Please excuse a minor diversion from the general trend of these posts.
Most if not all of us here would accept, if not actively embrace, the idea of gender fluidity. Most, if not all, would agree that whilst sexuality may be binary, or perhaps tri-partite, issues of gender are of a different nature.
We use the word "Crossdresser" in preference to "transvestite" with all of its prurient 19th century connotations suggestive of abnormality and "deviance". And that is no doubt right.
But "crossdresser" is no more than a transliteration of transvestite. It still speaks to a "crossing" and there can be no crossing without a boundary, no boundary without an implicit bifurcation.
Is it not time we found a better word? A word that both speaks to and reflects the diversity of the experience and aspirations we all share? One which rejects, implicitly, the suggestion that clothing is no more than a signifier of something essentially determined by boundaries?
Unless and until our own language and The linguitic choices we ourselves adopt can do this, how can we hope that the wider society will understand (and with understanding we must hope will come acceptance) that what we "do" and what we "are" is something infinitely more subtle and nuanced than that?
We are none of us the same. There are themes and there are trends. In our back stories and in our stories of self acceptance this is obvious to all but the most casual observer.
Is it not time, sisters, and brothers, that we found a new word for ourselves?
Julia