Crossdresser Development
Now that we understand enforced ignorance and the mystification of femaleness/femininity in those who are socialized as male, we can ask what specific effect this has on crossdresser development. The first thing that needs to be said is that those who embrace the crossdresser identity are likely to be a heterogeneous group, encompassing a spectrum of individuals who have a feminine gender expression and/or a female subconscious sex, and who experience those inclinations at varying intensities. This would explain why some crossdressers never transition, while others eventually do, and why some view crossdressing as a way to express a feminine side of their personalities, while others see it as an opportunity to experience themselves as female as much as a male-bodied person possibly can. The idea that crossdressing is often driven by intrinsic inclinations (rather than simply being a phase, hobby, or kink that individuals stumble upon) is supported by the fact that virtually all self-identified crossdressers report that their desire to dress and act feminine/female persists throughout their lives.
The fact that males are socialized to view femaleness and femininity as enigmatic and taboo helps explain the very different manifestations of gender expression of MTF and FTM spectrum people. It also offers an explanation as to why some MTF spectrum folks learn to channel their femininity/femaleness into crossdressing, while others openly express their femininity/femaleness from a very early age. As mentioned in previous chapters, most psychiatric explanations for this dichotomy in the MTF spectrum population have centered on presumed differences in sexual orientation and arousal. However, recognizing how effemimania, enforced ignorance, and mystification work together to shape MTF spectrum transgender identities offers a nonsexual explanation for this phenomenon, one based on gender constancy. While children typically learn to distinguish between females and males, and to describe themselves as either a girl or a boy around the age of two or three, they do not develop gender constancy—the understanding that one’s sex is fixed and does not change over time and in different situations—until they’re between the ages of four and seven.7 Interestingly, most trans women who fall under the category of “primary” transsexuals report knowing that they were or wanted to be female as early as three or four years old (that is, before gender constancy set in). In contrast, most “secondary” MTF transsexuals and crossdressers report discovering their cross-gender inclinations at a later age, often during puberty (after they had developed gender constancy).
Taking this into consideration, I would argue that children assigned a male sex who recognize their own female or feminine inclinations prior to gender constancy are more likely to see them as legitimate aspects of their person. Because they feel entitled to, and comfortable with, expressing and exploring their female/feminine inclinations, those identities never become mystified. This would explain why “primary” MTF transsexuals generally express a desire to be female and feminine throughout childhood, and generally transition early in life (during their teens or twenties).
On the other hand, those male children who become aware of their female or feminine inclinations after developing gender constancy have to somehow make sense of those feelings in the wake of having already mystified femaleness and femininity. Thus, they may gravitate toward crossdressing as a way to compartmentalize their female/feminine inclinations, both in response to effemimania and because they are unable (initially, at least) to view their own female/feminine tendencies as legitimate and coming from within themselves. In this context, crossdressing can be a way of exploring and potentially reclaiming gender expressions and identities that one has previously disavowed, that one does not feel entitled to. It is a practice that, over time, demystifies femaleness and femininity for those who have been socialized to believe that these qualities are unnatural and unknowable to them.