CDing on the wane?

[Peggy Gardiner]

I've been wondering if people content to simply crossdress are fewer and fewer these days - certainly the media seems to pay next to no attention to CDers now, focusing everything on transgendered people. The two don't necessarily have anything to do with one another, of course; someone once quipped about many transsexuals considering crossdressers their larval stage, which is an amusing way to think about it.

Society at least is, or was, coming to grips with tolerance for the transgendered, there's more info than ever on it, and, as I said, it's all people seem to talk about; is this impacting the CDing population? I'm referring to the transgendered here as people who want to transition fully, too; transsexual used to be the term used but that seems to have fallen out of favor.

I wholly respect anyone's experience here, too, I've read all about CDs, TSs, and everything else falling under the TG umbrella, and it's all valid in my eyes. For myself I dressed up in my Mom's stuff when I was a kid, and started doing so again a few years ago, thinking I was just attracted to the clothes, but came to learn that I really wanted to transition, which I'm doing - how I'm viewed by other people is what matters to me, not being a man who can do some dressup from time to time; so I'm embodying what I've tried to describe above myself. And I never would have been able to understand this about myself without epiphanies from obscure out-of-print books, things on the internet, and insights from my therapist. Before the net I think I would have just been a CDer with mixed up notions about what I was attracted to and various frustrations about various things in my life.

[TheHiddenMe]

No, I don't think there are less. I think a certain percentage of the population are CDs, and as the world's population grows, so does the number of CDs.

As regarding media coverage being more or less, no I don't think that has an impact either. I think for the vast majority of us (certainly for me there was) an attraction at a young age--6 or 7 years old for me, long before I was a consumer of news (even in the pre-internet days).

Plus, there was even news of Christine Jorgensen in the 1950's, so the concept of transsexualism in the news is nothing new (although Caitlyn Jenner certainly generated a great deal of new coverage). Again, the percentage in the population of transsexuals is likely constant over time, so the numbers have probably not changed other than the growth in the overall population.

In your circumstances, the additional information available these days helped to clarify your real feelings, the media didn't change them.

So I don't think any of your theories are true, IMHO.

[Helen_Highwater]

Peggy,

For me one if the big drivers in the change in societal attitudes is the work done by the Gay community in gaining much wider acceptance. Their gains have had a positive influence upon how we're viewed, afterall it is now the norm to talk about the LGBT community.

It's also that progression that's help bring Transgenderism far more into the public's awareness, and let's not underestimate the effect human rights legislation has had in cementing those changes.

Are there less? In a way I'd agree. Societal acceptance especially amongst the young has allowed greater freedom of expression. Some who previously may have been CD are now dressing more androngyously. Gender fluidity is far more common and that could play it's part.

So is CD'ing on the wane? Hard to say. As the range of options for self expression changes perhaps one side effect is that more who before only dressed within 4 walls may be drawn out and express themselves out and about in muggle land.

So the jury is still out as far as I'm concerned.

[Rachelish]

Hi Peggy

In brief, I don't believe there are fewer CDs out there, but I agree that the world that CDs inhabit has changed, largely because of the internet. I also agree with Helen that the hard-won changes in attitudes to the LGB community have made a big difference in creating a more general attitude of tolerance and acceptance of the TG community.

There are still exceptions though. I recall watching a crime drama last year in which one of the potential suspects was discovered to have a room in his house containing womens clothes and wigs, with the supposed intention of making him seem more 'creepy'. It turned out later that they belonged to his late wife but the writer was clearly showing CDing as a negative behaviour. My impression is that CDing isn't always seen as a legitimate section of the TG community.

For me personally, the internet has been hugely positive in making it easier to find information about, and validation of, CDing, which has lead me to accept and enjoy this part of myself.

