What Caused You to Become a Crossdresser?

Cross dressing can be no more genetic than riding a bicycle or eating spaghetti. How the sexes dress is a historical/cultural phenomenon not a genetic one. The gene/hormonal wash/DES arguments are, IMO, just pseudo-scientific updates of the "devil makes me do it" argument. In my case Confucius has it pretty much nailed except that I don't believe I "interpret cross-dressing as actual contact with a female." For me it is just the fetishization of childhood emasculation trauma. I find it cathartic the same way that some rape victims find it cathartic to fantasize about rape scenarios. I don't really fully understand how that works but I know it does. Compared to some of the other ways I have expressed PTSD, my CD/emasculation fetish is pretty benign.

Either that or Cthulhu makes me do it.

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Originally Posted by LilSissyStevie

Cross dressing can be no more genetic than riding a bicycle or eating spaghetti. How the sexes dress is a historical/cultural phenomenon not a genetic one.

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Yes, but there is generally a difference. It doesn't matter so much what the differences is between the way the sexes present themselves - why does there need to be a difference at all? Some of that difference is, at minimum, accounted for by the differences in the shapes of men's and women's bodies. And that IS genetic.

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The gene/hormonal wash/DES arguments are, IMO, just pseudo-scientific updates of the "devil makes me do it" argument.

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Why then do so many of you appear to suffer from a mild form of gender dysphoria? It's way milder than the full-blown nasty version I got - but there are many common characteristics - so many that it's more or less impossible to tell, for certain, who's a CD, and who's a TS, until AFTER the fact of the TS transitioning! And there is plenty of evidence that there is at least a genetic component to transsexualism.

HI Loves: I remember being forced to put on a party dress my older sister had outgrown when I was about 4yo , humiliated infront of my sister and her little friends complete with lacy socks and maryjanes , htne when I was 14yo a very sexy MILF told me I should be wearing a bra since as she said "my tits were bigger than hers".

A week later I picked up and put on my sisters black lacecup underwire Vassarette bra a 36C and it fit me like I was measured for it , and I almost feinted from the sensation and knew instantly I was a CD and a sissy boi forever, but it was only few months before I got really started being a femme sissy man .

My mom caught me so many times she bought me my own bra slip and pantygirdle. She gave me pills to grow more breast tissue and took me to h er gay friends for the bieds and bees talk (I got a demo too) . Now I cd and have sissy sex often, and fill up a 42C bra

I really believe this, if my mum didn't have that yellow dress hanging in her closet when I was about 4yo, i blame it on the dress!
Seriously I think it is the way I'm wired, I just feel I should have been born female

Paula,

The variation among individuals is MUCH greater than the variation between groups. So the fact that one can find small statistical differences between the aggregate of men and the aggregate of women doesn't mean diddly squat. Individual men and women are all over the place with respect to characteristics. I believe that all CDs experience gender dysphoria, however mild, in the sense that gender is a social construction and dysphoria is a feeling of incongruence with that. The only real difference I see between CDs and TSs is something called "gender identity." That's not an insignificant matter and I don't claim to have any understanding of it. For me, my gender identity was formed by a definition:"boys have penises." I have a penis therefore I'm a boy. That doesn't seem to work for TSs.

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Originally Posted by LilSissyStevie

The variation among individuals is MUCH greater than the variation between groups. So the fact that one can find small statistical differences between the aggregate of men and the aggregate of women doesn't mean diddly squat.

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There are marked and identifiable physical differences between genders, and the typical shapes and sizes of their bodies. Believe me, if there weren't, transition would be as simple as changing clothes. Things such as height, fat distribution, muscle mass, breast development have a big impact on clothing design. There's a reason a lot of us look like "a guy in a dress!"

There are other differences that aren't really clothing related as well:
- various facial features
- facial / body hair

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Originally Posted by LilSissyStevie

Individual men and women are all over the place with respect to characteristics. I believe that all CDs experience gender dysphoria, however mild, in the sense that gender is a social construction and dysphoria is a feeling of incongruence with that. The only real difference I see between CDs and TSs is something called "gender identity." That's not an insignificant matter and I don't claim to have any understanding of it. For me, my gender identity was formed by a definition:"boys have penises." I have a penis therefore I'm a boy. That doesn't seem to work for TSs.

