I don’t know why these stories depress me so much, and really, it’s the ones with the cheerfully liberal dad who really is trying his hardest not to be a dick.
And yet, he is.
Sigh. And we didn’t even have to wait until Halloween this year.
Tag: crossdressing
His Son’s Dress
Posted by – August 25, 2010
Hot Men Run in Heels
Posted by – July 3, 2010
No, really, in Spain, a race was run by guys in heels who gradually added accoutrements – wigs, dresses, & lipstick – so that they finished the race crossdressed (and sweaty). No scrawny boys either.
(If anyone can translate the voiceover, please do!)
Crossdressing Still Illegal?
Posted by – May 5, 2010
Who knew? Crossdressing is still illegal in Oakland, California, & has been for 130 years. Maybe it won’t be soon:
“These laws have a history of being used as a tool of oppression,” said Kaplan, Oakland’s first openly lesbian elected official. She said laws similar to Oakland’s have been “an excuse for persecution” against the LGBT community and people who don’t conform to traditional gender rolls.
She noted that police in New York City used a similar statute when they raided the Stonewall Inn in 1969, setting off demonstrations in an event that became a seminal point in the gay-rights movement.
In Oakland, the cross-dressing ordinance is not enforced and hasn’t been in recent memory. City officials also believe it is unconstitutional. But a report from Kaplan’s office noted that under the existing language, women in uniform working in the police and fire departments could be subject to arrest and misdemeanor charges.
Happy 100th Anniversary, Die Transvestiten
Posted by – March 20, 2010
It’s been a hundred years since Magnus Hirschfeld published The Transvestites. The earliest bibliographic entries Ray Blanchard tracked down are these:
Die Transvestiten – Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb [Transvestites – A Study of the Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress], Pulvermacher, Berlin, 1910.
Co-authored with Max Tilke: Die Transvestiten – Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb [Transvestites – The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress], Illustrierter Teil, Pulvermacher, Berlin, 1912.
How cool is that? I couldn’t help but think that Virginia Prince died only last year, at the age of 96. Imagine, she was born only a few years after that book was published, when the idea of anyone being “out” about crossdressing was – to borrow from Hirschfeld’s language – verboten.
It’s hard to imagine what might have been, if the Nazis had not destroyed Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex.
Crossdressed Protest
Posted by – December 16, 2009
It’s kind of amazing, the idea of Iranian men wearing traditional head scarves to show their allegiance to the insurgence, but that’s what they’re doing.
Thus the new protest also speaks to the societal aspect of Iranian women being forced to accept a dress code, according to Dabashi.
“Proud to wear my late mother’s rusari, the very rusari that was forced on my wife in Iran, the very rusari for which my sisters are humiliated if they choose to wear it in Europe, and the very rusari that the backward banality that now rules Iran thinks will humiliate Majid Tavakoli if it is put on him — He is dearer and nobler to us today than he ever was.”
In a speech before his arrest, Tavakoli played on the theme of the day’s historical significance in light of current anti-government protests.
“We Iranian men are late doing this,” Dabashi said. “If we did this when rusari was forced on those among our sisters who did not wish to wear it 30 years ago, we would have perhaps not been here today.”
(thanks to Jade Catherine for the tip)
Transgender Narrative
Posted by – November 14, 2009
Every once in a great while, someone sends me some writing they want me to read. Most of the time I can’t feel the person behind the voice, or, in writer’s parlance, I can’t hear the author’s voice.
But this piece was different, & so I gave the author what feedback I could, & he contacted me again recently because the essay was selected as a finalist in Narrative Magazine’s first-person writing contest and recently published by Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, a literary journal specializing in creative nonfiction published by Michigan State University. You can read it online here (.pdf).
My congratulations to David Torrey Peters: keep writing.
Morehouse Crossdressing Policy
Posted by – October 20, 2009
Morehouse College has chosen to have a clothing policy that prohibits crossdressing:
The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.
“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.
Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.
“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”
There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.
Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.