Rachel

[tifftg]

Peggy,

This is an interesting question. I am in my 60's and went thru a long stretch of time where the ability to be aware of other dressers and to share with them wasn't an option. I was an early adopter of every phase of the internet, aol, bulletin boards, and fortunately sites like this. It makes it possible to gauge wide interest but also the drift to more and more open expression especially in the millennials. It seems to be easier to drift further down the continuum and I suspect that while today I am solidly in the crossdresser camp, were I 10-20 years younger I would be transitioning right along with you. Best wishes on the journey.

Tiffany

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Peggy , We will never know how many Crossdressers there are until the Government

Registers and Taxes us. >Orchid ..++..

[GretchenM]

No, I don't think the CD community is shrinking. I suspect it is either stable or perhaps increasing in the way of people who CD are coming out. It seems to me that the behavior is much less taboo and therefore those who were intensely closeted have opened up and so the increase is more of an apparent increase rather than a real increase.

The science would disagree with your view that transgender people are those who want to transition. In the science, transexual is a sub-group of transgender and studies have estimated about half of transgender people are transexual. The popular view is a bit different in this respect. There transgender is equivalent to transexual.

The fact is transgender can be defined as anyone who, even intermittently, senses the presence of a gender form that is opposite that gender which is more or less the norm. In the past it was called gender reversal. A desire to fully achieve consistency with that gender 24/7 becomes transexual. Obviously, the border is a fuzzy one at best. Unfortunately, there is no definitive test to determine what you are; it is more a matter of what honest self-reflection indicates is the case in yourself. I believe many who profess to be CD may actually be TG, but in the case where a male simply dresses in women's clothes and does not sense a feminine/female gender as being present, that is, they still identify as masculine/male, then they are probably not TG but more likely CD. Basically, in the borderlands, it is hard to tell the difference because the expression, when that is done, looks the same.

Where you fall in this obviously ambiguous and foggy classification that is so reliant on self-identification can change over time, whether it is over years or over the course of a few hours. I consider myself TG and my therapist back when I was seeing one felt I probably was TG. My gender sense and feelings can change several times a day, but those changes do not necessarily require a change in my outward expression. My comfort zone is expressing just a bit androgynous as that tends to satisfy no matter what I am sensing internally. But there are times when androgynous expression just doesn't satisfy the internal feelings and I have to go further in the expression. Nothing is really uncomfortable, but there are different levels of internal sense that create differences in the need to express. That said, my mild masculine/male sense is alive and well and just as comfortable as my feminine/female sense.

[Tracii G]

I have come to the point where I don't care what others do or how they want to categorize themselves.
Don't care if people accept me or not because they don't have any control over me.
Have no idea why I am the way I am. I see no need to try analyze why I am TG, it just is.
Gladly not aligned with the trans movement or LGBT because they have become too political and toxic IMO.

[Jaylyn]

I guess I live in a small shell because until I found this site I never knew there was as many CDs as there are. For me I was shocked but also relieved because I've always felt there was an inner part of me that was wrong inside. This site has opened my eyes to know I'm not alone in how I feel. I am a CD and have no desire to move farther at this point into the tarns world. I think my mom had something to do with why I'm this way but who knows with our genetic knowledge today?
For now I'm content to enjoy my dressing only. I'm too old to take it farther so will be a dresser until I die.

[Beverley Sims]

With the ever expanbing acceptance maybe more are moving to the next step.

Is it because most really have a female mindset and a hormonal imbalance and science is just discovering it.

Years ago you could have been a candidate for an asylum.

[Queen Bridget]

It's all about trans people now. The sheer obsesson that the media have for transgender people is almost creepy. It's spilled into everything. Gaming, films, art, comics. Causing a lot of drama.

Every time a new game or film releases, we have to endure countless "This is transphobic" articles. The general public seem to be, quite rightly, getting tired of it. But nobody can voice it on social sites through fear of bans.

Does this effect CD'ers? In a way, yes. I've been told flat-out on another forum that crossdressers (And drag queens) are insulting to trans people and "Transphobic". It's constantly in the back of my mind that we'll end up going further underground to avoid these nutters. What some of us jokingly call the "Trans Mafia".

