I know, but how alone ARE we?

[Jeanne]

Hi. My first post. Skittish and scared so forgive please my brevity and lack of wit. Question: What is the generally accepted figure for the percentage of the male hetero population who like wearing women's clothes?

[DonnaT]

Hi Jeanne, to the forum.

In answer to your question, 2-5%. Personally, I think that number is quite low.

But, there's really no supportive data on any figure, as many are extremely secretive about their transgenderness and/or crossdressing.

And a number who are hetero as compared to bi or gay may be in the majority, but then again, we have no real way to be accurate in this regard. And a number who say they are hetero later realize they are bi.

[SilverLady(SO)]

Hi, Jeanne, and welcome to the Forum! Just a suggestion, but you should start a thread in the New Members section so everyone can say hi to you, too! And don't worry - we're all very friendly here and we don't bite - well, some have been known to nibble now and then!

As for your question - like Donna, I think the number of CD's in the population is higher, too. I thought I had seen a higher percentage (don't remember where, though ).

- SL

[Jeanne]

Thanks. Very glad you don't bite. One of my personal conundrums is that in a male role I'm mucho macho and assertive. As a female I'm a wilting daisy: very shy, empathetic and a much better listener, my SO tells me.

I'm always surprised at how low the 'official' estimates tend to be. I suppose that's because I can't imagine why anyone would NOT want to wear a dress and heels.

[Virginia]

Welcome Jeanne,

Based on the number of "sites" for crossdressers, the number of members on each site, then the number of girls that attend the various conferences around the country, that along with the number of girls that I come across who are not members of any group, forum or have attended any of the national conferences, yes the 3% - 5% would seem to be VERY low. Then, as is often addressed here - who defines themselves as a crossdresser? Take for example my "ex" father-in-law. He only dressed (as far as anyone knows) once a year - Halloween, but he did it year after year after year, is he a crossdresser? I say yes! Would he admit to it? NO!

We may never know, but we're everywhere, we're everywhere!

Keep the faith,
Virginia

[Jean Marie]

I hjave always heard that about 8 to 10% crossdress to some degree, that can include the occasional wearing of panties all the way to often fully dresing and freely going into public. Yes many are very secretive.

[Absaroka]

A conservative estimate I have read a number of times is that 1% of crossdressers are transexuals and 1% of the general male population is crossdressers. I think although I could be wrong that this has something to do with the acutal figures when it comes to things like SRS and non SRS transexuals.

The thing is that even 1% of the male population of the US is a huge number- about 1.5 million I think.

As has been mentioned how to define crossdressing is a problem with this question. For example when I wear my wifes fleece vest or flannel shirt I don't consider that to be crossdressing. Panties yes.

Someone who once in a while gets dressed up for Halloween? I don't know. I suspect the answer has something to do with just how much they look forward to this.

And then there is the guy who only wears panties during sex and never any other time, and doesn't wear anything else. What do we call that?

But no matter how you slice it there are a lot of us, and very few of us are drag queens.

Absaroka

[Karren Hutton]

I've heard these high numbers and can't say for sure.... Guess if you count all the closeted lingerie wearers.... Still if it were that large you think i'd run into a few of them in the womens clothing stores at least a few times... lol But the number of crossdressers that fully dress and go out enfemme is probably pretty small... In my opinion...

Love Karren

[Absaroka]

I would think if they really wanted to know the folks to ask would be the emergency room people who care for victims of serious auto accidents. I have read that they don't consider panties on men all that unusual.

Absaroka

[Sally]

Hi Jeanne and welcome,

I think it’s suffice to say that we number millions upon millions everywhere. We come in all shapes and sizes across all cultures. As far as I’ve seen and experienced in my travels there’s no country in the world which is more prolific than another. People may say that some countries seem to have more than others, but I believe that those countries in the world who are known more widely for having a larger population of CD/TG people, are countries who are more accepting and liberal in their attitude to those people, so larger numbers make themselves more visible publicly than maybe others do in more bigoted countries.

