[SIZE="2"]Now and then, or more often than not, the crossdresser will bump into someone who feels that crossdressing is WRONG, based on some implied universal or eternal truth – it’s just wrong, and there will be no discussion about it. I endured this point of view from, of all people, my beloved sister – one day we were watching one of those Police chase video compilations on TV, and the cops stopped a car with a MtF crossdresser in it. Slowly but surely our heroine emerged from the vehicle, while the cops took pains to record the entire scene for posterity on videotape, laughing all the time. I felt mortified, being a closeted crossdresser, so I said nothing. Suddenly my sister said, “Oh, he shouldn’t be doing that – that’s wrong!” I need to point out that she was referring to the poor crossdresser, and not the policeman...
When I came out to my sister last year, I replayed this moment in time that we shared, explaining to her that one reason why I never felt comfortable talking about my crossdressing was because she openly declared that it was WRONG for a male to do it. She blushed, and then apologized, while I just shrugged. Even the most culturally polished, freedom-of-choice, don’t-tell-me-how-to-think people I know, like my sister, still harbor some balance for correctness in their souls, and certain things are wrong, wrong, wrong, period. What’s a girl to do?
There was once a 20th century American philosopher named Richard Rorty, and he challenged this idea of eternal truths, which form the basis for moral absolutes and the concept of a soul. I wish to discuss the former, rather than the latter. It goes something like this:
“When we say ‘I know in my heart it is wrong,’ we assume there is an eternal truth about wrongness.” Also, “...we assume that the knowledge we have is certain knowledge, but absolutely certain knowledge of how things are is not possible.” However, “...we cannot find any eternal truths about ethics,” because “What we know is a matter of conversation and social practice.” Therefore, “There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.” In other words, we are responsible for harboring this idea of wrongness.
To Mr, Rorty, we only become aware of something through conceptualizing it, and our concepts are learned through language. Our perceptions are therefore inextricably tangled up with the habitual ways that we use language to divide up the world. When we decide what counts as knowledge, our judgment rests not on how strongly a “fact” correlates to the world, so much as whether it is something that “society lets us say.”
If you can take away, or reject, the moral standards that have been accepted and cultivated by society, you will be able to question this idea of “wrongness.” You weren’t born with it, but you were born into a world of absolutes where many people feel, in their “heart of hearts” that something like crossdressing is inherently “wrong.” Must you believe that there is some truth about life, or some absolute moral law, that you are violating, in order to maintain even a shred of human decency? That seems WRONG to me, but I’m a crossdresser, operating within my own set of moral absolutes. I AM, therefore I dress, irrespective of the consequences, or the accepted, unquestioned moral truths of others...
Have you ever struggled with this concept of “wrongness” in regards to crossdressing? It seems to be at the heart of everything, including initial reactions, tolerance, or eventual acceptance, since society invariably sees us as people wearing the “wrong” clothes...
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Originally Posted by Frédérique
My name is Carol.
