Some boys like mermaids. Some parents see it as no big deal, some see it as a “phase” they grow out of, while others are afraid it will make them gay.
In my experience, a boy can like mermaids and – brace yourself – trucks at the same time. It is parents, or at least some parents, who try to narrow their children’s interests along “gender typical” lines.
Mermaids at pool parties for children are a good example of that. Raina of Halifax Mermaids says misbehaviour towards mermaids mainly comes from boys who hear their parents say things like:
“Let the girls play with the mermaid.”
“No Billy, you’re a pirate.”
“No, don’t call yourself a mermaid.”
“Mermaids are for the girls.”
“Daddy’s not sure how he feels about that.”
Raina on the danger that mermaids present to boys:
“A boy will grow up to have a sexuality of some sort. It’s a very wide rainbow of possibility. But I assure you, when it comes to being gay, spending time with a mermaid just isn’t going to turn your kid one way or another. They either are, or they aren’t.”
In pirate times mermaids were said to lure men to their destruction.
Halifax Mermaids also has mermen – but they are viewed by parents with even greater suspicion.
The Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC put out the pamphlet “If You Are Concerned About Your Child’s Gender Behavior” (2003). It warned parents that boys identifying with Ariel of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” (1989) for more than a few weeks is “gender variant” behaviour. It says that “science has yet to pinpoint the causes.” Most boys with gender-variant histories become gay. On rare occasions they may be “transgendered”.
Its advice to parents: gender-variant children were probably born that way. They cannot help it. What they need most from their parents is unconditional love to weather society’s intolerance.
What transgender women say about mermaids:
Amiyah Scott:
“With mermaids, the bottom is kind of like an unknown and I like that. I love how beautiful and magical they are.”
Isis King:
“I feel like in a past unexplained life I was a mermaid swimming the waters in search of shiny things to make into breastplates and bras. Many are shocked and terrified by their presence and beauty yet they’re undeniable. They seem to live a lone life which I identify with. The individuality, freedom, strength and beauty of mermaids have always intrigued me.”
Janet Mock:
“Like Ariel, I was told I wasn’t a real girl because of my body, and this common struggle to be seen as normal, to just belong, tethered my trans girl self to Ariel’s mermaid girl self. Plus, it didn’t hurt that my childhood heroine was gorgeous — the epitome of femininity — despite struggling to exist in an untraditional form.
“In the end, against all odds and by way of problematic compromises (she trades her voice for a shot at normality with a man), Ariel lives her dream and receives her happily ever after.”
– Abagond, 2018.
Sources: mainly Google Images, Allure (2017), Halifax Mermaids (2014), “If You Are Concerned About Your Child’s Gender Behavior” (2003, PDF).
See also:
538
It is of my opinion that this world/Amerika have always been fascinated with freedom; no one to rule over us; to do things as they please (transgenderism) and to worship whomever they deem appropriate (e.g., idolatry).
I would go a little deeper but I’m short on time, therefore, I’ll leave you folks with this:
Habakkuk 1:14 And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
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How about a little balance in the depiction of the transgendered? All the pictures you show are of drop dead gorgeous male to female ones. How about some ugly ones? Otherwise, people might get the impression you are trying to sell them on the lifestyle.
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@Abagond
What’s with these weird articles lately? Could you please go back to the normal stuff?
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How often does Abagond post photos of ugly cis women? The early blog especially has article after article devoted to drop-dead gorgeous women.
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“…people might get the impression you are trying to sell them on the lifestyle.”
Ah yes, the Trans Lifestyle: getting beaten, raped, denied housing and jobs… mocked in the media and in person…disowned by your family…enduring homicidal hostility from religious fanatics (who are secretly turned on by trans folks)…dealing with depression and suicide…facing the specter of murder every time you leave your home…police harassment.
100x that if you are Black…
Yes, gro jo. Such a glamorous lifestyle.
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Toxic masculinity fuels a lot of the bigotry against many transgender people.
