Assuming a CD is Homosexual

[JanetM.]

Greetings all. I am a straight male who has over 25 years of closet crossdressing. I venture out solo in public on rare occasions and when away from my hometown. I'm happily married and have no interest in males. When dressed as Janet, the rush and excitement of being someone totally different is exciting and addictive. My question is pretty basic: Why do most people think because someone crossdresses they are automatically gay? I always believed gay guys were interested in guys and not women in short skirts or tight jeans. If anything, I would think a homosexual female would be more attracted to a male crossdresser; Does this make any sense? The idea that all crossdressers are interested in guys is not logical to me. I think if you wanted to develop a relationship with a gay guy, you would need to ditch the fem clothes, wear your muscleman shirt and Old Spice aftershave. I hope I am not offending anyone here. I have the greatest respect for all of you but I'm just curious how you think others perceive you; I know it really doesn't matter.

[Pattie]

Precisley what I think, I am not Gay or Bi. I like women, but I have no interest in getting married or going out with any body on a date. I do go out with close friends to Night Clubs, not glbt ones but very nice and couple friendly.

[CONSUELO]

Following up on Lorileah's comment on ignorance, we should all remember that we know so little about this enigma we call cross dressing. The psychologists don't really understand it despite their many, though admittedly rather limited studies, and we tend to base our opinions and "knowledge" on our personal experience and those of a few others we might know well.
It is any wonder that most of society does not really understand us when we don't really understand ourselves. We should all remember to practice some humility in the face of such overwhelming ignorance (that is, "not knowing).

[Helen_Highwater]

The question is:

Why do most people think because someone cross-dresses they are automatically gay?

It's because historically gay men have been portrayed as effeminate. You don't have to have seen the recent film about the Kray twins, Legend, to know that this is a gross distortion. Gays like any group of people are drawn from a broad cross section. However the power of the media leaves an indelible mark upon people's psyche. Even the recent film, The Dallas Buyer's Club, portrayed a Trans character as a drug dependent sex worker.

It's hard to think of a positive role model that's been portrayed by the mainstream media that accurately depicts, and I hesitate to use this phrase, what the average CD'er is actually like. Let's face it, it's not going to be box office to show someone who works a nine to five, comes home to a wife and 2.5 children, and then goes out in a dress to have a quiet drink with others while wearing a dress before going home to go to work like everyone else the next day.

[Meghan4now]

Helen, you have a point, but I So want to see that film!

[Dana44]

Janet, Crosdressers don't think they are gay. Only the bigot's do say that out of ignorant and curse every one else with prejudice. But you will find that most like ninety nine percent are heterosexual. Most others that I have met perceive me as a woman or a feminine male.

[Krisi]

Janet, Crosdressers don't think they are gay. Only the bigot's do say that out of ignorant and curse every one else with prejudice. ...........

It's very wrong and insulting to say or think that anyone who thinks a crossdresser is gay is a bigot or ignorant. That's first question my wife (and many other crossdresser's wives) asked when I told her I was a crossdresser. My wife is far from a bigot and I think most normal folks are not bigots. They are not "ignorant" either, it's just that crossdressing is not something most folks are familiar with except for an occasional TV show or movie and it's not something they concern themselves with until they find someone close to them is one.

For the OP - We are crossdressers here so we aren't in a position to answer the question of why non crossdressers think crossdressers are gay. You would have to post your question to a group of non-crossdressers.

That said, there seem to be a surprising number of gay people on this forum and they don't mind talking about it so maybe we are gay and just don't know it.

[sometimes_miss]

Often, CDs dress as attractive women, and what gets guys attention, usually? Attractive women.

