There are a LOT of Crossdressers out there !

[Kelly DeWinter]

I attended a meeting recently where a Psychologist specializing in GID (Gender Identity Disorder) spoke on the current information available on GID. She stated that in
. 1 in 100 men cross dress on a regular basis either in part, termed under dressing(wearing of female garments under rationally male garments) or in full presentation (wearing clothes normally associated as female, makeup and prosthetics)
. of the 1 in 100 - 88% are still in the closet limiting their activities to either dressing outside of the home or in secret within the home.
. of the 1 in 100 - 12 % are out of the closet actively presenting as female in public
. 83% of first marriages end in divorce when transgendered activities are revealed, after 4 years of marriage.
. 92% of relationships are stable(in reguards to crossdressing) when disclosed at the start of a relationship.
There was additional information, but until i confirm the sources i will limit it to above. In view of the above I have created the following table and have come to the following conclusions
LOOK AT THE TABLE AT THE END OF THIS POST THEN CONSIDER :
Average football stadium seats 70,000 and if half are women then there may be 350 crossdressers in attendance.
Average airport handles 101,000 passengers each day and if half are women then there may be 505 crossdressers intraveling.
Average NASCAR has 167,000 and if half are women then there may be 835 crossdressers would be attending.
At the 109 congress there were 458 men, so there may be 4 or 5 CD Senators or Congresmen. What state do you think they are in ?


Sorry girls, thats the best I can do on the carts , Put on you rose colored reading glasses if you need them.

Uh oh. This seems to have touched something with people. I will answer what i can. I did the chart late at night, after being awake for 20 hrs.

The out of the closet profile, was specificly NOT full time crossdressers, or pre or post OP Transsexuals.

I am not a statician, I just:

.multiplied the population*.001 for number of crossdressers
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.12 for the out figure
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.88 for the closeted crossdressers.

the corrected formula must be more like:
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.12*.5 for the out male crossdressers
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.88*.5 for the closeted male crossdressers.

The meeting was at a TriEss chapter in Baltimore


I agree the actual numbers should be half to account for half(approx) of the population being male.

Either way its still a heck of a lot of people. Makes me wonder what the FTM numbers would add to it.

I will leave it up to the researchers to make the determination, I just thought it was fun information.

Kelly

[Michl41]

Maybe, the state of disbelief?................:D

[jennCD]

... or a state of confusion?

:)
jenn

[Kelly DeWinter]

I still find it staggering, that there is a possibility of 3 Million crossdressers in the US. and 55,000 in Maryland alone.

[trisha59]

One month and 13 days ago I would have thought that these numbers were way off. Now I think that there are right on the money.

[Kelly DeWinter]

LOL Trish , I have to ask , what happened 1 month and 13 days ago ?

[Raquel June]

I can believe those numbers -- that 1% of men crossdress, and that the majority of those are just guys who like to wear panties under their khakis now and then. So 3 million guys in the US wear panties now and then. Not really unbelievable at all.

What I think is ridiculous is that there are several people on this forum who continually say that 5% to 10% of men are crossdressers. That's totally absurd, and if it was true this forum would have 11 million members, not 11,000.



LOL Trish , I have to ask , what happened 1 month and 13 days ago ?

trisha59
Join Date
10-01-2008

[avril findlay]

I knew it!, I knew it!, there's millions of the b******s!

[Jill]

Thanks for the numbers, I've always wondered. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was a tad higher then 1% but it's a generous number and equates to a lot of crossdressers. This forum has a vast population and I'm sure the people on here are just a small representation of the total population. I'd be curious to know how many new members join this forum every day.

[trisha59]

trisha59
Join Date
10-01-2008
Racquel you are so cleaver. I know that it's not in the millions but I wonder how many others are out there who were like me and are just getting started with this computer stuff and have yet to stumbled upon this site yet.

[MJ]

It don't surprise me i still think the numbers are still low myself

[DonnaT]

What state do you think they are in

The State of Denial ?

[yms]

Hi

Do you know the name of this psychologist and where this meeting took place?

Thanks
Yvonne

[ReneeT]

Kelly,

In your tables you extraapolate the number of crossdressers from the total population. As I read the data, it appears that you need to multiply the total population number by the proportion of males. thus, approx 1.5 m cd ers in the US . That's still a lot!

[Julogden]

Hi Kelly,

I too think that's a conservative percentage, I'd love to know more about how she came up with it. My experience is that most CD's are totally closeted and isolated, making it very difficult to get an accurate sense of their numbers.:2c:

Keep in mind that she's only seeing a subset of CD's: those who are experiencing enough distress over their dressing to seek her counselling. Most of us would never see her or any other gender therapist.

Growing up, I had 6 male friends in my neighborhood, one of whom was definitely a CD, I know because he told me and we dressed up together a couple times, and another that I strongly suspect, but 2 of us were/are definitely CD's. Ignoring the friend that I'm pretty sure of, that's still 28% of us who were CD's. Typical? I can't say, probably higher than the average, but probably not too much higher.

Among my male cousins on my father's side, counting me there were 9 boys, 2 of us that I know of definitely were/are CD's, roughly 22%. I know these are anecdotal evidence, but I feel that they are pretty good indication that the percentage is probably way higher than 1%.

Carol

[Raquel June]

It don't surprise me i still think the numbers are still low myself

I think the numbers are actually a little too high still. At least the "out" number is too high.

Coming from a therapist, I'm sure there are much more "out" people who would see a therapist because people who get therapy tend to deal with their issues instead of hiding them.




Kelly,

In your tables you extraapolate the number of crossdressers from the total population. As I read the data, it appears that you need to multiply the total population number by the proportion of males. thus, approx 1.5 m cd ers in the US . That's still a lot!

That's true. Only 49% of the population is male, and if we rule out crossdressing teens, only 35% of the population is males over the age of 19.

There are 707,000 people in the two main Dayton counties. That means 2,474 are supposedly male crossdressers over age 19, and 297 are supposedly out. The only real support group around has about 10 regular members if you include me, and most of them aren't out. I've hit pretty much every club in Dayton several times and still see the same miniscule number of crossdressers. People come from all over Ohio and West Virginia to go to CD events in Columbus, and I still run into the same 50 people most of the time. The vast majority of them aren't out, either. There is a TG support group in Cincinnati called Crossport. It's seriously run by the nicest people I've ever met. People come from Dayton, Indiana, Kentucky -- all over. But it's still the same 10 or 15 people most of the time, and most of them aren't out. They had a float in the Pride parade that had 3 people on it.

So I just take big issue with that "out" statistic. I've met a over 200 crossdressers in person, and obviously there are tons I haven't met from around here, but the vast majority of them are far from out.


of the 1 in 100 - 12 % are out of the closet actively presenting as female in public

Actively presenting? That sounds like defining "out" as meaning fulltime femme.

When I think of the people I know who actively present as female ... I know one who presents as female in Dayton, but actually lives 30 miles away and presents as male there. I know two fulltimers in Dayton and two more who are fairly androgynous types who I'll go ahead and group as fulltime. I know a drag queen who is fulltime and has implants. I know two who actively present as female in Cincinnati (one recently moved to Seattle). I know three in the Toledo/Cleveland area who are fulltime. I know a couple in Columbus who are transitioning. So, I personally know over 10 people in Ohio who are fulltime, but most of them are on hormones, and 2 have had full SRS, one had an orchiotomy, and one has implants. I know of 10 escorts in Ohio, but all of them have implants or are on massive amounts of hormones.

I know plenty people in the TS/TV/TG/CD community, but fulltime people who aren't transitioning? That's an extremely low number. When I really think about it, I only know two people who are fulltime who aren't transitioning.

Interestingly, I know more people than that who are on hormones but aren't out.




Most of us would never see her or any other gender therapist.

That's terrifying, but you're probably right.



I had 6 male friends in my neighborhood, one of whom was definitely a CD

...

that's still 28% of us who were CD's. Typical? I can't say, probably higher than the average, but probably not too much higher.


A sample size of 6 isn't useful for any real statistics. That's no more valid than if you said, "My best friend is straight, so I think close to 100% of the population is straight."

Besides, people tend to be drawn to similar people, even if they don't know it. Personally, I'm just magically drawn to crossdressers and computer geeks. That, and girls with big butts. I'm not sure how that happened, though.

[tealannette]

This is awsome news...I feel wonderful know. I should give this to my SO. May not help, but it is worth a try.

[sandra-leigh]

Apparently there are quite a number of cross-dressers in Congress and Senate; a few months ago I encountered a site which said roughly that "you would be surprised how many cannot make a speech unless they are wearing panties", and the author proceeded to say roughly, "I should know; I'm their therapist".

Now, where's the link-guy when you need him? :heehee:


All the other figures I've seen have been for more than 1% of the population, but no-one can seem to agree on the figure. My local "Tall Girl" shop told me that they get guys in there fairly regularly, that I'm not even close to being the only male customer. As I recall, they mentioned that some of them were from the local professional football team (which happens to play in the stadium that is the next building over from the mall with the Tall Girl shop.)

I have seen a number of posters comment that they went wig shopping and have asked about the incidence of male customers (for female wigs); most of them get told that the store gets quite a few customers. If my memory serves me correctly, one of the wig stores reportedly said that men are 40% of their business.