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Why then do many CDs here have gender expressions that seem to involve the appearance of their physical body?
- breast forms
- wigs
- shaving everything (or more extreme laser or electrolysis)
- Body shapers of various sorts

I agree with you that the gender identity of CDs and TSs is different. Y'all identify as male, we identify as female. Whether or not one has a penis doesn't enter into the matter at all - that's your sex, not your gender. Your gender is a matter of what's between your ears. Unfortunately, given the current state of the world and our society, the impetus to deny that one is TS remains very strong, so strong that it's often quite difficult to pin one of us down as TS until we transition. Sure, some of us freak out at age 5 when we get dressed in the wrong clothing and have to transition young, but most don't. This is one of my main problems with theories that separate gender expression from gender identity - it sure doesn't seem to be the case in some of the worst affected suffers of GD!

BTW, that article you posted a while back about the identity defense model of gender identity posits that CDs and TSs are in fact related.

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Originally Posted by NicoleScott

This again? I thought this was settled science. CDing is caused by guitar-playing. Or maybe vice versa. Nothing to fret about.

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I see what you did there.. :p

Hi Confucius, I think that it all started when I was about two or three days old when my mom dressed
me in that little white receiving gown to go home from the Hospital.

There is a growing body of evidence that there is a genetic and developmental, that is hormonal influences in the womb, that lead individuals to be CDrs. The anecdotal evidence on life experiences is less compelling.

Confucius, Your story so describes mine. I was told at a very early age, that I should have been born a girl, that my parents had a boy already 2 1/2 yrs older and wished I had been a girl. My brother and older male cousins also used to terrorize me and echo my parents comments. By 5 yrs. old I was well on my way as a young crossdresser. The rest of your story is spot on as well.

I am actually TS, but for a long time I thought I was "just" a cross-dresser.

I'm convinced it has to do with brain chemistry. I believe there's some sort of biological cause behind most types of transgenderism. Whether it happened in the womb or afterwards, I do not know.

I will probably never know. I don't really think about what made me want to crossdress

When I saw "crossdresser" in the title, I thought of men who identify as men and who like to crossdress, as opposed to transsexuals who may "crossdress" for entirely different reasons. There must be different causes for such different drives to crossdress. Confucius told his story, never mentioning being a TS, having gender identity issues, wanting to transition...etc... just those events that led to a boy becoming a crossdresser.
In this and previous discussions of crossdressing causes, some believe "it" to be genetic. If "it" is the drive to crossdress for reasons other than sex/gender mismatch, I'm not on board. At whatever arbitrary point that ape evolved into human, lost hair and began to wear animal skins, clothing was functional. Distinctions between what was considered male clothing and female clothing happened, in the deep time of evolution, a blink ago.
Have they found that pantyhose gene yet?

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Originally Posted by NicoleScott

Have they found that pantyhose gene yet?

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lol, I was thinking the same! Of course there's not a crossdressing gene - that's scientifically absurd. There might be a genetic difference between men who crossdress and those who don't, such as genes that affect visuals/tactility/or maybe brain wiring that responds to stimuli such as clothing/femininity differently than other men. But a dressing gene?? Not likely. I actually sometimes wonder if those men who have a lifelong compulsion to present regularly as a baby (Adult Babies?) or as an animal (Furries) for relaxation etc, aren't carrying the same genetic differences as the male identified crossdresser? Maybe they over-valued dependence or their cats simple life or something? Just a thought.

And yep, Confucius your story matches my H's. He never had dysphoria of any sort as a boy but definitely overvalued females. (smart man, lol) Have you heard of that UK guy, Alex Reid? Apparently he kept getting asked questions that he'd never really considered until he got outed - like, 'when did he doubt his masculinity' etc. But the poor guy never thought he had, so he hired some forensic psychologists to figure out his gender issues once and for all, and he's happy to inform the world that he's been diagnosed with a finger-sized crossdressing 'kink'. He even did hypnotherapy and got tracked back to the day it started when he was 7 and tried on his sister's dress out of curiosity. I think he might have overvalued females like you did, and the clothes also looked interesting to him. He also knew it was taboo, which made him feel excited. You should read his experiences as they're quite interesting, especially after his public shaming by that awful Katie Price!

