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Are There Any Transvestites in The Audience?

 
  

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Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:40 / 22.08.05
With all the gender non-conformists we've got out there there must be some, we've talked about lesbians and gays, fence-sitters and androgynous, poly S&Mers, furries and asexuals, but we've never really touched on transvesticism on here. I'm trying to organise my thoughts for a thread and just wondered if there were any others apart from me willing to stand up and wave?
 
 
autopilot disengaged
21:31 / 22.08.05
well, i'd hardly lay claim to transvestism, but i'm a boy that wears make-up, which jams some (extremely square) peoples' gender sensors.

i have no wish to pass as a woman, am straight - but have a problematic relation to masculine signifiers.

do you class transvestism as an identity or an orientation? (i'm assuming the former).
 
 
w1rebaby
21:56 / 22.08.05
I have a problematic relationship with gender signifiers and wear wrongsex makeup at times, but I wouldn't call myself TV. I think there's more to it than that.
 
 
charrellz
02:37 / 23.08.05
I would be, but I look ridiculous in all the clothing I like, being rather bear-like. I'm working on the figure, but in the meantime I'm sticking to just nail polish and make-up. So I guess I'm a half-raised hand...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:03 / 23.08.05
Well I wouldn't want to start insisting on what makes a 'proper' transvestite, whatever that is, I wear make-up, blouses and skirts but also being on the large size am not trying to look particularly femme (although going into Pollo on Old Compton Street with several days of beard growth and a skirt I did get 'ma'am'ed and 'miss'ed by one of the waitresses once, considering where we were she probably thought I was having a particularly rough time in my RLT and needed all the reassurance I could get).
 
 
autopilot disengaged
07:06 / 23.08.05
wd you say you fetishize some/all traditionally female clothing? just thinking about some of the stereotypes of tranvestism - men who wear lingerie under their suit etc...

i suppose that's still the image a lot of people have - that the behaviour/dress is intimately and even inseperably tied in to a kind of performative sexuality (or fantasy). the fact that you wear it openly makes me think its more about identity, rather than a covert thrill.
 
 
Lurid Archive
08:45 / 23.08.05
I used to wear eye-liner and nail varnish quite a lot, in a goth kinda way, but like fridge I wouldn't have called myself a TV.
 
 
Ex
10:19 / 23.08.05
This question totally melted my brane. If I never work (either 'get employment', 'function' or both) again, it'll be Flowers' fault.

Anyway, I'm female and I wear men's clothes. Specifically suits and ties. But what this means depends on how one defines 'tranvestite'. So if transvestites necessarily have some kind of contrast or conflict between their outfits and their gender identity, then I'm probably not one. I checked and I don't have an inner gender identity. But, then, there's a still a mismatch between my innards (nondescript), and the clothes I wear (male gendered). And then with the melty brane. I suppose that transvestite is a binary gendered descriptive term and I don't feel like a binary gendered person, so I'm a bit stuck.

And I'm also emulating a history of butch women and their splendid tailoring. At least as much as I am trying to do 'man'-ness.

And as to whether there's a specifically sexual component to it all, as autopilot mentioned: there's definitely some connection between my gender identity, my sexual identity and my clothes, but it's not just 'Mm, tie, horny'.

I've dragged up (or drabbed up) properly with facial hair a few times. I'm in the Photos thread with my secret beardy goodness. Can I have the badge and the membership card for that?
 
 
Smoothly
10:41 / 23.08.05
This is something that baffles me a bit about transvesticism: what items of clothing count. I mean the skirt – sarong – kilt continuum; where does legless trousering become a gender signifier? The qualifier ‘traditionally’ doesn’t really help me, because – as Ex says - that rather depends on what tradition you’re talking about.
So I’m keen to know more and I’ll be interested your thread, Flowers. I wonder about the feedback loop that I’d have thought transvesticism would bring about (as boys wear ‘girls’’ clothes, it makes less sense to call them girls’ clothes). Would a universal unisex uniform (of the sort I think Tom talked about a while ago) be a TV’s biggest nightmare? Does wearing a kilt feel less satisfying than wearing a skirt? Where does one become the other? Etc.
 
 
Lurid Archive
10:46 / 23.08.05
I suppose that transvestite is a binary gendered descriptive term

I'm hesitant to jump in here, but I'm not sure about this. To be honest, I'm not entirely clear what a "binary gendered descriptive term" really means. Viewing humanity as composed of two essential and fixed genders, replete with biological underpinning and set behaviours? Because that doesn't make sense from the point of view of someone who is defying these norms for their own pleasure, growth, need or whim. Does it?