I can say that in pretty much any women's clothing store I go into in the city (and I usually go in drab), they are not even a little startled that I am shopping for myself: they've seen it before often enough that nearly all of the sales assistants are accustomed to it. I did get one sales assistant who was visibly startled, but she was game and did her best to help me; she mentioned it was her first day on the job. And yes, in some of the more expensive stores, I do sometimes get a sales agent asking me "Can I help you?" with the "What are you doing in this store?" undertone -- so I just tell them what I'm looking for, and it's usually only about 10 seconds from starting to talk before the "WTF is he here??" look is completely gone, replaced by the kind of look reserved for serious polite customers who are prepared to spend money.


But those are anecdotes. Hard figures... difficult to get.

One way we might be able to get a rough estimate is to examine relative proportions of therapists that mention gender therapy (in their advertising), or of doctors that mention gender.

In my local area, there are 5 "sex therapists" listed, one of whom mentions "gender" specifically, and a second of whom mentions "gay and lesbian issues".

Sorry, I don't have time to go through the "therapists" or "doctors" sections at the moment.

[marny]

1 in 100... give yourself a shake if you think that is a signifigent number! Try 1 in 7 and see if that rings a bell hon!

[Kelly DeWinter]

Uh oh. This seems to have touched something with people. I will answer what i can. I did the chart late at night, after being awake for 20 hrs.

The out of the closet profile, was specificly NOT full time crossdressers, or pre or post OP Transsexuals.

I am not a statician, I just:

.multiplied the population*.001 for number of crossdressers
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.12 for the out figure
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.88 for the closeted crossdressers.

the corrected formula must be more like:
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.12*.5 for the out male crossdressers
.multiplied the number of crossdressers*.88*.5 for the closeted male crossdressers.

The meeting was at a TriEss chapter in Baltimore

I agree the actual numbers should be half to account for half(approx) of the population being male.

Either way its still a heck of a lot of people. Makes me wonder what the FTM numbers would add to it.

I will leave it up to the researchers to make the determination, I just thought it was fun information.

I'm just glad it's more then the 70 or so crossdressers I know !
Kelly

[jazmine]

I think there's WAY more out there.

[Raquel June]

The out of the closet profile, was specificly NOT full time crossdressers, or pre or post OP Transsexuals.

What exactly did they mean by "actively presenting as female in public" then?

[AlysonCD]

I just like what it said for my state, (MS). Something like 20,000 cd's here. If that's true, where are they already??? lol

[Kelly DeWinter]

What exactly did they mean by "actively presenting as female in public" then?

She ment "was specificly NOT full time crossdressers, or pre or post OP Transsexuals." exactly.

I know of at least one crossdresser who presents as female in public when she goes out, but Kelly reverts back to male mode when she gets home. I suspect there might be others who do that exact same thing in this forum from what i've read.

[Angie G]

Something to think about. But there is no disorder in my GI.:hugs:
Angie

[CD Susan]

I find this thread interesting, however I think that figure of 1% of the male population who are crossdressers is too low. I have read similar threads on this site and on others too that have put the number at closer to 4% or 5%. I think that the actual percentage is extremely difficult to determine with any degree of accuracy due to the nature of most of us to consider this a very private part of our lives. The number of crossdressers who won't even reveal this to thier wives is higher than those who do. This is a subject that most us will not disscuss with anyone so the real percentage number will never be determined.

[Raquel June]

This is a subject that most us will not disscuss with anyone so the real percentage number will never be determined.

Then why speculate that it's 4-5%? That's such an absurdly high number. If it was anywhere near that high, it would be common knowledge. Every ER in the world would get a couple guys in panties every night, and we all know someone who works in a hospital. They have stories of guys in panties, but it's not every night, or even every week.

Certainly there are a lot, but 1% would be 1.5 million M2F crossdressers in the US. This site has 11,000 members (although that includes GGs, admirers, inactive or duplicate accounts, etc). URNotAlone.com has 13,600 US members listed as M2F (although a huge number of them identify as transgendered, not crossdressers). So if even 1% crossdress, that implies that well under 1 in 1,000 crossdressers is online, so I'm not buying the speculation that the numbers are even bigger than that. Many CDs I know are on a few Yahoo groups even if they aren't on any forums, but those are usually pretty small (the ones with a lot of members tend to be 90% admirers).

But whatever. Speculate as much as you want about the elusive number of CDs in the closet. But when people start to talk about how many non-closet CDs there are, well, I gotta start calling BS because there's just no proof out there that the number is even 0.1%.

[battybattybats]

Going by Lynn Conway http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html


In the United States there are varying estimates of the prevalence of crossdressing. Most conservative estimates are in the range of 2% to 5% of all adult males engage in routine crossdressing (1:50 to 1:20). These are people who crossdress part-time either privately at home, or in private CD clubs, and who find great satisfaction in this practice. In a majority of these cases there is mainly a male fetishistic motivation for the crossdressing. However, in a moderate fraction (1/3rd?) it mainly provides an outlet for mild to moderate to strong transgender feelings.




TABLE 2: Coordinated rough projections of prevalence of CD/TG/TS conditions in the U.S.:
P/T intense CD'ers:
Observed situations: Likely lower bounds on
"intrinsic" prevalence
1:20
Conservative lower bounds on current prevalence
1:50


and


Of course, all these are very rough numbers. They are still subject to definitional and "labeling" problems. Nevertheless, this table is suggestive of what the numbers might be and how the numbers would likely cross-compare from category to category. Note that the rough numbers we get "bottom-up" by counting surgeries in order to calculate an improved lower bound on TS transitioners in the U.S. (1:2500) are seen to be consistent with rough "top-down" derivations from the estimates of crossdresser groups and activist groups in the U.S. that there are roughly 1% to 2% of people who are TG, and perhaps 2% to 5% of males who engage in frequent (private/club) crossdressing. Thus this table "hangs together" in a common-sense way, and is suggestive of where to focus further research to refine these numbers.

[Shari]

I would be very interested to know where these figures come from. An "educated guess" is what I'd call it.
Just for the record, I'd bet a paycheck that nobody on this forum was ever polled and asked if they crossdressed. I know I've never been approached at the mall or as I walked down the street, or anywhere else.

I classify the survey under one of the following:
Lies
Damn lies
Statistics

Further, what difference does it make how many of us there are? I figure the sun will still come up tomorrow morning regardless of the numbers.:2c:

[kristinacd55]

Wow, how'd they get all those statistics? Did the crossdressers in the closet come out to tell all? Hmmm.....

[Sammy777]

Certainly there are a lot, but 1% would be 1.5 million M2F crossdressers in the US. This site has 11,000 members (although that includes GGs, admirers, inactive or duplicate accounts, etc). URNotAlone.com has 13,600 US members listed as M2F (although a huge number of them identify as transgendered, not crossdressers). So if even 1% crossdress, that implies that well under 1 in 1,000 crossdressers is online

Interesting point, but here is something to consider.
An est 220m out of the 301-316m people in the US have internet access (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm) [about 71%].
That means roughly 90m people are without internet access.
90m divided by 49%[male pop] = 44.1m offline
44.1m divided by 1% [M2F CD] = 441,000 offline CD'ers
1,501,000 M2F CD's - 441,000 = 1,068,200 online CD'ers

That means that only .0049% [1/2 of 1%] of the people online in the US are open CD'ers [at least online]. [220m total divided by 1,068,200 = .0049]

[Raquel June]

Well, Racquel, I usually quote the figure of 6%, so call me ridiculous.

Are you honestly suggesting that there are 200 million crossdresseers in the world? Because that's what 6% of the male population is. That would mean there are as many US crossdressers as the population of New York City.

If you're going to base that on one survey of 5,000 men, you're going to have to look at what questions they were being asked that qualify them as crossdressers. Either somebody is blatantly lying about the numbers, or else the study was asking something like, "Have you ever thought of trying on panties in your life?"




No, the fact is that nobody knows precisely how many CDs there are because a) Nobody's done a decent survey recently and b) There's no hard-and-fast definition of what the term means.

Until someone comes up with a foolproof answer, I'll keep quoting 6%.

Surely you can at least agree that if you can classify 6% of the population as crossdressers then your definition of what it means to be a crossdresser is too broad.

You are now suggesting that less than 1 in 6,000 crossdressers is on the net. If only 1 in 6,000 choose to participate in any kind of an online group of their peers, then they probably don't really identify with that group.

When it comes to hobbyists, more like 1 in 10 participate in online groups regarding their hobby. Ask a group of people who build model airplanes or collect something or run competitively or own several guns or customize their car. Yet many people here are suggesting that less than 1 in 5,000 crossdressers are in an online CD community.

There are not 200 million crossdressers in the world. It's just plain silly to say that. There are probably not 20 million crossdressers in the world, and even if there were, they don't actually identify as crossdressers so why would you say they are? They're not your "sisters" and they certainly wouldn't "have your back" if someone was harrassing you for being a crossdresser.

[Tess]

This is a subject that can be debated forever due to the lack of real data. As we use to say during my working days "if you don't have the data make some up". Unfortunately that becomes the case all to often with so called experts using unscientific samples and then extrapolating to a wild conclusion. I don't consider magazine surveys to be worth the paper on which they are printed. Perhaps this psychologist has a scientifically defensible survey. Has it been published or presented at a professional conference and been peer reviewed? It would be great to know. Otherwise we can make up our own data to support our positions and let the debate continue.

