Is crossdressing an endless loop of a self-resolving problem?

[Tomi]

Hi all,

I recently thought about crossdressing and the emotional reason behind it and I have a theory. It's maybe offending to some of you but It's just my opinion and I would love to start a conversation about it.

Little background. I started cd-ing in my late 20s as part of a stress relieving mechanism in the hardest couple of years of my life. My cd-ing was about get in touche with my feminine side in a life situation where I had to be a responsible father and husband (too responsible i guess). I don't have gender dysphoria and I don't want to transition (not that I know of anyway), so I can't speak on TG persons behalf but maybe what I'm about to say is reflecting their situation on some level too. I don't know...

So right now my dark period is pretty much behind me, I'm a happy person but my cd-ing stuck with me. It became a hobby kind of thing because I thaught I needed it to get in touch with my feminine side once in a while. But what does feimine side mean? And what does get in touch mean?

When I dress I still feel calm and balanced and I thaught it was because I became whole. But what if the stress relieving effect is just about getting rid of the stress which comes from not cd-ing (a self-resolving problem). So because the main reason which triggered the cding in the first place is gone, the cding stuck as a habbit (or addiction?) and by not doing it, I get stressed which is relieved by cding...Maybe if I would stop CDing, the problem would go away? Of course not, it's not that simple...

The reason it's not that simple is because CDing doesn't come out of nowhere. There is a bigger women in me than in an avarage man, which didn't revealed itself because it was nurtured enough and because of the social labels it never accured to me to be any less of a man, but the dark period triggered this extreme counter effect (I had to be too much of a man so once in a while I had to be a woman). So even though my dark period is over, the feminin side revieled itself for good, teherefore the CDing became a "feminine side nurturing mechanism". But I can't help the feeling that it's just a symbole of feminine. It's not real, it's just a social concept (see kilt for example).

So my theory is that at the end of the day if I CD, I just pretend to get in touch with my feminine side, because my feminity is not about dressing, it's about how I live my every day life as a human being. I have a strong feeling that if I could find out what really is missing form my life what is about my feminine side, my CDing urge would vanish. For example if I came to the realization that I want to be more at home with my child, or cuddle more with my wife, or have a job less stressful...etc.

So to sum up. I think the CDing is only the pill we take to cure our headache while the real cause of the headache is still there. We simply don't live the life we want to, something is missing, we don't know what it is, and this is the way we balance it out...

I know it's a contradicting thaught which doesn't come up in this forum (at least not that I've noticed), so I would love to here your thoughts about it.

Tomi

[Paulie Birmingham]

Many reasons people CD on this site. Yours is as legit as anyone else's and probably not unique. Im not usually one for therapy, and it seems like you have yourself figured out. Spend more time with family and dress less often and see what happens. Maybe cding has run its course with you and you can lead a happy life without it. After all, most women don't have a "need" to wear a dress or pantyhose, heels etc,

[kimdl93]

All of those things may describe the role CDing plays in your life. For some people, cross dressing very likely provides the endorphin rush people associate with addictive behaviors, but also things like the runner?s high. That positive feedback may be motivation enough to sustain your desire to cross dress.

[CarlaWestin]

Non-dysphoria related CDing is in my opinion somewhere in the hobby/pastime category. I started doing it over fifty years ago for a number of self satisfying reasons. There's certainly a sexual excitement component but it's not really a needed stress reliever.
Peace of mind and security is a better stress reliever. CD for me is more of a private sanctuary for me. And there is that expression of style and creativity that parallels with the female experience.

[robbieatbest]

If you want to present yourself as feminine when you feel feminine, even if you are alone, then I suppose you will continue to CD. If you to feel feminine and you don't feel the need to CD then you needn't.

[Micki_Finn]

Um... yes and no...

Yes this is true. We CD to fulfill a want or need in life. That’s also why we do literally everything. Basically you’ve discovered the definition of “motivation”.

[Tomi]

Um... yes and no...

Yes this is true. We CD to fulfill a want or need in life. That?s also why we do literally everything. Basically you?ve discovered the definition of ?motivation?.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was talking about the cause of the motivation of cding. Of course we do everything because we are motivated to do it but it's good to know sometimes why we are motivated. If you understand yourself and the root cause of your bihavioral patterns than you can start living your own life and stop reacting to things that happened in your childhood for example. That's why go people to therapy.

