I am trans. I dress up as female because this is what my mind needs. The first time, as an adult, i zipped up a dress fireworks went off in my mind. I am female. My body is male. I feel I have been forced to cross dress as a male most of my life. Now that Ive realized I am female, I have been embracing my being female and Ive never felt so me since I was 3. I have a joy for clothes now. I want to talk to other people about my clothes and shoe finds. Before I just covered my body in tshirts and jeans. I didnt like my body and cared little about it. Ive also been experiencing fundamental shifts in my mind the more I express who I was born as. I feel more as me. I feel more as me in female clothes. And I want to be more me.
There are some women into clothes and some not. I am a trans woman and would rather wear shorts and a tight shirt that anything else. Just look at different women in the workplace. Some dress to the nines each day while others seem to care less. One thing consistent though, all women want to look good. I would say, just like there is a gender spectrum, there also is a clothes spectrum. We all have a style we are comfortable with.
@@cristinacindy7520 It is such a great feeling when you finally take steps to transition after years of exploring. It is a great thing to finally know and accept whom you really are.
I have been on HRT for 5 months now. One unexpected outcome of HRT is that I am not feeling the urge to crossdress. I still wear female clothes, but they are typical street clothes that a woman would wear. Cargo pants, t shirt, etc. Before HRT, I was crossdressing every chance I could. I love retro clothing, petticoats, etc. I was over feminizing my look. Now I am thinking about feeling comfortable and not self-conscious. I never expected that to happen.
Very similar to my experience. I'm now 2 years on HRT and any desire to wear my previous "fetish" clothing is gone. Replaced by a normal everyday female wardrobe. Suicidal depression was what finally cracked my egg and forced me to deal with my dysphoria. Living the dream!
It sounds as though these changes are maybe bringing you a deeper kind of fulfillment and I am happy to hear this is the case - I hope your journey is full of unexpected joy 🏳⚧🦋
@@RoweSandberg While I am sad to hear of how dark things were, I am heartened to hear of how glowingly you speak of your current life - I hope your life is filled with trans joy because it sounds as though you've had your share of cis suffering 👩❤💋👩
@@ivorydungeon909 You're not wrong. It took me 57 years of denial to get where I am. But I quickly learned that Gender Euphoria is a real thing and so far, everyone i know has been neutral or supportive. ❤️
I'm exploring transitioning. I am not aroused when I cross dress, it's much deeper than that. I go out often while dressed, I have even gone to the beach this summer in a bathing suit which was a little nerve racking at first but I became quite comfortable, quickly. When I am dressed I become feminine, affectionate and completely free to be emotional in my thoughts and feelings. I now have many close friends in the LGBTQ community and I dance, flirt, and i feel very much like my true self.
Agree with the doctor, this is an interest to explore, not worry about becoming an addiction. I'm a middle-age cis male, married with children. The vast majority of my life interests have always been typically male and I'm fine living the rest of my life as male (I have a fairly muscular build, so passing as female has never been in the cards). That said, I've always been insatiably curious what the female life experience is like and that has led me to cross dress for as long as I have memories. The clothes feel amazingly comfortable and exploring a softer approach to life is interesting, enlightening, fascinating, exciting, pleasant, pleasurable, you name it. Society confining half the population to a riged, solely masculine persona is far, FAR more dangerous and damaging than simply exploring a gentler side of yourself, so don't worry about it. With every passing year, I care what other people think less, and regret how long I constrined my life based on what others might think. You have one go at this, check all the boxes on your list, or regret not doing so as your life nears it's end. And just a final little bit of reassurance, my wife was married several times before me, and she says I'm... ummm.... more skilled... in bed than any of her previous husbands, so exploring femininity can pay benefits for men, not damage them.
I had issues with addiction to substances, and wondered if my crossdressing was also an addiction. The answer is no. I used substances to avoid feeling. I crossdressed to connect with and express my feminine spirit. When I got sober, I was able to transition. I would not have transitioned if I was still in active addiction.
My answer to the second question would have been a simple "yes" with all the direct reassurance that (hopefully) provides. You, of course, went better, going beyond simplicity to explore some of the nuances involved in the question, and it's good that you did as I'm sure it was a more useful and productive answer. Thank you for that. OTOH, I wanted to push back gently on the first question, where I would say that crossdressing is not an addiction but that it _can be_ an addiction in the sense that any behavior can become one if you find yourself pursuing it even as it is unsatisfying and becomes disruptive to the rest of your life.
I have never heard a cross dresser say they find their behavior unsatisfying. They may feel shame and conflict because of it. They may even say it disrupts their life. But, IMO they would all say they get something out of it.
I have several friends that are crossdressers and have been for many decades. They identify as male and if you ask them why they would tell they enjoy expressing thrmselves in that way. Some I know even make a game out of seeing who can pass the best. That being said they do have rules and they stick to they. In my case i mixed dressed most of my life, and binged and purged till the day my egg cracked Most of the ppl i know feel more at ease, in this age of openness and exceptance. Very interesting topic, im going to a BBQ for the support group i belong in the Toronto Canada, Xpressions, (I know its a shameful plug Dr Jamie 😔😉) and ill bring up this question and see what ppl think. Your hair looks great Jamie
AMAB, adult non-binary transfeminine. But I never crossdress or present openly in public as female anymore. The answer for me was to present as female in ways that were beneficial to my mental health. I presented as female enough among what I considered friends or friendly and accepting people that I gained a sense of healing. Now I can live relatively happily presenting as male in my daily life. Yes my sense of femininity remains. A couple things along the way I noticed was that women had more negative reactions to me presenting as female where men didn't. Also women would really stare. If a woman saw me wearing a particular blouse once before and then she saw it again she would stare as much as the first time. I still think of the time when I wish I would have said "Hello I am up here". When I was in front of the female cashier at the grocery store checkout lane. I couldn't understand what she was staring at. Then when I was fumbling to get my money to pay for my groceries I saw my nipples were high beaming. Then I understood her staring. But I was also confused by it as well because she has her own nipples and certainly not every male has small nipples. So I really didn't know why mine were worthy of being stared at.
