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I’ve been crossdressing on and off for 50 years. In the last five, I’ve been dressing quite frequently and have become aware of the effect it has had on my persona. Recently, I’ve been trying to ascertain a clearer, positive perspective on my crossdressing - the resultant notes having been turned into this article.
A Question...and an answer
I wanted a starting point, so posing a suitable question was the best idea. “What do I feel when I crossdress?” This lead me to give thought to one of my earliest crossdressing experiences.
The first time I dressed up properly was when I was fourteen. I was home alone for about half a day. I was determined to get past wearing just underwear and got dressed in a complete outfit, borrowing my sister's clothes. On looking in the mirror, I was absolutely delighted - 'I'm a girl.' As I looked harder at my reflection, I became aware that I was both “boy me” and “girl me” at the same time. Who is this dual me, I thought? If I could be this dual me then what else did I have the potential to be?
This experience was, in a way, a defining change in my life - an inner pathway to the hidden self and its female aspect (the anima) was somehow exposed. Over the years, I have noticed other aspects of the hidden self also becoming known to me - intuitive wisdom, creative endeavours (art, poetry, music …), mystical experiences, etc. The female dimension of myself is just one aspect of my persona.
Using my early experience as the starting point to answer my question, I looked through my journal, blogs, also forums, and articles on CDH to gather more information about how crossdressers described their experiences. I made up a short “Before and After” list of various common descriptive words surrounding the point of transformation
- Before words: sad, melancholia, stressed, negativity, boredom, feeling flat, unfocused, tired and listless, incomplete, self-divided, diminished, drab, and dysphoric.
- The point of transformation - at some point when getting dressed - an inner response.
- After words: happy, delighted, joy, relaxed, contentment, positive feeling about life, intensification of consciousness (holiday feeling), revitalized, feeling complete, fully me, expanded sense of self, beautiful, and euphoric.
The after list of words covers a positive, happy state. Is crossdressing just an addiction to this positive happy state? Perhaps, a trigger for the release of ‘pleasure’ chemicals in the brain. If that’s all it is then in essence there is nothing wrong with the activity; it is only wrong in the eyes of society as it breaks the gender stereotype norm. It does however have value:
- it enables one to have a break or timeout from our everyday male-self, acting as a de-stressor
- it reminds you that you can be happy, joyful, and delighted
- it fulfills a need to be beautiful
My crossdressing is goal-orientated. I keep doing it to experience a joyful ‘happy state’ which is only a natural thing to want to do. Do I need to feed the need? Perhaps so. We need new clothes and experiences for our time en femme. This is no different from everybody’s needs - we all need the stimulus of ‘newness’ to keep us in a positive state - new ideas found on reading a book, a holiday in a new place, and so on.
An evolving persona ...
I felt there was more going on within my persona once I began crossdressing regularly; I noticed progressing individuation. The female aspect of my persona had in some ways become a vehicle for change.
When I dress now there is still that point in the transformation where I change from boy me to (boy me plus girl me) and that precipitates changes in my perception of myself and how I feel. When I dress, I also feel that I become a more complete me, this complete me is greater than (boy me plus girl me). Wearing women's clothes can be thought of as a symbolic transformation, which releases the interior feminine and other unrealised aspects of the hidden self for integration. This newly expanded self seeks expression. I feel that when I crossdress I am changing from male to ‘male plus female.’
The dysphoria I feel is the gap between everyday male me and this new happy state, the expanded self that includes my unfolding, flowering feminine aspect.
During my life, I have been aware of the changes within me, heading towards a balanced dyad of my male and female aspects (objective + subjective, rational + intuitive, left brain + right brain, and so on). In the last few years, this feeling of inner integration has been accelerating, mainly because I made the conscious decision to let these two aspects of myself integrate.
I feel I am a unity of both my male and female aspects together. Being both together is a completion—like the inner alchemical marriage (or conjunction.)
If I was free to dress how I chose it would be a matter of self-expression in a stage in the completion of the evolving self.
Alicen,
Wow! I swear I could have written this article myself (especially the before and after). I can identify with many points you had written. There are also points that you have given me cause to ponder.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Vanessa
Alicen, superb!
Thank you.
May I say it this way without intending to be in any way offensive to others; IMHO - "Finally, an article where feeling and experience is minimized and rationale and reason is the foundation. "
For me your approach to our shared conundrum is refreshing. Again, Thank you.
