Hello Jon !

Thanks for your question.

It is a very interesting question, because the majority of people who likes to wear opposite sex clothes have many questions about it. Transgender is a global term, which groups many realities and refers to a person that has a gender identity that is different than the one they were assigned at birht.

There’s a difference that needs to be make between crossdressing or tranvestism and transidentity. One relates to gender expression while the other relates to gender identity.

First of all, it is important to say that it is normal to like to wear female clothes. It is always surprising to see in studies that many men like to wear female clothes sometimes, in private (for a majority of people) or in public. If it is only that a person likes to wear clothes of the opposite sex, it is travestism.

But, if this tendency is strong, and the person likes or would like to wear each day clothes of the opposite sex, it is crossdressing. But, travestism and cross-dressing are not people who identify themselves as a different gender as they were assigned at birth, they are comfortable with their gender identity.

This is not the case for trans people. For them, it is not only clothes, or make-up or hairdressing, but a question of identifying themselves to the opposite gender. Generally, they have strong feelings, since their childhood or their adolescence, that their identity does not correspond to the one that was attributed at birth. Here again, clothes can be a way for them to show their identity, but they also identified to another gender that is not the one they were imposed since then.

So its important to see, in all those definitions, which seems better for you. Many transvestites though that they were trans people, because wearing women clothes was giving them energy and grateful emotions. But, their first identity was identical, and they didn’t want to change it. Transidentity is about how you feel about your gender identity, not only about your gender expression.

For your sexual orientation, you may be bisexual and it’s totally fine ! Most of the time, people are confused between sexual orientation and gender identity, but you can be a trans person and be bisexual. It’s totally valid an quite frequent !

Thanks, and don’t forget to write back if you have more questions,

Julie-Maude

AlterHeros