I can see how transvestitism plays off binary gender, but it doesn't seem to me that one can deduce a clear position from that beyond the fact that binary gender, and associated trappings, is part of the norm.

Moving on, does anyone think that transvestitism works differently for (self indentified) men and women? In my limited experience, it seems to be far more transgressive for men. Anyone care to concur or differ?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:39 / 23.08.05
Well, was it the sexual revolution that stopped it being seen as a transgressive act for women? Didn't the working class women working in the factories in the First World War kick off the wearing of trousers as a big thing, for it to be fetishised by scandalous rich of the Twenties and Thirties?
 
 
Ex
13:14 / 23.08.05
Viewing humanity as composed of two essential and fixed genders, replete with biological underpinning and set behaviours?

I didn't mean to imply that you need all these things for the term 'transvestite' to make sense (although I think it probably grows from a society in which there are assumptions like this). Certainly not that you have to believe any of that to be a tranvestite. I know that heaps of people who do identify as transvestites have different ideas of how gender works.
But the term rather implies that there are available options, for both yourself and for your clothes, and that a transvestite 'crosses over' and selects the clothes-category that doesn't match their self-category.
I was just trying to pick that apart a bit - my body-category doesn't seem to me to be my self-category, so I was wondering which one of those I'd have to 'cross' to be a transvestite. And I think there are more than two genders, so the 'crossing' is less easy to define. Blurred further, as others have noted, by changing fashions for gendered clothing.

The term itself doesn't imply that there are two genders - that was lazy extrapolation on my part. And of course, literally, it could be a different kind of crossing, but it's almost always used of gender, which is also interesting. And, thinking further, it could mean that you are transcending your gender's clothing category - 'trans' as beyond, or surpassing - which wouldn't imply anything about where you ended up.

I was partly thinking of my own use of 'bisexual' to explain my sexual identity, even though I'm not comfortable with the binaries implied.

Because that doesn't make sense from the point of view of someone who is defying these norms for their own pleasure, growth, need or whim. Does it?

I'd hesitantly say that the term can do both - reify the existing two-gender system, and highlight exactly where it falls down. Because I think it's in some senses a containment label for a binary society. Just as gay desire to an extent always messes with what 'man' and 'woman' might mean, but its very difficult to explain it without using 'man' and 'woman'. There's a lot of slippage in sexology between same-sex desire, tranvesticism and opposite-sex identification; I see the labels that are developed to describe these nebulous things as more or less useful enormous arrows going 'LOOK! HOLE IN GENDER SYSTEM YOU COULD DRIVE TRUCK THROUGH!' And sometimes it's a reactionary gesture and sometimes a liberatory one.

If this goes over to Headshop I will try to be less frivolous and more rigourous, but these are my initial thoughts.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
20:36 / 23.08.05
Well, was it the sexual revolution that stopped it being seen as a transgressive act for women? Didn't the working class women working in the factories in the First World War kick off the wearing of trousers as a big thing, for it to be fetishised by scandalous rich of the Twenties and Thirties?

To an extent, although there was quite a movement before then for upper class, or at least upper middle class women, to wear men's clothing -suits, mostly, at that time -and in some cases be arrested for it (I don't know on what charges though). However, they would generally identify themselves with a 'clothing reform' movement, so they were basically asking to be allowed to wear these clothes. I'm quite interested in how this feeds into Smoothly's question: Would a universal unisex uniform (of the sort I think Tom talked about a while ago) be a TV’s biggest nightmare? because it seems to suggest that for these women the biggest aspect of wearing men's clothes was just that they liked them and not the idea of transgression.

In my limited experience, it seems to be far more transgressive for men. Anyone care to concur or differ?

I don't actually know enough to say either way, but I think that from the viewpoint of popular culture the idea of male transvestitism is, if not more accpeted, more common; I'd imagine that most of the people I know, on hearing the word 'transvestite', would instantly think of a man in woman's clothes rather than vice versa*. Again, I'm interested in why this is the case, if indeed it is, so would be interested to hear from anyone who knows more about it than I do (that's anyone at all, incidentally).

*Obviously, I'm guessing rather than saying I know. And I'm aware that 'people I know' is not the most representative sample in the first place...
 
