how did the internet effect crossdressing

[fluffy]

One of the best things is surely how we feel less alone with our problems. Crossdressing seems more normal because we know there are SO many others out there. We're not even a small minority in society.

This gives us the awareness that we are sufficiently many that we can demand to be treated and seen as relatively normal. Many of us just don't know that yet. But the truth will ultimately win.

I don't think the internet helps with finding partners though - at least not for me. I know some people have found their matches like that but I wouldn't even know where to look because I don't trust dating sites.

[Katheryn]

Around 10 to 15 years ago , everybody wasn't on the internet yet and we didn't have this site and many others like it, This is a first where 1000's of crossdessers around the world get to contact each other for answers or just a another crossdressing friend you can talk to, was crossdressing different before the internet? I'm 25 I didn't really get into dressing up until when I was 16 by then I was looking for answers and others like me.The internet was there, but it wasn't around up until the late 90's, how is the internet making crossdressing more known.

I was going to break up your quote and reply to parts of it, but decided, instead, to answer it as a whole, as it applies to me.

Pre-internet, there were local BBS's, and, while not as widely used as site on the internet, due to having to place a long distance call to log on, they did offer me the first outlet to others who had non-societally acceptable differences, gay, bisexual, trans people, etc. who had previously all been in the closet had an outlet, suddenly, to others like themselves, me included. A door opened to a whole new world of others like me. This meant, to me, that I wasn't alone, that there were others out there like me, and that I wasn't necessarily going to be stoned to death for wearing women's clothes.

It was the folks I met on those BBS's long ago that gave me the understanding and courage to come out to the friends and family to whom I revealed my "horrible secret". Found out it wasn't so horrible after all.

Since that time, the internet has broadened that feeling and helped me to understand that there's many different people out there who run the gamut from crossdressers to post op transexuals, and that everyone's path is valid for them, but not everyone. There are T* people of every background and every group, politically, religiously, etc.

That's how the internet has affected me and my dressing, now, for your actual question, I'm not so sure it's affected society as a whole, since most people won't come to a site like this or be exposed in their net surfing to the reality of crossdressing or transexuality. It has probably helped some crossdressers educate loved ones to the reality by refering them to the site, family or SO's. But mainstream society not so much, IMHO.

Kate

[stefanie]

i remember when the internet was first launched..... and well good ol' dial up aol too.

I recall on of my very first queries was about transgenderism. There were not chat or groups at the time......but Just to find out more was an inspiration itself.... that i wasn't alone and that it seemed there were more of us than I ever would have thought.

what really surprised me though was the amount of admirers and the diversity in the transgendered community itself.....

[Gerrijerry]

internet? what is the internet?

[erica12b]

up tell the net ,i thought i was mostly alone there where some storys in the paper and on tv but i did not think there where very many cds out there,but there are, just not around my area, i also now know its ok to dress and have started to except myself

[NV Susan]

[SIZE="4"]OMG, good question. I've been cross dressing a long time, way before computers. Besides the benefit of shopping online I think the biggest thing this has done for me is to let me know how many of us are out here!!
[/SIZE]

[HundredWings]

It's done both good and bad things:

On the one hand, it connects people with a similar interest, even one that most wouldn't call 'normal'. In addition, it shows that crossdressing isn't this terrible, horrible thing.

On the other, there's an abysmal signal-to-noise ratio in terms of wholesome crossdressing resources like this one and the fetish/porn/etc resources that aren't inherently bad but tend to crowd it out for crossdressers and aspiring crossdressers that aren't really looking for it.

[Jessica Who]

To me, the biggest thing is the sense of community. I can easily recall those times during childhood when I felt all alone in this world. I would get glimpses of men in drag from movies and television, but it was always an obvious joke.

The Internet gives us a safe haven with great forums like these and allows for better communication and friendships that would have otherwise not been possible.

[Satrana]

Before the internet many CDs thought they were freaks of nature and the only person in the world to have this interest. Such thoughts ensured a deeply closeted existence with no thoughts of ever coming out to anyone including SOs. Even when you did discover there were others like you, the image was terrible - we were sexual perverts and medical books listed us as a psychological disease.

So pre-internet so very depressing and very isolated. No support, no information about how or why or what to do. Just a big black hole of guilt and shame.

I would never have found the courage to come out to anyone never mind walk about in public. And i would be eternally confused as to why this happened to me but now I have solid answers to my questions. And I can offer advice and support to others and help foster a sense of pride in the community and a willingness to fight for our rights to be treated fairly and with respect.

I was on the internet early on from 95 onwards. You would be surprised just how far the community has come in just the last 15 years. There has been major shifts in ideas and understanding and the will to be true to ourselves has blossomed exponentially. There is now a real sense of pride emerging.

Pre internet = Dark Ages of ignorance and prejudice
Post internet = Renaissance of new hopes and ideas

[NicolaD]

I can trace back my desire to CD to when I was still in Junior School, and wishing I was dressed as a school girl. That was way back in the early 70's before anyone had even heard of Home Computers let alone the Internet

Back then after been caught a few times by my parents and been told that what I was doing was evil and a sin. I was one very confused and mixed up boy, just didn't understand what I was or why I needed to CD.

I like many around that time, thought I was unique and alone. And the desire to CD must be wrong and sinful. I only wish we had the Internet back then, when I was younger, it would have helped a great deal.

For me my saving grace came late one night, when I saw a television advert for the Beaumont Society transvestite support group . After sometime I got up the courage to phone them. And that’s when I learnt alot about myself and about transvestism, and that I was not alone and far from unique.
I was certainly far more relaxed and comfortable with myself knowing that I was a transvestite and that my desires were actually natural to many.

I believe that sites like this serve a great good, with the information and support that it has to offer. I just wish I had access to it 30 years ago. Just glad I made contact with that Beaumont Society support group.

[KatieV]

If there had been an internet forty years ago I'd be a different girl today; I was born too late. I cetainly would have gone farther, faster, and probably would have experimented with hormones. And my mother would have probably supported me, too, had she seen that it was so prevelant.

[tanya1976]

As well as being a invaluable source of information it does afford one the chance to interact with other people like myself from behind the safety of a computer screen. Although I'm sure I will have to step out from behind the glass sooner or later!

[Charleen]

B/I, it was the dark ages! Like alot have said, I thought I was alone and a freak. I've known since I was a child I had the wrong equipment.
The depression I suffered most of my life as well as the guilt and shame was mind boggling!
I found this site. Now I am embracing who I am.
I'm not going to play what if. The internet wasn't around when I was growing up, but who knows what would have happened?

[JaytoJillian]

1. I realized that I was not alone.

2. I realized that you can learn how to do just about anything.

[Kaz]

Lallie, your right, I don't have to maintain a darkroom since the Digital era of photography, but I did find a down side to the net, I goggled the word transgendered, and they came up with 4,490,000 sites, unfortunately I figure over 4,000,000 of them are probably pornographic, not that that bothers me, but for SO's and family trying to learn more about us, they have no way to know which has relevance and which doesn't. And even if you do know, there is just so much trash out there to dig through to find the gems, such as this site.
But all things considered, for us, I believe these are the "Good old Days".
Tina B.

Tina, you are right, but this applies to just about anything... google 'heterosexual' and the same thing happens!

The internet has tyotally opened up my acceptance of Kaz and so is positive. But the amount of information out there and the software that is being developed to find things and make connections is scary indeed!

[Starling]

If there had been an internet forty years ago I'd be a different girl today...

Me too, Kay, for sure.

Lallie