Trigger Warning: Veiled discussion of CSA. I remember a little over a year ago, at egg cracking 2.0, I read Savannah Hauk's two books on cross-dressing. While I enjoyed these books, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to folx interested in cross-dressing and diversity in gender expression, they also gave me the good sense that I was not really a crossie. As much as I do enjoy wearing female attire, it's really because of the way it helps establish a social context whereby people might recognise my femininity. One of the friends I've made through a local trans support group wonders if she is a crossie or if she's trans. While I suggested to hear that crossies fit quite comfortably under the trans umbrella, I sense that her question is about anxiety about an uncertain future. All she really knows is that she no longer has to feel ashamed of dressing femme, or seeking out the sexual attention of men interested in her. I think this has been liberating and empowering but then she is left with a degree of insecurity about to where all this power will be channeled. Although her work environment might allow her to present as femme, she fears how social transition might affect her career. I also get the impression that she feels a specific sense of pleasure for her incongruity - I guess this pride is the inverse of the shame that has corralled her behaviour for about 30 years. I suspect unkind and ignorant people might look at her current propensity for going out and meeting guys to be reflective of some sort addiction/compulsion. Apart from the excellent point already articulated, that this framing is unhelpful and inappropriately pathologising, I think these kinds of activities, seemingly fueled by pent up energy, also need to be understood for how they arise in tension with heteronormativity and cisnormativity. I think it's only through looking beyond the confines of heteronormativity and cisnormativity that my friend is going to come to a clear understanding of how she wishes to identify, what she wishes to do and with whom; and what kind of gender expression best suits her. But all of this takes time and energy and people need to keep their lives running with the limited energy they have. While it's easy to stand there and say this person is "hyper" in this respect, and "hypo" in that respect, those kinds of observations only tell me about your understanding of the central tendency, and don't really communicate much understanding of the person we're seeking to understand. Without wanting to draw too long a bow, I find that discourses of addiction are themselves the result of a kind of addiction to comparing people against the central tendency. But could there be any greater waste of intellect?? Obviously, when I say, "you" here, I don't mean you, dear reader, and certainly not you, Jamie. While the queer umbrella gave me some refuge, it didn't really quite serve me because I was able to use denial to convince myself that I was the sort of person that Julia Serano describes as "intellectually genderqueer" In a sense that's true. For many years, I used he/they pronouns in the classroom pretty much purely to give my students a signal that it's okay to be trans or otherwise sex and gender diverse. I also hated being "he" however, and have joked for some years that I got a PhD so that I could avoid a gendered title in favour of the perennially seductive title: doctor! But Jamie, as we were discussing, seeing concepts as grappling hooks is better than seeing them as umbrellas. Of course shelter is important and we all deserve to feel safe. But staying in the shelter can also make us a bit "undercover" and I think that fuels impostor syndrome and other symptoms related to problems of identity congruence. "Queer" did give me shelter for a long time, and I suppose I needed to be sheltered for a long time. But when I embraced the trans grappling hook then not only did it disrupt the feelings of inauthenticity that came from living undercover but I'm also much more willing and able to reach for the next hook and work my way up the mountain. This message is long enough already but I suppose I'll leave y'all with a cliffhanger. My "hookwork" looks like this: TransNeurodiversePolyPanSurvivor-> ? For me, it's been this dialectical process of recognising my self, and the breadth/depth of my potential feelings while then looking at the tensions that constrain me. I am trans and my transness helps me recognise my neurodiversity while my neuodiversity had been complicit in facilitating denial in the name of cis-normativity. Once I could recognise my neurodiversity then I could appreciate that society valorises monogamy but that consensual non-monogamy is much more likely to enable the kind of relationships in which I like to take part. Recognising that I do not believe that monogamy sits in perfect correlation with "true love" helped me to recognise that I am pan. However, I could not really appreciate that I was pan until I could also sit with my identity as a survivor. That's a bit of a bitter pill for many reasons but getting that one done has actually helped me to get a better sense of my feelings about men. When I get stressed, I have interesting symptoms. For instance, I will think much about eating fruit and I will crave it but then I look at the fruit and just never be comfortable with wanting to eat the fruit. I'll worry that the fruit is actually bad in some way and the irony is that I will watch fruit turn bad over the weeks of my observation - well done, Doctor: another correct prediction - the fruit did indeed turn bad, eventually. So, I know when I'm in this headspace then I'm not really my best self. I know all fruit turns bad eventually and more to the point I know that fruit is healthy and that the days I have to sit wondering about whether to eat fruit are limited. So, things had been like this for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I was very hungry and there wasn't really much food around except for the fruit I'd been rejecting. So, I engaged in an autoerotic and introspective activity that allowed me to look at the different hooks and to notice the obvious. Maybe it was the nice queer men from ACON that I'd seen on campus earlier in the week but I was able to recognise that my aversion to fruit is a kind of masked androphobia. I think I need to accept that, while I had some unhappy experiences in younger years, that part of the reason why I was involved in those events is because that is what I wanted. While I can be intellectually aware that me being complicit does not excuse other people's action in seeking to shame or to mistreat me, I am starting to reconcile this with my body. It's okay that life is full of happenings and that some of those might be happenings that we wish did not happen. What I've come to recognise is that I am not really okay as long as I am pushing my androphilia into my shadow. It might be true that I love femininity and that I find myself more attracted to women, and to have more of an affinity for women. These things are true. But it's also true that it would also please me to satisfy a man, and to be satisfied by a man, provided he treated me with the requisite love and respect. I know this probably sounds like a small thing to you, dear reader, but I suppose what I'm saying is that my friend and I aren't so different, in that we have to do the work to reconcile our feelings; desires; expression; and identity. Sorry in advance for all the typos that likely riddle a message of this length. 😅 Gay power! ⚧🏳⚧🏴 PS Yes, after I got off and could own my needs, then I found that eating an orange was as simple as it sounds 😆 🟠😸
Dr. Jamie, two years into hormones I was frightened that made a huge mistake. I was still attracted solely to women and I wore skirts and dresses exclusively. As you were discussing my egg began to crack years before when I spent a week's vacation wearing long skirts and chunk heels. My late wife was very accommodating. I miss her terribly. After she passed a young Trans man came into my life and we transitioned together. He wanted a partner who was a great deal more masc than me. Now I am on my own and I only wear pants for heavy yard work. A fellow Trans woman explained to me that I was a "high femme Lesbian" in social presentation. I spent decades wanting to wear skirts, dresses, stockings, high heels, makeup, and jewelry and now I can and now I do. Thanks for your videos.
