Have you ever wondered!

[Wendae]

I posted this on another forum and wondered if anyone had ever put any thought into other folks feelings..

Have you ever wondered how it must sound to someone that has no understanding of transgendered folks when you tell them you are a crossdresser? The usual questions follow... are you gay? Do you want a sex change? Etc. Think about it! Hey, I'm gonna get all femmed up! Why? Because it makes me feel relaxed. I feel good, smell good and am looking fine! So tell me again why you want to leave the house all femmed up? I need to get out. I feel trapped. I want to pass! Why? Looking for a date? If you don't pass do you want your butt kicked.? Get ridiculed? How do you think your friends and family are going to view this behavior?I ask myself these questions all the time and as dumb as it sounds I still have to do this thing. I'm a great grand father, 70 years old, retired military and married 46 years and I still feel embarrased asking to do these things. I constantly ask my self why and the lure of cosmetics, nylon and visual feedback trumps all else.The pink fog settles over me and Wendae arises from this hairy, age ravaged body for a few hours of pleasure of being someone else.

[April Rose]

I was talking with my wife on this same general subject last weekend. It occurred to me at the time that I had no logical defense to offer. It's completely a feeling thing. I suppose, in that regard, there might be more women likely to understand cross dressing, than there are men. At least when it's done by someone they are not in a relationship with. The most logical, or at lest, sensible thing I can say about it is that dressing as a woman seems to put me in a favorable alignment with my libido. I am both relaxed and energized at the same time. This is fertile ground for imagination and pleasure.

[Absaroka]

well they say the only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask.

I ask myself how friends and family would feel about this. It's a reasonable question to ask about any activity. Since the answer is that they would likely feel uncomfortable about it, I don't involve them. The questions of are you gay, do you want a sex change and so on should be asked if someone doesn't know. What is difficult is some people don't accept the answer, especially when the answer is no I just like to wear a dress.

As to why these clothes attract us, consider this. Vast sums are spent on advertising clothing for women. If nothing was accomplished by this, the money would not be spent. There is SOMETHING about womens clothing, be it art, sex, theater, playfulness. Consider the incredible anguish that so many women, especially teenage girls, go through when the clothing doesn't look like they way it does in the advertisements when they themselves wear it.

The lure of womens clothing is incredibly powerful. Just go shopping with a teenage girl and see what it does to her. Grown women spend years, not to mention sometimes vast sums on therapy, coming to terms with what women are supposed to look like, and what they are supposed to spend to have the clothes to achieve that look. It gets called self esteem issues, but often it's just about socialization. And we, as men, just because someone told us so, are supposed to be immune to all that?

Why do you think Playboy has a whole line of magazines devoted to women in lingerie? So guys can look at the lingerie with a woman in it.......Why do most girly magazines usually show women wearing SOMETHING? It's the clothes........

A better question might be why don't more men like to play dress up. But then we come to that funny little statistic, that when approached as a sexual fetish some 10 % of men have experimented with this. We just don't talk about it. And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that something can be simultaneously sexual and also about something else.

My whole post of course is about crossdressers. For folks who really are the oposite gender in the "wrong" body, then maybe your 2nd question, do you want a sex change, is the most important question.

Personally I don't want a sex change. This is about liking being a man, and feeling that I am a man, not a woman. But from a crossdressing perspective, in my case a minor issue, I wouldn't want a sex change because if I was a woman then dressing in mens clothing would be boring due to the lack of mystique.

Wendae I think you have asked excellent questions. I can't help but wonder, however, from the tone of your post, if the question not expressed is isn't there some way I can stop doing this, or should I want to stop doing this enough to be able to stop, or simply just how weird am I?

Zari

[Carol Ann]

Wendae,
Good question and believe it or not I have been sadden many a time by locals who love calling you a fagget and want to tar and feather you.

Honey I have had more good times then bad times but it comes with the style of liveing.

As for since the age of 14 when my mother got her head wrapped around my dressing and gave in life has been wonderful and an understanding and supporting wife makes it even better.