[sometimes_miss]

Whenever you have a behavior that carries such a social stigma to it, you are going to find, in any survey, fewer people admitting to it than who actually behave that way, or want to behave that way. Ask any person if they've ever thought about killing someone. In moments of anger, pretty much everyone has. But they won't admit it. Ask people if they take their medications the way they're supposed to. Then look in their medicine cabinet and see all the left over bottles. People do not want to, and will avoid, telling others that they do something they believe they are not supposed to do. Same with surveying people about their sexual activities. Between religious and social pressures, most men don't like to admit there's anything feminine about us to the outside world, and often, to themselves as well. Think of all the derogitory terms for a guy who admits to any feminine behavior or feelings. Wimp, wussy, etc.. Who needs all the confrontation. So, most men will deny it. And that skews the results of the surveys dramatically, hence the results of the survey cited in this thread. The other studies I've read all pointed to a percentage between 2 and 2.5 percent of men who crossdress on a regular basis. So this one's probably not all that accurate.

[Raquel June]

Whenever you have a behavior that carries such a social stigma to it, you are going to find, in any survey, fewer people admitting to it than who actually behave that way, or want to behave that way.

...

People do not want to, and will avoid, telling others that they do something they believe they are not supposed to do. Same with surveying people about their sexual activities.

That's not totally valid. You have to look at how a study is being done. For example, when people volunteer to take a study about sexual activities where the results are totally anonymous, there is zero pressure to lie. To the contrary, you could easily argue that repressed individuals are more likely to volunteer for such a study in the first place because they want the chance to make it known how large their numbers are.

Many studies have been done showing that about 5% of men have had multiple homosexual experiences, and about 1% of men are exclusively homosexual. People often say that these studies are flawed and that the gay population is actually 10%, but there's no real reason to believe that.

You just can't go grossly overestimating numbers because you speculate that there are a lot of people in the closet but have no evidence.

[Annemarie]

This is the number I've seen quoted in Vern Bullough's Crossdressing, sex and gender published in 1993. How he came up with that number I can't remember, but it seems more or less right i.e. far less than the 5% of Gays that is generally quoted.

[LA CINDY LOVE]

I was looking at the numbers of cross dressers who are in the closet and those who are out of the closet..........it is very very big, just a small hand full of us to fight the battles while the rest just hide in the closet.

LA CINDY LOVE

[Nicki B]

She stated that in 1 in 100 men cross dress on a regular basis either in part, termed under dressing(wearing of female garments under rationally male garments) or in full presentation (wearing clothes normally associated as female, makeup and prosthetics)

But...... How can anyone, ever measure that? Most of us tend to be very secretive about this? I'm sorry, but you're extrapolating from someone's guesswork, however much we might think there's a degree of truth.

You can't tell how much iceberg is below the waterline - you just know it's A LOT.. :)

[ReineD]

I attended a meeting recently where a Psychologist specializing in GID (Gender Identity Disorder) spoke on the current information available on GID. She stated that
. 1 in 100 men cross dress on a regular basis


Out of curiosity, Kelly, did the psychologist mention where she got her data? Also, did she have an estimate as to how many of the 1% have GID?

[Raquel June]

You can't tell how much iceberg is below the waterline - you just know it's A LOT.. :)

You can make a pretty educated guess, though. Glacial ice is about 87% as dense as seawater so when you see an iceberg, you are seeing 13% of the mass of the iceberg, meaning that seven times as much of it is below the waterline.

But there is a very clear definition of what an iceberg is, and that helps us make an educated guess. If we can't even decide what a crossdresser is, we might as well not try to guess how many there are.

But if you're going to define a crossdresser as a person who identifies as a crossdresser (which seems pretty reasonable), you can make an educated guess that the number is a lot less than 5% based on the membership of online communities.



Also, did she have an estimate as to how many of the 1% have GID?

That's an interesting thing to bring up. Many people (including the Tri-Ess crowd) would say that anybody with GID is TS and not a crossdresser. Since I've got social dysphoria / gender dysphoria / scizophrenia / general nuttiness, I suppose I should avoid identifying as a crossdresser. :)

[Kelly DeWinter]

ReineD,

I really don't have an answer to those questions. Sometimes I wonder if whatever the percentage is, I keep wondering, Has it allways been whatever it is like a fixed percentage or is it increasing as our society changes or is it decreasing from a hithero unknow number. Just like society as a whole, is it the start of some sort of overall societal shift ?

[TSchapes]

I have never been able to track down the empirical study done to come up with these figures. I talked about my attempts here (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1407306&postcount=27) & here (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1408392&postcount=31).

Until a respectable study is done, we will never know the true numbers. And as someone pointed out, it doesn't help that so many are in the closet.

-Tracy

[deja true]

But if you're going to define a crossdresser as a person who identifies as a crossdresser (which seems pretty reasonable), you can make an educated guess that the number is a lot less than 5% based on the membership of online communities.

But as we've read many many times right here, many of us refused to admit ...or identify...that we were indeed CDs for a long time...

And as for online "hobbyists", sure maybe 10% of model railroaders or off-road Jeep fanatics or Avon bottle collectors will admit to being active on line, but that can in no way relate to the number of "stigmatized hobbyists" who would dare to participate on line. I, like hundreds here, lurked T-sites of all kinds for years...years... before I screwed up the courage to register here. And many who post now admit to lurking here even after registering for months before they posted for the first time.

Our activity is born and lives in secrecy and is a practice that has more than few paranoids, myself included.

Ya want some more numbers to plug into your theories?

At Chicago's BeAll last spring, there were 450 participants but only 12 to 15 from this forum...

At SCC, there were 850 participants, but only 25 to 30 participants from this forum...

And one more comment: Any percentage concerning CDs that's based on survey info from our Western world does not neccessarily apply to cultures that are very different than ours... A survey from the UK or the US or Canada or even Iceland on social mores or practices means nothing in relation to a population of African Bushmen or Australian Aborigines or Patagonian lama herders... So don't try extrapolating 'Merican or Brit figures to the whole world, K?

[obsessedwithpantyhose]

im one of the 3100 plus whos out in Arizona :D

[Raquel June]

I don't have an agenda here. I'm just trying to use some common sense.



But as we've read many many times right here, many of us refused to admit ...or identify...that we were indeed CDs for a long time...

That's true, and we all have our own story as to how we came to identify as being CD/TG/whatever. Should you count a guy who put on a piece of his girlfriend's clothes a couple times when he masturbated then felt guilty about it for a few months? He's not going to identify as a crossdresser anymore than a guy who uses a vibrator now and then is going to identify as gay.

We're not going to come to a conclusion about what makes a crossdresser a crossdresser, and that's fine. What I was trying to say, though, is that when we refer to figures we have to be very clear about who we're talking about. Anytime I hear about some study, or even just someone giving their own random speculation, they aren't very clear about what they're talking about. Some therapist said 1% of people are crossdressers. That means nothing unless the therapist very specifically says who is being referred to as a crossdresser.




Ya want some more numbers to plug into your theories?

At Chicago's BeAll last spring, there were 450 participants but only 12 to 15 from this forum...

At SCC, there were 850 participants, but only 25 to 30 participants from this forum...

Well let's see how far we can get with those numbers.

That's 1 in 30, and that's a big correlation between CD events and members of this forum, and that implies a very small CD population. I would also say that those figures hold true for CD events I've been to in Ohio -- about 1 in 30 (maybe 1 in 40) people I meet are members of this forum.

Obviously you can't infer anything about the totally closetted CD population by that, but if CD "outings" tend to be made up of 2.5% to 3.0% members of this forum, then with reasonable confidence you can say that the "out" CD population in the US is well under a half million.

The OP's figures put the "out" CD population at 75,000 in the US, which would imply that 16% to 22% of the members of this forum are out.

That all makes the 75,000 figure (0.12% of the population) seem plausible. It's a narrow definition of "out," but if no other CDs ever meet you than how far out of the closet are you?




And one more comment: Any percentage concerning CDs that's based on survey info from our Western world does not neccessarily apply to cultures that are very different than ours...

Then don't consider anything outside the US. Some people continue to claim that 9 million US citizens are M2F crossdressers. If you want to define a crossdresser as any guy who ever touched a pair of panties, maybe that makes sense. Just be sure you're clear about what you're trying to say. If you don't define what a crossdresser is, any numbers you give are nonsense.

[Kelly DeWinter]

Racquel

The intent of the original post was to have some fun with a little snipit of information suggested at a meeting. I really don't think anyone is trying to prove or disprove anything. Trying to pin down the sociological and behaviorial habits of the secrective Homo-Trangendis-Crossdressus has been the Holy Grail of psychcologists for many years. It may be a mystery for many years to come. We are just getting a glimpse of their word, with the new tools available to researchers like the internet, web pages, and the all important camofloged study stations outside of Victorias Secret and Wal Mart womens clothing section. They are as elsusive as The Giant Squid, Bigfoot, Barny the Dinosaur, Tinkerbell and the Vulcan 3 footed snarflet.

Who knows future research may indicate 100% of men crossdress. I think we cal all agree, that there are more important things to disagree on like weather it's OK to wear glitter finger nail polish on Friday night. I say yes. Right now I think it's wonderful that research of any kind is being done.

Give me a survey, I'll fill it out !

