Tag: crossdressing

RIP JoAnn Roberts – & Thank You

Posted by helenboyd – June 12, 2013

JoAnn RobertsJoAnn Roberts, aged 65, died on June 7th, 2013. She was an early advocate for trans rights, trans community, and built a few institutions that provided people with hope, community, and resources. She started her work in the mid 1980s – more than 25 years ago.

JoAnn Roberts founded TG Forum, which is one of the very first resources my partner introduced me to more than a decade ago when we met. She’s written a great deal for TG Forum over the years. Roberts was a crossdresser with a drag queen’s flair, and she also created Renaissance, which was a huge organization with chapters that was welcoming both to crossdressers and transitioning trans people. They held week-long getaways in Pennsylvania and generally focused their work in the northeast.

She also wrote Coping with Crossdressing, which was written expressly for couples who were negotiating a husband’s crossdressing — and both her first and second wives accepted her as a crossdresser. She also published LadyLike magazine, whose importance is likely to be undervalued now that we have computers: for many CDs, this magazine was the only thing that had useful information about events, dressing tips, and which helped people feel a little less alone.

Dallas Denny has written a piece remembering her on TG Forum; they worked together for years on AEGIS; Roberts also went on to be part of the now-defunct GenderPAC and wrote The Gender Bill of Rights in 1990. It was short, but it was powerful, especially in 1990, when no one was even using the word “transgender” (it was, more frequently, “transgendered”, and even that was rarely used).

It states:

The Gender bill of Rights by JoAnn Roberts
It is time for the transgendered community to take a stand, a strong stand, against all gender-based discrimination simply because some people are different and simply because some people do not fit into current social norms of gender roles. It is time the gender-based community articulate this stand in words that clearly define exactly what our gender rights are. It is time to stand alongside other minority rights movements to declare these gender rights as follows:

The Right To Assume A Gender Role

Every human being has within themselves an idea of who they are and what they are capable of achieving. That identity and capability shall not be limited by a person’s physical or genetic sex, nor by what any society may deem as “masculine” or “feminine” behavior. It is fundamental, then, that each individual has the right to assume gender roles congruent with one’s self-perceived identity and capabilities, regardless of physical sex, genetic sex, or sex role.

Therefore, no person shall be denied their Human and/or Civil Rights on the basis that their gender role or perceived gender role is not congruent with their genetic sex, physical sex, or sex role.

She stopped working visibly on trans issues about a years back – having accomplished more than most for members of the trans community.

She will be missed, but she shouldn’t be forgotten.

As Do We All, Frank.

Posted by helenboyd – November 21, 2012

Savage Me

Posted by helenboyd – August 16, 2012

My books received a lovely mention in Dan Savage’s Savage Love column this week, when a 23 year old woman wrote in confused by her boyfriend’s desire to be pegged, made-up and corseted. Tristan Taormino was the guest author, standing in for Dan on vacation. & I’m pleased as punch.

Crossdressing Room

Posted by helenboyd – August 14, 2012

What a great piece on identity, crossdressing, and the internet:


I grew up surrounded by the notion that bodies and identities come in 1:1 ratios: we get a body and an identity. But from as early as I remember, I had a body that did not line up flush with any single identity but instead slipped this way and that so that it lined up with Tori at one point, or the hard man of Cameroon at another, or any one of the many selves I’ve deployed throughout my life.

The discovery of the personal ad flipped a switch in the dark: the slippage I had experienced occurred not only on the side of body, but on the side of identity as well, so that Tori might slip from one body to another just as I slipped in and out of various presentations of identity. Once recognized, the logic struck me as obvious, a happy and symmetrical discovery.

I don’t mean to pretend that somehow, body and identity have been cleaved free from one another, or that we live in a world where body has no relevant bearing on identity and vice versa. After all, those pictures of Tori showed my arms, my face, my ears, that mole on the cheek next to my nose. Yet, somewhere in the hinterland of the internet, some other person had claimed one of my identities, an identity borne of my body, but one that transcended skin, muscle, hair, fat and bones, as she moved through online space, until she settled upon the imagined teenager, his body becoming hers, her voice speaking through his throat to the anonymous man on the other end of the phone.

Do take the time to read the whole of it. it is so nice to read something about the trans by someone who can really write.

(My thanks to Lea for the tip.)

Sissy!