My experience in this forum is that whenever the subject of "Why we cd" comes up, 95% of the answers are variations of "Who cares I like it". And I don't like having a habbit, especally this significant which I don't know the cause of. My theory is "I'm simply born this way" is not the full story here...

[Star01]

I'm probably a bit of an outlier in the way this affects me. I love to dress, calms me down and just feels right, but it's not all about the dressing and I'm not sure exactly where I belong. For example, I couldn't stop shaving my body if I wanted to and get very anxious if I have to skip a day. I'm mostly at home due to age and our current situation so nobody but my wife sees me like this except for passing cars while I'm doing yard. When I clean up after working outside I often stare at myself in the mirror imagining what could be and that is a daily thing. This morning I sat down with a cup of coffee and had a rush of pleasure and had to stop and admire how nice my legs looked.

On the other hand I get few opportunities to fully dress and don't rock the boat in a dadt but that drives me crazy inside as I imagine myself as a woman. Then I talk to my neighbor, a former NFL undrafted free agent, or my son, a country redneck, and shudder at the thought of going public. I have compensated for being a small sensitive guy with hands the size of an average GG's. This whole thing is in the process of being sorted out in therapy and that is my recommendation to anyone struggling with questions. I fit somewhere in between the more common labels and finding out how and where I fit is an ongoing challenge. I think there is some measure of dysphoria with all crossdresser, at least I know that is my reality. Good luck sorting it all out for yourself.

PS, sorry for the crazy posts but I make most of them on my phone while drinking morning coffee and it scrambles things up that I post without noticing. I have to come back later and log in on the computer to do damage control. Hence my reference to Kyle in the original version of this post which is something I did not type.

[docrobbysherry]

Tomi, I'm glad you've figured yourself out! After dressing for 25 years I still have no clue why!

When I arrived here I was so sure my "woman inside" would show herself very soon! After years of waiting I realized I DON'T have a woman inside me!

I may have a female side? Never being a woman I don't know.

But, I believe I'm simply a man who gets excited about presenting female. For whatever reason!

[Confucius]

Tomi, I have my own theories on crossdressing. The following are just my views, and I hope your find it useful. If crossdressing relieves stress then it must have something to do with your brain. I suspect that your brain's neural connections are simply hardwired to release feel-good neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and others) when you feminize yourself. I also suspect that this hard wiring occurred in your early childhood.

Most men can crossdress and not experience any positive effects whatsoever. So why are we so different? It turns out that in the first three years of our lives our brain is making neural connections at a feverish pace, and a 3-yr old toddler has about 5 times more synaptic connections than an adult. The process is called synaptogenesis. Then a process of neural pruning takes places where some neural connections are reinforced while others are lost. It is believed that the learning process plays a role in which connections are reinforced. (Note: there is a second period of synaptogensis in puberty.)

I suspect that in your early development you had a high regard for female figures in your life. So feminizing yourself is seen as a positive step, something that is a solution. Your neural connections respond to crossdressing with an automatic and involuntary release of good neurotransmitters.

Society expects boys to be happy being boys, and girls to be happy being girls, and when a boy finds comfort feminizing himself, then that is considered a problem. While crossdressing may be symptomatic of a problem, it doesn't have to be so. A male can be a happy well-adjusted person, and still find crossdressing to be a positive, fulfilling experience, simply because it releases feel-good neurotransmitters. Alternatively, crossdressing may also be symptomatic of gender dysphoria, which is entirely different from recreational crossdressing.

Some people have referred to crossdressing as an addiction, and I can see how it can become an addiction. Anything that releases feel-good neurotransmitters can be turned into an addiction. You can keep your crossdressing under control, or you can let it control you. In conclusion, I do not believe that crossdressing means there is anything wrong or missing in your life. It's just the way your brain is hardwired. It's just part of your makeup.

[Star01]

Confucius, I agree with most of what you said but not with the part about controlling our crossdressing. Probably my opinion is molded by my own case but based on my personal experience it is not possible to control or stop crossdressing. Lack of opportunity is a real thing and I suppose there could be some crossdresssers who do it as a hobby but if there are I'd consider simplifying my life and replacing it with a fishing boat if it was that easy. From my viewpoint there is nothing fun or hobby about having this thing that is considered not normal by the masses driving my decisions and controlling me like this. My current oportunities are controlled by my circumstances but if there weren't any family obstacles I know I would take this much further, possibly beyond crossdressing. I'm in therapy for my crossdressing and have been for six months and the more I learn the harder it is to understand.

That has been my personal experience but each one is different.

