Cross-Dressers

You’re a cross-dresser? So, that means that you are gay. Right? How does your family feel about it? Do you always dress like that? What do your co-workers think? When did you start? Well….these were just some of the questions presented to the cross-dressing panel yesterday in my Psychology of Gender class.

The panel consisted of two male cross-dressers (Natalie and Darlene) and the wife (Michelle) of one of them. They all came dressed as women and you would never know that Darlene was a man. She dresses as a woman almost 85% of the time and Natalie only dresses up on occasion. Natalie is committed to her wife, Michelle, of over 30 years and she only found out that her husband is a cross-dresser a little over a year ago. Their children do not know. There is much secrecy in the world of a cross-dresser and with good reason.

Numerous misconceptions exist about the cross-dressing community. Interestingly enough, most of us do know someone who is a cross-dresser; we just don’t know that we know. Since they are not greeted with open arms in our society, many if not most tend to be very secretive and go to great lengths to protect their anonymity. Most of them are not gay. Most of them are not sexually aroused by wearing women’s clothing. The majority, however, are middle-aged heterosexual married men. Many dress for comfort or because they want the opportunity to express their feminine side.

This trio was very comfortable being themselves walking across a college campus and as a panel in front of students greatly varying in age, experience and tolerance. To my pleasant surprise, every student asked questions and they did so with great respect. There was no snickering, just curiosity. I accomplished what I had set out to do and that was to expose students to diversity; to people that they would not ordinarily get a chance to know anything about. Excellent!