so at the moment i’m somewhat frustrated about the fact that my vintage-style dresses from modcloth have not arrived yet regardless of the “overnight shipping” i paid for, and that prompted me to start thinking about various things that frustrate me because of the need i feel to outlet my anger in some way.

reading a lot of transgender, and male-to-female tagged posts today, along with my frustration with the fashion industries slowing arrival, got me thinking. i started to think about transvestism, and cross-dressing as a whole.

for a long time now the terms transvestite, and crossdresser, have been up for debate. various movies as well as the media will use the terms interchangeably to mean either someone wearing the opposite sex’s societal assigned clothing for various reasons, or to mean that the main reason behind doing so is that of a fetishistic, or sexual nature. 

for this post i’m going to use transvestite as the sexual term, and crossdresser as the non-sexual term.

now as someone who does not identify as a feminist, but believes in quite a few of their ideals, i can personally say that i hate transvestism. quite a bit actually.

i’ve dated men who like to wear women’s clothing during sex because it “turns them on”, and in itself i don’t hate the men who do it, and i don’t hold it against them in any way. often times i’ll indulge them because i’m the type of person sexually who likes to please their partner as much as i can. i’m also fairly submissive, but that’s another story.

the reason i hate transvestism, or it’s core anyways, is because of what it’s saying.

men who wear women’s clothing during sex, and get turned on by the “taboo” of it, are often doing so as a degrading or a submissive sexual act. they’re wearing women’s clothing because to them it is degrading to be a woman, or wearing women’s clothing makes them “weaker” or more submissive by default.

it reinforces every single stereotype that exists about women today.

now as i have said, and will say again, the men who i’ve been with who are interested in this sort of thing are often nice guys, and i don’t hold anything against them. i have friends who just think of it as a sexual hobby, and they are also nice people. i am in no way saying that just because someone enjoys this they are a horrible person, or anything as ludicrous as that.

at the same time however it is for that reason that it infuriates me so much.
these people were raised to think in this way.
they were raised with the preconceived notion that women are weaker, women aren’t equal to men, and every other little thing that most guys you think of as assholes actually, and openly believe.

this also worries me because in that sense, no matter how much a guy may respect a woman, in the back of his mind he still thinks that she as a gender is worth less than he is.

it’s funny because in that sense it’s quite easy to understand why the fetishization of transwomen is as rampant as it is, and transmen don’t see it quite as often. 
it’s also almost comical in a sense because it doesn’t just cover transwomen. as transwomen we may be defined as “the other white meat”, or seen as something entirely different, but either way the basis of all of this is that, to so many people, we are men who are choosing to be less than men.

now any trans person, any gay person, any queer person, anyone at all who goes through anything similar knows that this isn’t a choice. if you’d like to say anything is a choice at all the only response i can give is that the only choice you make is to either be who you are, and live your life the way you want and need to, or hate yourself for the rest of your life. regardless, the stigma remains the same.

although we as people are all equal, to so many, any male exhibiting behavior that is associated with a female is seen as less of a person because of it.

how degrading an entire gender became a fetish i’m not sure, but it is what it is;
what it is being total bullshit.

with the popularization of pornography as well as the internet, the fantasy that is being “weak” and “feeble” grew exponentially, and the term “trap” went from being a term that just meant a woman who you wouldn’t know had a penis, to being a term for any guy who puts on a pair of panties.

the fantasy started to mix with reality, and transvestism as well as every fetish associated with it has become a lot more common than it used to be.

wearing a dress, acting girly, being feminine, and everything else associated with it have been things the masculine have mocked for quite a long time now, but at the end of the day that’s the reason i hate transvestism. it cements every stereotype, every sexist belief, every feminine wile, and portrays every aspect of being a woman as a degrading or humiliating one, and frankly… i don’t agree with that.

i love my hair in curls, i love dresses, i love flowers, i love makeup, and everything associated with it. i do enjoy what most would classify as feminine, and although in a sense it is the same thing as stereotyping a gender, it should be acceptable because i am celebrating femininity. i also celebrate aspects of masculinity as well.

it shouldn’t be acceptable to celebrate the degradation of femininity or women, or to celebrate the masculine and mock the feminine, but for some reason, it kind of is.

i really hope i haven’t offended anyone with this post, although i probably did, but more so i hope that one day it will be acceptable for me to praise the feminine and the masculine equally.

because right now the only thing acceptable about appreciating femininity is appreciating the objectification of it, and not even that is seen as acceptable to it’s full extent.

to the people who dress in women’s clothing, but don’t do it for a sexual thrill, i would like to say you’re all amazing. crossdressers shouldn’t even be labeled as such because i don’t recall the last time i heard someone call a woman wearing men’s clothing a crossdresser, but still.

some people will take pictures, or wear women’s clothing in the privacy of their home as well because they’re not quite ready to transition, and to those of you who do this i would like to say that i respect you just as much as someone who has gone through their transition. being uneasy or not being ready to transition is not the same as cowardice, and i don’t think anyone who has transitioned is better than anyone else who has or hasn’t. we’ve all been there at one point.

however… i do hope i’m alive to see the day when femininity is seen as strong, and not in any way, shape, or form seen as weak. i hope i’m alive to see the day equivalence is reality, and that transwomen won’t be uneasy about transitioning because expressing feminine qualities means the possibility of threatening their life, or destroying their existence. when everyone in the LGBT community is seen as equal to everyone else.

