Transgender vs Crossdresser as an easy way to describe ourselves

I don't want to start a debate about using the term transgendered vs crossdresser in terms of how we define ourselves but I do want to know how we individually use the labels to describe ourselves to others. Personally I find it much easier to tell another than I am transgendered, and like to wear womens clothing and identify as a woman on occasion, versus saying that I'm a crossdresser. I think the term transgendered is more widely in popular usage such that people have a greater level of acceptance when they hear it. The term crossdresser I believe still has a bit of stigma about it. Does anyone else, who considers themselves strictly a crossdresser, prefer describing themselves as transgendered for the sake of easier communication?

Transgender is an umbrella term that may require further explanation. As crossdresser falls under that umbrella it does a better job narrowing the scope.

Kind of like how all homo sapiens sapiens are homo sapiens, but not all homo sapiens are homo sapiens sapiens.

I know thru experience that I am a CD. And, thru that experience I know it's better to describe myself to vanillas as follows, "Excuse me. Pardon me. I'm just leaving. Have a nice life!"

Most r either running away or laffing too hard to hear me anyway!:brolleyes:

At this point the only people I’ve described myself to are my wife and people on this forum. But this is a topic I’ve thought about a lot because the way I describe myself to people is the way I think about myself.

Karen, the way I think about myself is almost identical to you, especially as I have feminised my body somewhat and am continuing to do so.

But I’m also a practical person, and don’t like encumbering people with overwhelming descriptions of myself to people I’ve just met, as some of my friends who are vegan do. (Or worse, do cross-fit).

So I’d just describe myself as a Crossdresser.

Michelle

The term "transgender" is great and fair game for crossdressers. Saves a lot of time.

Xox,

Tina V.

I to am a crossdresser, this is accurate and simple to understand. I aint transgendered, to say this would imply I am something I'm not and that is unacceptable to me. I don't need to explain or justify what I choose to do or how I present.

I consider “transgender” to be a spectrum on which I am undoubtedly on...

I consider “crossdressing” to be an activity that I admittedly partake in, enthusiastically... but as a label in and of itself I don’t like that ignores the “why” in a blissfully ignorant way.

If a label is required, I consider myself to be both gender fluid (wearing nail polish to the office in boy mode) and bi-gender (as in I need to fully express both genders at different time in order to feel whole.)

Men wearing women’s clothes in public usually fall into one of four categories:

Hetrosexual men wanting the thrill of masquerading with the risk of being caught and embarrassed. This is sexually driven. It usually entails masturbation at some point. Cross dressers are usually trying to appear attractive and sexy. Because this is sexually driven, there is a tendency to go overboard to appear “sexy” that usually involves suggestive clothing, heels that are too high for comfortable walking or standing, unfashionably long or full hairstyles, and excessive makeup. Behavior patterns are sometimes bizarre because they are an imitation of what the cross dresser thinks he would find attractive in a woman. That behavior pattern sometimes expresses as a sexually aggressive “female” with a hot body and male attitudes. In spite of attempting to appear sexually desirable, hetrosexual male cross dressers are often frightened if they are approached by a man for a pick up.
Male to female transgendered persons (trans women) who feel more at home by expressing as females. Here, the objective is emotional rather than sexual. The idea is to be treated like a woman rather than to appear as a woman. Clothing and behavior tends to be more conservative and designed to blend in with other females. While this behavior is sometimes directed only at men, more commonly it is directed at both men and women. Behavior tends to be aimed at establishing longer term relationships rather than sexual hookups.
The trans-curious cross dresser may or may not be hetrosexual. This is usually someone who wonders what it would be like to be a woman. Costumes and behavior are similar to trans women, but aimed at discovering how it feels to be treated like (or be) a woman.
Drag queen cross dressers are performers. They get their kicks not from the clothing or from attracting sexual or emotional fans, but rather from attracting attention by stage presence. They do not particularly want either sexual or emotional attention
I see myself as a trans-curious cross dresser

Mistyjo, you copied and pasted that from a Quora answer I read last year. I knew I had read that verbatim before. And it’s super outdated anyway.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-di...ng-transgender

Yes I did. I still see myself as a trans-curious cross dresser

Transgendered people and cross dressers are really quite different types, language the way it is used these days does tend to embrace both types.