Anyway, your theory could work I think. There are genetics involved, sure, but I'd bet they're more about susceptibility to behaviours like crossdressing rather than an actual crossdressing gene. I don't think this is linked to TS at all either. Sorry Paula :) But after looking into all this further I truly think there are more than a few things at play here, and at least two distinctive conditions that look the same but are actually not related. Sometimes, even though it looks like a sheep and walks like a sheep, it's not a sheep. It's that dang wolf in costume. :)

What caused me to become a Crossdresser? Putting on a pair of my older sisters fancy panties! I think I was 6 years old when that happened, and I was hooked!!

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Originally Posted by Tinkerbell-GG

Anyway, your theory could work I think. There are genetics involved, sure, but I'd bet they're more about susceptibility to behaviours like crossdressing rather than an actual crossdressing gene. I don't think this is linked to TS at all either. Sorry Paula :) But after looking into all this further I truly think there are more than a few things at play here, and at least two distinctive conditions that look the same but are actually not related. Sometimes, even though it looks like a sheep and walks like a sheep, it's not a sheep. It's that dang wolf in costume. :)

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Bear in mind that the answer you like is the one that is convenient for you - it's the answer you want to be true. Believe me - I'd like nothing better than for you to be right. I just don't believe that you are. I'm not saying that all CDs will become TSs - not at all. I am saying that I think the evidence suggests to me that they are related conditions, closely enough related that it's currently impossible to tell them apart until after the fact of transition. I think this is very scary, to be honest.

I suspect they'll eventually discover structural differences in our brains that explain all this, and possibly even make it possible to differentiate between CDs and TSs at an early age. (Because you'd want to treat a TS young - but not a CD.)

We just aren't there yet. And yes - I will be very surprised if there isn't an underlying biological cause to both CDing and transsexualism, probably some combination of genetics and development in utero.

Because look - what you suggest is that gender identity is completely independent of gender expression. Can you really believe that? When kids tell you that they are trying to find their identity - how do they do it often? Through expressions such as clothing, music or art. Our self-expression is linked to our identity - I don't really see how it can be otherwise. They aren't in lock-step - but there has to be a connection.

Actually, I think it's possibly harder having a husband who does this for non-gender/sexual reasons. OUR identity can get messed up with it then as I know I started to wonder if I was the lesbian! What would be more convenient for me is there IS a similarity between you and my H as I might actually understand then. Then he might be the more feminine, nice guy he said he was before I realised the truth!

And seriously, what about those men who dress as babies? Don't you find a curious similarity between their experiences (started in childhood, they don't remember why, just that they were drawn to it, it's not sexual but it is relaxing and they HAVE to do it as it's part of their identity and it progresses and increases over time) I find them very similar. In which case, some crossdressing might be more related to the other identity differences men have than TS. I say SOME crossdressing as I think there's obviously the gender kind that is related to TS and is a different condition entirely.

I do think people can crossdress for completely different reasons, though. And maybe no two men have the same reason? In which case, this discussion is completely pointless! :)

And now I've peaked my own interest and want to know more about Adult Babies, lol

I believe that I was just born this way. My early childhood was uneventful, nothing traumatic or out of the ordinary. I remember crossdressing when I was as young as 4 years old. Way before anything else could have influenced me.

Hell I have no idea.

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Originally Posted by Tinkerbell-GG

Actually, I think it's possibly harder having a husband who does this for non-gender/sexual reasons. OUR identity can get messed up with it then as I know I started to wonder if I was the lesbian! What would be more convenient for me is there IS a similarity between you and my H as I might actually understand then. Then he might be the more feminine, nice guy he said he was before I realised the truth!

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Tink - you know I love and respect you. But seriously, you have no idea what hell is until you've tried living with someone who's transitioning. At this point, I'm a horrible ghost to my wife that brings her tremendous grief and sorrow whenever I communicate with her. (Which is rarely enough.) From her perspective - I died last year, but my revenant haunts her still, never letting her grief begin to wane. There are good reasons why 90% of our marriages to genetic women as trans women fail.

But hey - if you think you got it worse than that - well, I'm really sorry then, your situation must be just awful.

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And seriously, what about those men who dress as babies? Don't you find a curious similarity between their experiences (started in childhood, they don't remember why, just that they were drawn to it, it's not sexual but it is relaxing and they HAVE to do it and it progresses and increases over time) I find them very similar.

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I'm not particularly enamored of explaining something we don't understand, like transgenderism, and "explaining" it with another term we don't understand "fetishism". Maybe they are related, maybe they aren't.