but chances are, i won’t be.

i felt compelled to write this after a few of the messages i have both received as well as answered on my tumblr this past week, and also because of some of the responses to a few of the other things i have stated as of late.

i really do hope that this doesn’t offend anyone, but knowing me, it probably will. so i would like to apologize for this inevitable, and very likely outcome now while i have the chance.

i started transitioning so to speak about two years ago now. although the term transition for many people can at times be debatable i would like to state that i started wearing makeup, women’s clothing, and living in this way two years ago while i was starting school for makeup artistry.

throughout this period i have been in quite a few relationships, moved quite a few times, have gone through various ‘jobs’ (although i went through even more applications), and had various friendships live, and die.

i have had wonderful boyfriends, and horrible ones.
i have had great sex, and horrible sex.
i have seen who really matters, and who doesn’t at all.
and i have failed as well as succeeded. 

although there have been a lot of negative experiences in my transition they were negative experiences that anyone has for the most part, or would have if they were in any way similar to myself. generally speaking… it was just life. i feel incredibly blessed that i have had all of the successes i have had as well.

however i cannot stress enough that there were negative experiences, and there were positive experiences.

i feel like a lot of people who choose to transition, or in any way live outside of the gender ‘normality’ don’t realize that there are a lot of horrible things about transitioning as well as the great things, and there are also a lot of people who only realize the horrible things without realizing the great things. it’s a flawed view of the reality that is life.

i mean chances are you are not going to meet your prince charming, and become a little fifties homemaker after a few months of taking hormones. you are not going to find some extremely high paying job that wants you to transition openly, and fights for your right to do so every day. you are not going to have any sort of extreme stability, or extreme understanding from people right away either.

there are obviously a lot of things you need to consider before you do this, but i feel the most important thing to consider is who you are before you do all of this. so many people just think to themselves ‘oh when i am a woman i’ll be treated in this way’, or ‘when i transition i’ll look like this’, or ‘i’ll finally be a woman!!!!’ which to be honest, for me, is the most depressing.

and in that regard… if you need to be on hormones, or if you need to get surgery to be a woman, then chances are you aren’t a woman, or you’ve been raised to think you aren’t which is more damaging than anything else you may be experiencing. for the record, women are more than their looks, and their genitals.

now in no way am i trying to be trannier-than-thou, and in no way am i trying to say that you aren’t a ~*~*true transsexual*~*~ because of these things, or if you don’t experience some of these things, or you know whatever. i’m not saying these things because of that at all.

i’m saying these things because you need to realize now that you are who you are.
not after a year of hormones, and not after you get SRS if you plan to, anyways. 
not after your boob job, or after you get married to someone who loves you for you.

you are who you are right now, and that will never change. you will always be that same person on the inside no matter how much you do to the outside.

transgender people need a smack in the face with the reality brick when it comes to this just as much as cisgendered people do. you may get prettier, you may get smarter, you may get better at certain things, and you may become more comfortable with your body over time, but you need to realize now that you were, not to quote a certain trans activist too much, born this way.

if you are female-to-male, you are just a man born with a vagina.
if you are male-to-female, you are just a woman born with a penis. 
if you are elephant-to-rabbit, you are just a small animal born with a giant dick.

sadly more often than not no matter how much transwomen will say that they are women it is so often obvious that they themselves don’t even entirely believe that. in the case of transwomen especially there are a lot of men who don’t want anything to do with us, so there’s that whole thing. they see us as a fantasy, or as an object. not as a woman, or as a person. 

although this is in many cases what cisgendered women have to deal with as well it is still more commonly something we will have to deal with more regardless of our attractiveness because of the fetishization of transwomen in porn, but yknow.

generally speaking transwomen are used, and thrown away fairly often. they aren’t accepted, and they are not entirely understood by a lot of people. it’s funny because we are a commodity, but that exact thing is what makes us a pariah. in a world full of sexual exploration, repressed sexual desires, and mass amounts of pressure on men to hide themselves it is no wonder that it is the way it is. although the things i’ve stated in no way make it any more acceptable that is still something to consider as well.

and if you are thinking about transitioning, or you are thinking about living a certain way that is not exactly of the norm, you need to realize all of this as well as something else.

it’s not all beautiful dresses, and hot men. it’s not all breasts, and male admiration.
but you know… not everyone will be ignorant, and not everyone will refuse to understand. not everyone will treat you like an object, and not everyone is against you. there are so many people that exist in this world that are accepting of transpeople.

you can have a family. 
you can have a great job.
you can become what you have always aspired to be, and you can have everything you’ve always wanted as well. 

it may not all be beautiful dresses, and hot men, but there will be beautiful dresses, and there will be hot men.

everything that happens to you whether it be good, or bad, is something you are going to have to go through because of our society today, and no matter how much it may sometimes suck it is all worth it. every step you take in the direction of happiness is another step closer to actually being happy.

it’s all worth it because you’re worth it.
it’s all worth it because it needs to be. 

so please. keep that in mind.

it is not all bad, and it is not all good. there is not some generalization you can make about what your life will be, or what it will consist of. no one can guarantee the successes, and failures of their life, and you also can’t generalize, or pretend to know what someone else’s life consists of.

there will be dresses, lust, love, hate, disaster, and self-depreciation.

and that is the reality.

it’s been one of those days