I suspect that the over-enthusiastically strong rejection of anything which seems to be transvestite is down to an uneasiness about being labelled something they don’t feel they are. They’re quite happy being guys.

It puts me in mind of the “Men in Skirts” exhibition a few years back, and also of scene kid and flogger (foto-blogger) fashions I’ve seen recently ((e.g. Izzy Hilton, Andre J., Jean Paul Paula). As far as I’m aware, they don’t identify as transgender, even though the look sometimes LOOKS like trans. Its seems to me to be about the fashion statement, liking female styles, the labels, and wearing just whatever you want to. A quick look on Lookbook also shows a fair number of guys experimenting with female styles and clothing. It’s interesting, and its fun too!

I also remember Grayson Perry doing a programme here in the UK on Channel 4 a while back when he noted younger generations of kids who might traditionally be labelled transgender, discarding ‘traditional’ trans identities and labels. That’s not to neccesarily suggest transgender identity is bad or less worthy or whatever; they just don’t want those labels. It would be interesting to find out why they reject them.

In my own experience, I’ve never found fashionistas to be really taken on by anything which suggested transvestism (as distinct from mixing gender cues in clothing) and I put it down to either general fashion snobbishness and elitism. But this is what fashion is like, isn’t it? The model Martin Cohn was in a runway show a few weeks back modelling a dress in Elise Overland’s SS10 show. It prompted several humourous conversations online as to whether it was taking crossdressing toooo far…I guess fashion is concerned about one thing and transgender, another. To each their own, as they say.

I think a simple “we’re not trans” seems like it might have sufficed.

Reading this, I’d probably find “men not in skirts” to be a more open minded and sympatico when it comes to accepting my own choices.