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Cross-Dressing’s Erotic Side
Grayson Perry, in drag
Being a transvestite is a complex cocktail of motivations. It’s different for everyone, but there’s often a strong sexual component to cross-dressing, although trannies sometimes find it hard to admit this. I feel it’s like the elephant in the room. I feel it’s really there, but nobody’s talking about it.
Maybe it’s this erotic dimension which is the hardest part for others to accept.
That’s what artist and cross-dresser, Grayson Perry thinks.
“Vivienne,” over at Bluestocking Blue began blogging to better understand why “she” feels compelled to cross-dress male-to-female. Read the rest of this entry
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How I’m Seen Differently in a Female Body
Joelle Circé, “Waving Pride”
No aspect of my existence, no moment of the day, no contact, no arrangement, no response is not different for men and for women. The very tone of voice in which I was now addressed, the very posture of the person next in the line.
And if others’ responses shifted, so did my own. The more I was treated as a woman, the more woman I became. I adapted willy-nilly. If I was assumed to be incompetent at reversing cars, or opening bottles, oddly incompetent I found myself becoming. If the case was too heavy for me, inexplicably I found it so myself.
Women treated me with a frankness which was one of the happiest discoveries of my metamorphosis. But I also found men treating me more and more as junior. I discovered that even now men prefer women to be less informed, less able, less talkative, and certainly less self-centered than they are themselves; so I generally obliged.
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More Suicide in “Values Voters” States
Your values are killing us
Values voter.
That’s what you’re called if you vote your principles on gay rights and reproductive rights.
So long as you vote anti-gay and anti-choice, anyway.
Really?
Are those the only values? And are they good ones? Read the rest of this entry
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Short Hair is for Boys
By Trang Le
I am a girl. That is a simple fact.
But six years ago I cut my hair short and everything changed.
I still dressed the same, acted the same, walked and talked the same. (All admittedly tomboyish). But suddenly everyone saw me as a boy.
All because of a haircut. Read the rest of this entry
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Men Wearing Dresses to Feel Whole
“Vivienne”
All I want to do is to be able to be myself every day.
That’s from “Vivienne,” a man who cross-dresses in part to get in touch with his feminine side and feel whole.
Wearing a dress helps in the same way that actors use costume to get into a part.
But it’s unsatisfactory, he says. Read the rest of this entry
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If Gender’s Learned, Why Do You Feel You’re Born in the Wrong Body?
Wodaabe men of Niger
Tami Hamilton recently wrote about the intersexed babies that her niece gave birth to. Since their sex was indeterminate the doctors chose to make them into girls. One child has thrived, the other has not. The whole experience leaves Tami wondering whether gender identity is grounded in biology or sociology.
Some parents have hidden the sex of their children, hoping to offer them a wide range of experience and keep them outside limiting boxes. Like the Canadian couple who are raising their child “Storm,” sex unknown. Or the British couple who only announced the sex of their son, Sasha when he entered kindergarten. These kids were allowed to play with or wear whatever they like. Read the rest of this entry
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Sasha Baron Cohen Foils Tough Guise
By Hansel Choi
Growing up in a boy’s school I sometimes succumbed to hyper-masculine poses. Yeah, that was me, along with plenty of other guys. Silly, overblown showcasing.
And then I grew up and wondered why. Why do we do it? Why do we do it even for strangers we don’t know or care about? People we’ll never see again?
After taking some gender courses, I’ve got some clues.
Growing up there’s plenty of pressure from dads and moms and friends. But it’s more like the pressure of “how not to be.”
Don’t be fem. Don’t be gay. Read the rest of this entry
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Gay Marriage Hurts Patriarchal Marriage
Have you heard that gay marriage hurts marriage and family? Some Supreme Court Justices worried about this in hearings over DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act — which was recently struck down, allowing for gays to marry.
If my gay cousin gets married, will my husband and I start fighting more? Will my brother’s kids feel more stressed out and run away?
When marriage equality was argued before the California Supreme Court the presiding judge asked the attorney “defending marriage” how gay marriage would harm it. After several false starts the lawyer finally admitted he had no idea.
Gay marriage doesn’t hurt families.
But it could hurt patriarchal families.
Patriarchal families have male heads. In a family with two men married to each other, who is the male head? If one man were in charge would the other be submissive? No patriarchy-lover wants to see a submissive man!
And in lesbian marriage there can be no male head.
If families without male heads begin flourishing that could harm the whole notion that men must be in charge. Oh no!
All this reminds me of a post by CanBeBitter which lists relationship phrases we should retire. Like this one: “Wearing the pants,” referring to women who possesses an “inappropriate” amount of power in a relationship. And then there is “whipped”: a man who is at his lover’s beck and call and defers to her.
CanBeBitter goes on to observe that, “This list mostly applies to heterosexual relationships.”
Yes, exactly, I thought.
