A Simple Question...

[Melinda Lou]

It is associated with a private matter of fantasy and deception. It conveys weakness and betrayal of the masculine privilege. It assumes homosexuality which also betrays the masculine privilege.

I've run into some of this in my own relationship, not only the assertion that I'd betrayed the masculine privilege but the claim that I'd usurped a feminine privilege of sorts as well--basically, as the argument went, I was not only being the masculine one in the relationship most of the time but edging into her, feminine territory as well, by wanting to wear lacy lingerie under my clothes and assume other usually feminine affectations (for example, painting my toenails a very girly shade of pink). She felt that she should be the one to be feminine and that I needed to stay on my side of the gender line, since she wasn't claiming that she could move across it the other way. (Which raises the question, as a longtime underdresser, am I unfairly trying to have my gender cake and eat it too, by outwardly presenting as a conventional male and secretly dressing as a female underneath? Or is this just my individual expression of gender on a long and granular continuum?)

[Thalia]

Holly: It's been two years and I've rehashed this with my wife and a psychologist (who, btw is very good with transgender issues). I don't know if I can put it as succinctly as my wife but she tells me that the brain is the largest sex organ. If I want to pretend I'm a female (sometimes) she is creeped out because no matter what I tell her, she claims she will never know when I am "feeling female" and it could very well be during sex. That brings the lesbian aspect into the picture (from her perspective). She also claims that she is attracted to a macho-type man and after seeing me (and some photos) of me enfemme, the sex appeal she once felt towards me is no longer there. It does not help that she has done extensive research and some crossdressers have admitted to having such thoughts (female) during sex.

[MrKunk]

it is the mentality of the majority of the people in our society. What they don't understand they will not accept.

[Holly]

Holly, I'm surprised you would ask this...

Sorry. I didn't mean to surprise you, Jonieanne . I asked the question for basically two reasons. One- I wanted to stimulate a conversation on the act of cross dressing without the encumbrances of the deception, the lying, etc that so often gets drawn into the conversation. Those are legitimate concerns and worthy of discussion as well, but I was purposely trying to keep the scope of this discussion narrow. And I appreciate all the input you and the other contributors have made. The second reason is that I was trying to discover, admittedly in a most unscientific study, if there was a common denominator in why cross dressing is viewed in such a negative way by a very large segment of the world population.

...much of crossdressing is connected to eroticism and very often in an unbalanced way. Just check the internet...

This is true but again I would ask why is this so? I would suggest that it is because of misinformation and conclusions based on that flawed information.

Most all of us have dressed because of the turn-on factor. (Just watch how many will say "Not me!!!)

Not me :D. Of course you are right; many of us have. But I would suggest that the majority of us did so during adolescence/puberty and as we became more sexually mature and self-aware, the turn-on factor diminished or completely went away. Arguably it was sexualizing something feminine by a sexually immature male.

...when our SO's find out that we like being in the female role in dress, identity and/or sex, it shatters life long ideas of how to relate. It doesn't fit the ingrain natural pattern. That doesn't mean that it's bad or something is wrong with us, but we struggle with that ourselves, how much more they may struggle. This struggle is what tears up relationships more than the crossdressing itself...

Jonianne, I really like this thought. So what we need to discover is a way to control the struggle. Any ideas?

I think the only way to change the perspective others can see, is to open up when possible and let them see inside our hearts, that we are good people - complex genderwise - but genuine good people. And that would mean showing respect to others and letting them see we may be different, but we nontheless have a good and healthy balance in our lives.

I couldn't agree more!

I think you are right, RJ.
This IS how OTHERS perceive us.
They are wrong, of course.

This is another way of saying there is a lack of understanding and more education is needed.