Ray Blanchard suggested that Heterosexual MtF's are essentially men who fetishize their image as women until it becomes a part of them. Aside from not explaining FtM's at all, and being based on very small samples of MtF's, suggesting that MtF's are fetishists doesn't help those of us who are just trying to be recognized as women. There are many radical feminist "TERFs" who argue that someone like me is simply a self-mutilating fethishistic man who emulates women as an extension of the culture of rape. (I didn't say it made a hell of a lot of sense - but YOU try living with ideas like that!)

Although his idea was OK based on the data he had - he really didn't have enough to make the extrapolations he made. He did make the rather impressive observation that TG individuals tend to suffer from clusters of paraphilia - many of us have various fetishes. I certainly do. Why this would be true is not clear.

If there's obviously a difference between the CDing of your husband, and that of a transsexual, please explain it. I've thought about this a great deal, and spoken with many transsexuals and cross dressers. *I* can't tell the difference just based on behavior. If you can't point out what the difference is - then I submit there isn't one, which suggests then, by your reasoning, that I'm just a really extreme fetishist - certainly not any sort of woman of any sort. Just some pathetic, self-mutilating, thing of indeterminate gender.

If I, and people like me, are that screwed up, then perhaps the people who want to imprison us have it right. Certainly we don't deserve equal treatment under the law as our preferred gender. You can see why I don't much care for this line of reasoning.

No worries Paula - the world would be dull if we agreed on everything. And for the record, I don't think you're a fetishistic crazy person! I don't think any TS are. I just think TS are different from the average male-identifying crossdresser and that's where we disagree :)

I'm just curious now what Confucius has up his sleeve with all this as he has some very interesting ideas.

my own curiosity caused me to cross dress.....

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And for the record, I don't think you're a fetishistic crazy person! I don't think any TS are.

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That puts you in the minority then. :(

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I just think TS are different from the average male-identifying crossdresser and that's where we disagree

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Clearly there's some difference as we transition and they don't. We (generally) need estrogen, and they don't.
We're women (if you believe us, which most do not), and they aren't.

The problem with bringing fetish into this is that TS folks get painted with the same brush - a very large number of people view us as perverts and rapists. Unfortunately we don't get to switch back into our man-suit anymore to avoid trouble - so we take it straight in the teeth.

I transitioned to female 12 years ago, and in many respects, I think that women do have it better than men. Most people are surprised when - or if - I tell them I'm trans. I used to be a computer programmer, and the software companies didn't care what sex I was. Since I was a good worker, they treated me with the same respect (and pay) that they gave the men. And I had some female managers as well.

One of the biggest liabilities for men, in my opinion, is that they have to hide most of their emotions to be accepted, while I can show my emotions, because women are allowed to show them. This causes significant psychological issues for some men.

Cops tend to trust women more than they trust men, and unlike men, women are not usually assumed by people to be a threat. (Is this guy sitting by me a creep or not)?

I wouldn't go back to playing male for a million dollars.

What good would a million dollars do me if I couldn't enjoy spending it because of the depression I would experience because of my gender dysphoria?

Besides, dark blues and grays don't look good on me :) .

Paula,

The short answer is that CDs like myself try to change physical characteristics for the same reason we CD. Regardless of the "root cause" we all try more or less to appropriate symbols of femininity, sometimes including the physical ones. Body modifications are just an extension of cross dressing. This is not the same as "being a woman." There are plenty of women that are hairy, flat chested, have no butt, skinny thighs or broad shoulders. There are also women that are aggressive, individualistic, combative, born leaders, and who are good at math. Are they still women even though they don't fit the supposed ideal (or stereotype)? Of course they are! Cross dressers, including myself, seem to see femininity and masculinity in much more abstract and categorical terms than most people. It's that abstract idealized femininity (as the opposite of masculinity) not womanhood that I seek to express. I know its all BS and I do it anyway for reasons I already stated. I'm satisfied that morphology and the presence of a Y chromosome determine my sex if not my gender expression. Are gender (actually sexual) identity and gender expression independent? I would have to say yes. There are plenty of feminine guys that nevertheless still accept that they are males and masculine women that never doubt that they are, in fact, women. There is no way to tell someones gender identity by observing them. You have to ask.

