Which came first?

[Sarasometimes]

Interesting post Frederique. For me I just have a need to show my gender expression which is a mix of that which is male and that which is female. When I crossdress I'm trying to show my feminine side and get some sort of acceptance. My male side is always accepted but not so much for the femme side. I have no desire or wish to be a female or live full time so crossdressing is the only need for me. For me there is no second thing associated with gender, just expression. In my world, emulating masculine behaviors and dress is endorsed and viewed positively by society and doing that which is feminine is not! This last statement I'm sure of!

[ChelseaErtel]

Frédérique:

I started dressing in my mother's clothes at about 6 or so. I was caught once and told not to do that is was wrong. I was raised all boy, motorcycles, cars, etc. But, I never took to sports or the normal "guy" things. I was never "all guy". College years were too busy and didn't have any relationships. When I married, I was not very sexual - now here was a heavy hint. I had CD'd prior to marrying, but stopped, started, started...you know.

But, it all came back again and again no matter how much I tried to stop it. I dreamed of wearing women's clothing, having a figure, breasts, shoes, doing makeup, and looking pretty.

I've only just began to truly explore my female side, and she seems to be coming out en force.

So which came first? I guess they came at the same time. Dressing to me is self expression, and most definitely non-sexual. I've now gone two weeks almost 100% dress as a woman and feel a completeness I've never experience. What does that mean for me? Who knows, I'm getting older but I have always been fascinated with TG issues, body modification, sex changes etc. When they had them on the tele, I couldn't help but watch.

If I was younger would I, if I had sought our help would I have changed my sex? Right now, my initial feeling is I'd like to explore full transition - snip snip, HRT, the whole thing. But, I'm in my fifties, bald (hair won't grow back), I get hot all of the time so summer is a sweaty mess and wigs would be torture in summer.

So I'm gong to just continue as I am doing, and meet with some TG/CD groups to help me explore who I am. I'm comfortable being a man, but long to be a woman.

Good god, what the hell has happened to me?

[Angela Campbell]

Certainly by the time I started school I knew I was diffent. I played with the girls, played dress up with the girls, and all around related to them better. Barbies over baseball anytime. I got teased no end for being girly. By middle school, I did anything I could to get out of gym class, or more importantly, to avoid the locker room/showers. Being naked with the boys was torture, because I thought they could see I was the wrong sex. I discovered dressing to help align the mind and body.- Celeste

This sounds a lot like me. I avoided gym class too but not due to them thinking I was a girl but because for some reason I just did not mature like they did. I was smaller (all over short and thin) and mostly hairless until my 20's i guess. My genitals were under developed as well - at 16 I looked like a 10 year old there - and I was really tortured when having to shower or change in front of the other boys. Now that I am dressing fully as a woman these things I thought were so bad are making me feel lucky. Very little body hair, no need to tuck, and generally a more feminine out look on the whole.

[Samantha43]

This makes me realize there are definitely two types of crossdressers - those who are transgendered and those who aren't.

My husband is the non transgendered type. I know this for certain now, having finally talked in depth with him about his need to crossdress, and reading here. It's not making my life any easier, but knowledge is power and all that. Sigh.

Anyway, thanks for this thread. It makes me realize that some of the arguments/disagreements I read here are because people are trying to communicate about something that looks the same from the outside, but can be vastly different on the inside. This has been one of those AHA moments, and actually incredibly helpful.

I'm glad we could help! It really is incredible how different we all are.

[Stephanie47]

When I was growing up there were no girls around, except one. I don't know why that happened. It was a big apartment building and for some reason it was all post World War II boys. There were enough boys to get any kind of team going at the drop of a hat. I played all sports, rolled in the dirt, played cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or war. I had an older brother closed to my age. I got into a lot of trouble. I had a lot of fun. I did develop a tendency to try on my mother's slips that she hung in the bathroom to dry. I liked the feel of the nylon. I had absolutely no desire to be a girl. I excelled in school. In my mid teens I started wearing my mother's clothing. I have no idea why I did that. It was a mixed bag of sexual excitement and self loathing.

