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?

[Offred]

See this is also what I hate. Crossdressing to me is a bit like bush claiming the war in Afghanistan was about women's rights whilst simultaneously funding anti-contraception/abortion programmes there. Crossdressers to me are a group who are adopting the language of liberalism and tolerance and sometimes equality whilst in actual fact subverting and undermining it. That's why I feel it should be challenged.

[rachelmonday1]

Offred: I wish you luck with that :)

[MoominIsEightNinthsManatee]

I don't get this concept of "performing gender" being bad... I've done panto for the last five years and on two occasions I have, as is tradition, played the 'prince' character. Is that sexist?

[Offred]

But I still wouldn't bat an eyelid at a man who happened to be wearing a skirt or a t-shirt which happened to be made for women just because he liked it and not because he was aping women.

[MoominIsEightNinthsManatee]

Do people consider transgender people sexist too? I'm just confused by how someone choosing to identify as a woman, even if only temporarily, can be so offensive to others.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

rachel - oh, I thought you were worried about how people felt? No?

I am not going to put this very well - but it just seems incredibly off. If you want to wear a dress, who cares? Go for it. If your mate wants a hen do with some blokes on it, go for it. If your mate wants a hen do with women only plus you, go for it.

But why does there need to be this stuff about your 'rachel' persona and your other persona, and about how your wife is upset but you'd like us to reassure you she shouldn't be?

I sort of feel offended that you seem to think being a woman is so radically different from being a man, that in order to be yourself you need to effectively 'black up'.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Cross post. moomin, I think (and I am really ignorant), that that is a bit different. As I understand it, some people feel that to be themselves, they have to kick against the gender society assigned them. It sounds appallingly difficult. I don't think that's the same as saying that you occasionally get dolled up as a woman!

The OP has a persona as 'rachel' that is not his male persona. That to me seems quite dodgy.

[rachelmonday1]

Offred: Again, a valid point, but personally I would feel uncomfortable. As it currently stands, few people notice me when I'm out as Rachel, because I make a lot of effort to "ape" a woman. That way I can wear what I choose.

[Fairenuff]

Yeah, I agree with LRD.

If my friends felt insulted or demeaned, would they invite me????

They didn't invite you. They invited your alter-ego. And I think you are right to question why.

They don't sound like good friends to me.

[Beachcomber]

Calling people 'TERFs' is really unpleasant.

[rachelmonday1]

No-one has said that my wife is upset, she simply expressed her view that it's not something that she would have done for her Hen Night. She's offered to drop me off and, provided it's not too late, pick me up. Hardly the actions of someone who is upset.

[Fairenuff]

The trouble is that you keep stereotyping I make a lot of effort to "ape" a woman.

Have you even looked at women? There is no 'standard' dress. So when you 'ape' you are aping a 'type'. That is stereo-typing.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, I'm sorry - I assumed from how you phrased the OP she was bothered about it.

But fair enough if she's not.

Why did you post, then? If it's not a relationship issue?

[rachelmonday1]

I've no idea what a TERF is, and it sounds as if I don't really want to.

As for alter-ego. They invited the ego that they know.

[rachelmonday1]

Sorry Fairenuff....I was adopting the terms being used by others

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

YY, faire, that is how I feel too.

Effectively it is pushing the rest of us to look a certain way, by validating it. That is not really ok with me.

I'm curious: would people on this thread who think that this is fine, and that it's not a gendered issue, think that 'passing for white' in highly racist cultures would be the same as 'blacking up' for fun in the same cultures?

And would you think that 'blacking up' is ok to do, or would you feel uncomfortable, given the difference of power between blacks and whites?

[Offred]

Honestly I think transgender is a whole different level of the same thing and that those people have been very, very damaged by the sexist stereotyping.

No matter what operations they have they will never be able to change their gender in any meaningful way - e.g. In the way that is the only true difference between men and women - reproductive organs.

Any change they can make is only a more extreme superficial change which is similar to wearing a stuffed bra. Arguing that the changes that can be made are anything other than superficial is really arguing for sexist stereotypes. I do think it is pathological tbh.

I genuinely believed I was a boy until I was five and was very upset to find out I wasn't and felt I would never be able to have the life I wanted so I do think I understand it a little.

Anyway... Looks like the TERFs have arrived...

Problem is I think many many people use subjects like this to make themselves look cool and tolerant and kind and I think these people are used to promote exactly the kinds of values they often are personally horrified by when they do this.

is reminded of AF's perturbance at me not self-identifying as a feminist and saying 'feminist' things

[MoominIsEightNinthsManatee]

Fair point LRD I can see that point of view... but from the way the OP described it, his 'Rachel' persona is part of who he is... it didn't sound like something he does just because he wants to mock women, it sounds like part of his identity. It's like (again going back to the stage analogy) I have two very separate personas... one is me, normal me, and I'm quite easygoing and don't like being the centre of attention. The other is the person I become onstage - not the character, it is a different persona that I adopt onstage where I am confident and bolshy and love people looking at me god that sounds cringey

Although maybe my experience of having separate personas is colouring my view of the situation. Regardless, I understand where you're coming from now :)

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I don't agree at all, offred.

Gender is a social construct. IMO it has no necessary relation to reproductive organs.

I would like a world in which no-one felt they had to have a 'gender' and it'd be fine.

And if that makes me a TERF, erm, sorry ... but since I've only seen the word used on twitter and I don't really get what it means, I'm struggling to be offended.

[Fairenuff]

As for alter-ego. They invited the ego that they know

You said they knew and liked you as a man. Is that not so?

[MoominIsEightNinthsManatee]

Thanks for explaining Offred, was curious as to where the difference lies but I understand now :)

[MabelSideswipe]

Rachel, how do you differ in your behaviour or personality when dressed as Rachel? Are you exactly the same?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

moomin - yes, I see your point there ... but I do think acting is different. Everyone who sees a play knows it is fiction. You might act the part of a dictator, or an abusive spouse, or whatever - no-one thinks you are one!

Whereas the OP is not 'acting' in the same way.

I really don't have any issue with someone wearing whatever they want to wear, or having a male/female hen party, or whatever. It's just the rhetoric that goes with it that assumes women conform to a stereotype, and that women and men are fundamentally different, that offends me.

[Offred]

That was my point really, that gender as a meaningful description of a difference between two sets of people ends at reproductive organs and anything beyond is socially constructed. Therefore trans surgery (for men) is really just a more extreme form of aping women but it is slightly different in that there is no need to retain a dominant masculine persona but there's an attempt to obliterate it.

Yes, that's a TERF view.

[rachelmonday1]

Fairenuff: They don't know me as a man

MabelSideswipe: I most definitely adopt a more feminine body language (that's going to spark some response) in the way that I walk, sit, subjects of conversation, drinks............allsorts!