Dina’s Diner 5/1/23

ANOTHER NOTE ON SAFETY

Two Diners ago (March 6, 2023), I had a lead item about anti-drag hysteria affecting our safety as crossdressers out in public places. I recently saw a posting by crossdresser about being made uncomfortable in a place she had patronized for a long while.

No fear here.

It happened in a place I have been to several times over the years. I never encountered any problem there, but the poster recounted that some of the patrons made denigrating comments about her presence on some of her visits. The tone of her piece was a combination of hurt and anger at being made to feel uneasy in a place that had been a safe space. I have to admit that even though my experiences there have been positive and uneventful it gives me pause to return.

My concern in the current environment is (as I wrote in March): “Will people who disapprove of crossdressing, gender-bending, drag, or however they care to name it, feel emboldened by their crazier compatriots and perhaps take the next step to physical confrontation?” I hate the use of the word ‘emboldened’ because it’s used nowadays to jump to a conclusion that isn’t at all certain. Drag queens are performers and doing their thing in public establishments makes them easy targets for crackpots. Most crossdressers who venture out are usually just trying to go unnoticed at all (think ‘passing’), or just trying to get quickly from point A to point B without being noticed. If an incident does happen, who wants it to escalate to a public scene? Go to court as a victim or witness? No thanks, I think most of us would agree.

All this controversy seems to be happening quickly, like a snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger and faster as more people join the crazy side of the issue. But in most cases, it hasn’t affected the vast majority of us directly, yet. TGForum’s This Week feature has plenty of instances of people whom it did affect directly. If you are a crossdresser who goes out — no matter how discreetly — be careful but don’t let hysteria on their part keep you from doing your thing.

CUTE LITTLE TYKES

The Huffington Post online magazine had an interesting article in their Style section. It was headlined, For Centuries, Boys Used To ‘Dress Like A Girl.’ Here’s When Everything Changed. The subheading read, “Many parents have a strong reaction against gender-neutral clothes, but American kids dressed like “sexless cherubs” before capitalism and more rigid gender norms took over.” The article appeared on April 19, 2023.

We’ve all seen old-time photos of little boys — perhaps some our own male forebears — dressed in white dress-like garments with pageboy or “girl-length” hair. So what was up with all that?

Franklin D Roosevelt as a small child.

The HuffPost reported: “Jessica McCrory Calarco, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, weighed in on the little-known history, too. “As I teach my students, kids’ clothing only became gendered when capitalists realized they could double their money by selling separate clothes for girls and boys,” she tweeted. “Before that, kids wore gender-neutral dresses, which better accommodated growth spurts and toilet training.” The outfits were favored for practicality; white fabric was cheaper than dyed fabric and could easily be bleached when kids inevitably dirtied their clothes, the professor said.”

So money (of course) and practicality played a big part in dressing ‘Butch’ up as ‘Etheline’ in the gilded age. There was also a protective element to the unisex dressing gowns. The article went on to explain, “For centuries, styles for babies and small children up til about age 5 were based on adult women’s dresses because women were seen as the innocent sex.”

Looking back at the past then “teaches us that many of the gendered norms we take for granted are the product of social and cultural forces,” said McCrory Calarco, the sociology professor. “They aren’t the product of ‘natural’ differences between girls and boys or women and men, as some politicians, pundits and parents have tried to suggest.””

The toddler dressing gowns hung on until the 1920s when social changes brought about the “breeches” or “britches” phase when boys were not deemed mature enough for long pants. The phrases “too big for your britches” and “put your big boy pants on” were inspired by this era.

Professor McCroy Calarco summarizes things thusly, “By studying the messages that kids get about gender, and by studying how those messages have changed over time, people come to see (and are often very surprised to see!) that the gender divisions we currently take for granted aren’t as ‘natural’ as they seem to be.”

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

I saw an article on a site called In The Know dated April 7, 2023. It was headlined French Exchange Student Highlights The Differences Between French and American High School Fashion.

It’s a fairly short article so I will copy some it here. It began: “As a French exchange student living in the U.S., TikTok user Ju’ has definitely had to adjust to some cultural differences between home and America. But one thing she probably didn’t expect to be so different was the actual day-to-day wardrobe, which apparently has a very different vibe in each nation.” She posted a video to her Tik Tok pointing out the visual differences between how French and American students dress for school.

