

Candice is explicitly Not asking the usual "why do you do it" question, but rather a deeper one. "This might ruin your life, why do you keep on doing it?".
While the two are obviously connected, they are different.

The usual disclaimer: We are all different and we all have different reasons for what we do, so the following is just my view and story.

I too stopped asking myself why I like this many years ago, but I have had to continue asking myself the other question of why do I keep wanting to do this, knowing that it hurts my loved ones and has the potential to completely disrupt my life.
The first question can be easily dismissed with a simple "It doesnt matter why!" I like doing it, dressing and presenting like a woman makes me feel good inside for some reason. I dont know why and I dont really care. Done!
But the other is a much harder one to dismiss! What I get pleasure from, has a devastating effect on people I love and it has the power to break up my family! Cant just dismiss that!

I eventually had to make a choice and I had to simply stop doing it. Stop my dressing and stop thinking about it. It became painfully clear that if I did not, then my marriage would end and the family which I had been part of building would dissolve. Why? Well thats the third question to ask and the answer in my case came from my wife and it was just as simple "I just cant deal with it anymore!". But .. why cant you deal with it? I dont know, I just cant. Done!

My wife was accepting for many years in the beginning. I told her a couple of weeks after we met, but I didnt know what I was talking about unfortunately. I told her I liked to dress up but I didnt tell her what that would mean 10, 20, 30 years later because I simply didnt know.

I am your typical manly man guy with one exception. I am ex military, build and repair stuff, ride motorcycles, hunt, fish etc etc. The exception? I'm not an A.. hole! I care about others and treat them like I would want to be treated. I'm kind and nice.
She likes that. All of that is what she fell in love with. All of it, including the softer side.
So what changed? Well it all changed gradually, but the final drop was when she suddenly realized that I was becoming too good at the dressing. I could actually get away with it, out in the real world. "Suzie" had the potential to be a person of her own, and she couldn't handle that. Why? Just couldn't. Done!

So to answer your question Candice, Why keep on doing it when the consequences can be so drastic? Well you are right ... so I stopped! Done.

- Suzie

[NikiMichelle]

It is just what we do.....

[Lynn Marie]

Now that I've survived a heart attack, retired, divorced, and moved to a new town, I no longer hide. I'm still quite happy to be a boy, just a gentleman with a twist, or a classy old broad with a killer wardrobe! The hiding was horrible so I deliberately changed my life to put it at bay. All my close friends are either CDs or other boys and girls who appreciate girls like us!

[Beverley Sims]

Candice,
There is an inner pull similar to you wanting to transition.
It is probably the same pull or mindset to a lesser degree for those that dress.
I think dressing gives enough in return to minimise any frustration.
Hiding from loved ones does help keep some marriages together.
Buying clothes is just a constant ongoing experiment that helps us decide on style and a direction to go.
I felt that you would have known all these things by now, but it is a great discussion starter which few here have been able to give concrete answers.
I include myself in that category also.

I enjoy what I do. :)

[Nadya]

For me, it feels like a part of my personality that has been suppressed for so long. Dressing gives me an avenue to release some of the emotions I otherwise don't get in touch with. I often wonder why I want to tell others even though I've only told my fiancé. I think it stems from wanting others to know my true self. Being with certain people, it is easy to have a perceived set of expectations that I must meet and I find myself censoring some aspect that I think might not necessary or beneficial to our interaction. I think I might be rambling at this point but it makes sense to me.

[Ms.Kenadie]

To me, I get a return from it in the fact that I am at least not lying to myself about what I am. In todays world, I think just being honest with yourself, is a huge step in the right direction to happiness. I am by no means out about my CDing. It weighs heavily on my mind, for several reasons, and I am sure that I will work through it in my own way, in my own time. I am not really concerned about coming out right now, I know it is coming, and I will deal with it once it gets here. I keep CDing because I enjoy it. The feel of the clothing is still one of the best feelings I have known. After a divorce, loss of loved ones, a teenage daughter who is pregnant, and just RL constantly raising its head and biting me in the buttocks, I get a sense of peace when I dress. To me, it is no different than reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game. For a bit you can escape, into something/someone else, and maybe thats not a bad thing. I still go to work everyday, pay my bills, and taxes, just like all the "normal" people do. Folks will always persecute what they dont understand, and think in their minds, to be "wrong". I am used to it.

*Hugs*
Kenadie

[Brittany327]

This is a great topic....
I'm becoming more confident in dressing because I am getting older and society is slowly accepting.

As I am not passable, I often block out my face on photos because I just dont like it either. Human are often super critical of themselves....Fear of rejection is a key element of our psych's.

[carhill2mn]

If someone could give an answer to you question that applied to every CDer, they could get rich and famous. Some progress is being made in understanding how people's brains
react to stimuli but, so far, it is mostly theoretical.

[Isabella Ross]

Dressing gives us so little in return? What? Few things give me more joy in life. Wow...can't believe I read that.

[VAWyman]

Maybe for the same reason NASCAR drivers travel at speeds approaching 200 MPH. Flirting with disaster.

[Tina_gm]

For some, I think there is a thrill factor involved. And also a factor of behaving in a way which is not accepted, so like a rebellious type of connotation. While some rebel with motorcycles, tattoos and such, others due to their personal makeup rebel in their way, which is gender variant.

For many of us who are older, and have strived for sometimes decades (in my case) to rid ourselves of this perversion. ( I don't believe now that it is, but many of us, myself included have once felt this about ourselves) have come to a point in our lives, and with society also changing, that it is ok that we are who we are. But now, we have formed a life with responsibilities, kids, jobs, spouses who do not know or did not know. So, there is a lot that would change if we were to no longer "hide" We have created decades of a life that no one has knowledge of us. To come out now would drastically change our work environment, our friendships, our family relationships, our parenthood.

We have potentially a lot to lose. It can be a tough road, and for many of us, hiding is a part of that road, for a necessity to continue a good life and to fulfill responsibilities we have.