[QUOTE=ReineD;2397408]I know I'm speaking simplistically and in very broad terms, but the simple answer just may be that our reptilian brains (unless otherwise enlightened) view non-conformative gender and sexuality behaviors as a threat to the propagation of our species. These behaviors have been taboo in most cultures for I don't know how long. Perhaps since the beginning.[quote]Thanks for taking a stab at this, Renie. I cherish your input. You are the only GG that has had anything to say on the topic. I find that curious in itself.

You may very well be right that there is an under current of thought about the future of mankind. But I have been around here and around the community for a long time and I have never heard anyone say, "Dammit, Harry! Your cross dressing is going to end the human race." Usually it is more along the lines that it is weird, unnatural, sick, etc.

...The biological norms are this: gender matches sexuality and men and women are attracted to the opposite sex. Most people do believe that gender and sexuality are tied together. This is why the first question asked to a TG is, "Are you gay?" I also think that most people outside the GLBTQ community look away the first time they see same-sex couples being sexually affectionate. But, they don't have the same gut-level feeling when they see a man and a woman kissing...

I'd go a step further and say most people don't understand there is a difference between gender and sexuality. And just maybe this is where some education needs to take place?

Don't get me wrong, Holly ... I'm not comparing trans behaviors to pestilence or unhealthy lifestyles. I'm just trying to find a way to explain why there is such social anxiety about it.

On the plus side, we do live in an age of cognitive reasoning, and all it takes for most people is a bit of education and first-hand experience with members of the community before they lose their bias, or at least, develop some level of tolerance.

I understand the comparisons are only for illustrative purposes . And I do agree with you that we are better off today than ever before because the truth about who we are and what we are is slowly making it's way out of the closet.

Holly, I think an older cross-dresser may be able to answer the question on behalf of some gg's...

I'm a more maturetransgendered person myself, but I'd still like to hear from more GG's :D

...My wife is horrified that someone will find out. Somehow it would reflect upon her? I vividly remember my wife and her cousin whispering in the kitchen thirty years ago about the cousins close friend, who lived down the block from us. She divorced her husband because she discovered he was a cross-dresser. My god, the world came to an end. Poor woman! Isn't that disgusting

The assumption, I assume, is that it would reflect negatively on her. If you were a murderer, would it reflect negatively on her as well?

Holly: It's been two years and I've rehashed this with my wife and a psychologist (who, btw is very good with transgender issues). I don't know if I can put it as succinctly as my wife but she tells me that the brain is the largest sex organ. If I want to pretend I'm a female (sometimes) she is creeped out because no matter what I tell her, she claims she will never know when I am "feeling female" and it could very well be during sex. That brings the lesbian aspect into the picture (from her perspective). She also claims that she is attracted to a macho-type man and after seeing me (and some photos) of me enfemme, the sex appeal she once felt towards me is no longer there. It does not help that she has done extensive research and some crossdressers have admitted to having such thoughts (female) during sex.

And some women fantasize about having sexual relations with other men while with their partners. It doesn't make them unfaithful anymore than you having female thoughts makes her a lesbian.

If there is any reoccuring theme in this discussion, it seems to be that there is a pile of misinformation out there and we have a lot of educating to do before there will be a more general acceptance of the transgendered community as a whole. And I apologize for the misleading title of this thread. It's not a simple question. It is a complex issue as are most relating to the human condition. All we can do is continue to be the best people we can be and educate those willing to be educated and slowly the tide against us will turn, as I believe it is doing at this very moment. More comments are welcome.

[Avana]

Many people have brought up the idea that bias exists in our society because the male privilege is compromised. Without getting into anthropological accuracy, surely the notion of male privilege is a construct of modern (ish) society? In primitive societies, wouldn't both men and women have combined their abilities in order to survive, there would have been no thought of a superior vs. an inferior gender, but rather just different bodies to fulfill different functions? And wouldn't a tribal member who could not contribute to everyone's welfare or survival be cast aside?

I'm making a mental note to read about primitive gender roles and survival practices. It's a fascinating topic.

That may be true, I'm not familiar with the scholarship on that.

