Getting over that last bit of internalized transphobia is hard. A lot of us here still struggle with it.
Getting over that last bit of internalized transphobia is hard. A lot of us here still struggle with it.
I am a vessel of the goddess. Let me express my calling to a feminine life through nurturing love and relatedness.
Here's how I look at the question:
If you've ever put on some item of clothing that's meant for the opposite sex - then yes, you've crossdressed.
But -
That doesn't automatically make you a crossdresser.
IF:
You've done it for a purpose (such as a role in a play)
You've done it by mistake (Hey - those are your sister's mittens)
You've done it for bedroom play,
etc.
Then no, I'd venture to say that you might not be a crossdresser, just that you have done it.
There probably are a lot of people who fall into this category.
To BE a crossdresser (IMHO) I feel that you have to have the added ingredient of wanting, desiring, or even needing to dress.
Without the inner drive, it's just an action you're doing, not an identity.
Am I making any sense here?
Last edited by SaraLin; 11-13-2023 at 08:21 AM. Reason: added thought
Hi Sara Lin,
Makes perfect sense and it's a very good yardstick. I've accepted I crossdress regularly with intent and enjoyment. I now call myself a crossdresser. I wear knickers every day now, this morning had a nap in a nightdress, etc. I don't have the money right now to buy anything else which is frustrating!
My rather daft question (asking if CD is real for me, to a CD forum) was, in hindsight, asking if anyone had seen studies or reports describing my question.
I was previously holdiing out hope that it was a fad. To be clear I don't think there is anything wrong with crossdressing, just that it's going to complicate life alongside bringing some peace and happiness.
Thanks,
Sam
[SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE]
Transphobic? Probably some lingering around. I've very rapidly in 2 months or so gone from being quite bigoted in general to having got rid of most of that. That's a very good thing. I now massively admire all people that have come out for their incredible bravery. For example of lingering phobia, I've approached a trans support charity here in the UK and they're offering counselling at good rates and my immediate response was "surely I'm not trans am I?" and "are they going to be objective enough about me 'in the round' or will they seek to channel me down a path?". So, yeah, I suppose I still am -phobic. But I'm still really proud of how far I HAVE come in such short time.Originally Posted by April Rose
I read conflicting sites. Some say CD comes under the trans umbrella (e.g. Beaumont Society), others (many) say CD is not trans. Is there a settled view here?
Well; have you ever, out of curiosity, tried on an octopus outfit and dove down into the ocean to see what it was like being an octopus with 8 limbs, and crawling along the sea floor?
Probably not. Because that's not what you feel yourself to be. It's the same with purely straight 'vanilla' people, who identify as the sex that they are born. It doesn't even occur to them. There's no, 'gee, I wonder what it's like wearing a bra, panties, stockings, high heels, a dress, and putting on make up every day?'
It's not who they are, and not what they ever thought they were.
The question posted has been discussed before, many times ( and I know the search function doesn't work all that great). Yes, there are a few, but in general, it simply doesn't occur to the straight, vanilla world, to 'try out' being something opposite what they believe they are, especially in western societies where there is such a stigma against men crossing the gender line. Males are almost always brought up from first self awareness, being told that for a boy to be girly in any way, is the worst possible thing he can be, so they consciously AND subconsciously ignore or deny any possibility that they might be in any way, female. it's simply not acceptable in their minds. Of course, that's not true for women, who can wear pretty much whatever they want.
The 'I believe' bit, is simply a crossdressers desire to have all other men want to crossdress, to make it okay for us to do so and still be 'normal'.
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.
I guess many guys have crossdressed just for carnival and it take it as a joke but no longer thinks about it becoming something to do from time to time
I see in other threads that you are anxious about it, i hope you can get dressed without overthinking so much. You are not doing anything ilegal.
I don't think that non-CDers are the least bit interested in trying on women's clothes. In fact, it has been my observation that picturing himself in a dress is personally repulsive for a non-CDer, even if he is not bothered by or prejudiced against the idea that another man might crossdress. Gosh, when one of my sons was a teenager, he even refused to hold a pink umbrella in a pouring rain!
