By Jenn der Bentson

Being a crossdresser is something that most of us, if not all, at least sometimes, are embarrassed of being. For the overwhelming majority of crossdressers, there is a period, for many a very long one or perhaps forever, where we feel as if we should not let this side of us ever be seen. Some, a few strong ones, get to the point where they are comfortable out in public. Many do not.

But that doesn’t mean that most crossdressers, if given an opportunity where they felt they would not be judged, that people that know them didn’t know, or if they didn’t feel socially stigmatized by their activities, that they wouldn’t do so.

Why any one person cannot become comfortable in public dressed as the opposite sex is something that has lots of reasons. There are social pressures, potential familial or work implications, and there is the general fear of judgment. Those discussions are for another post. But those consequences are relevant for any crossdresser who wants to go out in public. Most balance the perceived benefit of a public outing with the danger and repercussions of the risks of doing it. Choosing not to go out, doesn’t mean that they don’t want to go beyond hiding in their basement or a hotel room. That they want to go out and do things, even everyday ordinary things, in their female form.

But what is it that crossdressers even WANT to go out? Go go beyond just crossdressing at home or in a safe space they have identified?

There are probably lots of reasons, but I can’t help but think that the main reason is a desire to be able to express themselves, to allow a part of them to express itself in a normal social manner. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s dig deeper and I can explain.

For the overwhelming majority of crossdressers, as best I can estimate, the activity of crossdressing is something they hide or have hidden for much of their lives. Many for all of their lives. They hide it from the public, they hide it from friends, they hide it from family, they hide it from their significant others, and perhaps the hardest, sometimes they even try to hide it from themselves through denial. This isn’t healthy. It is the active pushing down of a part of one’s-self.

Hiding a part of yourself is denying a part of who you are. It is disregarding feelings you have. When you do this it festers and bubbles below. Sometimes it wants out. But for most, to let it out would lead to the potential of feeling a shame that crossdressers so often feel society would place upon them. And with that feeling that there isn’t social approval, comes a feeling that there is something wrong with them, that they can’t show that part of themselves, that they should be ashamed of their activity. That isn’t good for mental health either.

But why would going out help that? Isn’t just crossdressing at home in the closet in the dark where no-one can see enough? Obviously the way I ask this question belays my opinion and adds some sarcasm.

So why do they (we) want to go out?

Because to do so would be allowing a part of yourself to come out of the shadows. To express itself. To stop being pushed aside and hidden. To stop being embarrassed about a part of who a crossdresser is as a person.

Those who have read or watched any number of testimonial explanations from crossdressers will readily, and quickly, come to the conclusion that the act of crossdressing for most is something innate to the person. It isn’t just something they did once in a while and felt no emotion, or pull from it. In fact, most felt pulled, compelled, many from a young age, to express a feminine side of themselves as manifested through crossdressing. Many try to hide it, deny it, and still come back to that feeling of a need to crossdress. To many, it is inescapable. It is a part of who they are.

I am no therapist or psychologist, but I can’t imagine any way that denying this, ignoring a part of who a person is, can be good for long term mental health.

Many therapists, clergy, and counselors have made attempts for years to “cure” crossdressers of their compunctions, feelings, desires, or wills. In most cases from any studies or testimonials I have read it simply results in repression of the feelings, not actual curing. In a large percentage of incidences, those feelings still rage back to the surface at times, sometimes breaking through. Sure, some crossdressers may find a way to control, repress, and ignore these feelings for some periods of time, but one might ask the question then, “should they have to?”

The question of why people crossdress is complex and varied in its degree, but it is also core to the question of when they do, why do they not just keep it hidden away at home? Why would a crossdresser want to be out in a public setting at all?

Crossdressers don’t go out in public to scare people, shock them, or try to make some sort of statement generally. The desire to go out is more basic to the logic I believe. It is a desire to be at least in a small part able to interact in a normal societal way when expressed as female. To just be normal. To feel that when they are crossdressed, expressed in a feminine form, they aren’t some kind of a freak that needs to hide in their basement, embarrassed of who (and what) they are.

The stigma that comes with crossdressing, and with it the reluctance to go out in public or even allow family or friends to see us in our feminine depiction, is degrading to the crossdressers’ own self-worth, their belief that they are “normal” person, and their confidence in themselves. The lack of ability to express this part of their persona too many times leads to depression, manic swings of emotion if (or when) they have an opportunity to crossdress, and challenges within families. Many times families of those who hide their activities fail to understand what the crossdressing means to the person in their family who, realistically, needs this expression opportunity.

Being able to go out in a public setting, even a controlled one, is a step some crossdressers have the braveness to make. Many do not. But for those who do, it is to some degree a validation for them this part of them, theiralter-gender self-expression is not just some freak to be hidden in the basement away from anyone who might otherwise judge them if they are seen in the light of day. It normalizes to some degree their expression, helping reinforce the thoughts that they can be who they are entirely as long as they are not causing harm to others. And I guess that’s a key point, right? Does someone dressing as another gender really harm anyone? Ok, sure, some might say that it hurts the feelings of those in a public setting who might be “disturbed” at the sight of a man in a dress, but isn’t that person who would find this offensive really being a little intolerant and closed minded in that situation?

The thought of doing something in public is scary for many crossdressers. That social judgment, pressure, and potential danger of being “outed” comes with real potential consequences because others may judge you based on what you have seen. I have no magic wand to fix that. I wish I did.

It takes major courage for a crossdresser to go and do even everyday things out in public when dressed in a way that belays their natural born gender (I use that in a scientific manner, not as some might consider their “gender expression”). For many, even the best and most skilled and  passable crossdressers, there may still be little things that give them away as such. And that should be OK. The measure of if a crossdresser should be able to feel comfortable going to the grocery store, shopping, to dinner, or a movie should not be contingent on if they blend in so well as to fool everyone without question. People need to get over their hangups and preconceived notions.

The hardest part about going out in public for most crossdressers is getting over our own hang ups around what other people think. Even if we find a place we might be able to do so with minimal risk of anyone we know seeing us (assuming we aren’t, and/or don’t want to be out to family, friends, work acquaintances, or any combination of those people), that judgment potential can be hard to overcome. It’s even harder when we think there is the potential of longer term relationships or professional consequences. For those that work past that hurdle, it is a freeing and also sometimes consequential moment.

Now, to say a crossdresser might want to go out in public when dressed is not to say either that they want to do everything they might want to do when crossdressed in public either. There are things we want to do in private at home, and there are things we do in public in our everyday lives all the time. The same holds true of someone who might be crossdressed. There are certainly things I would like to keep at home when I am crossdressed, such as things that are between a husband (even if dressed as a girl at the particular time) and a wife,  but there are also things I would love to be able to do in public dressed as a girl. I am reluctant, hesitant, but wishful.

I could go on for a long time here discussing all the challenges of being in public as a crossdresser, but the desire to do so I think boils down to the simple desire to express ones-self and feel accepted. To do normal things, makes a person feel normal. Nooone wants to feel like an outcast or a freak. For a crossdresser to want to do something, even normal things they do when not crossdressed, in public, it’s just being able to be themself and not have to hide. To feel as if the desires they have and the expressions of themselves they make are not a sin, somehow bad or shameful, or that they need to be shunned.

In the end, I guess the desire to crossdress in public comes down to wishing they could feel accepted for who they are, however they are dressed.