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?

Kim - that's a redundant point.

The whole point about why being female is worthy of ridicule is because women are not men. That was what beachcomber just said. There are men and then there are other.

Of course women can abuse other women, men, children, gay people, straight people, black people, white people, trans, crossdressers or anyone. Being female doesn't mean you are not capable of being abusive.

People who abuse gay me for being gay do not consider them to be 'real' men.

And yes that's the point, they aren't 'real men' because they are seen as doing something female - being attractive/attracted to men...

Female as the 'other' from men.

Gay men are much more acceptable therefore if they 'camp it up' by adopting 'female' characteristics because they are then putting themselves safely in the 'other' category and become much less threatening. Although sometimes this will rile people because they feel the gay man should not be lowering himself to other but striving to be a man.

And it's men and women who attack people for this stuff. Girls were involved in Ian baynham's violent death.

Offred: dressing up as a woman is horribly sexist?! So every time I put a skirt or dress on (I AM a woman by the way) I am reinforcing some sort of outdated sexist concept and should therefore shun all skirts/dresses/top with a bit of lacy detail/top with a floral print ie anything even vaguely termed as 'women's clothing' and I should just wear jeans/shirts/hoodies/[insert other suitably unisex clothing type] so as not to do this? FFS. What an utterly bonkers and blinkered attitude you have (despite clearly thinking you are quite the liberalist). Did you get out of bed the wrong side this morning?

I think men need to tackle other men about their prejudices against "unmanly" behaviour and dress and not pretend to be women as a cop out.
There are a significant number of men who want to express their feminine side. That doesn't mean they are "really women" as the transgender community say or that if they want to wear make up and dresses they should have to ham it up by acting in a different way to how they normally act to fit their idea of "femininity".
Most women are happy to give each other space to wear as much or little make up as they want, wear silky dresses or jeans and a man's shirt, have their hair long or short, drink what they feel like etc. men need to tackle other men to get the same flexibility, not pretend that if you don't want to conform to some men's narrow idea of being a man you have to "join" the women.

if you read the thread rocky you will hopefully understand that is not the argument I'm making.

rocky have you read the thread? I can't believe people still thinking this is just about clothes, after all the debate and the number of times it's been spelled out by many different posters.

No, she hasn't because if she had she's know I've been posting about this since Friday and not just this morning!

Sorry, sorry, I somehow misread the number of pages and missed a lot of the later part of the thread. Have caught up now and as I'm not especially interested in a debate about the rights and wrongs of cross-dressing (which wasn't the point of the OP's thread anyway), I think I'll leave well alone.

Nope just interested in telling me what I've said without bothering to actually read it... Hey ho!

Yes, Kim, totally agree it is society. Women perpetuate this stuff as well.

Offred, I've now read the rest (supposed to be doing a million and one other things and it took ages but hey, didn't want to commit a MN faux pas) and I STILL don't really understand your position tbh. If I have understood correctly (and not doubt you will tell me if I haven't) you object to cross-dressing (of the padded out bra, glam hair wig, sparkly dress and high heels type) as a whole because men 'aping' that sort of image of a woman is prejudiced and wrong and reinforcing outdated stereotypes about how a woman should dress. And because it's a man dressing up that way, it's wrong. Fair enough, that's your view. Is it therefore also wrong (and this is a genuine question, not a snarky comment) that having worn pretty much nothing but jeans and t-shirts for the last 8 months, I have spent the last few days planning what heels to wear with my new slinky dress for a party I'm doing to next weekend and am quite excited by? Or are you saying that it's ok for me to do that because I am a woman so simply exercising my long fought for right to dress as a wish or that by choosing to wear a slinky dress and heels I am also reinforcing all the negative stereotypes so just as bad as the man who chooses to adopt that sort of female stereotype in his choice of cross-dressing outfit?

This thread has been an incredibly interesting read.

I don't know any cross dressers (well, except for Dame Edna…) and I'd not given them much thought until now, except for the fact that they (or more specifically the adopted persona) made me feel slightly..icky. Now I know why.

As I wish even.

No way have you read the thread rocky - that question has been answered many times.

rocky, an analogy I can think of is, if I dressed up as a gay man called Cyril in cowboy chaps, and minced about giving limp wristed handshakes and adopted a stereotypical homosexual persona…that would be in incredibly bad taste, no?

I agree Bragmatic

I cant help but think the OP was invited for his novelty value and that he accepted for the same reason and the whole new set of Facebook friends adds to that feeling

rachelmonday1 glad you had a fab night! Just wanted to add you look stunning in your profile picture!

So glad that in this country people have freedom to live as they wish (as long as they're not causing harm, obv)!

Lots of judgy pants on this thread...

It's not about the clothes rocky, it's about why you wear them.

So, for men AND women;

Wearing high heels because you like them - ok

Wearing high heels because you are trying to portray feminity - not ok.

For women trying to portray feminity, rather than wearing what they like, it is less bad because the heels are something they are being told will identify them as feminine. They wear them or sometimes even like them because they feel under pressure from society to display their feminity or have been socialised to just automatically behave this way. Despite the actual high heels themselves restricting their movement and damaging their bodies and therefore being bad for them.

For men wearing them in order to identify themselves as feminine it is bad because they are in a position of power over women and they are actively choosing to reduce womanhood to these oppressive things. It's no different to a man saying to a woman she shouldn't wear doc martens out because they aren't feminine (happens to me) the man is expressing the view through his adoption of the practice and not necessarily through his words and then returning to his make persona when he wants to express his power.