[battybattybats]

That's not totally valid. You have to look at how a study is being done. For example, when people volunteer to take a study about sexual activities where the results are totally anonymous, there is zero pressure to lie. To the contrary, you could easily argue that repressed individuals are more likely to volunteer for such a study in the first place because they want the chance to make it known how large their numbers are.


You'd think so, but surveys of men and womens number of sexual partners never added up. They found that even when there was suppossed to be anonymity that men exaggerated to larger numbers and women exaggerated down by about the same factor because the social pressure to avoid judgement is so strong that promises of anonymity are often not enough.

The factor increased depending on the degree of social interaction. A face to face survey got more exaggeration than a voice-to-voice one which got more than an online or mail-in survery.

[Janet Bern]

I think that those numbers are low. If asked I would never admit I was a CD. I believe the books that are show into the 20% area of males that CD. Granted many are occasionally wearing the wifes or gfs things but would never admit it. Of the 20% i read that 80% are hetero. Either way I will agree that only about 5% of the 20% engage in CDing regularly. But face it I bet about 50% of men at least tried on pair of womans panties.
Janet

[Raquel June]

It may be a mystery for many years to come.

I'm sure it will be, but we can make reasonable guesses at how many out CDs there are.

As far as closet CDs, we're not even close to having valid numbers. And even if we could figure out how many CDs were shopping at stores, that wouldn't include all the people who only wear their SO's clothes or shop online, and that's probably the majority of CDs. If you're shopping for yourself, you're at least half way to "out."

Even therapists aren't going to know that much. I was in tharepy for a year and never brought it up. I was depressed because of work/school/home issues, and my SO didn't know I wore her clothes now and then. It really wasn't worth bringing up because it wasn't a problem and wasn't something I did often.

I think it'd be great to do a survey of people who work in emergency rooms to try and get some real numbers, but that's still only going to tell you the number of CDs who underdress regularly. A lot of CDs don't underdress. I haven't in almost 10 years. Well, maybe that's not true, because I have worn tights under my jeans when it was really cold, and I've worn panties when the rest of my laundry was dirty, but I don't regularly underdress. But seeing as I'm driving en femme most weekends and I've been arrested en femme, I suppose the chances of me being en femme if I went to the ER is actually pretty high. :)



I believe the books that are show into the 20% area of males that CD.

[CITATION NEEDED] !

Which books might those be?

[sandra-leigh]

Relevant to this discussion is this thread I just posted, on the incidence rates of Intersex conditions (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94302)

Specific figures are given for some conditions; the known (studied) rates for one of these conditions exceeds 0.1% for males, and one of the (serious) references there states the overall rate is up to 1%. Even if we ignore the "up to" figure on the basis that it is not a hard number, the hard numbers that are given exceed the rate for ordinary "crossdressing" that started this thread, forcing us to conclude that the rate in the article that started this thread is almost certainly a substantial underestimate.

[Tess]

Relevant to this discussion is this thread I just posted, on the incidence rates of Intersex conditions (http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94302)

Specific figures are given for some conditions; the known (studied) rates for one of these conditions exceeds 0.1% for males, and one of the (serious) references there states the overall rate is up to 1%. Even if we ignore the "up to" figure on the basis that it is not a hard number, the hard numbers that are given exceed the rate for ordinary "crossdressing" that started this thread, forcing us to conclude that the rate in the article that started this thread is almost certainly a substantial underestimate.

I guess I missed something here. I don't follow the your logic.

[Raquel June]

the hard numbers that are given exceed the rate for ordinary "crossdressing" that started this thread, forcing us to conclude that the rate in the article that started this thread is almost certainly a substantial underestimate.

Why would statistics about genetic intersex conditions have anything to do with crossdressing? Most XXX people spend their lives presenting as female, and most Klinefelter/XXY people spend their lives presenting as male.

[Nicki B]

Why would statistics about genetic intersex conditions have anything to do with crossdressing?

Why would they not? :strugglin

I think it's perfectly possible that some of us, at least, are IS, but don't know it? Unless your external anatomy is indeterminate, no one ever checks?

Three girls I know personally all had female anatomical features (ovaries) discovered, while under the knife for SRS - and of the two Klinefelters people I know, one spent 22 yrs in the British Army as a Sgt Major but now lives and works as a woman (she says hormone levels vary drastically with age), the other has yo-yo'ed from living in one gender to the other, several times - and now is on high doses of testosterone?

[Raquel June]

Three girls I know personally all had female anatomical features (ovaries) discovered, while under the knife for SRS

People undergoing SRS are transsexual. A doctor isn't going to perform gender reassignment surgery on a crossdresser. What you're talking about is a correlation between intersex conditions and transsexuality, and that's already been fairly well established. It's not surprising that a "male" born with ovaries might later be diagnosed as transsexual. Many transsexuals like to refer to themselves as intersexed even though they've never been tested -- many actually refuse to be tested because they think it would somehow make their transsexuality less legitimate if it was revealed that they were XY and thought they were female. The intersexed community is often mentioned in the fight for TS equality.

While there's certainly some gray area between crossdressing and transsexuality, the majority of crossdressers aren't transsexual, so I don't see the relevance.

[Nicki B]

..the majority of crossdressers aren't transsexual, so I don't see the relevance.

Neither of the people I know who are diagnosed XXY (i.e. Klinefelters Syndrome) have had SRS, but have lived as both male, female and intermediate for some of their lives?

The point is genetic testing is incredibly rare, so we just don't know how high the incidence is - but one symptom might easily be gender confusion? And doesn't that describe many of us?

I think we have more in common than you seem to want to allow..

[battybattybats]

For starters I think that Intersex, transexuals, and crossdressing my all be strongly related.

But the relevance of the prevalance of Intersex compared to the perception of the prevalance of Intersex can be directly compared to the prevalance of CDs compared to the perception of the prevalance of CDs.

If there are way more Intersex people than most people realise then we cannot dissmiss reports or suggestions of significantly high numbers of CDs.

I briefly mentioned this subject with some sociologist/psychologist/biologist friends of mine today and they were of the opinion that most estimates of crossdressing in the population are way down compared to reality.

Apparently going by the number of crossdressers that visited the legal brothel used in a study they did some years ago they would be surprised if the number was under 10% of the general male population.

[Penny]

I am absolutly sure of one. :heehee: Based on our membership of over 28,000,
I am convinced there are much more although some of the pics are unbelievable :battingeyelashes: Gee! And to think at one time, I thought I was wierd and alone. well ok, maybe I still am wierd.

:hugs:

[Nicki B]

Gee! And to think at one time, I thought I was wierd and alone. well ok, maybe I still am wierd.

What do you expect, if you live in Texas? :heehee:

[Raquel June]

I think we have more in common than you seem to want to allow..

Well, crossdressers may or may not be significantly correlated with intersex people depending on how you define crossdressers. If you include TS people, sure. If you use the Tri-Ess definition of a crossdresser, then no. But it is fairly well documented that under 1% of births are intersexed in any way, so I can't imagine how significant that is.

I'm just bothered that the majority of people around here like to speculate that 5% of males (or more!) are crossdressers, and they appear to have absolutely nothing to base that figure on.

[Nicki B]

If you use the Tri-Ess definition of a crossdresser,

Why on earth would I do that? It's a term they invented, anyway. :heehee:


But it is fairly well documented that under 1% of births are intersexed in any way, so I can't imagine how significant that is.

IS people would disagree with you - as Tess points out, the only documentation is of significant external genital 'defects' - the actual rate is likely to be significantly higher?


I'm just bothered that the majority of people around here like to speculate that 5% of males (or more!) are crossdressers, and they appear to have absolutely nothing to base that figure on.

There, I'm with you - this is all based on conjecture, not facts.

[Raquel June]

IS people would disagree with you - as Tess points out, the only documentation is of significant external genital 'defects' - the actual rate is likely to be significantly higher?

Well, I suppose the Wikipedia page says it well:

"The prevalence of intersex depends on which definition is used."

If you're going to define intersex to include conditions that don't even have out-of-the-ordinary symptoms, then you can say whatever you want about the figures. For example, would you say every XXY person is intersex? Many would, but there are many XXY symptoms that are in no way gender-related, and there are XXY guys who do not have any female-like symptoms and would not call themselves intersex. OTOH, testosterone varies quite a bit just on its own, and I'm sure there are guys with relatively low testosterone (and no official genetic syndrome) who would consider themselves intersex and those who wouldn't.

If ya talk to some OBGYNs, though, they're going to agree with the numbers that you see saying it's very low.

That'd be fascinating to know how many people have both testicles and ovaries. I guess if the ovaries can go totally undetected we'll never know.

[Satrana]

If you look at studies of sexual practices which the general population have become more frank about over the last few decades, the number of people involved in "perverted" practices is always much higher than people imagine (or want) it to be. We may appear to be homogeneous in public but behind closed doors we turn out to be a very diverse species when it comes to sexual experiences.

So if there is so much diversity with sex then why should anyone think there is also not a large diversity with gender experimentation as well since in most people's eyes the two things are intertwined? I have no doubt that large numbers of people have crossdressed for sexual purposes. The question is whether they should be considered crossdressers or not.

Another way to examine this question is to examine what has happened to women when crossdressing in masculine clothing was no longer considered taboo. Here we find overwhelmingly that women happily incorporate masculine clothing into their everyday wear. So we can conclude that if MTF crossdressing lost its taboo status then the majority of men would happily wear feminine wear. The potential number of MTF crossdressers is in fact huge.

