Is crossdressing limited to gender?

[Billy]

Is crossdressing limited to gender or does wearing attire in a different geographical area deem a person a crossdresser? Would the United States public consider you a crossdresser if you suddenly changed your wardrobe to wearing kilts and sarongs?

[jennifer0918]

When I watch a parade and see the bag pipers wearing there kilts I don't look at them as crossdressers.

[CONSUELO]

Kilts are considered to be male dress in Scotland and many other places. Women wear tartan also as national dress but the design is quite different. I don't know if the same applies to sarongs: that is a difference in style for each sex.

I suppose it would depend on what you wore with the sarong.

[Billy]

I think a wife, significant other, or the general public consider wearing a kilt in a parade a costume. I would think that if a person decided to wear a kilt full time people would think of the kilt wearing differently.

[Meghan4now]

The definition of crossdressing is wearing clothing commonly associated with the opposite gender. Therefore, the answer is no. Of course this then leads to the debate, that if one is truly a woman, as a TS, and dresses as a woman, even while possessing primary male reproductive system, are they a crossdresser? Or are they a crossdresser when dressed in male clothing? I am sure this debate will go on and on and on.

[phili]

I'm using the words 'gender cueing' now- "Crossdressing' then is when we are trying to cue people that we are presenting to some degree as the 'opposite' gender to - how they read us, and/ or the gender we feel anchored to or constrained by, due to physical biology or culture training. When women wear men's pants, BUT cue that they are 100% women and not envious or desirous of manly things, we don't think 'crossdressing' except in the trivial sense that they are men's pants, and we make up some excuse for that choice, so as not to focus on the fashion line they actually did cross! Anyone deviating from the norm starts quite a conversation in our heads about the meaning, and the core element of cross-dressing is that we are crossing a line we aren't invited to cross.

I have a transsexual friend who is now saying its over- I am a woman, not transgender any more. Some crossdressers are trying to make the same leap- these are my clothes, and not women's or men's clothes- therefore I am not 'cross' dressing. I am trying to make a statement that men can be genderfluid, which is different from saying clothing is gender neutral. Everyone is saying something personal and intimate in the way they want to crossdress. If we want to feel we want to have/ and or be seen as having, bigger breasts- how big, etc!

I think everyone here is getting better about realizing that there isn't a right and wrong way to crossdress.

[ClosetED]

By its definition, no

gerund or present participle: crossdressing
wear clothing typical of the opposite sex.

Wearing clothing of a different geographical area is more likely costuming. So wearing German male clothing at OctoberFest and for St Patrick's Day, a kilt, is wearing a costume. A male showing up at OctoberFast as the buxom serving girl is CDing.
What is more borderline is showing up at a Rocky Horror showing as Rocky.
Hugs, Ellen

[Lorileah]

are we going through this again. No, we aren't. This question was asked and answered two weeks ago and I believe you were the one who started it. Clothing from other areas of the world is not crossdressing.

Closed