Hi, Reine! Excellent question, one I've often pondered. Like you, I'm somewhat dissatisfied with explanations such as "I like the clothing", or "It's a stress reliever."
"I like the clothing (because of the colors, texture, etc.)" doesn't explain why someone likes them. The vast majority of men in this world don't like women's clothes, would be disgusted by the idea of putting them on. So what makes CDers different? Where does that liking come from?
As for stress relievers, most men in this world would never dream of putting on women's clothing to relieve stress. There are so many other stress relievers: you can get drunk, run a few miles, go the ball game, watch a good film, etc. So what makes some men turn to women's clothing?
Or a statement like this:
This doesn't explain why a guy might find putting on women's clothing a turn-on in the first place. Most men wouldn't find it such.Originally Posted by Wildaboutheels
So I, too, am dissatisfied with these explanations because I don't feel they go deep enough. Here's my current working theory:
My dad's family is/was a musical one. I know of five people in his family who were quite gifted. My sister, however, would only have qualified as competent at the piano until she eventually gave it up. My dad and I both tried playing instruments for a while until we gave them up for lack of any real talent. My son enjoys music tremendously, though he's never even considered trying to play any himself.
In other words, my dad's family got bitten by the "music bug", but we got bitten to varying degrees. I believe that TGism is like that: you can get bitten by the "TG bug", but some people get bitten worse than others.
We all know the degrees of TGism: you have those who transition, those who live full-time in their preferred gender without transitioning, those who live a great deal of time in their preferred gender but will revert to their role assigned at birth when necessary, those who get out and about often enough in their preferred gender but live primarily in their role assigned at birth, those who dress in private for varying amounts of time, and so on.
What I've learned from this forum, however, is that there is a big divide between MTF's who identify as female (at least to a certain extent) and those who identify as male. All of us feel an attraction to things female. That's the common bond among us. But whereas some feel so strong an attraction as to wish to transition, in others the attraction is relatively weak--so weak that they still identify as men. From what I've seen on this forum, I think we might use this as a tentative definition of a CDer: one who dresses as a woman, but identifies as male. (This definition might have to be tweaked a bit, but I think perhaps in the main it will hold good.)
So in order to explain CDers, you have to explain transpeople in general, and scientific research is taking some steps in that direction these days. But when a cause (or causes) is/are identified, a remaining task will be to explain why trans tendencies are more pronounced in some people than in others. I'm not sure that will be easy. How do you explain why one member of a musical family has (sadly) so much less talent than others?
I'd be interested to know if you have any evidence to support this assertion. I personally would be extremely surprised if this were true.
This is part of your "visual theory" of man/CDing, which also leads you to claim that there aren't any blind CDers, which, besides being rather cruel, is also unsupported by any evidence, as far as I know.
That's because those of us who dress more modestly don't post photos. I don't wear granny dresses myself, but I do tend to wear fairly long skirts and flats. My clothes aren't just clothes: they're part of me and my life. Just like my bathrobe and decidedly un-sexy nightie and slacks I wear on a walk: who's interested?
Best wishes, Annabelle
