Have you ever felt misunderstood?
Sadly, there’s a lot of ignorance out there! That’s why in this blog post, I want to debunk common myths about crossdressers and transgender women.
Let’s start with one of the biggest misconceptions that’s unfortunately still hanging around:
Myth: Transgender women, crossdressers, and drag queens are all the same.
While all these are valid ways of expressing one’s gender, they represent distinct groups, and it’s important not to use these terms interchangeably.
To clarify, here’s how the GLAAD Media Reference Guide defines some common transgender terms:
- Transgender women – People who were assigned male at birth but who identify as women. Many transgender women are prescribed hormones or undergo surgery, but transgender identity is not dependent upon medical procedures.
- Crossdressers – Men, typically heterosexual men, who occasionally wear clothes, makeup, and accessories associated with women. This activity is a form of gender expression and is not done for entertainment purposes. Crossdressers do not wish to permanently change their sex or live full-time as women.
- Drag queens – Men, typically gay men, who dress like women for the purpose of entertainment.
- Gender non-conforming – A term used to describe some people whose gender expression is different from conventional expectations of masculinity and femininity. The term is not a synonym for transgender or transsexual and should only be used if someone self-identifies as gender non-conforming.
- Non-binary and/or genderqueer – Terms used by some people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the categories of male and female. The term is not a synonym for transgender and should only be used if someone self-identifies as non-binary and/or genderqueer.
Now that the record has been set straight, let’s look at some of the most common myths about crossdressers and transgender women.
7 Myths About Transgender Women
- Being transgender is a choice.
- Transgender people are gay.
- Transgender women aren’t “real” women.
- Your sex is defined by your chromosomes and/or hormones.
- You have to have surgery to be a “real” transgender person.
- You aren’t transgender until you start hormone therapy.
- Kids and teens are too young to know if they’re really transgender.
7 Myths About Crossdressers
- Crossdressers are gay.
- Crossdressers are perverts.
- Crossdressing is a psychological problem.
- Crossdressing can be cured.
- Crossdressers want to change their sex.
- Crossdressing is a destructive addiction.
- Crossdressers can’t be good husbands or fathers.
Have you heard any of these myths before? They’re frustrating and hurtful, aren’t they? It’s time for the world to wake up and realize this truth:
Your gender is who you are on the inside. There are countless ways to express your gender, and all are completely valid!
To help spread this truth, check out these excellent resources from GLAAD below. They’re a great way to increase awareness about transgender issues.
Recommended Resources from GLAAD
Now let’s hear from you…
What’s the truth that YOU’D like to set straight? Let’s continue the conversation in the comments below!
Love,
Lucille
When you listed myths involving sexuality(the two involving crossdressers and transgenders being gay), that got a tad touchy. You could word it as “Not all trans/Xdressers are gay, but they can be.”
I would agree with you Jessica.
But I think that’s what Lucille was trying to clear up.
Ah okay.
It doesn’t mean squat what the price of tea is in China on this issue. The US has been flooded with the notion thanks to Jenner and the Kardashians. The whole thing may feel liberating, but it very well could become a cosmic “Jim Crow” joke. I appreciate Al Jolson, but popular polls say “We” as TGs don’t exist? Rightful, “Sorry honey, I’m TOTALLY pullin’ tg-had on your ass!”, won’t be validated.
Sorry, I have no idea what message you are trying to convey.
well this goes back to the how do you label yourself post i commented on. the glaad definition pigeon holes me as a cross dresser and… im not, its hard to explain. its like there is 2 of me living in the same body but not at the same time. no not multiple personality, same personality just… i dunno how i would explain it. but i think that “cross dresser” just doesnt quite put the definition to what i am
I am an absolute heterosexual Hungarian man but I can get a lot of pleasures when I live as Laura and I wear different female dresses: evening or weekday clothings, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, African or ancient Egyptian, Greek, medieval dresses. It is very similar to the pleasure of the sculptor’s creation but my material is my own body and my statue is the incarnation of my “anima”, desires, dreams, the female side of my identity.
Even if transgender, we all had to start out as crossdressers.
Just that some of us realized there was something more.
As some others have written, if we had all of us understood more when we were young, we would done things different.
Is it a curse we inherited when we were young, that caused us to have G.I.D (dyspthoria) > to be Transgendered and if we take hormones > we become transsexual as advanced stage transgender. Some of us don’t go through S.R.S, I can-
not afford it, so I have to make the best of it.