That's it in a nutshell. I'm not sure why there's any confusion about it. Women's outfits are almost always designed to accentuate the female body, and the primary reason is to attract a mate (whether anyone wants to admit that or not, it's been going on for at least 6000 years so I'll assume it's still the primary reason). The argument that many women love to give, 'I dress for myself, I want to look good, I'm not going to all this just to look good for some man!' is simply discarded by the fact that what women think makes them look good, just coincidentally is also the exact same look that attracts men. So whether it's their goal or not, that's what they're doing.
So when a guy goes through a lot of trouble to dress up like a woman, learn to talk like a woman, change his body mechanics to resemble those of a woman, it's a pretty easy conclusion that he's trying to be sexually attractive like a woman, and that means to be attractive to men. Now, what is the goal of being sexually attractive to men? Is it to feel the soft female clothing? Nope. Is it to feel the cool breeze on our legs when it's hot out? Nope. Get back to the simplest reason: it's to be sexually attractive to men. That's how the rest of the world reasons it out. They see us doing all the things that someone would do in order to be sexually attractive to men. So that's why they think that way.
Next, you have the big problem of explaining to those folks 'Then why do you crossdress, if you're not trying to attract men?'. And most crossdressers cannot come up with a decent reason that outsiders can understand. The explanations of how much more comfortable womens' clothing is simply doesn't make sense to ANYONE except another crossdresser; why? Because women's clothing is generally NOT more physically comfortable. Women who want to be comfortable do not hang around in corsets, bras, garter belts and stockings, wearing high heels. They don't wear all kinds of jewelry, spend an hour on their hair and make up to sit on their couch alone watching 'Real wives of Hooterville'.

WE DO. So it makes no sense at all to the outside world. They will not comprehend that WE feel more comfortable wearing all that stuff because we have a psychological need to do it, and we feel psychologically comfortable when dressed as women. Why not? Because of the old homophobia that's drilled into our heads from the moment we're self aware as children. For a boy, the worst possible thing is to be girly in any way. It's the biggest insult you can call a male, to infer that he's feminine.

Wondering why lesbians are not more interested in very feminine looking CDs.

Again, it simple if you look at it from a GENUINE woman's point of view (and that may include TS women as well). The sexes look for different things when looking for a mate. MEN are primarily concerned with appearance. WOMEN are not, they have a different priority list of what's important in a mate. The confusion only goes to show how so many men still 'don't get it', or maybe hear it, read it, but simply refuse to believe it. After all, if he's primarily interested in looks, that must mean everyone is, right? Again, NOPE.

Why r we so homophobic in the States?

Not just the states. While not always as militant 'anti-gay' as much of the red neck contingent, the homophobia stems from how we evolved. Tribes depended upon it's males to behave like males, and accept their responsibility on the battlefield as willing to defend themselves and their mates to the death. A breach in the line of battle could result in destruction of his tribe. So, remembering that the female sexual position is submissive, it is assumed that someone resembling a female in behavior or looks, would want to be submissive as well. Being submissive is not congruent with being a warrior.
Also, a male who is homosexual might be seen as a danger to the other soldiers, as if he forms a romantic relationship with another soldier, he might be more inclined to leave his post to go defend THAT soldier rather than stand his position and maintain the defensive line, again making his tribe more prone to being defeated by an enemy.

you see many protesting that they r straight. Who r they trying to convince?

They're trying to convince both themselves and others, because deep down inside, they cannot accept the possibility that they actually ARE attracted to men. You see this over and over; guys here writing about how they find men attractive 'but only when I'm dressed as a female'. They create an entire other personality in order to distance themselves from any homosexual feelings or behavior, even to the point of writing, 'Oh, that's not the 'real' me, that's [fill in the blank with their chosen female name]'.

This "attraction" stuff is WAY more complicated than most folks understand

Not really. We only make it seem complicated.

I KNOW I'm straight.

Yeah, that's what we all say. Here's Ron White's perspective on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTGXSdg0hEY

I agree totally with the original poster that it seems utterly illogical to infer that because we dress to look feminine we must therefore be gay.

I disagree. I see it a perfectly logical from a laymans' point of view.
then

I had always maintained that I was 100% heterosexual but...I find myself open to being attracted to some of my fellow crossdressers, even though I may know that they are really men.

And there's the perfect example of denial right there. Then they come up with all the excuses in order to distance themselves from the fact that they are attracted sexually to men, here:

It seems that the brain is able to side-line that bit of information so that I can kiss, cuddle and "play" with another crossdresser. But that only happens to me when that CDer is in femme mode - meeting in male mode leaves me unmoved. Clearly the brain is in some way over-riding the knowledge of gender and saying this woman interests me. Whilst I have not had gay sex with a CDer we have certainly "played" very intimately!!! Does that make me gay? No, I don't think so - bi-sexual possibly.

Let's face it; if you are turned on by the idea of having sex with a male, those are homosexual feelings. We can make all the excuses we want. It's fooling NO ONE other than ourselves.

We are crossdressers here so we aren't in a position to answer the question of why non crossdressers think crossdressers are gay.

