The Elusive TG

[DonnaT]

True. We are elusive.

Which is why one cannot get an accurate estimate of the number of CDs.

Note, I doubt 10% of the male patients arriving at a hospital have on some form of female lingerie. My wife used to work at one in WV. The incidence was rare enough to make each occasion a notable one. If it were as frequent as 10% it wouldn't be notable.

[Georgia(SO)]

I'm not real sure about the percentages here, but I do think that there is probably a good number of men who would crossdress if they had the nerve to do it more than in their heads.

Among my male hetero friends whom I know well enough to know much of anything about them - I have one who said, more than once, "if I were a woman, I'd wear silk panties all the time." Another who always jumped at the chance, during drunken truth or dare games, to find an outfit in my closet - and managed to put certain blouses and skirts together in ways that I never even thought of! Another suddenly started CDing at a gay bar after his divorce. Another often said he was "a lesbian in a male body". Yet another shaves his body completely and never, ever allows anyone to come over to his house unannounced - will not answer the door if you just show up. That's 5 men out of 9 or 10 that I know well enough to know this about them. I never particularly thought about them as closeted, or wishful, CDs until I started dating my current sweetie. That makes 6 out of 10 guys.

No, I don't really think the percentage is anywhere close to that high, across the board. But I would bet that at least 30% of men think about it... All but two of these guys are younger, by far, than I am - most were born around the early 70s. Maybe they feel freer to feel their inner feelings than guys born in the 50s or earlier.

-g(so)

[JoAnnDallas]

Here's a thought for you. Take a look at a average male High School student. A large number of them are now wearing jeans and tops that are almost identical to fem jeans and tops or may really be fem jeans and tops. A lot of then are now wearing earrings and jewlery, Some are even wearing comestics on their faces. A lot of them are now metro sexual. If you include these, then the percentage of males that wear somekind of fem clothing or item will be in the order 30-40%.
Here is another thought, the subject of purses for me came up on the Today show one day. Lester Holt who hostests the Saturday version said that he carries a Man Purse.
So if you look around at men (14+) that use some form of fem items or wears a fem item, the percentage will be a lot higher than you think.

[Absaroka]

Aren't fem jeans really a question of womens clothing becoming masculininzed?

In any event once an item of clothing becomes unisex, which is what seems to be happening here, it is not crossdressing.

Absaroka

[Georgia(SO)]

For once I'm not being argumentative - just wondering... re JoAnn's comments

Here's a thought for you. Take a look at a average male High School student. A large number of them are now wearing jeans and tops that are almost identical to fem jeans and tops or may really be fem jeans and tops. A lot of then are now wearing earrings and jewlery, Some are even wearing comestics on their faces.

Isn't a given that a crossdresser is trying to present as the opposite sex, rather than just wearing the clothes of the opposite sex - if I put on my sweetie's white dress shirt, or his jeans, I'm not crossdressing because I am not trying to look like a man. Or am I missing some really salient point here?

-g(so)

[DonnaT]

Isn't [it] a given that a crossdresser is trying to present as the opposite sex, rather than just wearing the clothes of the opposite sex

Not all.

If I try to present as the opposite sex, that will call for a wig and makeup. Although I do wear these at times, especially if going out, I do not wear them around the house.

I wear other fem items around the house, such as a skirt, and the like.

This works for me just fine. It satisfies an unexplanable need (read transgender) that I have to wear these clothes. I don't have a need to present as the opposite sex.

Because the need to crossdress is unexplainable, I consider this as being transgendered.

Some crossdressers do it as a fetish, and do not consider themselves to be transgendered.

[Tekla]

I can dress in all girl clothes and look exactly like a boy, and often do. Why not, many of the girls I know dress just like that a lot of the time. Gender is between the ears, not the wardrobe.

[CJ]

Hi all,

Georgia,

Perhaps the salient point you may (or may not) be missing is the fact that TG behaviour happens across a spectrum. It goes from wearing panties underneath "masculine" clothing all the way to living as a woman 24/7 or even transitioning through hormone treatments and surgery.

The point, here (and I'm going out on a limb by saying this), that many "low end spectrum" CD's (i.e., those who are "closeted" and merely wear panties, a bra, and hose under their male clothes) are fetishistic, in some sense (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, by the way). They'll be aroused by the underwear and will consider themselves to be engaging in the activity of crossdressing. However, these same folks won't necessarily be aroused by just wearing, say, trousers or blouses, that have a more feminine or even unisex cut. It'll just be clothes associated with a small thrill of the "forbidden" (so far). As such, the wearing of such clothing may not, in the eyes of these folks, really be considered crossdressing... precisely because it's somewhat acceptable, still, for a man to wear clothing that's, at best, only marginally masculine but there's nothing ambiguous at all about a man wearing a bra or pantyhose.

