This may be true---Indeed, As one myself, I "get" Hetro CDing, but I do not understand GAY CDsOriginally Posted by kittypw GG
This may be true---Indeed, As one myself, I "get" Hetro CDing, but I do not understand GAY CDs
even within the LGB community the presence of "conflicts" can be noted.With gay men and women, disagreeing or being uncomfortable with Bi sexual people, and a certain level of impass within the attitudes between gay men and lesbian women. As a member of a LGB society during my degree, being transgendered my experience was that others in the LGB community were supportive, and freindly, they would sit me down and try to understand what being transgendered meant, and I was very grateful for their care as I progresssed with my transition. Its true, my presence in the LGB society wasnt about being L, G, or B. I was there because I identified with those with similar issue with regards to acceptance in society, and sharing support as a person without predominant reference to my being TG.
Is there someone I can speak to, in customer services, I seem to have the wrong body, no I dont have a reciept, er maybe an upgrade.....hello..???
I tend to agree with most of the advice/opinions already offered in response to your post. But concerning coming out to a gay male friend, I thought I'd offer you aadvice that stems from my own experience:
Years ago, I came out to a good gay male friend of mine. He was mostly just intrigued by the news. But, It soon became clear to me that he didn't really understand/believe that I could be heterosexual if I wore women's clothing. It was as if he somehow thought that by coming out to him, I was also admitting that I secretely had an interest in men. Heck, he even offered to take me out shopping. As fun as that might have been, he had the wrong idea--at least so far as my sexual orientation was concerned--and it was clear that I was going to have to address this issue before it got out of hand. I sat my friend down and had another long talk with him...He still didn't understand crossdressing, but he understood that I was 100% heterosexual.
All of this to say that I would caution you to make absolutely certain that your buddy understands that, by coming out, you are not suggesting that you might be gay or bi. As long as there is no confusion here, I imagine everything will be ok. (Of course, if you are gay or bi, then you probably should make that clear, too, lol)
For whatever it's worth, I hope this helps.
"poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another." Madonna "Justify My Love"
Actually, thinking about this a bit... Aren't we actually BI?
As males, we prefer women... That makes us hetro.
As females, we still prefer women.. Doesn't that make us a lesbian?
So maybe we need a new term... HEBISHE or HSBI. Too complicated, I guess.
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Marina, The "T" in GLBT stands for "transgender" (covers CD/TV/TS). And how can you make the assumption that a "TS is technically homosexual"? A TS is someone that has started taking hormones and is (usually) heading toward SRS. They currently have breasts and male genitalia. Many of them have no interest in men, either before or after surgery.
I forgot to mention in my original post that I used to bowl in a GLBT bowling league. I had no negative reactions from anyone. Guys or girls I bowled with nor the mangagement of the bowling centers, or the regular customers. And I traveled from upstate NY to VA to bowl in tournaments. All the while in girl mode.
Jaie
[SIZE="2"]I don't think people have problems with the fact that "we" like to crossdress. I think they have problems with the fact that we are comfortable with who we are and can express ourselves this way, while they have issues of their own that they don't know how to deal with.[/SIZE]
Interesting discussion!! Keep it up! I am going to email my friend today and tell him about myself and see what he thinks. I 'll tell you what he says.
Stephanie Kay
"We all just want to be loved!"
I share this view.
.
The River City Gems - Northern California's largest and most active crossdressing & transgender support group!
From personal experience...I have to say that the gay persons that I work with and know that I am a CD....they are quite OK with it....As a funny side note...they do find it amusing when I disclose some crossdressing adventure that I have been out on. Their reaction sometimes is...."really?? you went out looking like that???...are you crazy???" It is all in good fun however.
Krissy
Stephanie If you never gave that friend grief about being gay why would he give it to you for crossdressing I'll bet he will say you go girl
Angie
I thought GLB, stood for sexual issues, while the T stood for gender issues?
Isn't that why there are some CD'ers that are gay and or Bi, and this does not have anything to do with crossdressing?
