Reine, you know that I know that there are many stripes of TG people and that I have real life CD friends that I adore, so I am in no way coloring the whole of the CD community with my pretend paint brush. ;-)

Having said that, let's not pretend that there's not a whole lot of pretending going on around here. I mean come on, "I'm having mood swings", "I'm having male PMS", "I like to pretend I'm a woman during sex", "I like people to call me she even if they read me", "my fem side likes to dance", my fem side likes to cook and clean", "my fem side speaks with an accent", and on and on. Let's please not act like we don't read this stuff over and over. This is the truth.

There's just nothing wrong with it, that's all. Grown men spend crazy amounts of time playing in fantasy sports leagues, pretending to be owners or managers or whatever and some men pretend to be women, or sissies, or babies, or animals. Many BDSM practitioners literally pretend to be bound, when everyone knows they are one safe word away from being free. Pretending is an integral part of play and no rational person can argue that crossdressing isn't a form of adult play.

Now, owing to the quick to get offended nature of internet forums, I need to state again that there are plenty of CD's for whom this does not apply. Some men truly identify as something "other" and their cross dressing is an expression of something deeper than play. Based on the thousands of posts I've read in the last 3 years, these people are in the minority.

To Kristy and my other TS friends, this pretending discussion doesn't apply. The OP addressed CD'rs specifically and besides, TS people don't pretend. They live out in the wide open world and the only pretending I do, is pretend to be an executive at work. If someone would like to challenge my assessment that TS people live authentic rather than pretend lives, I would be happy to do that in another thread.