What does it mean to you to be a Crossdresser?

[Grace]

Hope's reply belongs in the Gallery of Great Posts. I've rarely seen our life experiences so simply and accurately put.

Well done!

Grace

[Gwen]

I think Joanna has reflected my feelings more closely than Hope. Hope is way more experienced and sounds like there have been many major crossroads in her life that I just haven't had.

Right now, it's all about the fashion and the feminine feel. I just can't seem to get all femme when dressed though, (voice change, femme walk, etc.) I just love the feel of a short skirt, well, just like Joanna says. It is very sexual and I'm okay with that and so is my SO. Not that it can't go anywhere, I'm not trying to avaod anything. In fact, I wish it were possible to dress with someone else once in a while, just for companionship. Or to make the opportunity to take a drive sometime. Maybe those are the crossroads I'll need to meet up with!

I love everything in crossdressing. ... moisturizing my body, the scent of makeup products when doing my make up, feeling the bra around my chest, my profile wearing a tight sweater,my breasts moving when I walk, the softness of my underwear, the gloss of my pantyhose.....etc,etc. Many many reasons, as you know ladies Of course CDing has a more profound meaning to me. If Joanna can´t express herself on a regular basis, my life gets miserable. Crossdressing is something that makes my life worth living.( Of course there are other things too)

Joanna

[Kersten Lee]

Hello friends,

I am a strange duck. I have had no problems writing here. I have looked at the Photo Gallery a few times to see how my friends appear. I felt a voyeur and somehow wrong.

I finally got brave and posted a few of myself. My wife has known I wanted to post a few for sometime. She sized a few for me to e-mail to friends, but did not know I would put them here for all to see. After posting mine, I spent hours looking at all the wonderful girls. I now thought it was ok to look at all of you in your real worlds.

It is so amazing to me how beautiful you all are! I have not looked at every picture yet but will.

I am writing here to say that my wife was on the computer last night. I walked up and brought my pictures up for her to see. She has never wanted to participate here and her response was unexpected. I was fully dressed last night and we sat together for an hour looking at the pictures.

She too, was amazed how beautiful everyone was. What touched her was how feminine all of us looked. As she looked at all of you she could see the happiness in everyone. There is no sin.

I think there may be a chance that at some time she may go out with me as Kersten. My wife said it may be possible. She would have to consider the idea more, rather than just say never.

Being a cross-dresser is about pain and pleasure, goodness and evil, happiness and sadness, acceptance and rejection. All of you by sharing intimate pictures, (windows into your souls), You have shown the pleasure, goodness, happiness, and acceptance of who we are.

Thank-you all, for showing my wife me!
Love,
Kersten

[Lorna]

Being accepted for the first time in your life. Being well treated for the first time in your life.

People spit on Rick, but worship the ground that Lorna walks on.

[Phylis Anne]

Hi Tristen,

I agree. Being transgendered allows me to be free to express the feminine and masculine sides of who I am. This is an expression of myself and so I feel really good about who I am when I'm thinking about dressing, dressing (which these days doesn't mean hose, heels, and makeup), thinking about my last dressing episode, sharing my life experiences, or reading others. I guess that encompasses a lot, but my lifestyle means the world to me because it's self-acceptance.

Great thread Tristen. Thank you so much for posting it.

Beauty

i also agree this is a wonderfull question for all of us .and for me it frees me from the bounds of one sex.

[Kyra]

My wife said it may be possible. She would have to consider the idea more, rather than just say never.

Wow Kersten! That's totally awesome!
Kudos to your wife. It's so wonderfully refreshing to see people working through difficulties rather than just give up and throw in the towel.

I hope you get your wish one day. BTW- I saw your pics, too...very nice indeed.


My take on being a Crossdresser pretty much echoes what Hope said. Coming to terms with oneself is not an easy task (CD or not) I'm definitely on the right path, but as yet, I see no destination. And sometimes I wonder... Do I really need one?

Just my ramble.
Hugs,
Kyra

[Elizabeth]

Hi girls,

I also agree this is a great thread. Thanks Tristen. I found that I have had to give this a great deal of thought. Crossdressing has meant so many things.

I have two lines of thinking here. The first one is, what crossdressing meant to me. And secondly, what it means to me now.

Crossdressing used to mean being afraid. It meant feeling ashamed. It meant hiding stuff. It meant living in secretcy. It meant feeling like a freak. It meant promising myself and others that I would not crossdress. It meant purging, only to give in to the desires once again, than feel ashamed and start the cycle all over again.

