Nature or Nurture

[Susan Thomas]

I have always wondered if I would still have the desire to crossdress, if not for a unusual experience as a child?

I have shared my story, several times. I was around eleven and I had never considered wearing girl's clothing. We were on vacation in Ontario, Canada. For some reason, my aunt and uncle thought it would be a fun idea to force their nephew to wear a bra. I still remember being held down as my aunt put a white padded bras on my torso. I was quite upset and began to cry. Eventually they let me take off the bra. Years later, my aunt sent me a picture of a very upset boy (me!) wearing a bra. Most boys would have just laughed it off and that would have the end of it.

After a four day drive, we returned to our home on the west coast. For some reason, I began to be attracted to my sister's clothing. Before long, I was wearing her panties surreptitiously, under my boy clothes. Being only eleven, I wasn't as careful I should have been. One day my mom came home, after grocery shopping. I had lost track of time as I was admiring my silhouette, wearing my sister's one-piece swimsuit. I quickly took off the swimsuit, but it was too late. My mom started yelling at me and asking if I wanted to be a girl. I am not sure if she told my dad or not. Anyway, nothing else was said. I was so frightened, that I didn't cross dress again until I graduated from college. I still had the desire, but somehow, I managed to fight the urge for over ten years.

My abstinence came to an end when I was twenty two. My wife and I were staying at her parents house. One morning, as I got out of the shower, I noticed my mother-in-law's pantyhose hanging up to dry. Before I knew it, I was pulling up her pantyhose over my hips. After the ten plus year hiatus, I found myself in the proverbial "pink fog". I have been cross dressing ever since. I always wonder what might have been, if my aunt and uncle hadn't forced me to wear that bra? I guess that something else might have triggered my feminine side, but who know's?

[Leslie Langford]

Maybe yes, and maybe no, but clearly this traumatic event (at least as you perceived it back then) had a lasting impact on you and unleashed some hidden, previously unrealized desires in you that you had no inkling of before.

That said, it seems to me that the larger issue here is what kind of sadists or sexual perverts your aunt and uncle were to unleash this type of abuse on you?...particularly since your aunt elected to rub salt in the wound by dredging up this embarrasing photo years later just to humiliate you one more time.

[Tracii G]

Everything thing you do is because you choose to do it.
Don't blame something from your past for what you choose to do now as an adult.
Its common for CDers to want to put the blame on things around them because they can't admit they like doing something that isn't manly.

[Tomi]

Everything thing you do is because you choose to do it.
Don't blame something from your past for what you choose to do now as an adult.
Its common for CDers to want to put the blame on things around them because they can't admit they like doing something that isn't manly.

A traumatic event can alter someone's psyche in drastic ways especially at a young age. Theese kind of stories are all over the internet (not just cd stories). And Susan was not trying to blame that event for her behaviour she was just wondering if it triggered the feminity or caused it. I think either one of those could be the case. After a traumatic event the mind wants to survive and stay healthy and one way is to repeat the traumatic event and to associate it to pleasure. That way the mind can resolve the trauma. It's basic psychological mechanism.

[Manna]

I think may be or not be because at this time everyone is free to think and do. But sometime its happened that no one understand you desires or what you think. So i think these things happened just because of lack of knowledge.

[jacques]

hello Susan,
is it "nature" - it is hard to tell. There is something that is a common experience for a lot of us in our childhood that attracted us to experiment.
Is it nurture - quite probably. Most of us experience being brought up by our mothers in our early years; we could not avoid seeing them in the women's clothes and underwear.
Those experiences we had as children create lasting memories, some of which shape our adult lives.
It does seem that once we have experienced cross-dressing it is hard to stop. On the other hand - is that a "bad" thing that should be avoided?
luv J

[GretchenM]

Hi Susan, I pretty much agree with the others in that a traumatic experience can trigger a whole array of reactions. But that happens in an environment of previous experiences and some basic genetic configurations that set a kind of vague outline of who you are. Predispositions are abundant in humans and it has been thought that gender variance behavior begins with triggering some kind of predisposition. But that usually results in a rapid latching on to the resulting behavior in a positive way. But it is possible for negative experience to trigger a predisposition. I don't place a lot of faith in the predisposition theory, but it is possible and there is a bit of evidence for it. That said, the traumatic event triggered something inside of you.

Sometimes, abuse will trigger a change in the sense of self and self image that results in a sense that you deserved the abuse. That results in a seeking of abuse to satisfy some kind of shift in the self image to support that shift. The person continues to seek situations where the negative experience is effectively repeated to satisfy some need that the trauma created. Around and around it goes.

The effects of trauma are very difficult to read and we all react in different ways. Sexual abuse can have no effect, a devastating effect that destroys the person's life, or can drive them to do great things with their lives that they might never have done otherwise. The message is, the brain has a configuration at the moment of abuse that is a summary of all the past experiences in the person's life, positive, negative, and neutral. The abuse then acts on that configuration to change it in various ways that depend largely on the concepts of self that are in place at the time of the abuse.