[Teresa]

Peggy,
The fact that we have a far more open society and with that acceptance is becomming easier but sometimes I feel we might have too much information . We can become saturated with the labels and trying to undersatnd what they really mean and then deciding if they apply to you . Obvioulsy transition is your way forward as long as it is your decision and not media pressure .

I'm finally finding a balance because I chose to separate from my wife , it's a little like the need and want debate or perhaps the grass being greener , taking away those elements has helped me to become comfortable and cofident in how I present myself now , I can weigh up the situation of transition against what difference it would make to me, I can understand certain details by talking to other TGs and TSs .

OK I also admit I do have somedays when it stops making sense but then life in general raises those thoughts, dressing is part of my life but I don't have the pressures now where I have to fight it .

[DIANEF]

Hi Peggy , We will never know how many Crossdressers there are until the Government

Registers and Taxes us. >Orchid ..++..

Don't rule it out!!

[Shelly Preston]

It's all about trans people now. The sheer obsesson that the media have for transgender people is almost creepy. It's spilled into everything. Gaming, films, art, comics. Causing a lot of drama.

Every time a new game or film releases, we have to endure countless "This is transphobic" articles. The general public seem to be, quite rightly, getting tired of it. But nobody can voice it on social sites through fear of bans.

Does this effect CD'ers? In a way, yes. I've been told flat-out on another forum that crossdressers (And drag queens) are insulting to trans people and "Transphobic". It's constantly in the back of my mind that we'll end up going further underground to avoid these nutters. What some of us jokingly call the "Trans Mafia".

Bridget

The same thing happened to the gay community as the public came to terms with the change in attitudes.

Sadly some people who transition can have a bad attitude but then those people probably always had a bad attitude.

[susan54]

Good for the trans lobby (apart from the ones who take to thumping terfs which really doesn't help any cause). Yes, we mere CDs seem to have been forgotten about. One of the clues might be the older age profile on this site. We came to it when it was still taboo and perhaps feel more need to discuss it as a result. Younger people do not even see it as an issue so make no big deal of it and do not need discussion/support groups so much.

Though it is now perfectly legal to wear what we want in the street there simply aren't enough people doing it to normalise it. And there is a risk to your status if you wear a skirt or dress to work. We CAN do it, but we need to be able to feel comfortable doing it. We need media encouragement of clothing freedom and lots of people on tellie dressed to the nines. How about a man reading the News at Ten in a nice dress? Or a weatherman dressed as nicely as his female colleagues? Matt Baker trying to out-dress Alex Jones on The One Show? We still have only two 'out' CDs - Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard and Grayson is hardly a typical cross-dresser - I suspect less than 1% of us would go there.

[Micki_Finn]

I think that a lot of people who were trans all along are finally feeling safe enough to embrace their true selves. Also, advances in surgery and hormone therapies make transitioning a much more viable option for some than ever before. Just my opinion.

[Alice Torn]

We live in the western world of constant new fads!! i think that for many younger people, TG is a fad. In several years, it may slow down.

[Peggy Gardiner]

Thanks for all these interesting replies. The first definition of transgender I came across was as an umbrella term for anyone, you know, crossing gender lines, just like the term suggests. You had your crossdressers for whom the TG part of their lives was temporary, and transsexuals, who wished to change teams permanently. But lately it seems like TG is the new word for TS. "Transgendered" doesn't have that nasty S word in it, which is definitely an advantage, since the public at large just automatically conflates sexuality and gender. Transsexual thus has fallen out of favor, just like transvestite did before.

The great blogger Zagria has exhaustively researched the various ways in which transgender has been put to use: A Gender Variance Who's Who: Cross-Gender, Transgender, concepts and usages: part 1. She is very fond of this quote in re: intolerance, which is from Harry Benjamin's 1966 book:

It is a shame that some gender variant persons are intolerant of others.
I would like to quote from Harry Benjamin. He writes with regret of intolerance: “Too many individuals are that way; what they do not like must be forbidden and punished. Then they are satisfied. I have even met transvestites who dislike (or pretend to dislike) transsexualism so much that they are against estrogen treatment and operation (for reasons of self protection?). There are also transsexuals who dislike transvestites as well as homosexuals. Intolerance can be found in strange quarters.”

