Impacts of Being a Cross-Dresser Felt From an Early Age

Finding out that you’re a cross-dresser may be a shock to some of us, but there are always a few hints. That little voice inside of our head insisting that we should wear women’s clothes. It varies depending on whether you’re a cross-dresser or a trans person, but in most cases, we can tell from an early age.

Think about the kind of clothes you wanted to wear as a kid and how you felt about your gender identity. These and a few other signs might have hinted at your future as a cross-dresser during your childhood! If you want to know which signs are these, sit down and read this very article!

1. Why is it important to know about it?

Growing up as a cross-dresser is a challenging experience. It is difficult for us to conform to society’s expectations of gender roles and expression. Many of our sisters are born into conservative households, having to endure quite a lot of pressure from their families. If they are assigned male at birth, anything remotely feminine is denied from them. This conflict is extended to their schools and has a significant impact on the development of their social skills. I’ll talk about it in-depth in the following topics. But for now, the idea is that repressed cross-dressers develop some sort of trauma at an early age.

With that in mind, knowing some of these signs and hints may help you see through these events with a new perspective. You must realize that part of what happened may have been society’s fault and not yours as a person. We must not be too harsh with ourselves, as this kind of introspection may help us overcome trauma and other issues.

2. You felt that there was something wrong with how you looked

The first thing that comes to mind is how being a cross-dresser affected our self-esteem as kids. Some of us may have felt locked in a male body for most of our lives. Of course, this might be a more significant issue for trans women and non-binary folks than it is for a cross-dresser. But it affects all of us to a certain degree. The problem is that whenever you look into a mirror, what you saw was what society expected you to be, not who you wanted to become. Besides that, as you tried to match feminine beauty standards, the chances are that what you saw in the mirror could have made you sad or even depressed.

3. You had more girls than boys as friends

In what we may classify as an attempt to “blend in” and learn more about femininity, cross-dressers usually have more female friends. You identify yourself with stuff these girls liked to do and wear. You felt welcome among them as if you were made to fit in their friendship circle. What was happening is that you had many common interests with them and could relate to them more than to the other guys. It’s worth mentioning that interests and outfits aren’t exclusive to each gender. Our parents and families just tend to expect us to like what they think boys should like. That’s due to imposed gender roles in western society.

Sometimes, this may cause cisgender cross-dressers to feel misplaced among other boys and even lead to bullying. You weren’t doing anything wrong, even if others mocked you for exhibiting what they considered to be girlish behavior. You were just being yourself and falling victim to binary norms of masculinity.

4. You envied your crushes

Another typical hint that you might always have been a cross-dresser is that doubt that comes whenever you see a pretty girl. Do I want to date her?  Do I want to look like her? It might have led some of our sisters to believe that affection and envy are similar. When you’re a cross-dresser, it is easy to mistake admiration for love or even desire. As a kid, you’re most likely told that you should date a girl, but love and attraction are two complex concepts. With that in mind, as soon as you envy a girl’s appearance, you might mistake these feelings. A worst-case scenario may lead you towards the failure of a relationship built on confused feelings.

5. You feel somewhat limited

Cross-dressers also tend to feel limited when they are young due to several reasons. Some of them we have discussed before. Basically, you may feel like someone else choose what you can and cannot wear. It sounds outrageous and unfair that you can’t dress up in feminine clothes as every girl does. Just because you were born male, you have no access to your so desired outfits. And you think about them a lot. We are overwhelmed by these thoughts as soon as we learn what bras and panties are. As a result, we feel misplaced from an early age. Deep down, we know what we want to wear and what we want to look like. But we feel limited due to what society expects us to be.

All of these signs are related to cross-dressing. We start to notice them from a very early age since we are around five or six years old on average. But since cross-dressing is considered to be taboo, no one talks to us about it. As a result, we grow up confused, thinking that something might be wrong with us. However, the truth is that we just had a lot of pressure put upon us to be something we never were. It’s okay to express yourself and escape masculinity stereotypes. Nothing you have ever suffered for wanting to be feminine was your fault. Society has failed you, but we must hope for a better, more inclusive future. What do you think about these hints? Tell us in the comments what made you realize you were a cross-dresser in the past!

Quiz:

Of all the hints above, which one do you think is the one that makes it more clear that you’re a cross-dresser?

A. Having too many female friends


B. Wanting to dress up as a girls


C. The feeling of limitation

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