Tinkerbell,

What is the relationship between cross dressing, adult babies, adult little girls and even furies? Also what is the relationship between those things and stuff like cuckoldry, male chastity, female domination, small penis humiliation, sissy maids, forced feminization, sexual submission and any number of other kinks sprinkled throughout erotic TG fiction? One word - emasculation.

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Originally Posted by Confucius

- Dominant females who berated males in your life,
- Bullies who physically and psychologically tormented you,
- A sensitive boy who wanted his mother's approval,

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These seem to ring true for me and have been among the things I have considered in the past as explanation as to what got me started. I am among those who started very young, too young for it to have been a sexual thing

It is also interesting to note that over the years I have typically had strong GG S.O.s . Hmmmm..... Could it be that boys are attracted to girls that remind them of their mothers?? and vice verse? women are attracted to men who remind them of their fathers??? Maybe this is why it may seem genetic??

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Originally Posted by Nadine Spirit

I could control it, if I wanted to, but I am not interested in it. I do proudly flaunt my desires. As I see nothing wrong with them.

I am not a believer that I have to act anyway at all, because I feel it. I choose to act the way I want to.

I don't think I can control my desires, but I do think I can control my actions. If I choose to ignore my desires it will probably affect lots of things and throw me into a bit of an emotional hell, but just because I desire something does not mean I have to act on it.

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An unpopular answer that I agree with entirely. Well said, Nadine. Sorry Paula, my friend. This isn't an indictment on you.

I find something very interesting in the contrast between Nadine and Paula, though. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong.

Paula's wife was diametrically opposed to any sort of cross gender behavior. Nadine's wife is so incredibly supportive of it that she refers to Nadine as her wife! Look at her website. It's awesome!

An interesting dichotomy at the very least.

@lilsissystevie - the body dysphoria you describe is one of the primary symptoms of GD that I have. You just have a milder version of it, I expect. If you think that I'm any less influenced by an idealized female body than any CD, you are just mistaken. In my case, I've hated my male body for my entire life. I preferred death to the hell I lived in, trapped in this body. It's simply all wrong.

I truly believe that at a young age, I felt feminine urges, therefore THAT made me want to CD. I mean, literally, during the 1972 Olympics, as a toddler, I identified myself with the women's gymnists. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I have memories of my life all the way back to my crib.

Everything we do is buried in the brain's biochemistry. How that biochemistry came to be could be debated forever, but there it is. There is no way around it. Even with outside stimuli, the brain must lock onto it. It's all in our heads waiting to be let out.

In my case, "it" didn't find its way out for 55 years! Then within 48 hours my wife and I found Tina, were completely amazed, and are still having a terrific time exploring who she is. Just today, not quite 9 years later, we had an hour's discussion about some new aspects of what Tina might be!

It is incredibly exciting to learn about who each of us is. Once we start down that path, once we know what is there buried in our biochemistry, there is a compulsion that, in retrospect, seems completely natural!!!

On August 20, 2005, my world changed. We lead incredible lives!

I asked my therapist about cross-dressing and autoeroticism. She is an expert on both gender and human sexuality. She told me a few things that are shocking.

1. Cross-dressers are female identified, with gender dysphoria that is less progressed than a transsexual, and that CDers don't hate their maleness or even enjoy being male, but they are female, while a transsexual typically cannot endure much more time playing male, because the GD has progressed so far.

2. What you do in private is who you really are. If you CD in private, than you are really female identified. If you fantasize about being a woman when masturbating, then you are really female identified.

3. Most CDers don't transition because the GD hasn't progressed far enough to warrant it. They love their wives, love having sex with their wives, don't hate their penises or beards, and feel they have too much to lose trying to transition, and yes it's true that you have a lot to lose. Many CDers who stay in the closet and don't venture out the house en femme for the same reasons, fearing too much to lose plus transphobia.

4. A CDer is essentially female identified with a partial male persona, rather than male identified with a partial female persona.

Michelle, maybe your therapist is right, but I'll say this - if my H is female identified, he's annoyingly male about it! And not in an 'I'm hiding my true feminine self' way - in an annoying doesn't listen, needs-a-man-cave, can't listen, refuses to talk about anything, will never listen, stubborn, clueless, fix-everything, obsessive, competitive male sort of way!! (Yes, I just used every cliche in the book but dammit, gender IS a cliche) If there was anything even remotely feminine about my H's internal workings I sure haven't experienced it yet. Believe me, I've looked! I've looked so hard I literally cried when I couldn't find it because there has to be SOME benefit to living with all this. But hey, he can cook, clean, wave his hands around and walk in heels. I guess that makes him one of us.

