Tolerance

[Zooey]

mikell, thank you for that - I appreciate it, and it wasn't necessary for you to say that. There are a couple of things I want to clarify though.

so if you read her post she says she doesn't like when folks demean women, has anyone been to the picture forum, look at the posts of those who present sexy to the amount of posts to the plain janes and then to the ones no one posts to, see....

I have no problem whatsoever with whatever folks want to wear, and I don't really care if you take pictures of it. I don't think that's necessarily demeaning to women. If anything, it's appropriation, and the often sexualized aspect of it makes that a bit more challenging but in and of itself I don't care.

My only issue is when CDs start to conflate their version of femininity with the experiences of actual women, try to explain how we're totally the same, or project their fantasy image on us. That's when it becomes demeaning. When I mention that, it's not the picture posts. It's stuff like...

• Women never dress sexy (like women, like a woman should, etc.) anymore
• I'm so much more girly than most women I see
• Does anybody else get the urge to do girly activities, y'know like vacuuming the house, when you're dressed?
• I'm such a girl, I own like 200 pairs of panties and 50 bras
• It's so great how we understand women so much better than other men because we know how to do makeup, walk in heels, etc.
• Etc.

Speaking specifically to the CDs...

Be you. Embrace your brand of femininity. But you don't have to do it by projecting your fantasy onto the lives of actual women and/or judging their experience against your desires. If you want to understand women more deeply, listen to them.

oh and just for the record and perspective i was terrified of zooey a few months ago. but now when she makes me think it hurts my brain...

I'm sorry for any increases in your Advil spending this month.

I think some of the conversations that happen here are gross, That's when I show up.

That is an incredibly misleading edit of what I actually wrote. For the record, the bit preceding that comma actually showed up as...

I could care less about men wearing dresses, panties, makeup, or whatever they want. I say you do you, let your freak flag fly, and make it happen. I think some of the conversations that happen here are gross, but I don't go into them to disrupt because it usually doesn't have any bearing on the life of an actual woman (except your SOs). I read a lot; I jump into threads on this side of the forum relatively rarely.

Don't stop taking your hormones there honey....

Thank you, I won't, because - having dealt with them before - menopausal symptoms are a bitch.

Most crossdressers on this site overwhelmingly admire, love, respect their spouses and SOs. Most crossdressers show total respect and admiration for women in general.

I never said you didn't admire, love, and respect your spouses. I was trying to say that the version of femininity that is often expressed here through your dressing is frequently glorifying the things that most women either don't have time for in the real world, or alternatively, have worked hard over decades to eliminate the expectation of them doing. My suggestion was that you may find you get more support if you either embrace a version of femininity that feels more relatable and/or respectful to the experiences of actual women, or at the very least, don't try to conflate it with the lives of actual women, or worse, how you think they should be living.