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@ gro jo
My depiction of cisgender women is, if anything, even more unbalanced. I have done only two posts featuring a transgender woman and only one of them would I regard as gorgeous:
I have done tons of posts on cisgender women. There are too many to count, but I am pretty sure more than just 50% of them are gorgeous. There are even several posts on lists of beautiful cis women, none on beautiful trans women. Am I trying to sell a cisgender lifestyle?
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@ gro jo
Comment deleted due to use of slur.
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@ gro jo
And to Afrofem’s point, I did not exactly sugar-coat the trans lifestyle in my post on trans women:
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“Yes, gro jo. Such a glamorous lifestyle.”
Please indicate where I make such claim? I only pointed out that showing attractive ones distorts reality. I’m not for or against what they do I only claim that a lot of them were ugly or average men who became even uglier women. That just my opinion.
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@ gro jo
“I only pointed out that showing attractive ones distorts reality.”
Where have you ever once pointed this out about Abagond’s penchant for showing attractive cis women? That, too, distorts reality.
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@ Abagond
I agree in one sense with this statement: “How about a little balance in the depiction of the transgendered?” Where are the posts about and photos of trans men?
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@ Abagond
“Where are the posts about and photos of trans men?”
Ditto.
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@ gro jo
The term “lifestyle” itself is a loaded term. It implies expression of choice. The reading I have done about transsexuals leads me to believe that their gender identity is a deep and intrinsic part of them, not a shallow style choice.
(But you know that already, right?)
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“Where have you ever once pointed this out about Abagond’s penchant for showing attractive cis women? That, too, distorts reality.”
I answered your question before it was asked, in his wisdom, Abagond suppressed it. Everybody knows that beautiful women aren’t the norm.
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“(But you know that already, right?)” Has someone discovered the biological mechanism that make them want to change? Is it like the butterfly’s pupating from a caterpillar? Of course not, It’s in their head, until someone comes up with the biological mechanism impelling them to change, it’s no different than wanting to be a cat, dog or teacup, except that modern surgery is not advanced enough to make these wishes come true.
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“Has someone discovered the biological mechanism that make them want to change?”
As I pointed out below, scientists are following a number of leads in that direction:
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“I answered your question before it was asked, in his wisdom, Abagond suppressed it.’
Are you incapable of rephrasing it without using slurs?
“Everybody knows that beautiful women aren’t the norm.”
Oh, right, and that perfectly explains why women are held up to impossible standards of beauty, why female politicians are subjected to far more criticism about their looks and wardrobe than their male counterparts, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
Would that Abagond devoted half as much space to average-looking and ugly women who are intellectual achievers as he has devoted to models.
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Janet Mock is ridiculous gorgeous.
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You got the gist of my comment, ugly women don’t have to spend a small fortune to be that way.
Lots of plain and happy women. The biggest defenders of ” impossible standards of beauty” are women themselves. Do you really think most males care as much as women about beauty? I recall my sisters piercing my niece’s earlobes when she was a baby because they wanted to put earrings on a months old baby. Barbaric.
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“As I pointed out below, scientists are following a number of leads in that direction”
Let me know when they’ve nailed it.
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@ gro jo
“You got the gist of my comment, ugly women don’t have to spend a small fortune to be that way.”
You continue not to get the gist of my comment. You’re a smart person, so I have to think you’re purposely pretending to be obtuse.
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“Do you really think most males care as much as women about beauty?”
Actually males care 100 times more about the appearance of their female partners than the reverse. Females care more about how males makes them feel, not their looks.
Women’s beauty rituals cater to men’s desires.
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“Women’s beauty rituals cater to men’s desires.”
Nonsense, I’ve never seen a father stick a hot needle in the earlobes of his baby girl because he wanted to put earrings on her. Such cruelty is a female practice in the name of beauty. Its justification is the claim that if they don’t do it the girl won’t find a guy. Given the number of plain women who have found mates,equally plain, I find such claims dubious.
Women compete with each other for status and beauty is one of the standards. Men compete for power. The nerd who ends up bossing all the jocks around in the workplace comes to mind.
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@Solitaire
Is this what you mean?
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Jefe, Being obtuse is writing this embarrassing bit of nonsense:
“on Mon 19 Sep 2016 at 15:58:34
jefe
70% of the water HK uses comes from China
This so-called “fact” is more by design than by necessity. It is technically a fact (actually over 70%), but as an argument, it is more flimsy than tissue paper.
