Some Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some answers to basic questions about cross-dressing for those wanting to find out more about what may appear to be a puzzling phenomenon. Wives, partners and family members will find this useful to help them make some sense of and correct any misconceptions about cross-dressing.

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What is a cross-dresser?

"cross-dresser", "transvestite" or "transgender person" are terms used to describe a person who regularly takes on the appearance of the opposite sex in order to satisfy a deep personal need.

We use and prefer the term "cross-dresser" as it is less limiting and coloured by common usage.

Above all, however, a cross-dresser is a real person.

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What causes cross-dressing?

What causes a person born physically male to need to dress and behave as a female (and vice-versa) in order to have peace of mind?

There is no present definitive answer. The currently favored medical opinion is the cross-dressing is "multi-causal". This means that there appears to be a genetic predisposition and a prenatal hormonal basis for a person's gender identity - the mental perception an individual has about his or her gender - which, though subject to social influences, is independent of a person's physical sexual identity. It is currently estimated that about one out of every hundred people born have a personal gender identity which does not comfortably correspond with that person's physical sex.

cross-dressing is simply the outward expression by such a person of this essential gender identity, and cross-dressing is thus no less real or compelling for this person than the expression by the average male and female of their masculinity and femininity.

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Is there a cure?

There is no cure for cross-dressing for the simple reason that being a cross-dresser is not an illness but a state of being. Cross dressers are "born and not made".

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Is cross-dressing new?

Throughout recorded history, and in every human culture, there have always been cross-dressers . We simply seem to have been included in the "Great Plan" of things. In many societies cross-dressers have been accepted for the reality they represent and their uniqueness has been utilised by such societies for the common good. It is a culture's attitude to cross-dressing that determines whether cross-dressing is or is not a "problem" to that culture.

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What type of people are cross-dressers?

cross-dressers come from all walks of life and every strata of society. Spouses, parents, children and friends are cross-dressers. People from all walks of life, from the unemployed and pensioners, right through to professional people. There are no distinctions.

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Is cross-dressing illegal or immoral?

There is nothing in the act of cross-dressing that offends any law in mainland Australia or in most of the world. Most major religions do not consider the act of cross-dressing immoral. Whilst the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 22:5, forbids cross-dressing (including women wearing men's clothes), it also forbids the wearing of clothes of mixed fibres and many other strange rules. The New Testament specifies that Christians are not bound by the laws of the Old Testament.

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Does cross-dressing influence sexuality?

A person's sexual preference or sexuality is independent of their gender identity. Human sexual diversity exists amongst cross-dressers in the same basic proportions as it does in the general community. In fact, as cross-dressers are part of the general community, such that the "average" cross-dresser is likely to be heterosexual, to have married and to have had children.

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