As Elvis Presley said; do-not condem what you don’t understand; so other people have a lot of learning to do.
I am a professional psychologist on TG problems. CD is a human being who loves to wear the clothes of opposite gender and express yourself in this gender. I’ve never crossdressed in my life and felt myself in women’s clothes as my clothes. Not opposite gender. From 10 years old. And girl clothes has never exited me, only helped me to be more confident to the world around. But only when I’ve founded in 2009 this beautiful site and some monthes later Kathe Perez site Exeptional Voice I realized that it was a point of no return. 18 monthes later I collected all my male clothes, shoes and accessories and have burnt them till ashes in the field near my house. And dusting the ashes in the wind like anathema. And in this moment I felt myself fantastically good. As I destroyed the Evil. The single problem was what to wear at work. And I have choosen such female clothes and shoes that really difficult to determine was it female or not. But now I don’t bother what to wear. It only depends of deceision of a new day.
I have been told so many times by
Straight women that they love me
For getting in touch with my feminine side and I say lets go shopping and do lunch can I barrow your black dress with the chain belt ! And they say what heels are you gonna wear and hate me cause my legs are hot
PS. May your GOD goes….
It comes from an english (Irish working for BBC) sitting comedian named DAVE ALLEN. One of the best througout the century. Look him and his shows up in YouTube, 🙂
“Goodnight.
And may YOUR GOD go with you”
I find it a little amusing after reading all these explanations of how hard it was to wear some closing not really accepted by the public.
Well, the most interesting thing is: WHY is it as it is??? I think that if you are a normally intelligent person you would not have any trouble to accept that for ex. your husband like skirts (many Scots do it regularely) and your wife like wearing mans kostumes. So are most pig skinned s c whities idiots? One wonder!!!
Same question can be asked for 9/11. WHY it happend? and so on.
My old historic teacher once said: Jullan keep in mind and never forget it, there are three things that you must alvays ask yourself:
1. Why?
2. What happend?
3. The result?
The result it mostely easy to see.
What happend is also not very hard to descover.
WHY?, mostely this is the hard nut to crack. Think about childrens Why is … once again, once again and so on until you yell: Shut up and go ask MOMMY!!!!.
So for example: Why did B Ladin send in the planes? Why did the japanese gouverment attack Perl Harbor. It is still hard to get at the beginning of those two examples.
It is like the weather where a butterflay in Amazonas started the tornado in Oklahoma.
I found it that we Transsgenders and crossdressers has the same problem. Why are we so suspect in our surroundings?
Yes a good question is it not?
May your God go with you
Jullan from Sweden
Hi Jullen,
I love your concept of trying to get at the root cause behind issues. Without understanding the ‘why’ of a problem you can never truly resolve it.
Unfortunately, many of the ‘whys’ are simply a matter of societal conditioning, religious indoctrination, or ignorance, with not real basis in logic or reason. How does one combat willful ignorance? How does one undo years of brainwashing by radical religions? How do we bridge the cultural gap where gender doesn’t determine class?
B. Laden sent the planes out of hatred and a radical, perverted belief in Islam, that few actually share. Tokyo felt that taking out Pearl would cripple the only real threat they faced in dominating the Pacific. And the Butterfly effect you allude to isn’t literal, it refers to the length of a numeric variable in computer simulations for predicting the weather, where the smallest change in the variable could make a radical change in the weather model. Doesn’t mean that the model is any more accurate in predicting weather, no does it mean that an actual butterfly could determine weather on the opposite side of the world.
To answer my own questions about how to change the misconceptions held true by others: it takes building personal relationships, taking the risk of losing those relationships when being totally honest about who we are, and being smart enough to be prepared for the consequences. Some people will never change their beliefs even with the proof of their falsity right under their nose. We have been part of society since there was such a thing, and until the emergence of mono-theastic desert religions, we were accepted, albeit as a special class.
Why Christendom, Judaism, and Muslimism have such a fear concerning TS and TG, is perhaps that we don’t add to the congregation via procreation, something only the ‘priesthood’ could get away with. Perhaps that’s why the priesthood has been a historic refuge for the gay community….
We don’t easily fit into the ‘boxes’ of society, and anything that can’t be easily categorized always causes a bit of anxiety.
Remember that Beatles song!
“We all live in a yellow submarine”
Myrissa, It is a sad world that someone forgot to make round boxes for the transgender people to
fit in.