I think Karen that you raise a good point about tha social acceptability associated with the terms transgender vs cross dresser. Transgender seems to imply that the person has a desire,need and a preference to be their opposite gender where cross dresser appears to be simpler, implying that the person simply likes to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex possibly as some form of fetish. As such, I see that people identifying as transgender appear to get more sympathetic treatment - witness the recent Katie Couric documentary on gender or the National Geographic article on the same. So, while I personally believe I fall into the plain old vanilla cross dresser camp, on the very few times I have admitted to a SA that the piece of clothing is for me, I have referred to myself as transgender.

Gotta say, Mistyjo, there’s a lot I don’t like about those definitions. But having heard it’s from Quora I’m not that surprised.

Most of the Quora answers I’ve seen appear to be written by and for conservative midwesterners.

Michelle.

Another way to think about the question I asked in this post is to consider how we often choose to describe where we're from. I grew up in the Bay Area in one of the smaller cities near San Jose. When people ask where I'm from I say San Jose because everyone, for the most part, knows where San Jose is and it's close enough to the actual city I grew up in. That's how I think of the use of the term transgendered. I like Lacy New's comment about the term transgendered evoking a more sympathetic response. I think that's true. I also like KatrinaK's comment that transgendered is a term describing me on a broader spectrum and that crossdressing is an activity we engage in. I don't believe for me, and perhaps for many of us, that crossdressing is simply an activity absent the transgendered overlay.

I've been crossdressing since I was a very young boy and I'm now 50 years old. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that I acknowledged to myself that I was transgendered. It's not that I didn't know the term, it's just that I subconsciously was dealing with a lot of shame, guilt, and embarrassment which caused me to not acknowledge the truth about myself. A few trips to a well chosen therapist helped me to mostly get over those issues and to accept myself for who I am.

If I am introducing my self en femme, or as part of a conversation about my "habit", I tend to use the term crossdresser. However,y my understanding of myself is that on some level, I see inclusion under the Transgender banner. For me, dressing does tend to cross into a different gender presentation, and perhaps alter ego, or at least close. Not that I have a split personality, where I have totally separate histories, expressions and preferences and understanding of who I am.

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Originally Posted by Karen's Secret

I've been crossdressing since I was a very young boy and I'm now 50 years old. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that I acknowledged to myself that I was transgendered. It's not that I didn't know the term, it's just that I subconsciously was dealing with a lot of shame, guilt, and embarrassment which caused me to not acknowledge the truth about myself. A few trips to a well chosen therapist helped me to mostly get over those issues and to accept myself for who I am.

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Karen, I like this and I find your story similar to mine, though I've never felt the need for therapy. Also, I've always considered myself to be transgender as I approach this from the side of expressing myself as a girl and not for the want of wearing the clothes. When I started dressing it was specifically because I wanted to express myself as, and have the same feelings of (skirts hanging loosely etc), as a girl. But, we have to understand that there are probably as many reasons for doing what we do as there are people doing it, and no one person is wrong. We're a very broad church.

The problems with the definitions that MistiJo presents is that it labels all crossdressers as sexualy driven all the time, and if it's not then you fall into the mtf transgender. It seems to me third definition the MtF trans curious is really just any early stage of being transgender, or part time trans?


It seems obvious to me we are all transgender, as we are crossing gender roles.

The reason that transgender garners more sympathy from the world at large is because it is a medical term, it is a condition that drives us to do something. Where as many people who buy the sexual humiliation and thrill seeking crossdresser definition see us as sexual deviants. I would think that the transgender community would prefer to keep the fetish cross dressers away to keep them from being tainted, but it seems to me that they realize there is so much overlap, that instead they have generally embraced every type of gender non conformity which is one reason why I think there is so much progress going on. We're all playing for the same team, with the goal of liberty to do and be what we want regardless of label.

Since I grew up playing role playing games with skill trees I tend to think of character development in that way. So it's break it down.

Your character is a level one Transgender. You start with the free skill Crossdressing which allows you to wear opposite gender clothes and armor LOL. After training your crossdressing you can level it up, you can choose to add different specializations to the skill. You could add Drag Queen, genderqueer, fetish crossdresser, authentic woman.

You might save your skill points instead to purchase the skill Transsexual, which you can specialize by getting, HTR, voice training, emotional awareness, FFS, Top Surgery, Bottom Surgery.

I am truly sorry if I offended anyone with my original post.

It really depends upon who I'm talking to....or writing to. The average person just simply doesn't get it, because they've never thought about it much, if at all. For the most part, their only exposure to crossdressers is Rupaul, and transsexuals to Caitlyn Jenner, and that's it. They have no idea of the wide range of gender and sexuality that exists, and, it seems most of them are quite happy that way. Many get upset when you tell them anything that might change their view of what exists in this world, and, many religions still preach that anything other than straight, heterosexual sex is an abomination and a sin, and those of us who stray from the straight and narrow are to be shunned or even killed for our sins.

So you have to decide exactly how in depth you want to go in describing yourself (if you even know why you are how you are; most here seem not to have much of a clue, perhaps because they, too, don't want to know).

For while crossdressing doesn't fall under OCD, there are some crossdressers who DO crossdress for that reason. (Disclaimer, most crossdressing doesn't respond to OCD treatment, but unless you know why you do it, maybe it's worth a try to undergo OCD treatment to see if it helps and you want to stop. Only you and/or your therapist can deccide if it's worth a try).

For example, I'm not exactly 'just a crossdresser', nor am I transsexual. My personality isn't particularly feminine, but I do have certain female behaviors. I don't self identify as female, but do feel that I'm supposed to. Pretty mixed up, huh!

Many prefer to believe that they were born this way. Read my bio (link in my sig) to see how you can take a normal little boy and turn him into a crossdresser. If it happened to me, it can happen to others, and there's probably lots of ways to induce this in boys when their personality is still developing.

Mistyjo, the definitions you posted are no more inaccurate than what gets posted here all the time. Definitions of broad groups are never very accurate on an individual level. If you really want to see some howlers just ask for a definition of "sissy."

BTW, I don't define myself by one little thing I do sometimes. I have eggs for breakfast (more often than I CD) but I don't identify as a ovophiliac.

Karen,
Tracy calls transgender an umbella term but in fact crossdresser is also an umbrella term , we are all crossdressers using the basic translation , what labels we then use decribe how we deal with that label come after . I personally don't tell people I'm a CDer but TG , it tells people I'm a CDer but have associated gender issues .

My own personal feeling is most people consider a CDer is someone that dresses but prefers to keep it private , being TG means I'm more open with people because the issues connected with it go far deeper there is more to come to terms with .

The more I dress, the more comfortable I become and the less I really think about labels . I know the feeling early on and certainly when I joined the forum that i wasn't alone , there isn't anything seriously wrong with me , I just wear different clothes, at that point I felt I could shout it from the rooftops . Now I don't need to tell people what label I sail under I'm out dressed , they can see for themselves .

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Originally Posted by Mistyjo

I am truly sorry if I offended anyone with my original post.

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Mistyjo, I don't know why anyone would be offended by your post? But remember, u can always edit or delete any of your posts if u wish to!:thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Mistyjo

I am truly sorry if I offended anyone with my original post.

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I don't think you offended anyone! We're all here for a healthy discussion and differing points of view are key. Don't feel bad hun.

hello,
It might depend on where you live. In the UK it seems that trans-gendered is now used a catch-all term to describe someone between the state of being male or being female; as in LGBTG. I hope it may lead to more acceptance.
luv J

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Originally Posted by Mistyjo

I am truly sorry if I offended anyone with my original post.

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Definitely not offended, interesting discussion.