Does anyone here find crossdressing increases dysphoria?

[Charlie Nicki]

Yes, I'm pre everything and have crossdressed 4 or 5 times only. 4 of those were in Halloween so I was fully made up and felt good about myself but the last time was me just trying girl clothes to see how I felt and I felt nothing but an urge to take them off since I looked like a dude in a dress, just ridiculous. I won't even attempt wearing female clothing again until I'm a few months on HRT.

[JMJW]

Without HRT, I find crossdressing can cause acute dysphoria in the moment, but on the other  hand partially relieves  chronic gender dysphoria overall. I kind of have low expectations of HRT's effects at 32, so I want to do as much as I can beforehand and not rely on it. 

[cheryl reeves]

They are just clothes you put on and wear. If you have the dude in a dress mentality you will always have that mentality...when I dress it's a relief like a switch has been turned on and I can let my hair down per say. Can I ask do you have this mentality when wearing jeans and t's

[Laurie]

 
  Skimming through this thread I'm starting to feel the strange one here. I cross dressed almost all my life. I believe it was my coping mechanism. I wanted to be a girl, I wished I could be a girl but I never had the feeling that I was a girl. Cross dressing was my way of feeling like and being a girl for a short time. For the longest time I had myself convinced it was all I needed. When I was dressed my make world and worries ceased to exist for a bit. I could be someone else without all that male responsibilities. I didn't have to be the Dad, the husband, the man with all the pressures that came along with those jobs. I was free to be someone else. I didn't know at the time that that someone else was me.
  So no cross dressing didn't make me dysphoric, it helped me survive until I found myself.

  Hugs,
    Laurie

[Georgette]

They are just clothes you put on and wear. Can I ask do you have this mentality when wearing jeans and t's

The clothes don't make the woman.  I am a woman even if I am naked.  I sometimes wear jeans and Tee-shirts or Tank-tops, and don't feel any different.

If I wore male clothes I would feel very awkward.  Have not will not attempt that.

[Royal Blue]

Uncertain of my gender right now, but I've experienced something like this. I'm AFAB, and when I wear highly masculine clothes I feel that it just emphasizes how feminine my body and face are. But I don't like wearing highly feminine clothes for the same reason. Androgynous outfits feel much more comfortable.

[nyanhakase]

Considering I just came out of the most challenging months of my life... yes. Though, I suppose more accurately it greatly amplified my dysphoria because so many clothing items just couldn't work. It helped to find my two outfits that were unquestionably female but did not look out of place on my terrible body. Those got me through the period of no HRT and beginning weeks. Recently I found one old shirt of mine that somehow didn't get donated. I tried it on and looked completely different, I saw a crossdressing female, and I went to tears because it was probably the most feminine and affirmed I've ever felt.

[elkie-t]

I might not totally like how I look (not really, I usually like my looks), but I love how I feel in a skirt, some blouse and heels and (it always comes in a package to me) without any appropriate self-imposed male-behavior norms (hey, I just broken the biggest taboo!).   I suddenly become released from any need to hide my feelings, become free to express myself, get relaxed and generally happy for no apparent reason


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[Michelle_P]

I might not totally like how I look (not really, I usually like my looks), but I love how I feel in a skirt, some blouse and heels and (it always comes in a package to me) without any appropriate self-imposed male-behavior norms (hey, I just broken the biggest taboo!).   I suddenly become released from any need to hide my feelings, become free to express myself, get relaxed and generally happy for no apparent reason

Hmmm...  Sounds like someone got their gender presentation lined up with their gender identity.   

This sounds very familiar.  Now, imagine how happy and, yes, empowered you might feel after being yourself for several days, even months, without having to step back from this state.  This, I think, drives some of us to ultimately decide to move to transition.  It is an incredibly powerful thing, discovering peace and happiness within ourselves, and I think it is OK to accept and follow that path for those of us for whom it feels appropriate.

[Veronique10]

Interesting to read the responses here. I'm sorry to those who experience dysphoria. For me, it's about how it makes me feel, which is at ease with myself. When I look in the mirror, I see a resemblance to the females in my family (more than the males), which makes me feel that I could have easily been born a girl. As a child and teenager, and even in my early 20s, I was often mistaken for a girl/young woman. Don't know, maybe my testosterone levels are lower than average.

