Crossdressing demographics

[christiecd]

Anyone know of any articles or studies on crossdressing, specifically statistics about crossdressers: age, sexual preference, political ideology, occupation, the like. I'm just interested in who dresses. I'm sure others are interested too. Thanks!

Christie

[Satrana]

There are no trends, crossdressers are in every sector of society. You cannot differentiate us from the rest of society because we are completly normal, boringly normal in fact. :D

[Teresa Amina]

You could probably extract the info from the various Polls which happen here from time to time. But beware sampling error- the more secretive among us don't answer those questions and it distorts the results.

[Vicky_Scot]

There are no trends, crossdressers are in every sector of society. You cannot differentiate us from the rest of society because we are completly normal, boringly normal in fact. :D

Agree 100%.

[Kate Simmons]

Satrana had it right, we are all boringly normal people, with a slightly different outlook. Whereas most are afraid to express our feelings, we are not and have somewhat of a "boldness" about us in that we take the plunge a little. Stats, you gotta love 'em but as has already been stated, the results of polls and surveys may be somewhat skewed , depending on circumstances. You can find a lot of interesting information on this Forum though.:happy:

[Staci G]

All of us M to F crossdressers were born male and the F to M were born female that is the only demographics that are true and exact.. the rest is hearsay and inadmissable

But I am in NC and I know we exist here

[5inchHeels]

Anyone know of any articles or studies on crossdressing, specifically statistics about crossdressers: age, sexual preference, political ideology, occupation, the like. I'm just interested in who dresses. I'm sure others are interested too. Thanks!

Christie

I'm very interested in this as well. You might try searching medical journals online. I'll try and dig up some information later on today.

[Kali]

If you accept the presumption that crossdressing is not a hooby but part of the ppsychological makup of the people that do it, and that CDs make up 3-6% of the population, any survey based demographic information will only give you results that apply to CDs that are willing to respond to a survey :)

Personally I accept the above presumptions, and therefore, if you were able to get completely honest responses from people you would find that there is no specific demographic that defines crossdressers. It would be like trying to define the demographic of people with brown or black hair.

[jayseedee]

Anyone know of any articles or studies on crossdressing, specifically statistics about crossdressers: age, sexual preference, political ideology, occupation, the like. I'm just interested in who dresses. I'm sure others are interested too. Thanks!

Christie

After nearly 50 years of studying the subject I can honestly say that I have never found any RELIABLE stats on crossdressing. It has been known throughout the ages and on all continents, in all religions, ages and occupations, the only thing you can say is that the few cultures where it does not occur are cultures where the dress of male and female does not differ much (not rocket science to work that one out is it!).

So good luck with that one, Jay

[Eva Diva]

Go to your local university library. They will have access to online catalogs of articles. Ask someone to help you find the articles you pick out in the stacks. I'm sure there's more than you ever want to know, but I don't know how reliable it will be. Tell them what you're looking for - they'll be able to recommend the proper online listings - different subjects have different catalogs.

[Lori SC]

From what I gather, reliable statistics on CDs and CDing are very difficult to find. There are maybe one or two scientific studies on the percentage of CDs in the population.

It is generally accepted that a large percentage of CDs are closet CDs who never let anyone know about themselves, nor log on the internet, etc. So how would a person ever survey these CDs to get a statistical sample? But even this generally accepted notion can not be verified.

There are of course, numerous (some scientific and a plethora of unscientific) "voluntary" CD stats and polls.

CDing is just not studied very much. There must not be any money in it!:heehee:

Hugs, Lori




Here are some stats from what I consider a reliable source. Try gendertree.com for the original info. These have been copied from several saved emails concerning statistical info on CDing and TS.

.................................................. .................
When did most wives find out about the cross dressing? Were any wives
aware of it before marriage? : About 1/3 know before marriage
About 1/3 find out after the children are grown. Remember we
generally don't tell prior to marriage out of fear and the expectation that
marriage will "cure us" we then don't tell because we are afraid of losing
you.


Does anyone else know about the cross dressing, inside the family or outside
of the family, if no, why not or if you have told people what was the
reaction/response?

Stats 52% have family members that know 57% of some close friends.

Current marriage is 61 % married 26% divorced (below the national
average) 21% it was not a factor in the divorce 32% one of many factors 17%
the biggest factor 9% the only factor. If I broke these down into CD vs. TS
there would be a big difference with more divorces in the TS end.