Combining these two facts would indicate that the number of CDs is almost certainly much higher than people imagine it to be. However most MTF CDing of it is done in the utmost secrecy and privacy and will never be revealed even in surveys because men feel so guilty and ashamed of it.

I would also say that there would be far more out MTF CDs if more men actually tried it. Most will not allow themselves because they are afraid they will enjoy the experience. This group of men probably exceeds those who have tried it.

This means that the percentage of MTF CDs is not stable but is in fact rising as society becomes more open and liberal and more people are willing to experiment.

[battybattybats]

Regarding frequency of Intersex, amongst the complaints made to the Australian Human Rights Comisssions Sex and Gender Diversity Project many have involved the fact that stats are not being collected on Intersex, even genital 'normalisation' surgeries, that the AMA and other bodies have been quite unhelpful and dissmissive about these issues, that many doctors and specialists are woefully uneducated about Intersex and that many Intersex people suffer discrimination within the health system in attempting to obtain proper treatment.

Many OBGYN's and endocrinologists apparently turn away Intersex people refusing to treat them!


If you look at studies of sexual practices which the general population have become more frank about over the last few decades, the number of people involved in "perverted" practices is always much higher than people imagine (or want) it to be. We may appear to be homogeneous in public but behind closed doors we turn out to be a very diverse species when it comes to sexual experiences.

Just think what will happen to the society when people cotton on that a large part of the gay porn and gay erotic literature and Yaoi manga market is straight women! Or the collosal explosion of popularity of 'pegging'!

[Susan4]

Sorry, I can't help it.

The question, at the end of the day, is what does the '100' refer to? As is 1 in 100. 100 what? 100 men and women. That is, MTF and FTM CDs? Or just MTF? Does it include, as someone pointed out, adult males only? One would assume so.

Not that it matters all that much. Whether there are 3 million CDs in the US or 1 million. It's still, as the post says, a 'LOT'.

What I can't help but thinking is ... does the rate vary by culture? by region? by country? by ethnicity? Difficult questions since It would seem reasonable to suppose that even if the overall 'rate' was the same, it might appear different as the proportion of 'in-the-closet' versus 'out' CDing might vary according to opportunity and safety. For example, I assume that there be more out of the closet CDs in a big city than in a small rural town. And, more in a 'liberal' versus a 'conservative' community. It's also a lot harder to study the in-crowd.

But who knows?

Studying us as a sub-culture would be an interesting dissertation topic. I hope the administrators appreciate the academic value of the archive of posts. Someday, even 100 years from now, someone could mine gold out of our myriad ramblings.

Time to go

Hugs

[Michelia]

where they got these figures from. By all accounts, with the vast majority of CDs in the closet, how can they possibly know how many of us are in the closet. You cannot just call people at random and ask them if they CD and expect to get a truthful answer either.

[daviolin]

We should start are own political partyhttp://flickr.com/photos/daviolin

[Joanne7098]

So what are the true numbers and if they are that high, up till now why do i feel like I was the only one

[Raquel June]

Another way to examine this question is to examine what has happened to women when crossdressing in masculine clothing was no longer considered taboo. Here we find overwhelmingly that women happily incorporate masculine clothing into their everyday wear. So we can conclude that if MTF crossdressing lost its taboo status then the majority of men would happily wear feminine wear. The potential number of MTF crossdressers is in fact huge.

That's a very good point, but in the end you have to admit that if there was nothing taboo about it then crossdressing wouldn't even exist. Women who wear jeans and boots are not crossdressers because jeans and boots are no longer strictly masculine attire.

If it became fashionable for a guy to shave his legs and wear a skirt, guys would do it all the time. It would not make those guys crossdressers. To the contrary, it would make it lose some appeal to crossdressers and they'd look for something more feminine to focus on.

[Cathytg]

Well, I really do not know what percentage of the adult male population is TG/CD.

But I do know that, when I look in a mirror, the percentage is 100% and that's good enough for me.

[Nicki B]

If you're going to define intersex to include conditions that don't even have out-of-the-ordinary symptoms, then you can say whatever you want about the figures. For example, would you say every XXY person is intersex?

Well 'intersex' is generally used to describe people blurred between the XX and XY norm, including AIS/PAIS? As I understand it, there are over 90 documented variations of intersex described so far and likely to be more?

Turn it around - is it really likely that none of these people have gender issues, as a result of their condition? Conversely, it is at least possible that ALL of us may be the way we are because of some intersex condition - indeed, isn't that what the various studies of brain structures, etc are trying to prove?

And we haven't even touched on mosaics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(genetics))..

[Raquel June]

it is at least possible that ALL of us may be the way we are because of some intersex condition

That's what I mean. Depending on what you define as an intersex condition, you could easily define all of us as intersex. But if you're going to say "there must be a lot of crossdressers because there are a lot of intersex people," that's inconclusive and basically meaningless because you're basing it on speculation that there are a lot intersex people who are not diagnosed as intersex.

Maybe I have some degree of AIS. Almost every girl I ever dated has commented on it being weird that I have soft skin and very light body hair.

[AllyM]

Another thing to keep in mind when looking at these numbers. The numbers when calculated are estimating MTF. Well, what about FTM friends? The numbers then get bigger!

[Marjory]

I've seen stats that put that number much higher. Can't recall the exact number but, growing up, we had thee in my little neighborhood. Two openly and me in the closet.

[Tootsye]

I make a full presentation about two or three days per week on average. The rest of the time I am in male mode. When dressed as my femme self, I go anywhere and do anything that I want to do! I am treated just like a woman!
Tootsye

[Nicki B]

Depending on what you define as an intersex condition, you could easily define all of us as intersex.
...
Maybe I have some degree of AIS. Almost every girl I ever dated has commented on it being weird that I have soft skin and very light body hair.

Maybe you'll admit there is some relevance, then.. ;)

[sandra-leigh]

Crossdressing and intersex:

Crossdressing occurs when someone wears clothes not intended for their biological gender. If someone is XXY or XXXX then there are no clothes designed for their biological gender, and everything they wear is crossdressing.

If someone is XXY and "looks male" and dresses as male, then although everyone may think of them as "male", they are something else, neither "male" nor "female" in the standard definitions. They might not have any visible signs of their biological variation, but it is still there.


If the proceeding argument is not accepted, then it seems to me that the two possible alternative definitions of "crossdressing" would be based upon "passing" (i.e., if everyone thinks that you are a woman then wearing women's clothes would not be crossdressing), or else would be based upon genitals (which would be tough to do.)

[Kelly DeWinter]

Another thing to keep in mind when looking at these numbers. The numbers when calculated are estimating MTF. Well, what about FTM friends? The numbers then get bigger!

AllyM that is so true, We should never forget our fellow brothers. Would't it be wild if they added some questions about the transgenter community in with the Cencus report ?

[Janicejane]

It's always hard to find out how many crossdressers there are in any arena. My own take and experience of it is as follows:

I ran a social support group in Brighton for 5 years, 1998-2003

I had a hard core support group of 5 -10 members who attended regularly

My own knowledge is that at least 6 of those who attended at least once have since transistioned via GRS

2 more of those with whom I am in contact with live full time as females

According to my records over 500 people attended at least once within the 5 year period.

I believe since the majority of of my advertising for the group was done via the internet that I was only reaching around 50% of those who identified at the time that they may have been CDs or were CDs and the time was right to come out.

Only around 1 in 20 had S.O. support during this time.

Many spoke of divorce and then remarriage later in life where their partner knew of their dressing. I didn't keep records or names, I just remember the subject constantly reocurring.

My own personal belief and I reiterate that this is a personal belief is that at least 5% of the male poulation have at some time cross dressed, and that at least 1% continue to do so on a regular basis, how many of these go out dressed I wouldn't hazard a guess, but here in the UK I do see an awful lot of folk just getting on and doing their own thing. In the US depending upon state and religous pressure the numbers may vary.

My own take on the original post whilst listening to all the posts that followed since that one. I have no scientific data, but I do have my own records which I maintained. As for gay Pride when I joined a float I was the only regular CDer amongst them.

Regards
Janice

[Kelly DeWinter]

Makes me wonder if an ebb and flow are normal to these feelings

[sometimes_miss]

Makes me wonder if an ebb and flow are normal to these feelings

For some of us, yes. My desires to CD relate to how much stress is going on in the rest of my life, most importantly in regards to whether I am in a relationship or not. As it is, it's been 10 years since I had a SO. So I guess you could say that I'm stressed out pretty much all the time these days. Hence the almost daily crossdressing. In comparison, during the first years of my marriage, I didn't dress up at all.

[Raquel June]

My own personal belief and I reiterate that this is a personal belief is that at least 5% of the male poulation have at some time cross dressed, and that at least 1% continue to do so on a regular basis

As I've said many times, it's meaningless for people to even guess at figures when they're not even defining what a crossdresser is. I see so many people say 5%+, which is ridiculous. But when you state it like this -- 5% have crossdressed at some time and 1% do so regularly, I think that's at least plausible.

