Fetishist = closet full of high heels, etc; sexualizing a particular object. Men who become aroused by donning women's clothes would be ->-bleeped-<-s in the original sense of the word. There was a classification of fetishistic ->-bleeped-<-s, too. I forget how that was supposed to work. At a certain point I ceased caring why I wanted to be a woman, or really was, I should say.  All of this confusion/shame/guilt malarkey is just a hangup our society is slowly giving up on.  They used to arrest you for crossdressing, so we're making progress.

Thomas Bevan's new book Being Transgender: What You Should Know includes a good roundup of the current science on the phenomenon of ->-bleeped-<-.

Quote from: Lucy Ross on January 16, 2018, 05:47:17 AM
Fetishist = closet full of high heels...

Is a ciswoman with a closet full of high heels also a fetishist?  I do not have any heels, but a closet full of flats. Should I worry?   

Armchair psychologists are a dime a dozen. Most of the thinking about fetishism in the trans female is just BS. Talk to a good therapist. You'll get it all sorted.

Obsessing over heels, thinking about them all the time, spending inordinate amounts of money on them, having all shapes and sizes, becoming aroused by the sight/feel, wearing them at every opportunity, to the exclusion of other items of wardrobe = fetishizing them.  Either that, or you're a collector, if there's no sexual component.  I think.  I'm just an armchair psychologist all the way, yes.

Google sez:

"make (something) the object of a sexual fetish.
"women's bodies are so intensely fetishized"
have an excessive and irrational commitment to or obsession with (something).
"an author who fetishizes privacy""

If you don't slobber over the item in question you're just an avid collector, I suppose.  Be careful what you collect though.  There was a thread about hobbies at crossdressers.com and one of the most prolific posters had a collection of thousands of antique nail pullers, I found that amusing somehow.

Pre any sort of HRT, and cross dressing is not sexual for me. It just feels more natural and is better posture. Variation is good because what I wear changes the way I move and so the way I feel.

I enjoy the person I see in the mirror. I enjoy dressing up and transforming from a teenager with gross acne to a pretty girl. I enjoyed dressing in sexy clothes not because of sex but because I felt special. I was my best friend and I accepted my alter ego. This feeling was always tugging at my shirt tails and I could not wait to get home from work, redress and relax. I've fought with these feelings over the years to the point I would go to my friends sisters house because she always had stylish clothes and top makeup brands. After she left for work, I would raid her closets and spend the day as Dawn. She let me in and I was a fixture on her couch. I tried to dismiss my desires and became unfathomably depressed.  It affected my relationships, I was afraid to mingle less someone find out. My last two visits with the doctor was the first time in 40 years I did not fill out a depression questionnaire. Thanks to my therapist I am assimilating back into the community, getting familiar to be out and about. I visited her this morning and I spent the whole session in my female voice for the first time. Crossdressing did initiate my desire to go on HRT because I just felt comfortable. It has been the best decision other than marrying my wife Jo. She has been amazing and I appreciate her like never before.

If it is purely sexual in nature it wont last long. Its hard to say for many. I can say that sexuality for me is a rathe rnon issue and I am happy my libidio is super low, I can focus on other pursuits. Cant speak for others, but my transition is because the woman i buried had to come out