Does that mean I was trying to get closer to my mother? Maybe! I don't know. I know she expressed the opinion I was suppose to be a girl to round out the perfect family: husband, wife, son (my older brother) and me. I know I was not the favorite son. I don't know if her displeasure with me was the root of her stern and restrictive behavior. My brother had to endure the same restrictions. However, he was the one to always get the new clothes and bike. I was to follow him to the prestige high school he went to. I rebelled and went somewhere else. I did not follow him into his chosen field. Did this all have an effect on me? I don't know. I did all the masculine things required of life. I was in the infantry in Nam. You can fill in the masculine blanks on that one!

So, I married a very beautiful woman. We were very sexually active. She did participate in a limited way in cross dressing. We bought some nighties for me to wear when the urge resurfaced. She was turned off of cross dressing, when we both found out what cross dressing is about.

I found cross dressing to be a comforting thing for me. It is also a very private affair I have with Stephanie. I really do not seek to have my wife participate. I still do not have any desire to be a woman. However, if I had the choice I would never wear men's clothing unless I had to do a masculine activity. I cannot see myself mowing the lawn in a dress. And, that may be part of the issue. My idea of femininity is stuck in the 1950's and 1960's, the June Cleaver look. I will never wear feminine pants or jeans.

At my age to try to figure out which came first is now not worth the effort. I'd rather do the daily cross word puzzle than try to solve the puzzle of why I cross dress.

[TGMarla]

I was a small, and somewhat unathletic boy, always picked last on the baseball team. This led to a sense of inferiority as a member of the male community. However, it never lent itself to any kind of gender identity crisis.

I back-doored my way into crossdressing. I was actually experimenting for an "ugly" contest for a homecoming event in junior high school. But the hosiery drew me in, and I slowly experimented with other forbidden garments, until I found myself dressing completely from head to toe. I never stopped.

I found such delight in the wearing of feminine attire, I began to wish I'd been female all along, so that I'd have the privilege of wearing such things whenever I wanted and without the social repercussions involved in crossdressing. I wished it was not crossdressing, but rather, simply dressing. There is a part of me that continues to feel this way.

So for me, the dressing came first, but there was an underlying element of dissatisfaction with being male to begin with.

[kimdl93]

Which to me is a key point. The very idea that a person at the age of 3-4-5 does have a concept of gender makes it seem to me that "gender dysphoria" or "Gender identity disorder" is a real thing. To me it is like many things that when one is old enough to know about, you wonder THEN if it is real or sort of acquired. It does add to the mystery doesn't it? Like if one decides at the age of say 13, is it more a sexual thing? Or at 60 is it more due to aging? Or at 35 because your life is changing? All in all it just reinforces how TGism is different for everyone. But on the other hand so many stories are so similar that there must be a reason.

I don't think its a coincedence that this awareness - whatever it is - begins at such an early age. We become self aware around this time, increasingly so as time goes by. Some developmental influences certainly give a sense of who we "are" and what we want to do...to that extent its an innate sense of gender. Unfortunately, for transgendered individuals that self definition doesn't necessarily jive with what our parents, siblings or external genitalia might dictate. The concept that something is 'wrong' is often applied by others and can have such enduring, adverse impacts upon developing children.

[Frédérique]

[SIZE="2"]Thanks for the many responses so far... [/SIZE]

It appears like I might be a loner on this thread. The dressing came first; well actually the gender identity thing has never surfaced. As a young boy, I mostly ignored girls, had no interest in any of their toys or games and was always quite happy and glad that I was a boy.