Crossdressers that try to present as the opposite sex rather than merely wearing panties in secret are engaging in an overtly social act (after all, when you "present," you always present to someone, even if only to yourself in a mirror). Men who wear women's underwear are no less to be considered crossdressers for their doing so in a private, not public, way.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

Love,
CJ

[Georgia(SO)]

OK. I gather what ya'll are saying. So what does define a crossdresser? Certainly women wearing pants in today's western society are not considered crossdressers. Is it the act of putting on clothes that are currently considered single-gender only (panties, bras, a jock strap)?

And if that is the case, it would imply that in days gone by, when a woman put on a pair of pants to work in the fields, she would have been crossdressing. Or if she put on pants to pass as a man in order to fight in a war (think American Revolution or Civil War). I don't think that, even back then, society would define these women as crossdressers. Or today's scuba divers who wear panty hose under their wetsuits because it's easier to get the wet suit on and the hose add extra insulation? That's definitely not cross-dressing despite the fact that stockings are pretty much women's clothes.

Doesn't this mean then that the defining point is more about internal gender issues rather than the clothing? Nope, that doesn't work either because of fetishtic dressing. What then DOES define cross-dressing? This is more than just a semantic argument, CJ, because I often hear CDs say "If you can wear jeans, why can't I wear a skirt?" I think we can all agree that there is a difference between a non-TG'd gg wearing pants in today's western society and a TG'd person wearing panties or a dress, or, for that matter, in FtM CDing, wearing pants and workboots.

Perhaps the defining difference is whether the clothes are being worn for practical reasons (pants to farm, panty hose under scuba gear, ggs wearing pants in order to bend over at work without showing all her goodies), or whether it is to meet some internal need. By the way, that "Girls wear jeans" argument goes over very poorly with gg SOs.

-georgia(so)

[DonnaT]

Crossdressing is the act of wearing clothes designed for the opposite sex. Any such clothes.

It was considered crossdressing when a woman wore pants, back in the day.

However, most of these woman did it for practicality, not some gender identity issue. More and more woman began to see the practicality of wearing pants, and at some point after WWII it became acceptable.

Soon, pants were being designed and made to fit a woman's form. Now it's no longer thought of as crossdressing when a woman wears a number of items made for men. But it is crossdressing because the item was made specifically for men.

There are some items, like jock straps and men's underwear, that if worn by a woman, the woman is considered to be crossdressing. Note that recently, underwear is being made for women which mimics men's underwear, and the woman wearer is not considered to be crossdressing.

There are a number of items men use to wear, that fell out of favor. These items didn't fit the image society thought men should present. So now these items are considered for women only. Like skirts, high heels, stockings, blouses.

Also, there are manufacturers currently who make and sell skirts for men, and pantyhose for men. Until the wearing of these items becomes acceptable to mainstream society, wearing them, even though they are made for men, is considered crossdressing.

So, I imagine the next question would be, if it became acceptable for men to wear skirts, would wearing them satisfy our need to crossdress?

And the answer would be, who knows? For some it may, for some the need for lingerie must be considered, the need to wear a pretty top, the type shoes, whether r not one needs to present fully enfemme, etc.

I think it would be an interesting, for lack of a better phrase, social experiment.

http://www.bookrags.com/history/pants-f ... n-sjpc-04/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trousers#W ... s_trousers

[Sylvia H]

Ive been trying to thinkof a metaphor for all this. But not having as much luck.

I think we are maybe we have this backwards. We are trying to glean too much from outward appearance. Simply put you cant tell a book by its cover.
You might be able to tell a few things if the cover is cleverly designed, but not much.
Crossdressing is the end result, the cause is determined internally by many factors.
When outward appearance includes behavior to correlate with it, there is more to work with, but we are still way far away from explaining anything in any detail.
The only way to get to any details is to ask.
The important part is that you are who you are! Something many are not to sure about (yours truly included).

Given all that it would be nice to have more statistical data.

Ill shut up now.

xoxo
Sylvia

[Stephanie W]

Georgia said:

That's 5 men out of 9 or 10 that I know well enough to know this about them. I never particularly thought about them as closeted, or wishful, CDs until I started dating my current sweetie. That makes 6 out of 10 guys.

Hey Georgia, you're obviously hanging out with the right crowd.

