My 30-something friend Greg told me that his 50-something friend Peter met a transvestite for the first time this week.
Did you know transvestites are straight?” Greg asked me.
“Yeah, I knew that,” I answered. I’d been a freshman in high school when I learned about cross-dressers from True Confessions magazine.
“Well, Peter was really surprised,” Greg said. “And I don’t think I really understood transvestites completely either.”
Greg happens to be straight. He told me that Peter, who happens to be gay, was having a drink when a man wearing a dress, earrings and high heels sat down next to him at the bar. They started talking, and Peter quickly learned that his new acquaintance, whom he’d assumed was a drag queen, was in fact a transvestite. He told Peter he was a straight, married, former military man who lived at home with his wife and kids. That night he planned on hanging out with some other cross-dressing friends.
“The guy told Peter that he and his buddies just like to dress up and go out in women’s clothing,” said Greg.
The mystery of the other sex is built into all of us
I told Greg that’s how playwright Harvey Fierstein explained transvestites to a live audience at WNYC Greene Space last spring. Four-time Tony Award winner Fierstein was interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter about stage drama Casa Valentina on Broadway.
Casa Valentina was based on a group of heterosexual married men that used to meet weekends at a retreat in the Catskills in the ‘60s to indulge in their favorite pastime – dressing and acting as their chosen female alter egos.
“Let’s be clear about this,” Host Elliott Forrest said after introducing his guest. “And I think terminology is very helpful. So decipher for us the difference between cross-dresser, drag queen, transvestite…”
So Fierstein explained that drag queens or drag kings basically dress in the clothes and take on the stereotyped characteristics of the opposite sex to entertain, to lampoon sometimes, to exaggerate, to become.
“The mystery of the other sex is built into all of us,” Fierstein said. “All men – straight or gay, cross-dressers or not – have ideas of what it would be like to be a women.”
He said that men imbue women with these mystical powers…”and when you take on that other guise.. it’s an incredibly powerful thing to feel.”
The playwright told his attentive audience that for transgender people it’s about gender identity, where they often feel they were born into the wrong body. A transsexual has taken steps to physically transition their body to match their gender identity.
The he got to the subject of the people in Casa Valentina, and explained that transvestites wear the clothing of the opposite sex. He said it looks like they have something in common and it doesn’t.
“Transvestites can have a billion reasons for wanting to do it,” he said. “Sometime it’s a sexual thing – just the kick of wearing the opposite. Sometimes it’s an identity. Sometimes it’s something from childhood that they’re brining forward…There are a billion reasons.”
And then Harvey Fierstien surprised me. He admitted that he had no idea there was there whole universe of heterosexual transvestite men.
Later, I told my 24-year-old son Harry, who identifies as genderqueer, how happy I was that I knew the answers to the WNYC host’s question.
“That’s the same question Tim asked me sitting around the dinner table at the family reunion a couple of years ago,” Harry said. Tim was Harry’s Uncle Allyn’s partner.
“Had you been talking about Rocky Horror or drag performance before that?” I asked.
“Nope it was just totally random.”
Not exactly your typical family gathering dinner table topic.
When I walked past a new game at a local gift shop this week, I was intrigued. It’s called Family Gathering TableTopics. The idea is to give the generations that sit together around the family dinner table some memorable conversation starters and the chance learn something about each other in the process.
The box is filled with questions like “What do you remember about the homes your family has lived in?” or “What’s your family known for?”
So in the spirit of giving thanks and celebrating with gratitude that no two people are alike (because oh how boring that would be!), I thought it might be interesting to ask those gathered around your Thanksgiving table if anyone knows how to explain the terms transvestite, drag queen and transsexual.
We know that from transgender to gender-nonconforming, and everywhere in between on the gender spectrum, not everyone knows or understands our differences. So you just might find some folks as surprised as Greg, Peter, Harvey and Tim. Let me know how it goes. And, please pass the cranberries.
**Note added Nov. 25: To see what I’ve learned about transvestitism and cross-dressing since this posting, please be sure to read the comment below from Jonathan at Male Femme.
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Somehow I knew all this but never spent time thinking about it. This brings up many
concepts especially that celebrating our similarities as opposed to ‘celebrating’ our differences is really a fine thing to do. It is all inside the realm of human possibility and for Thanksgiving this year, I’m thankful for that! There is a brilliance to our universe. Let’s recognize it.
Milton Berle did it every Saturday night (I’m exposing my age) and made us all laugh and made millions so let’s celebrate!
Thank you, thank you for reminding me how wonderful our similarities are, too. Those things we all desire: freedom, love, joy. And the innate attributes of kindness and generosity that thrive when we trust each other, remembering that no one is better than anyone else. I tend to get bogged down sometimes thinking about those among us who want everyone to be the same, meaning being only like them. So, cheers! I’m celebrating with you and Uncle Milty. xo
“So decipher for us the difference between cross-dresser, drag queen, transvestite…”
Actually, that’s not easy at all.
For transvestites, Harvey’s “can have a billion reasons for wanting to do it” is a reasonable assertion, in that we each come to our own understanding of these highly personal issues. But it should be noted that “gender identity” accounts for a large proportion. Many transvestites (most of the ones I know anyway) identify as trans, and there are significant border territories between transvestite, transgender and transsexual identities; indeed, people can and do “transition” from one to another.
Similarly – as you already know of course – drag queens and kings can identify as trans as well. It’s not just about exaggerated stereotypes, entertainment or lampooning. Those may be part of drag performance, but they don’t (necessarily) define a drag person’s identity.
The “billion reasons” seems more appropriate for cross-dressing. But maybe this is just a cultural difference? In the US “transvestite” seems to be a stigmatized identity, so people often use “cross-dresser” instead. Over here in the UK, that’s not the case. People like Eddie Izzard and Grayson Perry identify as transvestites rather than cross-dressers; whereas cross-dressing is a behaviour (just something people do) rather than an identity.
As for me: I’m a transvestite as well – that’s one of my labels anyway. Others are “genderqueer” (like Harry) and “femme”.
And did I know transvestites are straight? Yes, or at least we’re as “straight” as any other random person; i.e. law of averages says yes, human sexual diversity says maybe. There used to be a slogan for that: “How dare you presume I’m heterosexual?” 😉 Easier answer: transvestism is not related to sexual orientation.