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

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

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.

But why is that the case?

(thanks to Jenny for the link!)

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 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.

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.

(with a Sheboygan reference, to boot)

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.

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.