Quote Originally Posted by Zooey View Post
The kids I was talking about were absolutely just using "gay" as an expression. They did not mean it negatively towards homosexual people. That's the point - "it's just an expression" is not an excuse.
I think you haven't really got the significant difference between "gay" and "feel like a woman". "gay" word was used specifically to express a negative aspect of someone. "feel like a woman" is not, at least not intentionally by a male here. See, "gay" was used intentionally to insult someone and that makes a big difference, because it makes the word "gay" associated with negative meaning, and impact real gay people to have bad image too.
But "feel like a woman" is used for yourself, and I must say, why would anyone talk bad about yourself? Most male CDs have intention to just express the positive feeling by saying "I feel like a woman". So, I still don't understand why would you think this is offending woman in anyway. (And actually, I did get an answer from 1 GG that she said she didn't feel offended by this, mostly just confused why a male would say this...)



Quote Originally Posted by Zooey View Post
"I feel like a woman when I put on clothes and makeup. The wig is when I feel complete as a woman."

That statement absolutely reduces women to their exterior. You, and other men who say this, are literally saying, "When i put on a woman costume, I feel like a woman", which says rather clearly that the costume is all that's required to feel like a woman. That's obviously not true. You can say the clothes make you feel "pretty", "soft", or even "feminine". All of those are completely reasonable things to say about typically feminine clothing. They have next to nothing to do with feeling like a woman.

That's the point.
Okay, I now start to get your point where you're coming from that you're trying to defend overall woman image, because you identify yourself as one too. But I am not convinced yet why would CD dressing up and feel like a woman be related to reducing woman to be just exterior thing. And most of all, it's only CDers here who would say that in this forum, and we all understand clearly what it means and how it does not reduce woman to exterior for us. There's not much situation where CD would say this in public. Are you seeing the trend where people saying "feel like a woman when dressed up" would make woman look bad in public? If so, please do share the story, I'd be willing to hear more of this.

- Bonnie