Where do people think the transvestites have gone?

That's right. Once, these men could only impose their fetish on one woman at most, their wife/partner. But now they get to impose it on every woman they meet.
And boy, are they going for it!

It was always the plan of organisations like Press for Change and Stonewall to make no distinction between transvestites and transsexuals.

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 – and that was more or less the only language you needed to know for more than a generation since Harry Benjamin had coined the latter term in his book ‘The Transsexual Phenomenon’ in 1966.

‘Our successes as a campaign were grounded in progress made for people who fitted the clinical definition of transsexual. At the heart of this was a tacit understanding that people in positions of power might be persuaded to change laws for people with some kind of clinically underwritten status – something they couldn’t help being. This is why ‘Transsexualism – The Medical Viewpoint’ was seen as strategically important and why all the key court cases had rehearsed the developing scientific understanding of a basis for us being born or developing this way. It was also why the government would expect to include a medical definition of ‘transsexual’ in the forthcoming employment protections they planned to consult upon.

‘We knew in our hearts at that time that policymakers and judges weren’t yet sophisticated enough in their understanding to contemplate rights for people whose difference appeared self-identified or impermanent or maybe even optional. That didn’t mean we weren’t going to try where possible. There was a valid freedom of expression case to be made for people to be able to present in whatever way they wish. But we were also pragmatists, careful not to frighten the horses at this early stage.

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

The intention was always for the transsexuals to be the Trojan horse which let in the fetishistic crossdressers, because policymakers weren't 'sophisticated' enough to realise that fetishistic crossdressers belonged in the women's toilets.

You should hear what Ellie from HR says about him, on an evening on the sofa with her husband.

Her job is to perform with words, like a border collie in training, weaving at speed through some traffic cones. There is no honest integrity anywhere anymore.

The OP hasn't even mentioned drag, but drag hardly has a wonderful, illustrious past. It was all based on misogyny - women weren't allowed in the theatre so men played all the roles. Why would we want to keep something like that going? Or maybe you just wouldn't care about any of that if you were male....

I always thought the whole trans thing was an import from the USA. We did used to make the distinction between cross dressing for various reasons, people with gender confusion and children who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes and we used different language for all of it. Now it’s all trans and what was often just a hobby or a stage in life is an identity. Bob from the pub who was Stephanie on Friday’s is long gone.

They are all AGP in my experience.

So Cynthia Paynes clients just disappeared in a puff of smoke at the turn of the century?

Did all fetishes disappear or was it just cross dressing?

I don't think 'transvestite' ever signalled anything other than a man with an erotic penchant for dressing in women's clothing. Transvestite literally translates as 'cross dresser'.

Organisations such as the Beaumont Society, which was set upin the 1960's to provide social activities for transvestites and their wives, have now re-branded themselves as full on transgender organisations. Tranvestites have been subsumed under the trans umbrella.

I mean there are few things as terrible and single-minded of purpose as a man with a fetish.

If you create a big massive loophole that offers men the opportunity to live their fetish full time, and have Ellie from HR write an article on the staff intranet about how stunning and brave they are... does anyone expect them not to take that opportunity?

I see I should have read the replies first before typing.

Even prominent figures with trans identities have spoken or written about the erotic or sexualised motives for their 'transness':

I expect being trans is much more exciting and attention seeking. Tranavestite is perhaps seen as just a fetish whereas trans is a lifestyle choice that the right on crowd praises as stunning and brave.

No one here thinks the people have disappeared, it was a rhetorical question @lavender14

Isn't it amazing how transvestism has just disappeared? Even ten years ago it would not have been controversial to say that some men cross-dress for erotic purposes. Now that's considered Hitler-level bigotry.

In actual fact it's one of the most common male fetishes. And it starts early. There's no such thing as a man who discovers cross-dressing in middle age - show me one and I will show you a man who was wanking in his mother's or sister's knickers as a boy. So it's probably one of those things that can't be got rid of, but also it's not something you want society to encourage.

This may be painful for Chris to admit, but fetishistic transvestites massively outnumber transsexuals with dysphoria, and including them under the "trans umbrella" might not have worked out as well for transsexuals as Stonewall and their ilk might have thought.

As far as I'm aware the term 'transvestite' is offensive and outdated as it signifies mental illness. The term cross-dress took its place which is still used today but may also fall under the umbrella of being gender nonconformist/trans or non binary or specifically for the purpose of drag entertainment. So it's not that the people have disappeared, the language around wearing of clothing stereotypically associated with the opposite sex has changed.

@Charabanc That's true. A certain piano player told us all about that on C4.

As pp said, they get to be stunning and brave and oppressed by JKR, rather than the sordid, creepy losers many of them would have been considered in the past.

They are now included in the larger group of 'stunning and brave, true and honest women', AKA Transwomen.

Also don't forget that they are far better at being women than women are.

The whole busines relies on people not asking questions or thinking critically about anything.

Oh dear. Dudes can't even just be a little kinky these days without not being dudes anymore.

Many of those men would now call themselves “genderfluid” or “genderqueer” or some other flavour of “non binary.

However offensive Chris thinks it is or not, they still exist, and they absolutely have been rebranded. They are now included in the larger group of 'stunning and brave, true and honest women', AKA Transwomen.

So yes, what we used to know as homosexual transexuals and transvestites have been bundled together. The transvestites have also been emboldened over the last decade to bring their fetish out of private spaces and into the public sphere.

AGP exists, even if some people would like to pretend that it doesn't.