Wendae it is me and I can say it's who and what I WANT to be, a happy crossdress who enjoys life and just love to dress everyday and look good well at least best I can. I don't have any answers and when I am knocked down I get back up hold my head up and keep on trucken as Carol Ann.

[Andrea(Wa)]

I do not "have to wonder", I know...and...my-oh-my!!!
Yes I do some CD every day, but that did NOT cause the problem!
Years ago I "confided" to my oldest daughter that my wife was "TS".
That was a VERY dumb thing on MY part!
NO questions were ever asked, the "news" spread very quickly...
We were put into the "gay" box!!!
...that "blacked flagged" us to all of the family!
It has taken years, 13 now, to begin to "overcome" that!

What is the saying...."loose lips sink ships".....indeed!!!

I'll never make that mistake again!!!

[Anthony Simon]

I've replied along these lines to another post somewhere...

There's a thing in me I call an "ache for feminity", which means I love to submerge myself in women's stuff sometimes. Like I can get in a certain mood when I'm out just wandering around the shops and a longing comes over me when I see particular clothes. And people sometimes notice that because, I guess, that feeling is all over my face - so I've learnt to control it, not have it come to the surface in local shops where I don't want to be known.

In that sort of mood, what I really want to do is wander round in some women's clothes shop, immersing myself in all the stuff there, and then buy something. But, funnily enough, when I'm actually in shops buying stuff, that mood doesn't seem to come out. It's like the wanting to do it, but no being able to, that creates the ache - the longing.

I know when I'm dressed up, the feminity kind of takes me over, so my face moulds itself into a sort of womanly look and my movements get more delicate. That seems like a letting myself live out the wish to be submerged/immersed in feminity in that it kind of creates a new persona.

The other side of this is when I see a woman in the street sometimes - and they have all kinds of little moves, women, and this woman makes one of those moves and it just creates that poignant ache - like a desire for something you can't have, that sort of ache for feminity.

[Wendae]

Zari......Wendae I think you have asked excellent questions. I can't help but wonder, however, from the tone of your post, if the question not expressed is isn't there some way I can stop doing this, or should I want to stop doing this enough to be able to stop, or simply just how weird am I?

I just want to go to Never Never Land and be Wendae where we are all accepted.

At a session with my therapist I mentioned that if my wife wanted to crossdress that I would have a problem with that. It's wierd that I would expect her to accept me without voicing dissaproval or not being able to handle it and that I couldn't. I have no problem with women that do crossdress and had one working for me at one time. I guess it's the same with women that as long as it's not someone who they are in a relationship then they can accept it. Guess this makes me a hippocrit.

[Stephanie H]

Wendae:
We will continue to as these questions and we will never be able to give others an answer that does not offend them or upset them.
Life is ours to enjoy and to be selfish about.

[Anthony Simon]

As to why these clothes attract us, consider this. Vast sums are spent on advertising clothing for women. If nothing was accomplished by this, the money would not be spent. There is SOMETHING about womens clothing, be it art, sex, theater, playfulness. Consider the incredible anguish that so many women, especially teenage girls, go through when the clothing doesn't look like they way it does in the advertisements when they themselves wear it.

What teenage girls go through in this is somewhat like what teenage boys go through when they realise they don't have suitably, mature, powerful male bodies. I mean the sort of thing the Charles Atlas/bodybuilder ads play to. I mean it's an anguish about not being that image of mature adult masculinity/femininity (depending on whether you're a boy or a girl).

It does seem like girls/women are more prone to this - hence, I guess, the bigger industry - but both men and women have tremendous pressures on them to conform to the "right" body image. But I guess I'm making your point in that the boys/men don't have anything like the sort of obsessive concentration on clothes that girls/women do.

The lure of womens clothing is incredibly powerful. Just go shopping with a teenage girl and see what it does to her. Grown women spend years, not to mention sometimes vast sums on therapy, coming to terms with what women are supposed to look like, and what they are supposed to spend to have the clothes to achieve that look. It gets called self esteem issues, but often it's just about socialization. And we, as men, just because someone told us so, are supposed to be immune to all that?