I did read one really interesting book called "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" by Leonard Shlain, which posited that a rise in masculine privilege/values was directly related to the deveopment of the alphabet! Basically the idea that Shlain puts forth (he is a neuroscientist but this still seems kind of oppositional sexist), is that the intrinsically female way of thinking is holistic and 'all-at-once', whereas the intrinsically male way of thinking is compartmental and sequential. He then describes how pre-alphabetic cultures worshipped mostly females and had a distinctively more female way of thinking of the cosmos, and how this was reflected both in their languages, which were typically pictographic or hieroglyphic, and their governmental/social systems, which were not divided into caste systems, did not rely on definitions of property, etc.

So then he goes on to posit that the development of the alphabet basically enabled men to dominate society, by basically re-inventing language and societal structure according to the way they think, obviously putting them in a position of privilege. Alphabetic language is read in a sequential manner, where strict rules of syntax are required to decode the meaning, and the social structural changes that accompanied the development of the alphabet in many cultures also coincided with strict rules and stratified government (Hammurabi's code in the case of the Babylonians for instance), as well as a stratified class structure, and stratified gender roles...

[ReineD]

I did read one really interesting book called "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" by Leonard Shlain, which posited that a rise in masculine privilege/values was directly related to the deveopment of the alphabet!

Yes, this is interesting! I looked Shlain up. He wrote a book on Art & Physics that I'd like to read.

He also wrote "Sex, Time, & Power" where he examines evolution from a female perspective. He suggests that because the explosion in size of the human brain endangered women's lives while giving birth, and because women have a desperate need for iron (to replenish the iron lost during menses), women developed the strategy of decoupling sex and reproduction. They also mated with men who could supply them with meat. This is what forced men to change their habits, since they became interested in being what the females wanted them to be, in order to have sex.

I don't know if Shlain's hypotheses have much basis in fact or if they are purely speculative, but they certainly are thought provoking.

[sissystephanie]

Holly, when I said that men are special I meant only because according to societal norms men are supposed to dress in well known ways. Of course, as MTF crossdressers we don't do that!! As I believe I said, the majority of society doesn't understand why we dress the way we do, so they think it is wrong. Personally, I don't care what they think. It is my life, and as long as I am not hurting anyone I will do what I want!!

[DianeDeBris]

Wonderful thread! Kudos first to Holly for a fine job of narrowing the focus to the dressing and the feminine presentation itself (as distinguished from the separate problems of deception, etc). As everyone has noted, males who wear female garb push some very hot buttons in others; and she has tuned our attention onto the precise question of "why does anybody care?"
And this leads me directly to Reine's excellent observations about the reptilian brain. This insight, properly understood, can help us understand better the vehemence that many people feel about what we do. Note, please, that I said "feel," rather than "think." The powerful negative reactions our presentation generates in some folks is truly "reptilian." This is not a put-down, or a value judgment or even a negative comment about these folks. The fact (as I believe Reine was trying to make us understand) is that the oldest, most prehistoric part of our human brain has been with us since, literally, the reptilian age. Behaviorists and neuroscientists talk about this as the "reptile brain," meaning simply that it is the oldest, the most primitive part of us -- and that it still functions in the same way it did millions of years ago. It is instantaneous, it is not rational or deliberative; it does not evaluate or make nuances. It knows only Safe and Dangerous, Same and Different. You know that feeling you sometimes have when you meet someone and you just don't feel right about him/her? That's your reptilian brain working. All the higher components of the human brain, and all the higher (cognitive) functions, came along much later than the R.B. did; but it's still a part of us, and it is powerful. We can learn to accept, trust and even value new things -- but we have to work our way past the R.B. in order to do so. The primitive reptile brain saw Different as identical to Dangerous; they were (and still are, to our own R.B.'s) one and the same. The reptile's only options were to flee the danger, or to kill it. This (IMHO) explains the intense vehemence which some people feel toward us.
So, massive thanks to Holly and to Reine, and further thanks to you all for reading these musings. Hugs - Diane

[Lucy_Bella]

Holly,

Its really hard to say anymore, I mean I am sure of how I feel about myself and I allow myself to be labled.. I think that is where most of the mis understanding is comming from, refussing to be labled, and why? If we can not tell or educate others how do we expect others to understand?