Would you know any stats as to how many cross dressers decide (I'm not sure
what the correct term is) to cross over and change sexes? Is it a minority
group or does it happen a lot?

Only about 1/3 of T*'s identify as TS and only about 10% have SRS many
TS's do identify as CD first but it usually becomes very apparent very
quickly that they are not. I can probably dig out those stats from a fairly
recent study by Prince and Doctor (a follow up from a study from 20 years
before).

.................................................. ............
study done by Virginia Prince and Dr, Richard Doctor in
1997 as a follow up to one done earlier

The abstract

"One thousand and thirty-two male periodic cross-dressers (transvestites)

responded to an anonymous survey patterned after Prince and Bentler's (1972)

report. With few exceptions, the findings are closely related to the 1972
survey

results. Eighty-seven percent described themselves as heterosexual. All
except

17% had married and 60% were married at the time of this survey. Topics

surveyed included demographic, childhood, and family variables, sexual

orientation and sexual behavior, cross-gender identity, cross-gender role

behavior, future plans to live entirely as a woman, and utilization of
counseling

or mental health services. Of the present sample, 45% reported seeking

counseling compared to 24% of the 1972 survey, and those reporting strong

transsexual inclinations were up by 5%.
.................................................. ........

There is no way we can give a true number of those that identify as T*, and
this leaves out those that do not identify as T*, but are i.e. some that
identify as butch dykes but are F to M, F to M CD's, those that have no idea
what T* is...
We can however estimate and get a very conservative number based on the one
known number, (plus or minus) and that is Post-op TS's. this number is about
1/2500, I have heard that only about 10% of TS's have SRS but I will be VERY
conservative and say that is 25% make it that brings the total to 1/1000
identify as TS, this is highly skewed by that fact that most F to M's to not
have a full SRS and since it is about a 1 to 1 ratio this would mean 1 in
500 are TS. From my own studies there is a fairly good ratio 1/3 of T's are
TS 1/3 TG (some place in between) and 1/3 CD. This would give a final figure
that 1/167 are transgendered, (I think, I am math challenged). I am at 14.3%
yes is there some one else in your family that is T*.

[jayseedee]

It is generally accepted that a large percentage of CDs are closet CDs who never let anyone know about themselves, nor log on the internet, etc. So how would a person ever survey these CDs to get a statistical sample? But even this generally accepted notion can not be verified.

There are of course, numerous (some scientific and a plethora of unscientific) "voluntary" CD stats and polls.

CDing is just not studied very much. There must not be any money in it!:heehee:

Hugs, Lori



Surely this - which I'm sure is true - invalidates any and all stats that you quote later.

[5inchHeels]

Surely this - which I'm sure is true - invalidates any and all stats that you quote later.

This website is a perfect example of how closeted people still seek a sense of community and will voluntarily participate in polling. There's also a plethora of medical studies/journals written on transvestites and transexuals. However, you'll need access to a medical databases to pull up that information. You might want to try the local library, or play around with some advanced Google searches such as, "DB: transvestite -.com +medical"

I mashed together all the polls from the MtF board and put them up on a thread ... which got moved to the lounge :mad:
http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=820380&posted=1#post820380

I also found this article which explains the difficulties of measureing sexual orientation and gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation

[Lori SC]

Surely this - which I'm sure is true - invalidates any and all stats that you quote later.

It doesn't invalidate the statistics. All good scientific studies are very explicit about the sample and conclusions.

If you don't survey the closet CDs, you can't say anything about them.

You just have to remember the source and conditions of the study, and not overgeneralize.

I never said I had the answers. I just presented what I have found. Which was the point of the original question.

Hugs, Lori

P.S. So what's worse?
a) Not knowing anything at all?
b) Having some numbers you believe to be true?
c) Having numbers that are "estimated" by someone and accepted as fact by others?

[Angie G]

I've never seen one :hugs:
Angie

[trannie T]

I'd love to see a good survey done similar to the Kinsey Report 50 years ago. I met a therapist who is doing some research on transgender behavior, I'll try to post about it after she interviews me.

[Kerrie Sifton]

Would you have answered correctly or would you have known what to answer if you were asked 5 years ago, also , since coming to this site, I have found some new ideas, and affirmed my feelings. Which would change my answers to a surveyor:2c: