Take Part in our Survey on Gender Variance!

You are invited to take part in our survey on gender variance and cross-gender expressions, identities, concepts and fantasies.

Illustration:Robert Churchill

The objective is to gain a better insight into the self conception and ideas of gender variant people of all shades and colors.

These include -- but are in no way not limited to -- crossdressers, crossdreamers, transsexuals, drag queens and drag kings, girlfags and guydykes, non-binary identities, queer and genderqueer.

The results will be published on the Crossdreamers blog, but the data will also be made available to researchers.

The survey is completely anonymous. You will not be asked for your name or email address, and we have no way of tracking your real identity. 

CLICK HERE TO TAKE PART IN THE SURVEY!

The Gay Male Friends of Girlfags

In spite of what the girlfag-bashers on tumblr say, gay men are not the enemies of girlfags and female to male crossdreamers.

Katharine Hepburn, the girlfag

Tumblr is one of the favorite social tools of the new generation, including male to female crossdreamers and girlfags.

Some of you will have noticed that I have put up a tumblr blog in order to get in touch with them. My wife, Sally, is also blogging on transgender issues over there.

(By girlfags I mean female bodied persons who are attracted to gay and bisexual men. A majority of them can be understood as female to male crossdreamers, as they express some kind of masculine sexuality and/or identity.)

The young and restless

One strength of tumblr is that the audience is young. 66% of all visitors are under the age of 35, while 39% are under 25 years old. If you want to know about their interests and problems, this is the place to go.

On the other hand, the young age of the majority of users is also a problem, as some of them have still not developed the social antennas needed to sense the suffering of others. Some are also too angry and frustrated to treat people with love and respect. Tumblr is like a school yard where the bullies roam unsupervised.

Bullies and trolls

I have rarely seen so much aggression and hate. The girlfags are targeted by some bloggers. Some of them are separatist "truscum" FTM transsexuals, who clearly see the female bodied crossdreamers as a threat to their own social acceptance.

Another one with Hepburn

The standard argument is that girlfags are "sexual fetishists", who are objectifying and preying on gay men. And yes, the autogynephilia theory has been used, as well.

Because I defend these fellow crossdreamers, many of them believe I am a young girlfag. This has made me the target of much aggressive misogyny. The levels of irony in this scenario are mind-boggling.

Gay men accept girlfags

But here's the thing: I find no such hostility towards girlfags among gay men in general.

My girlfag friends report the same. Their gay male friends are just that: friends. They accept them in the same way they accept the "fag hags". The whole "fetish" argument makes little sense to them, probably because gay male culture has a lot of "fetishistic" expressions of the gay identity.

I am going to share a quote with you which illustrates this. It was written by a gay man in a girlfag Facebook group. I have his permission to republish it.

Input on Crossdreamer Survey

I am planning a short survey where I ask readers of this blog and the Crossdream Life forum about their lives and ideas.

Photo: Andrey Popov

I would, for instance, like to ask you questions about gender identity, how open you are about your crossdreaming, what you think causes crossdreaming, and how you feel about being (or not being) part of the transgender alliance.

Are there any questions you would like to see included?

Are there any methodological traps I should avoid?

You could add a comment to this post or reply over at Crossdream Life.

Thank you for your help!

What is crossdreaming?

Crossdreaming means dreaming about being  another gender. 

Crossdreamers are people who dream about being another gender than the one they are presenting as.

Crossdreaming explained

The term crossdreaming was originally coined to describe the phenomenon that some people get aroused by the idea of being the "other sex" (relative to the gender assigned to them at birth).

Since then the term has gained a broader meaning and is now used in reference to all kinds of cross-gender expressions, dreams and fantasies, erotic or not erotic.

Crossdreamers are found everywhere

I found that although such fantasies are quite common in transgender circles (I use the word "transgender" in its broad umbrella sense here, covering all types of gender variance). Indeed, recent research documents that we find cross-gender and embodiment fantasies among all kinds of people: Cis and trans, straight and gay, female, male and nonbinary. However, very few talk about such fantasies, and especially not about the erotic kind.

This is mainly caused by the fact that crossdreaming is taboo in most contemporary cultures. This especially applies to so-called Western societies, and to male bodied crossdreamers more than to those assigned female at birth. 

 People have a tendency of looking down at men who feel an affiliation with anything female. Add sexual feelings to the mix, and you are immediately facing a lot of prejudices. This negative view of male to female transgender feelings and expressions is also reflected in some of the relevant research.

This silence is causing a lot of unnecessary confusion, repression and shame. In my experience, anything that becomes such an important part of people's lives reflects a side of their personality that needs to be understood and integrated, regardless of what causes the phenomenon. 

We need to talk about this. That's why I made this blog.

The diversity of crossdreamers

In my discussions with crossdreamers and transgender people I have found that there are crossdreamers assigned female at birth and crossdreamers assigned male. Some identify with their assigned gender, others with their target gender, and some identify with both genders or neither.