You like to wear women's clothes. It is what it is. You don't have to label yourself as anything specific gender-wise. In fact, I suspect there are as many different definitions for what it means to be a CDer as there are actual CDers!You just need to accept that you enjoy wearing women's clothes.
This book is about the false idea that female brains are vastly different than male brains, and the resulting false gender constructs forced upon society, such as "men are better at science and math", "women are more nurturing", "men are natural born leaders", "women are softer", "men are more aggressive", "women are more emotional", etc.
This book calls into question the many things that so many members here believe are true, namely that CDers cross-dress because they are innately feminine. There is no such thing as innate femininity and masculinity. Other than our reproductive capabilities and the physical characteristics determined by our chromosomes (genitalia, breasts, body size, muscle mass, voice, etc), there really isn't much difference between us!
While it's true that some boys are raised to not cry, and some girls are raised to not make waves (to give an example), our society has progressed hugely in these areas in the last few generations. Now, boys who show emotions and girls who are aggressive are not chastised the way they were in the 1950s.
As adults, men are now expected to contribute to the nurturing of children and to the household chores, just as women are expected to contribute to household finances and major family decisions. Everyone is on a more equal footing, as it should be. This book reinforces all of this.
It will be awhile before ALL false social gender conditioning (boys being told to not cry and girls being told to not make waves) is completely eliminated. There persists in our society a fair chunk of people (including many CDers) who are determined to maintain the "men are men and are from mars, and women are women and are from venus" misrepresentation. But in reality, both men and women do run the full spectrum from less to more emotional, less to more aggressive, less to more nurturing, less to more intelligent, etc.
Sorry for the rant. lol. This is a topic near and dear to my heart.
Reine
Hmmm. Interesting responses here. DianeT's fox thing... I want some of what she's having! Nice to see Reine weigh in. Her "innately feminine" comment... couldn't agree more.
I can only see things from the perspective of a crossdresser. When I see men doing certain things I think there's some little hidden thing going on there. Whether it's long hair, earrings, nail polish, waxed brows... I always think there's a little something going on there. But, I realize that's coming from a particular perspective.
If we're talking about things that happen in secret, it's hard for me to imagine that there's a man on the planet that hasn't put on a pair of panties or something. I have no idea if any "feeling" lingers for them.
Stana on Femulate has a "womanless pageant" section. When I was in high school we had one. I did not participate. Of the dozen or so participants, most chose some ridiculous caricature. A couple (one in particular) was no charicature. He was just stunning. I do not think he was a cd, but who knows. He was not feminine in any way at any other time. I think many of us would not have participated in a womanless pageant for fear of outing ourselves. Every womanless pageant or halloween party where someone crossdresses includes a lot of comments like "He's a little too good at this".
Really think This is not the group for that question. We all tried it and like it, SO much that we [at the time] risked everything to do it. Risked our marriage, friends, family, The world did change. It?s more accepted today than 30 years ago. But still your SO still has the choice, of staying or leaving They didn?t married a CD.
Reine you leave out the important fact that this umbrella was to be held in public. It's a very different thing to do something in public and in your privacy. The crossdressing teenager I was may have refused too to hold that pink umbrella. I wouldn't have been any less of a crossdresser for it.
Picturing himself? There is also an important bit here that can be missed. There can be a great difference for a non-MIAD, binary CDer (which I am, despite accommodating to MIAD in the particular context of doing it with my wife) between dressing in women's clothes and seeing the result in a mirror. I have evolved on that point, but for a long time I couldn't stand seeing myself in a mirror while dressed unless I got shaved and made up. The dissonance between my male, bearded face and the rest was too disturbing. But if I just looked at my "female" dressed body in subjective view, or pictured myself as such in my mind, I was happy with the result.
The takeaway here, is that a CDer can be repelled too by his presentation in female clothes.
This is not to say any man would secretly love to wear female clothes, this is projecting too much, but considering that some non-CDers may be a bit excited by wearing female clothes in a private context (I insist on private) even if they would not admit it publicly, that is something I could subscribe to (and may, and I say may, have witnessed in a few occasion to be honest).