 
HCE
21:31 / 23.08.05
My kneejerk reaction was that I am not at all TV, but after reading Ex's post I wonder what word, if any, describes being and looking female but feeling very much like I'm in drag when I wear clothing other than jeans. I almost want to say tomboy, but I associate that with shorter hair and athleticism, and anything athletic I do is a sort of -- activity drag, I guess.

EDIT: D'oh! Sorry for going back over ground covered in some previous posts -- had this reply window open too long.
 
 
Triplets
22:32 / 23.08.05
Tomwardrobe?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
10:20 / 04.09.05
Hmmm, I'm bumping this and transfering it to the Head Shop because I think there's useful stuff in here...
 
 
This Sunday
16:50 / 04.09.05
I like pretty clothes, regardless of who or what gender they were designed for. Wearing them, dressing other people in them... I'm fucking obsessed with paper dolls, KiSS, and have been known to coerce rather adamantly transgendered friends into clothes that - given the normative socially-defined categories - might belie their self-definition. Because everybody looks cute in cute dresses, shoes of any sort have almost no real value outside of fetish and style, and sometimes that middle-of-the-road big baggy top and too-tight pants (cue: visions of Shinji Ikari and Asuka Sawyer) is universally necessary. And, sometimes not.
What kills me is the 'hard for wimmenz wear and wares' or 'butcher than butch and no way am I stepping into those pumps' sort of deal. Not that they are, but that they are taken as *the standard* by so, so many... I'm about two steps away from old-fogey-mode, on and on about 'Star Shoes this' and 'Gaultier that.'
But, then, unless it has to be buttoned in the opposite direction from something else, I hardly ever actually realize if what I'm wearing was originally designed for guy or gal.

One thing someone here might be able to help me with, though: Purpose of the half-slip? Other than showing it off? I mean this seriously, as I've never got a reasonable, legitimate reason for its existence... ever. And in the world of bolo ties and bowties, faux flaps and mudflap skirts, that's, well, annoying. So, those of you donning the bililiac garland of sorts, male, female, intersting combination and recombination of the two, other than for affectation, anything?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:40 / 04.09.05
What kills me is the 'hard for wimmenz wear and wares' or 'butcher than butch and no way am I stepping into those pumps' sort of deal.

Could you expand? You mean you dislike it when women/lesbians/men use gender associations to decline to wear pretty dresses?

Incidentally, if this is a Head Shop thread, we could do wiuth a more fulsome topic summary and guide for discussion, or else we should be in Art, Fashion and Design. If the thread starter has ideas, PM me, otherwise I'll have a think about it.
 
 
This Sunday
17:50 / 04.09.05
Just irritated by the two-to-three tropes that everyone that might fall under what should be a very broad term gets scrunched into. The 'Venus Envy' comic with the guy flipping up some fella's dress and disappointed at the lack of a hard on. You don't think of someone who likes and often wears a CD-player and headphones as being sexually excited by them... or of using the player to reiterate a personally-developed gender ethic (whatever that may be), but how often do we see the 'dresses in dresses because it gets him worked up and flush' or 'dragged up all mannish because she's... manly' parroted?

And, I apologize... by paying an astonishing amount of unattention, I actually thought this was over in Art and Fashion, which I where I think it belongs, to be honest. Not that I particularly understand the Head Shop priori.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
20:53 / 04.09.05
...in Art and Fashion, which I where I think it belongs, to be honest. Not that I particularly understand the Head Shop priori.

my thoughts are that this is an issue more about identity politics than art and fashion. the discussion isn't so much about what to wear as a transvestite out and about town, it's about the whole process.

I like to wear skirts out dancing. is that fashion? is it magical workings? is it transvestitism? is it shocking? mundane?

don't know. I like to wear skirts out dancing. aesthetics or semantics, doesn't make a difference to me.

but people in public only point out that I wear my t-shirts inside out. thanks for the diligence, my friends.

ta
tenix
 
 
*
07:04 / 05.09.05
I think this thread belongs in head shop if people are going to talk about the identity issues and the erotic issues involved in crossgender dressing, what distinguishes transvestism/crossdressing from merely violating the dresscode for one's gender role, sexual politics, and similar issues which reach beyond aesthetics.

For instance:

In the US, due to some complicated history and politics, there's a distinction between 'transvestite' and 'crossdresser', where TV refers specifically to someone who dresses for fetishistic reasons or erotic excitement and CD was coined to divorce the activity from sexual connotations for those for whom erotism was not a factor in their crossgender dressing. This is by no means universal but there are people who would be called transvestites in the UK who in the US have a very strong negative reaction to the word, because it's been so medicalized and is seen as a perversion, possibly by those self-same crossdressers.

