I didn't always feel ok about it myself. In fact, I took some informal but well-crafted tests to gauge where I am on the male-female spectrum. I consistently received scores that suggest I'm an "androgyne". When I learned that word, after receiving my score, I was a little mortified. I knew I was not Mr. Macho guy but I also didn't think I was on the road to the big operation! Yes, I was that naive. So, I moped around in morose self-absorption for a couple of weeks, wondering whether I was going to be one of those guys who suddenly announces after twenty years of marriage that he wants an operation. I even played out how my life would change, how I'd alienate or at least further mystify my family, lose most of my friends, definitely lose my marriage, and probably have to switch jobs or even careers.
I felt as awkward as Steve Martin's character did in All Of Me when Lily Tomlin's character suddenly showed up inside of him. Who are you and how did you get here? Why did this have to happen to me? Is this like herpes? Even if I'm stuck with it, will it go away sometimes? I listened to Black Sabbath's Paranoid and some Nirvana CDs a few times to regain my heteroness. Then I calmed down and realized there was nothing new about any of this but a scary label. I am the same person, I just had a new way of thinking about me, that's all.
Now let me ask you a question. Did you read my question as "Do you happen to be either gay or bi" or did you read it as "You're obviously either gay or bi, so which one is it?". When I started about six months ago to think a lot about why I was thinking a lot about transgenderism (too much thinking again :-; ), I asked myself the same question. After all, it's not normal to want to look like a trampy girl is it? It's not normal to dream that I'm at the mall wearing a full-length tan leather skirt and platform heels is it? It's not normal to look at another guy wearing a dress and think "wow, well done" is it? After all, if I'm attracted by these things, I must be other than hetero.
"Gay" or "bi" and "transgendered" are not the same thing. Yes, you can meet all three at the same bars, but that just highlights the fact that as a society we still like to force sexually unconventional people into closets or at least confine them to a few well-concealed nightclubs. Although I do from time to time visit clubs, I think the club scene in general, at least the way we do it in America, is a reflection of how far we have to go as a society, but that's a whole other soapbox.
The problem is labels. My take on "transgendered" is that it's a handy albeit sesquipedalian tag for anyone who feels that they do not fit the stereotypical roles assigned to the biological gender they were born with. Some people who are transgendered also happen to identify themselves as gay or as bisexual and there is no reason not to believe them. Others, many others in fact, identify themselves as heterosexual and there is no reason not to believe them. Many many of the crossdressers I have "met" through the Internet are married and aren't looking for additional relationships. They just happen to have a desire to express the feminine aspects of themselves. I fall into this category. I am perfectly comfortable paying compliments to a well-made up male but I'm not looking to date.
I'm also definitely male in my musical tastes--I'm much more likely to listen to guitar-rich rock groups than to pop vocalists. I'll take Jimi Hendrix or Nirvana over Mariah Carrie any day. No, I don't play air guitar however, but that's because I have a Fender strat to play! (Yep, one of the good ones with American-made pickups and fretboard, etc.) I do think Fiona Apple is terrific however. She expresses young female emotions wonderfully!
But empathy and emotional awareness certainly aren't enough to make me partly a "woman". After all, numerous pastors and other philanthropists exhibit deep empathy for others without calling gender into question. Plenty of famous artists who were biologically male were entirely masculine and also tremendously insightful and sensitive human beings. Did Cervantes crossdress? I've never read anything to suggest this. Shakespeare? Who knows? We know so little about him anyway that it's impossible to say, although he certainly seems to have been able to express feminine viewpoints through his female characters. And as an actor he had "legitimate" reasons to crossdress. I have more to say about that later.
I guess what's different is a barely tangible something in the way I sometimes see and respond to the world. That something has always been there but until I started reading about other people with the same intangible something, I didn't think about it in the ways I think about it now.
Also (and now we get to it you say), I really do prefer contemporary Western fashions worn by women over those worn by men. Despite what I wear to work every day, when I think about a great outfit I'm more likely to picture myself in knee-high boots or strappy platforms and a great skirt-blouse combination or floral dress than in a sharp business suit. It just seems more natural and aesthetically pleasing to me. At the same time, the mere preference for women's fashions is not the reason I decided to "come out" by posting this site.
About a month ago, when I was visiting a chat room I like, a very nice person in the UK somewhere was very distraught. He had just discussed some aspects of his transgenderism with his "SO" and her response was to throw him out of the house. So this fellow, at about 4AM his time, was writing to the chat room from a hotel where he was staying. He had little money and didn't know where to go but knew he couldn't go home. As you might expect, he started entertaining thoughts of doing himself in. As I watched this, helpless to help him from so many thousands of miles away but at the same time trying to help by saying positive things to him, I realized how far we all have to go. The suffering is so out of proportion with the behavior that it just makes no sense. For anyone to undergo that kind of pain because of a fashion choice, whatever the reasons that motivate the choice, is absurd.
