What do you consider yourself?

[Jessie]

Straight - or that is what my theropist tell me.

[Alexandra]

I stun a lot of people when I tell them I'm straight. People shouldn't ASSUME, and that includes individuals from both sides of the aisle.

PS: I voted "gay" in this poll just for the heck of it just as some of you voted "straight" for the heck of it too! !

27 "straights" vs 0 gay? I don't think so.

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

I voted straight, but only because I am. Laff. It does however get tiresome being asked if I am gay, or people just assuming I am because I am transgendered, and having to tell people I am not. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Cindy Barnes]

Straight,,,,,but with some lesbian tendancies :-)

[Jamie Ann]

     This is not as straightforward as it might seem.  I was married for 15 years and have never dated anyone who is not a genetic female.  On the other hand, in my geographic location, a significant proportion of the CD’s are gay, and going out for a glass of wine typically means going to a gay nightspot.  Since I am perfectly comfortable in such settings, I responded “bisexual” in this poll, but a better response for me (if it had been offered) would have been “comfortable with any sexual orientation.” What a person really is could be interpreted in terms of internal comfort level or in
terms of actual behavior.

     On the http://www.trannyweb.com site, the breakdown of responses when I checked was:

Straight:     27.4%
Bisexual:     46.5%
Gay:           5.6%
Don't Know:   20.3%

Clearly, those on this site are a much more homogeneous group than those on the other site.

[Kersten Lee]

Hi,

It sounds as if Elizabeth has had some experiences, such as I, that many people assume cross-dressers are gay. Or such as Alexandra that some would propose that cross-dressers cannot be gay.

Cindy Barnes, I have felt for years that, had I been born with a physical female body, with my mind, I would have been lesbian. Is it possible that more of us feel lesbian and that in turn offends SOs. I have read so often how the SO and also my wife say that they do not like the feeling of being lesbian when being intimate with us as woman.

My wife, when able to let go, has enjoyed being intimate with me as Kersten. It could be that having your man dress female is hard enough to handle. Could us acting or being or feeling like a woman and then to want to make love to our SO, cause some women to feel lesbian when they have no such need or want.

Could the more successful marriages at integrating our need to present female have women partners that can accept a certain amount of gender variation or bias in themselves?

Don't respond. I am going to move this to How we feel section.

Kersten

[Alexandra]

If this poll is indeed correct, it says a lot about this forum -- meaning it attracts only hetrosexual CDs and discourage others from wanting to partipicate.

This, IMO, is a bad thing -- it makes the forum more of a private club than a reflection of society.

Perhaps its time for a self-evaluation. Do we have a fair and balanced forum here? The survey says no.

[DarleneM]

I don't think people are hard-wired to be attracted to a certain chromosome pair (XY or XX). I think we are attracted to certain qualities that are not perfectly correlated with chromosomes. There is at least the faint possibility that someone who calls themself "heterosexual" could be attracted to someone of the same sex. When crossdressers insist up and down that they are "pure heterosexuals" I think they might be trying to convince themselves. I know a CD who is always insisting, "I don't have a gay bone in my body."

I chose "heterosexual" because I am attracted to my wife who is XX and has beautiful qualities. It is the qualities, not the XX, that make her special.

[Kersten Lee]

DarleneM,

I like your explaination.

Kersten

[Vanessa]

No one is 100% anything these days wether its fantasy or real life. I guess you could say I am straight but we have a tendancy to roll play with Bi sexuality. As long as you both have fun in your realationship and you dont do anything to hurt your partner, I see nothing wrong with what you do behind closed doors.

Van

[Gwen]

I have to vote bisexual as I am interested in having intimate contact with same sex partners. Boy is that misleading!

I've been married a long time and when me and mine were much younger, we joined in on the swining lifestyle. This was in NY / Long Island. While I've never had a one on one relationship with another man, I have enjoyed a few 3somes/4somes with my wife where I was actively enjoying some minor (?) contact. Only oral and it was basically it's in your face so why not type of thing. We used to have very energetic get togethers at that time. The last occasion was about 30 years ago. As we've matured (ha!), we've discussed our mutual attraction to others and I think it's quite easier for my wife to be attracted to other women, than I am to other men. I don't happen to see and desire males, but given the right person and the similar situations I was in earlier, I wouldn't be uncomfortable with MM contact at all. It's just not my major preference in a sexual relationship but it's always hard for me to say no. I might be cheap but I'm easy too...

We met a couple about 5 years ago that claimed they were bi, but when we got into a late night conversation, their idea was strictly MM & FF with no hetero contact at all. Hmmmm. Something is drastically missing from the picture. And before anyone asks, no, we are not afraid to admit to ourselves what our personal interests really are. We just prefer to be turned on to humans. Well, at least some of them.

[TamaraSegunda]

Folks who simply look at the poll results shouldn't take it as the whole story. I posted a reply several days ago, but like a number of others, I declined checking any of the poll answers. I agree with Jamie Ann about comfort levels vis-a-vis orientation, and I'm in sync with Cemarian who doesn't like labels. I shout Brava to Alexandra who likes to keep everyone guessing, and give props to Darlene who understands that there can be degrees of intensity in all sorts of feelings. Love to all of you,
.......Tamara Segunda

[DianeCD]

Straight --- always have been. Just more in touch with my feminine side, as most of us are!!

[Oregon (SO)]

Hi,

I know this is the cd section, but I wanted to interject some things that I have learned about the community and about the wives of this community.

First off I think that this forum is an absolutely wonderful place for cd's and their wives to come and share and talk. I think in most cases this board is a wonderful resource for a woman who just learned (her hubby is a cd) and is looking to learn more about the community. I run a womens only group on Yahoo. And just as I strongly feel that cd's and their loved ones need a place to talk freely, I also beleive women should have a 'wive/girlfriend' only space too. There are literally hundreds of yahoo groups, message boards, chat rooms ect that cater to people who just want to talk about sexual arousal, meet-up and hook-ups, and turn ons, ect.