[HollyGreene]

I CD because I enjoy it and I like the way I feel when doing it. I definitely don't do it to make up for something unknown that is missing in my life. On the contrary, in fact - if I didn't do it, there would definitely be something missing in my life.
I love being a CD. I have no guilt about it, I don't think it's weird, and I believe that it gives me something wonderful that the other poor wretches out there don't have and will never have.

[Aunt Kelly]

You are, in a nutshell, asking why CD'ers CD. The plain fact is that this is not well understood. Clearly, there are a number of reasons (many given in this thread), but there has been virtually no serious research on that part of the TG spectrum. Rice University is in the early stages of a research project focusing on CD'ers. I hope that they will produce something that answers your questions.

IMO, there is a sizable portion of self-identified CD'ers who have undiagnosed gender dysphoria. Phrases like "I just feel better when...", or "It's a great stress reliever...", are common, and maybe I'm guilty of a bit of provincialist reasoning here, but I heard those words come from my mouth for a long time before I managed to take a hard look at the actual sources of that "stress".

[Sometimes Steffi]

It's well know that the brain goes through several growth spurts. Between birth and 5, around sexual maturity and late teens until early 20s. For most people that CD )and I'm generalizing here), it is pleasurable for one reason or another. If it gets into the brain, like firmware, you;re pretty much stuck with it. If it's in software, you can recode it or code around it. But not firmware.

[Asew]

It is common to ask "why do we CD?" There are so many answers to this question since we all have different backgrounds, environments, genes, etc and there may be common reasons there is no single reason why. Seeing Confucius's reply, I see how I put females in high regard when a toddler and again with Sometimes Steffi's reply how I did the same as a teenager that I put women in high regard which is why I both want to date them and be more like them. After crossing the CD line, I realized I prefer skirts/dresses compared to pants/shorts for pure comfort which is a positive feedback loop to more CDing.

[Tomi]

Thank you for your answers, I'm glad that it started a conversation.

Many of you talked about the hardwire thing which in most cases started in the early childhood. I get it, but I can't help the feeling that noone is born to be a crossdresser persay. I think we are born with slightly (or largly) bigger feminin side than others as Confucius described it and the crossdressing is the result of that unnurtured feminin side. As I read a lot of early childhood experience many of you shared here I saw it the way that a child has a strong inner impulse to be more feminin which comes from hardwired brain mechanisms and naturally goes to the most obvious way to feminizing himself which are of course the clothes.

And because it's a good feeling that the inner woman has been satisfied, the activity gets reinforced in the brain so it becomes a lifetime activity. And if it's true, we can do two things. Of course one of them is just continue cd-ing, nothing is wrong with it if it makes him 100% happy. But the other thing we can do is go back and try to get to know the woman inside of us beyond the fashion choices she makes and maybe we can find other ways to satisfie her feminin needs.

I'm not sure I'm on to something here that's why I posted it to het feedback and many of you said interesting things. But maybe what I described can lead the way to a more intact personality and after that the CDing urge maybe vanishes or maybe it becomes just a part of the whole story. Because of my personal liftime situation it worth a try because I'm not sure that the joy of cding is as big as the risk it holds to my family life. Maybe I can put my cding behind me without repressing any party of who I am. I don't know I will tell you a couple of month from now. If it doesn't work so be it I accepted it once.

I'm hungarian so I don't know if my english makes sense or not so feel free to ask me to clarify something

[Star01]

The thing that is always in the back of my mind about crossdressing is how so many eventually realize that they are trans or non-binary. I feel strongly based on my feelings about body image and other signs that there is more to it than crossdressing as a hobby or stress relief. I won't go into detail but I think a person just knows there is something else going on. The challenge I find is after growing up constantly trying to meet and exceed and check off all the male boxes for over fifty years it gets to the point where a person gets worn out from the extra effort trying to fill that role.

Assuming a person is married and the wife's attitude some find it more difficult to make that step. Perhaps I am wrong, maybe the freedom would enable me to realize that I am a crossdresser who was experiencing what has been described as stimulating certain chemicals in the brain, excuse me if I didnt say that correctly.

In therapy recently I commented on the confusion I am experiencing trying to understand what my place is. No known cause, no way to physically test for dysphoria, no one size fits all treatment and a Google search goes right to transition as the eventual treatment. The condition or whatever it is was at one time classified as a mental illness but has since been reclassified and is no longer considered a mental illness. After listing those bullet points I asked him if anyone could blame me for being confused and concerned.