It seems that, for many, ?most women their identity is mediated through the clothes. Like how they present is deeply connected to how they dress. Not so for men, whose identity tends to be most linked up with their job with clothes not inordinately important. It seems like women's clothes bear a great weight of gender-specific identity. Something that men's clothes don't.

I used the word "present", for how women mediate their identity through their clothes and said it is not so for a man. But if a man puts on women's clothes his identity is absolutely going to be mediated through these clothes. I'm guessing this is because women's clothes carry such a weight of feminine identity. Thus a man wearing them immediately pushes his identity much more towards the female zone.

Why do you think Playboy has a whole line of magazines devoted to women in lingerie? So guys can look at the lingerie with a woman in it.......Why do most girly magazines usually show women wearing SOMETHING? It's the clothes........

A better question might be why don't more men like to play dress up. But then we come to that funny little statistic, that when approached as a sexual fetish some 10 % of men have experimented with this. We just don't talk about it. And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that something can be simultaneously sexual and also about something else.

If you dress up in women's clothes as a man, you transgress. You immediately bring yourself into the zone of "not a man", or at the very least, less of a man. For that's the cost of pushing one's male identity much more into the female zone. You say, effectively, there is something that matters to you so much that you're willing to put your social identity as a man in doubt. It's a scary, scary, powerful force to make you do that - both for you and for others. I know I spent most of my life wishing it would go away.

My whole post of course is about crossdressers. For folks who really are the oposite gender in the "wrong" body, then maybe your 2nd question, do you want a sex change, is the most important question.

Personally I don't want a sex change. This is about liking being a man, and feeling that I am a man, not a woman. But from a crossdressing perspective, in my case a minor issue, I wouldn't want a sex change because if I was a woman then dressing in mens clothing would be boring due to the lack of mystique.

I think "mystique" is an excellent description of the centre part of this.

Wendae I think you have asked excellent questions. I can't help but wonder, however, from the tone of your post, if the question not expressed is isn't there some way I can stop doing this, or should I want to stop doing this enough to be able to stop, or simply just how weird am I?

Zari

For me "transgression" just about covers this. But with the additional element, now, that I feel I have to go into it - like over the bridge of the "trans" - properly and see where it goes.

[Anita]

Anthony Simon wrote:

It seems like women's clothes bear a great weight of gender-specific identity. Something that men's clothes don't.

It seems like this is one explanation for why women can wear men's clothing without sacrificing gender I.D.--men's clothes don't have as much to do with male gender identity. But women's clothing have a lot to do with female gender identity.

Thus a man wearing them immediately pushes his identity much more towards the female zone.

It's not at all equal. Women have to dress almost 100% male, including male haircut, to set off gender alarms. All a man has to do is wear one obviously female item, and he's branded.

For that's the cost of pushing one's male identity much more into the female zone. You say, effectively, there is something that matters to you so much that you're willing to put your social identity as a man in doubt. It's a scary, scary, powerful force to make you do that... -

That 'scary, powerful force' is what gets CDing and trans activity labeled as 'sexual,' whether it is or not. Because that's the powerful force that people are most familiar with. Sex is also intertwined with gender, so that's another reason to think that all gender variance is motivated by sexual feelings.

The other side of this is when I see a woman in the street sometimes - and they have all kinds of little moves, women, and this woman makes one of those moves and it just creates that poignant ache - like a desire for something you can't have, that sort of ache for feminity.

That ache had been with me all my life; I remember being five, and seeing the movie Cinderella. That ache was there. When I got older, it got confused with sexual feelings, and for a long time I could make it go away by just having a girlfriend in my life.

That worked for about 30 years, and then it began to not work any more. The ache was about 'something else,' and I had to go cold turkey on having girlfriends for it to begin to show itself for what it was. I saw that I was going to have to start CDing again, which I had deliberately not done at all.

But just CDing in the bedroom would not make the ache go away. That's partly why I knew I was going to have to go out--I wanted to get rid of that longing for femininity that couldn't be satisfied. By going out in public, I did satisfy it, and it was amazing to have 'solved' that particular problem. It was something that no amount of thinking or talking about could remedy.

