Quiet, I also don't like the gender system much, but I'm not sure saying 'this term shouldn't exist', helps get rid of it. Did you mean that people identifying as transvestites is actually preserving the gender system? Sorry if this wasn't what you meant. As you said, 'people are still defining themselves by their gender roles' - and most people's gender roles match their biological sex, and they're heterosexual, and they've never thought about any of that much. And I think that's the mainstay of gender, not a few people clinging white-knuckled onto the word 'transvestite' in the face of a hurricane of gender-breakdown.
Anyway. I should contribute, not just nitpick. I'm intrigued by Sentimentity and Mister Disco's observations, which added together and mashed up show attempts by people to lever apart sexual 'transvestism' from non-sexual 'cross-dressing' and gender-identity based 'transexuality' - in order to get various things for the latter groups, including social respect, and access to controlled medical resources.
(This is hard to put tactfully, so please excuse my temerity, or timidity whichever you feel I've displayed) I agree with Mister Disco in that I can see that this uses leverage from a general social value system that equates sex and queerness with low worth. So while it may seem perfectly sensible, and socially useful, to categorically distance oneself from the sexual aspects of an activity if it isn't directly sexual for you, I think it's a very tricky activity. It does rather leave people who eroticise cross-dressing in the lurch, socially and possibly politically. This isn't an individual condemnation - you can totally be a transexual and an ally to transvestites, and historically different 'queer' communities have massively overlapped and supported each other. It's rather a furious gripe that the system sets potential allies against one another and causes fragmentation by making them jump for social rewards and acceptance.
I like Ricki Anne Wilchins because she takes cross-dressing seriously. She says in Genderqueer that a man in a dress has never really been considered the subject of a political movement, he's always been the punchline of a joke. She does seem to imply that with more social acceptance, more transvestite men would move into identifying as transgendered, dressing more often or in public, or identifying as transexual and transitioning, which I'm not sure of - it's a good way of expressing the fact that many people would feel freer to do so, but it almost shades into the idea that cross-dressers are transexuals with less nerve - a kind of liberation model, where the true transexuality gets squashed, then released. Obviously often the case, but not a model I'd want to apply across the board - I think the truth's more complex.
And in brief: I liked Silver's comments that feeling 'pretty', feeling relaxed and feeling sexy obviously all overlap. I don't really know how my sexuality, my (lack of) gender identity, my general self-image and my clothing connect. When I came out to my father as bisexual, he chose to interpret that as a kind of transexuality - he waffled about everyone being a bit more male or a bit more female. I thought of reciting the standard 'correcting misapprehensions about LGB people' line ('No, that's gender identity, not sexuality'). But then I thought - I may also have to explain about my gender identity later, though. And this gives him an explanation for the men's suits, and the hair (hadn't started with the ties, by then). Which is the most visible sign of my whole queerness - I didn't have a girlfriend, but he did see me most days in men's clothes. And eventually, I was glad I didn't artificially divide this thing, then end up saying 'actually, I'm both', when this thing that I am is one thing, to me. So my father continues to have a confused understanding of the standard definitions of gender identity, sexuality and cross-dressing, but a better understanding of me. He still wants me to get a handbag, though. |
