Ask Hannah!

I am making a contact sheet of resources for a friend of mine that cross dresses. Is there any resources you would highly recommend? Mental health, books to read, people to watch on YouTube or to follow on social media. He’s not looking for forums or dating sites, and that’s all I really come up with from search engines. Thank you!

Aren’t you sweet?

There are a ton of resources out there and so much depends on what your friend is looking for.

Some of us are really conflicted and confused and scared of who we are and what they want, or want to wear.  Some of us are wondering what this all means.  It kind of throws everything we know, or think we know about our whole sense of identity (gender and sexual among others) into question.  We may feel alone when it comes to this side of us.  If your friend is looking for support and friendship I would recommend looking for a local PFLAG group as well as reading and posting on crossdressers.com and transgenderheaven.com.  

Your friend will likely see that gender identity is different from one person to the next.  And even if your friend “just” crossdresses, there is a shift in gender identity from cis to transgender.  Your friend may not consider themselves transgender, and every transperson is different.  My identifying as transgender is different than Laverne Cox or many of my friends identifying as transgender.  Transgender doesn’t mean hormones, surgery or anything else.  It simply means (in my opinion) wearing or doing something that is outside the norms of societal gender behavior.  A boy wearing nail polish?  Trans.  Me wearing a nightgown?  Trans.  A drag queen?  Trans.  

Sorry, getting off topic.

If your friend is looking for help when it comes to mental help, please encourage them to speak with a gender therapist.

If your friend is looking for resources when it comes to finding clothes, there are many options out there.  En Femme, The Breast Form Store, Glamour Boutique, HommeMystere and Xdress are some of my favorites.  Make sure they know their measurements.  Of course, one does not need to limit their shopping options to designers who make beautiful, feminine clothes for the typical male body.  I have just as many dresses from DressBarn and Target as I do from the businesses I listed.

When it comes to books, I loved ‘The Lazy Crossdresser’ by Charlie Jane Anders.  This is a practical and light guide to wearing “girl clothes” and had a huge impact on me when I read it for the first time.  This might be out of print but you can usually find almost anything online.

In terms of social media, your friend will find that there are a lot of people like us who wear what we wear for a lot of reasons.  My Twitter followers, and who I follow on Twitter range from fetishists (I don’t follow people that are… aroused by this) to activists to gross horny dudes looking to hook up (I don’t follow them either) drag queens, makeup artists, to people like me who simply love to wear pretty clothes.  Some of the girls I follow online can be found in T-Girl Spotlight.

Well girls? Anything you think might help? Please comment!

Love, Hannah

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