I don't know, I don't think being a crossdresser stops anyone from being smart as well. I'm sure there are plenty of geniuses that are crossdressers. The old saying that you can't understand something if you are 'too close to the problem' is baloney. A smart person knows when there's something that might interfere with their train of thought, and does their best to compensate for it.

That said, there seem to be a surprising number of gay people on this forum and they don't mind talking about it so maybe we are gay and just don't know it.

Some are, some are not. A big problem we have is that so many are so terrified of finding out that they really do have homosexual feelings, that they won't even try to find out why they feel that way. They just want to chalk it up to 'I was born that way' and leave it at that, happily wanting to have sex with men but thinking that by creating a female person to apply those feelings to, relieves them of any connection to those horrible, terrible homosexual feelings.

We have to get over it. There's nothing wrong with being gay. Or bi. or liking whatever kink you enjoy. It's not our fault, we were brought up that way. But we're now adults, and can accept reality, even if those we know and love, aren't yet able to. So sometimes we have to stay in the closet, in order to 'keep the peace' with those OTHER homophobic folks.

[Lorileah]

once again semantics and definitions

ig·no·rant
ˈiɡnərənt/
adjective
adjective: ignorant

lacking knowledge or awareness

Don't confuse ignorance with stupidity. Ignorant people can learn. You are ignorant if you don't understand something.

[Meghan4now]

Lori: Ding, ding ding! Correct!

Now excuse me while I round up the three crossdressers that just escaped through the front door.

[krissy]

my current wife i have been married to for 38 years used to be with women before me, said she loved being with women but after the night i met her she told a girl i know she wanted to get with me in my mind i was like this should be a win win . boy was i wrong the first time her and her friend did me up after they finished i couldn't be leave how bad-ass i looked she freaked out told me she didnt want to ever see me that way now Im in a dadt relationship it sucks.but i thought i had it made with a girl like her because she liked girls but alas didnt work now i face going out to meet others like me where were all the help and support back then i missed out on so much

[suzanne]

You have made the mistake of expecting to find logic in the realm of human dynamics. Not possible when there is so much shrillness around LGBTQ issues.

When I was a teenager in the seventies, the three letter F word was bestowed on anyone who displayed behavior or appearance outside the bounds defined by the unwritten rules of masculinity. To this day, the bigots still apply this rule, although the word itself is rarely spoken out loud.

There has been a lot of public education since the seventies, mostly around gays and lesbians, thanks to their coming out en masse beginning decades ago. At some point the majority realized they knew someone personally who was gay or lesbian so they slowly refrained from viewing them as some kind of alien threat. Nowadays, there is the increased visibility of Trans men and women, and with it the assumption that those who crossdressers are merely in transition or contemplating it.

Crossdressers haven't yet reached anything like a coming out tipping point, and may not for some time. Firstly, there appears to be fewer of us. But another reality is that the goal of many crossdressers is Passing, or blending in with the female population and becoming invisible. I don't blame anyone for that; it can still be a hostile world out there, but at the rate we are going, general visibility may never happen. So you can expect most of the muggles to have some confusion about our true nature and which category we need to be crammed into.

[Tina_gm]

Why does this question always pop up as some surprise or non understanding of why people in general think this way. 1st, what is the way in which most people have seen a male dressed as a woman? A drag queen, and let's be honest about this, almost all draq queens are very very gay. I am not going to say ALL, but the truth is, a big majority of them. Where do you find drag shows? in gay bars mostly... Where is it that CDers go that they usually feel safest? in a gay bar. We are part of the LGBT. The 1st three letters stand for same sex attraction. In movies and television, crossdressed men have been portrayed as gay in just about every case. Look for transgender porn and.....

I could go on using examples about this. How is it not obvious that people are generally going to conclude this? all sign point to yes on this as for what people have seen or experienced.

[Meghan4now]

Well, GM is of course spot on (as usual). I like to think that it is similar to lots of people being afraid of my dogs. The latest dog, I'll cut them slack on. She's a German Shepard, and a very pleasant and playful dog. But strangers are scared. There experience says police dog, guard dog, ferocious. My old dog was a Malamute, sweetest dog alive. Blind in one eye. But when she would escape (often) and have a field day in the neighborhood, certain neighbors would be terrified by "That Wolf Dog". Other dog owning neighbors knew her and would laugh. Their schnauzer or scottie was a lot more ferocious.

