My Two Penneth: Gender Identity Disorder
Gonna go ahead and cross post from Tumblr because I think you guys would be interested in this.
Erica's studying gender atm (as am I, as it happens!) and she posted this on her tumblr:
She wrote some great stuff about it: check out the original post here. This is my two penneth...
Um “insistence on wearing only stereotypical male clothing” IS CROSS DRESSING. Just because it’s a woman dressing as a man doesn’t mean it’s not cross dressing. Ugh. It’s such a double standard. Either nothing should be called cross dressing, (as women wearing t-shirts and jeans isn’t called cross dressing), or anyone wearing stereotypical clothes of the other gender should be called cross dressing (as a man wearing a skirt and blouse would be called cross dressing).
Plus there are female cross dressers. This is born of that idea that male characteristics are so awesome and desirable that a woman taking them on is just fine (like wearing male-ish clothes, or a woman being told to “man up”), but female characteristics are so weak and pathetic that any man taking them on is awful (“sissy” “pussy” “big girl’s blouse” etc as insults, men wearing female clothes being cross-dressing).
ALSO what Erica said - I played with male toys, climbed trees, and frequently said I wanted to be a boy as a kid, yet I also wore princess dresses and am just such a girl. Gender is so bloody fluid - we should all be allowed to experience and express whatever gender we want without the stigmatisation of psychological terms like this. Interest in the other gender, or being transgender, is NOT A DISORDER.
I have opinions.
~Lili
Erica's studying gender atm (as am I, as it happens!) and she posted this on her tumblr:
She wrote some great stuff about it: check out the original post here. This is my two penneth...
Um “insistence on wearing only stereotypical male clothing” IS CROSS DRESSING. Just because it’s a woman dressing as a man doesn’t mean it’s not cross dressing. Ugh. It’s such a double standard. Either nothing should be called cross dressing, (as women wearing t-shirts and jeans isn’t called cross dressing), or anyone wearing stereotypical clothes of the other gender should be called cross dressing (as a man wearing a skirt and blouse would be called cross dressing).
Plus there are female cross dressers. This is born of that idea that male characteristics are so awesome and desirable that a woman taking them on is just fine (like wearing male-ish clothes, or a woman being told to “man up”), but female characteristics are so weak and pathetic that any man taking them on is awful (“sissy” “pussy” “big girl’s blouse” etc as insults, men wearing female clothes being cross-dressing).
ALSO what Erica said - I played with male toys, climbed trees, and frequently said I wanted to be a boy as a kid, yet I also wore princess dresses and am just such a girl. Gender is so bloody fluid - we should all be allowed to experience and express whatever gender we want without the stigmatisation of psychological terms like this. Interest in the other gender, or being transgender, is NOT A DISORDER.
I have opinions.
~Lili