The article reports about the video, “as Ju’ first appears in a cute black and white skirt, black blazer and black tee.” That would be the French school outfit. “Then, Ju’ re-appears in what she’s actually wearing to school — and it’s a decidedly dressed down look. With her hair in a messy bun, a hydro flask in one hand and a laptop under one arm, the teen has ditched her preppy look and Is now wearing an oversized Nike sweatshirt with black high-cut shorts.”

Commenters to the article fell down mostly on the side of American relaxed fashion. Some favored the dressier look. Everyone seemed to favor dressing however one felt whether French style dressy or American super casual.

My only thought on this particular fashion topic is that having some societal standard of dress (not speaking about official dress codes) instills some respect for institutions and other people. I fear we are becoming a nation of slobs. T-shirts, flip flops, baseball caps, etc are everywhere and often where it doesn’t seem appropriate.

No matter how students dress (or not dress) for school, there is a standard idea of what constitutes elegant or sexy feminine dress. Even young crossdressers on Reddit adopt hosiery, high heels, dresses, cosmetics, and styled wigs when they want to convey appealing femininity. So in that sense, at least, there is a kind of societal standard. As crossdressers, where “dressing up” is literally the basis for doing what we do, we can be thankful that every fashion standard isn’t being tossed aside.

ONE LARGE, LOVELY CURVE

I happened across an article on NDTV.com which appears to be an Indian news site. The article in question proclaimed, U.S. Woman Breaks Guinness World Record For Largest Afro. It appeared on the site April 7, 2023.

Aevin Dugas

According to NDTV, “Aevin Dugas, a 47-year-old woman from Louisiana who carries the largest afro ever grown, is accustomed to having the world fascinated by her big, gorgeous hair. By measuring 9.84 inches tall, 10.4 inches broad, and 5.4 feet in diameter, Aevin Dugas has once again broken a Guinness World Record for the largest afro.” The site further reported that “this is the second time she has set this world record. When Aevin first achieved the record title in 2010, her afro had a circumference measuring an incredible 4 ft 4 in.”

Ms. Dugas said that she has been growing out her hair for 24 years. She adopted the Afro or ‘natural’ style after she wanted to get away from the chemicals involved in straightening and maintaining Afro hair not worn ‘natural.’ “I was tired of using dangerous chemicals to permanently straighten my hair. Those chemicals have now been linked to cancer, and there’s a major lawsuit going on, so I’m glad I left them alone years ago.”

Whatever her reason for growing it out, I love it. Having come of age in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I always liked the large halo of the Afro. It looked good on men and women of the era. Come to think of it, the Afro was one of the first gender-neutral styles in the evolving period of black, feminist, and gay social movements of those years. Sadly, it is rarely seen nowadays.

There is already an under-representation of black crossdressers in our community, it seems to me. It would really be great to see some love given to the Afro by black gurls on crossdressing sites. It doesn’t need to be 5 feet in diameter. But ‘the bigger the better’ is definitely the key idea with an Afro hairstyle.

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

I began seeing some unusual artwork in my Pinterest.com feeds so I followed the link to a page created by “Stepford Kush’” who was the original poster and presumably the artist. The accompanying picture here is an example of the hyper-real style of the art. The subject matter of the portrait is also representative of his other works.

Stepford Kush art.

The artist’s name is a pseudonym and the ‘Stepford’ part comes from the fictionalized Stepford Wives of movie adaptations and the original novel. The ‘Kush’ part of the name is a slang reference to marijuana (which I was unaware of previously). As you can see by the art, the women all have that animatronic look of sex appeal laid over the blank slate of the woman subject which was a theme of Stepford suburbanalia. A few of the works do have an accompanying backstory that provides a little more depth to the portraits.

What I noticed as I scrolled through some of the work was that they had passing resemblances to guys in drag. Sort of how the stars of Drag Race would look if dressed and made-up like, well, Stepford Wives. Some of the portraits also seemed to reference celebrity women although it is hard to pin down which name comes to mind when you see them. The over-the-top hairstyles and generously applied cosmetic touches instantly appealed to me when I saw the pieces.

I’ve seen some crossdressers’ photos over the years that depict them in a sort of Stepford domesticity of cocktail dresses in the kitchen or holding trays of drinks like a good wife or even wielding cleaning appliances. The married life (at least the Hollywood version) is an appealing fantasy for many crossdressers. These Stepford Kush artworks could be the model for how to make-up or style wigs for a life of vapid but sexy domesticity. Ask your wig maker for “The Stepford” the next time you’re in the store.

Tags: crossdressing, featured, passing

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment