About thirteen or fourteen years ago I first logged onto this forum; I was dying to ask one burning question that I had felt for years. Why? Why do I CD? Why do we CD? I had to know. I asked and was profoundly disappointed with the answers that I got. Nobody was able to provide me with an answer that worked for me. Years later, someone said to me "because it feels good." She was right and now my answer has evolved to "it's fun and it feels good." But one thing has often nagged at me. This whole idea of emulating a female for me has not necessarily been about trying to look like a woman or be a woman or pass as woman. Partially, that's because I don't pass. I'm too big and tall for starters. But I'm realizing, more and more, that my motivation for CDing is less and less to pass as a female. I have often said that I would much rather be a guy that CD's than a female. I fully understand that many don't feel way and truly desire to be female and that's fine but lately I've been thinking about CDers having their own identity. One big criticism with CDers is that they wear things that GG's would never wear or they put together outfits that GG's would never put together. I've even seen other CDers offer criticism to others, telling them to not wear clothing that draws attention to them, to dress like regular women. But I don't enjoy dressing like regular women. I dislike dressing like my grandmother. Blending in is not, and never has been, my goal. But now I am realizing that I think me as a CDer is it's own identity. It's not necessarily male, it's not necessarily female. Yes the presentation is female in nature but that's not exactly what I'm shooting for. I'm a crossdresser. That means, that on occasion, I dress in female attire wearing dresses, skirts, nylons and high heels.
As I have crawled around the web, it seems like there are thousands and thousands of males that engage in CDing to some degree or another. It seems to be more and more prevalent; it seems like our numbers are growing or even exploding. Either that or there are a lot more people that are opening up about it instead of hiding it. It seems like a lot of them go for over the top makeup, outfits and overall looks. They wear the flashy wigs and the big false eye lashes, the flashy dresses, the super high heels and they look fantastic! In the back of my mind I can hear other people saying that they shouldn't wear their makeup like that, they shouldn't wear that outfit. I was recently noting on a picture of a male dressed as female that she was wearing shimmery pantyhose underneath her leggings. In the back of my mind, I can hear people saying, real women don't do that. Real women don't wear red thigh high platform suede boots but I'm not a woman. I'm a crossdresser. In my mind there is female fashion and then there is CD fashion and they are kind of different. We wear what we wear because it's fun and it feels good, not necessarily because we are trying to blend in. I would argue that we don't need women and their trends to dictate what we wear or want to wear. I even wonder if there are certain aspects and types of female clothing that we are helping to keep alive. Nylons and pantyhose are coming back but I would argue that CDers played a huge role in keeping them from going obsolete during the slump. In short, be who you want to be, wear what you want to wear. If you're CDing and it's not fun and if it doesn't feel good, you're doing it wrong.
Originally Posted by Kristine120