If you dislike your crossdressing behavior that is likely to become an even more severe problem in the future as it is a conflict that acts like a cancer. If you enjoy it and it does not do significant harm to the rest of your life then managing the behavior while accepting it is the way to go. If it is a negative aspect in your life and in your self image, then I recommend seeking therapy to try and reconcile the conflicts and alter your thinking so it is not a problem and you either accept it as the real you or you personally overcome it. Do not go to a conversion therapist!!! They will mess up your thinking even more and make the conflict worse and potentially deadly. In therapy, you may discover that there were earlier events that laid the groundwork for being gender variant. So many possibilities; no easy answers. But you are obviously conflicted in some way and that needs attention to adjust the trajectory of your self image and your sense of self.

[Paulie Birmingham]

I agree with a lot of what gretchen says. Where we fit on the masculinity scale is part nature, part nurture and part choices we make.

But The act or behavior of putting on a dress is a learned behavior. It is not genetic or nature. Otherwise my wife, her sisters, my co workers, my mothers, etc. Would wear more dresses than the cds around here do. And I know that is not the case.
And I'm sure my wife doesn't feel less of a woman or less feminine bc she doesn't wear a dress every day

[LilSissyStevie]

When I was in the fourth grade my teacher would give us a writing exercise where she would say something like: You have a rabbit, a stick, and coke bottle. Write a story that contains all these items. I've always thought that was a great way to prepare us for the soft sciences like psychology, sociology, history, economics, and etc. We take a bunch of facts that may or may not have anything to do with each other and try to construct a narrative that connects them all in some coherent way. It might be BS or it might be "truth" or maybe a little of both. There are too many variables to know for sure. We have this need to believe we understand our environment. Having said that, I find it very difficult to believe that my emasculation (AKA feminization) fetish is not somehow connected to emasculation trauma I experienced in my youth. It's very common for people to cope with their anxieties and trauma by reenacting them under controlled circumstances. Like the way some people cope with their fear of the unknown by watching horror movies and thrillers, I coped with my fear of emasculation by doing it to myself on my own terms. Another person might cope by enacting super macho behavior. I've done that, too. There is no way to know for sure what is "truth" but it makes a good story and I can stop wondering why.

[Helen_Highwater]

My gut reaction is to say it's as likely to be a coincidence as not. Had the event not taken place there's likely to be any number of other events in our lives that could draw us towards dressing.

Surely the main point is you dress. To think that it might be a single event in early life suggests that there's therefore a cure and in truth there is, just stop. The problem is as many will testify that the desire rarely goes away.

There's of course the parallel that it was a single event that made someone gay and hence they to can be cured and as we know that notion is strongly contested. Perhaps the answer to the quandary is don't worry, be happy, just get on with being you.

[Tracii G]

I agree with Helen don't worry about it and live your life as you wish.
The more you try and find the reason or reasons why you dress the more questions you end up with and have no answer for.
Tomi I think you misunderstood my point.
I have been a member of the trans community a long time and I have seen many people that blame outlying factors for their dressing and can't accept that they just enjoy it. That is what is called the guilt factor and many here will tell you they suffer from guilt over dressing.
That was the point I was making and its OK if you don't agree just don't dismiss my opinion.

[Micki_Finn]

Remember if it’s science, then you need replicable results. There are enough of us that have never had such a childhood experience but ended up wearing women’s clothes anyway to say that you can’t infer a direct causal link. There are many highly trained professionals who have studied this for years and haven’t come to a conclusion so forum speculation is just self-indulgence.

[char GG]

Interesting topic. It is understandable that a traumatic event may have been a CD trigger (and I think the OP's relatives did a horrible thing to a child) or possibly a trigger for some other kind of propensity (shyness, withdrawal, aggressive...)

However, what causes a child to reach into someone else's dirty clothes to try them on? It would seem that the urge is something more compelling than curiosity. I have no idea.

[kimdl93]

As Forest Gump might have said, I think its both. Many have a gender identity issue dating back to earliest consciousness. Others have life experiences (bad or good) that may contribute. Its likely to vary from individual to individual, but its awfully hard to pinpoint.

[docrobbysherry]

Was this the only "traumatic" event in your entire childhood? No bullies picking on u in middle school? No embarrassing events in front of the class or on the playground in your entire youth? I'll bet there were some others!

Now, have u blamed your tendency pick on others on that bully?

Have you blamed your fear of speaking in public on that teacher who embarrassed u in 5th grade?

Blame those odd things u like to do in the bedroom on that 1st date with MaryJo in hi school?

Well then, u can't blame your dressing on that bra event at 11. Because if u were a "regular" guy that would have made no lasting impression on u!

Just as my ex dressing me as a woman for a Halloween event 10 years before I began dressing. It made such a lasting impression on me, I forgot about it until I HAD been dressing for another 10 years!

[alwayshave]

Did the bra incident cause you want to dress or did it awaken what was already there? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, we may never know.

