How come you are not transsexual?

[FemPossible]

Wait a sec! I know how the title must sound, but this is not meant as a troll post or to be rude. When I first came here I thought that I was just a crossdresser, but I discovered that I was actually trans. I've learned a lot about gender identity and gender expression ever since. But I'm curious about those who haven't made the leap. I know that just being a crossdresser does not mean that you're trans. But I'm curious how those of you who identify as male feel when it comes to the topic. Are you 100% sure of your male identity? If yes, can you explain how you are so sure? Once again, I know the difference between just dressing up as a woman and identifying as one, I just haven't heard it from a non-trans person's perspective.

[Jenniferathome]

I am 100% certain I am male and just a cross dresser. I do not identify as a woman. I don't feel like a woman (if I even knew what that was) when I am dressed. I never dream of having any of the female anatomy and I like my part quite a lot. To quote Woody Allen from the movie Sleeper, "Reprogram my brain? That's my second favorite organ."

When I read posts from the trans side of this forum, nothing resonates for me. I don't get it. I've always been a pragmatic guy and things are what they are, so I have never struggled with me being a cross dresser except that I hid it from my for for too long.

I like the change made when I dress but I am a tourist only.

[JustWendy]

I ask myself the question, "do I need to transition in order to survive?" The answer is "no". In addition to that, I enjoy socializing with men and women, but when I'm socializing with women, I don't feel like one of the girls, nor do I feel like I want to be. I'm a feminine guy who enjoys presenting en femme as often as I can, but I'm a guy.

[Mayo]

I'm currently considering myself non-binary, but still mostly (~80%) male. I find myself comfortable in some female clothing and enjoy the sensation of feeling female-bodied (to the extent that I can do so). I have almost always felt more at ease in the company of women than men and generally find them easier to relate to. I have occasional slight gender dysphoria and would have preferred to have been born female but I accept that I was born as I was. I think of myself as falling under the edge of the 'trans umbrella' as I'm slightly more than 'just a CD'. At this point I can't see myself transitioning but who knows what I'll feel like in ten years.

[Taylor186]

I too, am just a crossdresser. I no longer give a seconds thought to whether I am something more. A few years ago I would have said that crossdressers like myself fit under the broad Trans umbrella but it seems lately that claiming Trans means you have thoughts or desires for transition or maybe some discomfort being male. I just don't. While I get great joy from dressing I never think of myself as anything but male no matter what I am wearing. I have great empathy for those contemplating or actively transitioning (or transitioned) as they give up and risk a lot to be themselves, but that is not my path.

[Jazzy Jaz]

If one identity you refer to is black and the other identity is white, then I must be some kind of mix of pink and blue!

[Rachael Leigh]

I've come to the point to refer to myself as trans gendered and no I'm not going to transition or do the hormone thing.
As has been mentioned it is a broad term and for me it works. I'm also gender fluid and it took me some time to accept this but once I did I became more comfortable with myself.
I have a male side and I'm good with it but without question I have female side that has a need to express herself.
At times it does feel as if I have two different personalities but more and more they seem to be more alike then I ever thought.

[lmildcd]

I cross dress because it makes me feel good. I don't pretend to be a woman.

[PattyT]

Obviously there is no sinlge answer to this question. It all depends on how the indivudual feels. I'm am on the category stated by the person who started this thread, in the sense that I dress because it feels food and natural.
Nicolsmyth stated,
"I am a crossdresser. I have never felt like I was trapped in a man's body. However, I do enjoy dressing and feeling feminine especially the feelings of relaxation and calmness that comes with it. It's my "warm bath" if you will."
I can easily identify with this.
There is a wide range of views, going from the one above to those who feel they are women trapped in a male body. These variations make this forum fascinating.
In the end result, it is each to his own.

[Kimberly2112]

There are a lot of different things that fall under what we call "Gender"... your body, your presentation, who you identify with, who you're attracted to, how others relate to you. Each one of these is a spectrum rather than a black-and-white choice. Where you are on the spectrum can change. So some people might not want to fully adopt a new gender identity because they're not comfortable with all aspects of that identity, at least not all the time. Being forced to identify as cisgender or transgender can be like being forced to identify yourself as a tall person or a short person when you're really medium height.

[sara.rafaela]

I like being a man. For me, going out dressed is something different. For example, I live in New York and you might call it a very interesting place. Yet, I still enjoy travel to other places, whether it be Paris, France, or Bishop, California. When I go to these places I get to experience a magical new world, and that invigorates me. Going out dressed is the same thing. I get to experience something that is new, different, and exciting with just an hour of preparation. How magical can that be? I do not really think in terms of being feminine or expressing my feminine self, or wanting to be like that permanently.