[Dani]

Prior to transition, I rarely cross dressed and yes, I looked like a man in a dress. I was way overweight. Cross dressing never did anything for my dysphoria. Not that I am post op, I usually wear shorts and a t-shirt. I am just comfortable, that's all.

When I do dress up, I wear clothes that fit and with over 2 years of HRT and weight loss, I look like a woman in a dress. Many people do not notice or even care.

[Lucy Ross]

I wonder if I weren't feeling so mixed up about this if I hadn't bought silicone forms.  When I put them in and the weight drags my chest down, and my arms bump up against them, this charge goes through my body.  What I see in the mirror otherwise doesn't have quite the same effect.  I want to buy some simple corsets and see some semblance of curves.  If I just wear a tight top and pull the fabric in something similar happens.

I bought a ton of clothes on the cheap and like having such a variety of outfits around, the feel of the different shapes and softer fabrics.  Dressing up I still enjoy, but wearing male clothing in public is starting to bother me.  I stopped underdressing on the job for a while, since my work clothes are unisex - then thought about it and started underdressing after all.  I practice things like raising the pitch of my voice at the end of sentences and crossing my legs at the ankles, too.  Dunno if anyone is picking up on things like that, don't care either.

[Lucy Ross]

I think every other response here concerns reactions to the visual; my dysphoria - or euphoria, or something - seems to manifest itself in the tactile instead.  I've always been utterly desultory about my personal appearance, even before starting to crossdress at the age of 12, so perhaps I'm just dull in the visual sense in some way?

[baseballfan]

Let me think a minute, it has been more than half a decade since I was in that situation..

Ok, long before I knew I was actually female, I would periodically put on a piece of my ex-spouse's clothing on occasion, and pleasure myself, eek, and the results were always powerful orgasms and self-loathing..

If I was alone, though, and had the time and privacy, I could put on a skirt, and clean the whole house, and do traditional female work, and feel wonderful, and relaxed, and be very efficient. At one point, ten years before my diagnosis, I was convinced that if I could just wear women's clothing, I would finally find peace, but my ex came home from vacation, and that was the end of that, back to furtive, occasional release and guilt/shame.

I have had very similar experiences, which is what has led me to believe I may be a cross dresser and not trans.  What got you over the hump, if I may ask?

[baseballfan]

When I was a teenager (decades ago) I tried cross dressing a couple of times, and both times I had this terrible feeling of dissonance looking at myself in a mirror. I figured it just wasn't my thing, and it was only a few years ago I realized it was disphoria. That appalling wrongness wasn't the clothes, it was me.

I can only wonder what life would have been like if I'd realized I was trans back then, but I had such mild feelings it wasn't normally noticable. Pity it didn't stay that way.

When did your feelings start to become stronger, if I may ask?

[Lucy Ross]

When did your feelings start to become stronger, if I may ask?

You're responding to posts made back in February, so you might want to PM the poster if you really want a response.

[Geeker]

You know, I've tried to respond to this thread a couple of times since it was first posted, and every time I end up deleting it for one reason or another. For me, this is a touchy subject. The short answer is that yes, it increases the sense of wrongness I feel associated with my body image in relation to how I feel it should be.

Now to complicate things, the long answer is no. Most of the pants and shorts I own are "women's", same goes for socks and undies (in fact I don't own male underwear, TMI, I know). Essentially, most of my clothes are "women's". Obviously it's not about the clothes, it's the body they're on.

[Alex81]

It depends...

Sometimes I'm fine just wearing a long skirt around the house. Other times I have to be wearing all womens clothes, and I'm good. However, other times I get so disgusted with dressing feminine around the house because I feel like "just a hideous crossdresser" which makes me feel totally inadequate.

Being non-binary sucks.

[karenk1959]

I hate looking at myself in the mirror when I crossdress because I totally look like a man dressed up like a woman. Makes me feel even more that it sucks to be TG!

[BlueJaye]

I'm pretty new here and just found this thread. The topic of cross dressing causing heightened dysphoria came up during my first therapy session. My therapist asked if I had any history of cross dressing and I answered yes. We talked a bit about it and I mentioned that I had stopped doing it years ago. She wondered why. So I explained that it just made the feelings more intense and I felt almost out of control when it got that intense. Scared of it becoming a major depression trigger, I stopped doing it. Part of me would really like to still, but I'm not at a point where I feel I can without it causing problems emotionally.