Kindly,
Charlene
Charlene
thanks for your comment
Although the article appears to be based on rationale and reason; the basis of the ideas arose from intuitive comprehension - the aim was to express the understanding I reached so I could convey it to others.
Alicen
Hi Alicen, what a wonderful expression! I now realize more clearly that our need to crossdress or even transition isn't one or the other; rather it is a more complete integration of our sexual (born as) and sensual (point on the gender spectrum) selves. I've been thinking of it wrongly (for me at least) by trying to keep the two halves of me somewhat insulated from each other.
Thank you so much, GF, for helping us see how marvelous and creative we are and that we need so desperately to let our whole being have freedom to breathe and live!
Love to all!
Brielle
So well said Alicen. You put into words what many of us feel girl. Hugs
Well written, Alicen!
Something to think about to be sure. I’ve used your methodology in other areas of my life, I just never thought to apply it to my crossdressing.
I’m going have to investigate and experiment.
Thanks for the idea!
Jillian
Jillian
taking a step back and looking at things in different way to provide insight reveals answers if the questioning is right.
Alicen
Hi Alicen!
You nailed it! Crossdressing is an addiction to a positive happy state.
My outlook on life and others truly changes when 'en femme', my most vulnerable state. This is when I'm happiest! Kinda ironic and paradoxical, I guess: vulnerable/happy... Go figure...
Here in Canada we have our Federal election this Monday. If I think about my happy state, then my vote will be for the one who embraces tolerance and acceptance.
Best,
Barb :B
If we all thought positive and happy thoughts what a change would come about in the world 🙂
Alicen this is without a doubt one of the best articles I've read here at CDH (among so many other outstanding ones). The thoughts and feelings that you so gracefully articulate are ones that I hope to share with my wife one day. Although I am out to her, and we've discussed it a few times, all she ever tells me is that she's still trying to process it. It's frustrating and sad, and I'm always looking for good educational material to share with her when she's ready, hopefully someday. I know she doesn't understand and feels it is just weird and wrong. So we just go along with DADT. I tell her it's hard to explain because I don't understand it myself. Your article has given me so much insight and I think it could be very useful in helping others to understand, especially our SO's. Thank you so much for writing and sharing this with us..
Mona,
The article came out of the need to understand my crossdressing so I could move forward myself and I would have something I could use to help at the point when I plan to come out to my SO.
I hope everything works out positively for you 🙂
Alicen
I would so like to thank you for so eloquently describing what I feel when I transition into my better self. You have managed to portray not only my emotion but also expressive self! So Alicen a very big THANKYOU for your article .
what a great post. enjoy being feminine as much as you can and enjoy being female. its a wonderful thing to do and looks are amazing when you are all dolled up. i am the same way. i love dressing in female cloths more then male cloths. my wife knows of my cross dressing and will tell me when i can dress up, but she will not help with make up or see me even tho she has seen me dressed up pretty, i dress up in female cloths more then she does. i even have more female cloths then she does
Alicen, thank you for such a thoughtful and insightful article. And thank you for sharing so much of your experience with us. I wrestle with the meaning of my own crossdressing, or perhaps more accurately, what draws me to it. I do not recall early experiences of trying on female clothing or thinking/knowing that I was a girl. And it wasn't until I was 45 or so that I became aware of the need to dress en femme. It has been a slow process for me involving difficulties in my relationship and significant time in therapy. But somewhere along the way the realization that I am both genders--or a mix of things outside of the binary--has settled in my soul. I grieve when I think how the expectations of masculinity limited me and forced me to be manly and avoid things feminine. I have been blessed in many ways and have not suffered the severe gender dysphoria many have. But I have lived with a deep sense of not belonging and feeling disconnected that I know is related to avoiding knowing and expressing my fuller self. And to think it started with a cute pair of panties and a dress I just HAD to have!
My own crossdressing impulses changed after I had a nervous breakdown when I was 46. Before the impulses had been very mild with a small wardrobe of clothes that I managed to obtain that fitted me. After the nervous breakdown as I got myself together I found that the need to crossdress and mild gender dysphoria was present - it had just lain dormant and grown in intensity. I wasn't able to dress again till I got a job closer to home which enabled me to have home alone time again; I saw a skirt and top I liked in a supermarket and I've been crossdressing since then and bit by bit improving my look and expanding my wardrobe...