Hetro's and gays all get confussed by this, as they all seem to think of these things in sexual terms, and not gender.
And Gay or straight, arn't we all just a bit confussed by what we don't know, and don't understand?
I have a Lesbian friend, that has been known to get a good laugh out of the way gay men act, she can understand a man wanting a woman, but she has trouble with the idea of anyone wanting a man!
It's all a crap shoot, sometimes we get surprized at who does except us, so why should it surprize us when someone in the GBLT does not except us.
And s far as what we are doing in the GLBT, isn't the old saying "Politics makes strange bed partners".
Thanks to the activst in all of those groups getting along, we have all moved forward.
I think we ahve anyway!
Tina B.
wow good post i went to a lesbian bar 2 weeks ago felt wellcome there how ever i went to a gay bar this weenend with several other cd s but i just did not fell so wellcome there i mean everyone was nice just felt like we were being put up with but thats just my
They need a club just for men who dress as women.
In San Diego, they have a club called SRO Lounge. It's mostly a gay hangout, but they're very welcoming to CD'ers.
http://www.srolounge.com/
To echo what others have said....
My experience is that gays and lesbians don't "get" crossdressing and trans issues any more than hetros. And yes, they also assume a man who crossdresses is gay.
Overall, my experience is that gays and lesbians are more tolerant. They may not understand us, but they're generally willing live and let live -- probably due to being familar to what it's like to be considered an outsider themselves. That said, certain segments of the lesbian community aren't trans friendly -- they still hold to a view that MTFs are at best making a mockery of women and are worse trying "to colonise feminist identification, culture, politics and sexuality" as Janice Raymond put it in her infamous "The Transsexual Empire." And a gay CD I know experience the worse harassment she'd ever had on Castro Street in SF.
Marina -- Being TS isn't inherently being "technically" homosexual because some MTFs are attracted to men and some to women. Unless you want to argue that someone's "technically" homosexual pre-op and the hetro post-op (or vice versa). Which is why it's far more useful to think in terms of androphillic or gynophillic (i.e. attracte to men or attracted to women).
As far as why the association of CD = gay, it's part of a long-standing false equivalence that "unmanly = feminine = gay." (And not it's not that most drag queens are TSs, the vast majority of them are gay men, thank you very much.) In part it goes back to theories several centuries ago that gays and lesbians were "sexual inverts" and therefore the thinking was that they must have been womanish men and mannish women. Also it probably is related that a number of gay men did crossdress in the late 1700s and early 1800s as a way of advertising their homosexuality. While female impersonation was predominately a hetrosexual artform up until WWII, afterwards for various reasons having a drag performer was a covert way of signaling that a club catered to gay clientele in an era when any overt advertising would've resulted in the club being shut down and the owner probably carted off to jail.
As far as the great degree of gender varience one see in the gay and lesbian communities, I think it's the flip side of the greater sexual varience seen in the trans community. Once you've stepped outside of "normal" in one dimension, it's easier to acknowlege "non-standard" feelings in the other. So you get feminine gays and masculine lesbians, although neither necessary get the greatest respect within the gay and lesbian communities (neither do femme lesbians), and CDs who are more willing to acknowledge bisexual fantasies, desires and behaviors. (Although arguably, based on the Kinsey spectrum, I don't think bisexuality is higher among CDs, I think they're just more likely to acknowledge it.)
Lena
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[SIZE="3"]Great post, strayed a bit, talk to your friend get his feelings and see, coming out to him will answer all. We have so many answers here, gays don't understand us, at times we don't understand ourselves, when asked by a gay woman why I do this, I had to say to satisfy the need to portray who I think I am. [/SIZE]
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I have attended TV weekends in the UK and a group of us have attended gay bars dressed. In one club not one gay man spoke a word to us, in another bar only 1 gay man spoke and we chatted for a bit and he was really accepting.wow good post i went to a lesbian bar 2 weeks ago felt wellcome there how ever i went to a gay bar this weenend with several other cd s but i just did not fell so wellcome there i mean everyone was nice just felt like we were being put up with but thats just my
When it came to the Lesbians in the bars and clubs they were more than happy to chat and ask about cd'ing etc.
