why create a female persona?

[Julogden]

Do whatever you want, but don't make the foolish mistake of thinking that your solution should be anyone else's solution.

[Dana44]

You can be who you want to be. But many of us it is not a different personality and we go out a lot and it is a given that i don't give my male name, as feminine s I might be and somewhat passing it would make no sense to have a male name at that time.

[Clodagh]

For me it's just an online thing really, which makes sense. I'm generally alone when dressed so it doesn't arise in real life.

[Lea]

My wife is very accepting. However one of the few things she does not do is directly call me Lea.

When we are out shopping she will ask if Lea needs anything, or wants anything.

For me it is just a part of dressing. I do not go through shaving, plucking, foundation garments, makeup and everything else and not want to be called by my feminine name.

[Marianne S]

This is all very interesting. It just goes to show how different some of us are. I always thought taking a female name was automatic. It was completely spontaneous with me, virtually from the beginning when I was only thirteen or thereabouts (can't be sure of the exact age). If I wanted to fantasize being a girl, it only seemed natural to "put on" a female name along with putting on a skirt. It wouldn't make any more sense to be wearing a masculine name than it would to be wearing, say, a clunky pair of men's boots along with nylons, bra and panties.

In the beginning I saw myself as Anne. A few years later I changed it to Marianne. When I heard about other CDs like myself, I also learned that taking a female name is common practice, and I simply assumed this was universal, as spontaneous as it had been with me. It surprised me to discover that some people hadn't thought about doing the same, or only adopted a female name because they needed a handle for a forum like this one, or simply because it's what everybody else was doing. I've been Marianne pretty much all my adult life.

But I think the explanation Krisi and others gave here is enlightening, and makes perfect sense to me.

If you see yourself simply as a man who just happens to love feminine things or expressing a feminine side--"a dude in a dress," as Krisi so succinctly put it--then you see all this as part of a single, integrated personality which incidentally happens to be male at the core--even if it's taken a while to accept all that and integrate it more fully, as it has for you, Samantha. In that case it may seem natural to retain a male name.

In contrast, anyone who sees themselves as "trapped in the wrong body," and wanting to become female in every respect, will naturally want to take a female name and will probably prefer to use it all the time, discarding the male name altogether.

However, for anyone like myself, and I dare say a good many others here, dressing is a part of a fantasy of actually being female part of the time--though not all of the time! It may also have sexual implications, as it does for me and many others, even though we're not gay. (Or not necessarily gay, I should say in deference to others!) We may have both masculine and feminine sides to our personality, but in a bodily sense we can't actually be both male and female at the same time. Hermaphroditism aside, even in our imagination we have to be either one or the other at any given time. If any detail, including a name, leads us to think of ourselves as male, that can only detract from the vision of ourselves as female--and vice versa.

I'm sure that not everyone is like me in this respect, but I mostly prefer to think of myself as either my male self or as Marianne at any given time. I don't like to mix the two together. As a male I don't "underdress" for instance. I prefer to feel purely male. For the same reason, it wouldn't be natural for me to dress as a female and "contaminate" that vision with a male name.

I've never seen anything "hypocritical" about imagining, or adopting, different roles at different times. As long as we don't use this to deceive others, or ourselves, we're all free to enjoy being whoever we want to be in our imagination.

[irene9999]

For me it's about giving my "femme" side a name, it'd be weird if I just went by my male name while in a dress, heels and makeup; at the end of the day I feel like the same person but prettier

[Exris]

So why do we choose to have a female name? A big part of crossdressing seems to be creating a female alter ego with a female name in order to express our feminine sides but recently I’m starting to question why I create a female persona at all.

I’m a happily married heterosexual man and It has taken me a long time to feel comfortable with the fact that I’m a crossdresser.

However it never really felt right referring to my feminine side as a seperate person, it felt like I was using this female character as an excuse not to face up to the fact that ‘I am a crossdresser’ now as I gain more and more self acceptance I’m finding that its much more helpful to think about my feminine side as me because after all that is what it is.

I’m also finding that its easier to talk to my wife if I’m talking about me rather than an imaginary third person. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that if anyone is struggling with the idea of being a crossdresser then perhaps it might help to think in this way.

I'm also thinking about changing my profile name because I'm being hypocritical otherwise

Agree with Sam 100%.

The only difference is my name is not female... exactly. Exris in the online world exists. She has fans even, albeit a small number.

She is a max level Mage in WoW. She is a pretty good one. As a Mage she will hit very hard in battle... wearing nothing but cloth "armor". The warriors/paladins/DK's will stand in front of her protecting her from the raid boss... getting beat up and causing minimal damage to him... whilst she rains down hell on him.

She sometimes gets hurt bad in raids. Real bad. But she's anything but defenseless.


Works for me. It would be tempting to choose a name I like. Victoria for instance. But I have no connection to that. Ultimately we are all leading some level of fantasy unless we go full on elective. Then it changes... and I have little to offer if the thread spins that way. For me tho this works. She is real to me. I know her. She is fierce as hell and a force any plate armor wearing buffoon had better stay well clear of in a PvP zone. And I have spent (gametime - real logged on time) 2 years with her.

I know her as well as I know myself.

[S. Lisa Smith]

When I am crossdressed, I am Lisa. I speak in the best female voice I can muster and try to look like a "well put together" woman. I can't explain it any better than that...