And again we have to look at who themselves identifies as a crossdresser. Let's compare it to the lesbian community. Many studies have reported that about 5% of the population "have at some point engaged in homosexual activity." How useful is that? I could make a random guess that maybe 50% of women have fantasized about being with another woman once in their life, 5-10% have acted on that at least once, and 1-2% exclusively engage in lesbian relationships. Isn't it ridiculous to say that 5 to 10% of the world is gay just because they did something gay once in their life? A girl who got drunk at a party in college and made out with another girl is not going to identify as a lesbian, is likely not going to be motivated to fight for gay rights, and it really not affected by gay issues at all, so it's unreasonable to count her among the gay community.

Likewise, even if you could prove that 5% of the male population has engaged in some kind of crossdressing activity at some point, those men who did not continue to do so do not identify as crossdressers. Attempting to appropriate them as part of our community just to inflate our numbers is subversive. They could care less about the plight of actual crossdressers.

[Satrana]

I see so many people say 5%+, which is ridiculous. ridiculous? says who? Since no-one knows what the numbers are and there is no satisfactory way to find out due to the secrecy involved, using 5% is no more ridiculous than using 1%.

When Kinsey reported in 1948 that one third of American males had reported a homosexual experience, people were shocked and refused to believe it. When things happen out of sight we believe that the lack of sightings means the certain behaviors are uncommon instead of appreciating that they could be very common but just never discussed.

Hence crossdressing could easily be 10%, maybe 20%, who knows?


Isn't it ridiculous to say that 5 to 10% of the world is gay just because they did something gay once in their life? If they did it once before then they may do it again. Or maybe they are just feeling guilty and are in denial etc. Having only a single experience of something does not in itself signify anything.

And the percentage of people being involved in a particular behavior is also dependent upon society. The more acceptable and mainstream a behavior becomes, the more people will try it. Like tobacco and alcohol, there is no rational reason to use these drugs as they damage our health but people have conveniently overlooked these issues because most people were using them. Similarly once it became acceptable for women to wear masculine clothes, pretty much all women jumped on board.

So how can you define a naturally floating point that can be blown all over the place depending upon the changing views of society?

All that can be said is crossdressing is a reasonably common behavior among men that will undoubtedly become more common as society progresses to more liberal and individualistic interpretations of gender, most likely resulting in the disappearance of the term crossdresser a few decades from now once feminine men become socially condoned and all clothing becomes unisex.

[Raquel June]

ridiculous? says who? Since no-one knows what the numbers are and there is no satisfactory way to find out due to the secrecy involved, using 5% is no more ridiculous than using 1%.

Read this thread and you'll see that the arguments in the 1-2% range are much more valid than the arguments in the 5-10% range. It's pretty obvious when you think about it rationally.


Hence crossdressing could easily be 10%, maybe 20%, who knows?

If they did it once before then they may do it again. Or maybe they are just feeling guilty and are in denial etc. Having only a single experience of something does not in itself signify anything.

You're being absurd. By that logic, having zero experiences doesn't signify anything either. For all you know 100% of the population is going to start engaging in gay sex tomorrow, so we might as well call 100% of the population gay. You can't prove otherwise!

Why stop at 20%? 100% of the world might be crossdressers! They're all totally in the closet, even to themselves! They don't even consider themselves crossdressers and they may never crossdress, but that's just because they're denying their feelings!

These are not figures that we can have any confidence in statistically. Just because something can't be disproved doesn't mean it's rational to argue about it. Quantum physics tells us that you might turn into an otter at any given time. You might as well argue about that.

Besides, where does that get us? Nowhere. Pretending people are crossdressers when they don't even identify as crossdressers isn't a good thing. If 20% of people are crossdressers then 19% of them are people I don't want to know. They're cowards who can't even privately mention it to their therapists. They're maliciously trying to underrepresent us by lying on totally anonymous surveys. If you think they should be called crossdressers, then you should be ashamed to be a crossdresser.

[Satrana]

According to my records over 500 people attended at least once within the 5 year period.

That is an interesting number Janice. There is a whole host of criteria which a CD would have to jump through before they turned up at your group such as:

Identifying oneself as a CD not gay or a fetishist
Not being in denial/trying to cure oneself
Still being in closet not wanting support
Desiring to meet with others
Unable to meet others due to unsupportive SO/parents
Being brave enough to meet others face to face
Having internet access
Successfully searching internet to find your group
Having the opportunity/means to attend

Thats just a quick list I drew up in one minute, there are more criteria all of which would chip away at the number of people you could expect to attract. I suspect that you only met around 5% of the CDs in Brighton. If so then that would indicate a total CD population of 10,000.

Now Brighton has a population of 250,000 - so 120,000 males, take out young boys and very old men and you are looking at 100,000 potential clients. That would mean CDs made up 10% of the male population. It is all speculation of course but it is indicative that the behavior is far more widespread than is commonly thought.

[Satrana]

Read this thread and you'll see that the arguments in the 1-2% range are much more valid than the arguments in the 5-10% range. It's pretty obvious when you think about it rationally. I don't see any validity in any numbers.

How many people would have guessed 1/3 of men having a gay experience before Kinsey published his findings? You know fine well people would have quoted very low numbers. Reality and what people want to believe based upon their feelings do not intersect.



You're being absurd. By that logic, having zero experiences doesn't signify anything either. Correct it does not signify anything. Many people want to do many things in their life but never act upon their desires.


These are not figures that we can have any confidence in statistically. No such numbers exist hence your guess is no more statistically valid than anyone else's.


If you think they should be called crossdressers, then you should be ashamed to be a crossdresser. I would never judge the actions of others especially when there is such widespread intolerance involved. One thing being a CD has taught me is everyone has to live their own life and take responsibility for their own decisions. It is not for me or anyone else to judge the actions of someone else. You are not in their shoes to say otherwise.

[Raquel June]

I suspect that you only met around 5% of the CDs in Brighton.
...
That would mean CDs made up 10% of the male population.

That's an enormous leap you're taking. If she met 50% of the CDs like she estimated, that makes 1% of Brighton CDs. If she met 5% like you claim, that makes 10% of the population CDs.

I would say that both your estimates are fine based on the qualifications you're giving for being a crossdresser. Let's look at what you said earlier:




Identifying oneself as a CD not gay or a fetishist
Not being in denial/trying to cure oneself
Still being in closet not wanting support
Desiring to meet with others
Unable to meet others due to unsupportive SO/parents
Being brave enough to meet others face to face
Having internet access
Successfully searching internet to find your group
Having the opportunity/means to attend

For all practical purposes, everybody in the USA and UK has access to the Internet. Whether it's at home, a library, school, friend, relative, or whatever. If you don't have Internet access the only reason is that you don't want it.

I would probably classify 25-50% of the crossdressers I've met in person as very fetishistic, and plenty that are gay (or at least bi). Being "fetishistic or gay" doesn't keep you from identifying as a crossdresser. To claim otherwise is saying that people crossdress just because they're gay, and that's silly.

The biggest thing is people being in the closet. Besides being afraid or in denial, people could simply have no desire to meet other people and get "support." I mean, if they're totally OK with their crossdressing, if it's not emotionally troubling for them, why would they go to a support group? But that discounts the very strong drive people have to belong to a group. For example, people don't all come to this forum because they have problems. People are drawn to others with similar interests. People just want to hang out with people similar to themselves.

How large of a percentage of the crossdressing community do you think has a strong desire to associate with other crossdressers? And how much of a crossdresser are you if you only did it a couple times and don't want to be called a crossdresser? It comes back to how you define it. If you think a guy who rarely crossdresses, who doesn't want to meet the kind of people who hang out on this forum, who would probably laugh at you to his friends if he saw you in public, and who certainly would never identify as a crossdresser ... if you think he's a crossdresser, then feel free to say 5% - 10% of guys are crossdressers.

I just think it's weird that I see so many people making the number as big as possible. Apparently it makes them feel good to pretend they run into tons of closetted crossdressers every day. The thought of that actually makes me sad, though. Thinking that there are tons of crossdressers out there who want zero contact with other crossdressers -- doesn't that make you feel kinda betrayed or abandoned?




No, Racquel, you're using the wrong criterion. You can't work out sociological data from 'thinking about it rationally'.

I mean thinking rationally about facts which have already been given. Even the first post of this thread has enough info in it that you have to basically call the OP a liar and the therapist a quack if you want to claim 5% - 10% of people are crossdressers.

[Satrana]

For all practical purposes, everybody in the USA and UK has access to the Internet.

Except Janice's numbers come from 1998-2003. A quick google check shows the UK numbers for access to internet was 13% in 1998 rising to 40% in 2002. Considering Brighton is not a metropolitan area but a seaside resort and retirement area, the internet penetration was probably less than the national average. So only a small minority had access during this period hence for sure large numbers of CDs were not aware of Janice's group.

And of course internet access does not tell us anything about computer usage. Many older folks were scared to use the computer at first and so much of the earlier usage was mostly the under 30s which again would exclude a significant proportion of the CD population.

Combing these 2 technical factors alone would indicate that probably only about 20% of the CDs would have had the opportunity to find Janice. And then you would have to start examining whether they had the inclination or desire to even search for a local support group. I know personally it took me years to think about looking for one myself.


I just think it's weird that I see so many people making the number as big as possible. If that were true then we would see much larger numbers being quoted. I guess it all comes down to how you think about the behavior. If you think it is a unique condition that requires a special set of circumstances to come together then you will likely believe in a small number. If you believe crossdressing is actually a fairly normal gender expression that simply clashes with a narrow social gender definition for men, unlike for women, then there is really no reason to believe that many men are not interested in it.