It meant never being able to live as an honest person because I was living a perpectual lie. No matter how hard I tried to be honest, I still has this huge lie, about the very nature of who and what I was. It meant living as a person I made up, to pretend to be a man. It meant that no matter how well I did, what I accomplished, I still hated myself. I hated that I was so weak.

That it what it used to mean to me. Before I finally decided to face this. To utter the words "crossdresser" and "transexual". To tell everyone I knew, to start living as the person I feel I have always been. To accept that my marriage was doomed, not just because of the crossdressing, but for many other reasons too.

And when I did all that. When everyone knew. My kids, thier friends, my friends, my relatives, I was set free.

And that is what crossdressing means to me now. It means living as a free person. I dress full time now. I don't really relate to my male identity, except in my relationship with my fiancee, wbo has totally accepted me. It means being free to not care what anyone thinks of me. To truly accept myselt, and love myself. To finally really love the person I am. To accept that I will never know why I am this way, but still does not change the fact that I am.

Crossdressing has meant one more thing. And this may be the most important of all. It has allowed me to be a part of this great communifty of human beings from the casual crossdresser to the post operative transexual, we call "Transgendered". I am proud to be a part of this wonderful, intelligent, and misunderstood community of people. My sisters, I love you all.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Ralitsa]

I resurrected this thread from years back, because I see some things in it that I can relate to, and I thought maybe others would enjoy revisiting this subject too.

The part I like most is:

And when I did all that. When everyone knew. My kids, thier friends, my friends, my relatives, I was set free.

I went through a messy divorce, which I think was not related to my CD, but it was the excuse she used. She tried to hold me hostage with it, to blackmail me really.
Back in those days I didn't accept that I was a crossdresser, I was "just a normal guy who likes womens clothes more than mens". Of course I realize now that this is in fact what crossdressers are. I still don't like the idea implied by the term crossdressing that the clothes I wear are "not right" or "for someone else". You have all seen the web sites about men's fashion freedom, and skirts for men, and all that, but I don't really relate to that either. To me it's not about men's fashion, or women's fashion, but only about my fashion. I don't like being pigeon holed, if I see a dress that I want to wear I will wear it, and I don't feel that it's necessary to consider who is supposed to wear it, I only want to know if it fits me.
Crossdressing is not something that I do, I think instead the clothes that I wear reflect who I am. They do not make me a woman, nor do I feel like I'm a man dressing like a woman. I am a person who likes these styles and wants to wear them. The fact that these styles are associated with women though, is not insignificant. But I don't like all women clothes, and won't wear most of the things that women now wear. Much of what women wear I think is ugly, and what young women wear may look good on them but is totally inappropriate for me.
So what crossdressing really means to me is freedom. Freedom from the dictates of society, freedom from blackmail, freedom to make my own choices, and freedom to express my personality in my clothing.

[Paula G]

Thanks for finding this, very interesting thread. In many ways I think it has all been said, what does cross dressing mean to me? right now it is a release, bizarrely enough it feels like a safe haven from the pressures of life. At the moment I am comfortable with my dressing, unfortunately my wife isn't, so opportunities are rare and precious. So in a way dressing is a stolen pleasure, no longer a guilty pleasure.

In the past dressing was something shameful, something to be hidden and lied about. While I enjoyed the experience I felt as though it was a perverted occupation, that I was some type of "nonce" I was ashamed and kept my dressing hidden and concealed. If I went out it would be after dark, in quite places dressed in a highly inappropriate manner. Occasionally I would be overcome with guilt and purge everything, only to later then go and replace the whole lot at great expense.

I no longer fear exposure for myself but I know my wife would be mortified if it where generally know about. I do now know and understand that this is not something I do but something I am. This is not a lifestyle choice, if it were I think my choices might be different, as it is, it is something that will not go away so I am finally reconciled to making the most of it, enjoying every opportunity and letting Paula out in the daylight.