Sorry but life comes with lables, You straight, gay ,bi and/or transgender and trans sexual I just happen to be a straight transgender..No body is born 100 percent male or female, if that was the case we wouldn't survive due to the over dose of hormones . There has to be a balance some of us have a little more than others it makes the world a hell of a lot more interesting..

Now we can blame relgion , but then again we can remind everyone that the Pope also wears a dress ..

[Toronto Kristen]

No body is born 100 percent male or female, if that was the case we wouldn't survive due to the over dose of hormones ...

Lucy, I think that you might have identified the basis of the problem. I think that it can be taken as a given that we clearly understand this fact. The problem is that the people (male or female) who react negatively obviously do not recognise this and they believe that a man is a man and a woman is a woman.

[Charise52]

I have noticed that women can wear men's clothes, and they do it because it feels comfortable... no one worries... yet when men wear women's clothes everyone worries... and it is not about looking good... it is about feeling comfortable... I have had GF's thst like to wear men's jeans and flannel shirts... so why can't we wear skirts? I wear women's jeans and tops and sweaters and shorts all the time... and i get away with it... I have worn skirts in public, but I had to do a complete makover first... why should I have to? I figure we should all wear whaterver we want... and society just has not caught up with us yet...

[Toronto Kristen]

I have noticed that women can wear men's clothes, and they do it because it feels comfortable... no one worries... yet when men wear women's clothes everyone worries... and it is not about looking good... it is about feeling comfortable... I have had GF's thst like to wear men's jeans and flannel shirts... so why can't we wear skirts? I wear women's jeans and tops and sweaters and shorts all the time... and i get away with it... I have worn skirts in public, but I had to do a complete makover first... why should I have to? I figure we should all wear whaterver we want... and society just has not caught up with us yet...

It would be great if society could be truly accepting but unfortunately, as a collective unit, society is hypocritical.

[ninapuella]

Its because its against the norm of the society. Everything that is against the norm is disaproved, it doesnt matter what it is. I think it is about psychological stuff too. Ordinary people just dont understand what is going on in a crossdressers head and i can understand that can be frightening. So I guess its both norms and fear to the unknown.

[Joanne f]

I have noticed that women can wear men's clothes, and they do it because it feels comfortable... no one worries... yet when men wear women's clothes everyone worries...

A lot of CDs will openly admit that when they started to cross dress it was for a sexual reason yet you never hear of this from women who wear men's clothes so maybe people worry a little more because they are aware of this , i think that once some wife`s SOs get past this thinking that it is all to do with a sexual thing then they start to look at it more positively but there will always be some that will enjoy it being some sort of sexual thing and some that will never find anything at all to be positive thing about it .

[suzy1]

Holly, you asked what being beautiful means. It means good looking, sexy, hansom, drop dead gorgeous, film star looks.
You question if being beautiful helps you to be more acceptable in society.
Of course it does!
We may not like the real world but we are living in it.

SUZY

[Kelly Greene]

Holly
I think it has to do with fear, cders are seen as perverts who are either trying to lurer men into a homosexual encounter or some one who is trying to find a way to attack their wife/daughter. Just think about some of the arguments about glbt rights and the "bathroom" argument against a law guaranteeing gltb rights.

I see the biggest problem as fear, and resistance to change we are societies bad guy and we become accepted society has to find a new bad guy.

[Joann Smith]

I honestly think that society in general views crossdressing as bad because ...we as a group (crossdressers, trans...ect ) do nothing to challange those preceptions...We hide and sneek around lie about it and deny. ..We let the media get away with degrading crossdressers and transfolk.. and assoiate this activtie with all other kinds of perverted acts that in many instances has nothing with crossdressing.

