Is crossdressing inherited though your family tree?

My nephew Now niece came out as trans gender 5 years ago.
Sandy

I wouldn't know since I never told anyone....especially family.

I voted no, but I wouldn’t be shocked if I were wrong. Honestly, like virtually everything else, cross dressing is a choice we make to engage in a behavior we enjoy. Everyone has their own unique sets of temptations or preferences — that exist for whatever reason — but because we are humans with free will, moral agency, and intellect and institutions that set boundaries, then following through with acting on those things is a choice we make.

I’m not suggesting that all temptations/preferences are bad — some are not — but behavior always involve choice. Some people crave sweets; others salt. One might have a predilection for liking chocolate because he was “born that way,” but the decision about whether to actually consume chocolate on any given occasion is a choice.

That’s why the genetics of these things don’t interest me that much, because they can tend to make people think we are merely helpless products of our biological mandates and thus not responsible for the consequences of our choices. Or we use genetics as our excuse for bad/destructive behavior.

Again, I’m not saying CDing is bad, but for some, it might be depending on how they execute it. Kinda like alcohol. Or golf. Or chocolate.

As far as I know, no.  But if anyone in earlier generations did anything, because it was so taboo, I doubt there would be any evidence.

Hi Hippie,

I suspect it might be coincidence. If you think about it, you inherited half your genes from your mum, and she inherited half her genes from her mum, so already your own gene make up is three quarters diluted compared to your grandma. Add in a cross dressing sibling to you grandma and the dilution is seven eighths from him to you.

If there was a cross dressing gene it would have to be really dominant to show up in these circumstances. And if it did show up, I'd wonder why only a few examples of cross dressing were in your family tree.

Don't take this as anything more than a thought experiment. It's massively more complicated - as Stephanie P has already suggested.

Marti xxx

Hi Hippie...

I voted " possible"...I have never heard of anyone in my " tree" being a crossdresser....but nobody knows I do either. I expect the further you go back, the more secretive it would have been due to lack of understanding..( even more than now!!!! )

In reality, there could have been a lot or I could be unique.....

.....and I always like to think grace is quite unique !!!!

Grace xx

I wouldn't have a clue, I've done genealogical research on my family too and never found a trace of any crossdressers, but it wouldn't be something that was talked about until recently I would have thought.

unique (in my family- I think)

Diana

I checked off I don't know Hippie as I'm not aware of any. I know I've got a lot of nuts in my family tree but no CD's to my knowledge.

When my father died, 20 years ago, I found a few dresses and other items in a bag in his work room. There were a few magazines that seem to point he may have been a CD. I never suspected. My mother got terribly upset when I pulled the dresses out and quickly said I should throw them away. So was he? I don’t know, but I do think of how much different our relationship would have been if we would have known.

Interesting topic, it seems difficult to determine if it's hereditary empirically because most us keep it a secret.  Does anyone here know how big is the group here at CDH or percentage of the general population are cross dressers?  Just wondering if CDH ever host a conference,  we could run into our relatives....that could show possibility of heredity.  I can imagine a conversation like this " Dad is that you?...wow amazing makeup, but that mini skirt and cleavage are a bit much don't you think?!"  🙂

I might be missing something, but how could one possibly comment on inheriting cross dressing, when, as I see it, no one in their right mind in your family tree, is ever going to admit to being a CD? This would particularly be true in earlier years, where being a CD would bring great shame to yourself and your family, resulting in possible job loss and who knows what other negative things. Yes, I realize there probably were exceptions where people came out in the open and out of the closet.

Fast forward to 2021 there are more of us out in the open and out in the public on a daily basis, so I guess that will make family tree tracing easier.

OTOH, I do wonder. With cross dressing being so common among engineers and so many engineers in my family tree, there has to be more than one CD in my family tree.

I voted "I don't know." I have three brothers and one male cousin. Three of the four are of the Duck Dynasty persuasion. They have beards, big bones and large frames and take pride in their macho appearance and behavior. They are God-fearin', gun-totin' LGBTQ-haters, and that includes CDs. Not that they couldn't be closeted crossdressers, mind you, but I would faint dead away if I ever found out one of them lives a secret CD lifestyle.

I'm the polar opposite. Scrawny, clean shaven, and the furthest thing from macho you ever wanna see. But in all the years, they've never confronted me directly about my macho-deficient demeanor. Don't ask, don't tell, I guess. After I'm gone, I'm sure they'll be cleaning out my apartment. If I don't get to do that one final purge before the final curtain, I can just imagine what they might say. I don't think I want to know.

As to the family generation preceding me, my Dad and all my Uncles are gone long ago, so I'll never know if they had CD tendencies.

So, if crossdressing is an inherited trait, then I have no idea who I could have inherited it from.

I have no idea, but I did answer that it is possible. Considering how secretive this is, I would be surprised if anyone had told me, but I never saw anything to make me think my father or grandfathers were 'dressers.

Amy

Yeah, we use one them DNA and genealogical family tree companies. Cost a bundle but family split the cost. Well they found all kinds of stuff. They found photos, they found log books, I mean they found a ton of stuff. Like my family is not all white, some were some real bad, some are famous and everything in between. Like a cool thing I found out that I had family that faught in the american revolution war. That some cool stuff to find out about.

We got the idea from this PBS show called Finding Your Roots.