That is why I have said that presenting a gal self was as amazing as if I'd learned to fly. The scary bit for me is that there is still some part of me that is not reached or relieved by part-time dressing. That is the part that would transition, and that's just not feasible at this time.

[Anthony Simon]

Anthony Simon wrote:

It seems like women's clothes bear a great weight of gender-specific identity. Something that men's clothes don't.

It seems like this is one explanation for why women can wear men's clothing without sacrificing gender I.D.--men's clothes don't have as much to do with male gender identity. But women's clothing have a lot to do with female gender identity.

Yup, I would have thought so.

Thus a man wearing them immediately pushes his identity much more towards the female zone.

It's not at all equal. Women have to dress almost 100% male, including male haircut, to set off gender alarms. All a man has to do is wear one obviously female item, and he's branded.

You have the Annie Hall look, where Diane Keaton is dressed male, but the clothes are too big for her. So it comes across as affectionate and unthreatening for the male. In a way it sets off the gender alarms only to reassure that there was no problem. Perhaps that's the source of its attractiveness.

Another example is the Darryl Hannah, mermaid, character in "Splash". She has one scene in which she goes out in Tom Hanks' clothing but comes across as gauche and endearing because the clothes don't fit her properly. She ends up in a department store where the sales lady specifically makes the connection to Annie Hall. So this looks like a problem that has been worked out on the female side through movies, to some extent.

For that's the cost of pushing one's male identity much more into the female zone. You say, effectively, there is something that matters to you so much that you're willing to put your social identity as a man in doubt. It's a scary, scary, powerful force to make you do that... -

That 'scary, powerful force' is what gets CDing and trans activity labeled as 'sexual,' whether it is or not. Because that's the powerful force that people are most familiar with. Sex is also intertwined with gender, so that's another reason to think that all gender variance is motivated by sexual feelings.

The thing about the argument we're following here is that it suggests an alternative, testable thesis to the one that says CDing is about sex. If Absaroka is right that "it's about the clothes" and the necessary corollary is that's because women's clothes carry such a weight of female identity, then CDing is about identity not sex. You should be able to devise proper scientific experiments to determine whether that's right. If it proves to be so (or to a large degree so), then you have quite a powerful tool for changing both social and psychological attitudes to what we do.

The other side of this is when I see a woman in the street sometimes - and they have all kinds of little moves, women, and this woman makes one of those moves and it just creates that poignant ache - like a desire for something you can't have, that sort of ache for feminity.

That ache had been with me all my life; I remember being five, and seeing the movie Cinderella. That ache was there. When I got older, it got confused with sexual feelings, and for a long time I could make it go away by just having a girlfriend in my life.

Cinderella is a two way split. It both about a girl who wants to be a princess and about any individual who is denied full expression by the powers that be. It's so complicated when it comes to people like us, though.

Like I really wish I could be a girl (or a woman). But, on the other hand I quite like being a man. So then what I would really like to do is actually be a woman - and I mean physically be a woman - part of the time. And then go back to being physically a man. This is known as having your cake and eating it, or, as Wendae puts it, never-never land.

But the thing is I'm a very frustrated person and part of that frustration is not being able to express my powers in the world. I have come to the conclusion that I really need to write stuff out of the female side of me and try and get results from that in the outside world. To that end I dress up and try and get myself into "she" as much as possible. But the end is not so much that I want to treat me as a woman as I want people to listen to my stuff and it to go in - and I think I need to "go female" for that.

That worked for about 30 years, and then it began to not work any more. The ache was about 'something else,' and I had to go cold turkey on having girlfriends for it to begin to show itself for what it was. I saw that I was going to have to start CDing again, which I had deliberately not done at all.

With me, I keep getting sucked into an aggressive, male, fight everything in sight way of thinking by my interactions in the outside world - and it playing havoc with my internal workings. I went to see my dentist last Friday and she basically told me to sort myself out (she's great, my dentist). So I've decided to forgo these sorts of interactions - which are just creating unbearable levels of stess for me. The corollary is that I have gone into the CDing in a way that I'd never gone before. As a compensation? As a way of holding up two fingers to the male, aggressive world? Other? I just don't know.