Of course that’s why so many patriarchy-loving folks rail against gay marriage. Who will “wear the pants”?
Gay marriage doesn’t hurt marriage and family.
But it may hurt patriarchal marriage and families.
And that’s a good thing.
Since invalidating DOMA, the Supreme Court scored one for marriage equality in more than one way.
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Don’t Let Your Daughters Grow Up To Marry Gay Cowboys
Mammas don’t let your daughters grow up to marry gay cowboys. That’s a new take on an old song.
I have friends who have married gay cowboys. Except for the cowboy part.
One of my friends married a man, only to come home early one day to find him in bed with another man.
Another gay Christian friend married a woman in hopes of turning straight and living a devout life.
They’re all now divorced.
And then there’s Brokeback Mountain.
Any surprise I became paranoid that a gay man would marry me, trying to pass, or not be gay, or something. I wished that gays could simply marry who they wanted so I wouldn’t have to deal with that.
And I was sure that gay men would rather marry someone who they were in love with and sexually attracted to, too.
We’d all be happier.
Now it looks like we all have that chance since days ago the Supreme Court ruled against DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, which had made gay marriage illegal on the federal level.
While the case was in court Justice Scalia fretted over the unknowns of gay marriage. But we do know that marriage between gays and straits doesn’t work. Gays marrying straights does not help the divorce rate.
Others insist that marriage is for procreation.
In that case, everyone from my birth family, except for my brother, would have to get divorced immediately. My father married a woman in her 40s and they never had children. My mother and her husband married in their 60’s. I’ve suffered from fertility problems, myself. My brother, who has sired three children, is the only one who’s safe from these folks.
Please, protect my marriage from these “marriage protection” types!
And besides, it looks like gay marriage is good for marriage.
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If Gays Can Marry Can I Marry My Dog?
Nutty Supreme Court banterings on gay marriage rights:
Justice Samuel Alito:
Same-sex marriage is very new. It may turn out to be a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing.
NYTimes Columnist, Maureen Dowd, in response:
If the standard is that marriage always has to be “a good thing,” would heterosexuals pass?
Charles Cooper, the lawyer arguing against marriage equality:
Marriage should be reserved for those who procreate.
Justice Elena Kagan in ironic response:
Should couples over the age of 55 be refused marriage licenses, then?
NYTimes Columnist, Maureen Dowd on the pro-creation status of Supreme Court Justices, et al:
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Sonia Sotomayor was married and didn’t have kids.
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Clarence and Ginny Thomas did not have kids.
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Chief Justice Roberts’ two kids are adopted.
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George and Martha Washington? They only procreated a country.
In light of this insanity one of my blog posts from a while back has suddenly resurged in popularity and so I am reposting it in homage to our unenlightened Supreme Court:
If Gays Can Marry Can I Marry My Dog?
When will people understand that tradition is just a stumbling block in the pursuit of progressive thinking? My dog and I are very much in love. She has been my friend, protector and lover for eight years. I firmly believe that we are both deserving of a legal domestic partnership, too. If the gay/lesbian community can be granted such a thing, then why can’t we? Heck, I’d be willing to bet that there would be less uproar over me kissing my dog on the front page.
This was an actual letter written by Joe Freeman and published in the San Jose Mercury News on May 21, 2008, on the cusp of gay marriage becoming legal in California, and amidst visions of husbands kissing husbands and wives kissing wives.
While some fear immanent bestiality, others worry that if gays can marry, next thing you know, adults will be marrying kids. It’s all the same, right?
At the very least, what about consent?
An adult man can give consent to marry another man. An adult woman can give consent to marry another woman. But children are too young to fully understand what they would be getting into by agreeing to marriage — if they were asked their opinion at all. Children cannot give consent. Neither can dogs or cats or birds or lizards or cows… Bestiality and child marriage are nothing like gay marriage. Funny that ol’ Joe couldn’t make the distinction.
Joe is also worried about going beyond tradition, or traditional morality that is based in religion. But after all the atrocities committed in the name of religion, whether the Crusades or 9/11 or cutting women’s genitals from their bodies (female genital mutilation), I don’t find religion to be the best guide to ethics.
So religious morality can seem hardly moral at all, and too often the opposite.
Better to base morality on whether someone is being harmed.
I can see how homophobia hurts people. Gay bashing harms victims. Homophobia inflicts emotional suffering, sometimes so severe that gays and lesbians take their lives. At the least self-worth can greatly suffer. But those who bash also lose their humanity.
When parents can’t marry, children may not be able to visit a sick parent in the hospital, they may lose out on social security or inheritance if a parent dies, they aren’t guaranteed child support if parents separate. These kids miss out on the support and stability that other kids take for granted.
On the other hand, I don’t see how gay marriage harms anyone. And no one seems to be able to figure that one out.
We would all be better off extending love instead of hate and contempt.
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