You're welcome. I very much appreciate you sharing your experience here. I am also happy you find the videos helpful. I will try to keep them coming. :-)
Dr., Thanks for the video, I found it by accident. Straight, married guy here and I crossdress, not all the time but occasionally and I find it very comforting and relaxing. No desire to transition, I just enjoy wearing gals clothes, not sure why and at my age I don't really care. I tell wifey, I don't want to be a woman, but I do enjoy dressing as one, occasionally. Thanks again.....
I don't consider myself as a crossdresser in any way. I do not make any attempt to look like a woman. I just find I like wearing skirts. As a man I find them comfortable and they offer more colorful options then the basic men's fashions.
I found that my initial "egg" exploration exploded from a few garments to an entire closet, full of dresses, skirts, formal wear, jackets and other things in what is known as the "chapstick" style (i am transfem genderfluid)...I also have learned how to hide my beard with concealer. And the chief limitation became that I could not make myself look beautiful enough or fit these clothes because I am an overweight man with a belly.. and this caused acute depression... I think this is one good indication that i'm not just a cis crossdresser. I have a gender therapist now... I have worn capris and blouses to work for a year now. Sometimes i feel defeated and depressed if i must dress "masculine"...
Thanks for sharing. I think many of us experience dysphoria about our bodies in one way or another. It sounds like clothing has been really helpful tool for gender exploration and a source of euphoria. That's great!
When I dress up I become euphoric and inner peace washes over me and it just feels so right i have always had feminine feelings and emotions and for my sanity I had to explore this side of me ❤❤
Thank you for another informative video. I think you would be a doctor a lot of transgender people would want to have an appointment with. You have bags of knowledge and experience, but i really like the fact you embrace the differences we all have and I would imagine this would put your patients at ease. As for all our differences... wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same!? Keep up the great work you do!
it's interesting how women can wear jeans/pants/trousers and no one even thinks anything about it when they do.. but over a hundred years ago that was considered completely outrageous behaviour if women did that.. but then a guy puts on a dress and he gets treated REAL bad by a lot of people.. it's really tragic really the pain that causes a lot of people who just want to be themselves but too many in the world won't let them i wrote a song called "Blaze" that might be touching for some people to hear, I'm not meaning to spam you it's just it might be very touching for some to hear so i hope it's ok that i mention it.. i wrote it after a LOT of tough times so i hope people can relate i hope life will be really good for you all Best wishes to you from Rolland in Scotland
As a heterosexual, I don't really understand this controversy. A crossdresser is an individual who flirts with dressing like a woman or a man but maintains the alternate identity. A trans individual is an individual who prefers taking the new identity and chooses to live as a wholly different person. But neither have to change their appeal, although some may. The controversy, as I see it, is that people think there is some sort of perversion to it.
Thanks for the comment. Please note, the term “transvestite” is no longer used clinically, in research, and in the community. Instead we say transgender men or women. I think it’s also important to say that the transgender person is not “taking a new identity” rather they are shedding a false one.
Hi Dr Jamie, just wanted to say hi, you helped me realize I am trans. Now I am changing all my paperwork and on mones and socially transitioned and thriving girl!
Susan... almost ALL females, AFAB's (Assigned Female At Birth) are 'Crossdressers'. They wear everything and anything their heart desires, be it feminine, masculine, or androgynous... with very little ridicule from others. Females that wear traditional mens clothing eg; pants/trousers, tshirts, ties, ball caps, sneakers etc... are Crossdressers. In the grander scheme of things though... it doesn't really matter who wears what... as long as we are content doing so. ❤
Why can we not update the definition of cross-dressing. Instead of from the Oxford dictionary "the practice of wearing clothes usually worn by a person of the opposite sex" I believe it would be far more accurate and updated by defining it as "the practice of wearing clothes not accepted by for society in general for the persons gender". Seeming as it tends to only refer in western culture now to men wearing clothes that by social norms are widely accepted as just for women to wear.
Im a crossdresser have been for as long as i can rember . As a kid i liked womens clothes . Now im am adult im buying them and wearing them i defently dont do it for sexual reasons im a straight man . I ferl comfortable in a dress or skirt and top wearing makeup high heels etc for me i lije the freedom of a dress or skirt its just enjoyable.
💯 right. I couldn't Crack my egg untilI was ready. I suppressed her in me until I could no longer and I could drop my shields and think about these things. Thank you again❤❤❤
People should just wear the clothing and styles as men as they wish. Women wear a lot of items that only men could wear long ago, and it is absolutely ridiculous so many think for a man to take on a "feminine" look they also have to take on a stereotypical feminine persona. I am a straight, gender non conforming male, and I openly wear "feminine" styles and looks, while identifying as nothing other than male. I really and truly wish less men would feel compelled to identify as women when "crossdressing " and just wear the damned styles, looks, and clothing take a sledge hammer to sexist gender dress codes, that women have in so many ways have already shattered, but males STILL can not wear skirted outfits with makeup, and "feminine" styles of hair. This will never change if males still feel like they have to identify as women. (I am NOT talking about those trans identified individuals, though I do think a percentage of those were pressured into transition due to the sexist rules limits and stereotypes mostly applied to males, based upon my own experience of having people from both sides of the debate calling me Trans in denial, or "egg"). Gender non conformity and gender a typical expression SHOULD NOT continue to be closeted behavior. If a woman can wear a style and look in a specific situation, then so should a male have the same style and look as a viable option.)
