In keeping with the "Dummies" series of books on just about every subject under the sun, I thought it might be in line to write a short synopsis on crossdressing with the same title.
Just what IS crossdressing anyway? Well, in a nutshell,
it’s basically wearing the clothing and accoutrements which are commonly
identified or associated with the opposite gender from the one into which one is
born. But hang on there a minute. . . this can be applied to almost every woman
(at least in the United States and most other countries also). Does this mean
that all these women are crossdressers? Well, maybe, and maybe NOT. In the
literal sense, yes, they are crossdressing. But from the view of our general
society, no, they’re just following fashion or dressing for comfort.
It wasn’t too many years ago when it was unheard of
for a woman to be seen in public wearing pants. Public ridicule and disgrace
would be heaped upon any female seen attired in this manner. And yet this is a
common sight today, be it for the sake of fashion or for the simple reason of
comfort. The vast majority of these pant-clad women are NOT crossdressers by any
meaning of the word, even though they ARE wearing clothing that was once
associated strictly with the male gender. Even if they WERE crossdressers, no
one would recognize them as such simply because it is now socially acceptable
for a woman to wear what was once exclusively men’s wear.
Just what has brought about this acceptance for the
fairer sex in our society? Over a period of several years numerous women fought
for ‘women’s rights’. This began as a fight for equality and equal pay in
the workplace. As time progressed the success in the fight for this one thing
was (and still is) being won. But along with the victories came changes that
weren’t anticipated along the way. Suits as well as femininely cut business
attire became fashionable for the up and coming female professionals in the
business community and even though these tailored items had a definite feminine
flavor in their styling, the fact remains that many of their roots were based in
what professional MEN had been wearing all along.
It has been a long uphill battle for the women of the
world to “win” the right to dress as they desire and it’s still a fight
that’s ongoing to some extent. Let’s face it folks, the women of the world
wanted this bad enough to fight for it and they deserve to have the privileges
they’ve fought long and hard to get.
By now you’re probably asking yourself where I’m
going with this. Good question and I’m about to give you my own personal view
of the situation. Since my view requires quite a bit of in depth explanation,
please try to bear with me a little longer here.
As I’ve said, today’s women can pretty much dress
however they want to providing, of course, that whatever they chose to drape
over their frames in public isn’t indecent, and I have no qualms about their
freedom to do so.
But over on the other side of this coin we have the
males of the world who, through quite a few estimates of around 10%, are
heterosexual crossdressers. Now these “men in the minority” didn’t ASK to
be crossdressers, nor did they simply wake up one morning and decide they wanted
to don the garments and accoutrements usually associated with the feminine
gender. A VERY recent medical finding suggests that a “stuttering gene” in
some men’s DNA makeup (no pun intended there with the word ‘makeup’) is
accountable for the fact that some are born crossdressers. It also suggests that
similar “stutters” are suspect for such transgendered conditions such as
transsexualism. In simple English what this means is that crossdressing is an
involuntary NEED for those who find themselves in this 10% of the male populace.
Now I said all that to be able to say this: The
situation is a lot DIFFERENT for a male if he decides he wants to appear in
public in a skirt, dress, or anything else that suggests femininity. Even if he
has no desire to present himself in a public place he is often ridiculed,
snickered at, talked about, sometimes branded as a perverted individual, and all
too often viewed as being gay by the SAME society that has no problems with
women clothing themselves in male attire.
I mentioned above that crossdressing is a NEED for some
men. This necessitates some explanation also so I’ll have to get a little
technical at this point. Medical science has determined that somewhere near the
end of the first trimester of pregnancy, an unborn child receives a sudden surge
of hormones from the mother. It’s important to note that this is a naturally
occurring event in all pregnancies. This surge of hormones has come to be known
as the “hormone wash” theory. It is at this point in the fetal development
that the basic characteristics of the child are formed. Eye and hair color,
whether the child will be right or left handed, the propensity to be obese later
in life, and literally hundreds of other attributes are “set” at this point
in time. Not surprisingly, the gender of the child is also determined at this
point. It is precisely at this point that professionals believe that sometimes a
few of the “wires get crossed” and the seeds of crossdressing are implanted.