We as a group are in part to blame for our own bad image through our and inaction and shame.

Joann

[robin1991]

honestly people dont think crossdressing is weird(as far i know but yea iam still young :P)
its more the shock they get when they find out and then they just dont know what to do and ignore or go being negative in it
but i do think because of the news and whats in the paper/on the internet people think bad of it of what they see and hear wich is a shame because the news allmost never shows good news
but yea i didnt go outside as a girl yet but i do wanna go try this summer.

and iam really think i will be ok because even when iam walking arround as a boy people think iam a girl lol

[Sandra]

I honestly think that society in general views crossdressing as bad because ...we as a group (crossdressers, trans...ect ) do nothing to challange those preceptions...We hide and sneek around lie about it and deny. ..We let the media get away with degrading crossdressers and transfolk.. and assoiate this activtie with all other kinds of perverted acts that in many instances has nothing with crossdressing.

True to a point, some trans folk are out there and trying to correct things...I'll throw in the way that some trans folk dress. You walk down the street and see a trans person in a short skirt/dress, killer heels made up to the nines, and popping into Tescos lol in other words they stand out, ok they may want to but some in society views this as just not right and tar all trans with the same brush. No doubt some of you will jump in and say I don't dress like that but still have had altercations in the street...IMHO this has probably happened because you have been tarred with the brush.

It only takes a few people to say "did you see this or that" and word gets around, and you get the comments " It's not right, they must be up to no good, they are just plain weird, they are perverts etc" We've all heard it.

When I told my mum about Nigella the first thing she said to be was " well you have no sex then" I asked why she said that her reply was "well they are all the same" my mum knew nothing about trans folk but put them together with the gay community, infact she said well "he must be gay" I tried to explain but it fell on deaf ears. She had been brought up in a society where it was black and white and no gray

Society is very blinkered at times and it takes us a a group to open those blinkers and try to educate more.

Dunno if this makes any sense or not.

[sally silverfox]

Anyone that is different from mainstream society regardless of the issue is immediately suspect.We,not all of us,tend to prejudge people based on stereotypes and ignorance.Our ridgid puritanical history fuels fires of hate and results in many of us being ostasized and persecuted be it our sexual pesuasion,skin color,religion or some other imagained deviation from the "normal".I wish I could be "out" but I must admit I'm not ready for the grief that follows.I applaud those of you brave enough to face these problems head on.

[Sarah Doepner]

Okay Holly, here's my attempt.

We live in an uncertain world. Success in navigating those treacherous waters generally relies on stability and the ability to replicate productive strategies time after time. The ideal expenditure of effort is to find those successful patterns and move through them on "cruise control" so we have more energy and focus to enhance success. When the world becomes untethered in one way or another it makes things difficult. When we have to move off of "cruise control" because what we normally expect has suddenly changed, it can be an irritant. When the change is in a concept as basic as our expectations on the stability of gender, there is a need to come up with an answer quickly. Without proper information, that is the lack of education we have addressed in this and other posts, the explanation is most often, simplistic, reptilian and wrong.

There is nothing inherently wrong with crossdressing. The wrong comes from the responses and attempts to shoehorn it into places that are just plain wrong or misleading. As long as the sight of a crossdresser forces people off "cruise control" and they have nothing factual to base their experience on, anything can happen. So yes, the answer is education and role models that make crossdressing understandable.

[ikthys]

I agree that, when I actually think about it, our "society" doesn't exactly have a big problem with CDing. Sure, it's still not quite used to it and there is some stigma attached, but not necessarily a strong revulsion. However, SO's do have that strong negative reaction. Even ignoring the lies/deception issue, they are upset because they want to have a man as their husband and he desires to present as the opposite. I've heard many CDers say that it's more about presenting female than it is about any particular type of clothing items. Even if the wife feels no threat to her heterosexuality (which she very well may), she is in fact usually hetereosexual and therefore not happy about being married and in bed with someone who presents as the same gender.

