Misunderstood

I Dunno--Every Minority has the same problems--Always has--Read what you Wrote about "Other" people-(Strange & Disturbing /disturbing Habits & behaviors) Why is it OK for you to do to others what you don't want done to you?

jane Don, my feeling is that there is a big difference between having personal feelings about the habits of others while keeping them to one's self, and having those personal feelings and displaying them in a very physical manner so that undue and negative attention is called to the person that upsets them. And this can be as simple as pointing fingers or as dangerous as assaulting the person who upsets you.

I do find some behaviors strange and I don't think anything is wrong with that, as long as I keep my opinions to myself and their behaviors are not causing harm to others. However, I feel that I should be shown the same response - think whatever you will of me, but if I'm doing nothing to disturb you except causing your own feelings to be upset, well, keep them to yourself and deal with it.

I also suspect, although I haven't seen any research, that a significant part of the issue of not being accepted is that we as males are doing things to ourselves that other males find seriously disturbing to their own maleness.  It would seem that for a lot of society, that somehow the standard male model is the ideal to which all humans should aspire.  Women who dress and/or act as men are not seen as anywhere threatening to males as much as males dressing or trying to act as women are. The societal issue appears to be - why would any male want to lower himself to anything less that what the ultimate goal of all humans should be? You're at the goal and you want to give it up? What are you? Crazy?

This suggests that women who dress or act as men are just trying to reach the ideal and they are simply misguided.  Males who dress as and/or want to be females must have some serious illness or sickness that might be contagious, and fine upstanding all-males therefore have an obligation to rid the world of these deviants, either through physical attack or through re-education or intervention.

(example - those seriously misguided attempts to beat gayness out of young men, often condoned by some church groups) (another example - the publications of Lawrence's and Blanchard's attempts to define what we do as autogynephilia and their treatment of it as a mental disease, that can be 'cured'. HA!)

Hopefully, eventually society will come to accept us as more and more people realize that dressing as one feels, or doing things to be the person you know you are, allows us all to be better people and better members of our communities.  The way to increase acceptance is to show others that you care deeply about them and want the best for them. It should never be about what you look like, but how you treat others around you.

Well said Jessica, you and I, and I am sure many others on this site share your frustrations, we are on the same page.

❤️Bianca

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Thank you so much Chloe! You totally got what I was saying and expanded on it. Thank you!

I feel that there are strange behaviors that go on that are totally accepted by most of society for whatever reason and I included accept those behaviors. I'm all for do what makes you happy. I like to crossdress. It makes me happy and that's what I'm gonna do.

Thanks a bunch for expanding on my sentiment!

I'm not doing to others what is being done to me. I also accept those behaviors along with the rest of society. I'm just saying why can't society accept us along with all the rest of the strange things they accept?

ChloeC-- By using "Strange & Disturbing" on people who are Different than you --is actually Promoting intolerance--If enough folks follow that Logic-- It goes just like when Hitler did it--The Final Solution came Later-

Hi Chloe,

This :

I also suspect, although I haven’t seen any research, that a significant part of the issue of not being accepted is that we as males are doing things to ourselves that other males find seriously disturbing to their own maleness.

- makes a lot of sense to me. I just can't be doing with some 'accepted' male attitudes or behaviour, and in the past I'm sure my less than full enthusiasm was spotted. So I'm already on the fringes and I haven't even begun to offer a view that maybe they've all got a bit of woman inside. And yet some of these guys, if you can prise them away from a group mentality, are a bit less cock sure (pun intended), at least for that moment. But it always seems to be the alphas hold sway.

On a positive note, over the years, I think there's been a definite improvement in attitudes in countries (or regions of them) that most here are familiar with - although not forgetting there's more than a few countries out there that have progressed not one jot.

Marti x

Hi Jessica

I read Jane's response in this sense:

Society thinks it's OK to pick on CDs, Trans, even Gay people, and treat them as not "normal".

I think there are still places that offer "corrective" treatments, using, for example, electric shocks to deter such "antisocial" behaviour.

