Catalyst for Crossdressing

[sabrinaedwards]

There were some thoughtful responses to the post about an early crossdressing experience regarding being dressed by aunts at an early age. That person felt that maybe that resulted in becoming a crossdresser. I can say that I never had that experience. I never "dressed up" as a female for Halloween, I never played a female role in a performance and none of my relatives dressed me up. My thought is maybe there is some predisposition together with some catalyst results in crossdressing. The other reason for this thought is I felt that crossdressing was a learned response. As such, I quit dressing for 5 years, purged all feminine things and was determined never to cross dress again. Of course, I may have eliminated the physical aspect, but I was still mentally a crossdresser. Something resides internally that does not go away.
Love, Sabrina

[AngelaYVR]

Impossible to say with any authority really but in my case, I have mosaic XXY/XY karyotype meaning some of my cells have an extra X chromosome and it seems reasonable that it might explain my convoluted life.

[Katrinka]

Impossible to say with any authority really but in my case, I have mosaic XXY/XY karyotype meaning some of my cells have an extra X chromosome and it seems reasonable that it might explain my convoluted life.

How did you find this out? I often wander if I?m the same. I love both parts of me male and female. But I would say that I ?think? more like a female than I do a man

[AngelaYVR]

Katrinka, this was many years ago in uni during a class on genetics, we tested our own cells.

[Karren H]

On that mental theme, maybe suggestions were made to you way back when you were very young that triggered this. Back before you could remember. Subliminal. You are getting sleepy! Lol. Buy my mother used to tell me that I was supposed to have been born a girl often when I was young.

[MsEva]

On that mental theme, maybe suggestions were made to you way back when you were very young that triggered this. Back before you could remember. Subliminal. You are getting sleepy! Lol. Buy my mother used to tell me that I was supposed to have been born a girl often when I was young.

Something along those lines with me as well. My dear sainted Mom was holding out for a girl. I was supposed to be that as her third child of four. Alas poor Mom had four genetic males or should I say 3.5. I am the outlier. That along with some traumatic experiences that I don't care to mention here may have been my impetus. From my earliest memories always felt different I guess.

[Bobbi46]

Just to add a bit of humour to this subject ,instead of Catlyst how about Catalytic!! would that mean that all of us have been converted to how we are now !!!!

[Jessax101]

Just to add a bit of humour to this subject ,instead of Catlyst how about Catalytic!! would that mean that all of us have been converted to how we are now !!!!

Thinking this the above post is funny!

Well, so many good explanations, not sure, but they?re all probably correct to a degree..

As I mentioned, at times I thought I?d be a better girl than guy. Remember fretting and worried about being a girl when young. I was so worried about the negative implications that I worked so hard at being masculine and macho to cover the feminine aspects and traits. Now I embrace them cause it makes being en femme so much easier!

Jess.

[fireandlace]

On that mental theme, maybe suggestions were made to you way back when you were very young that triggered this. Back before you could remember. Subliminal. You are getting sleepy! Lol. Buy my mother used to tell me that I was supposed to have been born a girl often when I was young.

I have a similar experience. Not that I was supposed to have been a girl but that it was a shame that I wasn?t a girl because of my hair. It was a strawberry blonde color, very full, and naturally curly. My mom, and some other female relatives, would comment about it frequently.

[Debbie Denier]

Travelling to my aunts with my mum as a young boy by bus acted as a trigger for me. There was graffiti on the back of the seat in front. The graffiti said I love wearing panties, bras and womens nylons they are great Dave.I could not stop thinking about it. Saw it again on subsequent journeys. It seemed naughty but nice. It prompted me to take a pair of pantyhose out of the laundry basket and try them on. The feeling was electric and so it began for me. Felt terrible guilt and shame. But the feeling was so intoxicating. I was terrified of being caught . So used laddered nylons that had been disposed of to reduce the risk.I moved on to slips and when I started working began to buy my own fem items.

[Pumped]

It is pretty much impossible to say why any of us crossdress. Mental? Genetic? Plus many dress for various reasons and degrees. There are the transgender side that believe they have mixed up genetics. There are the fetish dressers that like the "kink". Then everything in between and other off shoots. Who knows why! If we knew we probably would not be here!

[AnelineM]

I think its just innate in some men. No one ever dressed me up as a girl or encouraged me to wear women's clothing. Quite the opposite. I remember when I was very young that I liked when my Mom, Aunts, or female cousins wore lipstick. Then one day I tried on one of my Mom's lipsticks and my crossdressing just took off from there.

[Kris Burton]

I think we are going to be very disappointed if we expect to find a single unifying reason why any of us crossdress. Behavioral? Genetic? Sexual? Perhaps brought on by some trauma? All of these or some combination? - or perhaps none of these. To be sure however, none offer the entire explanation, as much as we might like it to.

[Joanne108]

I think I just started by trying on a bra. I do not remember why I did. I just remember that once the bra cups were filled with doll pillows I was hooked, I love dressing up as a woman and I suspect that I always will.

[sometimes_miss]

Best guess at this point, is that we want to crossdress / behave, talk, walk, think as we believe females do, may be due to a subconscious attempt to reconcile the incongruent thoughts caused by having a male body, yet something also in that subconscious telling us that we aren't male, but are female. In order to quell the mental disconnect and the resulting psychological discomfort that causes, we attempt to 'feed' our mind with feminine sensory feedback, which for some of us, works as a temporary treatment so that we can feel normal, as almost all senses send back information also telling us that we're female.
That doesn't explain those who get sexual excitement from crossdressing.
However, my own experience was that even though I knew that I wasn't actually female, the feelings that I was supposed to be, never went away, even though all other information contradicts any suggestion that I was actually supposed to be a girl.
I later learned that for many mental health issues, we don't actually get 'cured'; all they can do, is help us deal with our situations a little better.
YMMV.
Edit. One thing that seems pretty common, is the onset of crossdressing which coincides with puberty. Perhaps this is simply a simple case of subconscious gender dysphoria, which the individual has been able to repress up until then, which rises out of the subconscious when other stressful events occur, which overwhelms the mind, and, something has to 'give', so the crossdressing / gender dysphoria feelings become active. This might explain why so many of us go through phases where we don't experience the desire to crossdress for periods of time, as our minds are again able to repress those thoughts.
The other thing that should be mentioned, is that many experience sexual excitement while crossdressing, but this may simply be the onset of sexual desire happening at the same ages as the stresses of life also overwhelm our ability to repress the crossdressing / GID thoughts.

[SaraLin]

Just a quick comment on this snippet:

One thing that seems pretty common, is the onset of crossdressing which coincides with puberty.

Not me! I was "borrowing" my sister's stuff L-O-N-G before puberty was even on the horizon and even before anyone thought to "dress me up" in anything.
Luckily for me, even though my sister was a year younger than me, she was bigger - so I could fit into her things.

I guess you can put me down on the "born this way" list, since I feel that if anyone triggered me, I did it to myself.

[Maid_Marion]

I enjoy shopping and wearing nice clothes. I spent a few years looking for a men's suit but concluded that I was so small, I'd have to buy an expensive custom made suit!
No thrill of shopping for a bargain. Revolve has me down as one of their XS sized customers. And Cole Haan knows I wear size 7 shoes!

Is it a coincidence that I have curves in the right places to wear a bodycon dress?

Marion

[MonicaPVD]

I spent decades trying to rationalize why I do this. I gave that up a few years ago. It's just a part of who I am. I got my start around age 7 or 8 because it was something I needed to do. No logic or reason necessary. Got caught a bunch of time, was punished, kept on going. Have kept this aspect of my life hidden from relatives and friends forever, but understanding that it is only a matter of time before I end up being outed. Onward.

[StacyG]

I don't think there's one answer either. I was born with a cleft palette and always felt un attractive nd undesirable as little boy. A friend of mines dad got those men's magazine they they "Only read for the articles" . I was too young to know what I was looking at but there's a photo forever burned in my mind of a beautiful woman in a matching satin green bra, panty and robe set. I wanted to look and feel that wanted and desirable too. So I eventually got into my mom and sis's things.
As a recovering alcoholic, in AA's big book it states "We drank simply to change the way we felt." I love the way I feel when I'm dressed. Most women I've dated have all told me I'm attractive and desirable, and they don't know about the dressing.
until I tell them. It's nice to look pretty and be like the women I desire and find attractive.