Can I join the third gender please? Because this one's getting awfully crowded.

I think Rodgers and Hammerstein said it best for me :

"Who can explain it, who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons, wise men never try...."

I'm just happy to accept who I am.

Not sure I'll ever know, and at this point in my life I don't care. I am in a loving and supportive relationship, and I feel fulfilled. Dressing is only a very small part of who I am and what I appreciate in life. I focus on that.

Don't know, don't care. Just know I've enjoyed and been doing it for close to 50 years.

I thank God every day that I am not a crossdresser and have to try to answer this question. Now if he would give up a few answers on why I needed to be a girl..... :)

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

I asked my therapist about cross-dressing and autoeroticism. She is an expert on both gender and human sexuality. She told me a few things that are shocking.

1. Cross-dressers are female identified, with gender dysphoria that is less progressed than a transsexual, and that CDers don't hate their maleness or even enjoy being male, but they are female, while a transsexual typically cannot endure much more time playing male, because the GD has progressed so far.

2. What you do in private is who you really are. If you CD in private, than you are really female identified. If you fantasize about being a woman when masturbating, then you are really female identified.

3. Most CDers don't transition because the GD hasn't progressed far enough to warrant it. They love their wives, love having sex with their wives, don't hate their penises or beards, and feel they have too much to lose trying to transition, and yes it's true that you have a lot to lose. Many CDers who stay in the closet and don't venture out the house en femme for the same reasons, fearing too much to lose plus transphobia.

4. A CDer is essentially female identified with a partial male persona, rather than male identified with a partial female persona.

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If all this is true it explains a lot. It all makes sense to me. But I hate my beard!

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

I asked my therapist about cross-dressing and autoeroticism. She is an expert on both gender and human sexuality. She told me a few things that are shocking.

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Michelle, if your therapist is telling you what is generally believed by current experts, then we are all in a great deal of trouble. The missing information and inaccuracy is staggering; it sounds like she gave you the most simplistic explanation she could come up with; the kind of 'Because I said so' explanation that parents give little children.

Now then, my experience. Sexually abused as a child after starting primary school, I was told that god had made a mistake, and that I was really supposed to be a girl. Over the years, the concept was frequently reinforced that I should learn how to be a girl, so I would be prepared when god fixed me. Spending most of my childhood believing I was a girl, the idea 'took', and became a permanent part of my personality. I really believed through all those years that when I reached the age when girl's bodies changed, it would happen to me too. When I went through almost my entire high school age before puberty arrived, I was almost certain, and when my secondary male sex characteristics started coming in, it made me even more confused, as I was sure god had forgotten all about me. I can't say for sure, but I believe that certain things in our personality become permanent at certain ages, and I believe that gender identity is one of them; I think it occurs somewhere in the range of puberty years, but will never be sure. However, the feeling that I'm a girl, and should be wearing female clothes and behaving as a female, has been present in the back of my mind ever since, so after 50 years I don't think it's ever going to go away. For those who believe it was there since birth, well until I was told this, I had always felt and behaved as a normal boy.

One of the biggest problems we have with modern psychology, is that as part of a scientific world, theorists search for the one, true cause for the disease state. after all, they've narrowed down the causes for virtually all physical and mental diseases to infectious, chemical or simply a case of the parts wearing out. So everyone just assumes that GID will eventually wind up being the same thing. However, from reading case studies and first hand experiences, everything points to a variety of causes, because it's clear that our experiences are so different, and occur at such a great spread of physical ages. The single commonality among western mtf gid, is the effect that social stigma of expressing any female behavior has on us, and the embarrasment and/or shame many of us feel when we are 'caught' trying to be the females we have the urge to be; and those feelings, unfortunately, often suppress rational thinking as well as memories that could have helped us figure ourselves out. So many of us don't want to know the cause, lest we somehow be responsible for any of it, because for a boy to want to be a girl, we are told throughout our lives, is the absolute worst thing he can be. Effeminate boys are ridiculed, sissies are outcasts, every 'real male' group uses feminine pronouns as insults to other males. So it will be extremely hard to learn the causes, because even scientific members don't really want to learn the truth, that their own scientific method as always used before, simply won't work this time around, because there is no ONE answer to be found.