I think there is a difference between a guy wearing eyeliner and a skirt to a dance club where lots of other guys are doing the same thing, and a person whose usual lived gender role is that of a male presenting as female in terms of an entire way of dress and social presentation. The motivations are usually different, for one thing. It seems to me that the first is more a violation of the mainstream aesthetic of masculine presentation, and the second is taking on a different gender role for the sake of taking on that role (whether the motive for that appropriation is sexual or related to identity). For one thing, when I'm in a skirt and eyeliner at a goth club I wish to be read as a guy in a skirt, and interacted with appropriately within that context. Most of the people I talk to who crossdress regularly say that, whether or not they identify as a woman outside of that context, when they are in female mode they wish to interact with the world as a female.

I am also taking pains to distinguish crossdressing from transsexualism. To me the distinction is whether the person's day to day interactions take place in the gender role they're dressing in. A person assigned male who identifies as a woman, lives almost 24/7 as a woman, and who switches to male mode once a week to see the (ex-)wife and kids is (in my opinion) crossdressing as a man at that moment, not crossdressing as a woman in her daily life. This might become an important distinction later in the discussion. If I were to put on a dress and heels and makeup and present an entirely female persona, that would be crossdressing for me, regardless of what gender I was assigned at birth.
 
 
Ganesh
11:51 / 05.09.05
I think it's true to say the term 'transvestite' includes a dimension of implied (sexual) motivation, while 'cross-dresser' simply describes an act.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:41 / 05.09.05
(Haus- I've put up for moderation a new summary which hopefully explains why this should be in the Head Shop, though like tennix says, I'd like this to be a thread for the why's of TVs and CD with reference where necessary to what people wear, rather than just a thread on their fa-bul-ous clothes)

As I've turned this into my big serious thread, rather than start a new one, I've been wondering a lot about my propensity to wear skirts and anything else that takes my fancy since the rather naff Greyson Perry documentary earlier this year Why Men Wear Frocks (or When Skirts Attack or whatever it was, can't find the ref right now) because I felt that while it was good at raising awareness it was deeply unsatisfactory as a means to explain WHY transvestites transvest. And I don't think this has really been dealt with in the mainstream media, even Eddie Izzard, in some of his pioneering work in this subject, uses metaphor but tends to get stumped when someone actually asks him 'why?'

I think part of that is due to the sheer spectrum of TVs CDs, pre-op TSs, post-op TSs and the whole messy gender issues, we already have through here a range of different experiences. But is there a difference between me and a man who has a thing for shiny suits? Are transvestites somehow different from everyone else?
 
 
elene
16:22 / 05.09.05
I'm a transvestite I suppose, but I also take spiro and oestrogen, so
I'm transgendered - a she-male.

I wear cloths made for both sexes, but normally those designed for
women unless being the man I'm supposed to be is certain to become a
big issue. Even then it depends on the day. Being asked by a cashier
whether this is my husband's credit card is not a big issue, being
strip-searched leaving the USA is. I haven't changed my name and I'm
not in therapy or doing the real-life test or any of the other things
transsexuals do. It's very likely that I'll never seek surgery, but
surgery doesn't horrify me.

In my youth I was a genuine transvestite. I took no hormones and
expressed a large part of myself, most of myself, only when dressed as
a woman. I was very passive as a man. At that time, at least for a
while, putting on all the accoutrements of womanhood made one a woman,
or so it seemed. That's all changed today I think, people are much
more aware of these things. Perhaps it was never really so - I just
happened to pass.

This is certainly transgressive behaviour. This sort of thing is a
very sensitive matter for a surprisingly large number of otherwise
very nice men. One can get very badly hurt in deceiving them, and it
doesn't matter how honest one tries but fails to be. One can get
really hurt, I have been, even when one doesn't deceive them. What's
more, even men who are above all that can get really dangerous with
any other man who dares leer at you while you're chatting with them.
Fair enough really, and exciting too, but dear, oh dear, oh dear. One
really shouldn't be a transvestite as it's far too dangerous. Well,
at least as long as one's still young.

It's also transgressive, at least when lived as I live it, in that
in the near future I'll likely be forced to make whatever changes are
required to completely pass as a woman, at the very least a name
change, in order to find and keep a good job. I hope that's not so
but I strongly suspect it is. Is anyone surprised?

