I loved your post! And I enjoy your writing style .. very pulp fictionish. Welcome to cd.com!
You opened my eyes big time! I've been plugging along in this forum believing that to "crossdress" means to emulate a woman. Judging by the majority of posts and pictures in our Gallery, I can say this is definitely the case for most of our members here. There's a lot of talk about lingerie, breast forms, makeup, tucking, being pretty, etc, whether or not it is a fetish. We do have a few well-loved and respected members here who do dress like you, but because they are so few in numbers I always assumed that the main purpose of crossdressing, for most CDs, was to appear as a female rather than to simply do as the term suggests, wear skirts or dresses as a man. I did assume our male-appearing members were on the fringe, and I honestly didn't consider their or your style of presentation as crossdressing.
To me, if a man who presents as a man is wearing a skirt, then he is wearing a man-skirt whether or not it is purchased in the ladies' department and he is, therefore, not crossdressing. It is also my opinion that if the gender issues were taken out of the crossdressing (if men who wear skirts did not attempt to emulate women), then society at large would not have as big an issue with it and man-skirts would eventually make it into the mainstream like the Scottish kilts or Southeast Asian sarongs.
I have read posts from other members who said their only reason for wanting to look like a woman was to be able to wear dresses and skirts in public and not experience any issues, since men in skirts are not well accepted. But then, men who transform their gender appearance aren't well accepted either (I should think even less), so I always took these explanations with a grain of salt .. as a justification of sorts, because the CD in question did not want to admit to having gender issues. Up til now, my definition of a crossdresser (save for the few here who wish to present as men wearing skirts) was a man who experienced gender issues to a degree, although the degrees vary depending on the individual.
I went to this site and poked around a bit, and I was further surprised. There are many men out there who just like to wear skirts, and who don't feel compelled to appear as a woman in order to do so. Several of the members on the site explain that they also started out believing they were crossdressers, but eventually realized they are men who wish to present as men who wear skirts. These men further said that in their opinion, if society allowed men to wear skirts, there wouldn't be as many men who questioned their gender and perhaps there would be fewer crossdressers who wish to present as females. I was dumbfounded!Originally Posted by meri
I wonder how many of you there are, and how many men at cd.com would give up emulating women if the man-skirt or the man-dress concept were to be embraced by society. I also wonder what is the line between appearing as a man or a woman. Is there a distinction among the members at skirtcafe.com between a man who wears a basic, black or navy A-line skirt with sober flats and a man's shirt, and a man who wears a frilly, sparkly dress with bangles , drop earrings, gauzy scarves, and pink six inch heels, even if he does not wear makeup, wig, or forms?
