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Why do people crossdress?
I am currently finding my siblings know I dress and go out in public but have never ask questions of why. I can’t fill in their misconceptions if I can’t answer this myself.
I would start hormones if my wife leaves me but I do not really want to leave her. She does not want me to go out dressed at all and I can’t stop.
So we are in this kind of limbo.I would like to say why I do this so that others may understand. My sister in law has said if she was my wife she would have left me and then been vindictive about it. Like telling everyone she knows aabout it.
I have no idea of the reason I do it so I am hoping that by other people explaining why they do it, I might what ring true with me.
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25 Replies
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I once had suggested a book called “My husband Betty”. I read it and found myself understanding that there is many reasons why we do this. It is like asking how long is a piece of string – it depends!
My wife and I are going through the journey together. She has known since we got together, and now 10 years on is only starting to be fully acceptive. She has always been supportive, but as we mature, she is starting to be accepting to explore us as a loving couple.
I can only suggested that you read the book and get the idea that there is no answer to the questions as too why – it is different for all of us I suggest. You just need to find your place in the world and make it as good as you can. You cannot make people accept who your are, or even understand. If they do not, it is there problem and not yours.
Just keep on smiling and getting on with life – it is way better than the alternative worrying about it.
Claudia
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like you fran i have no idea why i dress……..it worries me that i don’t know.
i know i can’t stop. -
I’m sure that many of us have asked ourselves this question-and often. The answer, or even the need to have an answer changes over time. I now believe (rightly or wrongly) that I am a female id in a male body. I don’t think I was meant to be a woman. I’m normal XY chromosomed. My body masculinised but my brain did not-effectively another version of AIS.
If I’m wrong it doesn’t matter. I identify as female and I’m fortunate enough to live in a society which, even if it doesn’t totally accept me, at least doesn’t send me to jail.
Unfortunately there was no magic bullet, self acceptance comes with time-and more than likely no small amount of pain.
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Hi Fran,
You are indeed between the proverbial rock and a hard place in terms of the people pressure upon you to justify who you are/what you feel you need to be. While for many who have shared a significant part in your life the awareness of change/difference is often threatening and a slow, honest and committted approach to exchange with them will help rebuild upon what they instinctively feel for you and trust in you. I think you can take some comfort in the fact that they all already know and haven’t excommunicated you to date- admittedly, its not the faint praise you would hope for, but neither is it damning. For those that simply sit in judgement of you I would suggest it will be an uphill and questionably fruitful/rewarding endeavour- you can’t please all of the people all of the time…
For yourself, on the opther hand, I suppose there are as many responses as circumstancies allow and are well documented in the commentary we share on TR. My tendancy would be to look towards your own history/experience, not so much that it will reveal an answer but rather it may afford you a larger perspective upon yourself; in a way a definition of your reality as it has emerged. This type existential question never exists in isolation which make simple explanations so unsatisfactory. Professional counseling, while being many things to a range of people, may at least offer you the solice and impartiality of someone to explore your thoughts with- we all tend to retreat into ourselves under pressure and risk not seeing what’s in front of us.
As is often concluded in these episodes the sense of self-worth and self acceptance is your primary concern but none of us however arrogant, can fully ignore that we will necessarily need to find a negotiated peace at a reasonable cost within the otherness that surrounds us. Certainly, we all search for the Helen Boyds in life (author-‘She’s not the Man I Married’) yet even her very liberated sensitivity reminds us of the frailty of our reality.
kind regards,
Sonya -
I agree with Sonya and the others who have commented. There are many factors at work in the formation of a TG world view and a satisfactory ONE answer may not be possible.
For me, I believe that subtle messages that we take in as we grow up , affect us more powerfully than we think. I see it in this way, some people have a traumatic experience or period in their lives ( Grayson Perry for instance, spent his boyhood with an ultraviolent stepfather and believes that he retreated into a girls world as a safe place , away from the tyranny of machoworld. He stays in that world to this day , dressing as a 9 year old character , Claire.)
For the rest of us , it is more like a grinding in of greasy grime, a bit at a time and hardly perceivable as it occurs. By the time we are aware that we think differently to our peers, it is too late. The grime is there and we cannot see where it starts or finishes, we just ARE TG. Counselling and self awareness can give us some ideas of what is what but how can the mind tell what the mind is doing? Bit like trying to lift ourselves off the ground by pulling on our socks!!MY mother had a problem with her own sexuality due to her family herstory and the effects of the Mighty catholic church on our family. She often said things to me like ” you’re not like those other boys” ” you’re too pretty to have been a boy” and more subtle things that spoke of a dislike for male sexuality ( of course she was shocked and hurt when I told her about myself when I was 25)!! While I do not discount an inherent ” tendency” toward TGism ( my siblings had the same mother but they are not Tg though ALL of them have some degree of ” deviant” sexual issues. They had each other as company while I was 9 years later and so was more alone as a kid.)