One part of me wants to think it's something I can control so that I can just quit and put it behind me. Another part of me wants total freedom to see this through and find out where it takes me. Meanwhile a fifty year marriage hangs in the balance awaiting my decision while the fog slowly keeps rolling in.

One half of me wants to embrace it and think of myself as special. The other half wishes it would go away and thinks of it as a curse. Meanwhile, she sits silently in the background and pushes me to embrace her.

By my way of thinking that is not a hobby.

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

PS, regardless of whether I'm a crossdresser or something more it could be said that there is a first transition. By that I mean I the sense that I am struggling to transition from male thinking to being accepting of myself as applies to my strange urges to dress in women's clothes and feminize. I say strange urges looking at it through the eyes of the unaccepting masses. In other words, I have nearly 69 years of Midwestern conservative conditioning to let go of before I can be comfortable in my own skin and look at this all objectively.

Not trying to hijack the thread, just putting some more talking points out there. Please, no suggestions about what I should do, I have that covered in therapy but it takes time.

[Rachelakld]

Do clothes make you "the woman"?
Do your activities (cooking, washing, ironing, vacuum cleaning) make you "the woman"?
WHAT makes you a woman (or man) - surely not what's hanging between your legs?

My 2 cents -
1) Our bodies and our souls are not physically the same (in looks, gender, age, or any other relationship), so by showing the cross dressser, are we showing our souls preference.
2) During our lives, we develop different personalities to cope or respond to events around us, think the caring father of a young baby, stuck in a traffic jam getting road rage, the caring father might say he never gets angry while driving, he's an excellent driver - and yet.......
3) The universe is an amazing, ever changing place - enjoy it.

[alwayshave]

Tomi, I respectfully disagree. I love women clothing and dressing up. But I also like being a guy and doing guy things. I don't see crossdressing a s cure for the headache.

[Teresa]

Tomi,
I feel you are confusing nature and nurture . I personally can't blame any outside influences in my situation , it is accepted now that development in the womb wires most of us the way we are . I agree no one is born to be a CDer but some are born with the seeds of dysphoria , nature may take more of a hand in that after birth , which explains why we don't all agree on our progression . Trying to put it behind you can lead to problems , some people suffer depression from the denial , I agree CDing with a family is a balancing act but it will never go away , you have to face the truth one day .

I get the feeling you are looking for excuses and possibly a cure , which suggests you consider it more of a mental illness , something you can possibly control through will power or medication .

The CDing to many of us is the outward vision of how we feel inside , at a certain point in our progression is ceases to be crossdressing , we enter transition because we are getting closer to a balance of inner feelings and outer appearance , some need hormones and surgery to complete the transition some don't .

Personally I feel wearing male clothes is Crossdressing , it just doesn't feel right inside .

[Stephanie47]

I have absolutely no idea why I wear women's clothing. I can explain how I feel in a dress. I cannot say I am in contact with my "feminine" side because I am not a female. A counselor I see for war related post traumatic stress is of the opinion each person has some degree of dna of the opposite sex. Some have more than others. I had no influences during my childhood which would have triggered my need to wear women's clothing. I had no female cousins. I did not have a sister until I have twelve. I did not play with girls. Nobody ever dressed me up for fun or punishment. Puberty happened. Hormones raged. That's when the urges came. Did the hormones trigger male and female responses at the same time?

During the most stressful period of my life I have absolutely no desire to be en femme. I did not think about sex. I was an infantryman in Vietnam. After Nam I had no desires, either. For a long time, Married to a drop dead gorgeous young woman. Sexy as can be. No stresses on the job. Life was good. Then, wham. It kindled again. Not overwhelming, but it was creeping more and more. In periods of stress cross dressing did become an issue. It did provide stress relief from work related issues and flash backs of Viet Nam. Did something in my brain direct me to this safety net? Why wearing women's clothing and escaping in that manner rather than drugs and alcohol and serial marriages like so many other vets I know?

I don't have a clue why I do what I do. To convince me with some psycho-babble is a non-starter. It is what it is.

[Rachelakld]

In reply to Stephanie's response of gender related DNA.

I was watching an American medium (on TV) that was popular a couple of years ago. (not Long Island Medium or that young chap who's name escapes me just now)

She asked her dead son about gender
the reply was along the lines....

"it's not applicable, but in most of my lives I was a female"

She then questioned about how many life experiences, the reply was "quite a few, but time doesn't work the way you know it"