Hi Pixietits (and any other female cross-dressers who might be lurking),

I'm a MTF CD (sorry if I'm intruding here) and been pondering the whole "why we dress" question, which in turn got me interested in looking at the similarities and differences in MTF/FTM CD/TGing to see how they might illuminate things. Transmen have been studied enough (academic Aaron Devor, a transman himself, has written extensively) that I've got a reasonable idea of the motivations, which are generally a mirror image of transwoman. But female CDs are so rare there's virtually no info on them.

So Pixietits, if it's not too personal, I'd love to hear more about your motivations for dressing, as well as what it feels like when you're dressed. Also how old were you when you first got interested dressing? Raven Kaldera, a transmen who's known other female CDs, said that they generally got the urge much later (early 20s) than male CDs, who usually start in childhood/early adolescence. (Raven has lots of good essays on CD/TG at http://www.cauldronfarm.com/writing/activist.html)

BTW, to me there's an interesting female parallel to male CDing: tomboyism. From the research I've seen, there's two types of tomboyism. The first, which is widely common among girls, might be termed "additive" (i.e. wanting to adopt both girls and boys behaviors.) The second, which is much less common, involves rejecting feminine gender roles and even denying she's a girl. But in either case, girls are quite aware of crossing gender roles.

The latter form of tomboyism has strong correlations with later life lesbianism, bisexuality and/or androgy. (Lesbians had the strongest likelihood of recalling being tomboys almost all of the time, the bisexuals recalled only being tomboys being about half the time. Also, more than half the bisexuals self-identified as having androgynous personalities. Standard disclaimer: not all lesbians are butches...but many butches do appear to have been tomboys.) This is apparently particularly true for girls who carry tomboyism into adolensence, when social pressures cause most girls to give up tomboy behavior. (If Kaldera's observations are correct, it might be that females need to get past that pressure for their CDing to re-emerge. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention whether his female CDs had been tomboys.)

If we assume crossdressing is part of a larger spectrum of transgenderism, and is at least partly biological, it seems reasonable that there are females who have the lower-level gender discomfort that is one driver for cross-dressing. (For CDs that driver isn't strong enough to prompt people to live as full-time TGs, with or without HRT, SRS. Like Pixietits, while I enjoy cross-dressing, I'm happy in as my boyself as well.) So where are the female CDs? Especially the hetrosexual(ish) ones -- since there is a bit of crossdressing in lesbian circles, from the butch daddies to the more recent "bois." The obvious answer is the greater flexibility of dress makes it a moot point, but I'm not ready to accept the obvious just yet. Since it's intent, not clothing that makes the CD a CD.

My personal theory is that aside from the "lack of middle ground" that Pixietits so elegantly described, MTF CDing is an "additive" process -- putting on wigs, make-up, a dress -- which consequently requires more an overt awareness of what one is doing. Whereas as FTM CDing is a "subtractive" process -- shorter hair, not wearing make-up, more "practical" clothes. So it may be that females expressing their masculine side may not be consciously aware of it as CDing. In fact, they'd probably describe it as "not being girly" rather than expressing masculinity. Or it may be experienced as dressing to play up certain characteristics (tough, practical, etc.), just as women (and men) dress to seriously for job interviews or sexy and seductive on a Saturday night. But again, the conscious awareness may be focus on the characteristics (which happen to be "masculine") rather than on a desire to express masculinity.

In other words, they may have some of the same gender discomfort drivers, but are less self-aware that's what they're doing is CDing because they can dress/behave more masculine in a way that's socially acceptable. (Whereas the reverse isn't true for males, which makes expressing femininity a conscious act.)

Thoughts anyone?

Darla