I'm not sure how to respond all this, so I will just wish you the best with your gender expression. I also support abolishing "sexist gender dress codes."
@@DrJamieTalks hmm. That's unfortunate that you choose not to address some of those things in my comment. Okay, let me rephrase. I think the stigmatizing of gender non conformity of kids (mostly males), and the shaming of cross dressing is a huge contributor to the gender issues many face today. Don't you think it would not be so distressing were it not for the stigmatizing of gender non conformity?
I don’t think issues with gender identity necessarily have anything to do with restrictions on gender expression. These are often conflated. I think all kids should be able to express themselves in whatever way they choose. This would decrease bullying and negative mental health outcomes. It may also be a safe way for those who do experience gender incongruence to safety explore aspects of social transition. Attacks on perceived femininity in boys and masculinity in girls should be ended. This only causes harm.
We're all here to learn and I hope you'll entertain what I believe to be constructive criticism. You're skirting some insensitivity when you say "I really and truly wish less men would feel compelled to identify as women when "crossdressing " and just wear the damned styles" and "this will never change if males still feel like they have to identify as women". Cross-dressing men do not necessarily feel compelled to identify as women or any other gender. Is this observation anecdotal? Who is compelling them to identify a certain way? Furthermore you say "I do think a percentage of those were pressured into transition due to sexist rules limits and stereotypes". Again you're talking about social pressure causing people to identify as another gender and transition. This social contagion theory of gender diversity (friends, community, only influencers causing more people to identify as trans) has been widely and thoroughly debunked. Finally the rate of people who regret gender affirming care is less than 1%, meaning there's more than 99% of people who are contented with that care (Knee surgery has a MUCH higher rate of regret, 6%-30%). Matt Bernstein had a wonderful YT video with Lucy Kartikasari on this topic. Thanks for reading and hearing me out.
Happy Monday to you Dr. Jamie, I am on my lunch break at work and your video for whatever reason came up on my TH-cam, I found it very, very interesting and informative 👍🏻😎👍🏻, I just subscribed to it, you look beautiful by the way 😍🥰😘🤗❤️🌹🌹🌹❤️
Thanks for the video,very helpful to me,I get extreme urges to crossdress,I do it for short periods privately, usually about 2 weeks,then the urge goes but I love to see crossdrssers like yourself then I need to do it again,I am elderly 77 am I going nuts?
I don't define myself as a crossdresser. I am a woman or transgender woman or non-binary trans-feminine person. I think if dressing in woman's clothing brings you happiness, follow your heart. :-)
I have a good friend who is a cross dresser. They say it relaxes them and make them feel good. My understanding is addiction is needing more and more of something and not being able to stop some negative behavior. It never seems enough. I think most cross dressers would say they are not addicted, but it often is something they find very hard to give up. Many will however have shame and hide their behavior. They shouldn't. I think it important to distinguish between a cross dresser and a trans person. As Jamie says, a cross dresser is comfortable with their gender assigned at birth. A trans person wants to live opposite their gender assigned at birth and have a body different from the one they were born with. Trans people often start learning about themselves through cross dressing. They even may be sexually aroused by it at the beginning. But, once their gender exploration goes deeper, they realize it is not about the clothes. That is what happened with me. Yes, I was afraid to start my gender exploration that included cross dressing because I knew I would likely not be able to stop. I thought, who needs that complication in life. I had no idea that twenty-five years later I would be transitioning. Oh yes, eggs crack when they are ready to crack. Live an learn! Dr. Jamie says being trans has to do with identity. IMO that is generally true. But, I would add it sometimes takes time for someone to get in touch with that identity. I know I am trans because I have dysphoria, want to live as woman, want to be treated as a woman, and have the body of a woman. My identity is more complicated. It is something I have struggle with most of my life. Even two years after transitioning, I still am working on accepting whom I really am. It has gotten much better. Hey Jamie, nice top! 🙂
@@marti7343 Sometimes, the hardest thing in life is accepting those things that make us different. They are also the things that end up bringing us the most joy. 💕
I am trans. I dress up as female because this is what my mind needs. The first time, as an adult, i zipped up a dress fireworks went off in my mind. I am female. My body is male. I feel I have been forced to cross dress as a male most of my life. Now that Ive realized I am female, I have been embracing my being female and Ive never felt so me since I was 3. I have a joy for clothes now. I want to talk to other people about my clothes and shoe finds. Before I just covered my body in tshirts and jeans. I didnt like my body and cared little about it. Ive also been experiencing fundamental shifts in my mind the more I express who I was born as. I feel more as me. I feel more as me in female clothes. And I want to be more me.
There are some women into clothes and some not. I am a trans woman and would rather wear shorts and a tight shirt that anything else. Just look at different women in the workplace. Some dress to the nines each day while others seem to care less. One thing consistent though, all women want to look good. I would say, just like there is a gender spectrum, there also is a clothes spectrum. We all have a style we are comfortable with.
@@josephbelisle5792 Lovely comment! Thanks for sharing your experience! The euphoria you describe is also something I’ve experienced. 💕🏳️⚧️😊
Such a beautiful story, I started my transition when I was 52 years old but I had been transgender my whole life just crossdressing.
@@cristinacindy7520 It is such a great feeling when you finally take steps to transition after years of exploring. It is a great thing to finally know and accept whom you really are.
@@cristinacindy7520WOW Cristina Cindy!!!! You look so gorgeous 😍🥰 on your profile picture. Happy Monday to you, have a wonderful week 😘🤗❤️🌹🌹🌹❤️
I have been on HRT for 5 months now. One unexpected outcome of HRT is that I am not feeling the urge to crossdress. I still wear female clothes, but they are typical street clothes that a woman would wear. Cargo pants, t shirt, etc.
Before HRT, I was crossdressing every chance I could. I love retro clothing, petticoats, etc. I was over feminizing my look. Now I am thinking about feeling comfortable and not self-conscious. I never expected that to happen.