But just CDing in the bedroom would not make the ache go away. That's partly why I knew I was going to have to go out--I wanted to get rid of that longing for femininity that couldn't be satisfied. By going out in public, I did satisfy it, and it was amazing to have 'solved' that particular problem. It was something that no amount of thinking or talking about could remedy.

While I have certainly wished my desire to CD would go away, I wouldn't say I have wanted to get rid of my longing for feminity. Maybe you just go through life without having satisfied certain things - even vital things - but I just think feminity is such a beautiful thing that it's kind of worth that.

That is why I have said that presenting a gal self was as amazing as if I'd learned to fly. The scary bit for me is that there is still some part of me that is not reached or relieved by part-time dressing. That is the part that would transition, and that's just not feasible at this time.

I wish I knew just how this is going to play out, or what element the dressing up is going to play. It's not at all clear to me. I know I am edging more in the direction of going out as a woman. But, even with that, it feels like there is a series of bridges and hurdles to negotiate. So I don't know how comparable our positions are going to be.

The worry about flying for me has always been someone taking a mallet to my works so I come down to earth with a convulsive great smash from which I don't recover. My conversation with my dentist has convinced me that I'm just going to have to take the risk. It scares me to think I might have to identify myself, internally, as a woman to write stuff that gets me noticed by the outside world - fly in that way - but that seems to be where I'm going.

[Anita]

Anthony Simon wrote:

If Absaroka is right that "it's about the clothes" and the necessary corollary is that's because women's clothes carry such a weight of female identity, then CDing is about identity not sex.

You should be able to devise proper scientific experiments to determine whether that's right.

I would hope that you could, because it would at least draw a hard line for a certain percentage of people’s experience. It might only be a small percentage, but it would have some verifiable studies behind it.

Like I really wish I could be a girl (or a woman). But, on the other hand I quite like being a man. So then what I would really like to do is actually be a woman - and I mean physically be a woman - part of the time. And then go back to being physically a man. This is known as having your cake and eating it, or, as Wendae puts it, never-never land.

I would think that even men who never felt any of this frustration might be fascinated with the ‘blue pill,’ the one that would let you switch for a day and then bounce back. I’d be really interested to see what percentage of men would do that if it were safe and routine.

But the thing is I'm a very frustrated person and part of that frustration is not being able to express my powers in the world. I have come to the conclusion that I really need to write stuff out of the female side of me and try and get results from that in the outside world.

Ah, you’ve touched on what I call the ‘dark side’ of my reasons for bringing out my girl self. As a male self, I had a lot of abilities that I was never able to fully use. If I had been able to access that power that I had as a guy, I would have never expressed my femme I.D. in this way.

But I couldn’t express it as a man, and the power was still there, eating me alive. I was headed for a bleak future, and I saw a way to stop the train—a whole new self that could ‘own’ that power in a different way. I bought women’s clothes, and I’ve never looked back.

To that end I dress up and try and get myself into "she" as much as possible. But the end is not so much that I want to treat me as a woman as I want people to listen to my stuff and it to go in - and I think I need to "go female" for that.

Thousands more people saw my music in 8 years as a girl than had ever heard it for the 30 years prior as a guy. It’s partly the novelty, and it’s partly that the power came through in that ‘different’ way.

With me, I keep getting sucked into an aggressive, male, fight everything in sight way of thinking by my interactions in the outside world - and it playing havoc with my internal workings. I went to see my dentist last Friday and she basically told me to sort myself out (she's great, my dentist). So I've decided to forgo these sorts of interactions - which are just creating unbearable levels of stess for me. The corollary is that I have gone into the CDing in a way that I'd never gone before. As a compensation? As a way of holding up two fingers to the male, aggressive world? Other? I just don't know.

It is a definite statement to men on my part. I’m saying, “You can see I’ve laid down my weapons. Won’t you do the same?” Because we’re making ourselves about as vulnerable as we can be, doing this. Emotionally, I'm wide-open when I'm presenting as a woman.

