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See men in women's clothing around this neck of the woods, but I don't know that I'd classify all of them as trans/CD. A number have appeared to be of questionable sanity/lucidity. Do we count the guy on the train in a dress yelling about the Nazi conspiracy and hitting himself in the head?
The first one I can remember seeing was probably better than 17 years ago. Don't think I've ever seen one locally since then. Last couple of times I've been to Vegas I've seen quite a few though, and not just on Halloween.
Just to take up Lorileah's point, no we don't know where they are on the spectrum, as she says it's none of our business.
At my social group we don't know where others are on that spectrum and we don't ask , if they choose to talk about it is up to them, this is why we all call ourselves by femme names , we must respect the TSs among us , the great thing is we all get along fine, there's no demarcation as sadly happens on the forum from time to time.
The few times I've been "out in The World", I'm pretty certain The World can spot me, even on my best day.
I'm not too good at spotting others in the wild. I know of one F to M tran who works the local grocery, but nothing M2F TG/CD that I can recall. I was air traveling recently and my normal habit is people watching (amateur anthropology - love it), and I was observing closely. I didn't spot a one, but I saw lots of great femme clothing I'd like to find.
I live in the midwest. I travel regularly to the East Coast and to Montreal, and I visited the West Coast - Seattle and Vancouver - last year. We also travel internationally (in the last five years, we've been to Europe a few times, Turkey, Japan, and Morocco), which also involves layovers at a variety of major hubs throughout this country.
I can count on one hand the number of CDers I've seen here and abroad in the last 5 years, outside of TG friendly places or outside of specifically meeting a community member in the mainstream somewhere. And it's not because I scurry along too busy to notice others. I'm a people watcher.
The truth is, there is a small percentage of the population that does this, and an even smaller percentage who are out there in public and crowded spaces. We have a friend locally who has transitioned and she is of course out everywhere. But, she doesn't look male and so no one would read her (she is 5'6). Other than our friend and my SO, I've seen only two other TGs: one was at the post-office (I believe she had transitioned) about 7-8 years ago. My son asked me if she was a man. The other was a CDer at a department store, shopping with her wife, about 5 years ago. When I glanced up, she caught my eye and scurried behind a display. We used to have a very well attended LGBT club in town that is now closed but that had fabulous drag shows every weekend. We used to go there A LOT, and during all our times there, I have never seen another CDer. There were always 3 or 4 drag-queens though, the friends of the entertainers. You could just tell they were drag queens and not CDers, from their exaggerated makeup, hair, etc. But people like my SO? No. Not once.
Reine,
Maybe some of us are getting very good at it ! I might say this in jest but there could be more than a grain of truth in it.
The online tutorials on makeup for both genders must have made a difference in our presentation. Some can't get over the hurdle of a man in a dress, while others have to be viewed fairly close up. I only noticed the two in my reply because both were dressed too well for their surroundings, a woman overdressed also stands out as you well know .
I have seen trans people or maybe bigendered or non binary is a better word. But a CD I mean a man or woman trying to pass as the other very seldom. BY CD I mean some one like me who goes out dressed as a woman with the intent of passing as that. I have been read a few times that I know of heck maybe all the time but no one seems to notice. So I am sure there are others out there that I don't notice because I am busy with my stuff and they look pretty good so I am not really sure of their birth gender.
I'm not one to pay much attention to those around me while I'm out in public, but I do notice anomalies. Well dressed women in particular. :) During my working career, I travelled extensively. Naturally, I did pay more attention when in unfamiliar surroundings. I'm retired now, approaching 70 years of age. Looking back, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I believed I saw someone cross dressed in public.
Karen
We were just talking about this yesterday at a friends house, it was less intense then last week when I lost it on my friends wife. But last night it was more about how everyone had a crossdresser viewing story. Most of them were at shopping malls. I haven't seen one for about a year now and that was also at a mall.
I've spotted 4 or 5 CDs in the last year and they were all out shopping, all within 50 miles of my home. Two were shopping for groceries, the rest for clothes.
20-25 years ago, I only spotted one out shopping. And I used to go to malls a lot back then!
I work at a VF store, and while I don't know if I have actually seen anyone presenting as another gender, we very often (at least once every other day) have either males shopping for women's clothing or couples buying the same items in very different sizes. I use the employee discount to shop for myself, but everyone here assumes I'm buying for my wife or mother. The one associate I was out to left a few months ago.
I only know of one occasion where a male owned it and told my co-worker that he was looking for a certain panty for himself. That's about the closest I can tell you I have come to seeing a fellow CD/TV at random in real life outside of Halloween.
I think I have seen many of them. However, I do not notice them because they are incredibly good in their presentations so I mistake them for GGs.