This led me to think about a fundamental difference related to gender. This is a difference of which we all are aware. It is publicly acceptable for a woman to dress in traditionally masculine attire, but it is not acceptable for men to dress in women's clothes. It's that simple. But I don't think the reasons for this are simple.
Notice I did not say "entirely equal". Let's face it. The world still contains chauvinists. These are men who want to confine women to what they view as traditional roles. A classic example is the "boss" who wants a well-built secretary who wears hot skirts and brings him coffee. Extending into fantasy, the same boss wants her to be an erotic love toy. I also think that part would be fun, but as role play only.
In this instance, the women is viewed as secondary to the man. Despite women's suffrage and more recent expressions such as bra burning and so on, the chauvinist-pig-bastard man we've depicted is perfectly comfortable viewing and treating her as a second-class citizen. My wife would go further and say he views her as not human. Since most of us guys aren't chauvinists, at least certainly not to that degree, we are horrified by the scenario described above. We are perfectly accepting of our female peers in the workplace and are not upset when their fashion choices emulate our own. In a way, the woman is rising up into the traditionally male power structure and is therefore applauded. I'm not saying we consciously think of it this way. I'm just saying it's there.
So now consider the reverse situation. A man goes to work in high heels and a dress. Let's say he's a snappy "dresser" and looks fabulous, which is often the case actually. What is the response? I don't need to tell you because you already know. But why the response? I believe it stems in part from the fact that some people still do not place men and women on an equal footing. Therefore, in some people's eyes, a guy in "drag" or who simply says he feels feminine becomes less than a man. A woman in a suit is more but a man in a dress is less. Stupid and simple but there it is. A "GG" friend of mine put it like this:
It would not surprise me to learn that men who are horrified by crossdressing and transgenderism in general also hold antiquated beliefs about women. I know some women are bothered by transgenderism too, hence my next topic.
Many members of our rather heterogeneous transgendered community are just like me. They are married and would like to stay that way. But they are also very afraid to have "the talk". "The talk" is different for everyone but seems to consist in most cases of the man's confession to the wife that he wants to and in fact does sometimes wear women's clothes. The discussion may often also involve feelings of being feminine as in my case. The discussion could also include discussions of sexual preference but as explained above I see that as a separate issue.
In many cases, the man would like to be accepted at home as transgendered but fears the wife's response. I can understand this and it took a lot of courage (and a six-pack of Guinness Stout) for me to finally open discussion of all this with my wife. She accepts and understands the emotional aspects of my feminine side but isn't completely comfortable with the clothes issue. I like to think we're currently in negotiation on this.
If you are in the same place and want to talk about this at home, be careful and try to consider the questions she will ask you. She may ask you some of the questions listed here, including "are you gay". Be ready for that. Also, try to approach the topic in emotional and psychological terms rather than sartorial terms. That is, try to start a discussion about gender roles and ask her about her impressions of her own role in society as a woman. You may find yourself having a really delightful discussion which is what happened to me. We are closer now after having that talk. My wife is a bit of a tomboy and can well understand what I was saying because she has similar issues, just in the opposite direction.
Try not to start by blurting out "honey, I want to borrow your skirt." For some of you this might actually work but in most cases this doesn't seem to go well. I didn't see this as a winning opening in my case.
Also, of course, you can dress if you're in the arts. Rock stars and actors can "legitimately" crossdress. It's part of the show. I mentioned Shakespeare earlier and if you've studied his stuff a bit you may recall that all the actors were men, so Ophelia and Desdemona and Titania and Cordelia and Isabella all were "guys in drag". Curt Cobain was open about crossdressing and used to wear one of Frances Farmer's dresses he'd bought at an action. If you've ever seen the artwork for In Utero, you may recognize the inordinately tall woman in black hose and lingerie. (I think it's Krist Novoselic.) Numerous others have dressed in drag as part of their act. If you're a Zappa fan, you may recall the fur boa on Freak Out and the hilarious drag photos on We're Only in it for the Money. Examples abound of "femmy" looking music stars.
I really believe that as long as we keep pushing at the boundaries of what is "acceptable" and wear and be what we choose as much as we can without unduly disrupting the fabrics of our lives, it will become easier and we will gain more acceptance. I'm just leaping daintily on a very robust bandwagon here but every little bit helps. One day, we'll be able to wear that spring floral or to-die-for winter with those gorgeous heels anywhere we want without reproach. But only if we keep pushing. So push!