Very similar to my experience. I'm now 2 years on HRT and any desire to wear my previous "fetish" clothing is gone. Replaced by a normal everyday female wardrobe. Suicidal depression was what finally cracked my egg and forced me to deal with my dysphoria. Living the dream!
It sounds as though these changes are maybe bringing you a deeper kind of fulfillment and I am happy to hear this is the case - I hope your journey is full of unexpected joy 🏳⚧🦋
@@RoweSandberg While I am sad to hear of how dark things were, I am heartened to hear of how glowingly you speak of your current life - I hope your life is filled with trans joy because it sounds as though you've had your share of cis suffering 👩❤💋👩
@@ivorydungeon909 You're not wrong. It took me 57 years of denial to get where I am. But I quickly learned that Gender Euphoria is a real thing and so far, everyone i know has been neutral or supportive. ❤️
That is profound
I'm exploring transitioning. I am not aroused when I cross dress, it's much deeper than that. I go out often while dressed, I have even gone to the beach this summer in a bathing suit which was a little nerve racking at first but I became quite comfortable, quickly. When I am dressed I become feminine, affectionate and completely free to be emotional in my thoughts and feelings. I now have many close friends in the LGBTQ community and I dance, flirt, and i feel very much like my true self.
@@Josie-fi5up Yay! I’m happy you are exploring, meeting friends, and finding yourself. 💕🏳️⚧️😊
"Don't pathologize your diversity." -- Dr. Jamie
Love this!
@@IntrovertAncom 🤍🩵💙💚💛🧡❤️💜🩷 Be the rainbow 🌈
Agree with the doctor, this is an interest to explore, not worry about becoming an addiction. I'm a middle-age cis male, married with children. The vast majority of my life interests have always been typically male and I'm fine living the rest of my life as male (I have a fairly muscular build, so passing as female has never been in the cards). That said, I've always been insatiably curious what the female life experience is like and that has led me to cross dress for as long as I have memories. The clothes feel amazingly comfortable and exploring a softer approach to life is interesting, enlightening, fascinating, exciting, pleasant, pleasurable, you name it. Society confining half the population to a riged, solely masculine persona is far, FAR more dangerous and damaging than simply exploring a gentler side of yourself, so don't worry about it. With every passing year, I care what other people think less, and regret how long I constrined my life based on what others might think. You have one go at this, check all the boxes on your list, or regret not doing so as your life nears it's end. And just a final little bit of reassurance, my wife was married several times before me, and she says I'm... ummm.... more skilled... in bed than any of her previous husbands, so exploring femininity can pay benefits for men, not damage them.
Thanks for sharing your experience. 😊
I had issues with addiction to substances, and wondered if my crossdressing was also an addiction. The answer is no. I used substances to avoid feeling. I crossdressed to connect with and express my feminine spirit. When I got sober, I was able to transition. I would not have transitioned if I was still in active addiction.
Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your sobriety!
❤
My answer to the second question would have been a simple "yes" with all the direct reassurance that (hopefully) provides.
You, of course, went better, going beyond simplicity to explore some of the nuances involved in the question, and it's good that you did as I'm sure it was a more useful and productive answer. Thank you for that.
OTOH, I wanted to push back gently on the first question, where I would say that crossdressing is not an addiction but that it _can be_ an addiction in the sense that any behavior can become one if you find yourself pursuing it even as it is unsatisfying and becomes disruptive to the rest of your life.
I have never heard a cross dresser say they find their behavior unsatisfying. They may feel shame and conflict because of it. They may even say it disrupts their life. But, IMO they would all say they get something out of it.
I have several friends that are crossdressers and have been for many decades. They identify as male and if you ask them why they would tell they enjoy expressing thrmselves in that way. Some I know even make a game out of seeing who can pass the best. That being said they do have rules and they stick to they.
In my case i mixed dressed most of my life, and binged and purged till the day my egg cracked
Most of the ppl i know feel more at ease, in this age of openness and exceptance.
Very interesting topic, im going to a BBQ for the support group i belong in the Toronto Canada, Xpressions, (I know its a shameful plug Dr Jamie 😔😉) and ill bring up this question and see what ppl think.
Your hair looks great Jamie
@@Chloedawnknauer Glad you enjoyed the topic! 💕
AMAB, adult non-binary transfeminine. But I never crossdress or present openly in public as female anymore. The answer for me was to present as female in ways that were beneficial to my mental health. I presented as female enough among what I considered friends or friendly and accepting people that I gained a sense of healing. Now I can live relatively happily presenting as male in my daily life. Yes my sense of femininity remains.
A couple things along the way I noticed was that women had more negative reactions to me presenting as female where men didn't.
Also women would really stare. If a woman saw me wearing a particular blouse once before and then she saw it again she would stare as much as the first time. I still think of the time when I wish I would have said "Hello I am up here". When I was in front of the female cashier at the grocery store checkout lane. I couldn't understand what she was staring at. Then when I was fumbling to get my money to pay for my groceries I saw my nipples were high beaming. Then I understood her staring. But I was also confused by it as well because she has her own nipples and certainly not every male has small nipples. So I really didn't know why mine were worthy of being stared at.
I’m happy you’ve found contentment with your gender expression. 🙂
Trigger Warning: Veiled discussion of CSA.
I remember a little over a year ago, at egg cracking 2.0, I read Savannah Hauk's two books on cross-dressing. While I enjoyed these books, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to folx interested in cross-dressing and diversity in gender expression, they also gave me the good sense that I was not really a crossie. As much as I do enjoy wearing female attire, it's really because of the way it helps establish a social context whereby people might recognise my femininity.