Certainly, if someone is on a full dose of hormones and androgen-blockers, keeps the weight down, has grown out the hair and doesn't have male-pattern hair loss, has had electrolysis, in short, has done everything that transitioners do like my local friend, then I agree. My friend does not read as a male but then she has also had some FFS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teresa
But, this is extremely rare among CDers who have not taken all the rigorous steps that transitioners take.
I believe this is the fundamental reason why many of us *don't* see others out there very much. (Of course, I'm sure there are pockets of geographic exceptions... And I sort of hate "playing that card," but it is hard to deny that reality.)Quote:
Originally Posted by ReineD
It seems like some tend to over-estimate the percentages of those who CD, just as others can sometimes over-estimate the numbers of other tiny groups.
And on a forum like this, where one might expect someone to be that much more apt to go out in public -- yet according to one recent sampling, maybe a bit more than half actually do go out? You just took that tiny number & practically halved it. Not to mention that some of those might simply only do the "non-vanilla" thing (e.g., Halloween, LGBT clubs, CD meet-ups, etc.).
A minuscule number, indeed.
Also, there is a possibility that some say they go out when they don't. There's no way to check and some members do use this forum as a toned down form of SecondLife (the virtual world game).Quote:
Originally Posted by laurababe
My experience as well and I'll wager I travel a lot more. We are rare in the wild, vanilla, locations. In my little town of Boise, I have seen three cross dressers out in the mainstream (not including myself). I have seen NONE in California! And none in any of the 15 countries I visited this and last year. This is just an exercise in simple statistical probability. None of us should see many cross dressers.Quote:
Originally Posted by ReineD
Teresa, it's not just about "presentation." Clothing, and accessories can be perfect, but that won't hide an adam's apple, or large hands, square jaw, etc. So, I think it's impossible that I simply didn't notice as I am a people watcher just like Reine. We've developed skills through eons of evolution to recognize the difference between men and women. We all can do this in a fraction of a second. If it were really just presentation, wouldn't every trans person simply blend in?Quote:
Originally Posted by Teresa
Huh? You can't do both. This defies the immutable laws of the physical universe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valery L
Having worked at a Victoria's Secret in college, obviously I saw my share of crossdressers. And this was a VS store in Texas, not San Francisco or another place one might imagine crossdressers are more common.
I would see about 3 per week on average. One time a group of 3 crossdressers came in together.
Regardless I do not think the "I never see crossdressers because they do such a good job I don't notice!" angle is a valid one, for the reasons Jennifer and Reine have stated.
Here in Australia.. quite often, probably once every 2 or 3 weeks and I am not the most observant person
Years ago I was at a used clothing store in Toledo, Ohio and a group of 3 or 4 came in. I knew they were CDer's as it was a saturday night and they were very overdressed to be in a used clothing store. My wife gave them a strange look as she could tell by the way they were acting. They were very easy to spot. We just kept shopping and If I remember correctly I found a dress. The other time was a couple of years ago and she was very elegantly dressed and was shopping at Kohls. She blended in very well. I might have seen others over the years, but I didn't notice.
I think I saw one recently at an airport (I was in drab, and this is within the last month or so). I was going down the escalator and she was going up. What caught my attention was an usually short skirt for the age she was presenting, and wearing nude nylons with open toe'd shoes (gasp!) Not being critical here though - where what you want! But something about her presentation choices did not seem to blend, and perhaps I had a little more eye for it than the average person.
She made eye contact with me - maybe looking at people to see if she had been read? No one around her seemed to notice.
Yes, but only two.
1. A CD going to Dollar Tree that it took me a few minutes to figure out, something wasn't just right.
2. A TG person in Kroger taking their bottles back. She is a friend of a friend on FB that I had seen pictures of.
Any others have completely fooled me.
I can count on one hand those I've seen or at least thought were, and as others have said for many and yes even those of
us who dress if your looking for them maybe you see more but honestly when your out in boy or girl mode are you looking, or are you like most your out doing your own thing and don't pay attention. Which for most of us who don't pass means we probably dont get noticed much either so maybe you have and just didn't register because of such a brief encounter
Only two that I can recall. One elderly gal at the co-op and one young woman working the checkout desk at the library.🌺
The only crossdresser I've seen in public was my own reflection in a store window. That tells me that either there are very few crossdressers in public in my part of the country or that they are all passing and I don't notice them.
I did see a transsexual at the beauty school once. She was a student. I say she was a transsexual because she had actual breasts (implants, I presume) and that's a little much for most of us crossdressers.
Sarah, I would suggest that it is more a case of "no one around her seemed to care." And this is a huge difference. So many cross dressers think that because they are not explicitly called out somehow, they have gone "unnoticed" that they have passed as a genetic woman when in fact, most people do notice but just don't care.Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahSerene