Where do people think the transvestites have gone?

‘Often’? Transvestites still exist but they crossdress for a variety of reasons and it isn’t always for ‘fetish’ reasons as the far right like to promote.

It's horrible. Look at this article where his ex boyfriend pays tribute to him. He calls him 'James', 'he', and 'this man'. These stupid fans and journalists are ignoring what the real man, James Lee Williams, wanted.

Judging by the letter quoted in the article, he didn't even go by Vivienne in everyday life, but James.

It seems like all the fans discussing him seem to think he WAS Vivienne, not playing a character.

Checked Wikipedia and they fudge it by using 'they'. Shameful.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14255027/amp/Who-Viviennes-ex-husband-Inside-Drag-Race-UK-stars-whirlwind-relationship-wig-maker-David-Paul-Ludford-paid-tribute-following-shock-death.html

It's really disrespectful. It doesn't sound like he would have wanted that.

Pretty homophobic too : you can't be an effeminate 'he', you must be a 'she'

If he used the name Vivienne in everyday life, I could understand using that. But 'she'? Is that really what he wanted?

I wonder if these drag queens pander to an audience of 'queer' (probs mostly straight) girls who like the pronoun stuff. I mean, presumably some drag queens have boyfriends, for one? I can't imagine a gay man wanting to call his boyfriend 'she' seriously (I don't mean as the occasional joke)

Yes, I was watching a YouTube video about the film of the musical Rent. The YouTuber kept calling the drag queen character, Angel, 'she' . The character was not trans. It really annoyed me.

Trans is someone who thinks they're not the gender that they were born as. Transvestites do not think this (as a rule).

What do you mean by 'trans'?

Your comment is at odds with some of the people who introduced the word 'trans' as an umbrella term which made no distinction between transvestite and transsexual.

This is what Christine Burns (of Press for Change) had to say about it:

‘Until human rights campaigners like us came along, talking about umbrella concepts, this diverse community had got along with a relatively stable lexicon for many years. There were ‘transvestites’ and ‘transsexuals’ – TVs and TS’s in the community shorthand
...
‘I cannot recall exactly how we reached a consensus inside Press for Change. It wasn’t written down in email correspondence – it arose in telephone or face to face conversations ... Somehow or other, however, we arrived at a consensus that if we maybe all used the word ‘trans’ as an umbrella term – and words like ‘transsexual’ only when we needed to be more specific’ then maybe some of that would catch on gradually.

The Trans Umbrella Is Older Than You Think – Women Speak Scotland

On the other hand I am not sure there is an innocent first stage where attraction to kids is a relatively harmless fetish and not a heinous paraphilia?

I can't see that either. I read an article many years ago by a German sexologist - this is purely from memory so I'm probably garbling it - but he was writing about conversion therapy, and also about the Catholic priest scandal and the once fashionable idea that you could cure paedophilia through therapy. His view was that sexual orientation might be relatively fluid in adolescence but by about 18-20 it's fixed - that was his argument against conversion therapy.

From memory, he seemed to be arguing that it makes sense to see paedophilia as a sexual orientation, but unlike homosexuality, there's no harmless way to manifest it, it just has to be suppressed.

I'm not sure, except we can agree that there are certain desires - because they're inherently harmful or relate to those unable to freely consent - that society doesn't tolerate.

Instead I believe that all medical transitioners are mentally unwell by definition, but of those some are so sexually motivated that it reaches mental ill health levels and leads to transition, whereas others are simply mentally unwell without the sexual motivation. That latter group would include gay men who believe that they should really have been born straight women.

I basically agree, and I think we can see that with young female transitioners where there usually isn't a sexual motivation, but there's invariably a mental health element.

I think therapists know there's a strong relationship between paraphilias and poor mental health, and they often feed off each other. I've only known one women who was a fetishist bordering on paraphiliac, and she differed from the archetypal male paraphiliac mostly in being aware that her obsession was unhealthy, and if she wanted real life relationships she would have to bargain down from the scenarios in her mind; many male paraphiliacs wouldn't have that self-awareness. But in this case (no trans element) she had other mental health issues.

The strange thing about cross-sex identity is that so much of our society, even health professionals, have trained themselves not to see either fetishism or mental illness as soon as the magic words are spoken. Though in many cases I think they do see it, but pretend not to.