I spent a lot of time around women and played with the local girls a lot, always in a boy role..nothing wrong with me! and became , as the word originally meant “effeminated”, affected by the company of women. I grew to be interested in the world of women, the things that women like and value and have worked in industries that are mainly for women, the caring industry and hairdressing to name two. I think, like a lot of others, that at puberty, these interests became sexualized and so had a stronger affect on me than otherwise. This side of Tg life is often the “elephant in the room” we don’t want to be seen as weirdos but hey, take a look at the profile photos of many of the members of TR and tell me we aren’t sexualized!! There is nothing wrong with this , we are a sexual species, I am just saying.I also have a strong male side and this makes me a more rounded and interesting person ( I am told by others ), I have a wider insight into other people’s lives and I am happy with the way my life has evolved and the person I am.
I too have wondered “why me ?” and though I have some idea of WHY , I now think more that I am Tg and that is it. In Taoism, there is a saying ” I am THAT I am” This is good enough for me. To know WHAT you are is more useful than WHY you are.
Get on with your life, be true to yourself , be honest and treat others (and yourself ) with respect but let them BE and accept nothing less back, that is the way to be happy IMO. -
You know what? After many years of sole searching, reading and meditation to answer this question, I have come to the conclusion, “I am what I am”.
I do not feel the need to become a complete women, nor do I feel out of place, or out of step with the world. I seem to manage quite well in both worlds. Its just that I prefer, and spend more time, in the, `Femme Fatale” world.
I feel no need to justify this with any-one else in the world, even less with myself. I think I have found my own peace here :sunny: -
This is a point that many people have raised over time Fran, you aren’t the first and most certainly won’t be the last. To give you a couple of answers, I’ll say these few things:
Your siblings are quite possibly not too interested about it, I’ve found that since my journey started (I’m now transitioning remember),people don’t really seem to care. I found that unless you want to go around bragging and so on people just get on with everyday life, that has even been the experience at work for me too.
To comment on liking to know why, I can only offer this: I didn’t ever make a conscious decision about this change in life. When I started on this road, I would say that yes, I did consider myself a crossdresser and that was that. Some people are happy at that point and some go further (like me) but I honestly can tell you that all of this happened naturally for me, I never ever actually said to myself that this is who I want to be in the future. My Mum thinks that it’s a homonal thing due to some other family history and having heard her thoughts on that, I think that it is my best chance of a reason.
If people ask me “why” then I simply say that I don’t honestly know because I just don’t have a solid answer and that is the truth. If anyone wants to further the discussion then they do but otherwise it gets left at that.
Peta A.
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why do I wear female clothes?
Because Male clothes feel wrong – Like presenting as a “Normal” Male is just a big Lie.
I also find female clothes more comfortable.
In reality there is a lot more to it then that but those are the main points for me. -
One explanation of why people crossdress, etc is not to so much look at the dressing aspect of what you are doing but to consider what you are doing in terms of expressed gender. The Western world would have everyone believe that there are only 2 poles of gender male or female, whereas the reality is that gender is a linear expression between the 2 poles and that we all express ourselves along that line. For example you have an outwardly male looking female short cropped hair, jeans, old tee shirt, this places them on the line bias towards the male pole, a male person who crossdresses by the same definition would be bias towards the female pole. If you stop to think about it everyone does this to a varying degree it’s just people who crossdress who are men get noticed more for doing it and that is a society issue, so as others have said and when you are questioned why the simple answer is I am just being me.
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I believe the question is not for our benefit. We have nothing to justify.
As the philosopher said: COGITO ERGO SUM – I THINK THEREFORE I AM
Simple eh! Saves a lot of worry.
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yes, christina – that was descarte (from the 16th century). i think he was followed by nietzsche with “to do is to be”, kant with “to be is to do” and sinatra with “do be do be do”.
and fran – here is a link that may point you to reasons some other people cross dress:
Quote:1. I cross dress because it feels natural, “right”. When I crossdress I’m less cranky and feel stress relief. I feel complete, liberated, content.
2. I cross dress because I enjoy wearing woman’s clothes, with no particular desire to look or present myself as a woman. It’s fun.
