It’s like I have to.

Someone wrote…

I don’t crossdress because I think it’s sexy. I crossdress because it feels wrong when I don’t . It’s like I have to.

What’s your experience?

And what are you thinking about gender right now?


Posted by on May 21st, 2011 at 08:00 am

Category: your voice 15 comments »

15 Responses to “It’s like I have to.”

  1. Ashlee

    OMG, I totally feel this way! It’s like I get all weird inside if I can’t – and when I can, the stress just melts away and I feel, oooh, sooo much better!

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  2. Auro

    This is EXACTLY how I feel. People don’t understand that when I crossdress, it’s like I’m finally NOT crossdressing.

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    tigr replied:

    Heh, after a (pretty formal) dinner some time ago a (rather stupid, as it turned out later) guy asked me why I was crossdressing. To which I simply replied, I’m not! (It’s not my fault that his impression is wrong by about 180 degrees :>)

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  3. Jessica

    I dress very androgynous, what in my youth was called unisex… except for underwear. What I wear doesn’t make my underwear obvious, but if I wore the “wrong” underwear, I’d be uncomfortable all day. I wouldn’t sit or stand right and I’d chafe in all the wrong places. Some of that is what you;re used to, for sure, but it;s also about choice. This is MY choice, not my biology, not some fashion guru, not my parents, not anybody else but me.

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    Lane replied:

    When I bought and wore boxers for the first time, thats when I went from feeling like a boy stuck in a girls body to just a boy. It was a great feeling.

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  4. Jack

    I don’t like the term ‘crossdressing’ – it baffles me. How am I crossdressing if I’ve worn a certain-gendered sort of clothing – that happens to be contrary to my biological sex – for most of my life?

    Crossdressing is rather binary, really – I’d suggest not bothering with it. Wear what you like, wear what gives you that ‘right’ feeling. ;)

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    Meike replied:

    Exactly this. I guess to most people, I’d be considered a full-time crossdresser since I was 11 years old. But to me, these are the clothes I feel like myself in. If I wore the “right” clothes for my body, I know without a doubt I would feel so wrong in my body, mind and heart.

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  5. AmyDentata

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ll believe in “male” and “female” attire when clothes gain the ability to have sex and reproduce. Until then, it’s all just clothes. In reality there’s no such thing as cross-dressing.

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    Pun replied:

    Yes! “Crossdressing” is just a name society has created to catagorize people who don’t play by its idiotic “rules”. :)

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    Meike replied:

    I’m still moping from the news that my state (MN) is going to vote on the definition of marriage in 2012, but this totally just made me feel 200 times better. I may have to steal that the next time someone says something about my clothes.

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  6. Jul

    I’ve always admired those who are simply themselves – there is an authenticity to their presentation, and it’s a very luring quality – whether male or female, I agree that the notion of “crossdressing” is a label society gives who just tries to keep you in a box. Some feel comfortable in that box, others confined.

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  7. Levi

    I identify as something like a dapper butch female*, but sometimes I get a building feeling of wrongness if I can’t wear a dress for a little while. I couldn’t do it every day, but I equally can’t wear nothing but vests and ties for the rest of my life. I understand that best, in the context of myself, as crossdressing.

    While clothes might not have gender, they do mean things. And while I love when people who identify as guys can wear skirts without it calling their gender into question (and so on), I don’t think I could live comfortably in a world where my clothes didn’t mean anything at all. I do have gender, and I do express it through my presentation. People will mistranslate me,** but don’t tell me that everything I wrote was nonsense in the first place. Sometimes I’m only writing for myself.

    * (with gender-bent and fabulous and genderfluid bits sticking out, but let’s not get into that)

    ** And the more everyone understands how many different things the same “word” can mean, the better!!

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  8. Kristin

    While I understand that “crossdressing” isn’t the perfect term, by any means, I think it’s how many of us are introduced to the idea that our wardrobe isn’t limited by what’s between our legs.

    I’m still trying to figure out where I am on the continuum, but if it weren’t for the years of crossdressing, I would never have realized that something different was possible, because “boys and men don’t wear skirts.”

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  9. J.D.

    I “crossdress” often, but you see, the funny thing is that when I’m crossdressing I’m wearing the clothes deemed appropriate for my biological sex. When I’m wearing “men’s” clothes, despite being genetically female, I feel as if I’m wearing the “right” clothes. When I wear “women’s” clothes, I feel as if I’m passing somehow. I have days when I want to pass as female, and days when I’m one of the guys. Its all gone rather backwards for me and usually I end up somewhere in the middle.

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    Jessica replied:

    Too right. Accepting someone else’s notion of what is the “correct” attire is such a strange concept. I don’t dress to appear male or female

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