i think because i was shamed for being acting out feminine behavior when i was young. basically until i knew it was shameful i thought it was a relatively neutral thing, if i could pretend to be an alien or a pirate, why not pretend to be a girl? i still can remember being shocked at how strong a reaction that i received from my mother once "YOU ARE BOY, YOU ARE A BOY!". because i had bunched up my shorts to look like a bikini and danced around in front of her. just playing really at that age. i don't think it had gotten sexual yet. but i think the knowledge of how taboo it was, combined with the knowledge that boys could "be turned gay" and the teasing i would sometimes receive from older teenage girls, and the times i was crossdressed against my will. i think that imprinted a strong shame reaction to the idea of being emasculated. i think that, pre-puberty, before my hetero drive would attempt to awaken itself, crossdressing was just another outlet for my masochistic drive. not particularly preferred over being the loser in a game on purpose to suffer a consequence, to being tied up, or something else. i'm starting to think ray blanchard's ETLE may have a prerequisite of a prior masochistic crossdressing response to get started. basically once you become fascinated with symbols of femininity, it turbo charges your cross-dressing desires as a corrupted form of heterosexuality. and i really was afraid of girls when i was in highschool age. and today there are remnants of that feeling still. but i'm not nearly as hopelessly awkward. i think i fear being rejected in general, and am sensitive to other's perception of me. and i think i was hyper vigilant to being shamed. and girls represented a level of emotional sophistication i wasn't close to matching. so i feared their emotional power, and kept my distance.