Last edited by DianeT; 11-16-2023 at 08:12 PM.
Reine, I hope u realize you're beating a dead horse here? There's no way dressers will admit that most men DON'T either try on women's undies in private or wish they could! Because women's undies r such hot fetish item for so many here!
But, I think you're incorrect on one point: "Regular" men aren't appalled thinking about themselves wearing women's things. They don't go that far.
I was a regular guy into my 50's. And, up to then the amount of times I imagined myself in women's clothes was ZERO!
Men don't think about that anymore than they imagine themselves becoming lampposts!
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!
You mean like a kink? A bit like a guy who has a thing for feet, or for furry things?
Then yes, I suppose anything can evolve to being some sort of fetish.
So maybe I should have expanded ... "non-CDers who don't have fetishes".
Reine
I was a non-CDer for the first fifty plus years of my life. I never had a real "interest" in wearing women's clothes and never considered the possibility of wearing them in public or even regularly in private. But, in those first fifty years, out of curiosity, I tried mascara exactly once and tried on various items of my wife's clothing for minutes at a time. There was no particular interest in continuing the practice because my curiosity was satisfied in the moment. I don't think that's as rare as you seem to think.
The need to posture in public is a very real societally enforced requirement, especially in the teenage years. We tend to internalize the enforcement without question if the cost of being ostracized is high enough. The world I worked in was very rigid in that same enforcement and any variance was only practiced in private.
[SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE]
This is very true but, as can be seen in so many threads here on the forum, it is our significant others that enforce the rules most emphatically. Even if we, as individuals, reject the norms, those whom we associate can make the cost extravagantly high. Many of our wives do not look at the whole gender issue as you do and I am wondering how much your viewpoint was present before becoming involved with your SO.
I've been wearing pantyhose and tights for years. Quite honestly, it's less crossdressing and more "give me one good reason why skirts, dresses, lacy knickers and tights aren't unisex" - in other words, for me, the rules that make us crossdress shouldn't exist.
Then again I wear a bra from time to time, quite needlessly, but I'm on just the right website to find people who will tell me to wear what I enjoy wearing regardless
To me AndyB, it IS about these items being associated with women, it's partly lifting a finger to society's norms as well as enjoying whatever feelings I get wearing them! Each to their own of course but the feminine association is important to me.
From a questionable source of Quora, but:
What is the percent of males who crossdress?
It is estimated that more than 50% men have either crossdressed or have had the urge to do so.
Thirty percent have at least dressed as a female once in their life and 25% men actually crossdress on a regular basis.
The percentage of those who come out or dress full time is estimated to be 5%>
------------
I have heard most boys try it once in secret and get no enjoyment from it. We are different in that we do get enjoyment from it.
Hugs, Ellen
We never think I am going to become a cross dresser
We always were cross dressers We just did not know about it. The first time you slip on a pair of panties. Everything is telling you no. But putting on someone used dirty pantries. just excites you, You would not go near dirty men?s underwear . Are you a cross dresser. You don?t think so. You think you can stop.. But that the joke. You have no control over it.
You aren?t hurting anybody. It doesn?t mean you are evil .
My oldest son is in his late 30s, my youngest in his late 20s.
From the very beginning I did my best to raise caring, nurturing boys. I have three sons, no daughters. Their dress-up chest had all sorts of things in it, from boas, to Peter Pan tights, to my old discarded high boots with heels, among an assortment of many different things. I chose toys for them that were non-gendered, for example a circus with entertainers, a safari set with animals, all sorts of building sets, tons of arts and crafts supplies, books galore, science kits, in addition to the action figures they asked for (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Wars figures for example
All of this was years and years before I met my SO.
If I had been blessed with a daughter, I would have raised her the same way. I would not have encouraged playing with Barbies (unrealistic beauty standards), and I would have prioritized her abilities, talents and intellect more than her looks, just as my parents did for me.
Today my boys are wonderful, caring, well-adjusted adults who have all chosen fabulous, caring, accomplished, strong women as their life partners. My oldest son and his wife have a new baby girl, and he is as nurturing with the baby as I was with him.
