Good question Cindy. I'm more confused now than ever .
Good question Cindy. I'm more confused now than ever .
So the funny thing is that this community has a unique sense of identity. If you ask the LGBTQ community, they will say we are just a part of the trans spectrum. Within the gay community “crossdresser” usually refers to straight men who dress in women’s clothing for sexual kicks. So it really comes down to how you identify. If crossdressing is part of your gender identity, then yes, you would absolutely be part of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. If you dress for kicks, then probably not.
Cindylouho,
The dressing part to most TGs is a visual indicator of how they feel inside , gender transition is fairly broad not everyone takes hormones or are capable of taking them and not everyone will go onto GRS . A member who I had great respect for but no longer visits the forum accepted she socially transitioned , she later told me she couldn't take hormones because of other health issues evenso she was accepted as a female major in the Canadian armed forces .
I consider myself "trans " or a "transwoman " as I go out full time as Teresa . Wearing male clothes now feels like crossdressing because it doesn't feel right .
At one point I didn't feel part of the LGB community because I'm not gay but if we need to fight the trans cause we have to join forces otherwise the trans community will struggle to be heard , most of us started as CDers but as some of us move forward we can encounter more problems with society , can we afford to ignore the LGBTQ banner ?
Last edited by Teresa; 11-27-2020 at 11:01 AM.
Just to simply this. Cross dressing itself is a behavior, so a person who wears the clothing of another gender is cross dressing and a cross dresser, just as a bicyclist is a person who rides bikes. Its more a matter of degree that kind. I can ride a bike, but I am not a committed cyclist. Some people may enjoy dressing occasionally but not strongly identify with it. And there are others, like me, that have been drawn to womens clothing as a way to express some inner sense of self. That would, in my view, put me and others who feel the same on the T spectrum.
Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Cindylouho,
The current body of thought, by those who make it their business to understand us, is to define gender dysphoria rather than force one into (or out of) a particular "box" like transsexual. To quote an article from the American Psychiatric Association's web site, "Of note, not all people who are transgender will desire all domains of gender affirmation, as these are highly personal and individual decisions." The real trick, I've learned, is to understand one's self enough to know, really know, where you're comfortable on that spectrum. Undiagnosed and untreated gender dysphoria can manifest in many ways, many of which will not be associated with gender issues at all.
Calling bigotry an "opinion" is like calling arsenic a "flavor".
I'm pleased so many of you were intrigued by my question. I asked it not on a personal level, but more of a chicken and the egg follow-up question to this thread. I might have made a full transition were I born in a different time in a different circumstance but I'm wasn't. Under the circumstances I'm in I'm very happy, maybe that will change in the future maybe not I'm not worried about that. My point really is if a person cannot transition for whatever reason they should still be accepted as being transgendered even if they haven't actually had GRS or HT after all this is how they truly feel inside. Just my .02.
Be the best you, be the true you.
That said, I love faceapp so much I change my avatar daily
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0MYEWpv7Ue0RFVaE/html5
Kim hits the main point of it. Cross dressing is a sufficiently socially inconvenient if not outwardly proscribed behavior that I think few of us would engage in it if it weren't for a strong inner drive. That inner drive, regardless of whether it is toward transition or not is sufficient to align us within the Transgender spectrum.
If any one on this board is a trans person looking down their nose at cross dressers or a cross dresser looking down their nose at trans people, please STOP IT! In our unity and our loving respect for each other lies our strength.
I am a vessel of the goddess. Let me express my calling to a feminine life through nurturing love and relatedness.
The whole 'labelling' thing has alwaysleft me cold. So what should we do? Add a C into the mix?
LGBTQAI+C?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Additionally ... if this website is for crossdressers (only), what are all the other people who are not, stictly speaking, crossdressers doing here?
Another can of worms opens. For what reason? To what end?
Get real, folks! This website is for the provision of mutual support, not division. We are all somewhere on the spectrum and it does not really matter where, as long as we can honour each other.
Last edited by GaleWarning; 11-27-2020 at 04:19 PM.
This question (or something similar to this) comes up a couple of times a year. There is lots of discussion but it appears there is no right or wrong answer. Some people like labels and others don't want to be labeled. The debate will probably continue.
Not to split hairs, Helen, but it would seem to me that this line of thinking is more along the lines of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"...a tenuous and forced alliance at best, with the main commonality being that the LGBQ and T camps are both minorities within the hetero/cis worlds and to some degree are threatened by the same kind homo- and transphobia and violence that is often being visited upon all of us for being "different". Kind of like the forced alliance between the Western Allies and the Communist Soviet Union during WWII in order to defeat the Nazis, and look how well that worked out in the long run.
The LGB group is defined by the fact that that theirs is primarily a sexual orientation issue. For us, it is a matter of gender orientation, and as for the transsexuals and the "Q" contingent it is often a mixture of the two. Drag queens are almost exclusively homosexual, claim that theirs is an "art form" and an alternate style of entertainment, and that they derive no particular enjoyment or erotic arousal from their female impersonation activities. We CDer's, on the other hand, feel an innate mental connection with GG's and a deep-seated admiration for the way they look, act, and approach life as a whole. Ours is an act of attempted emulation and homage to the feminine lifestyle (a form of "method acting", if you will), and not one of presenting an over-the-top caricature of women as many drag queens do.