I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.
Crossdressing Photos
Posted by – October 15, 2009
Despite the lack of context or explanation, SF Gate has a nice series of (mostly) rural photos of people who are crossdressed. It’s unclear whether it’s Halloween or some other event, or even if they were taken anywhere near each other, but still, it’s an interesting if not atypical collection of 52 photos. The one pictured is my favorite, as it reminds me of quite a few families I’ve met over the time I’ve been doing research on crossdressing. My guess is that none of these people are crossdressers per se, but of course all I’ve got to go on is the images themselves.
Believe It Or Not
Posted by – August 2, 2009
I’ll be speaking at Tri-Ess’ annual “Holiday en Femme” this year, which will happen in Chicago, from November 4th – 8th.
Honestly, I miss crossdressers so I’m sure I’ll have a blast.
Alcohol Poisoning
Posted by – July 22, 2009
Sadly, it was a lot of the same old same old: cursory interest in parent, partner, & children. The kids were adorable. The wife was determined. The father was exhausted.
- Multiple shots and references to surgery, instead.
- Trans woman discovers surprising, sudden interest in men.
- Expresses longing to be mother while wife is pregnant.
- Voiceover talking about wife meeting her husband for the first time “as a woman” post Thailand, even though the husband had been living in female gender role for a year as per SOC.
Atypical trans documentary bits?
- Added insult to injury for wife, while trans woman wonders – fleetingly – if she’s married her ex-girlriend if she’d have needed to transition. Fleetingly, stressed by Prince, but goddamn do wives of trans women everywhere hate her for that one. Yeah, thanks, it’s our fault you needed to transition. Do you really think we don’t wish, sometimes, that you’d married your ex-girlfriend, too?!
- Newly female husband going up telephone pole in gear
- “ “ ” mowing lawn with reference to still “wearing the pants”
- ‘out of the mouths of babes’ testimony that natal female still does all the parenting and housework
- bee stings lead to discovering of IS condition which justifies transition. (the years of crossdressing certainly don’t count for shit, right?)
So yeah, I’m drunk.You?
They all seem like reasonably nice people. I hate documentaries about teh trans. Hate ‘em. I hate the way our lives our distilled into reverse camera angles and earnest questions across kitchen tables. I hate how the beauty of a trans woman admitting that she still sees her wife the way “he” did is degraded by the “sudden interest” in men. I hate the sad, confused, tendentious quality of trans women’s wives who are obviously overwhelmed with the whole business and still in love with their spouses.
* sigh*
Having been someone who has done shite like this, my only excuse is: it was in my contract. Not that that’s much of an excuse, but you do usually have a clause saying that you will in good faith blah blah blah consent to blah blah blah that will help sell the book. I’m not sure there’s any other reason to do these things anymore, but I hope, for Rene’s sake, & the boys’ sake, & the dad’s & Chloe’s, that this one will be forgotten when it’s Sweeps Week next year or in five years. Not because it’s bad, but because it isn’t. There are things I said and wrote at the time of My Husband Betty that embarass me now, as well as plenty that I”m still happy about. But I wrote a book, so when I”m lucky, you can see its brown spine in the LGBT section of bookstores these days. But a show like this is going to be dredged up at 3am for a few years, and every once too often, Rene and Chloe and her boys and dad will be online at the supermarket / drugstore / in the waiting room / at the doctor’s office / showing up for parent teacher night when someone they’ve never met couldn’t sleep and saw them on the TeeVee. And then, well, then is when you wish you could change your name and move to Timbuktu.
My best to all of them. Can we stop making these now?
Sony Shames Crossdressing
Posted by – June 10, 2009
While Darcy was watching a live blog of the E3 press conference by Sony, she noticed that during a demo of a kart racing game where the player can customize their character, they threw in some shame for the crossdressers.
12:44PM “Right now, the two developers are showing off the avatar selection screen. The animation is absolutely adorable. One character has its costume changed to a dress, and it tries to hide, embarrassed.”