[Tracii G]

I am gender fluid would be the best way to put it I do love my duality.I am trans for sure and would love to transition but medically I cannot because of the medication and its risks with my existing condition and age.If I were in my 20's you bet I would.
I really do think I was meant to be a girl because I have always felt there was a mix up when they passed out genes.

[alwayshave]

I love wearing women's clothes, makeup and lingerie. I love looking and feeling like a women. However, I know under that I am a man and do not reject my male body parts. So, nothing beyond being a crossdresser.

[heatherdress]

I don't get the question. Transsexual relates to gender identification. Cross dressing relates to clothing and presentation. We are who we are and do what we do. We cannot answer why we are not a gender that we aren't.

[Nicolesmyth]

I am a crossdresser. I have never felt like I was trapped in a man's body. However, I do enjoy dressing and feeling feminine especially the feelings of relaxation and calmness that comes with it. It's my "warm bath" if you will. I find that the traditional male roles I want to do as a man and the traditional female roles "dressed" as a woman. No offense to either sex for my "traditional roles" comment. When I am "en femme" I want to shop, engage in conversation, and clean the house. It's not to say that I won't do these things in "drab", but I find that I "want" to do them when dressed. Just like I want to watch/participate in sports, do "honey do's", drink beer and burp, etc. as a guy. I like being a man, but sometimes I need a "warm bath".

[Yoshisaur]

For me I still identify as male because that is what I present to my friends and family who don't know about my crossdressing. However if I were to ever let them know about who I am and have this be public knowledge then I would give more serious thoughts to making the transition. For now though i'm satisfied with keeping this male-female dynamic I have going on.

[lyndsayalexis]

I'm 100% heterosexual, I don't consider myself as a trans, I dress up with woman clothes because I been attracted to their fashion, the way they can put different clothes together, tops, skirts, dresses, blouses, etc, because all of this make me feel excited and feel good, so I'm a crossdresser only

[Teresa]

FemPossible,
I had to go through gender counselling to really find myself, now I know I'm just on the male side of TS. I prefer to look female and feel comfortable in either mode but feel natural, more comfortable and relaxed in femme mode. Maybe I'm still not 100% sure, but age and commitments would make me think very hard before making any changes.

[Lily Catherine]

Put simply: I have yet to give significant thought to transition, and am more than unlikely to make this grave and life changing decision. At point of writing I still present as a male most of the time, but still feel as natural when I present female. Then again, I haven't fully broken open my closet either so all I know is that I am definitely around the edge of the trans umbrella, very slightly more than a mere crossdresser, yet miles away from the prospect of transition.

[OnlyRed]

Today is a special day for me. I am dressed in very good clothes. I look very handsome as a man. The society sees me as a man. I like talking to girls and I like the way they are attracted to me.

Today is not the day for my femme side.

But there are days where I like to look at my waxed legs, wear make up and wear women's clothes. I also get sexually aroused by them. Sometimes after the sexual gratification, I remove all the female attire immediately. Sometimes, I like to wear comfortable women's clothes and watch TV.

It's on and off.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the day when I told my wife about it and broke the marriage, I had severe dysphoria. I felt trapped inside a man's body. I wanted femme body parts badly. That day if you had asked me if I wanted a transition, I would have said yes. But today, I don't feel like it.

It's a spectrum. For some the position is constant. For me it wavers.

But this doesn't affect my relationships with friends or my work. So as long as life goes on, let it go on.

Will I ever get a transition?

Probably never.

Because though I have had the extreme desire to transition on certain days, it has never lasted for several days. And transition is painful and involves lot of steps. I don't think my dysphoria will ever reach to a level where I get HRT or SRS. By the time I get out of the house and visit a therapist, I would have changed my mind.

[Pat]

My experience of transsexuals is that they often "pass through" the crossdresser space on their way to finding themselves, so it's not uncommon for them to think that crossdressers are just not fully-realized transsexuals. But my personal experience is that crossdressers are their own thing. My transsexual friends tell stories of despising their "male bits" and I certainly don't do that. And they knew from a very young age that they were women. I've known from a very young age that I get solace and comfort from woman-ish behavior and presentation, but I've never felt that i was actually a woman. (I do however get really, really dysphoric about not having breasts and having body hair. But it's just those physical attributes that bother me, not anything else.)

As to "why" I'm not transsexual? Same reason I'm not cis-gender, I suppose. I was lucky.

[tifftg]

I think fortunately I am only a crossdresser. I say that because it means that I can have greater control of my choices. Like others above I went thru therapy to examine how far along the journey I needed to go. I think about dressing every day, I come to this site fairly often. I also keep my male side and family side fully engaged with that part of my life. Would I want to dress more often yes I enjoy that, am I a woman inside. No I am not.