So I tend to agree with you Sandy when you say that everyone is nice just feesl like we were being put up with."
The problem is that we the transgendered have been tagged onto the end of the gay scene. This is simply because society do not know where to put us and in general IMO the gay community do not appreciate that.
But we do not need anyone elses permission to be who we are. What i find sad is that the gay community know what it is like to be in our position regarding discrimination etc yet part of the community choose to judge us TV/CD's.
Understanding should be a two-way street. A person's sexual orientation should only matter if you would like to have sex with them. Other than that it should be a non-issue. Most of what has been written on this thread so far is, in my view, ill-informed. Only Marlena D. seems to have any understanding of the diversity of human nature. The bottom line is that you can't reasonably expect someone to go to the effort of understanding and accepting you unless you're prepared reach out and do likewise.
Best Wishes
Paula
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All the comments are terrific, girls. Good discussion!
I haven't heard anyone comment about this aspect. I always thought that drag queens, since they were gay, were mocking women. That's why they "went over the top" with big boobs, big hair, very tight clothing, lot's of make-up, (eg. Divine, RuPaul, etc.). I'm not putting them down. I just don't understand. It seems to me that drag queen's exagerated dress and looks are an attempt to be noticed. I dress conservatively in public because I just want to feel like an ordinary woman and "fit in" and not be noticed! What do you think?
Stephanie Kay
"We all just want to be loved!"
I think it really depends on the individual. Most gay people I know are toally accepting of my being a CDer. I have only run into one gay guy who was not. For him it was disgusting that a guy would dress as a woman. Needless to say that I no longer associate with this guy.
Just another man in a dress
I have a long time homosexual friend, in my church. Like me, we both must keep our secrets, with church, though some of the people, understand his situation, and I have told one lady obout my cding. She told me I nned to stop, etc. My honosexual friend, when I told him about dressing up, did not understand why, and said, that gay men, are not really into that, and don't understand why a man would want to put on women clothes. However, there are a FEW gay men, who do like putting on women's clothes.
religion, dontcha just love it.....
Is there someone I can speak to, in customer services, I seem to have the wrong body, no I dont have a reciept, er maybe an upgrade.....hello..???
Some of the CDing cliches don't help, either. "I CD but like women, so I'm a lesbian", "I CD so I know what it's like to be a woman", etc from people who ultimately still have all the privileges of being born male and who can return to those privileges by taking the clothes off. And rather ironically given drag's role in the stonewall riots, CDs don't tend to get involved in the fight for equal rights.
Sweeping generalisations, I know.
A gay friend of mine told me that gays don't usually like cds. I asked him why not? He said, "Because gays are not into women and cds try to be women, or look as much like them as they can. It's a turn off." I then asked him why many gays (sexually speaking, 'bottoms') try to act like women then. They talk, walk, have similar interests such as hair, fashion, cooking, designing, dance, etc. They want to do everything that women do the only difference is that they don't wear women's clothes. He couldn't answer that one. He did say though that knowing me has changed his opinion although he won't be turned on by anyone in a skirt or a dress. I said that's fine, just don't be against them.
Ask your friend his opinion. Tell him that you are a crossdresser no matter his answer then take it from there.
Bonnie
A couple of things:
1. Not all gay men that engage in so-called "women's interests" are "bottoms", and
2. I don't see why these should be called women's interests anyway since not all women are into cooking, clothes, decorating, etc. They're just interests - for anyone of any gender.
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Yes, CaptLex, stereotyping is exactly what I was doing. I don't agree with it but used it to question my friend about his prejudice. My point being that there are effeminate gays who are accepted within the gay community but as soon as they put on a dress and not in drag queen effect then it changes things. It shouldn't.
Bonnie
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