[Anne Bonny]

Personally, there is something that is different about me, at a very young age deep down inside I was not as aggressive as other boys, and secretly I was interested and excited about girl's clothing. I related to girls perhaps because I had two older sisters, my brother was not around, my father was away alot, and I was a moma's boy. Because of my Asthma, and because I was very shy and over protected because of my health some part of me related to girls. My father was in the military so we bounced around the country every 3-4 years having to uproot and start over which is very difficult - you have to make new friends so socially I kept to myself and was frequently surrounded by women, my mom, my sisters, my grandmother, my sister's friends - there is an element of nurture and socialization but Nature played a part as well with my shy and passive disposition as the youngest sibling I was the baby of the family, I sought to be good.
But what does being a crossdresser mean to me... It was a secret nobody knew but me. I grew up very aware that If I were ever caught the consequences for me would be extremely humiliating and embarassing and that I would endure extreme anger and my life would be forever changed and beyond recovery as my parents and family would never think of me in the same way ever again. Hence I lived covertly, secretly hoping to be alone in the house, adept at calculating and or discovering how much time I had. Knowing where outgrown girls clothing was to be found or with extreme care observing exactly how a piece of clothing was folded and placed in a drawer, or hung on a hanger, even if taken out of a box in the garage. Though finally about 1999?? when I told my wife, when I came to accept that this is not something I can change about who I am try as I might, prayer, purging, abstenence for weeks or months - all unsuccessful. So we all have to accept who we are in the end.

I would say Crossdressing means to me that part of my gender is indeed female and I relate to some aspects of being a woman. Even though I do not relate to conceiving, bearing, giving birth, and childrearing with all those instincts women naturally possess - never the less I am partly feminine and cannot change that part of my make up or personality. It means I have had to live my entire life having to suppress nearly half of who I am, it means to be accepted by society in general I have not been free to be who I really am. When you think about it this is an extreme outrage practiced by unrealistic social mores, customs, and beliefs. How Tragic we are not child molesters! Nearly all of us are heterosexual (nothing wrong with being who you are if homosexual). So we are persecuted into a black hole and shut away through derision, ostracized, made outcasts. When you think about it all it is rediculous - what harm does expressing some female traits and prefering female clothing do to anyone? I suppose children might get the wrong idea that it is acceptable, and might arrive at the correct concept that gender can vary from person to person even if thought to be out of sink with one's sex.
It means we each have to face the world as best we can either continuing to show one face to the world, while keeping who we really are private, or we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, damn the torpedos, accept the dirision and prejudice and face the world as a pioneer, a pathfinder bravely daring to live openly to everyone and thereby ending our suffering victoriously!
Choosing to live openly to be who we are is as difficult as accepting who we are but I would say that is the last barrier we face as a "crossdresser" and perhaps we should drop that lable and just tell people - Hi, my name's "Anne" or "John"(as desired), how are you?

[FrancineBrice]

Cross Dressing to me allows me the freedom to get in touch with my feminine side and experience the feeling of how it feels to be dressed feminine. It is one thing to dress feminine but to experience how a female goes through each day dresses feminine is a wonderful feeling. Experiencing the feeling of having larger breast and of wearing a bra, feeling every movement that a female feels as they go through their normal day allows me to understand more about the female mind and what their body feels like. I am simply a person who enjoys getting in touch with their feminine side and enjoy the feeling of wearing the many feminine articles of clothing a little better. To me crossdressing allows me to enjoy the benefit of both worlds, male and female. It gives me freedom to express how I feel as a female. I now understand what is means to dress and feel like a woman. At the same time it does mean I still have to make certain compromises different from a male dressed in drab clothing. It is always been a private thing with me, although I now feel that it is wonderful way to relax and allows me to over come the stress of everyday life.

[Gillian]

Freedom, it is the freedom to do and be whatever you want to be. Why should anyone care what you do, as long as it is not hurting anyone else?

[ArleneMcCarthy]

To me it means that Arlene can be herself & live the life that she was meant to live.

[Belinda]

Couildnt agree more with what you say Anne. I felt the same when I was in High school shy and sensitive with a deep desire to be a girl and wear all their wonderful clothes. It is a shame that society doesnt accept us. Thank goodness for this site.

edit: Whole post quote removed. KS

[Bernice H.]

To be a crossdresser is very strange to me
How to explain
First i have to tell u i'm in the closet
Only two peoples know i dress, a freind of mine and my sister
I go see my freind and dress and we go riding and stop
by dunkin donut for coffee then go back home
The fact of riding in the car en femme is a big thrill
I love it. Wearing nylons, heels and mini skirt gets me all
exited, also wig make-up and rouge. I love it
But i have to admit that the secrecy is a big turn on to me
How to explain that one, i don't know, maybe somebody can.
I don't do it everyday but when i do it's very exiting to me
I'm not a full time crossdresser, is there such a thing as
a part time crossdresser. I don't know. Anybody knows??
It might be strange but that's what it means to me.
Bernice