[RACH99]

What is wrong with cross dressing?[...] What is it about the cross dressing itself (not the lying, deceit, hiding, etc.) that threatens one-on-one relationships and tears apart families? How have we allowed clothing choices to become so powerful? [...]I am particularly interested in hearing from our Loved Ones who have struggled with this issue.

Oh Holly. I have come back to this thread over and over again. Trying to find the answers in my head and make some sense. But the answers lay in my heart so here goes.... taking the lying, deceit, etc out of it..... There is nothing intricately wrong with cross-dressing that education would not fix IMHO. I know this is a very simple answer to a complex question but that is the only thing that changed my POV. Learning about cross-dressing itself and the people who live with dressing themselves or via a loved one. I truly wish I was a wise woman who could give a very educated answer but I am not a highly educated woman. I'm just a woman who loves her SO and refused to walk away without one hellva' fight to make things right between us again.

I found my own truth about this the long way around because it wasn't offered up freely [I won't go into that right now] I have struggled with the answers to this many times and talked with my DH and the others I have met here and slowly began to see things. I could see my husband again and not some big question mark that I was afraid of. I could see the one I loved best in the world without fear. The unknown being a very scary thing in itself. I learned to face my fears day by day and I found I could "see" my love again because I was once again looking with my heart and not just my eyes. It didn't matter overly much any more what he did or didn't wear. Whether he shaved twice a day or not at all. I saw him as the most beautiful person I know because love sees with the heart and not the eyes.

So I guess the short answer is there isn't a dam thing wrong with it Holly.

[Mimi]

Okay, I'll weigh in with a GG opinion:

Logically, there should be nothing wrong with a man wearing women's clothing or cosmetics, yet it is still a taboo and shocking to many people. Perhaps much of it has to do with the fact that in our society, boys are told from birth onwards that they are not to act like girls in any way--nothing is more insulting to a boy than to be labeled a sissy (the message being that girls are weak and inferior). He is told not to cry, not to play with dolls, and that bullying is just "boys being boys", and to fight back. Okay, I'm generalizing and not everybody raises their boys this way, but it is pretty pervasive in our culture, especially in the past decades. This attitude is known to everybody--girls see boys being told to act a certain way, so they have expectations, and it becomes ingrained to expect the male to present as a male, and if he presents as a female or emulates a female, it goes against everything she's every been taught.

Maybe because men have traditionally held the power in society, they have viewed the idea that a man who would want to emulate the inferior half of the species is crazy, and implies that he is weak. I think Reine's idea that women may be programmed (subconsciously) to look for hunters and providers, not just reproductive mates, is an interesting notion. There is probably a lot going on in our attitudes that are hard-wired into our brains, and were relevant thousands of years ago, but not relevant now. Yet they still linger.

Also remember that in some societies, a woman absolutely would not be allowed to dress as a man, and it has only been in the last century that women in our country could dress in pants. My mother, who is in her 80s, told me how much she longed to wear pants as a child, and was only allowed to on certain occasions, and it was quite a point of contention growing up. So perhaps as a society we are simply evolving, and people will look back on us and wonder how it was that people were beaten up or divorced for simply wanting to wear a dress.

Mimi
Eryn's GG

[Kaz]

We live in a hi-tech, globalised knowledge society and we think we are very clever and superior. The reality is that we are still cavemen - we have not evolved psychologically. So we seek out tribes to be part of. The technology has moved quicker than biological processes do.

Prior to the net, CDs as a "tribe", were disconnectd and therefore individuals out on a limb... now we are almost close to becoming a tribe... this site is a facilitator of this.

Sadly most non-CDs are members of other tribes, and tribes have "values", "rules", all that stuff.

Sadly, CD don't fit into mostcurrent tribes, and when it comes to families and SOs... it is again a close knit tribe...

We are a tribal race at all levels...