Talk:Cross-dressing/Archive1

Topic
I'm not an expert on these subjects, just an interested layperson, and any mistakes are honest and well-intentioned. --jtl talk 01:12, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * From what I understand: TV's (generally) aren't trying to "pass", they don't care what they look like to others, (most TVism) goes on behind closed doors). It is the inner satisfaction they get from wearing the clothes not the outer praise (nor condemnation) from others that drives them.
 * Gay men who like to dress up are considered drag queens. If they are in a place that has a thriving gay community they are able to share expertise and knowledge; they are also more likely to go out in public.
 * Drag queens are an "animal" unto themselves; stereotypically bitchy and controlling...but many see this as part of the role not the actual personality of the participants. Do not get into a fight with a drag queen. You'll be fighting not only that particular person but all the drag queens in the immediate vicinity. CЯacke ®  10:52, 4 July 2007 (CDT)

Well, as mentioned in the forum, "transvestite" is a bit of an old-fashioned term these days. The current terms are generally "crossdresser" for those doing it for personal, non-transition purposes, and "drag queen" which covers those doing it as performance. To be fair, there's also "drag king" (which I've actually performed as, under the name Elwin Yaover) which have become staples of queer burlesques and the like. Since females dressing in male clothes hasn't been a taboo in a long, long time, there's not as much of an analogue for crossdressers, although there's a growing genderqueer movement that tosses gender conventions out the window, clothes included.

Not all crossdressers do it for sexual purposes, of course. While a good many do, there are some who do it for either suppressed transsexual reasons, or for a desire to have more of a female experience than simply putting on the clothes. The latter would look to "pass" in the same way a transitioning transsexual would, and some are very good at it. Take a look at Charles Anders for instance, and you get a good feel for just how slippery gender presentation can get.

Oh, and I should add that unlike transsexuals and some sorts of genderqueer presentations, crossdressers and drag queens do not generally identify as anything but their biological sex. Indeed, especially with drag queens, that's sort of the point. --Kels 15:32, 4 July 2007 (CDT)
 * In a surprising twist I saw a female drag queen on the TV a few months ago. That would be a women dressing up as a man pretending to be a woman.--Bobbing up 17:48, 31 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Hehe, and then there would be any historical performance of Merchant of Venice... the other way around.  ħ uman  18:11, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Best to prefer "crossdresser" over "transvestite"
Just for general reference: Crossdresser is the best term to use; using the term transvestite is not really the done thing these days. It's not precisely offensive (at least not yet -- thanks to the sex industry's fetishization of male-to-female crossdressing, it's gradually moving toward sharing territory with terms like shemale), but it does mark the user as painfully out of touch, and uninformed if not actually ignorant.

Imagine that you're having a discussion about evolution; the other person endorses some form of Lamarckianism, and you can't help it -- your perception of the other person's knowledge of the subject, and credibility in that particular domain, drops. Using transvestite in a crossdresser's presence has a similar effect.

It might not be a bad move to move this article to Crossdressing and shift the redirects accordingly.


 * curious. In the circles I move in, 'TV' is the preferred term. That or 'T girl' AMassiveGay (talk) 12:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The Lumberjack Song
Should get a mention here (if someone can put in the linkages properly). 171.33.222.26 (talk) 14:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The joke with that wasn't that he was a crossdresser, but that he was the exact opposite of the "Rugged Burly Man" that people think of when they think of lumberjacks. I should know, I have a number of lumberjacks as friends and only a few of them are transvestites. CorruptUser (talk) 21:26, 4 June 2015 (UTC)