Thinking that there are tons of crossdressers out there who want zero contact with other crossdressers -- doesn't that make you feel kinda betrayed or abandoned? No it makes me sad for them and angry that in the 21st century such intolerance continues to ruin people's lives. I wonder when will people grow up and put away all this mythology about race, gender and sexual orientation to allow people to express who they really are instead of everyone having to pretend to be something else.

[Deanna2]

There are a LOT of Crossdressers out there !

You're right. The other night I was in a room full of them.

[Carly D.]

Statistically speaking that might be true.. but there are probably a lot of twisted individuals that do more than dress for sexual pleasure either by dressing up as a woman for sexual deviances such as nasty sex role playing and that lot there.. I think that the true cross dressers such as those who are stuck with feeling like it is a part of what we have to do, is probably right on those stats.. but also you have to think that there are a good number who don't know they cross dress.. such as the what constitutes cross dressing?? wearing pantyhose?? how many football players wear tights or pantyhose to stay warm?? how many police officers wear pantyhose or tights to stay warm?? is this cross dressing?? what about wearing only heels?? what about make up only?? earrings in pierced ears.. I just wonder what is cross dressing anymore.. CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT CROSS DRESSING IS?? sounds like Charlie Brown in peanuts christmas special "can anyone tell me what the true meaning of christmas is?"..

[sandra-leigh]

Read this thread and you'll see that the arguments in the 1-2% range are much more valid than the arguments in the 5-10% range. It's pretty obvious when you think about it rationally.

Where I live, there is a grocery store 1 mile straight in one direction, and a shopping centre with a competing grocery store 1 mile straight in the opposite direction; the two grocery stores belong to the two largest competing country-wide chains in the city; there is a third large competing chain slightly further away that has a lower market share; everything else is much smaller.

I have often shopped at the two competing grocery stores, less often at the third chain. In six years of living in the area, I have, as best I recall, seen any of my neighbours shopping in the grocery stores (that is, people I recognize as living within a few streets of me) exactly once.

"Rational" consideration of these observations leads to the conclusion that the portion of people in my neighbourhood who go grocery shopping often enough to be considered "grocery shoppers", is extremely low, less than 1%.

[Marjory]

I've seen articles that put the numbers even higher. The closets are probably crowded.

[ronnie1951]

I see there are so many of us...I just wish the internet had been around a long time ago! After 57 years I need to get out and meet some of you. It isnt much fun just staying around the house.

[Bethany_Anne_Fae]

I've seen articles that put the numbers even higher. The closets are probably crowded.

Your right on that ;)

When I first came out as Zarabeth to my fellow cast members, of the 126 counted... 18 CDers, and two TG quietly let me know they were there too. Man was I surprised.

Thats a good 16%

*hugs*

Zarabeth

[trannie T]

There are three things that we know:

1. There are a bunch of us.
2. We have not come up with a defination of constitutes a crossdresser.
3. There have been no reliable scientific surveys or research as to the actual number of crossdressers, gays, bis, lesbians or transexuals.

Most everything else is just guesswork and has little basis in fact.

[VeronicaMoonlit]

Your right on that ;)

When I first came out as Zarabeth to my fellow cast members, of the 126 counted... 18 CDers, and two TG quietly let me know they were there too. Man was I surprised.

Thats a good 16%

*hugs*

Zarabeth

Ren Fairs and Re-enactment groups are full of us. Just like if I was to ever attend a Linux/open source convention I would expect to see other transfolk.

I also want to remind everyone that even 1% is a LOT of people. Say you live in a town of around 10000 people, like I do. say half of them are men (it wouldn't be exactly half) if 1% of that 5000 were regular trans in some way that would still be a lot of people: 50. That's enough for a good size support group. I personally think that it's between 1 and 5%, being closer to the lower. Small enough that you don't see us all the time, but noticeable enough to the plus size retailer bottom lines and that muggles in retail are told about us.

Veronica
Rondelle (Ron) Rogers Jr.

[charlene_d]

I think someone on the makeup forum said if you'd like to get a good idea of the number of crossdressers out there ask a Merle Norman or Mary Kay SA. :-)
Charlene D.

[Satrana]

The interesting thing about the Sanders survey is that it was published in 1987, a time when most CDs here deeply hidden in their closets. You have to wonder how many were unable to admit to their behavior even for a survey. For me personally from age 10 when I began until 25 I was completely unable to tell a soul what I was up to, no matter how understanding or sympathetic I thought they might be. I just could not bring myself to admit the truth to anyone. And I would have been paranoid that anything I said in a survey would be traced back to me.

So you would definitely have to inflate Sander's results by a certain percentage to approximate the total CD population. I am guessing you should add 1/3 onto the total which would raise the number to 8%.

[battybattybats]

Statistically speaking that might be true.. but there are probably a lot of twisted individuals that do more than dress for sexual pleasure either by dressing up as a woman for sexual deviances such as nasty sex role playing and that lot there..

Why do you consider such people twisted and such practices deviant and nasty?

I know plenty of people who dress up for sexual reasons, who indulge in sexual role-playing. And they are amongst the nicest most trustworthy and decent people I have ever met!

Whereas the majority of sex-predators appear common, average and utterly normal. That's to be expected after all, they need to seem normal in order to get close to their prey! But it's the people who seem different that get stereotyped as bad. Why? Fear of difference is part of it but often it's because the real sex predators need to point to a scapegoat to distract everyone so they can strike.

Most rapists know thier victim. Most child molesters are close family members or friends of the victim or people in positions of authority. Sure there are rare cases of kinky or CD sex-predators but they are far less common than GG rapists and GG child molesters for example.

Now CDing for sexual purposes and sexual roleplay may well not be your cup of tea, and fair enough, but the vast majority of those people are not 'twisted' or 'nasty' and try 'normal healthy sexual variation' instead of deviant because plenty of studies have shown that.

One such study on BDSM pointing out the healthy reality as oppossed to the assumptions and negative stereotypes came out this year for example.


Nice one, Satrana! Though I think the survey method was pretty watertight.


Ah but what about the effect of magnification found in men and womens responses to questions about numbers of sexual partners? Even with good methodology men inflate the numbers and women reduce them by about the same margin!

So even when the methodology is as ideal as possible some still give an answer based around the expectations and judgement of others despite anonymity etc!

[Raquel June]

I have often shopped at the two competing grocery stores, less often at the third chain. In six years of living in the area, I have, as best I recall, seen any of my neighbours shopping in the grocery stores (that is, people I recognize as living within a few streets of me) exactly once.

That doesn't really prove anything other than that people who live near you probably have a different schedule than you, or you didn't notice them.



So, most of you think there's a huge number of crossdressers out there -- 5% of the population is f-ing immense. And most of you think all the surveys and studies are wrong because there are so many crossdressers in the closet. Let's forget about all that, then.

In the end, the only thing we can make any kind of real conclusion about is the number of out crossdressers and the number of online crossdressers. It is very easy to see that less than 1/10th of 1% of the population are out crossdressers. It is also very easy to see that less than 1/10th of 1% of the population are active in any kind of online crossdressing community.

Try to inflate it as much as you want, but you can't change the fact that 1% of the US male population is 1.5 million M2F crossdressers. Then take a long hard look at reality. Do you have any idea how many people 1.5 million is?

I've been to a lot of clubs that are totally CD accepting. I've been to a lot of large CD/TV/TG/TS meetings with people from all over the midwest, and I can easily show that well under 1/50th of 1% of the population gets to clubs and CD events.

Look at the size of this forum -- 12,000 members, which includes many non-US members along with GGs, F2Ms, admirers, and duplicate accounts. Then look at the size of other forums (all much smaller). Then look at the size of URNotAlone (14,000 M2F members, a huge number of which are non-US and/or identify as TG), and the size of the CD Yahoo/MSN groups. Most of those groups are very small and mostly TG-related. The large groups are absolutely overflowing with admirers. You can easily see that under 1/50th of 1% of the population is crossdressers who are online.

So where's that put is? A minuscule number are online crossdressers. A miniscule number are out crossdressers. If you really want to say that 5% of the male population is M2F crossdressers, you are implying that totally closetted crossdressers who are not online outnumber us by a factor of at least 250 to 1. What a sad antisocial bunch!

Maybe it's true. Maybe we are exponentially outnumbered by guys who like to wear panties now and then and don't want to talk to or see another crossdresser. I think it's a little weird that you all want to include them among us and call them crossdressers in the first place.

[sandra-leigh]

I've been to a lot of clubs that are totally CD accepting. I've been to a lot of large CD/TV/TG/TS meetings with people from all over the midwest, and I can easily show that well under 1/50th of 1% of the population gets to clubs and CD events.


That doesn't really prove anything other than that people who would go there probably have a different schedule than you, or you didn't notice them.


Either we can use our observations of our environment, or we can't use our observations of our environment.

If we can use our personal observations, then based upon my experience that I am more likely to see a cross-dresser "around" than I am to see someone I know from elsewhere, we conclude that cross-dressers are not especially rare here.

If we cannot use our personal observations to draw conclusions about the general population, then your experiences at meetings and events are not to be taken of indicative of cross-dressing level in the general population.

[Raquel June]

That doesn't really prove anything other than that people who would go there probably have a different schedule than you, or you didn't notice them.

Clever! ... yet very wrong.