These seeds may never manifest themselves, but for some they WILL and this
usually occurs between the ages of 6 and 12 years of age. Although it will
usually begin within this age range, it isn’t uncommon for crossdressing, or
the desire to do so, to begin much later in life. I have personal knowledge of
several crossdressers who had no interest at all in it until into their 50’s
and 60’s.
At any rate, when the urge begins, it comes on strong
and actually becomes a NEED that demands attention. Ignoring it (or attempting
to do so) can lead to actual PHYSICAL problems created by the stress of not
being able to act on the need. You might compare it to someone who hasn’t
eaten anything in a couple of days and is taken to a restaurant and allowed to
see others enjoying their meals, allowed to see and smell the food, but being
denied to partake of any of it himself. It is this need to provide physical
expression to the inward feelings that is the dilemma. Society as a whole is, as
a general rule, completely uneducated about what a crossdresser actually is and
draw their opinions erroneously from sensationalists programming such as what
you might see aired on the Jerry Springer show. Either that or they talk in
‘hushed’ tones to others who are equally ignorant about the subject and form
their opinions from still more bogus information. The stigma that is wrongfully
attached to crossdressing leads these people to associate crossdressing with
homosexuality, transsexuality, bi-sexuality, perversion, and any number of
incorrect assumptions. The typical crossdresser learns early on that this need
that he has is something that society doesn’t understand and he is therefore
resigned to keep his needs and his actions upon those needs very private. He
can’t talk with anyone about it due to the possibility that whoever he shares
his secret with could “out” him to others and create all manner of problems
related to his job, his family, and in particular his wife. Divorce is a very
REAL possibility to take into consideration if his wife isn’t willing to
listen to reason and try to reach a compromise with him to at LEAST give some
degree of tolerance to this need that he has. Bear in mind here that he didn’t
volunteer to be a crossdresser. As was explained above, it was something that he
was born with and therefore had no say-so about. Nature has played what some
would call a ‘cruel trick’ on him and he has no other alternative other than
to play the hand he’s been dealt in whatever way he is able to do so.
It’s of utmost importance to understand that the vast
majority of crossdressers are 100% heterosexual. Their need to dress has nothing
to do with sexual activity, but rather is usually motivated by a driving force
to emulate the beauty they find in the females around them, and in most cases
this puts their wife or girlfriend at the top of that list of females. If you
consider the fact that male homosexuals are sexually attracted to the SAME sex
(as a sexual partner), it just doesn’t make sense or doesn’t add up that a
crossdresser is attempting to attract a partner by dressing as a woman since
male homosexuals are only interested in MALE partners.
To sum all this up, crossdressing isn’t something that
a male does on a whelm, it’s a need that comes from some yet to be known
deeply embedded source that medical science has yet to discover. It’s also not
something that one participates in for the ‘shock value’ to his wife,
girlfriend, or family. In fact it’s one of the most traumatic and
gut-wrenching admissions he will ever make to those closest around him. It
definitely doesn’t mean that he’s gay or bi-sexual. In fact it’s an
appreciation for genetic women that supercedes that of most average males. All
the crossdresser is trying to do is give a physical expression to the feelings
he has deep inside and to be allowed to enjoy those feelings in a safe and
secure environment. For him it’s just as much a matter of comfort as it is for
the millions of women we see in pants every day. Wearing these feminine
trappings – even for short durations of time – provide the inner comfort
that this need is demanding from within him even though the physical comfort of
the clothes themselves might have some room for improvement.
Lastly, here’s something to think about for those who have never been personally involved with a crossdresser. How YOU might feel if the tables were turned and it was YOU who was the one on the other side of the fence? How would you like to be treated if the circumstances were reversed? Can you honestly say that you have the compassion that is necessary to try to educate yourself (as well as others) about what crossdressing is – and what it ISN’T? Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes for a while can make a big difference in one’s perspective.