[Tomi]

Tracii G, I didn't try to dismiss your opinion, I was just reclecting on it. Of cource I know all about the guilt factor, I expreriened it myself and still does sometimes. I just thought that it doens't apply to this situatuion because I don't feel blaming in Susan's words I think she just tries to understand herself so she can move onto the "don't worry about it and live your life as you wish" phase, but maybe I'm wrong. Please don't get offended by my repost beacuse it was not meant to be personal. It's just a discussion and I was trying to make a point.

Anyway I think as with everything else it has a genetic and "lifestyle/experience" factor. You can smoke your whole life without getting lung cancer and you can get cancer by never smoking a cigarette in your life. In that sense a single event can be a life changing trauma and can be a little nothing which you just laugh off. It's possible that the reason why I only started dressing at the age of 27 because I never had a trauma like that in my childhood but at the age of 27 I was going thourg a really-really hard time which triggered it eventually.

[Helen_Highwater]

Re-reading this thread made me wonder whether the reason those relatives dressed you in that bra all those years ago was they saw in you more feminine, girly traits.

You weren't aware, conscious of them but the relatives did but their actions were still cruel but perhaps not unusual for the times.

[Judy-Somthing]

I was hooked after my older sister got me to dress up in her ballerina outfit at about 5!

[GretchenM]

Helen has a good point. Others can often sense traits in us that we don't recognize. An aunt of mine who passed away recently and was one of my childhood caregivers (nearly all women and only one man, grandfather) noticed that early in my life. Nobody else did, but Margie did. She never dressed me as a girl, but some of her treatment of me was along those lines. I liked it a bit better than the way others (mother, grandmother, and two other aunts) treated me. That was like a boy and I didn't care for it sometimes. Was it a trigger or a cause? Probably not, but it was a positive reinforcement of the girl-like traits and characteristics I already had. So, it may have been one of many different factors and experiences.

[LilSissyStevie]

Remember if it’s science, then you need replicable results. There are enough of us that have never had such a childhood experience but ended up wearing women’s clothes anyway to say that you can’t infer a direct causal link. There are many highly trained professionals who have studied this for years and haven’t come to a conclusion so forum speculation is just self-indulgence.

This would only be true if there were only one cause for why people crossdress. Science could then discover it. But if a billion crossdressers have a billion different causes, science is no help. There is no randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial that could discover why I put on the frock. As for me, I don't concern myself anymore about why others do it. My curiosity is purely self-indulgent. Gee, imagine a crossdresser being self-indulgent!!!

[Gillian Gigs]

Obviously you experienced something that you consider to be a traumatic event. If it is true to your thinking, then it is true! How people respond to an event has so many variables that trained professionals have giving their careers and lives to the study of the subject. Why does PTSD effect one person one way and another who experiences the same thing at the same time not get affected the way the first person did? I experienced a reoccurring childhood trauma which shaped me into who I am today. Would someone else go the same route? Who knows, head shrinkers make a living at attempting to figure it all out. It may surprise some to know that what you did by wearing your sisters clothing after returning home, makes sense from a PTSD point of view.

Susan Thomas, we are all unique individuals, because of all the things that have happened to us. Don't beat yourself up over it, you can't change the past. Change the things you can change, accept that there are things you can't change, and learn to know and see the differences. I would encourage you to tell your wife all about it, if you haven't done so already. CD'ing is not something to keep hidden from her. You are only as sick as your secrets, and CD'ing is a secret that can cause problems within a marriage if not handled properly.

[NancySue]

I, too, have spent a lot of time wondering if I would?ve dressed if it hadn?t been for my introductory experience. Briefly, I was 6 or 7 and to my recollection, never thought about dressing. Two sisters lived next door. We would occasionally play together. As I recall, one rainy day, we went inside and they decided to play dress up. At first, I was bored. Then they invited me to let them dress me. Part of me thought..no, but part of me said...why not, so I tried on a skirt and blouse, which I found comfortable. (Still do) My traumatic experience happened the instant I put on a pair of pantyhose. I got this tingly feeling. After I went home, that?s all I could think about. From there, things moved to Moms things and I enjoyed dressing more with our neighbor sisters....each time I?d wear more and I let them put makeup on, but I always wore hose. They found a bra, panties and a pair of high heel that fit. I asked them to keep this a secret. No one ever said anything. Mom had lots of nylons and didn?t miss any or at least say anything. Nature or Nurture? Who knows?

[ShelbyDawn]

No introductory experience here, I have wanted to wear girl's/women's clothes for as long as I can remember, 5 or 6, and it has never been sexual just felt right and it was certainly never nurtured in my world.

[Star01]

The first experience I can remember was probably at around 12 when I found my recently deceased step mother's clothes in the attic. I would put on the garters, stockings, slips and that sort of thing during the hour or so each day that I had to myself before my sister came home from school. My mother passed away some years before that and I have had memories of hints that I might have had some of those tendencies prior to that. One time a couple years ago I had a couple days alone and was applying nail polish and suddenly had detailed memories of intently watching my mother apply her nail polish. That led me to believe that the seed had been planted years before that but I ended up an orphan at 14 and would have never asked my father to confirm those suspicions. I'm closing in on 69 now so there is no way to trace those early memories but I think I was born this way.