Getting old is a drag

While the art of transformation is so at the core of our intoxicating and compelling urges, I will confess, dear friends, to being a bit of a data fiend. I do hope that my love of math does not erode what little womanly appeal I may accidentally possess. I trust that we, above all people, are able to rise above stereotypes (perhaps aided by impossibly high heels) and be smart girls without sacrificing even a smidgen of our feminine appeal. So here are some numbers and thoughts on last weeks poll that so many of you were kind enough to participate in.

I asked what age we are. I honestly volunteered my own (46) and another 48 of you clicked in, Many thanks! Here is what we look like:
To me, there are some results that run slightly against expectations, and one big puzzle. O how I want your help with the puzzle, which nets out like so: Where are all the young crossdressers?

My own polling and numbers gleaned from other sources indicates that we are called into the pink fitting room at very early ages. Anywhere from 80-90% of us either crossdressed or had the dawning realization of a gender gift before we escaped from high school. And yet this next crop of fashion forward friends is completely absent from the Voyages en Rose readership. (Click on images to enlarge)

Where O where are they? Measured against the national demographic data provided by the never glamorous US Census Bureau you can see how silver haired we are relative to the overall population. Fully half of our site visitors are 50 years or older where this sophisticated set comprises a mere 25% of the broad male population (absolutely no pun intended). The chart shows Petra’s readership shamefully below national population distribution in the under 30 set though, and this begs a little speculating. Mine follows, and your ideas are solicited here.

Do we spend our earlier years experimenting and then, believing in our young adult years that this will simply go away? Is there a drive for “fitting in” and even mating up that suppresses the dressing? Does the habit go dormant or only periodically erupt until we mature a little and really take ownership of it? This theory is based on only a little consideration of my own case. There is however, one other possibility that I must contend with if I am to be an honest correspondent from the front lines of crossdressing. Here goes:

Petra Bellejambes' Voyages en Rose could be so irredeemably uncool and out of touch with youth culture that I lost the younger CD at “hello”. If so, I can live with it. I know that I certainly lived with the “never trust anyone over 30” suggestion that a generation just a little older than me lived well by back in the turbulent 60’s. Perhaps my blog has just too matronly a fragrance around it for our youngish friends.

Recently on one of the crossdressers.com forums one of the sisters started a thread wondering where indeed the younger set were. An instant flurry of 20something hands were virtually and proudly raised. That was encouraging. It seems to me that we live in a time of broader acceptance of alternative expressions of gender specifically and of self in general. With those conditions in place, it would be a shame to keep desires that don’t seem to vanish too deeply buried to enjoy them to the fullest extent.

Especially when you consider that most of us had so much better a figure in our slightly younger years. Alas, perhaps that is why I am so rarely in an age appropriate dress.

If you have any comments you would like to share, don’t hesitate. Happy to hear from you anytime, and especially in this case if you have the perspective of the 20something CD/TG.

I am going to put the data away for a little while now. I have some terrific en femme shopping planned for tomorrow. And likely not dressed age appropriate methinks. I suspect the next couple of posts will be a little less academic. Till then, happy dressing and happy everything else.