What defines crossdressing is always an interesting discussion with no easy answer. Much, of course, depends on one's point of view. The familiar argument from CD's that women can wear what they want, usually falls on deaf ears, so I don't waste my time beating that old horse. That said, we can only strive for our sartorial freedom by just doing what we do and getting out there and hope the trend catches on someday. If it did, then would I still have a need to crossdress? Yes, because as a TG, it goes much deeper than the clothes. And even if it didn't, I can't see a trend ever dissuading me from doing something I enjoy too much. But that's just me.

Stephanie

[CJ]

Hi all,

Georgia wrote: Certainly women wearing pants in today's western society are not considered crossdressers.

What do you mean by "today's," Georgia? The last ten years? twenty? one hundred?

These women, in their time (as Donna pointed out) and amongst others, were considered to be, at the very least, occasional crossdressers (with the exception of Tipton, a GG who lived as a man 24/7, who might be closer to what our own Virginia calls a NOTS):


French author, Colette


Film star and diva, Marlene Dietrich


Jazz musician Billy Tipton

As some would have it, it's only crossdressing if mainstream society hasn't yet accepted the particular behaviour. In the case of women, what was once considered crossdressing is now pretty much accepted. Not yet so in the case of men; we've got a ways to go yet. And, by the way, this may be exactly what some crossdressers are trying to express when they pull out the "if-you-can-why-can't-I?" argument. I'm sure that, in due time, and with lots of patience and perseverance, we (CD's) won't any longer have cause to get our panties all twisted in a bunch.

As to what, exactly, defines a CD... I come back to my trusty ol' counter-question: tell me first what, exactly, defines a man or a woman and then we'll talk. Perhaps any answer ought also to take into consideration this little bit of emotional intelligence (from Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw, pp. 50-51):

I began hearing people define me in terms they were comfortable with. It's easy to play victim, and to say that these people were being malicious, but assuming the worst about others is simply not truth, and it's not a loving or empowering way to look at other people. So, I began looking at their investment in defining me. What I found was that each person who was anxious to define me had a stake in maintaining his or her own membership in a given gender. I began to respect the needs of those who had a stake in their genders.

And, maybe, just maybe, this could explain why so many "traditionally-gendered" people are, at best, made uneasy and, at worst, well, Gwen Araujo, by the expression of gender variance in others: because, in a very real way, it forces them--often against their own will (or even ability)--to examine and evaluate their stake in their own genders. Of course, and conversely, the same may also explain why so many TG'd folks fail to be patient with those who have such a hard time accepting them (because, after all, it's more than likely that they have just as much of a stake in maintaining membership in their own transgenderedness as "traditionally-gendered" people have in theirs).

All this is only my own, long-winded way (as usual) to say that a person wanting to define what a crossdresser is may, just by asking the question, be saying more about the nature of gender than any putative answer could.

But, nevertheless, ask it we must, eh? That's what we're here for, after all.

Love,
CJ

[Absaroka]

I think this starts to confront the fact that we don't always agree on a definition of crossdressing. Lets look at women crossdressers for a moment.

My eldest daughter went through a phase of wearing her boyfriends underwear. Very functional male tightie whities including a fly. I suppose you could call this cross dressing. She felt no need to conceal this although she did go to some pains to convince us that this did not mean she was having sex with him. Her grandfather made the comment that this was fine as long as he did not start wearing her panties also. Back to that later.....

Then there are women in the past who dressed as men to conceal their identity. This has gotten to be a part of popular cultural mythology as the Disney film Mulan so well illustrates. After all by time Disney is doing it, it's gotten pretty mainstream. But in the past women doing this were subject to very harsh penalties. It was because they were percieved as trying to usurp male privilege, even if it was the privilege of dying for your country. Of course when the current war started going badly enough women fighting as women was usually acceptable.

But women crossdressers were seen as trying to gain a privileged status. It was not considered generally a sexual thing.

For men crossdressing is percieved to have a sexual agenda, and often it does. The popular perception is that it is a homosexual thing to entice men or to relate to men in a feminine way. The other popular perception is that it is a sexual fetish which it often is. Getting aroused by the trappings of feminimity rather than the actual woman. The myth further holds that this is done by men unable to obtain or deal with an actual woman so they settle for 2nd best- the woman's clothing.

What we see however is that crossdressing for men is percieved to be about sex. And male sexuality is something that must be controlled at all costs. We must keep men confined to having sex with women. Because (and there is a lot of truth to this) for men sex seems to get tied up with aggression. And if male sexuality isn't controlled it is feared that we will start having sex with everything and everyone in sight. Like children, other men, and the women we are trying to protect. And that we will be predatory and aggresive about this. So we must keep men under control. Make sure they only have sex with their wives, girlfriends, willing women, female prositutes, and that they only rape the women that we aren't trying to protect, namely women from some other group. Any deviation from the rules could lead to who knows what. And these rules are made by men.