[SIZE="2"]This describes my childhood very well, in fact I’m STILL happy that I’m a boy. I might as well get used to the situation, make the most of it, and see what I can do with the materials at hand. I began to dress out of curiosity, but the clothes did generate a brief period of gender identity questioning. The latter tended to magnify many seemingly insignificant (at the time) events that I had experienced, but, over time, I realized that there was no crisis at all...[/SIZE]

I don't believe that a desire to experience some of the superficial aspects of womanhood necessarily has anything to do with our awareness of our gender or confusion over our sex. At most, it might represent a slightly higher dominance of some of those elements of our personality that have been deemed by our culture to be feminine than is found in the average male. We are expressing our femininity, but in another time and another place, those same qualities might be viewed as more masculine than feminine.

[SIZE="2"]This is a very difficult (or dangerous) time and place for a male to be expressing anything but masculinity, and officially sanctioned masculinity at that. Since I am obliged (by society) to suppress my natural effeminacy, I assume others have to do the same, and MtF crossdressing can be a kind of relief – society seems to be "managed" by these willful suppressions of natural urges, and any deviance from the norm is met with censure. It’s only clothing, for crying out loud, but clothes are powerful metaphors, as well as the instruments of personal expression. In another time I could’ve be more openly ME, I suppose, but, meanwhile, I’ll carry on as best I can...[/SIZE]

This makes me realize there are definitely two types of crossdressers - those who are transgendered and those who aren't.

[SIZE="2"]BINGO! You “hear” very little from the non-TG MtF crossdressers around here, so I make it a point to speak up (write) from time to time. There are plenty of US. I’ve written a lot about the definition of transgendered, trying to highlight variations in the community, but many people insist that crossdressing is a transgendered act, case closed. However, how can you be transgendered if you haven’t experienced a gender identity crisis?
[/SIZE]

I dress because it makes me feel more at one with myself. I used to think surely all boys must want to be girls? Why wouldn't they?

[SIZE="2"]These are EXACTLY my thoughts – thanks for putting them into words... [/SIZE]

[elizabethamy]

Like Barbara, I knew nothing until I was oldish. (In my case, 50 something). The feeling of discomfort and alone ness was always there but I had no sense that it might be about gender most of my life. First I crossdressed (at 54), liked it, craved it, did it some more, and asked why, and in the asking began to see myself as GID. Then TG, perhaps TS. What do I do with this? I'm not sure, but like Barbara Ella, I have done a lot of looking back to see what I missed. I see a life that organized itself around traditional female jobs and sometimes female-ish roles, though without the realization or the clothes. I'm much more at peace knowing myself to a greater extent, but still wondering how I missed this all my life. I tend to believe that all CD's have at least a light dose of trans in them, even if they are just doing it for "fun." Rather than two kinds of crossdresers, I think there are many, many kinds, arranged on a continuum that stretches from the ever so slightly less than macho male to the full blown, totally self aware woman in a man's body. I'm not sure we really change, but our understanding of ourselves, and our assessment of ourselves, certainly does.

elizabethamy

[Jamie Ann]

I don't believe that a desire to experience some of the superficial aspects of womanhood necessarily has anything to do with our awareness of our gender or confusion over our sex. At most, it might represent a slightly higher dominance of some of those elements of our personality that have been deemed by our culture to be feminine than is found in the average male. We are expressing our femininity, but in another time and another place, those same qualities might be viewed as more masculine than feminine.

Veronica

Well, of course you’re assuming that you are somehow outside the influences of the culture in which you were raised. Your behavior, according to your thinking, just happens to be feminine in our culture, but it might have been thoroughly masculine in some other culture. The problem is that how our feelings are expressed is always contingent upon what is “normal” in our culture. If the US in 2012, if I wear a dress, then I might be thought to be expressing feminine feelings; but if I had been born in some other culture, then I might be thought to be expressing masculine feelings. I'm sorry, but that is rather naïve!