As if CDs don’t get it from all sides already.
RIP Virginia Prince, 1912 – 2009
Posted by – May 3, 2009
Dr. Richard Docter announced at dinner last night, here at the Liberty Conference, that Virginia Prince had died at the age of 96. She was in good health and mentally acute until about a month ago when her health began a steep decline. Docter was her biographer
I met the grand dame here, in this Philly Airport Hilton hotel, about five years ago, and I am a little surprised by how moved I have been to hear of her passing. She was an imperfect person, as we all are, but rocked where it counted: having the cojones to be an out-transvestite in the 1950s. Her bravery is something we’d be fools, as a community, not to acknowledge.
Imperfect, problematic, heroic. You often don’t get one without the others. We have lost an important pioneer.
Trans Couples Talk
Posted by – May 2, 2009
This is the text of the talk I gave at the Liberty Conference on May 2nd, 2009:
How We Love You: Let Us Count the Ways
There are partners who are male, female, and trans; there are partners who met their trans person before the trans person knew what was going on; there are partners who married crossdressers who had sworn off crossdressing who purged and then dressed and then purged and then dressed again; there are partners who met their husbands crossdressed; there are partners who met their trans person during transition; there are partners who met their trans person long after transition; there are partners who didn’t know their trans person was trans when they met.
You, the individuals who are in love, were in love, who are seeking companionship and partnership and occasionally a good spanking, are said to be like snowflakes. Flawless Mother Sabrina told me that one night at the now defunct Ina’s Silver Swan, and she was right. Each of your stories is unique, even when there are similarities; each of you realizes your transness, as I like to call it, in a different way: some crossdress, others do drag, others transition. Some do all three, and others – none of these, but you express your genders in some other way. But you have your stories, your characters in movies, even if and when they are comically or tragically or unfairly drawn, but those you love have – well, we’ve got a machete and a spot on the edge of the wood we mean to get through.
Crossdressing Husband & Father on NPR
Posted by – November 30, 2008
Some things you just never expect. NPR recently did a show about a crossdressing husband & father that was about as off the mark as Dr. Phil usually is. Pathologizing, full of the embarassed & shamed comments by the wife and commentary of the narrator, it was rife with ignorance and misunderstanding, and seemed to equate this person’s other mental health issues with his need to crossdress.
Wow. I wish I were more often pleasantly suprrised by the media, but I really never expected this kind of crappy story-telling from NPR. Just one opinion that offset all the negativity would have been nice.
That the story is about someone who is deceased makes it all the more sickening. There is no one to represent Doug/Donna to explain what crossdressing is all about.
You can listen to it here – all of 12 minutes & nothing redeemable! – & narrated by a family “friend.” Feh.
Letter To a Wife
Posted by – November 21, 2008
My friend Shirene, who I met while I was researching My Husband Betty, and at a SPICE conference to boot, has contined to work with wives who have just found out their husbands are crossdressers. She wrote this letter recently to one such wife, and I thought it was worth sharing here, for any husband who might want to use it to help come out to his wife, or for any wife who has just found out.
I don’t necessarily agree with how she simplifies certain issues – like the “crossdressers are heterosexual” meme – but a lot of the rest of it is a good “talking down” for a new wife who might be completely panicking.
Dear Jill,
Hi. I hope you don’t mind receiving a letter like this from a stranger, but my husband is transgender also and I know that if I could have received a letter such as this when I found out, it would have made it easier on both me and my husband. My name is Shirene, I’m 43, we live in S******, IL and I’ve known about Shayla since ‘98. We’re at 555 555 5555.
I will admit it’s somewhat of an adapted form letter so please ignore the things that don’t apply to your situation and please excuse the things I’m telling you that you already know. More…
Site Re-Design
Posted by – October 11, 2008
My old blog template couldn’t make use of all the groovy new widgets and functionality of WordPress, so I dove into a site re-design the other day, and I’m still tweaking.
