Quote Originally Posted by Katie B View Post
Oh, Sometimes Miss, you're being silly here.

First, there's a massive difference from crossdressing in public and going crazy. No GG "goes everywhere dressed as fabulous as she really wants to". No ordinary guy in drab "walks past an elementary school ... during lunch, recess, or at the end of the day on a daily basis." That's just crazy behaviour and guaranteed to get a person talked about, whether cross-dressed or not..

Second, according to a question asked on an earlier thread here, only one of us has ever been in jail for cross-dressing and that was 30 years ago. As for "beaten, or even killed", I'm sure Battybats will give us the data, but these are very rare occurrences.

Third: "go to work in drag". Well, I have and so have many others of us. Just look at the threads.

Fourth: the theme on this thread is "Fear is our biggest enemy". Not our only enemy. Sure, I wouldn't go in drag to a National Front meeting or a radical Islamist convention (or a radical Christian convention either, for that matter). But you wouldn't catch me at any of those however I was dressed -- though I did once give a talk to a National Front meeting and lived to tell the tale.

But the point is this. Almost all of our sisters in the closet are there from fear; and almost none of our sisters out of the closet have suffered the things they fear. What conclusions do you draw from that?
I am not as articulate as I wish I was. You and Batty and a few others have a knack for expressing things so clearly.

The other thing that I object to is that this can be construed as some kind of "feel good thread". This thread is mostly a basic observation and realization of what most of us know is true, whether we are in the closet or not. And the good that this forum has done for those of us yearning to come out of that closet cannot be denied. Threads like these help others see the light as well as offer an opportunity to disagree.

If you want to stay in the closet, it is totally OK, out of fear or any other reason. If you disagree with this thread that is OK too. But to characterize this thread as something frivolous that ignores reality is not fair to the writer of the thread or to the idea behind it.

It would be of great benefit when criticizing posts like these if people can offer some concrete ideas or feelings or descriptions or events of the environment they live in that would justify their fears, rather than setting up examples of unrealistic behavior as a litmus test.