3. Woman’s clothes are more exciting, prettier, more colorful.
4. I cross dress because I enjoy feeling feminine – presenting myself as a woman, behaving like a woman.
5. When I cross dress it’s sexually exciting – I get a thrill out of wearing woman’s clothes
6. When I cross dress I’m sexually excited by what I look like wearing woman’s clothes
7. I dress because I feel I really am a woman inside, and I’m just dressing in the clothes appropriate to my gender.http://www.crossdresserheaven.com/why-do-men-cross-dress-a-follow-up/
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and some views from answers.com:
Even psychiatrists have a difficult time with this one. They feel that it starts around puberty, but, some male children will experiment dressing up in say their sister’s clothing and race around the house and turn out to be full-fledged heterosexual males in years to come. Psychiatrists don’t seem to know when it starts or really why and what I am typing out is basically a guesstimate on why men choose to dress up as women:
Cross-dressing is another term for transvestism, and this and trans-sexuality and the association of both with homosexuality are often confused, even by some practising cross-dressers. A typical transvestite would be a man who appears quite normal at all times when he is not cross-dressing. He is not likely to be homosexual, will prefer women as his sex partners and will most certainly not want to lose his penis. In contrast, a typical male transsexual will not identify in any way with his physically normal male body. He believes that he is a woman and is trapped in the body of a man. To him, his penis is a mistake of nature and he will want to get rid of it.
Some men use cross-dressing for the purpose of sexual excitement. It seems that the majority of transvestites are no more likely to go on to trans-sexuality than a social drinker is to alcoholism or an occasional cannabis user to injecting hard drugs. Of course everyone has to start somewhere and there is some evidence to suggest that the longer you cross-dress, the further along the continuum may find yourself moving.
After his initial experiences, the transvestite will progress to one of 3 main groups:
He will stay with the type of garments he first used and have a fetish-like attachment to them. His initial preferences will expand and he will slowly move on to other clothes and finally into the wish to be dressed completely as a woman and to pretend for periods of time that he is a woman, but he will not want to go beyond pretending and will wish to retain his male personality. The third group will fringe on trans-sexuality in that they will live and pass as women for extended periods of time. The only real difference between these so-called “secondary” transsexuals and the full transsexual is that, again, like all the less extreme transvestites, they have no wish to actually be women.
WHY DO MEN CROSS-DRESS? One argument is that transvestism of cross-dressing is a way of offering a challenge to society’s preconceptions about gender. Some men cross-dress because they are unhappy at being men. Others didn’t mind the male state, but also like to put on women’s clothes occasionally. Some men cross-dress simply to make a passing social or fashion statement, and some because they have emotional needs that can only be met by the comfort that wearing women’s clothes gives them.
For many transvestites, cross-dressing is an intensely sexual activity. Most transvestites have their first cross-dressing experience around puberty or in adolescence. The first experience is likely to be sexually exciting and the young person will carry on with the practice. However, transvestism is not just a sexual variation. There have always been plenty of men who get a sexual thrill from cross-dressing, but the accepted view of most experts in this field now is that these are not the majority. Sex, particularly with other people is not the main reason why most men cross-dress and will masturbate because they, themselves, are the ideal woman, and the man no longer has to fear rejection, criticism or disappointment which might come with attempts of intercourse with a woman.
Cross-dressers usually will do this in secret and enjoy when the wife and kids leave the home. They have their day planned! They will even go so far as to shave off body hair, take a hot, perfumed, bubble bath, and dress in something silky. Many males will masturbate (why not … they are male, yet feel like they are a female at the same time.) However, many cross-dressers just enjoy the feel of certain materials against their bodies and go no further than to dress as a woman. More and more cross-dressers are “coming out of the closet” and if lucky, their wives will accept the way they are as long as they keep it private and away from friends and family.
Most cross-dressers are private about it and THEY ARE NOT USUALLY GAY.
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when i started crossdressing when i was a kid it was alittle bit me being jelouse and after i got over it, it started to feel right.
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I first dressed at the age of 10, I wore tights and it felt so natural, however it made me want to wear dresses and more. I started dressing seriously in my early 30s and the more I dressed the more I wanted to dress. This led me to dressing more seriously and enjoying the sexuality and femininity of dressing. I felt guilty and the remorse through ‘never do it again’ was always there, yet the desire always took over and came back stronger. I no longer question why I dress, I know its an integral part of me and feel my life is more satisfying because I dress. The feelings of guilt no longer exist.
Helen xxxxxx
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Hi,
Pity , the human allways asks, why .
The fish have fins & they use them it does not ask why , the whale has this big tail & uses that as well, does the whale say or ask why , no,
yet we ? our selfs why do i do this or that may be we like doing this or that or may be we are so wired from coneption ,we ll do it any way ,
we are bothered by what we do that we feel giulty when we express our selfs in a way that is normal or right for us , Time we took off this westen thinking & just be who we are . simpile well it is , its just we go back to the ? why .
I belive its time we stoped the ?? s & just accepted who we are , enjoyed what we have & tryed living instead of having to ?? all the time ,
Oh the word acceptance we sort of lost that along the way ,time to find it & imbrace it because we need that if we wont to really live,
…noeleena…