If I had been born in some other time and place, and if I had other-gender feelings, then I surely would have expressed those in ways consistent with the gender ideas in that other culture. You are not an island unto yourself. Our expression of feelings always takes account of what is accepted in our society and its culture. Culture & gender feelings ―> patterns of dressing. Cultural differences are a crucial part, but not the only part, of what makes us crossdress or not crossdress. Both internal feelings and external cultural understandings matter.

[Krististeph]

MtF dressing, I think. i can still remember in 1st or second grade- at recess we'd play this game like 'capture' or something, the captive being held against the fence by one of the opposing teams, untill your own guy could tag you out or something..

It would be boys against the girls. Yeah, that's how I felt about it too. I had a few 'girlfriends' who seemed to like holding me 'captive', probably because I would smile at them even though they were the 'enemy'. i remember thinking how i wish i could be on their side, but then i would not have had the close proximity.. but i would have traded it to be able to hag out with them. GIdC did not surface until a few years later, though i still did not know what it was.

Simply put- like most CD/TG/TS- i am attracted to anything and anything feminine.

I look at some of the kids today in college- i get a touch of envy that they are able to be 'out' and accepted so much more than when i was in school, but i temper that feeling by knowing at least _they_ are able to do so now.

[LelaK]

This makes me realize there are definitely two types of crossdressers - those who are transgendered and those who aren't.

I agree with those who've added that there are not only those two types of crossdressers, but there are many types of each of those two types, so it appears.

When I was 4 I was disappointed when Mom told me boys can't grow up to be women, but I'm pretty sure there was no great crisis involved. Maybe there was a small, imperceptible crisis. I guess it was perceptible though, if I remember the disappointment. But I don't think I cried or became depressed about it. I just went on being a boy.

I was rather sensitive though and I cried easily. I think both Mom and Dad must have criticized me for crying so much. When I was about 6 I remember the day when I realized I had gone for about a whole week without crying. I was so proud of it, I remember then going and telling Mom I had gone a whole week without crying. I seldom cried after that, except sometimes in private (with few exceptions). In later years I realized it was not an accomplishment. I had merely learned to suppress my emotions. And it was actually cruel and stupid of elders to brainwash kids into doing that. Of course they had been brainwashed by their parents in the same way, so there were equally victimized.

I had a cousin my age who was rather effeminate, way more than I was. He played with the girls during recess, because some of the boys picked on him. I didn't particularly care to play with girls, I guess because I have a Saj Moon, which makes me like more activity than normal. So I was a bit judgmental toward my cousin. I saw him wear his jacket like girls do sometimes, like a cape over their shoulders. And I told his Mom on him when I was visiting him after school one day and she was concerned about that and I think she scolded him for it. He later became a history teacher and got married and I don't know if he ever liked cross-dressing. But I'm the one who liked to play the parts of girls in 4H plays so I could wear pretty dresses in public. Quite ironic.

[DMichele]

When I was about 6 years old or so, I remember women telling my mom that I should have been a girl - refering to my naturally curly hair. In retrospect I wonder if these women sensed my true gender, or perhaps their opinion was a subliminal message of things to come for me.

Around puberty, I remember wanting to be like my sister, who is 3 years older. This desire led me to explore wearing her lingerie, dresses and heels. I was hooked - the materials (nylon panties and stockings, soft dresses) and clothes felt right. I must admit that initially it was arousing, which diminished in time. Also, I can recall during my high school years of being envious of many girls, i.e. wanting to be just like them.

That desire has remained with me ever since, although there were times when it was dormant. But I have been underdressing for the last 20-25 years, and have an ever growing wardrobe of women's clothing, lingerie and shoes. Although mostly in the closet, i wear ladies jeans, pants, and tops after work and weekends.

During my 60th birthday party my sister revealed that she remembered when we used to play dress-up when we were (very) young. Unfortunately, I have no recollection. But interestingly, I came across a photo of myself holding a doll when I was about 5 or 6 years old.

Today, if the gender fairy godmother rendered me female, I would not weep for my past, but celebrate my future.

When I analyze my life, I come to the conclusion that the GID was present from birth.

