My Dan Savage podcast is up! Lots of gender-y stuff in it: not just a woman dating a crossdresser, but a gay man who is dealing with others’ assumptions that he’s trans. I’m Episode 220, starts at around 12:50.
If you’ve come here as a result of the podcast, welcome! Feel free to look around, comment, and ask questions.
Nice job, Helen! I think it was especially important that you distinguished between those who are cross-dressers, happy about it, and going nowhere else, and those for whom it’s a stage of figuring out that they are really transsexual, as was the case for Betty.
As for the boyfriend of the caller, and given the distinction you mentioned, I was a little surprised that neither you nor Dan brought up the possibility that the boyfriend might indeed be transsexual. A mess he certainly is — in denial, thinking it’s going to go away, all of that. And maybe cross-dressing only is the right thing for him. But I wonder if it goes deeper. It would be good if the caller realized that possibility.
Fantastic, Helen. I can’t imagine how it could be better (unless maybe it were half an hour longer). If you hadn’t married Betty, we’d have to send an agent back in time to dodge Austrian assassin droids and fix you two up.
Ariel, I thought Helen said quite clearly that many crossdressers do eventually transition, including the ones who insist they never will.
@jadecath: Yes, Helen was clear about that, and I said so in my comment. But thereafter, Dan referred to the BF as “a crossdresser,” no qualification. So maybe we can blame Dan!