The term cross-dressing as it is most often used, suggests an action or a behavior whilst rarely attributing or proposing causes for that behavior, leading many people to automatically connect cross-dressing behavior to transgender identity, and fetishist and even homosexual behavior.
The term cross-dressing itself does not however imply any such motives, and care should therefore be taken not to cause misunderstanding or offence when using it.
Crossdressers come from all walks of life, economic backgrounds, races and creeds and the phenomenon dates back many thousands of years, and many shamans (a healer among N. American Indians, regarded as possessing magical powers) dressed as women.
The majority of cross-dressers come from conventional family backgrounds, are well educated and almost always heterosexual, and many are, or have been, married, and it might be worth noting that most cross-dressers are happy in their masculinity, and very few of them choose to live their lives as women.
A small percentage of women are crossdressers per se, and this might well be because the wearing of men's clothes by women is not frowned upon in most western societies.