Most of my friends raised their children the same way. We did our best to eliminate boundaries and restrictions for both boys and girls.
Reine
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the answer to the OP would require a set of two experiments:
Experiment 1 - Study the assertion "All males would love to wear frmale clothes if they had a chance"
Put random males in an isolated room and tell them there are no cameras and they can try on any clothes that have been laid out on a table for them. Clothes are both male and female garments including lingerie. Of course there are hidden cameras to record the results. Since we want to study non-CDers, eliminate CDers from the results by rejecting males that solely tried on female stuff and did it with too much maestria (if you end up eliminating all subjects from the study then obviously the maps of the CDing prevalence among the general male population needs to be redone).
Experiment 2 - Study the assertion "All males would be more or less excited to wear, or be forced to wear, female clothes"
Put random males in an isolated room and tell them there are no cameras and they have to try on for a few minutes a series of female outfits that have have been laid out on a table for them. The outfits sample the typical things that make sexually-triggered CDers woohoo such as bras, panties, garter belts, hose, high heels, etc. Of course there are hidden cameras to record the results. Since we want to study non-CDers, eliminate CDers from the results by rejecting males that dressed with much too eagerness and maestria. Note which ones experienced at least one er...ion in the process.
Of course the above protocols have many obvious flaws and biases and would require some adjustments. But it would be a start.
Until then, we will keep projecting and assuming.
"So, I'm a crossdresser. Mmh. What's that thing, again?"
Considering telling your SO? Read this fine manual first: https://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?13841-How-to-tell-your-partner
Let yourself, be your self! Hugs Lana Mae
Life is worth living!
"Foxy lady! You look so good!!" Jimi Hendrix
ClosetEd, Quara seems to be a, "Question and Answer", forum. In which case the stats u posted appear to be someone's, maybe your own, opinion?
And, I'm very dubious of them. No stats I've read anywhere r close to 50% of men r "CD curious or oriented"!
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!
Honestly, are there even any good studies on the cd population? I'm sure it's even harder now than it was then with the inclusion of other categories of growing relevance. The overlap with drag, transgender, and non-binary identities, practices, ect. seem to make it hard to isolate cd's exclusively.
I would believe that "over 50% of men have crossdressed" could be true if "crossdressed" includes Halloween, trying on something of a girlfriends as a joke, and young boys stomping around in mom's shoes.
Personal opinion here but I would say there are more fellows who have ventured down the path of trying clothing that was intended to be marketed to the opposite sex than what any studies would ever show.
most fellows that are willing to try it would never admit to it. societal grooming has pushed us to believe what is and is not right clothing choices for your birth gender, many of us that crossdress grew up with the notation that wearing clothing not in your gender section is wrong, so not true, there are many items marketed to women that are now marketed for men also and some you would never know who they were intended for.
just the other day me and the wife were in a store and I stopped to look at thermal underwear for winter, there were 2 different boxes, one market for men and one for women, unless you paid attention to the box they came out of, you cannot tell the difference between the mens and womens thermals, only one slight difference me and her found was the womens had a slightly different cut in the crotch area, they were the same material and same stitching, the women's ones actually fit better in the crotch area than the mens, the mens crotch are feels like it hangs to your knees, very bulky feeling.
Makes me wonder how many men have bought the women's thermals not knowing the difference until they got home and took them out of the packaging.
Lilly-Ann's post made me think of this: I read a post on yahoo once about guys wearing women's socks. The response I remember most was "it's ok unless they're pink, if they're pink you're gay." All I could think was if putting on pink socks make you gay, then you're already gay. (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
Seriously, women's feet and men's feet are shaped the same, how can socks be gendered?
Patience, I crossdressed a lot before I realized I was a crossdresser.
More specifically, when I was a teen I crossdressed, but I was "just putting on a bra or a leotard". I WAS NOT A CROSSDRESSER!!!
Then I moved into my own place, and didn't have access to bras. So I didn't crossdress. BECAUSE I WAS NOT A CROSSDRESSER!!!
But I didn't lose the urge to put on a bra. It was always there. Because I was actually a crossdresser!
Posting Permissions
