Hello, I apologize if this isn't in the correct section I am new to this forum. I am a 22-year-old guy and since I was about 15 or so I have been cross-dressing. It started with cutting up old pairs of boxers to resemble women's underwear, then eventually buying women's clothing online. Since about two years ago, it has grown into something that I do not like about myself. In the last couple years it has also grown to me using toys and watching more hardcore pornography (such as transsexual porn) and I feel guilty and ashamed every single time I do this. To me, it is purely a sexual thing. I don't really have desires to live like a woman or go out as a woman. I have thought about this for a long time and keep going back and forth between trying to stop myself from doing this, quitting and pushing the urges down and trying to accept that it is something that I do. I don't know what to do or who to talk to about this. Thank you and sorry for the long post.
So what is it that you don't like about yourself then? You said you feel guilty and ashamed but is there something else to it? There's nothing wrong with what you're doing, exploration is good. Might be worth considering why you feel compelled to do it before repressing it. Incidentally, when I say consider why I don't mean you will suddenly decide that you're trans or something I just mean consider what you like about doing these things and see how that makes you feel.
I don't know why I do it. The only reason I could some up with is that it makes me feel pretty, sexy or beautiful. I have always liked lingerie so maybe there is something with that.
Well, even if you identify as a straight man, you fall under the TG umbrella, by virtue of your cross dressing behavior alone. There's no reason to want to stop, especially if the effects are positive, though therapy to help you come to terms with it and develop healthy thinking patterns might be advised. Personally, coming out of the cross dressing closet, for me, was a lot more difficult than coming out of the bisexual closet, because of just how much stigma there is involved, from society as a whole. Again, this is separate from sexual orientation.
Hello again. Just a little update: I had a talk with a friend of mine who I told about a month and a half ago earlier today. Through talking about it we kind of discovered that this is something that is part of my life and I can't really change it unless I put myself through a lot. My question is how can I learn to accept it? How can I learn to not hate myself after I crossdress?