While I have certainly wished my desire to CD would go away, I wouldn't say I have wanted to get rid of my longing for feminity. Maybe you just go through life without having satisfied certain things - even vital things - but I just think feminity is such a beautiful thing that it's kind of worth that.

I thought that I would never satisfy that longing, and I was OK with that. I realized it represented a price I didn’t think I could ever pay, so I didn’t even think about it.

Quite a shock to later find out that I was willing to pay it, no matter how high. I can see that few people ever get to experience change that radical by their own choice, and I'm glad that I got to see what that's like, to go through it and come out on the other side.

The worry about flying for me has always been someone taking a mallet to my works so I come down to earth with a convulsive great smash from which I don't recover. My conversation with my dentist has convinced me that I'm just going to have to take the risk.

I was very worried about this, for about three months. I was flying, and it felt like this could not continue—someone or something was going to intervene, and put a stop to it. I kept waiting for the hammer to fall, but meanwhile, I kept going out and learning how to navigate. I came to see that I was the only one who was going to pull the plug on my femme self. No one else had that kind of power over me. I speak from a personal position, though—no employer, no spouse, no grown kids to shame me into stopping.
I don’t know how I would have handled that kind of pressure. I didn’t have to. I did handle the pressure from society itself, and there's no way to gauge that from the outside. It wasn't as extreme as I thought it would be.

It scares me to think I might have to identify myself, internally, as a woman to write stuff that gets me noticed by the outside world - fly in that way - but that seems to be where I'm going.

Yes, you'd be 'coming out,' by acknowledging that you'd rather write from a woman's perspective. You do have a 'safety zone,' in that you don't have to commit to female appearance out in the world. You may dress femme for yourself, to access your internal girl self. And the world will know your writing as femme, but they don't have to see a woman in front of them for that to happen.

It’s two ways—you’re on your own out there, Anthony. At the same time, you have a wealth of support and road maps available here.

[Anthony Simon]

Thanks, Anita. We'll see and we'll see and we'll see. I'm such a b*stard when it comes to writing road maps. I'm always determined to write my own. Which doesn't stop it turning out to be a variant on everybody else's, in the end. But at least I wrote it and I know it to be about me. So then, if I'm lucky I get to be me and get the support too.

If I'm lucky....

[Absaroka]

Anita you are fond of saying that cding is a way of saying "I've laid down my weapons, won't you do the same". But I wonder if societies perception isn't more along the lines of "I've gotten new weapons that you are unwilling to use, so I have an unfair advantage" Hence the fear we can inspire.

I liked what Anthony and you said about the blue pill. It's alway seemed to me it would be fun to switch back and forth at will. I think similar feelings are pretty common, hence the whole idea of a secret identity. But the truth about people who can transform, found in books like Self Made Man or Black Like Me, is that the ability to transform can sometimes make people crazy by revealing far more of the truth than they can cope with.

Zari

[Anita]

Zari wrote:

Anita you are fond of saying that cding is a way of saying "I've laid down my weapons, won't you do the same". But I wonder if societies perception isn't more along the lines of "I've gotten new weapons that you are unwilling to use, so I have an unfair advantage" Hence the fear we can inspire.

Absaroka, that seems true. It could be one reason why I go out of my way to put on the charm in the best way I can. It's to reassure folks that I'm not going to use that unfair advantage, whatever it may be.

It really goes back to Wendae's initial questions:

Why? Looking for a date? If you don't pass do you want your butt kicked.? Get ridiculed? How do you think your friends and family are going to view this behavior?I

People can't come up with a motive for all of this. Certainly not right on the spot the first time they hear about it, or meet one of us.

Sometimes I can sense the relief that people feel when they see that I'm going to be "normal," and they can talk to me just like they would anyone else.

Anthony wrote:

I'm such a b*stard when it comes to writing road maps. I'm always determined to write my own

(Anita grins) Well, in this game, you'll be forced to write your own, whether you like it or not. It's like riding a motorcycle--no one else can go along to teach you, when you're learning. After you get better at it, then you can take a rider along with you. It's something like that, anyway.