There is now an overlap between drag and trans. I think drag has been colonised by fetishists like so much else. The BBC often refers to DQs as 'she'. The one who died recently, Vivienne?, was referred to as 'she' in his obituary. In fact I think only his family used his actual name, James Lee Williams. In death he was completely overshadowed by his costume despite not being trans.

Yes, it’s striking.

There is a difference between a transvestite and a Drag Queen. A transvestite isn't trans-they're usually someone who wears 'women's clothing' privately.

Trans is someone who thinks they're not the gender that they were born as. Transvestites do not think this (as a rule).

A Drag Queen is a performance artist.

One of my friends is a very successful fulltime drag queen-he'd not be happy if I referred to him as female at all-It's something he does as a job, for a show, for entertainment.

Something that I really find endlessly fascinating is how men wearing women's clothes was, until incredibly recently, considered such a sinister red flag that some of the most critically acclaimed horror films of all the time were made about the phenomenon, namely Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs. Although the film itself doesn't touch on it directly, if you watch the opening credits of Se7en, Kevin Spacey's character is studying autogynephilia. These works weren't written in a vacuum, everybody knew this was a paraphilia that was often linked to violence against women.

There's a documentary on Netflix about the murder of Lucie Blackman in Japan, she was killed by a man who had kidnapped and raped dozens of women and videotaped them all, a real serial killer like you would see in a film, and there's a bit in it where they say he originally came to the attention of police because he was arrested in a women's toilet in Tokyo wearing a dress. Because of course he was.

And then one day suddenly, the internet decided that not only was all that not true but that it was the most offensive thing on the planet to even say these men weren't women, never mind that they might be dangerous.

On paraphilias... I have some sympathy with your view. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that a "normal man" can try on his girlfriend's dress for the fun of it, and that escalate to underwear, to underwear as part of masturbation, to transvestic fetishism (a paraphilia) to autogynephila. On the other hand I am not sure there is an innocent first stage where attraction to kids is a relatively harmless fetish and not a heinous paraphilia?

"I find it hard to think of anyone developing AGP without first going through the stage of transvestism, though most transvestites never pass through to the AGP stage." Entirely plausible

Do you have any comment to make on my idea that the link between motivation and medical and surgical transition is not there? I don't think that I have ever seen any stats on it either way, but my understanding is that being a post-op TIM gives little to no indication as to whether the motivation was sexual arousal or mental ill health. The start of the thread seemed to suggest there were the pervy transvestites and the true trans who were so uncomfortable that they needed medical transition. I quite simply do not buy that. Instead I believe that all medical transitioners are mentally unwell by definition, but of those some are so sexually motivated that it reaches mental ill health levels and leads to transition, whereas others are simply mentally unwell without the sexual motivation. That latter group would include gay men who believe that they should really have been born straight women.

So it seems like some on here think that in the past there were two types of men in dresses? The "I get a kick out of it" cross-dressing transvestites, and the really unusual, dysphoric ones who had surgery? Is that what people are saying? I am not sure how true that used to be, but I am confident not that true and certainly not true now.

Ok, so I mostly defer to Az Hakeem, but some of my spin on it might be different.

On paraphilias I don't go by how unusual the philia is, but by its intensity. This would probably be seen as crude by sexologists, but I do a sliding scale: sexual preference (we all have that, it could be height or hair colour or body shape or any manner of things) > fetish (where the preference goes from a nice to have to a necessity; the difference between liking a shapely ankle and not being able to achieve arousal without some kind of elaborate footplay) > paraphilia (when it becomes so overwhelming that it takes over your civilian life).

I've never believed the story some women tell, that only men have fetishes, but I do think paraphilias are an overwhelmingly male thing. Women are just much less likely to autistically fixate on some specific thing to the extent that it dominates their lives.

Having got that out of the way...

I don't disagree with the distinction Az draws between the transvestic fetishist and the autogynephile, but I see a definite overlap between them. I want to say that I see AGP as a development and escalation of transvestism. I find it hard to think of anyone developing AGP without first going through the stage of transvestism, though most transvestites never pass through to the AGP stage.

I don't think I believe in "true trans", but I'm reluctant to reduce all of it to fetishism because I've known a few old-fashioned homosexual transsexuals who didn't seem to be in it for fetishistic arousal, but simply because - however they came by their body dysmorphia - presenting in a female style was the only way they could feel comfortable. I don't feel that their condition is the same as AGP.