Posted by helenboyd – May 24, 2012

There are so few articles about sissies; there really should be more. But Brianna Austin gives us a little bit of a rundown:

The sissy, however, doesn’t see himself as a women; in fact he is firmly rooted in the reality that he is not a women, nor can he every truly become one, but no longer a man either. In many instances the sissy sees women as the superior species, and is happy to simply elevate themselves to their highest possible feminine representation of female.

To that end, the sissy acts and dresses as frilly and feminine as possible, but never in a mainstream way. They love ruffles, satin, and lace in yellow, white and pink, anything that accentuates femininity – usually garters & stockings, high heels, and costumes.  But it can also include baby girl and little girl attire and actions as well.

Their goal is not to assimilate; thus the frills are both an adoration of feminism, and a reminder that they’re merely emulating that which they can never actually be.

It is then no surprise that most sissies are usually submissive in nature, a soft demeanor that earns to serve.  Often when you come upon social profiles of sissies, they are seeking a “strong master or mistress” to train them. This is yet another way of saying, “bring out the girl in me and suppress the male … PLEASE!”

Is being a sissy then really about being and looking feminine, or is it really – at the root – about power, the lack of, and/or exchange of it?

I’m fond of them myself, as is Dan Savage. As I’ve often said, some of the strongest, bravest people I’ve met are sissies, and yes, this is for you PettiPie. :)

 

CrossDresser Humor

Posted by helenboyd – April 24, 2012

Jessica Who makes me laugh. Maybe she’ll make you laugh too.

You can check out her “Best of” videos here, and her channel is cool too.

How to Say ‘Panties’

Posted by helenboyd – January 28, 2012

(There are some other really great ones, like coccyx, synechdoche, and carpe diem.)

Captain Crossdresser

Posted by helenboyd – December 1, 2011

This is fantastic.

So exactly right on, too. There only seem to be three so far, but I hope there are more on their way.

Transvestic Disorder? Really?!

Posted by helenboyd – June 6, 2011

Yes, really. The proposed idea is for DSM V, the same book that wants to change Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Incongruence is also planning on changing Transvestic Fetishism to Transvestic Disorder. (You can see all the relevant proposed changes in a previous post.)

The entry in the current DSM on Transvestic Disorder, like the former entry on Transvestic Fetishism, is authored by Dr. Ray Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly known as the Clarke Institute). Blanchard has drawn outrage from the transcommunity for his defamatory theory of autogynephilia, asserting that all transsexual women who are not exclusively attracted to males are motivated to transition by self-obsessed sexual fetishism. He is canonizing this harmful stereotype of transsexual women in the DSM-5 by adding an autogynephilia specifier to the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis.

Worse yet, Blanchard has broadly expanded the diagnosis to implicate gender-nonconforming people of all sexes and all sexual orientations, even inventing an autoandrophilia specifier to smear transsexual men.

For those who don’t see why this is a problem: let me posit the idea that there is no such thing as cross-dressing. That is, you can’t wear/get turned on by clothes of the opposite sex is the sexes aren’t oppositional. That is, a guy can wear a skirt and then it’s a guy’s skirt, just as a woman’s jeans are just jeans.

Luann Comic

Posted by helenboyd – May 23, 2011

For your consideration:

But why is that the case?

Chinese Crossdressers

Posted by helenboyd – January 16, 2011

What a list! China Today has a list of the Top Ten Crossdressers (more like trans-feminine spectrum) and most of them are young and very pretty.

(thanks to Jenny for the link!)

Today: Dan Savage

Posted by helenboyd – December 17, 2010

I’m going to be on the Dan Savage LoveCast tomorrow at 2PM PST, talking about crossdressing & crossdressers. (Hint: that’s 4PM Appleton time & 5PM NYC time.)

Update, 2:44 PM PST: I recorded the call with Dan a few minutes ago, & from what I can tell, this podcast will go up this Tuesday, 12/21.

Correction, 3:09 PST: It’ll go up on the Savage Love website on 1/4.

Phyllis Frye Becomes Texas’ First Trans Judge

Posted by helenboyd – November 18, 2010

Phyllis Frye has been a long-time advocate on trans and queer issues: this is exciting news!

Phyllis Randolph Frye, longtime legal advocate for the transgender community, was sworn in this morning as the state’s first transgender judge. Frye was appointed by Houston Mayor Annise Parker as an Associate Municipal Judge. The city council unanimously approved her appointment, along with a couple dozen other appointments, with little fanfare and no dissent.