I hope that psychologists can learn from the sharing on this board, as it is all real-life and far more valuable than the text books that they have been using.

[TxKimberly]

Some of my earliest memories, say from 5 or 6 years old, are of laying bed and crying because I was so sure that I was supposed to be a girl. I remember going to sleep while begging and pleading with God and the Universe to please let me wake up a girl. Lame huh?

It was only years later that I recall actually cross dressing, probably at about 8 or 9. I just remember that I came home from elementary school to an empty house (common for us at the time) and suddenly had this over whelming urge to see what I would have looked like if I'd been born "correctly".

Somewhere along the line I grew up enough to know that I was never going to just wake up as a girl and I "adapted". . .

[sabrinaedwards]

I do feel "gender compromised" in that it's difficult to feel masculine while in high heels, dressed to the nines. I am so euphoric wihile in feminine attire; sometimes in actually frightens me that I love it so much.

[ChristineM]

I don't have a gender identity crisis, just a regular proud guy. Just want to put on a wig and smile every now and then

AOL

Didn't do girl things when I was a kid outside of using my sister's stuff when she and folks were out.

[Veronica27]

I have just returned from a lengthy vacation, and found your reply to my post to be rather confusing as I am reading it somewhat “out of context” as my train of thought has long since left my senility racked senior mind. I think that much of the confusion is the result of the definitions that we each apply to the various terminology. For example, I do not see gender as being a condition possessed by individuals, despite the current usage of the word as being synonymous with sex. Instead, it is a grammatical term applicable to “things” such as objects and behaviours. Some are deemed culturally and socially to be masculine while others are deemed to be feminine. As human beings, we possess a personality which consists of a great many qualities, some of which are dominant while others are more or less recessive. As a result all men possess qualities that could be deemed feminine since they would lead to certain behaviours that are considered feminine. In the same way, all women possess qualities that could be deemed to be masculine.

In the paragraph of mine which you quoted, I was referring to the experiencing of “superficial aspects of womanhood” as opposed to a desire or wish to “be” a woman. I should have emphasized that those are the aspects of womanhood that are prescribed by our society. I do not see such a desire for the superficial aspects as being in any way connected to our gender, since we don’t possess gender as a condition of our being. In addition, it usually has much to do with our awareness of our male sex, and nothing to do with any confusion over our sex, as it is usually that awareness that creates the intense curiosity that leads to the crossdressing behaviour. In another culture, that curiosity may not arise because of different concepts of masculinity and femininity leading to different views of what is suitable for men and women.

Lastly, I referred to the fact that as individuals we all possess our own relative degree of personality qualities that would be deemed by our culture to be feminine. At most, the desire to experience the superficial aspects of womanhood might reflect that “feminine nature” or be driven to some extent by it. But that would still depend upon what the culture deems to be feminine. In such cases we are expressing our “femininity”, depending upon the degree that our personality reflects society’s concepts of femininity, but that is much different than expressing the woman within us, or attempting to “become” a woman through our crossdressing. It is in fact crossdressing versus transgenderism.

Veronica

[ArleneRaquel]

From age 8 or so I new, as must as one "knows", at that age that I wanted to be a female as an adult, not knowing what that would require. So here I am at age 64 leaving my dream, and it is grand.

[Tina B.]

Never had an identity problem, I've always known I was a boy, but I remember around six, finding womens clothing hanging on the back of the door in the bathroom, and I was fascinated by them. I was allowed to lock the bathroom door, so my older brother would leave me alone while I took a bath, so it gave me the chance to try those clothes that I found in there on. Why I ever wanted to is anybodies guess, but I've done it every since whenever I can, except after I grew up, I preferred to have my own.I'm still just a guy in a dress.