Most grocery stores are open 24 hours and it's not possible to always be shopping at the times when other people shop. As far as me going to clubs, well, 9:30pm till 2:30 am is when they're open, and I'm often around for the majority of that. The CD events I'm talking about generally meet once a month and I'm there from open at 7pm till close at 2am. It is not possible for people to miss me based on their schedule.

[Satrana]

Do you have any idea how many people 1.5 million is? Do you have any idea how thin on the ground 1.5M men would be if you spread them across all the communities in America? How many gays do you know in your local community and workplace etc? Gays are estimated to be 2-3% of the population but they seem to be rather thin on the ground as well compared to the overall population.


So where's that put is? A minuscule number are online crossdressers. How many gays can you measure to be on-line. How many gay forums have 12,000 members? Indeed how many forums of any hobby or behavior has 12,000 members?

How do you measure how many CDs visit this site and read these threads but never register. Check out the visitor numbers and you will see they outnumber members several times over.

How do you account that the number of GG members to CD members are outnumbered 100 to 1? We know the majority of members here have SOs who know about their CDing so these numbers do not match up either. If you were using GG membership numbers then you would be claiming CDs were only one in ten thousand.

Trying to derive estimates from the membership of a taboo behavior is never going to get you remotely close to a fair reflection of a population. It is not about being antisocial, it is about shame, self-denial, internalized guilt etc.


I think it's a little weird that you all want to include them among us and call them crossdressers in the first place. If I never attend a football game does that mean I cannot call myself a football supporter? Does my lack of attendance condemn me to being a sham to be dismissed by "real" football supporters?

[Satrana]

Ah but what about the effect of magnification found in men and womens responses to questions about numbers of sexual partners? Even with good methodology men inflate the numbers and women reduce them by about the same margin!

So even when the methodology is as ideal as possible some still give an answer based around the expectations and judgement of others despite anonymity etc!

Very true, surveys are always subjective because people will react based upon expectations. They can also react differently based on how the question was posed etc.

With regards to your example I think it is fair to say that when questioning men about crossdressing habits, the response would be to minimize. Hence amongst the 25% who reported to have tried CDing once are most likely many regular CDs. Add these people to the other group who outright lie due to shame and you can build a case that the X% you need to adjust the result by might be quite large.

Professional survey companies know all about the psychology about how people react to being surveyed and automatically make adjustments. For example in the recent polling for the US Presidential election many polling companies were producing significantly different numbers because their adjustment assumptions differed from one another.

[joan47]

WE should form an organization if there are so many of CDs

[Samantha Kelsey]

I remember reading an article on the web about five years ago in which some US university did a study and found that 1 in 7 of men questioned admitted to wearing womens clothing. On top of that there were some that admitted to trying on womens clothing. Also the article noted that the results were only for men who ADMITTED. It speculated that possibly as many again do it but don't admit it. Wow!! that would make it about 1 in 3!! I wish I'd had the sense to save the article.

[Raquel June]

I honestly agree with the ideas behind most of what people are saying. The arguments people are giving are fairly valid. It's just that every single one is being extrapolated well beyond the realm of plausibility.




Do you have any idea how thin on the ground 1.5M men would be if you spread them across all the communities in America? How many gays do you know in your local community and workplace etc? Gays are estimated to be 2-3% of the population but they seem to be rather thin on the ground as well compared to the overall population.

Figure out what you're trying to say. That 1.5M estimate was based on 1% of the male population. Most people here are arguing that the CD population in the US is closer to the population of New York City.

And BTW, I notice gay people all the time, and I live in the midwest where half the cars have NASCAR bumper stickers.




How many gays can you measure to be on-line. How many gay forums have 12,000 members?

That's irrelevant because gay people hang out with other gay people all the time. They don't need to get together online to meet other gay people to talk about gay issues. There are 30+ gay clubs in Columbus. There are close to that many in Cincinnati. Where I hang out on the weekend in downtown Dayton, there are four large gay clubs on the same block. Yet people like you are actually claiming that the crossdressing community is larger than the gay community! My point was that if all of you are going to argue that there are millions and millions of crossdressers who are totally in the closet, at the very least they should be showing up in greater numbers online because they really have no other way to form any sense of community.

Still, you wanna talk about gay forums with over 12,000 members? OK! Just Google "gay forums" and you'll very quickly see that even the most obscure gay forums are huge.

realjock.com is a gay fitness forum with 152,000 members
justusboys.com is a forum for gay males with 67,000 members
gaygamer.net is quite the niche forum and has 6,500 members.




Trying to derive estimates from the membership of a taboo behavior is never going to get you remotely close to a fair reflection of a population. It is not about being antisocial, it is about shame, self-denial, internalized guilt etc.

It might not get you close, but simple common sense can tell you that the crossdressing population isn't 2X to 7X the size of gay population like some of you are claiming. You're being ridiculous.




If I never attend a football game does that mean I cannot call myself a football supporter? Does my lack of attendance condemn me to being a sham to be dismissed by "real" football supporters?

Yes! That's exactly what it means! If you have never in your life attended a football game you aren't much of a football fan. Isn't that obvious? I'm certainly no football fan, but I've gone to a few games, and I've driven 250 miles to go to an Ohio State game before.

You can't call yourself a "fan" or a "supporter" when something isn't important enough to you to take any effort on your part. Unless you're an indigent bedridden quad, there's just no way you can call yourself a football fan if you've never been to a game.

As a matter of fact, I go to the most handicapped accessible university in the US, and I've seen people on motorized gurneys at basketball games. I've seen kids in mouth stick controlled wheelchairs at hockey games. If you've got two legs and a driver's license and you've never been to a football game, you're no football fan.

[Intertwined]

Crossdressing occurs when someone wears clothes not intended for their biological gender. If someone is XXY or XXXX then there are no clothes designed for their biological gender, and everything they wear is crossdressing.

OK, lets see, I am XXY, I consider myself Biologically Male with the exception of Gynecomastia, BUT, Genetically I am both Male and Female, and mentally I consider myself mostly Female.

What I am trying to say, as I see it, there is a difference between ones Biological, Genetic & Mental characteristics, your comparing apples, oranges & avacados.

[Raquel June]

Instead of 'simple common sense' I'd go back to the researched data which comes up with surprisingly similar conclusions for both groups. That is to say, about 6% of the adult male population in both cases.

Exactly what researched data are you referring to that says 6% of the male population is crossdressers?

I can believe that the gay population is in the 4% to 6% range like most studies say. I think Showtime estimates 6.5% of their viewers are gay. I'm not sure how they arrived at that, but TV is very financially motivated to understand their demographics. Then again, Showtime certainly overrepresents gay viewers. I know several gay guys who subscribed to Showtime just to watch Queer as Folk.

Anyway, I just think you're insane if you think the crossdressing population is as large as the gay population. If it's about 6% like you say, then most crossdressers are so far in the closet that I wouldn't even call them crossdressers anymore. Talk to a therapist and ask how many people they think are crossdressers. Talk to someone who works in an emergency room and ask how many people they've seen that they would call crossdressers. Sure, they've all run into crossdressers, but they'll all tell you you're wrong if you think there are as many crossdressers as there are gay people.

Do you think all gay people are out of the closet? They're not. Do you think all gay people hang out at gay clubs? The majority of gay people I've worked with or gone to school with almost never go out on the weekend. Yet there are tons of people in gay clubs, because the gay population is that big. If the crossdressing population was as big as the gay population, a city with 30 gay clubs would have several with a very significant CD presence. As it is, gays outnumber crossdressers by a factor of 100 in crossdresser-friendly clubs. It's simply impossible that more than 1% or 2% of the population are crossdressers.

That's what I call common sense. If there were as many crossdressers as there are gays, this forum would be a lot bigger.




(P.S. Is there any conclusion to be drawn from this similarity? Well, it turns out that 6% is very nearly 1/16, and I believe 1/16th is what you'd get if you were crossing four independent genes. This has led some people to look for genetic causes in both cases. The evidence so far is very skimpy and I'm not advocating it, but even as I write, somebody out there is looking for the 'gay gene'. Never heard of the 'CD gene', but I bet it won't be long.)

This is getting a little OT, but ... People have been talking about the "gay gene" for a long time, and I honestly don't see why people think finding it would be a good thing.

First off, there's no way every person who engages in gay sex has the gene, and there's no way that every straight person is missing it. Any therapist will tell you that sexually abused people have a drastically higher chance of being gay, so it can't be totally genetic.

Also, I've heard many people talk about the "gay gene" as though finding it would make being gay more acceptable because it's natural, but that's certainly not true. We already know homosexuality is totally natural. It can be observed in nature. Murder and rape also happen all the time in nature. Natural things are not inherently morally acceptable.




You also say, Racquel, "...If you have never in your life attended a football game you aren't much of a football fan... "

I don't know what kind of parallel you're trying to make.

I wasn't insinuating any parallel. I was just responding to Satrana.




Being a crossdresser (in the terms of the surveys) is doing it frequently. That's all we need to know by the way of definitions.

That's a reasonable definition. I don't think everybody agrees with it, though, and I've never seen someone refer to a study that made any mention of frequency.

[JoAnne Wheeler]

We are only the tip of a hugh iceberg. Every time I am in a group of people, I start looking around wondering who is or might be a crossdresser ? It is so sad that society forces us to live like this.

JoAnne Wheeler