I couldn't say how much doing this is driven by sexual fantasies. Not
much at the conscious level at least, other than the business of
trying to be attractive to straight men against their will. Fetishism
is a complicated issue. I've certainly never needed cloths, makeup or
jewellery to have sex. I am however much more active when I'm "being"
a woman, clothed or not, passing or not. Why? I feel I'm more, not
less, like this. I'm more valuable, more in control if only indirectly,
more beautiful. All of these are illusions of course, but it's not a
fantasy about cloths or, I do hope, about body parts - though I do
prefer my body as it is now.

I notice that I've been of no help at all distinguishing transvestites
from cross-dressers, and that I've covered far too many issues in one
response. Sorry. My transvestism is strongly connected to my sexuality,
even though I don't see it quite as a sexual end in itself. I can't really
understand purely identity driven cross-dressing, or transsexuality as
it's usually presented.
 
 
Silver
18:30 / 05.09.05
Rejoined the board specifically to reply to this thread.

I consider myself to be a transvestite, although that would vary based on the definitions of others. I'm fairly close to the "typical" crossdresser -- married male, reasonably straight, who enjoys wearing women's clothes but isn't completely comfortable advertising that fact. Some of what I wear could be considered "fetishy" or erotic, and there's no denying a sexual element to my dressing, but it isn't the be-all and end-all.

I've been known to wear a wig and make-up, but I don't make a serious effort to "pass" -- not really needed as I don't go out a lot.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the "why," but in the end I've decided that it doesn't matter. I have been told by other transvestites that I should make an effort to go out in public while dressed, or to get together with other like-minded individuals -- but I'm not a very social person no matter how I'm dressed. A few months ago I went to the monthly meeting of a local support group, but once the initial thrill (oh my God, I've gone out in public while wearing a pink sweater and heels!) wore off, I sat in the corner, drinking and feeling out of place. Like I said, I'm not a very social creature.

Having joined a number of online support groups, all I've found are people telling of their own experiences, and how that is "expected behaviour" for crossdressers. Apparently I'm supposed to want to go out and "pass" in public. I'm supposed to be open about it and tell everyone I know. I shouldn't think twice of wearing a skirt to work.

Me, I don't think I'm "supposed" to do anything. I'm not trying to live up to some transvestic ideal -- I don't even know if that ideal exists.

Why do I wear women's clothes? Because I like the way they look, and how they make me feel. Does it matter that I do it because my parents were divorced and I was raised by my mother exclusively? Who cares? I don't feel the need to change the way I am, so I don't see the importance in knowing why I do it.

It sounds cliche, but the important thing for me is that I feel comfortable with who I am and what I do. I can go out and shop for women's clothes. I'm comfortable enough to tell my wife and dress in front of her. Isn't that what's important?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:23 / 05.09.05
I'd imagine that most of the people I know, on hearing the word 'transvestite', would instantly think of a man in woman's clothes rather than vice versa*. Again, I'm interested in why this is the case, if indeed it is, so would be interested to hear from anyone who knows more about it than I do

It's the case because it's incredibly difficult to be a female transvestite in Britain unless you're part of a closed community like the Plymouth Brethren and expected by your local society to dress in a specific way. The notion of gender specific dressing for women has almost been eliminated. I own five pairs of men's trousers, I wear them all the time but no one ever recognises them as menswear because women can wear what was traditionally perceived as male clothing and it is accepted by everyone as the norm. Even a man's suit, if cut to fit you (a female body) vaguely well does not look particularly transgressive.

My question is thus how far is the idea of transvesticism imposed by society? If it were perfectly accepted that a man wearing, for instance, a pink angora jumper was not out of the ordinary than would the term actually mean anything to the transvestites here? What would be different for you? I am a little confused by what transvesticism actually is in people's heads- not critical, I would just like more elaboration on what it is that people are doing? Is it simply a love of dressing in certain clothes? A confidence gained from them? If so then it doesn't differ for me from men who gain confidence from adorning themselves in suits and their reaction within their own minds. The line then is only drawn by the culture around transvestites but I might be missing something?


As to this- I don't feel the need to change the way I am, so I don't see the importance in knowing why I do it.

Well aren't you just dressing like this because you like the clothes? I get a sense that you feel there is something else and as an outsider I'd genuinely like to know just to get a sense of understanding. Because if it is just that you like the clothes then you're surely just doing what everyone else on the planet does everyday... look in their wardrobe and rejecting half their clothes as ugly and unflattering and wishing your other things were clean/acceptable in a certain environment.
 