Singapore (SG) used to get over 80% of its water from Malaysia. Now it is about half. By 2025, they aim to be water independent. That is by policy.
HK used to be much more independent in water before the British colony began to buy water from china (I believe in the 80s) after a couple of droughts. HK gets slightly more rainfall than SG, with mountainous terrain, so it has a much larger potential water cachement area than SG. Added to that a distinctive “cool” winter season, and the amount taken up by plants or evaporation is less. HK doesn’t even use all of the water it buys from China, and if it wanted to, could easily reduce the dependency to a lower amount, even to zero as SG is trying to do. Even if they ran low, they could always buy the water they need.
Almost all the rivers in the Pearl River delta are polluted. It might be in HK’s best interest to become more water independent to safeguard the security of its water supply.
China wants HK to be resource dependent on it. In that way, it can control it. Being resource independent would give the place more leverage in seeking more political autonomy. Some of the recently elected non-establishment Legco candidates want HK to be more resource independent (ie, food, water, energy). However, China may interpret that as subversive to state interests.”
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(https://vimeo.com/208085174)
Hendrix –
1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
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huh, also, the new movie, “The Shape of Water”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/
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How do you cross-dress in a nudist colony? Clothes have not always been with us, how did the transgendered manage when people went about naked or nearly so?
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@ gro jo
Cultures use more than clothing for demarcation. A transgendered person would adopt whatever markers were seen as specifically belonging to only one sex: e.g., hairstyles, decorative ornaments, facial makeup and/or tatoos, mannerisms, speech patterns and/or vocabulary, tasks and occupations, etc.
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Solitaire, not that I don’t believe you, could you provide evidence to back your claim?
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@ gro jo
Not sure I can find any cites online but will try when I have more time.
Concerning your question about nudist colonies: https://youngnaturistsamerica.com/transgender-nudists-and-nudist-resorts/
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@ Solitaire
A good place to start is how many Native American communities handled “two spirit” (gay and transgendered) people. Some were very accepting, like the Navajo and Lakota people. Others were less accepting, like the Hopi and Zuni people.
https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/culture/social-issues/8-misconceptions-things-know-two-spirit-people/
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Interesting replies but I don’t see that they answer my question about cross-dressing. That practice doesn’t seem to be as universal as implied.
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@ Afrofem
Yes indeed, those were some of the peoples I was thinking of. I have a longer response in mind but am busy at the moment. I have company over from out of town, and I must use all my mental energy to concentrate on the tourney of cutthroat pinochle in which I am determined to be victorious.
I will try to write something later tonight or tomorrow.
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@V8 Driver: The creature in The Shape Of Water is an amphibian not a merman. I don’t know if he fits in the context of this discussion of transgender people.
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@Afrofem: It never occurred to me of transgender people and their acceptance among Native Americans that’s interesting.
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http://variety.com/2017/film/news/shape-of-water-trailer-guillermo-del-toro-watch-1202499825/amp/
“First Trailer for Guillermo Del Toro’s Merman Fairy Tale ‘The Shape of Water’ Debuts (Watch)”
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Sorry for the late reply.
I see two issues here:
1) Cross-dressing is not exclusive to transgendered people.
Cisgendered people may also cross-dress. Some may do it as part of intimate sexual role-playing, whether they are gay or straight. Gay men and women who are cisgendered may enjoy cross-dressing for drag shows as part of camp culture. Cisgendered people, especially women, have been known historically to cross-dress for long periods of time for safety and/or to gain acceptance in professions dominated by the opposite sex.
2) Cross-dressing is not the only way to express being transgendered.
I already gave some examples of this above in my earlier comment. Historical records show that transgendered people would not just modify their appearance but would also take on gender-specific roles in their society.
In a limited amount of internet searching, I haven’t been able to find any reference to transgenderism among people who “went about naked or nearly so.” I have a feeling that if any research exists along these lines, finding it would involve some dedicated research using academic databases and libraries, which at the moment I don’t have time for.