Hang together, or hang separately. I've read about these squabbling factions in the gender community, and it's all kind of theoretical to me in the end, as I'm not an active member in the first place. I've met a few CDs though, I was told one of them really wanted to transition, and another has subsequently begun doing so, which was something that prompted me to post about this here. And it certainly is true that kids are feeling way more free now to dress and act in whatever way they feel in re: gender, and thus might not feel the need for formalized community.

[Tracii G]

Some will take offense at the word transgendered they prefer transgender.
I was at a Pride fest several years ago in my city and a well meaning person said the word transgendered and a small group chastised the person mercilessly.
I thought they were rude to act that way to a person trying to be an ally.
There are nasty intolerant people on both sides so that why I have nothing to do with either.

[GretchenM]

Peggy: I like that quote from Harry. It really is true, especially in the past, but that intolerance still exists today in a lot of people. One of the real problems with classification is that they are often taken as gospel.

Unfortunately, classification is necessary so one can more precisely talk about some population and be able to distinguish them from others that might be similar. But the territorial and tribal character of humans in general tends to dominate when the classification and its purpose is lost. We often tend to think of the units in the classification as being distinct and we think that is the way they really are. In fact, in most classification the boundaries are very foggy and sometimes the unit itself is part of a boundary. It can become a continuum where there are no distinct units. In the transgender world one can identify various groups and units, but a closer examination of total characteristics of one of those groups shows that there are so many exceptions within the group that the group identity is lost as it blends into other groups in many ways.

An example is the concept of "forest." As a plant ecologist I recognize that often what we call a forest is really not a distinct unit. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. The distinguishing feature is the presence of trees. So forest becomes a visual unit. In fact, if one looks at all the species in the forest and the adjacent non-forested area, one might find that the presence of trees is not very important with regard to the total community that forms the forest. Thus, although the visual unit of "forest" exists, when it comes down to the actual community the forest unit becomes very ambiguous.

I see the same thing with regard to gender. If you look at everything that people do and view sexual identity like the trees in the forest that really isn't distinct, described genders become very fuzzy. The problem is, like the visual unit of forest, sex becomes the most obvious feature and we cling to that visual unit, meanwhile ignoring the fact that when you look at differently genders, in the sense of the total package of what you do in the way of social role, gender differences become really vague. It is almost like all there is is variation and all classifications become artificial. The key is to recognize that gender is not really an independent variable - it is part of a total package. Then the units become just variations and the need for intolerance is no longer necessary.

[phili]

I overheard some college kids talking about another person who had started crossdressing, and the common terms are queer and non binary, with TG reserved for those who are trying to convert across the binary, rather than mix genders.

On the other hand, my wife jokingly complained to our daughter that I was crossdresing, and our daughter said, after a pause- and seriously- why do you even use that term? The sense I had was that for her highly educated crowd, in an international city, the 'sophisticated' view is that clothes and behavior are simply forms of free expression, and there are no special lines to 'cross'. She would object to feeling like she even had to classify anyone.

[GretchenM]

Your daughter is a very smart girl, Phili. I think her thoughts are right on the money from the practical side. It is a continuum perhaps with little humps and valleys here and there, but no real divisions. Classification fractures it. The classification is purely synthetic and based on specific criteria selected to define a particular point of view. And no matter how hard one tries to classify us or any diverse group that exhibits a continuum it is based on cherry picked characteristics that emphasize some, downplay others, and completely ignore some as if they don't exist or don't matter. It leads to stereotyping and that supports territorialism and people get hurt as a result. Much better to just accept the diversity.

[CherylFlint]

Even in gay bars CD'ers are the minority.
The thing is, nobody understands us but us.

[Charlotte7]

The thing is, nobody understands us but us.

And some of us barely understand ourselves