Product availability as a measure of the community?

I can't help but notice it seems the availability of product targetted to and focused on crossdressing seems to be greater than it has ever been. Anything from specialty wigs to clothing, to latex body forms, etc. It makes me wonder if the product market has grown or if the availability of the products has just become more available due to internet shopping. I know our community is hard to measure, sample, and gauge historically, but wonder if the commercial marketplace that is there is growing and is an indicator of more openness, or even more actual numbers of people who are (or are willing) to indulge in their expressive differences and desires.

Or is it just an indicator of more companies taking advantage of a very limited market?

Thoughts anyone?

Its funny you bring this up because my councelor and I had a conversation along the same line not long ago. She is retired from the Air Force, is not a gender counselor and sees aapproximately 30 clients a week. I live in an area with a high concentration of active duty and retired military personnel. Over half her clients are retired military and of those approximately 14 she is seeing are for gender issues, almost 50%. No, not scientific but I and her think there are a lot more of us out there than we think. Just a side not my counselor does not tell me anything personal about any of her clients.

The second thing you bring up is the internet. Until the internet was created we were limited to our access to knowledge (this and other like site didnt exist). Also only option for buying our things was brick and mortar stores.

So I believe there are more of now than in the past and that yes we are a market and we are being targeted

Really hard to say since many of the products we use are not exclusive to us. Breast forms and wigs for example are often used by cancer patients. So basically take everything with a grain of salt.

There isn't a thing in my wardrobe that may be construed as being marketed to cross dressers. All the internet sites I go to would be visited by natural women. Those sites, if they wanted, can estimate the traffic from men. Size 12 and 13 shoes shipped to male customers? Any retailer should be looking to maximizing its bottom line. When I was a teenager and going to school in Manhattan the only store that catered to cross dressers was "Michael Salem." There was advertising in the back pages of porn newspapers. The entire thing seemed to be rather creepy. Now it seems to be mainstream. I cannot say there are any more men who wear women's clothing, but, it is a lot easier to buy them.

Of course in many locales around the country there is greater tolerance for gays and lesbians and transgender men and women. There are rights conferred upon them in many states such as mine. It does help, if a cop stops you for a burnt out tail light that you're not going to jail for some sort of perceived perversion.

Micki is correct in what she says regarding a shared market. That said a great deal of what's available does seem to be targeted more at our community. There does also appear to be more companies sell items so the logic is that for them to exist there has to be a market out there. After all, how often do you buy new breast forms or hip pads. In 10-15 years I've bought 3 sets of forms. I can't see myself having need to buy another set of hip pads unless I have an accident with those I already have.

"Follow the money", is a good way to judge things. If there's no money to be made, companies fold. Market places such as eBay and Amazon have many items available for sale aimed more at the budget end of the spectrum and against that you have what I'd call high end sellers such as the Breast Form Store which seem to be doing nicely thank you.

The internet has opened up access for so many. Perhaps what we're seeing now is a truer reflection of just how many there are who sit in and around out community. People who in the past were isolated, dressing solely within four walls simply because they had no way to contact others now, through the likes of this forum, can both interact with others and take advantage of online shopping to develop and further their dressing. No longer, out of sight, out of mind. Unseen and uncounted.

That is certainly true for me.

Add to this a sense of greater freedom, a less oppressive society and more are gaining the courage to reveal themselves. Hence the growth in items aimed at us.

JennB,
The retail community woke up to the fact sometime ago that it's a lucrative market that is growing all the time . Many members here possibly have more clothes shoes etc . than their wife/partner , I didn't expect it but I'm possibly guilty of that one , I love shopping and my wife hates it !

I found it interesting to see how many sites there are targeted at crossdressers.
I would infer that there must be a market out there, and we are more prevalent than one would expect.
What I find more interesting is that I have not bought a single item from any source targeted at crossdressers.
I, like Stephanie, have purchased everything that I own from internet sites or brick and mortar stores that are targeted to women. I shop shoulder to shoulder with women. And I like it that way.
Based on what I see here, most others shop the same way. That indicates that there are many many more of us than those that support the crossdresser targeted sites.

The first thing I do when considering a femme on-line purchase is to look at the star ratings for it .. the lowest, first. I usually also take a quick glance at the name of the person making remarks under the rest of the stars. You'd be surprised how many names are male. There's gotta be more, but not commenting, like me.