are we reinforcing stereotypes?

[pamela7]

An open question, but by being all-or-nothing crossdressers, are folks here effectively supporting the binary gender system?

I feel that by having all-male, mixed clothing, man-enfemme, fully-cd with wig+makeup, and a full range, we open the boundaries for more to join us and also for us to be more accepted. Are we creating part of the problem here?

looking forward to some interesting discussion.
xxx Pamela

[Katey888]

So you're saying that by having a full-range of presentations, from 'femme highlights' thru androgyne to guy in a dress and full femulation, we open more boundaries...?

But then you've said by some of us being full femulators, that's bad...? :confused:

You also seem to be propagating the idea that many more would 'join' us if there were more presentation options available, like it's something someone would do because we have less formal dress codes than the local golf club... Or it's a bit more flamboyant that the village footie team...

People here express what they need to in different ways because they are motivated to do so in different ways and probably for differing reasons. I can't see that MtF CDers are making any impact on society's adherence to binary genders, nor will we swell our ranks by having a more relaxed dress code... Aside from that, I think you've confused me... :)

Katey x

[Krisi]

"are folks here effectively supporting the binary gender system?"

Pamela, biology and medical textbooks and teachings support the "binary gender system". You are free to wear what you want, as are the rest of us, but the clothes we wear will not change the "binary gender system".

[NicoleScott]

I'm an all-or-nothing CDer. I don't know why but that's how I'm driven. Gender-mix dressing would only serve to advance someone else's social agenda while leaving my personal desires unfulfilled. Sorry, don't sign me up for this.

Not everyone is stuck in the gender-middle. Accommodating the gender-middle doesn't require destroying both ends.

[PaulaQ]

No, we are not.

Or rather in a sense we are, but the problem with your question, and they way society has asked their variant of it: "can a woman adopt 'masculine' clothes and be a woman still? " (Answered: "yes"), is that it presupposes their is something wrong with the gender binary. And in particular the rather nasty and misogynsitic version of it from society at large presumes to "liberate" women by encouraging more masculine behavior, because everything male is viewed as being FAR superior to any female trait. We have to dress more plainly, and express less emotion at work if we want to be taken seriously as women. Why? Because men do these things and men's traits are viewed as the superior ones.

The thing is - the gender binary is very real for some of us. It's extremely real for me personally. It's incredibly real for my boyfriend, who comes off like The Marlboro Man, without all that cancer.

There is absolutely nothing WRONG with people like us!

The only issue are jerks who presume to tell you somehow that your own experience of gender is somehow LESS valid or real than mine. Historically, there have been such people, and the response for many women was a move to greater androgyny. (As I said, the problem with that is NOT androgynous people, but the implicit "be more like a man", imposed on all women.)

You need to express your identity and reality as it is for YOU. Not anyone else. Define yourself - be who you are, REGARDLESS of whether or not it fits some stereotype past, present, or future. Don't define someone else, or question "gosh, does her gender expression help or hurt us?" The answer is that it's not about YOU, whether someone is high-femme or stone butch, or something in between, or something undefinable to others. It's not our business to define others. We should define ourselves.

My proof, by the way, that such efforts to define a new, more flexible presentation for women fails at liberating them is to look at the fact that while we may be accepting of androgynous looks for women, they better freaking BE women, whatever that means in society's consciousness. Generally it's a highly stereotyped and objectifying view of women's bodies. This view is quite cruel to people who do not conform to the gender binary at all. There is ZERO tolerance of the idea of non-binary people.

So at the end of the day, all our liberalism and greater acceptance of women, in part by eschewing traditional stereotypes, has given women a bit more flexibility in a largely patriarchal workplace (for less money), and the right to wear pants. Whoop-de-freaking-doo!

Don't get me wrong. It's progress of a sort, but like many such efforts it helps rather a lot smaller group of people than is supposed, and for the most part, benefits some of the most privileged.

TLDR: Just be yourself, don't worry about whether someone else's expression helps or hurts unless that person is trying to define you! Just don't be that person - just worry about being you.


Pamela, biology and medical textbooks and teachings support the "binary gender system".

Biology supports no such notion whatsoever. Intersexed people and animals have always existed.

As for medical text books, if you are talking about the crap they teach that allows thousands upon thousands of us who are trans to suffer and often die in agony every year, then those seem to me to be a poor choice for truth for a profession that hypocritically professes "do no harm," but will happily let trans people die of neglect.

[deebra]

Please define binary gender system.

[Danitgirl1]

If anything the 'uber-femme-all-or-nothing' crossdresser is SUBVERTING the stereotype
Just my :2c:
:hugs:

[PaulaQ]

Please define binary gender system.

The notion that there only exists:
Biological male or female.
Men or women.
Highly stereotypically masculine men
Highly stereotypically feminine women

The reality is that people exist in a range between all of these extremes, and that's OK.

[Mayo]

That biological males are expressing 'traditionally feminine' traits/behaviours subverts it at the same time that 'full femme' might tend to support it (i.e. that one must conform to one or the other extreme, i.e. 'pass'). If enough androgynous or gender-fluid/bigender or 'mixed mode' people can populate the middle ground then hopefully the net overall effect will be to cause more people to accept that the binary is largely socially constructed and, in the end, relax that emphasis on the extremes.