One of the friends I've made through a local trans support group wonders if she is a crossie or if she's trans. While I suggested to hear that crossies fit quite comfortably under the trans umbrella, I sense that her question is about anxiety about an uncertain future. All she really knows is that she no longer has to feel ashamed of dressing femme, or seeking out the sexual attention of men interested in her. I think this has been liberating and empowering but then she is left with a degree of insecurity about to where all this power will be channeled. Although her work environment might allow her to present as femme, she fears how social transition might affect her career. I also get the impression that she feels a specific sense of pleasure for her incongruity - I guess this pride is the inverse of the shame that has corralled her behaviour for about 30 years. I suspect unkind and ignorant people might look at her current propensity for going out and meeting guys to be reflective of some sort addiction/compulsion. Apart from the excellent point already articulated, that this framing is unhelpful and inappropriately pathologising, I think these kinds of activities, seemingly fueled by pent up energy, also need to be understood for how they arise in tension with heteronormativity and cisnormativity. I think it's only through looking beyond the confines of heteronormativity and cisnormativity that my friend is going to come to a clear understanding of how she wishes to identify, what she wishes to do and with whom; and what kind of gender expression best suits her. But all of this takes time and energy and people need to keep their lives running with the limited energy they have. While it's easy to stand there and say this person is "hyper" in this respect, and "hypo" in that respect, those kinds of observations only tell me about your understanding of the central tendency, and don't really communicate much understanding of the person we're seeking to understand. Without wanting to draw too long a bow, I find that discourses of addiction are themselves the result of a kind of addiction to comparing people against the central tendency. But could there be any greater waste of intellect?? Obviously, when I say, "you" here, I don't mean you, dear reader, and certainly not you, Jamie.
While the queer umbrella gave me some refuge, it didn't really quite serve me because I was able to use denial to convince myself that I was the sort of person that Julia Serano describes as "intellectually genderqueer" In a sense that's true. For many years, I used he/they pronouns in the classroom pretty much purely to give my students a signal that it's okay to be trans or otherwise sex and gender diverse. I also hated being "he" however, and have joked for some years that I got a PhD so that I could avoid a gendered title in favour of the perennially seductive title: doctor!
But Jamie, as we were discussing, seeing concepts as grappling hooks is better than seeing them as umbrellas. Of course shelter is important and we all deserve to feel safe. But staying in the shelter can also make us a bit "undercover" and I think that fuels impostor syndrome and other symptoms related to problems of identity congruence. "Queer" did give me shelter for a long time, and I suppose I needed to be sheltered for a long time. But when I embraced the trans grappling hook then not only did it disrupt the feelings of inauthenticity that came from living undercover but I'm also much more willing and able to reach for the next hook and work my way up the mountain.
This message is long enough already but I suppose I'll leave y'all with a cliffhanger. My "hookwork" looks like this: TransNeurodiversePolyPanSurvivor-> ?
For me, it's been this dialectical process of recognising my self, and the breadth/depth of my potential feelings while then looking at the tensions that constrain me. I am trans and my transness helps me recognise my neurodiversity while my neuodiversity had been complicit in facilitating denial in the name of cis-normativity. Once I could recognise my neurodiversity then I could appreciate that society valorises monogamy but that consensual non-monogamy is much more likely to enable the kind of relationships in which I like to take part. Recognising that I do not believe that monogamy sits in perfect correlation with "true love" helped me to recognise that I am pan. However, I could not really appreciate that I was pan until I could also sit with my identity as a survivor. That's a bit of a bitter pill for many reasons but getting that one done has actually helped me to get a better sense of my feelings about men.
When I get stressed, I have interesting symptoms. For instance, I will think much about eating fruit and I will crave it but then I look at the fruit and just never be comfortable with wanting to eat the fruit. I'll worry that the fruit is actually bad in some way and the irony is that I will watch fruit turn bad over the weeks of my observation - well done, Doctor: another correct prediction - the fruit did indeed turn bad, eventually. So, I know when I'm in this headspace then I'm not really my best self. I know all fruit turns bad eventually and more to the point I know that fruit is healthy and that the days I have to sit wondering about whether to eat fruit are limited. So, things had been like this for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I was very hungry and there wasn't really much food around except for the fruit I'd been rejecting.
So, I engaged in an autoerotic and introspective activity that allowed me to look at the different hooks and to notice the obvious. Maybe it was the nice queer men from ACON that I'd seen on campus earlier in the week but I was able to recognise that my aversion to fruit is a kind of masked androphobia. I think I need to accept that, while I had some unhappy experiences in younger years, that part of the reason why I was involved in those events is because that is what I wanted. While I can be intellectually aware that me being complicit does not excuse other people's action in seeking to shame or to mistreat me, I am starting to reconcile this with my body. It's okay that life is full of happenings and that some of those might be happenings that we wish did not happen. What I've come to recognise is that I am not really okay as long as I am pushing my androphilia into my shadow. It might be true that I love femininity and that I find myself more attracted to women, and to have more of an affinity for women. These things are true. But it's also true that it would also please me to satisfy a man, and to be satisfied by a man, provided he treated me with the requisite love and respect. I know this probably sounds like a small thing to you, dear reader, but I suppose what I'm saying is that my friend and I aren't so different, in that we have to do the work to reconcile our feelings; desires; expression; and identity.
Sorry in advance for all the typos that likely riddle a message of this length. 😅
Gay power! ⚧🏳⚧🏴
PS Yes, after I got off and could own my needs, then I found that eating an orange was as simple as it sounds 😆 🟠😸
@@ivorydungeon909 Sounds like you are well on your way to understanding yourself! 🏳️⚧️🙂💕
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Dr. Jamie, two years into hormones I was frightened that made a huge mistake. I was still attracted solely to women and I wore skirts and dresses exclusively. As you were discussing my egg began to crack years before when I spent a week's vacation wearing long skirts and chunk heels. My late wife was very accommodating. I miss her terribly. After she passed a young Trans man came into my life and we transitioned together. He wanted a partner who was a great deal more masc than me. Now I am on my own and I only wear pants for heavy yard work. A fellow Trans woman explained to me that I was a "high femme Lesbian" in social presentation. I spent decades wanting to wear skirts, dresses, stockings, high heels, makeup, and jewelry and now I can and now I do. Thanks for your videos.
You're welcome. I very much appreciate you sharing your experience here. I am also happy you find the videos helpful. I will try to keep them coming. :-)
Dr., Thanks for the video, I found it by accident. Straight, married guy here and I crossdress, not all the time but occasionally and I find it very comforting and relaxing. No desire to transition, I just enjoy wearing gals clothes, not sure why and at my age I don't really care. I tell wifey, I don't want to be a woman, but I do enjoy dressing as one, occasionally. Thanks again.....