I’ve kept lots of cool stuff, like my flickr badge and extensive blogroll, but here’s the cool new stuff:
- more & newer photos in the random photo header
- a compact category list
- a tag cloud! this one excites me, even if it means going back & tagging 5 years of blog posts. still, it helps locate more of my posts on specific topics, like crossdressing, or the Gwen Araujo trial.
- & most importantly for you, dear reader, is the new “share this” button on every post, so you can put my stuff up on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, LJ, and Technorati. But you can also email it to a friend! How cool is that? I feel like The New York Times.
So do explore, and if you have any more suggestions, that’s what the comments section is for. In the next months I’m hoping to update both helenboydbooks.com and Trans Group Blog, but for right now, I’ve had my fill of tweaking code.
Trans for Obama: Ongoing Issues
Posted by – October 3, 2008
Kate Bornstein is fired up, and wants our various transgender communities to start working together more, all because she’s dizzily happy about being acknowledged by the Obama campaign. Jillian Weiss is asking similar questions, but more along the “how in hell did this happen?” about the Trans for Obama campaign. I love that she calls me a Transgender Media Empire – that kills me, since I’m really just an underemployed author with a tech-savvy partner. Even on Monday, when I put a lot of energy into Trans for Obama, half the reason was that I had to take the GRE two days later and my best-loved furball was having surgery.
Still, this issue of “community” is one that always frustrates me. Community is about being willing; if you want in, come on in, and if you don’t, please go away. It’s as simple as that, imho: the HBS type are free to do whatever it is they do (and some are active in feminist issues, actually, instead of trans ones), and the homophobic crossdressers, of which there are some, can hang out together by themselves, and – well, you get the idea. I don’t really care, honestly: since my existence as a member of the trans community is always liminal to some people, because I’m a partner & not trans myself, I’m all for defining community by those who want to be there.
But Monica Roberts (in the comments section of Jillian Weiss’ Bilerico post) has brought up the issue of trans POC not being encouraged, or recognized, and I think she’s right that we need to do more. So I’m looking for a trans POC volunteer to take over my blog for a day, to at least raise some awareness.
The Umbrella
Posted by – July 27, 2008
There’s been a recent thread on the message boards about the relative usefulness & accuracy of the “transgender umbrella” & quite frankly, I’m stumped by people who have a problem with the idea. I don’t see that it’s a complicated idea: that people who “trans” gender in some way – change, permanently or temporarily, their gender, or question the binary, etc. – have something in common. It doesn’t mean you’re all alike. It doesn’t mean you share all causes or issues or complaints. It doesn’t mean anything except that at some point, you question(ed) the assignment of an F or an M on your birth certificate as an accurate description of your gender at all times.
What I expect underlays the complications is an expectation of harmony, or unity, under that umbrella. That’s not going to happen, simply because different types of people under the umbrella have different experiences, identities, and definitely different complications with expressing that identity in the world. The post-op young transitioner who is happily married to a man may pass seamlessly as a woman, but only stealth keeps it that way. The crossdresser needs places to change, & community that isn’t heterocentric or homophobic. The genderqueer person wants to be acknowledge that they do not have a single gender, or any gender, or a consistent gender, or a binary-driven gender, depending on how they express being genderqueer.
There’s a lovely amount of variety.
What I think happens is that some forms of transness are considered “less than.” I can understand why a trans woman might feel her femininity mocked, or made questionable, by a crossdresser’s evocations of feminity. I’ve felt the same way when faced with some crossdressers’ interpretation of feminine. But I can’t imagine disliking crossdressers as a group because of that. After all, as many partners & feminists have experienced, transness in general tends to blow up a cissexual’s notions of gender in the first place, with its emphasis on nature & not nurture. We don’t dislike trans people as a result (well, some people do, of course, but I’m assuming most people reading this think that’s kind of dumb, if not outright prejudice.)
It’s not as if I’m not horrified by the behavior of some white folks, or other women, or writers, or Brooklynites, but I can’t deny I have something in common with them, either.