[docrobbysherry]

When I arrived here after dressing in a vacuum for 10 years, I fantasized about surgeries. Those desires vanished after a few years. As did my hopes for my "fem side" to appear. I'm simply a CD at best.

Let me answer your question then throw it back at u and others who talk about your fem side.

I was a man with NO gender issues until I began dressing out of the blue in my 50's. So, what was feeling like a man like before then? The main thing I recall was never, ever thinking I mite be a female or have a fem side! I've always been different. But, never considered myself fem in any way. And, I still don't. Except in my appearance. I've never thot of myself as "feeling like a man". I've always felt like ME. Still do, no matter how I dress.

So, FemPossible let me ask u. What does "feeling like woman" feel like? And, how do u know that IS what your feeling?

[flatlander_48]

When I first started dressing, I was surprised at how little of the common guilt and shame that I felt. If I was going out for, say, 5-6 hours, might feel it for the first 15 or 20 minutes while getting dressed. After that, it was over. The rest of the time was just spent functioning and interacting with others as my alter-ego, DeeAnn. These days, that initial shame and guilt has long since vanished. Some here view themselves as 2 distinct personalities; one male and one female. For me it is one personality, but different traits become stronger or weaker as a function of presentation. In other words, all traits exist all the time, but some may be more intense considering presentation.

In the last year or so, I've realized that the notion of feminism was always much closer to me than I thought. By junior high school, or early high school, I knew what Dolman sleeves, peplums and bust darts (and many other things) were. It wasn't that I was consciously trying to learn; it just stuck. Women's fashions of the mid-50's to the early 60's also made a very strong impression on me.

Years ago when I started doing some personal introspection work, someone who had known me for all of 30 minutes said that I had peaceful and gentle soul. Historically my relationships with women have been very good; usually quite a bit better than with men. I suspect that there is a relationship here as my default personality is low key and non-aggressive. Usually women take me into their confidence fairly easily. I prefer consensus building instead of command and control. Not that I can't do these things, but it isn't usually my starting point. Anyway, all this seems to point towards a distinct feminine component to my personality.

One final point: when I started dressing, it didn't feel foreign to me. Obviously women's and men's clothing have very different sensations as a function of material, weight, design, etc. It's hard to explain. The sensations felt new and old at the same time; perhaps something like the idea of getting in touch with a past life. I don't know how else to say it.

I think any one of these things by themselves wouldn't necessarily have a lot of impact. However, taken in aggregate, it struck me that I was in a place that was beyond Crossdressing. It all seemed almost too easy and too comfortable for me to become DeeAnn. I feel comfortable as Don and as DeeAnn. I'm not distressed wearing male clothes and I'm not distressed wearing female clothes. They are all just My Clothes.

So, my conclusion was that I am transgender to some degree, but not enough at this time to warrant considering transition. The amount of time spent as DeeAnn seems to be sufficient and things appear to be stable.

DeeAnn

[ClosetED]

The question is partly semantics "How come you are not transsexual?"
So you have to have definitions of TS vs CD vs TG vs other connotations, and not all agree on what those words mean.
Using my definitions, TS, as it has 'sexual', means you desires to be a different sex than you are biologically/genetically. And that you wish to have sex with people of the opposite sex of what you feel you are (and possibly the same sex as well being bisexual)
TG - 'gender' - means more of what society sees you as and intereacts with you as. You can wish to present only 1 gender or be gender fluid and change back and forth.
Crossdressing is an action but does not connote a reason why you are doing it - to present a different gender or as part of being transsexual.
On this site, CDing is usually used for those who are gender fluid - they identify their sexuality as male but like to present a feminine appearance, as best they can and for a variety of reasons. Some are for sexual release, others for the hard to pin down explanation of calmness, peace, happiness, etc.

So why am I not transexual? I do not hate my male parts and not not want a man to be my bed partner. I moved past the sexual gratification and found the calm, happiness of just being as pretty as I can. I think I do this as I want society to like me, which is a natural instinct. I do not think, while being an average to good-looking man, that I got the amount of attention I needed, possibly due to upbringing that left me attention starved. I saw that pretty girls got attention with little effort, so I dreamed of looking like one. At that time, I thought you had to be a girl to look like one, but that is the confusion and normal society restrictions. I would love to choose how I present and change back and forth without society being upset. I think I would present often as Ellen, as I think I look better as woman than as a man, but it is more work and why be restricted when I am lucky enough to do both appearances well?

One could ask - why are some transexual? Do they feel society will not accept their presentation as feminine unless their hidden sexual organs match their outward appearance? Do they wish to experience the sexual act of being penetrated from the front so much they go thru surgery which reduces the sensitivity of the nerves? I decided a while ago that I was not TS, so I do not know these answers.

Hugs, Ellen