Hi Alicen,
Thank you for your article. At first I became quite defensive when I read them. When I dress I feel I am, ‘completely female’ or do I? The usual things get me down, such as my voice and facial hair, but I consider myself fully female.
On reflection though and reading your words again, I reassessed. When I came out to my sons, I explained to them that Carla has always been within me, maybe 75% of my persona, so all I’m doing it converting the inner Carla to the outer Carla. I believe it’s similar to your description, I think.
Through my counselling, in order to make sense of my identity, I am told that there is 59 years of me to take into account when expressing myself on the outside. Having read your words, I believe it’s the combining of my male and female personas.
Thank you again for your words. I hope I’ve interpreted them the right way, however, but they’ve worked for me anyway.
Carla x
Hi . Your story resembles much of us reading this. In childhood i saw my aunt getting ready for the casino. I looked at the magic dress. I wanted that too. But then years nothing except a couple of times i changed. But now since less then one year i regularly become Kathleen. And more and more i am coming home to a sort of friend a haven't seen for a long time. More and more comfortable when i am en femme. And about a week ago i went for the first time as Kathleen to a gathering of tgirls in a City. What a milestone for me . Talking face to face as a woman to someone i stead of online.
That must have been quite an emotional time for you. Did you enjoy being out with others?
Hi Jess. I did enjoy my evening out for a chat and drink. It felt normal. And emotional. I especially choose a place of an hours driving from home to reduce the chance to return to home. But I put true. At the end it felt normal.
Kisses x Kathleen
First time i went out as Kathleen
Very well written Alicen!
I can identify with everything you have shared.
Your words resonate very deeply.
I've shared with my SO and others this simple premise: we are borne of two pieces coming into one entity. We each get 23 chromosomes from each parent. That doesn't mean they will or do blend perfectly. Hardly.
The human genome is a Rubik's Cube. When we are conceived, hatched and raised, it is truly a crap-shoot. Our DNA is one aspect of of the science of humanity that we simply do not understand well enough to know that what happens to us isn't part of what it is or how it is supposed to be. How would we know? We didn't come with Owners Manuals. (For those of you that get History Channel, you should check out the latest episode of Ancient Aliens from 9/24 called "The Human Experiment". It's an eye-opener.)
For me personally, I have the best of my Dad and the best of my Mom. And I like to express them both - through my work and my appearance. I learned much from both.
When I was in-utero, my Mom told everyone she was having a girl and she was excited after having 3 boys and 1 girl already. She wanted another girl. She carried me like a girl. I was supposed to be a girl...imagine how embarrassed she was when I came out with a dongle? Just WHAT do you say to people - especially those you bragged the most? I feel sad for her just writing this.
I believe my origins as a CD/TG life come from Mom. They also come from an aunt and a sister. But mostly Mom. My sister - her little helper - would dress me. An aunt dressed me as well and did makeup and jewelry. It made Mom feel better until the embarrassment passed. This is what I have learned - not that I remember any of it. What I DO remember is back to about age 5 and taking Mom's shoes...shoes were the big thing. As I aged, my sisters clothing and shoes fit perfectly - and always.
After age 7, they all started to steer me away from that...wasn't the 'boy' thing to do. There are other aspects of our family life - and being from a lower class (read poorer) family and an NDE but I digress a bit.
Suffice to say, then the 'girl within' went into closet. But never went away. Never. The imprint was complete.
For the next 40 years, I repeated a cycle that many of you can identify with:
- The BEE Phase - Buy, Excitement and Euphoria - this needs little explanation
- The FUD Phase - Fear, Uncertainty and Distrust (FUD) of what I have done
- The PSD Phase - Purge, Sadness and Distance - we push her away
I finally came back to myself 10 odd years ago...she came back with a vengeance. This time she wasn't leaving.
I have however, come to what you have said in your thesis is EXACTLY right. Exactly.
The reality - or so it seems - is that we DO have the ability to feel both sides - and can become greater than the sum of the parts. And that CAN evolve. Brilliant.
I find that I am a lot more comfortable as Dani. I am comfortable as Dan but not nearly as much as I am when I blend them together and let Dani lead. And nowadays, given the climate of the world, letting her out little by little has been a challenge still but easier than it would have been some 50-odd years ago.
Thank you again Alicen!