[Veronica27]

There is no such thing as a binary gender system, because as is frequently discussed here, gender is fluid, and is a highly subjective concept dependent upon many variables. What exists is a binary sex concept which we see reflected all around us. Male and female differentiation exists in clothing departments and in fashion concepts, washrooms, rules of etiquette (if anyone still is aware of them), sports teams and leagues, marriage, (not withstanding same-sex unions which still reflect the binary), the language (he, she, etc.) and on and on. Certainly, there are people who fall between the cracks, so to speak, and have one of a number of conditions that may make the determination of male or female not as obvious. These conditions can range all the way from those which simply present some visible or other clue that there is a problem (mild or significant) to those which leave a genuine uncertainty as to the sex. While these conditions should merit serious attention from the various medical fields, they do account for a small percentage of the population, that should not have an impact on the reality of a basic binary sex concept.

The following statistics are found on the website of the Intersex Society of North America:

Not XX and not XY one in 1,666 births
Klinefelter (XXY) one in 1,000 births
Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13,000 births
Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 130,000 births
Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13,000 births
Late onset adrenal hyperplasia one in 66 individuals
Vaginal agenesis one in 6,000 births
Ovotestes one in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) one in 110,000 births
Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to pregnant mother) no estimate
5 alpha reductase deficiency no estimate
Mixed gonadal dysgenesis no estimate
Complete gonadal dysgenesis one in 150,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along
penile shaft) one in 2,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening between corona and
tip of glans penis) one in 770 births

Total number of people whose bodies differ from
standard male or female one in 100 births
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize”
genital appearance one or two in 1,000 births

It should be noted that some of these conditions, such as the most frequent one, Late onset adrenal hyperplasia, are not a question of male or female, can occur in either sex and can have different symptoms for each sex. As a young boy, one of my friends had the above noted condition and entered puberty at about age 6.

To answer the original question, I don't think that our activities can influence the public perception of a "binary system" of whatever you prefer to call it, because it exists. We are an extremely diverse community, both in the extent and manner of our presentation, and also in our motivations and reasons for doing so. The more emphasis on our individuality, the less credible the stereotypes will become. I read your post as referring to the establishing of more sections in this forum. I can't see that as lessening the binary, but could possibly attract more to the forum. That has to be weighed against the desirability of creating further fragmentation. To me, our primary division between those who desire or need to be a woman and those who wish or need to expand the variety of their experience of being male is sufficient. Wherever you stand on the broad scale between wearing panties occasionally to being a woman full time, you can fit somewhere within those two basic segments. Both sides can learn from the other side's experiences.

Veronica

[Robin414]

Hi Pamela, great topic! I consider myself a tween (or gender fluid, whatever) but I don't know if it's for me...yah, maybe I am part of the unrealistic gender binary.. .I've only felt this way for about 10 mo though so I'm not running out for electolosy or hormones (T OR E) just yet!

[Kate Simmons]

I, personally, prefer the whole 9 yards of CDing. What other folks do is their business and I don't have any problem accepting them for who they are if they choose to mix and match. I'm all or nothing though when it comes to dressing. I don't have any "mission" to accommodate others per se, I just have fun with it.:battingeyelashes::)

[Brandy Mathews]

I'm an all or nothing cd'er too. Can't imagine a middle road ever being accepted . But, I never thought that states would be making pot legal either, lol.
Hugs,
Bree :)

[AngelaYVR]

Too much hand wringing, not enough hip swinging!

[Lena]

Sometimes I wonder about that when I see or hear about breast firms and hip pads. I don't use either because it's not me. I dress to make myself look and feel the best I can for a flat chested buttless crossdresser. But I think all crossdressers break the stereotypical binomial gender equation because we're not mono-sexual. We already live on the line.

[Tina_gm]

I think Pamela is suggesting the stereotypes of cders, not all of the gender binary. With that, the drag queen type presentation. How many women over the age of 30 wear 5 inch or higher heels anywhere? But many cders over the age of 30 will, and wear them anywhere.

When we talk of passing and whatnot, when I see a cder in public, most of the time it is not the manly features.... square jaw, large muscular hands etc etc that I 1st notice. It is the over the top ultra fem presentation in a place 99.9% of women would never present.

Not necessarily drag queen presentation, but still far from that of the typical presentation of almost all women.

[RedheadedHeathen]

they way society has asked their variant of it: "can a woman adopt 'masculine' clothes and be a woman still? " (Answered: "yes")

I continue to see this on this board. Have you actually asked women who present masculine?

I was management in manufacturing for years and presented with steel toe boots, a hat, t-shirt, and jeans. I was routinely called 'butch/skank/dyke' and I frequently heard 'not you, real women' when I would question their stereotypes and say that I didn't fit in them. It was the same story for every other female that worked on the labor side of manufacturing whether she was management or not.

Let's be real here, if women presenting masculine wasn't a problem within society the words 'butch' and 'dyke' would never have evolved to be derogatory slang in the first place. Their mere existence proves that society doesn't accept a masculine female because people do not assign names to something that doesn't happen.

Maybe you don't see a woman who presents masculine any differently but I assure you society does and it has effects on every part of her life.

(Before we go down the semantics route ... butch and dyke were not meant as identifiers or terms of affection, they were said in a derogatory manner.)

[Lacey New]

I don't think this forum supports any kind of "binary gender system" at all. I look at two dimensions: 1. sexual identity and 2. sexual orientation. I think we have members here who are all over the map with respect to those two positions and as such, this forum attracts the full range of gender fluid folks. I do thin however, that to much of the general public, crossdressers or transgendered (MtF anyway) are represented by Caitlyn Jenner who wants to present and live as a woman - i.e. completely changing her sexual identity from M to F. There are a fair number of us here who like to have our feminine times but do not intend to go the Caitlyn route. Similarly, IMHO, it seems that the majority on this site tend to be heterosexual males. However, we also have a fair number who have different preferences as well. So, the way I see it , this forum seems to be inclusive to all.