 
*
21:20 / 05.09.05
Lurking in a forum which is focused on crossdressing, or reading the writings of crossdressers and their partners, might facilitate understanding. I recommend this to start with.
 
 
Silver
12:59 / 06.09.05
Well aren't you just dressing like this because you like the clothes? I get a sense that you feel there is something else and as an outsider I'd genuinely like to know just to get a sense of understanding.

Fair comment, Nina. Usually I have this sort of conversation with other transvestites, and inevitably it seems that I'm talking to people who want to know "why" so that they can "solve" it.

Because if it is just that you like the clothes then you're surely just doing what everyone else on the planet does everyday... look in their wardrobe and rejecting half their clothes as ugly and unflattering and wishing your other things were clean/acceptable in a certain environment.

Yes and no. I don't consider my "male" clothes to be ugly or unflattering -- I enjoy putting on a nice suit just as much as I would a dress. I don't reject anything because of gender roles or societal acceptance.

Part of the reason that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about the "why" is because I genuinely don't know. It could have something to do with the female mode of dress being more expressive and having a wider range of looks. It could be because I like the feel of silk or wool against my skin.

This is something that I've been doing all my life -- I don't ever remember a time when I didn't feel this way. It's the self-acceptance that has been a challenge.

Don't know if I'm explaining things very well. It isn't the easiest thing to articulate, but I'm more than happy to try.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:52 / 06.09.05
I don't ever remember a time when I didn't feel this way. It's the self-acceptance that has been a challenge.

Is it the judgement of other people that has caused the self-acceptance to be a challenge?

Because to me you're just a man who likes to wear clothes. I find the whole notion of "women's" clothes utterly reprehensible, it only indicates how uneven our society continues to be. Little boys want to wear pretty dresses as much as girls do because they're nice and fun to wear. Is it incorrect to regard transvestites as people who didn't conform to social expectation and continued to want to wear those dresses (as a large number of women do)? People seek beauty, their perception of beauty differs but it's still a similar desire. It seems to me that the problem is with the rest of society trying to make people conform to a very narrow mode of dress rather than it being a case of men stepping outside what's normal. This recognition of what people like, desire, want to wear and experience is surely something to be encouraged rather than stamp on?

There must be a difference between wearing your own clothes and fetishising someone else's? For instance I'm interested in the difference between those who crave someone elses clothes because they belong to the other and people who want to wear those clothes because they erm... want to wear those clothes. Is there a difference there- do we dress as a product of our environment, does that impact on the idea of transvesticism?

Sorry, I think I may be writing an AFD post here that's infringing on HeadShop rather than vice versa...
 
 
*
02:24 / 07.09.05
Something I've taken from listening to the discussions of a number of self-identified crossdressers is that many of them say they experience depression and/or anxiety if they do not allow themselves to crossdress for a period of time. Not that this is true of everyone who crossdresses, but is it consistent with the idea that people just crossdress because they like the clothes? or does it seem to indicate something else going on at least for some people?
 
 
Quantum
12:26 / 07.09.05
I have a poor understanding of TV, so forgive my heteronormative perspective, but I'm intrigued by the differences between cross-dressing as a sexually motivated fetish (which I'm a bit more familiar with due to a friend), transvesticism Eddie-Izzard style ('I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body') where someone just wants to look Fabulous, and dressing regardless of other's expectations (as Nina vehemently defends).

Is there a clear difference? Are there other strands to TV? Are these things all hopelessly commingled?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:41 / 07.09.05
I don't know. And this is why I wanted to try discussing it, there seem to be as many motivations as there are trannies, some get a sexual thrill from doing it and I don't. I've come across at least one trannie online who does get pleasure from it but they go all the way, falsies and make-up and heading to the trannie bars and all, whereas I don't, but I don't dress up either, so in my exhaustive field of two I don't know whether that's significant or not.
 
 
Rage
05:30 / 08.09.05
Why are we still at a point in our society where terms like this exist?

No gender no gender.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:01 / 08.09.05
Could you expand on that point? I can see how if people were more fluid in their gender expression then transvestites may have an easier time of things, as well as LGBT types, I'm not sure how to conceive of a world with no gender... Perhaps a new topic?
 
 
Rage
07:35 / 08.09.05
People are still defining themselves by their gender roles.

If this were not the case than the concept of "transvestite" would not exist.
 
  

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