[Ally 2112]

I have been facinated with womens clothes since i was about 9 yrs of age .I started wearing about 11 years old .But i always liked tomboys (girls ) and if i actually was agirl probally would of been a tomboy (weird ? ) anyways after i started dressing up thats when i started wondering if i was a boy or a girl ?? .Im still struggling with this question 30 yrs later !But i do love my clothes so i guess for now im ok !

[Meghan]

Or maybe you just naturally gravitated towards crossdressing for a myriad of reasons, and you never thought about an identity crisis. You were fascinated by what kind of clothes the girls wore, and slowly, over time, you inched towards the big moment when you would actually step over the line and become a crossdresser. That last sentence describes my initiation into the odd but wonderful world of MtF crossdressing, and I keep my fascination cultivated at all times...

Freddie,

Wow, what an incredible piece of writing here. This is exactly how it happened for me.

I loved my babysitters boots so much that she gave them to me, I didn't know that was wrong though, I thought they were cool. I don't think I really thought about this until I got in trouble for it a couple of times. I think I first remember seeing commercials for Barbies and secretly wishing I could have one. But, yeah, I KNEW what I was doing when I tried pantyhose and makeup on for the first time (for example). I knew I was taking a plunge and there was no going back.

So in summary, got in trouble after gravitating toward girly stuff, then stopped, then jumped in with both feet (in heels).

Meghan

[5150 Girl]

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="black"]Which came first for you – the gender identity crisis, or the MtF crossdressing?

Did you think of yourself as a girl, wrongly imprisoned in a boy’s body, so crossdressing just naturally emerged as a form of much-needed expression?

Yea, that one right there

[Dawn cd]

For me, the perception that I would rather be a girl came long, long before dressing. I first put on women's clothing when I was a young adult, but my bent toward femininity was present in preschool years. I didn't hate being a boy or hate my male body, but I was attracted to girl activities more than boy activities. I wished I could stay in the house—or maybe cook and go shopping like my mother—rather than "go to work" like my type-A father. When later as an adult I started crossdressing it just seemed "right," as if I was coming home to my true self.

[Joanne f]

As far as I can remember (long time ago now) it was just the dressing that came first as I guess that I was not old enough or wise enough to realise that there was a gender difference , I was then and still am just me and see no difference in what males or females should do differently from each other ( apart from bodily functions) so it was latter in life that I started to desire a different body than I have , I sometimes think that it would not change how I think but i think that is a bit unrealistic as it would change the way I act in certain ways and if you act differently you are bound to think differently but it has to be all guesswork as things wont change now .

[Gaby2]

[SIZE="2"]Which came first for you – the gender identity crisis, or the MtF crossdressing? [/SIZE]

Someone, perhaps you Freddy, pondered provocatively a while ago that maybe crossdressing changes some of us men so that we will end up transitioning at some stage.
I found an element of truth in that but I still think, why bother?

As a child of about 4, I remember wrapping nappies around my waist to imitate dresses.
My Mom didn't think twice while dressing and undressing alone at home with us (young) kids playing around in the background - I noticed her bra at times, her tights and skirts... and most interestingly for me now, not her body!
I couldn't fathom why she put on nail polish - but I understood that she loved doing it.

With the onslaught of sexual awareness, CDing was just a minor detail in life.
It was always present but suppressed and guilt-ridden.
This was confounded by the total incapacity of Irish Society in the 70's and 80's to openly and honestly tackle any concept remotely sexual!

One main reason for moving to Germany was the relative freedom and safety I felt here, especially in sexual matters.

CDing played a tragic role in the breakdown of my marriage.
The worst-possible-scenario happened when I got busted by my Ex.
All of this was needless as the "real" issues we had were numerous and not at all CD related.
We just didn't realize in time that we could have sought help.
Thankfully we remain on good terms and our children are our top priority.

Since moving out though, I've been able to allow CDing more room in my life.
Through this, I have become a much happier person.

I like your opening question.
At times I do indeed have a gender identity crisis and this has continually changed and developed as I've gotten older.
Was it there at the beginning?
I don't know.

Gaby