This board really makes a HUGE efforrt to promote acceptance, not only personal but among the gg's who visit. Yes there are fun sections (and I love fun too) but having a place to talk about the tough issues is very important. So I recomend this list for any woman who asks me about a good clean safe mixed forum. Minus all the sexy lingerie shots and graphic sex talk.

Now, on to why my post here is relating to this question being asked. I know that if a person is bi-sexual that does not necessarily mean they are going to be cheating or unfaithful. But the truth is guys alot of women who are married to bi-sexual men do not know this. And let's also not kid ourselves here either and say that ALL bi-sexual guys will not have extra-,martial affairs. I just found another crossdresser message board yesterday (mostly be accident) and there were hundreds upon hundrends of guys seeking encounters with other crossdressers, not to mention admireres as well. And it is also very safe to admit that most of them are not doing so with an enthusiastic wife cheering them on.

Getting 'real' here the bottom line is finding out that your husband is a crossdresser after many years of a vanilla marriage is a shock for most women. Now taking that even further and finding out that although not 'gay' your husband has bi-sexual attractions as well is an even bigger shock.

Many women will then just completely shut down any possible 'acceptance' now for sure fearing that their bi-sexual husband will not be able tstop himself from living out this 'ultimate' expression of womanhood or dabble in any same sex liasions.

I am not saying that this board shoudl turn away any crossdressers who consider themselves bi-sexual or even gay for that matter. Because if any woman decides to educate herself about this community she will learn that there are plenty of gay and bi-cd's. Totally shielding her eyes from the realities of this community should not be done either. But if you go into a situation that scares the heck out of you ( a list full of only gay and bi-cd's, those looking for encounters) without knowing all the facts, snap judgements get made. Again, any chance for some acceptance gets smaller ans smaller.

I cannot tell you how when many women find out about their guy, they go to the computer and start typing in the few words they know to describe what this all means. And guess what they come up with, page upon page of sexual related websites and vainty sites. Finding support from the gg's point of view is like trying to find Osama.

But I can almost guarantee that if this list turned into the one I saw yesterday the gg membership would dwindle down for sure.

So yes this board is very one-sides in many ways. Het cd's are the majority. Having a place where gg's can come to read about others experinces and learn more I think is something that is very very rare on the net.

I know some of you are not married, maybe you have wives who are not accpeting to even learn about this. SO you dont' know becuase you have never actually had to look from a gg's perspective. But trust me, finding a list like this is a rare GEM!

Please know I am not anti-bi-sexual. I am pro-honsety. Being bi- is not a negative thing and I know plenty of couples who have been able to find ways to work that angle in their realtioship without ever incorportating a third party. So, that is not the problem I have with bi-sexuals. My problem is when you have a wife who knows nothing about her husband being a crossdresser and even less about him being a bi-sexual and he is advertising for sexual encoutners and what not.


Do you gals who consider yourselfs bi-sexual (who I am assuming are not being unfaithful) understand why I am glad this board is a bit hetro-heavy?

I know some friends of mine who are bi-sexual have said to me, well being hetro-does not automatically make a person more likely to be faithful. And I am not saying that either. But again, getting 'real' here... how many cd's have found gg's (like myself even) lurking around trying to hit them up... trying to hit up all those married straight guys for wild sexual crossdressing encounters????

Hugs
Katy in canada

[TamaraSegunda]

Dear Kathy:

I think most of us here are well aware of how scary it is for a woman to find that her husband has an urge to dress/act/talk/think like a woman. Of course her first thought is the fear that her husband is gay. Any woman knows that much of the reason she tries to make herself beautiful in the way that she does is to attract a man, so why would your husband want to put himself through all that torture unless he was trying to look pretty for someone. Believe me, we get that.

From everything I've read and observed, the percentage of cross dressing men who are gay or bisexual is not much different from the percentage of the general male population who are. MTF transexuals are a special case, and you're familiar with all the arguments over whether they have gay impulses, or if their legal, heterosexual marriage was the real homosexual union.

Although I don't know for sure, I suspect that the numbers of crossdressing men who are unfaithful to their spouses is probably pretty close to the numbers of the general male population who are. If anything, I'd guess that CDers are more faithful than most, but I may be projecting my own experience onto others. What I do know is that a few minutes on the Internet, visiting sexually-oriented "matchmaker" sites could easily make you think that the whole world is running around looking for illicit affairs. That's a distorted picture, but it's one that Google can easily paint for you if you type a few words into its Search window.

I hope everyone realizes that the vast majority of us who are married are very sensitive to the fears and feelings of our spouses. Having said that, however, I hope there's no reluctance to welcome our brothers and sisters who, though gay or bi, face a lot of the same coping issues as the rest of us, and whose challenges are clearly even bigger than for those of us whose sexual orientation is more like the majority. I know a lot of gay men (my adult son is a gay man) and I can assure you that the general gay community is not a welcoming place for crossdressing gay men.

I know a lot of straight crossdressers are quick to say that there is NO similarity between being CD and being gay, or even that they have NOTHING in common with gay people. I can't articulate the specifics, but something in my gut tells me that's wrong; we do share some common thread, no matter how thin it may be, and we can learn from and help each other. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that whoever it was that devised the original poll here knows that, and was looking (as we all are) for answers about why in the world we are the way we are. No one is beating the bushes trying to recruit gay or bisexual men to this site, but I hope no one would wish to discourage those who do come here by whatever route.

Love and respect,
.......Tamara Segunda