@@telescope497 Glad you feel content and supported! 💕😊
I don't consider myself as a crossdresser in any way. I do not make any attempt to look like a woman. I just find I like wearing skirts. As a man I find them comfortable and they offer more colorful options then the basic men's fashions.
@@tombrewsaugh1399 That’s great. I think people should be allowed to wear what they want. 🙂
I found that my initial "egg" exploration exploded from a few garments to an entire closet, full of dresses, skirts, formal wear, jackets and other things in what is known as the "chapstick" style (i am transfem genderfluid)...I also have learned how to hide my beard with concealer. And the chief limitation became that I could not make myself look beautiful enough or fit these clothes because I am an overweight man with a belly.. and this caused acute depression... I think this is one good indication that i'm not just a cis crossdresser. I have a gender therapist now... I have worn capris and blouses to work for a year now. Sometimes i feel defeated and depressed if i must dress "masculine"...
Thanks for sharing. I think many of us experience dysphoria about our bodies in one way or another. It sounds like clothing has been really helpful tool for gender exploration and a source of euphoria. That's great!
When I dress up I become euphoric and inner peace washes over me and it just feels so right i have always had feminine feelings and emotions and for my sanity I had to explore this side of me ❤❤
There is nothing so blissful as gender euphoria!
Thank you for another informative video. I think you would be a doctor a lot of transgender people would want to have an appointment with. You have bags of knowledge and experience, but i really like the fact you embrace the differences we all have and I would imagine this would put your patients at ease. As for all our differences... wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same!? Keep up the great work you do!
Thanks! Your kind words mean a lot to me!
it's interesting how women can wear jeans/pants/trousers and no one even thinks anything about it when they do.. but over a hundred years ago that was considered completely outrageous behaviour if women did that.. but then a guy puts on a dress and he gets treated REAL bad by a lot of people.. it's really tragic really the pain that causes a lot of people who just want to be themselves but too many in the world won't let them
i wrote a song called "Blaze" that might be touching for some people to hear, I'm not meaning to spam you it's just it might be very touching for some to hear so i hope it's ok that i mention it.. i wrote it after a LOT of tough times so i hope people can relate
i hope life will be really good for you all
Best wishes to you
from Rolland in Scotland
@@CastleHassall Thank you for your support of the community. All of us just want to be our most authentic selves. 😊
As a heterosexual, I don't really understand this controversy. A crossdresser is an individual who flirts with dressing like a woman or a man but maintains the alternate identity. A trans individual is an individual who prefers taking the new identity and chooses to live as a wholly different person. But neither have to change their appeal, although some may. The controversy, as I see it, is that people think there is some sort of perversion to it.
Thanks for the comment. Please note, the term “transvestite” is no longer used clinically, in research, and in the community. Instead we say transgender men or women. I think it’s also important to say that the transgender person is not “taking a new identity” rather they are shedding a false one.
@DrJamieTalks Well said, thank you for the clarification. The more we speak about difficult topics, the greater we are enlightened.
Hi Dr Jamie, just wanted to say hi, you helped me realize I am trans. Now I am changing all my paperwork and on mones and socially transitioned and thriving girl!
YAY!!! I'm glad my channel has been an inspiration! :-)
What are female cross dressers called and do they get teased
Susan... almost ALL females, AFAB's (Assigned Female At Birth) are 'Crossdressers'. They wear everything and anything their heart desires, be it feminine, masculine, or androgynous... with very little ridicule from others.
Females that wear traditional mens clothing eg; pants/trousers, tshirts, ties, ball caps, sneakers etc... are Crossdressers.
In the grander scheme of things though... it doesn't really matter who wears what... as long as we are content doing so. ❤
@@Genevieve111 Agree 100% Be yourself. Wear what you want.
@@DrJamieTalksAbsolutely...
Why can we not update the definition of cross-dressing. Instead of from the Oxford dictionary "the practice of wearing clothes usually worn by a person of the opposite sex" I believe it would be far more accurate and updated by defining it as "the practice of wearing clothes not accepted by for society in general for the persons gender". Seeming as it tends to only refer in western culture now to men wearing clothes that by social norms are widely accepted as just for women to wear.
I love it! Yes, your definition is accurate!
I am in euphoria thinking about my crossdressing! It's a passion to me.
Enjoy!
Im a crossdresser have been for as long as i can rember .
As a kid i liked womens clothes . Now im am adult im buying them and wearing them i defently dont do it for sexual reasons im a straight man .
I ferl comfortable in a dress or skirt and top wearing makeup high heels etc for me i lije the freedom of a dress or skirt its just enjoyable.
I'm glad it brings you enjoyment. :-)
💯 right. I couldn't Crack my egg untilI was ready. I suppressed her in me until I could no longer and I could drop my shields and think about these things.
Thank you again❤❤❤
@@christinahankey-nz Once it cracks 🥚 there is no going back 🏳️⚧️😃
You're welcome!
It is an addiction for me when I dress up I feel happy and alive and when I don't I feel moody and irritable
Sound like it just feels right. :-)
People should just wear the clothing and styles as men as they wish. Women wear a lot of items that only men could wear long ago, and it is absolutely ridiculous so many think for a man to take on a "feminine" look they also have to take on a stereotypical feminine persona. I am a straight, gender non conforming male, and I openly wear "feminine" styles and looks, while identifying as nothing other than male. I really and truly wish less men would feel compelled to identify as women when "crossdressing " and just wear the damned styles, looks, and clothing take a sledge hammer to sexist gender dress codes, that women have in so many ways have already shattered, but males STILL can not wear skirted outfits with makeup, and "feminine" styles of hair. This will never change if males still feel like they have to identify as women. (I am NOT talking about those trans identified individuals, though I do think a percentage of those were pressured into transition due to the sexist rules limits and stereotypes mostly applied to males, based upon my own experience of having people from both sides of the debate calling me Trans in denial, or "egg"). Gender non conformity and gender a typical expression SHOULD NOT continue to be closeted behavior. If a woman can wear a style and look in a specific situation, then so should a male have the same style and look as a viable option.)