But, in the same way that gay men are massively outnumbered by straight men, your dysphoric homosexual transsexual will be massively outnumbered by heterosexual transvestite fetishists, and it's obvious the latter make up the large majority of TIMs these days. Whereas the #bekinders work on an assumption, or wishful thinking more like, that the dysphoric HSTS is the norm.

And again that becomes a problem because public policy for decades has been based on an idea of the dysphoric HSTS as the norm, which simply doesn't apply today.

Obviously I'm not a clinician and this is just my unscientific way of thinking things through. But I think the key is how fetishes escalate into paraphilias.

Some quotes that inspired my post

"In my OP, I don't mean these men. I mean the group of men who used to be called transvestites (as opposed to transsexuals) who wore women's clothes for sexual reasons."
"Surely a man who likes to throw on a skirt for fun once in a while is not the same as someone who may have gender dysphoria who undergoes massive surgeries, changes their legal name etc? "
"This may be painful for Chris to admit, but fetishistic transvestites massively outnumber transsexuals with dysphoria."

So it seems like some on here think that in the past there were two types of men in dresses? The "I get a kick out of it" cross-dressing transvestites, and the really unusual, dysphoric ones who had surgery? Is that what people are saying? I am not sure how true that used to be, but I am confident not that true and certainly not true now.

Dr Az Hakeem seems to be the expert on the paraphilia side of this. From what I can remember him saying there is a distinction between transvestic fetishists (80%) who get off on dressing as women, and autogynephiles (20%) who get off on imagining themselves as women. But that's just the paraphiliacs amongst the male trans - there are also the ones with other mental health issues (could include internalized homophobia, gender dysphoria / identity disorder or whatever the best term is, or PTSD from sexual assault). I have no idea what percentage of male trans are sexually motivated - I would suspect at least 30% and maybe a VERY high percentage. (Does anyone know?)

But a key part of I what I wanted to say is that I believe that ALL of these groups of trans people are at risk of ending up with CGSI (Cosmetic Genital Surgery Ideation - my brand new term!) A man with gender dysphoria can convince himself (or be groomed) that surgery is the answer for him (and another can decide to try o manage their dysphoria without taking surgical risks). But so can a transvestic fetishist or an autogynephile get surgeries (or not). It's not like one set of causes of cross-dressing leads to surgery whereas another does it. As Dr Hakeem points out - far from ideal when you wake up post-surgery and it dawns on you that the only reason you liked imagining yourself as a woman is that it made your dick hard.

What I am trying to emphasize is that in old money the idea that there were sexually motivated cross dressers and "proper" transexuals who had or wanted CGS is wrong. CGS can be the end result whether or not the motivation is sexual, and vice versa.

"Having said that, David Hayton describes his paraphilia as so agonising that it was a relief when genital surgery finally both sated it, and brought it to an end."

There is mentally unwell and there is "so messed up sexually that cutting it off is a good idea". Truly shocking. Also, if cutting it off sated it, why does he still need to dress as a woman? Can't he just go back to being a normal man now, albeit with the odd bit missing?

Yes they are mostly hetero men I think

I might ask for some lip fillers. So I can live my true identity as someone with fuller lips.

What was that X channel? Listen to transwomen...

But aren't most of them hetero men? I can't imagine gay men making the kind of rapey comments we see all too often. Gay men can be misogynist, sure, but it doesn't take that sexually aggressive form.

I wonder if I (a v1.0 boring old woman of the cunty type) went to a gender clinic, said i was a man and wanted a boob job, they'd facilitate it? I mean, how can they deny my identity as a trans-transman without committing literal genocide?

Because they are able to with low risk of response I suppose, it’s about power and it is easier to exercise it over people that are physically weaker. After all, trans activists often threaten gender critical women of rape, not sure they would dare do that to gender critical men.

where do they think all the transvestites have gone?

This could explain it! Always knew Marvin was up to no good.

If they want to be desired by men, why is it always women they sexually harass?

I have a question, do these men get specially-designed transvestitewear that properly fits the male body? Or are they just buying clothes for women and hoping for the best - or maybe, getting them altered after purchase to fit the male frame?

Indeed, look no further if you want evidence that anyone thinking this is in any way attractive needs professional help.