It was only 30 years ago that Frye risked arrest every time she entered City Hall. At that time the City of Houston and most American cities had ordinances criminalizing cross dressing. Frye defied the law to fight for it’s repeal, which finally happened in 1980.

It’s kind of hard to believe that it was illegal to crossdress in so many states and cities as recently as 1980, but it’s true. Making crossdressing illegal was, of course, a way to restrict and criminalize members of the LGBT communities – whether those people were butches, queens, or transgender.

Happy Halloween!

Posted by helenboyd – October 31, 2010

Ah, the only internationally recognized holiday of the crossdressing world is upon us again, & I had an interesting experience shopping for Halloween costumes & party decorations with Betty.

We were looking around at the mass-produced costumes, me mostly cursing about the oversexed women’s and girl’s costumes (the girls’ costumes show more skin than the ones for adult men, for crying out loud) and Betty thought maybe she’d figure out a costume around an interesting wig. But: I found myself getting uncomfortable when she started trying them on. It was just too much of the past, & started messing with my sense of her gender. It was a Big Deal when she finally got to grow her hair long enough, and have it styled unisex/feminine, that the wigs brought me right back to when she couldn’t do that and had to have men’s cuts (since she was a leading man onstage) and so had to wear wigs in order to go out “en femme.”

So no wigs for us, but we did use spray-on black hair dye (so she could be Wednesday Addams & I could be Frida Kahlo, unibrow & all).

Halloween is still far & above our favorite holiday, but it’s definitely taken on new meanings in this post-trans life of ours. My feminism is more tweaked when she wants to wear short skirts & fetishy shoes because I expect her to say no to all this bullshit objectification of women — and that’s in addition to the absolute bullshit of this culture agreeing that it’s okay for women to be sexual once a year (& once a year only).

So what about you? Has Halloween changed for you in the context of your trans identity/journey? I’d love to hear.

Goodbye Tony Curtis

Posted by helenboyd – September 30, 2010

(with a Sheboygan reference, to boot)

My Husband Bitchy

Posted by helenboyd – September 29, 2010

Every once in a while, I will hear that some MTF trans person has vigorously insisted that I am a bitter feminist nightmare and that no married crossdressser or transitioning transsexual should “let” their wives read My Husband Betty.

Really, “let.”

Usually, this charge is on the grounds that I ask people who are MTF trans identified – if they are not living as female & aren’t feminist – to maybe do some research into women’s lives before deciding they will and can live as one (& before expecting absolute, unquestioning acceptance of their trans nature from their female spouse).

Recently I decided to respond:

Asking a trans spouses, especially one born and raised male, to be aware of modern women’s lives isn’t too much to ask, I don’t think, if what the CD/TG is asking for in return is acceptance of their trans nature. In a nutshell, it’s a lot to ask of a spouse or a girlfriend who has just been broadsided by their partner’s trans identity. There is often an expectation that the partner will want to know things, and learn things, and go to support groups, or accompany their spouse to outings. Their gendered feelings may also need to be expressed during sex.

That is, the raised-male spouse is asking his/her wife (depending on how the person identifies) to learn a whole lot about gender variance.

In exchange, I recommend that the person raised male learn something about being a woman, to learn about feminism, discrimination, sexual harassment and violence. Most women know most of these things as a result of living in the world as a woman (and many trans women come to know these things a few years after transition). But while a male-bodied trans person is living in the world as male, they won’t be exposed to these things. (Some MTF trans spectrum individuals, like some males, are feminist and always read about these things. I’m talking about the ones who don’t.)

In a sense, then, you could say I’m asking a lot, if you think asking the trans spouse to learn as much about his/her wife’s experience of life in her body and her gender as s/he is asking her spouse to understand about what it’s like to be trans.

You know, equality, even-steven, a little give and take. It’s a nutty idea, I know.

So crossdressers: read as much about women’s lives as you want your wife to read about crossdressing, and then read some more.

His Son’s Dress

Posted by helenboyd – August 25, 2010

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.

Hot Men Run in Heels

Posted by helenboyd – 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!)

Are You Being Served?

Posted by helenboyd – May 8, 2010

(via Petti Pie)

Crossdressing Still Illegal?

Posted by helenboyd – 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.

Final vote to repeal the law is on May 18th.