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?

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

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?

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 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'.

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?

They are all AGP in my experience.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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!

That’s what I was thinking of. Thanks @OldCrone.

I wonder if they've convinced themselves that transvestites being fetishists is just an outdated bigoted stereotype, like gay men being paedophiles or whatever. Or that the poor trans people only stole underwear in the past because they had no other way to get it. Or that they are so few in number and wouldn't cross-dress publicly anyway, unlike "real" trans people (just as we're told no man would ever pretend to be trans just to get into a female prison, so the ones who do must be genuine).

They’ve not disappeared, the label has but transvestites haven’t.

But we're told constantly that no man would dress as a woman for a mere fetish, nor would they then access single-sex spaces dressed as women, given half the chance. So, they must have all vanished!

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.

Does sophisticated here mean stupid?

I used to think that transvestites were men who occasionally liked to dress as women. I had no idea about the fetish side of it.
But then I admired Eddie Izzard when he said he was ‘just a bloke who liked wearing dresses’ 😀

@Shortshriftandlethal Those quotes are predictably awful. I'm particularly rolly-eyed at the chap proclaiming that feminists are feminising wrong 🙄

they were insufficiently susceptible to sophistry, maybe?

Men don’t only cross dress for fetish some do some don’t. There will be men out there that wear woman’s clothing and don’t identify as a woman. They haven’t just vanished. May seem that way because the transvestites could be more private and over shadowed by all the trans people. But then again I’ve never walked up to someone I’ve thought is trans and asked them if their trans or just like woman’s clothing

I know they haven't just vanished. That's rather the point.

I’m confused by the question then. We know they’re out there, does it matter where they are?

I think the question is why their existence isn't acknowledged.

I would assume that they had gone to Transylvania, or is that where they come from?🤷

Performative outrage to try to close down a conversation you don’t like. Bravo

I mean it doesn’t work on the women here and shows you’re a bit behind the times (2018 called and would like it’s strategies to control the narrative back), but <chef’s kiss> for a top notch example of the technique