I'm not sure how to respond all this, so I will just wish you the best with your gender expression. I also support abolishing "sexist gender dress codes."
@@DrJamieTalks hmm. That's unfortunate that you choose not to address some of those things in my comment. Okay, let me rephrase. I think the stigmatizing of gender non conformity of kids (mostly males), and the shaming of cross dressing is a huge contributor to the gender issues many face today. Don't you think it would not be so distressing were it not for the stigmatizing of gender non conformity?
I don’t think issues with gender identity necessarily have anything to do with restrictions on gender expression. These are often conflated. I think all kids should be able to express themselves in whatever way they choose. This would decrease bullying and negative mental health outcomes. It may also be a safe way for those who do experience gender incongruence to safety explore aspects of social transition. Attacks on perceived femininity in boys and masculinity in girls should be ended. This only causes harm.
@@DrJamieTalks seeing eye to eye on this.
We're all here to learn and I hope you'll entertain what I believe to be constructive criticism.
You're skirting some insensitivity when you say "I really and truly wish less men would feel compelled to identify as women when "crossdressing " and just wear the damned styles" and "this will never change if males still feel like they have to identify as women".
Cross-dressing men do not necessarily feel compelled to identify as women or any other gender. Is this observation anecdotal? Who is compelling them to identify a certain way?
Furthermore you say "I do think a percentage of those were pressured into transition due to sexist rules limits and stereotypes". Again you're talking about social pressure causing people to identify as another gender and transition.
This social contagion theory of gender diversity (friends, community, only influencers causing more people to identify as trans) has been widely and thoroughly debunked.
Finally the rate of people who regret gender affirming care is less than 1%, meaning there's more than 99% of people who are contented with that care (Knee surgery has a MUCH higher rate of regret, 6%-30%).
Matt Bernstein had a wonderful YT video with Lucy Kartikasari on this topic.
Thanks for reading and hearing me out.
Happy Monday to you Dr. Jamie, I am on my lunch break at work and your video for whatever reason came up on my TH-cam, I found it very, very interesting and informative 👍🏻😎👍🏻, I just subscribed to it, you look beautiful by the way 😍🥰😘🤗❤️🌹🌹🌹❤️
Thank You & Welcome to the Channel!
Great explanations for all aspects of dressing 💯👍
@@johnnj3858 You’re welcome. ☺️
May I ask could a straight man cross dressing just be expressing empathy towards women? That is my first thought about this subject...
If so, it would be a rather strange way of expressing empathy
I have always seen myself as a woman but was represeed. I do crossdress and love it. I was not capable of living my dream.
I hope you find the opportunities to be yourself full time.
Thanks for the video,very helpful to me,I get extreme urges to crossdress,I do it for short periods privately, usually about 2 weeks,then the urge goes but I love to see crossdrssers like yourself then I need to do it again,I am elderly 77 am I going nuts?
I don't define myself as a crossdresser. I am a woman or transgender woman or non-binary trans-feminine person. I think if dressing in woman's clothing brings you happiness, follow your heart. :-)
the eggs cracking metaphor is gross and a bit disturbing.. what about the flower flowering?
@@CastleHassall Some cute things come out of eggs like dragons 🐉 💚🤗
@@DrJamieTalks and omelets.
@@DrJamieTalks And Eagles!
You are blooming into a beautiful woman!
There's a woman inside of me ever since when I was a kid for life can't stop it wants to come out really
Let her free!
Thanks really i fighting its because i beautiful really
What a gorgeous beautiful psychiatrist 🤗❤️
@@franklinpndejesus3677 Thanks! 😊
I use to cry when I woukd take off my womans clothes because I wanted to wear them for ever and be Christina all tge time.
I'm sorry. :-(
I know how you feel.......makes me depressed returning to work. Just want the world to know the REAL me😢😢😢
Thank you for this
You’re welcome! ☺️
Very interesting. Thanks for posting. 🌻🫶🏾🦋
@@davefisher1840 Thank You! 😊 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵
❤
@@davidmicheletti6292 ❤️❤️
At one time men dressed in skirts and dresses.
Gender expression does change
Why does estrogen interact with methadone
?
@@SusanWillan There are no interactions I am aware of.
I have a good friend who is a cross dresser. They say it relaxes them and make them feel good.
My understanding is addiction is needing more and more of something and not being able to stop some negative behavior. It never seems enough. I think most cross dressers would say they are not addicted, but it often is something they find very hard to give up. Many will however have shame and hide their behavior. They shouldn't.
I think it important to distinguish between a cross dresser and a trans person. As Jamie says, a cross dresser is comfortable with their gender assigned at birth. A trans person wants to live opposite their gender assigned at birth and have a body different from the one they were born with.
Trans people often start learning about themselves through cross dressing. They even may be sexually aroused by it at the beginning. But, once their gender exploration goes deeper, they realize it is not about the clothes. That is what happened with me. Yes, I was afraid to start my gender exploration that included cross dressing because I knew I would likely not be able to stop. I thought, who needs that complication in life. I had no idea that twenty-five years later I would be transitioning. Oh yes, eggs crack when they are ready to crack. Live an learn!
Dr. Jamie says being trans has to do with identity. IMO that is generally true. But, I would add it sometimes takes time for someone to get in touch with that identity. I know I am trans because I have dysphoria, want to live as woman, want to be treated as a woman, and have the body of a woman. My identity is more complicated. It is something I have struggle with most of my life. Even two years after transitioning, I still am working on accepting whom I really am. It has gotten much better.
Hey Jamie, nice top! 🙂
@@marti7343 Sometimes, the hardest thing in life is accepting those things that make us different. They are also the things that end up bringing us the most joy. 💕
It''s not an addiction per se. But it can be if overdone. Sex is the same. Drinking or drugs are the same.
Thanks for sharing your opinion