[kimdl93]

I was about to write that there is no satisfactory explanation for why we do what we do. That would be wrong. There really there are lots of plausible answers. We just lack any means of testing or pr?ving which might apply to any individual.

[valerie anne]

I have always been fascinated by having breasts, wearing makeup and needing a bra.

As a teenager, I raided my mother's cupboard, and tried one of her bras. In those days, bras didn't have the elastic straps and bands which they do today, and I struggled to get into it.

But then I discovered her "breast exhauster", a glass trumpet with a rubber suction bulb and a bowl underneath to collect any breast milk.

I pumped & pumped & pumped, but in doing so, I tore her left bra strap.

I tried to sew it up, but got lipstick marks on the strap.

She must have known, but never complained.

So I was introduced to bras, lipstick & breast pumps inside of one afternoon.

[GretchenM]

Sabrina, nobody knows what causes this behavior, but it is known that it is not just one thing. It is a complex assemblage of genetic, environmental, and learned influences within a neurological matrix in the brain. It is known that genetically gender identity is perhaps one of the most complex characteristics of humans - it appears that about 1/7 of our entire genome is involved in some way with these behaviors that are so critical to our super developed social lives. So, for starters, it probably begins in the womb as a result of variations in hormone influences on the fetus, errors in development timing, and a pile of other mind boggling processes that follow individual pathways in each person.

After we are born, environment kicks in as well as the vast array of influences from other people. But through it all our brain manages it to produce the behaviors that exhibit what best fit its configuration and if the current configuration is not suitable the brain changes its configuration through brain plasticity to make sense of it all. But sexual influences on gender development are not particularly significant. There is an overlap, but exactly how it works has not been figured out yet.

So, your thinking it is a "predisposition" has some substance to it. But exactly what has not been identified. That predisposition, if it is there, is perhaps a consequence of genetics. But in some of us, predisposition appears to be very faint; in others it appears very strong.

Learned responses definitely play into the exact gender behaviors that men and women adopt and exhibit, but the gender reversal that many of us exhibit to some extent seems to precede the learning influence. That is we react in terms of gender behaviors that we observe and copy BECAUSE there is a fundamental receptiveness to that kind of behavior which puts back into the neighborhood of predisposition.

Personally, I don't dress nearly as much as many here and I do not feel a strong need for that. I used to, but at some point that aspect faded for some reason. Internally, though, I have strong female-like emotions and thinking patterns that are definitely not typical of a male.

So, I get what you say about "mentally a crossdresser." I don't call it that though. I call it an "internalized transgenderism" that creates an internal drive to behave in accordance with many of the behavioral traits and characteristics associated with fairly "standard" female behavior. Things like a very strong sense of sensitivity, empathy, compassion plus a pile of other female-like behaviors. But I also have male-like behaviors that are part of the entire equation.

Thus, I identify myself with some form of non-binary gender as I reject, personally, the concept of pure female and pure male genders. Most people tend to be a blend of behaviors that are associated with males and females and I believe everybody has their own unique mix that, due to brain plasticity and its ability to adapt to new influences, is constantly changing in tiny ways as we go through life. In terms of gender, everybody is unique. That said, the tiny changes eventually add up to create some very noticeable changes that produce a need to cross-dress in many, but others follow another pathway to produce the positive feedback to the brain and thus our personal sense of identity we each have.

[sabrinaedwards]

Thank you so much for your insightful response regarding my post. I never really thought about non-binary and it is a newer term in the lexicon.
Love, Sabrina

[alwayshave]

I remember my early forays into dressing. However after 55+ years of dressing, my crossdressing is part of me, doesn't hurt anyone and I believe makes me a better person. So, I really don't care what the catalyst was.

[Comfywithmyself]

I've always been fascinated by having, and feeling my own breasts as well. I've been doing it since high school, I'm 35 now.

Not going too deep, but my mother passed when I was young, 9 years old. I've done a massive amount of work, and turned my life completely around with some incredible therapy.

What my therapist and I concluded, is that my wearing pretend breasts is my brain's way of filling the feminine touch I never had growing up. Capital T Trauma does weird things.