Where do people think the transvestites have gone?

[ItsCoolForCats]

I remember a time when a distinction was made between transexuals and transvestites, and there was a recognition that the latter category often cross dressed for fetishistic reasons.

But now everyone is just trans. So regarding those who advocate for any man who says he is trans to access women's single sex spaces, where do they think all the transvestites have gone?

Offensive and derogatory for you to imply transvestites are dressing "for fetish reasons"

Drag has been a form of entertainment going back thousands of years in fact. It isn't something that just appeared.

"But now everyone is trans"

How ridiculous.

I said transvestites often cross dress for fetishistic reasons. The internet is awash with videos of these men indulging their fetishes in public. And some of them have spoken openly about it. Why don't you listen to them? Why are you denying their existence? Isn't that akin to genocide?

There is a difference between drag and transvestite. I agree all these coming under the trans banner confuses things. Drag and transvestites are very clear they are men and use mens or third space facilities.

I think this is a good question. No one is saying drag has ‘just appeared’ - quite the contrary. OP is saying that for most people, drag would have been understood as a temporary identity, whether for fetish reasons or not, and doesn’t mean that they or anyone else would see them as a woman rather than as a man in drag. But now there’s a tendency for everyone non-conforming to be labelled trans, so people in this category are no longer visible. Which underlines the foolishness of TWAW - foolish in any circumstances in my view, but especially when it is so wide.

Really good question OP.

I've wondered this before. When I was younger I had friends, gay and straight, who used to wear dresses / skirts occasionally just for funsies, and why not? They never ever would have defined themselves as women. Grayson Perry, for example (not that he was one of my friends!).

This is a very good point, I hadn't noticed that the concept of transvestism has kind of tapered off! Surely a lot of people still cross dress without identifying as a different sex?

As an aside I despise drag, it's so misogynistic. The sooner that fades off the better.

They all come under “the trans umbrella”.

Grayson Perry is my his own admission (that makes him sound abashed by it - he isn’t) dressing for fetishistic reasons, as an autogynophile.
There’s a current thread here
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5399453-grayson-perry?utmcampaign=thread&utmmedium=appshare

When I was a teenager and also at uni, I too had male friends who wore eyeliner and presented in quite a feminine way. There was never any suggestion that they were women, just feminine men that were experimenting with different looks.

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. And yes, Grayson Perry has been very open about his motivations (that is what inspired this thread).

When it comes to men with trans identities being able to access women's spaces, we are told they are vulnerable and just want to pee. But what about these other men who have different motivations? Are we just supposed to pretend that they don't exist anymore?

I can't even follow the logic with that! 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? That's not an umbrella, that's a canopy 😂

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

So, I asked ChatGPT about this, and ChatGPT agrees with Chris that transvestite is an outdated term, and more accurate and non-stigmatising terms are 'men who cross-dress for sexual arousal' or 'people with a cross-dressing fetish'.

Do you prefer those terms @Christinapple?

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.

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

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.

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

If the people haven't disappeared, when there are debates about implementing self ID, why isn't consideration given to the fact that there is a subset of males under the trans umbrella who cross-dress for sexual reasons? And giving these men access to women's spaces has the potential for harm because they can involve non-consenting women in their fetish.

It feels like more than the language evolving. It feels like we need to pretend these men don't exist anymore.

*Edited for typo