However, what we do know is there were groups that traditionally went naked from the waist up who did have a place for transgendered people in their societies, like the Mahu of Hawaii:
https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105466&p=3222691
I’m not sure if bare breasts/chests equals “nearly naked” in the opinion of my learned interlocutor, but I propose that this certainly is an obvious physical marker.
We also know that some societies in various parts of the world traditionally recognized a third gender (sometimes a fourth gender) or two-spirit people:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
This strongly suggests that the idea of binary genders is not necessarily “natural” or “obvious.” Not all cultures saw the world as divided into only male or female.
As is pointed out in the Wiki article linked to directly above, and also in the Indian Country Today article that Afrofem provided in her comment, the concepts of third gender and two-spirit do not completely co-align with the modern western definition of transgenderism. I think it is important to recognize these distinctions. But I would also assert that the very existence of a more fluid definition of gender made life much easier for any transgendered (or intersex) people born into these cultures as opposed to one in which they would be held to rigid binary expectations of gender identity.
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“They have a set of men called māhū. These men are in some respects like the eunuchs of India but they are not castrated. They never cohabit with women but live as they do. They pick their beards out and dress as women, dance and sing with them and are as effeminate in their voice. They are generally excellent hands at making and painting of cloth, making mats and every other woman’s employment”
“The women treat him (māhū) as one of their sex, and he observed every restriction that they do, and is equally respected and esteemed”
Notes from Tahiti during the 1789 – 91 expedition of Captain William Bligh
https://web.archive.org/web/20150924021528/http://www.gendercentre.org.au/resources/polare-archive/archived-articles/like-a-lady-in-polynesia.htm
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http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/men-women-pacific
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https://dsph-dev.provost.uiowa.edu/historycorps_sandbox/exhibits/show/indigenousstruggles1900/bote
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“I have company over from out of town, and I must use all my mental energy to concentrate on the tourney of cutthroat pinochle in which I am determined to be victorious.”
So, did you win?
Wow, I’m really impressed with the amount of research you did. This subject is too vast for a blog comment. I’ll only point out the weakness in the claim that homosexuals are either men with feminized brains or women with virilized brains by pointing out that such definitions leave out macho gay males and lipstick lesbians who, based on their behaviors, hardly fit such descriptions. The only thing we are left with is that they all prefer their own sex as lovers. As for naked cross-dressers, I don’t see how that’s even possible.
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“So, did you win?”
Of course.
“Wow, I’m really impressed with the amount of research you did.”
Sarcasm? I’m not your unpaid research assistant.
“I’ll only point out the weakness in the claim that homosexuals are either men with feminized brains or women with virilized brains by pointing out that such definitions leave out macho gay males and lipstick lesbians who, based on their behaviors, hardly fit such descriptions.”
You are confusing gender expression and sexual orientation again. You’re also oversimplifying the science.
“As for naked cross-dressers, I don’t see how that’s even possible.”
I can’t help it if you lack imagination.
“This subject is too vast for a blog comment.”
If you really are interested in learning more, there are plenty of books available on the subject matter.
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“Sarcasm? I’m not your unpaid research assistant.”
How graceless of you. Learn to take a compliment.
“You are confusing gender expression and sexual orientation again. You’re also oversimplifying the science.”
Yeah! How?
“Brain structureEdit
Several studies have found a correlation between gender identity and brain structure.[7] A first-of-its-kind study by Zhou et al. (1995) found that in a region of the brain called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), a region which is known for sex and anxiety responses (and which is affected by prenatal androgens),[8] male-to-female trans women had a female-normal BSTc size (like cisgender women) and female-to-male trans men had a male-normal size. While the transsexuals studied had taken hormones, this was accounted for by including non-transsexual male and female controls who, for a variety of medical reasons, had experienced hormone reversal. The controls still had sizes typical for their gender. No relationship to sexual orientation was found.[9]
In a follow-up study, Kruijver et al. (2000) looked at the number of neurons in BSTc instead of volumes. They found the same results as Zhou et al. (1995), but with even more dramatic differences. One MtF subject, who had never gone on hormones, was also included and matched up with the female neuron counts nonetheless.[10]
In 2002, a follow-up study by Chung et al. found that significant sexual dimorphism (variation between sexes) in BSTc did not become established until adulthood. Chung et al. theorized that either changes in fetal hormone levels produce changes in BSTc synaptic density, neuronal activity, or neurochemical content which later lead to size and neuron count changes in BSTc, or that the size of BSTc is affected by the generation of a gender identity inconsistent with one’s assigned sex.[11]
In a review of the evidence in 2006, Gooren confirmed the earlier research as supporting the concept of transsexualism as a sexual differentiation disorder of the sex dimorphic brain.[12] Dick Swaab (2004) concurs.[13]”
“I can’t help it if you lack imagination.”
