Different Crossdressing Styles

[ReineD]

These all seem to be lumped together as crossdressers or transvestites.

I agree, these terms are a catch-all for a number of different CDing motives. The issue is further complicated because even the intensity of motives can fluctuate or change, either depending on mood or during the course of a lifetime as the barriers that make CDing difficult are removed. The term "crossdresser" is misleading as well, since it implies the gender barriers are only crossed by "dressing" and do not affect internal gender ID.

Also, the accepted theory is that gender ID is not tied to sexual preference, yet I've read countless threads here from TSs who say they were interested in women before HRT, and in men afterward.

I also have a difficult time knowing the difference between someone who identifies as a CDer but who wishes to present full time as a full-on woman, and someone who is transsexual. How can someone who says they identify as a guy, not wish to ever present as a guy? Isn't the desire to no longer live as the gender assigned at birth the same, whether or not someone chooses to have SRS or calls themselves "TS"? Maybe people have different definitions of "TS", and this is why they identify differently while doing the same thing. There are people who have low libidos or who are asexual, or who do not have the money for SRS, or who otherwise naturally have low testosterone levels (as they age for example), or who have medical problems, or who don't differentiate between being orgasmic as a male or a female (perhaps they consider their penises to be a clitoris), who would be quite content living life as a woman full time without having SRS.

Although there will be variations, these are the major groupings that help me to loosely classify where people are at with all of this, keeping in mind that all except the last (and some of the members from the first) fall under the "Transgender" [TG] umbrella:

This list describes M2Fs only, and excludes those who dress strictly for show, such as some Drag Queens.

• Transvectic fetishist, or fetish CD, or fetish transvestite [TF or FCD or FTV]: Someone who dresses for sex only, does not otherwise wish to wear female clothes, and does not otherwise have a feminine gender ID.
  
  
• Pure crossdresser or transvestite [CD or TV]: someone who likes to dress as a woman, not necessarily for sex, but who identifies solidly as a man. He may go out looking like a guy who wears women's clothing (no makeup, wig, or forms, etc), or he may want to fully emulate the "look" of a woman when he is dressed.
  
  
• Bigender [BG]: Someone who identifies as, and feels like a woman when dressed, and solidly as a man when not.
  
  
• Dualgender [DG]: Someone who always feels a mix of both genders internally and who dresses accordingly depending on whether it is the maleness or the femaleness that is at the forefront on any given day. IMO this is the most difficult state to define, since the scale here can be very wide, and the degree of feminine presentation perhaps can vary. I also would classify Androgenes as fitting in here (loosely and generally speaking of course :p).
  
  
• Transsexual or Transwoman [TS or TW]: Someone who thinks of herself as a woman and who has no desire to live her life as her male birth assigned gender, whether or not she plans to have SRS, or whether or not she is on HRT.
  
  
• Woman: A post op MtF TS who has no regrets about switching gender (although she may regret various losses along the way) and who has fully integrated into her new life.
  
  
• Between each of these categories, there can be, BGQ (questionning bigender), DGQ (questionning dualgender), or TSQ (questionning transwoman or TS).

(Caveat: It can also be sexual for a crossdresser, bigender, dualgender, transwoman, and woman and this does not mean she is a transvectic fetishist.)

I'm sure my list will expand or change as I continue to learn about this.