[Alice Torn]

Often, CDs dress as attractive women, and what gets guys attention, usually? Attractive women. Janet makes an interesting point, in wondering why lesbians are not more interested in very feminine looking CDs. I would guess many lesbians are looking for the butch look lesbians, but some aren't. Some look for traditional looking feminine lesbians. Maybe when they find we are really crossdressing males, they quickly drop interest.

[ReineD]

Janet makes an interesting point, in wondering why lesbians are not more interested in very feminine looking CDs.

That's because lesbians are into women. A male who wears women's clothing is still male.

[Tracii G]

That assumption has been around forever and its not likely going to change.
Most gay guys I know are not remotely interested in a guy that CDs but do tolerate them in primarily gay bars but trust me they will talk about them and make light of them.
Just not to their faces of course.
I would love to find a guy that would be cool and not mind me being transgender. Gay guys don't understand TG ism as much as straight people so their reaction is pretty much the same.
Karmen that line of thought really bothers me when people say that. Why does one have to be the male and one the female in a relationship?
Its ignorance again because a gay man wants a man not a woman but people just don't seem to get the concept.

[reinasblack]

The stereotype that a man does manly stuff and a manly man/macho man is not into girly stuff unless he likes men. Also in the public view of things like social interaction ,men dress up as women to attract men.

Its simplifier to define a man as gay who crossdresses.
Men who like transsexuals as gay is simplier.


There is an article called
The chaser chaser
Defined as gay men who dress up as TS/CD to attract men who want a CD/TS.

[LilSissyStevie]

Crossdressing has a long association with homosexual prostitution going back to ancient times. The drag queen tradition grew out of that. Most straight dudes didn't care as long as it was a reasonable facsimile of a female. Besides, you weren't homosexual unless you were the receiver. The concept of "gay" is very recent. Until the 1960's gender expression and sexual attraction were tightly bound together. Look at this from a historical viewpoint and then it makes sense.

[Karmen]

(edit @Tracii)

I don't know why, but probably because they look on any relationship as a copy of usual heterosexual relationship. I noticed a few times already that when people I know commented on gay couples, the one who looks more femine, is much smaller or act more softly, is automaticly labeled as a "female" in the relationship.

[Jacqueline Vivaldi]

Just to respond to Gendermutt- It has always been my belief that all of us have a position on the Rainbow of diversity of genders, and for me, I love the position that all of us take relative to our sexual or non-sexual behavior. If one has given due thought as to who they are currently (this may change with time), I find it is beautiful that we involve ourselves in any sexual behavior so long as it is not harmful to others or OURSELVES.

Secondly, It has been my observation from several forums that Trans women generally state that they have no interest in sexual relations with men. This is OK with me, but I find it hard to understand from where I stand. My problem (a little one).

[SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE]

To AliceD and Rein Torn's points. I think that when I am really dressed up and looking good, I am a woman,and the thought never comes to me that I am any kind of man. Secondly, I have wondered why gay men are totally disinterested in attractive Trans females. The reason is that they like men just as lesbians like girls. That is just fine. The really shocking things that I have observed by my time spent in public places, mostly from bars, is that absolutely normal women are extremely attracted to me. Even in the presence of their husbands, they simply can't , in a subtle way, keep their hands off me. There is our rainbow again, and I love it.

[CONSUELO]

I endorse what Jacqueline Vivaldi posted. Its time we got over this labelling nonsense. Gay, bi-, hetero- whatevero- Just be yourself and treat others kindly.

[Tracii G]

Alice because lesbians are only interested in women like reine said.
The level of homophobia here is actually higher than you would think.
I am done with labels and all the goofy I feel so girly in hose threads.

[paranoidfish]

An ex was fine with my cross dressing until I started to wear breast forms, she immediately leaped to the conclusion that I wanted to transition to a woman.

[Teresa]

Janet,
I'm going to pick up Gendermutt's comment about media portrayal , so many depict CDers as very camp, lisping and gay. I sometimes wonder if they venture into the real World before they write the scripts !

As for the question, the assumption is if you dress like a woman you must have all the aspects of a woman and so prefer men. Some people find it hard to see beyond that. It's the point I make about tossing in more labels, we may understand them but the general public on the whole doesn't. If I tell someone I'm bi-gender and prefer women are they going to get it ? Maybe or maybe not, you'll still have to try and explain where the dressing comes into it. The same goes with dissuading people you're not gay, so what do the clothes mean, who are you trying to attract ?