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Thread: Do you find mentioning yourself "crossdressing" offensive/demeaning/discriminating?

  1. #26
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    Words are just words if you decide to let a word control how you feel about yourself then you have a problem.
    People can call me whatever they want and I can agree or disagree but its not going to change how I feel about myself.
    I do not follow media because its just somebody elses opinion and has no relevance to me.

  2. #27
    Female Illusionist! docrobbysherry's Avatar
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    "I'm just a cute little transvestite from Transylvania."

    Ok, CD is out.

    We r all transvestites now!
    U can't keep doing the same things over and over and expect to enjoy life to the max. When u try new things, even if they r out of your comfort zone, u may experience new excitement and growth that u never expected.

    Challenge yourself and pursue your passions! When your life clock runs out, you'll have few or NO REGRETS!

  3. #28
    quantumbitch Mariabella's Avatar
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    At this point in life all I am is me and how I present is as much mood as anything. most days I like the rituals of makeup and picking outfits other days I am content in jeans and tee. All are who I am so whether dressed femme or homme I am always just me. FWIW I lived far to long acting homme and feeling femme to be anything but a tween or two spirit. So mostof the usual terms like crossdresser or transexual etc just do not quite fit so I forego labels as I can.
    As a child I was caught dressing femme and subjected to "therapy" as it was in the very early seventies. I was labeled deviant, having a sexual perversion and was threatened with electroconvulsive therapy to cure me of myself. this has caused me to be very wary of being defined by labels.

  4. #29
    Silver Member Micki_Finn's Avatar
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    “Racism” is discrimination based on RACE. Crossdresser isn’t a race, and therefore cannot be a subject of racism.

  5. #30
    Aspiring Member Territx's Avatar
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    I don't usually care about the terms used, as long as they are accurate -- as the words seem to have such a "personal" meaning based upon the intent of the person using them, along with the inflection.

    This can be seen by way of a discussion I had with friends "many" years ago (think college days) -- how can some things be as "bad as s*%t" while other things are described as "good as s*%t"? I still have not come to reconcile that question -- need more alcohol, I guess . . . though that may have been involved when the question was posed originally!

    Anyway, the term crossdresser is accurate, so I am fine if that is how someone wants to describe me.
    I am what I am and also what I am not!

  6. #31
    Gold Member Alice Torn's Avatar
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    I guess one could say, I am doing the same thing most women do, wear anything i want, or unisex.

  7. #32
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    If this site teaches anything, it's that there is no "we" in any sort of groupthink sort of way. "We" all have some affinity for what society defines as women's clothing or lingerie and not everyone here even dresses. Some of the viewers on the site are just curious or are fetishists of the mind and would never do it in real life. Some others lust after crossdressers and visit the site to fulfill that interest.

    To answer your question, the term does not offend me at all, but I am sensitive to the fact there are others who may not like it. I love being a crossdresser, I love being a man, I love being a girl, I love being queer and completely fluid. I don't love the word "transvestite", but that has to do with the construction and sound of the word, not the meaning anyone might attach to it.

  8. #33
    Member Kiwi Primrose's Avatar
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    Crossdressing, crossdresser, etc. are words. It doesn't matter if someone refers to me in any of these ways, nor do I ask for approval or comment. If anyone is visiting and sees me "dressed" for the first time they are free to comment but they will not hear the word "crossdress" in the discussion.
    As a matter of interest I have never had a derogatory comment.

  9. #34
    Junior Member JennykBailey's Avatar
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    Our community has more labels than a Dymo printer, crossdresser is not offensive to me. It's the manner that it's directed that's the problem. I like to think of myself as spans gender!

  10. #35
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    I regard myself as a crossdresser so I do not find it offensive or demeaning. In fact I am pretty damn good at it. In literal terms I am also a transvestite but it is a horrible term that is also associated, rightly or wrongly, with getting roused when dressed in women's clothes, which I don't. I have clothes issue but not gender issues - I only ever regard myself as male - so I do not regard myself as transgender and do not wish others to call me this. I regard the term transgender as applied to me unwelcome and inaccurate rather than offensive. Also people who address all of us on this site as "girls". I am not a girl. Nothing wrong with being a girl - it is just inaccurate in my case.
    Last edited by susan54; 11-02-2019 at 08:11 AM.

  11. #36
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    At one time, we were all Transvestites (tranies) . Evolution occured to a more benign description, Crossdresser. Simple, and liked much better by our community.... I think.

  12. #37
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    I think cross dresser describes perfectly what I am and I definitely do not find it in any way derogatory, it?s just a descriptive word and I?m happy to refer to me as a cross dresser

  13. #38
    Platinum Blonde member Ressie's Avatar
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    No, it's the act of crossdressing that many people find unacceptable. It doesn't matter what word is used to describe the person doing it. If you put yourself in someone's shoes that doesn't cross dress it's not too hard to see their point of view. Men wearing women's clothing - are you kidding me?

    Also, it doesn't matter what one calls her/him self. Real people in the real world will use words that they know including transvestite or worse. What others say doesn't concern me.
    Last edited by Ressie; 11-03-2019 at 07:53 AM. Reason: added last paragraph
    "You're the only one to see the changes you take yourself through", Stevie Wonder

  14. #39
    Senior Member Maid_Marion's Avatar
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    For me, the weird part of using is that term I have a much easier time finding cute clothes that fit me than most GGs!

    Ironically, the most common issue with rejecting something that I test wear is that the shoulders are a little too wide!

    Marion
    Last edited by Maid_Marion; 11-03-2019 at 08:43 AM.

