A cismale, by definition, is not transgender. But, do we agree there are cismales who like to crossdress? I think the vast diversity of human sexual identity includes such people. Are they a significant percentage, even a majority of crossdressers? Maybe. It's not an easy question to answer. How does a crossdresser know that he is or is not gender variant? I suspect that many, like myself, don't discover that aspect of their nature for many years. Our GD doesn't necessarily yell out, "I'm a woman! Help me escape!"
Late transitioners, like myself, were conscious of being male for years, but also harbored a subconscious female gender identity that challenged that sense of manhood incessantly. The consequence of suppressing the expression of the female identity is gender dysphoria -- GD. How the GD manifests itself is as different as each individual is from one another. The only thing we can say that is common across all gender dysphorics, is that their symptoms are not pleasant; they do not bring contentment; they are by nature mentally and physically destructive.
There may be millions of claimants to cis manhood out there that are struggling with a subconscious female gender id and don't realize it. Crossdressing may be just another manifestation of the psychological trauma that follows the subconscious rejection of that part of one's psyche. Physiologically, GD it's what happens when the prenatal female brain, denied sufficient testosterone in the womb to align itself with the chromosomal sex of the child, is now deprived of estrogen.
Many crossdressers who seek treatment (e.g., at the insistence of their partners), and who are gender-variant, find relief from their GD when given estrogen. They often stop crossdressing, if the crossdressing was, at least in part, a manifestation of their GD. Cismales will experience more mental anxiety in response to taking estrogen. Their crossdressing habits are based on sexual fetish, not gender dysphoria.
Clara
Late transitioners, like myself, were conscious of being male for years, but also harbored a subconscious female gender identity that challenged that sense of manhood incessantly. The consequence of suppressing the expression of the female identity is gender dysphoria -- GD. How the GD manifests itself is as different as each individual is from one another. The only thing we can say that is common across all gender dysphorics, is that their symptoms are not pleasant; they do not bring contentment; they are by nature mentally and physically destructive.
There may be millions of claimants to cis manhood out there that are struggling with a subconscious female gender id and don't realize it. Crossdressing may be just another manifestation of the psychological trauma that follows the subconscious rejection of that part of one's psyche. Physiologically, GD it's what happens when the prenatal female brain, denied sufficient testosterone in the womb to align itself with the chromosomal sex of the child, is now deprived of estrogen.
Many crossdressers who seek treatment (e.g., at the insistence of their partners), and who are gender-variant, find relief from their GD when given estrogen. They often stop crossdressing, if the crossdressing was, at least in part, a manifestation of their GD. Cismales will experience more mental anxiety in response to taking estrogen. Their crossdressing habits are based on sexual fetish, not gender dysphoria.
Clara