The truth of the matter is that most gays don't "get" us and feel no particular affinity towards us beyond the fact that we are both marginalized societal outliers. Kind of like that pesky little kid brother or sister who always tries to tag along with their older sibling and is usually unwanted, but always underfoot. In both cases, whether we as individual groups thrive or not - or are able to stake out our rightful place within society at large - depends primarily on the good graces of the hetero/cis majority. That is often tenuous at best (opposition to same sex marriage, infamous "Bathroom Bills", anyone?), and often depends on which way the political winds are blowing at any given moment.
Last edited by Leslie Langford; 11-27-2020 at 08:35 PM.
From my observations of our local LGBTQ group, and my own reading. Even trans people (despite the "T" in the designation) are often not welcome. This seems especially true coming from many of the more militant Lesbians. Their argument being that trans-women get all the good of being a woman and do not have to suffer the bad. YMMV.
It depends...
ppl dress for different reasons. I think all fall under T+ which to me is anything that is not CIS. There's a war being waged around the word "transgender", both sides having valid points but ultimately futile since only you can identify you.
So....
if you feel you are, you are
if you feel you aren't, you aren't
In my city, most CDs go out and about in the LGBTQ part of the city. We feel safe there. I guess that the idea behind the LGBTQA+ community is fighting for inclusiveness. I believe they support CDs regardless on which letter we are in the acronym, and we support the community, either because we feel we belong to it, or at least we understand, and sympathize what they are fighting for. We all suffer prejudice and bigotry.
I like your comparison to riding a bicycle Kim. It is not an either/or kind of thing. Sticking labels on things and defining them narrowly is a synthetic way to catalog things, but it rips out individuality. And Aunt Kelly you comments are also right on.
I agree Char. This is a subject that comes up often and I agree the discussion of this subject may be never ending because, perhaps, there is no clear answer. On the other hand, sometimes the questioning and learning other people's views on the subject is much more important than finding a precise answer. You can paddle a canoe to get to a particular place or you can paddle a canoe just for the sake of paddling a canoe and seeing what ever you can see in your journey to nowhere in particular.
Gretchen,
Interesting analogy and I agree at one point I paddled my canoe round in circles now I have a definite destination .
All I can say is that the LGBT... community at large has been very accepting of my dressing in bars and clubs. For that, I am very grateful. I do not think I would have ever gone out so many times without their positive influence.
Sandi
Growing up in San Francisco in the 70s and 80s this was a much easier question. The answer was always "yes". The LGBT community was for all those who fell out of the mainstream. Clearly we do.
It seems that as the years go by there appeared people who were not satisfied with an amorphous overview of the LGBT community. For whatever reasons decided that there needed to be definition and boundries and pigeon holes. They didn't ask US if we were happy with the way things were. They needed to control their lives and to do that they needed to control the narrative of the community.
This asking of who fits where does more to divide the community and fracture the movement ( such as it is) than to help. It wasn't until relatively recently that I even knew this was an issue.
When I go to a Lesbian bar I'm one of the community. When I go to a straight bar I'm one of the community, if anyone even notices. If I go to a gay bar I might run into some problem. In that if I let myself be picked up....I'm one of the community. If I'm there to socialize with my friends, then while I'm a member of the community to my friends, I might not be to the men whose attention I turn down. Just as a straight woman in a straight bar might be called a choice name if she turns down male attention. The ONLY time I really have issues, and it depends very much on the group, is when I'm with other TG/CDs.
Generally we get along, but every once in a while we get that "nazi" type that demands everyone "fit" into a neat catagory..."Oh, and btw YOU are NOT one of us".
It's why I generally hang around with Straight and Lesbian GG's.
I'd say fitting into the LGBTQ spectrum would depend on the reasons for dressing. I'm not gay, don't identify as a woman and don't dress to appear to be a woman so I don't fit into any of the initials of the group. Obviously, others here do. It's not all inclusive for the members of the forum. Decide for yourself.
It all depends on WHY you cross dress, now doesn't it? Crossdressing is not what a person is, like a Transsexual, Homosexual, etc. it is something someone DOES--and for various reasons. A person who cross dresses because he identifies with the opposite sex is does so for a very different reason than a Heterosexual who sees CD as a fetish or an erotic Humiliation/SM device. Still, the best Standard definition of "a Crossdresser" is a Heterosexual who wears the clothing of the opposite sex----For whatever reason. As Non-Heterosexuals Cross Dressing is something they may DO as a consequence of their atypical Sexuality.as a coping procedure or sexual identity thing. LGBQ is a different "animal", so to speak, as far as CD is concerned, than the Heterosexual CD.
Last edited by MarinaTwelve200; 11-28-2020 at 08:40 PM.
I think that a Straight Man who likes and sometimes wears Women's clothing, jewelry, etc. most likly does Not fall into the LGBTQ group. Suzih