Archeologists have discovered evidential proof all round the world over the years that Crossdressing, and what we may term loosely as Transgenderism, existed several thousands of years ago so it’s not anything new, it’s something which always has and always will exist in the human race, ( unless such things as human cloning and gene structuring becomes available in years to come, and it most likely will) but anything near exact numbers of how many of us exist would be nigh on impossible because of the vast numbers of people who wish to remain firmly closeted, for varying reasons naturally.

I’ve said this before and I say again, personally, I believe that if we bunched everyone together who identifies either Gay, Bi- Sexual, Transgendered, Crossdresser etc etc, then in all likelihood it would balance out that the number would exceed that of those who would refer to themselves as ‘normal’ ( whatever that means, because to me I’m normal, because I know no other way since my first memories). I’ve ceased being surprised these days at who and where I come across people who come within our boundaries. As I said, we exist in all walks of life across all cultures, nature knows no boundaries, she doesn’t stick to one blueprint, there’s diversity in all plant and animal life, I even think Virginia found one in her woodshed once. LOL..That’s a joke…

Kind Regards,

Sally.

[Emily Ann Brown]

....asking emergency room personnel. Considering that a sister has to be to the point of wanting/needing fellowship with other sisters to join a group, I think the 5% is way low. I was 4 years BEFORE I could type "I dress in women's clothes" to be read by ANOTHER male who does the same thing. Shame can really cause you to hide deep in the dark.

Karren knows the story of the fellow who IMed me to tell me I was a big ol' pervert because of this....eventually admitted he wore his GFs panties during sex with her (and admitted he would love to wear her bra too on these occassions), but he wasn't " a queer like me" because that was just sex. OKAY,.....whatever. A rose by any other name...........

I'm gonna vote for 10%.


Emily Ann

[Marlena Dahlstrom]

As has been mentioned, any figures about a closeted population are inherently fuzzy. I've seen the 3-5 percent figure commonly quoted, but so far I've been unable to trace it back to the original source who made that estimate.

The two most reliable figures I know are these:

- A Swedish health study a few years ago found -- IIRC -- about 1.5% of the male population had engaged in crossdressing and about half number for women. The good side is that it was a large statistically valid same. The bad side is that it was a single question (the survery was more about general health issues) and that question asked about crossdressing for sexual pleasure. So it's likely crossdressers said they didn't because of the way the question was phrased and others didn't because of fears of being outed (even though the survery was anonymous).

- There was a news story last year that mentioned Thai army discharges about 2 percent of its draftees for being too gender variant. While Thailand is more open to trans folks, it's not the trans paradise that it's commonly portrayed as. The military discharge is a big deal -- worse case you get the equivalent of a Section 8, stating that you're mentally unstable -- which is a huge problem because apparently every employer will check your military record for years to come. (The news story was in fact about the efforts by trans people to change the type of these discharges.) The draft is by lottery, so it's a random nationwide sample, and only the folks who aren't able/willing to cover up their gender varience get kicked out. So I think it's a pretty reliable "low-end" figure.

[Tekla]

Of course that depends on how you define crossdressing, and if you seperate it from TS. Given that, any figure more than 2% I would find suspect. But as far as I know, there is no authentic number.

[Sherri]

I live in a small town of 15,000. If 5% are TG in one way or another, that means there are 750 of us. That seems like a stretch to me, unless you count guys who might like to slip on a pair of panties occasionally for autoerotica.

[Absaroka]

TG in one way or another is a very loosely defined term.

Something to be aware of is the if we say 2% of draft age males in Thailand is that we have already taken 50@ of the population out of the mix- the female half, for whom gender variant may be differently defined. For example all the talk of women in pants aside for some reason crossdressing doesn't seem to have the same type of stuff going on for women.

So before we can even talk statistics we have to figure out what we want statistics of

Absaroka