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Originally Posted by sometimes_miss

So everyone just assumes that GID will eventually wind up being the same thing.

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1. That's completely incorrect, Lexi. The current scientific thinking does not assume all CD's will transition - far from it.
2. Consider that you are possibly kind of a statistical outlier.

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

I asked my therapist about cross-dressing and autoeroticism. She is an expert on both gender and human sexuality. She told me a few things that are shocking....

4. A CDer is essentially female identified with a partial male persona, rather than male identified with a partial female persona.

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Fascinating stuff! And perhaps a little hard to swallow totally... this might be a very well-educated opinion but I don't believe there is anything truly that concrete about GD..?

I also can't believe that this is still so binary? If there is so much flexibility with being able to accommodate until this hits a point at which TS is the right definition (and way forward) doesn't this also mean that if CDers were truly female identified, we wouldn't be able to just dress 3 or 4 hours a month (which was me last month, but I'd rather it were more.... Oh - hang on... ;)) without suffering real angst about not expressing more? I still think there's more a mix of gender identities and a broad band - say in the beyond 60% 'female' category, where there is more comfort gained in considering transition... I think also it's just not as simple as that, but it's certainly not binary...

Interesting though! :)

Katey x

I don't think anything ever caused me to crossdress.

My mum did reveal to me early on in life (years before I first 'borrowed' her clothes) that when I was a baby up to the age of 2 she would dress me in girls clothes.
Not to take me out in or anything like that, but she used to knit and sew clothes for my female cousins, and she needed a willing mannequin of the same size.
That's where I came in LOL.
I still don't remember any of this, even to this day.

In terms of when I started to realise I liked it?
Well my dad was always around, so it wasn't for lack of a male role model.
But there are myriad theories, loner kid, bullied, never had a GF until I was 17 (started age 13), the kids in my street were mainly girls so we would play together a lot.
I dunno, I just kinda wondered what it felt like to wear the clothes that girls and women wear.
One try and I was hooked.

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

I asked my therapist about cross-dressing and autoeroticism. She is an expert on both gender and human sexuality. She told me a few things that are shocking.

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Has your therapist read this new textbook (2013) for LGBT therapists?

http://www.amazon.com/Counseling-LGB.../dp/1412987180

Here's the full chapter on crossdressers. It includes citations to major studies done in the area. You will see there are different theories.

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/47510_ch_7.pdf

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

1. Cross-dressers are female identified, with gender dysphoria that is less progressed than a transsexual, and that CDers don't hate their maleness or even enjoy being male, but they are female, while a transsexual typically cannot endure much more time playing male, because the GD has progressed so far.

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By definition, crossdressers are male identified or gender-nonconforming (gender-fluid if you will). Else they would not be crossdressers, they would be female-identified transsexuals.

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

2. What you do in private is who you really are. If you CD in private, than you are really female identified. If you fantasize about being a woman when masturbating, then you are really female identified.

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This is not true, if you look at the vast population of male-identified CD fetishists or CD non-fetishists, who do CD in private and who are not in the least bit interested in identifying as a woman. Read some of the threads in this very forum about this, and also do a google search of CD + sex and have a look at the millions of websites that cater to the fetishists, far more than there are support websites for the CDers.

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

3. Most CDers don't transition because the GD hasn't progressed far enough to warrant it. They love their wives, love having sex with their wives, don't hate their penises or beards, and feel they have too much to lose trying to transition, and yes it's true that you have a lot to lose. Many CDers who stay in the closet and don't venture out the house en femme for the same reasons, fearing too much to lose plus transphobia.

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They do not transition precisely because they do not hate their male sexual characteristics. They would not be happy living as women full time nor would they be happy without their male sexual functioning. I think it's a mistake to paint all CDers as men who float in the breeze according to societal mores and who don't transition because they fear losing their families and risk being stigmatized. The simplest explanation is that they are exactly where they want to be, even though the fantasy of living life as a woman is tantalizing.

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Originally Posted by Michelle789

4. A CDer is essentially female identified with a partial male persona, rather than male identified with a partial female persona.

