What's so funny about cross-dressing?
Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 5:21 am
Hi,
I found this and find it quite in line with my views. It is very long, but I enjoyed reading this. Those of you not wishing to wade through it all, the conclusion is in the last three paragraphs.
Kersten Lee
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:: What's so funny about cross-dressing? ::
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Source: http://www.newhumanist.org.uk
by Charlotte Suthrell
May 04, 2004
Our attitude towards transvestism says more about us than we realise, writes Charlotte Suthrell.
Even in these supposedly liberal times, reference to transvestism provokes hilarity or mockery. Men who wear women's clothes are seen as indulging in a clandestine, minority activity, and largely written off as a rather unsavoury group of sexual deviants.
...
But even if we allow for the influence of such religious instruction upon our tendency to see the world in binary gender terms, it still seems odd that a society which is now so accepting of pre–marital sex, homosexuality, and the ready availability of sexually explicit images should still be so prepared to censure by ridicule those men who wish to cross–dress. Why should we continue to allow ourselves to be locked into a world of regularities? Why would we want to? As sociologist Holly Devor comments: “We have begun to acknowledge the extraordinary bio–diversity around us in the world — together with an understanding of the need for its survival if the planet is to thrive — but unfortunately we have been very slow to generalise this concept to our understandings of gender, sex and sexuality. We tend to think of people whose gender, sex or sexuality are unusual as ‘mistakes’ of either nature or nurture.”
Perhaps what our attitude to transvestism tells us about most clearly is our deep–down attitude towards women. Masculinity is still the ‘must–have’ factor in so many of the achievements that our culture prizes. In such circumstances, how can we possibly understand those who would voluntarily surrender this valued asset? We may have abandoned many of our preconceptions about the nature of the female but we still can’t understand why on earth any man would want to be taken for one. Boys who want to play with girls’ toys are somehow ‘downgrading’ themselves.
Some comfort may be derived from this research in that many transvestites, despite the adversities that they have had to overcome, can still acknowledge a positive side. Like Shakespearean heroines who grow through the experience of becoming temporary males, those who cross gender boundaries report that it gives them an experience of the ‘other’ which widens their view of the world and their place within it. What a pity that we should regard their wish to go on behaving that way as either ridiculous or incomprehensible.
I found this and find it quite in line with my views. It is very long, but I enjoyed reading this. Those of you not wishing to wade through it all, the conclusion is in the last three paragraphs.
Kersten Lee
-----------------------------
:: What's so funny about cross-dressing? ::
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: http://www.newhumanist.org.uk
by Charlotte Suthrell
May 04, 2004
Our attitude towards transvestism says more about us than we realise, writes Charlotte Suthrell.
Even in these supposedly liberal times, reference to transvestism provokes hilarity or mockery. Men who wear women's clothes are seen as indulging in a clandestine, minority activity, and largely written off as a rather unsavoury group of sexual deviants.
...
But even if we allow for the influence of such religious instruction upon our tendency to see the world in binary gender terms, it still seems odd that a society which is now so accepting of pre–marital sex, homosexuality, and the ready availability of sexually explicit images should still be so prepared to censure by ridicule those men who wish to cross–dress. Why should we continue to allow ourselves to be locked into a world of regularities? Why would we want to? As sociologist Holly Devor comments: “We have begun to acknowledge the extraordinary bio–diversity around us in the world — together with an understanding of the need for its survival if the planet is to thrive — but unfortunately we have been very slow to generalise this concept to our understandings of gender, sex and sexuality. We tend to think of people whose gender, sex or sexuality are unusual as ‘mistakes’ of either nature or nurture.”
Perhaps what our attitude to transvestism tells us about most clearly is our deep–down attitude towards women. Masculinity is still the ‘must–have’ factor in so many of the achievements that our culture prizes. In such circumstances, how can we possibly understand those who would voluntarily surrender this valued asset? We may have abandoned many of our preconceptions about the nature of the female but we still can’t understand why on earth any man would want to be taken for one. Boys who want to play with girls’ toys are somehow ‘downgrading’ themselves.
Some comfort may be derived from this research in that many transvestites, despite the adversities that they have had to overcome, can still acknowledge a positive side. Like Shakespearean heroines who grow through the experience of becoming temporary males, those who cross gender boundaries report that it gives them an experience of the ‘other’ which widens their view of the world and their place within it. What a pity that we should regard their wish to go on behaving that way as either ridiculous or incomprehensible.