So there we have it. Men cross dress for sex, thus threatening to unleash sexual boogie men. Women cross dress to assume male privilege. A terrible thing from a cultural mythology point of view, but at least it's not sexual. It's only about power and privilege.

These are the unspoken hidden myths that we must confront. But society isn't all that simple. So when I wear my wifes sweatshirt or other non sexual ( and gender always seems to get tied up to sex somehow, even if it's only a partial tie) item, that's one thing. If I wear her bra, well that's another. And so crossdressing will be constantly redefined in terms of what garment constitutes crossdressing.

When it comes to fear of sex we have to consider another thing. It's true that women do abuse men sexualy. Also other women and children. But the fact remains that this is an exception. A lot of it still has to do with the fact that only women get pregnant. Look at what happened in Bosnia. I just don't know of any mass rapes of men by women with the idea that the women will now have all these babies and raise them as their own ethnic group, thereby shaming the man. Mythology holds a different type of agression. That individual women will devour the man, much like the Black widow spider or the wives of Dracula. How comforting to think that instead of devouring a man with her feminimity that instead the woman will merely pretend to be a man and assume his privileges. At that point she may kill him but she won't eat him alive or drink his blood. On the other hand the man who pretends to be a woman by donning her sexual trappings now may not only rape someone but then in true feminine fashion eat them alive.

And these are all the unspoken archetypes that get subtly portrayed everywhere, from the Bible and other religious works, to fairy tales, to movies and commercials.

And that's why men wearing panties must be controlled, preferably by eliminating them.

On the other hand the truly transgendered person, a victim of hormones gone astray in the womb, is merely someone with a medical problem. As long, that is, as we can be sure that it's really a medical problem, that they really are a man in a womans body, or the other way around, and not really a man in a mans body trying to trick us into thinking they are a woman the better to prey upon us sexually.

There are lots of other dynamics as well, such as the fact that all of us are always striving for dominance in some way and that gender and sex are so tied to societies pecking order. But I think this post was long enough and rambling enough already.

Absaroka

[CJ]

Been watching Dressed To Kill on the Movie Channel, have you, Absaroka?

Seriously, although I agree with some of what you say, it seems to me that you put much emphasis on some essential difference (other than obvious physiological ones, of course) between men and women. I've yet to see some deeply satisfying evidence that such differences exist.

Also, you link rape to (predominantly male) sexual activity. As far as I know, based on my familiarity with the subject through feminist acquaintances and friends, rape is less about sex than it is about dominance and overt displays of power.

Watch again, if you can, the scene in the film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things where the mother (played by Asia Argento) wilfully seduces her 11-year old son into crossdressing so that they both can enjoy conning strangers in a mother-"daughter" spree over several months. This, too, is abuse. This, too, is a rape of sorts. This, too, deals with power and dominance, not sex.

But I can see your point. Often, crossdressing (in males) is linked to sex. We need look no further for proof of this than the myriad "transvestite tales" (written by men, natch) recounting the "misadventures" of men forced by women to assume an unwanted femininity and subsequently being raped by these same women. Such tales are meant to titillate and arouse. Odd, when you consider that they revolve around rape and abuse. So, yes, again, I can see your point, that men's allegedly brutal sexuality permeates the erotic landscape of their imaginations more thoroughly than women's does their own (I suppose, probably wrongly), and therefore needs to be "controlled" to some extent. But it's always been my understanding that repression and denial of erotic impulses, rather than being a sign of brutal sexualities, in fact lead (or can lead) to brutal sexualities.

Interestingly, and if we should pursue this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, it's not by preventing men from accessing (and expressing) whatever's feminine in their own psychological makeup that we would be "controlling" their brutal sexuality but by, on the contrary, fully encouraging them to do just that. With the help of a little silk and satin and lipstick, if need be. Of course, as many a crossdresser might (however reluctantly) admit, even such "accessories of femininity" aren't required; it's usually a simple matter of letting what's inside you crying to get out, well, get out. The accessories stay, I believe, because they provide a purely sexual thrill in some and a social confirmation of the "truth" of their chosen gender to others (and probably a mixture of both in most).

Good post, Absaroka. A little raw, and very tough, but good. We could, of course, go on for thousands of pages about this very subject, but my rambling has to stop here, as well.

Love,
CJ