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I suppose there are arguments for both sides of this debate. But please read the link above together with all the threads we've had here by members who do not identify as women. There is a difference between transsexualism and gender-nonconformity (and just plain old crossdressing) and it's more than having various degrees of gender dysphoria.

BTW - transitioned TSs will tell you it was not technically gender dysphoria they had (they actually were quite clear what gender they are), it was more a question of being dysphoric with their bodies (their sex).

I believe there are however, (although this is difficult to measure), gender-nonconformists who either do not know if they are, or would rather think themselves as transsexual. I think it takes time for many people to navigate through this most difficult determination and in the end, there are those who will discover they are TS, while others will discover they are not.

And last, there are therapists (not all of them) who do have tunnel vision possibly because of their limited exposure and/or their own personal bias. Some of these therapists believe that everyone who dresses must have GD, while others believe that everyone must be inherently fetishistic. The truth is, there are TSs, there are fetishists, and there is everyone in between including those who have partial GD and those who have not.

I think it would be helpful to seek a therapist who has successfully counseled a healthy mix of both TSs and CDs.

What "Caused" it??
Genetics for sure!!!

My explanation...
My father had 2 brothers. All 3 were married to unrelated women. Between them, in my generation there are 4 male children. Of these 4 I crossdress and my 3 cousins are all gay. We were all brought up in separate homes and are slightly different in ages, enough so that we did not have the same experiences growing up.
I see no other explanation besides Genetics!!

I've done a lot of reading and research about homosexuality, gender, crossdressing, bi, les, and at the end of the day, I'm just about in the same place I started, it seems that there's not one factor alone, or one predetermine reaction, there is psychological, genetical, psychoanalytic and sociological factors, then there are the reactions, that are not the same for all persons, that why we have gays,trans, bis, crossdressers, lesbi and some conbinations, For me at times I'm more confused then at the beganing, but this is what I know about me, hetero,cross dresser, I have tried to stop but we all know where that ends, so today I take one day at a time enjoying life as much as possible with what I'm, good luck

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Originally Posted by PaulaQ

1. That's completely incorrect, Lexi. The current scientific thinking does not assume all CD's will transition - far from it.
2. Consider that you are possibly kind of a statistical outlier.

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Not the end result; the cause.

I personally have no reason. I remember from a young age (about 4) i would pull the neighbors female laundry off the line and wear it. And have been doing it ever since. I have no problems with my manhood at all I just enjoy dressing as a woman seeing how the other half lives. The women always seem to have better everything that guys. I was a top sportsman even was in the military for a number of years. The only people who really know of my fondness for CD my mum and dad. Having said that I only a few years ago found out my father was a CD.

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Originally Posted by Alberta_Pat

Absolutely NOTHING caused me to "become" a crossdresser.

It is just who I am.

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I agree with the addition of, "it is what I wanted to do."

I don't know exactly..But I do remember that Mom's favorite girdle, much to her surprise, also turned out to be my
favorite girdle. The rest, as they say, is just optokinetics....dana

I was born transgender (i.e. with Gender Dysphoria), and knew it from a very early age. I am TS.

__________________________________________________ _____
A lot can be learned about Transgender people from Intersex people.

For more on this, see Lynn Conway's page entitled
"Basic TG/TS/IS Information" at
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS.html .

Lynn Conway's home page is at www.LynnConway.com .
She is transsexual, and is a very successful Computer Scientist and Engineer.

Her site is one of the largest TG sites on the web.

"Xenoestrogens are a type of xenohormone that imitates estrogen. They can be either synthetic or natural chemical compounds. Synthetic xenoestrogens are widely used industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA and phthalates, which have estrogenic effects on a living organism even though they differ chemically from the estrogenic substances produced internally by the endocrine system of any organism. Natural xenoestrogens include phytoestrogens which are plant-derived xenoestrogens. Because the primary route of exposure to these compounds is by consumption of phytoestrogenic plants, they are sometimes called "dietary estrogens". Mycoestrogens, estrogenic substances from fungi, are another type of xenoestrogen that are also considered mycotoxins."

Chemicals like those cross into the womb and wash the fetus causing feminization in utero, they wont change the genetic code but they will effect the gender expression. One well known chemical was DES given to women who were suspected they might have premature delivery, that chemical is well established as causing intersexed conditions.

All of the arguments for a "nuture cause" for being CD have plenty of evidence to offer counter evidence against them.