Inviting a Crossdresser on your Hen Night

[rachelmonday1]

I'm actually a guy that enjoys crossdressing and am very fortunate to have a number of female friends, one of whom is getting married and has invited me to join her friends on her Hen Night. I don't look too bad when I'm dressed as Rachel and often go out with the girls with no problems.

I'm happily married and my wife understands the "Rachel" side of me, but thinks it's odd that a girl would invite a crossdresser on her Hen Night.

Any views out there?

But you said all women can't opt out of being ridiculed for being female. You made the distinction between men and women, not me. I merely defended my view that I feel empowered rather than ridiculed as a woman.

How many men get ridiculed on snog marry avoid?

Yes women have more choice of clothing but only because they are ridiculed no matter what they wear. Men only get ridiculed when they ape women.

I'm not responsible for being ridiculed bench. It's the ridicules who are identifying me as female and therefore ridiculing/harassing me.

Bench imagine a man saying this on a debate such as this.

Half of society is male. I feel empowered to be a man. I have so many choices, are you saying I should feel oppressed? By what? Genuinely interested as perhaps I'm naive.
I work somewhere with equal opportunities where people are free to express themselves, particularly men. I feel respected by female colleagues and female friends. I would rather be a man than a woman.

If you really want to see the difference in the way men and women are portrayed in popular culture, just look at music videos and listen to the lyrics

And you might feel empowered bench but that's not equality either it is still singling you out as female and effecting change on your status.

I like being female because I like having the pg and breastfeeding and wouldn't want to relinquish that role (selfishly) but I don't see beyond that how I am any different to any man.

Fair - I'm not sure what you mean? A man wouldn't need to write that because he wouldn't have a load of other men telling him he should feel ridiculed every day for being a man!

Bf is aware of sexism acutely and still surprised how often I'm molested or harassed and tis not because I'm amazingly beautiful either.

You shouldn't feel ridiculed but are you really trying to argue that women have achieved equality?

It wouldn't even occur to a man to write about feeling 'empowered' because he had all the power to start with. It's his right, as a man.

You don't feel the stress though if you don't identify certain characteristics as 'male' and certain ones as 'female' though. If you feel pressure from outside over it the correct response is not to buy into the system which oppresses and therefore contribute to the oppression of others.

And tbh the op'a responses on this thread betray that he has fixed views about gender rather than is under pressure from society. He's only made one or two posts indicating that at the end of the thread.

I wouldn't argue with that Kim. It's the reasons they feel they need to do it I object to - entrenched gender stereotypes that are more important to them than almost anything else!

People just like to put folks in boxes, don't they?

I hate stag dos.

The others it depends what is being done and why. Safe to assume if it is drag it is sexist. Sometimes drag amongst gay men is about feeling it is ok to be gay which I feel more sympathetic to tbh.

Yes women have more choice of clothing but only because they are ridiculed no matter what they wear. Men only get ridiculed when they ape women.

I'd never realised that, but it's so true!

Checking back in after a good night out after work and a day with DS today (he wants to be a jockey after seeing jockeys being interviewed on the news for the grand national ).

Have to say after sleeping on it - the last time I was so aware of people casting judgements on people based on what they want to wear was at school - bitchy girls who would ridicule people who weren't on trend. Make an effort, you're a desperate 'try hard', try and stand out, you're a loser...... I find the people slapping a 'sexist' label on cross-dressers/transvestites deeply uncomfortable.

Off has said that she has faced abuse based on how she dresses and - just like if Rachel got ridiculed by idiots on during the hen night - this is unacceptable in this day and age.

I have many friends who are all about the hair, make-up and high heels and won't be seen without them..... I don't think they're 'sexist' - they're my friends and what they wear doesn't bother me.

What does bother me is a debate about whether men wanting to wear pink lipstick, short skirts and killer heels after YEARS of really wanting to and being too scared finally going for it in the face of the people who will leap to conclusions (people adding they are gay or saying it's some kind of perversion) and THEN being called 'sexist' by people who don't want to dress 'girly' and choose not to (and no one notices because it's 2014). They're being incredibly brave after years of wearing boring trousers/suits and want a few sequins - and are getting a lecture on this thread.

Life's too short. I thought that we'd come further than slinging mud at people (male or female) who like pink and feathers.

You have no idea what you're talking about I've and what you've said doesn't even make sense.

It's clear you've committed to being wound up by the suggestion you are wrong so nevermind.

I get harassed no matter what I wear btw. The harassment usually has a sexual element to it. That's why I've concluded it is based on me being female.

I've been thinking about this a lot; Offred a lot of your arguments make an awful lot of sense to me. But I just can't feel repressed by a man in women's clothes. I recently spent an awful lot of time watching RuPaul's Drag Race whilst learning to breastfeed my firstborn. I remember being up at 3am, in slightly sick covered pjs and with bleeding nipples and lochia and the rest of it, watching a man in drag with rubber breasts 'lip synching for his life', and thinking that what he was doing couldn't have been further away from my identity as female if he was dressing up as a unicorn. Is there not an argument that by dressing up in the trappings of extreme 'female', men help to reveal it for what it is - a big construction which has no innate connection to female biological sex. For me seeing a man in drag doesn't make me feel that that 'feminine attire' is foisted upon me - it actually helps to distance it and show the whole thing up as a construction. I have also been to trans/drag clubs and have felt the same there - that whatever these men were working so hard to present as (and in some instances their hard work had a glorious pay off in my opinion) it had very little to do with me, and my biological female identity.