[Prologue]
*Shuffles into the site in bunny slippers and a bathrobe*
*Sees a topic suggestion*
Cross dressing…
Hm… I could work with that.

 

Cross dressing! Something I’ve had a variety of experiences with. I used to be a cross dresser, am attracted to cross dressing, have hooked up with cross dressers, and as a member of the quazi-queer community, I know several cross dressers. Which from this point on I will be referring to as CDs.

Let me sure up the terms. CDs are not T-Girls. CDs are not Drag Queens. They are all in their own little subgenres. Cross dressers like to wear the clothes of their opposite gender, in order to emulate them, and to alter their appearance to please both themselves and others. T-Girls want to be the opposite gender in order to satisfy themselves. Drag Queens… Well… They’re just fun aren’t they? Drag Queens just want to put on a good show. Who doesn’t like to feel pretty? Though there are incontrovertible similarities between CDs and Drag Queens, if a CD gets up on a stage and starts singing or dancing, they are in fact, a Drag Queen.

Cross dressing has always been an area of interest for me. For one, I’ve always been a little gender confused; when I was younger I used to stuff my shirt and pretend I had boobs. It felt legitimately bizarre that I didn’t have any. I only recently stopped CDing because it has become impractical in my life to do so. As my body matures, my masculine features all increased in intensity, and it became harder and harder to cover my chin stubble, to hide my crotch candy, and to just be a passable girl.

The last time I really truly passed for a female I was 14. I was really cute. I just looked like a very awkward, goth-haired (It was a v-bang halloween wig, but so long as it matched the outfit and resembled actual hair, it wasn’t Elvira-esc.) teenage girl. Which was actually pretty good, because at the time I was a very awkward, emocore, teenage boy.

It wasn’t really about sexuality with me, at the time. The fact that I wanted to dress, look, act, and sound like a girl didn’t really equate to my liking of guys. Sure, I was/am bi/try-sexual. (I like to think of myself as sexuality-ambiguous, the gender of the person doesn’t matter, it’s how much we like each other.) But the fact that I felt pretty comfortable being a girl came more from the whole, ‘It just feels right’ thing. I was young, feminine, girly. Why not complete the package? Damnable puberty.

Cross dressing as a culture or community, is a very oddly shaped concept. Because the activity is mostly a private one, there are guides, online stores, chatrooms, forums, and sections of sites such as the gendersociety. But you don’t see big communities right off, like one would if you googled the words, ‘Furry Community’. I’m sure there are lots of ways CDs are networking though. How else would a novice boy learn to do his makeup from a trustworthy, experienced person whom he knows he can trust and be open with? Well, that’s how I did it. Her name was Tracy. He was really nice.

The societal view of cross dressing is that of fear of change, and the abnormal. By abnormal, I do not mean offense, it’s just a word to describe something that is apart from the majority. Several royals and celebrities from the past and present are/were cross dressers, King Henry III of France insisted on being considered a woman and addressed as “Her Majesty”. J. Edgar Hoover’s femme name was apparently “Muriel”. Alexander the Great conquered more land than anyone in the history of the planet and united several people over one majestic empire… and also liked to dress like a woman.

CDs aren’t really portrayed in the media, I’ve noticed. The movie “Psycho” didn’t really give them a good rap either. I would assume that’s because the culture has yet to mature enough for it to become a normal part of society, in that we can see it on TV and not have the entirety of some family-based group rise up against a commercial network and slay them, or just whine and complain until their normalcy and boringness is restored.

I think CDs are really cool. Taking ‘be yourself’ to the next level of awesomeness. If they can pull off being a chick, and even if they can’t, it’s amazing. It’s damn near patriotic!

If you’re a ‘normal person’, and are confused, or curious. If you’ve always thought about it and wanted to try, but were too afraid, I would suggest you investigate. The world isn’t as small as you think it is, there’s plenty of Shangri-Las out there. So for all the people out there afraid to let their true colors show, hold your head up high and let your flag unfurl, guys wearing skirts are all over the world.