You can’t either.
“In a limited amount of internet searching, I haven’t been able to find any reference to transgenderism among people who “went about naked or nearly so.” I have a feeling that if any research exists along these lines, finding it would involve some dedicated research using academic databases and libraries, which at the moment I don’t have time for.”
“If you really are interested in learning more, there are plenty of books available on the subject matter.”
Not that interested. I was just humoring our gracious host Abagond.
“Of course.”
Good for you.
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@ Gro Jo
“Yeah! How?”
Now you’re confusing homosexuality and transgenderism. Your previous comment was about “the claim that homosexuals are either men with feminized brains or women with virilized brains.” But in your most recent comment, the quoted text is entirely about transgenderism, not homosexuality. In other words: gender identity, not sexual orientation.
Transgendered individuals can be hetereosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Gender identity is separate from sexual orientation.
“You can’t either.”
Sure I can. Visualize a naked man, with his hair dressed in a woman’s style, wearing mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, and rouge, a long strand of pearls around his neck, swaying his hips as he walks and speaking in a soft, high voice. What gender is he expressing?
I would consider that to still be cross-dressing. Do you want to quibble over definitions of the word “dress” now?
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“‘In a limited amount of internet searching, I haven’t been able to find any reference to transgenderism among people who “went about naked or nearly so.” I have a feeling that if any research exists along these lines, finding it would involve some dedicated research using academic databases and libraries, which at the moment I don’t have time for.’ “If you really are interested in learning more, there are plenty of books available on the subject matter.'”
Apples and oranges. The first statement referred specifically to research about transgender individuals in societies that don’t wear clothes. The second statement referred to the much broader category of transgender studies. There are even whole books written on the subject of two-spirit people in Native cultures.
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“Sure I can. Visualize a naked man, with his hair dressed in a woman’s style, wearing mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, and rouge, a long strand of pearls around his neck, swaying his hips as he walks and speaking in a soft, high voice. What gender is he expressing?
I would consider that to still be cross-dressing. Do you want to quibble over definitions of the word “dress” now?”
mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, and rouge, etc. when they haven’t even invented loincloths? I was beginning to think you were humorless and you comeback at me with this fine joke. Well done. How is it quibbling when they go about naked? Dress would be oxymoronic here.
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“mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, and rouge, etc. when they haven’t even invented loincloths?”
Pretty sure that there are loincloth-less cultures who nevertheless decorate their faces and bodies in both temporary and permanent ways: paint made from natural substances like berry juice, headgear and jewelry made from feathers and shells, tattoos, scarification, etc.
Theoretically some of these same cultures may designate certain ornamentation as specific to males or females, which would thereby make cross-dressing possible.
I’ve already provided evidence that the Hawaiians and Tahitians were able to ignore the absence of women’s breasts when accepting Mahu as female, despite the fact that they wore no clothing above the waist.
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Ok, I’ll buy that.
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sexual orientation is who you go to bed with,
gender identity is who you go to bed as.
Trans people, just like cis people, can be straight, gay, bi, etc.
Cross-dressing is relative to your gender identity:
A trans woman wearing women’s clothing would not be a cross-dresser. But if she wore male clothing to, say, remain in the closet, she would be.
Drag queens who are gay men are cross-dressers because they see themselves as men, not women.
Trans women want to wear female clothing all the time, gay men in drag do not.
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^ I didn’t know that all drag queens were gay men. I thought they could be of any sexuality background.
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@ jefe
You are right. I was just taking “drag queens who are gay men” as an example.
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