  15. #40
    Silver Member LilSissyStevie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Micki_Finn View Post
    “Racism” is discrimination based on RACE. Crossdresser isn’t a race, and therefore cannot be a subject of racism.
    You're a little behind the times. My wife was a high school science teacher up until this year. If she asked a kid to stop looking at porn on their phone or to stop vaping in class, she was called a racist even by white kids. So as to the idea that disapproval of crossdressing is "racist," yeah, why not?

  16. #41
    AKA Lexi sometimes_miss's Avatar
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    I avoid using the term crossdresser, as most people equate crossdresser=pervert. So I explain that I only actually feel comfortable, and normal, when I wear girl clothing. Then I go on to explain why. It gives them a better understanding of what some of us are, and why it's not always just a sexual kink.


    Quote Originally Posted by docrobbysherry View Post
    "I'm just a cute little transvestite from Transylvania."
    Ok, CD is out. We r all transvestites now!
    Well then, let's see: If I go on vacation to Transylvania, and return home, then I've come 'from Transylvania'. So can I now use that whole description? Sounds good to me!
    Now let me go do the time warp.
    Some causes of crossdressing you've probably never even considered: My TG biography at:http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...=1#post1490560
    There's an addendum at post # 82 on that thread, too. It's about a ten minute read.
    Why don't we understand our desire to dress, behave and feel like a girl? Because from childhood, boys are told that the worst possible thing we can be, is a sissy. This feeling is so ingrained into our psyche, that we will suppress any thoughts that connect us to being or wanting to be feminine, even to the point of creating separate personalities to assign those female feelings into.

  17. #42
    Senior Member Asew's Avatar
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    I prefer non-binary since it describes me better. But crossdressing and transgender are both terms I use. Sure some people some words more offensive than others. And even though transvestite applies to me, I don't use the term since the sexual part is only a small part of what it is for me and probably like sometimes_miss said I don't want to appear perverted/creepy.

  18. #43
    Member melanie206's Avatar
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    I've never really thought of crossdresser as offensive and I agree with Gretchen, it's more of an activity than an identity. However, crossdressers do seem to be imagined at the far end of the "spectrum" so maybe that's something. Interestingly, the prefixes "cross" and "trans" mean the same thing.

  19. #44
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    Across,
    Much of what you suggest is often trapped inside our heads , to wear clothes not appropriate to our gender we understand to be wrong , men just don't do that !

    Some are happy to be safely in the closet where all this doesn't concern them but others like me needed to break out from the closet but in doing so had to think about what other people think but the lesson to learn is we do overthink it ! We are not alone other people have shown the offensive labels not to be true are certainly not as we imagined them to be . In almost two years of being out I've not had one single word of abuse , no discimination , the only point I would make is personally I don't see it as CDing anymore being comfortable and confident with the situation . I can't say for certain what people do see me as , all I know is the accept me for it without question .

  20. #45
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    I dont knw how to express it but I am really sorry to hear it. Electroconvulsive therapy is inhuman imo. Even threat of it is inhuman. The very fact that a person can be threatened with ECT unless she/he mends his ways proves that ECT is unrequired as therapy in any kind. Yes and precisely for reasons like this, I am also very wary of labels. Labels bring stigmas, labels throws the individual behind a vague background, label hides the individuality of a person.

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

    I did a little bit reading on it and found that "transvestite" was used in medical lingo to refer to people who would dress like women with a connotation of some "mental illness". So called "transvestite" also used this term to refer to themselves. Over the time people realised the horrible nature of this term and stopped using this term to refer to themselves. It was realised as horrible because it referred to people as mentally sick. The man who coined the word transvestite, Hirschfeld, himself started to disagree with its meaning as clothing is merely an outward choice made out of inner psychological processes. He become the guy to help people change their names (so that names of people are gender representative. This was required by law in Germany. Sigh!). He later on also made a difference between people cross-dressing for their own construct of mind and people cross-dressing for sexual arousal. Hence another term came which "transvestite fetishism". When all this was happening the people who matter the most (people who wear clothes of different gender) started a revolution against this term. They stopped using it, however they became orphan in terms of absence of a word to describe themselves. Hence "cross-dress" was created by the community itself. Cross-dresser referred to a heterosexual man who would wear women clothes and immitate womanly actions. But we all know that community is a spectrum with different kinds of people in it. We all cannot be clubbed under one term. Also there is a difference when we may use a word for ourselves and when so called "normal" others use it for ourselves. When I did not know that "cross-dresser" was coined by the community itself, I thought it was offensive. But in fact it itself was created to weed out more offensive word "transvestite". May be we as humans are always looking for new words just like we always try to better ourselves from the existing.

  21. #46
    Senior Member BrendaPDX's Avatar
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    Interesting post and thread. Lots of good input from lots of members.

  22. #47
    Aspiring Member Lacey New's Avatar
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    It does not bother me. It is what I do occasionally. I dress in clothing specifically designed and marketed to women. So I am a crossdresser.

  23. #48
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    Across,
    You appear to be a little confused over the "Crossdressing " , "Transvestite " labels . Transvestite simply translate from the Latin meaning trans = to cross , vestite = clothes or garb , so it simply becomes cross dressing in English , nothing in that translation relates to sexual deviance or mental illness, these attchments true or false came after .

    The more important point to consider is why you or any of us are driven to dress in the first place , to me dressing is the window to the RW of how I feel inside , the labels become less and less important as we continue down our chosen roads .

    These days I do query what the word , " Normal " actually means .
    Last edited by Teresa; 11-09-2019 at 02:25 PM.

  24. #49
    I NEVER go bare-legged! Kimberly A.'s Avatar
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    WORD, Tracii! LOL

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