This is essentially a continuation of the Social Purity movement of Jane Ellis in the 1800s.

Thus had both positive impacts, like Feminism and women's rights, and negative impacts, like eugenics and Fascism.

It had a massive impact on men's mental health, due to the marginalisation of pretty much any sexual practice, or behaviour that might be linked to sex in the minds of the puritans.

For example, it was common for people to bathe naked in the seas and rivers.

Then came the fashion for beach holidays, and bathing huts and bans on beach nudity were introduced wholesale by wealthy men who got upset that their wives could see naked men on the beach from the newly built hotels and holiday houses.

Many locals peacefully fought back and reclaimed parts of beaches as so-called naturist sections, but most remain unofficial in the UK.

Fortunately  British Naturism has recognised the stupidity of banning people from essentially being people, and the law now recognises naturism as a lifestyle, and protects naturists.

It is not illegal to be naked anywhere in the UK.

We were all born naked, it is nothing to be ashamed of - shame is promoted by turning it into a bad thing, which is part of what the Social Purity movement did.

So with cross dressing.

In the UK, it has never been illegal, unlike homosexuality.

The social purity movement brought about the change which made it a hanging offence to be homosexual.

This is totally un-Christian in my view.

The correct Christian punishment (as described in around 30 places in the Bible) for any serious misdemeanour is stoning, not hanging.

The takeaway is that, to be a good person in that movement meant being a murderer, or complicit in murder.

Ostracising people for things they couldn't help was de rigeur.

And I think that was the sense Jane was using - society thinks it's fine to ostracise and beat up cross dressers and other minorities because we're seen as weak and unable to fight back.

Love Laura

Oh Jessica, it reads as though we are cut from the same cloth. The pain in your words, I suspect, is felt by many of us fabulous ladies.

Building on your point a little, my greatest frustration is not with society (the psychology of crowd behaviour, and the symptoms you describe are well understood (but doesn't make them acceptable)), no it's with individuals.

You can be really good friends with someone for years (have a relationship even) and for the whole time be a closeted CD. One day you confide in them about your 'other' past time and suddenly the whole dynamic of your relationship changes (or ends all together). But the thing is, neither of you have changed at all, nor has the basis of your relationship. You are still exactly the same people, all that's changed is a little knowledge of a fact that's always been true.

IMHO, those are the people that  cause the the greatest hurt, not the opinion of the stranger in the street.

Didi💋

I would break up with my partner right away. If a person loves, he will never cheat. No matter what state he/she was in, a person would remember that he/she had a loved one. Cheating is one of the most common reasons for breaking up. I began to often hear stories from my friends that their girlfriends/ boyfriends were cheating on them. I was interesting if cheating is really so common in our time. It turned out that this is so. I read about this at the divorce rate has changed over the last 150 years and made sure in this.

I'll bite on that final thought, as it reads like a question:

"How can we expect a conforming but often insecure majority group to react to those with the confidence and self knowledge to be different."?

With patience, and as many direct, non-confrontational encounters as possible.

This means each one of us acting as ambassador for the rest of us.

Treating people with respect, even when they don't show us respect - understanding without patronising, talking openly about the issues if the subject arises, but not forcing them down people's throats.

By being as nice and friendly as possible, lacing comebacks to insults with humour not acid, and helping people buy into the whole thing, through understanding just how blinking nice cross dressers are, and how unthreatening!

In other words, just talk to people when you go out en femme - engage, if the opportunity arises, but don't force it. There's always another time, another person who wants to engage.

Little by little it will happen.

Baby steps.

Love Laura

great words could not say it better. society does not under stand us being x dressers, but real woman can go out in manly clothing and think nothing of it and nothing is said.    we dress up to be free and relaxed depressed free, being human for awhile. getting to know what it would be like to be a female and all that. but we can not dress up in what this world calls female cloths, yes WTH is right. we are not hurting no one.    we see woman going out with woman and men going out with men, so why can not we dress up as a female and show our feminine side and show that we can look as pretty as some woman do.   oh let me get this right most woman do not dress like woman no more so we dress like woman and they can dress like men.