The Artist D Sounding Off — Women Wear Pants

The Artist D (sometimes wears pants)

Many of us spend our lives suffocated by the topics of gender and sexuality. The people who society labels “normal” don’t have to think about why they love each other or want to wear the clothes they do. It’s clear we are almost all a mix of everything. Our minds and bodies come from everything so it could be calculated that we are everything. Homosexuality made a lot of people think uncomfortably about loving outside the box. Oddly enough, presenting people with Transgender life makes a lot of people think about clothing. No fault of ours. Mommy, I’m a girl! No, really, I’m a girl! I’m going to wear your clothes so you understand I’m a girl. Look at me Mommy! Dammit, I’m a girl!

To think we are a culture that boils gender down to clothes and the things around us instead of inside of us. Are you dressing feminine enough to pass today? It’s as bad as those folks saying someone can’t be gay because they aren’t “acting like it.” Just when we get over one hurdle in convincing people “the gays” don’t all have a penchant for walking down the street in silver Speedos, we now have to convince people that some women wear pants.

Wait a minute! Didn’t we cover this in 1950? Women wear pants! A person is not the clothes they wear and they are not attracted to others based on how much they swish. Yet in the transgender world so many of us believe we are the clothes we wear. Why is that? How is it that “I want to feel feminine” means putting on a dress? When did that get stuck in our heads? Mommy! Mommy! Yes. That’s one way.

I’m as guilty as you probably are with this one. When I put on a pair of heels and a corset I am a real friggen’ lady! These things are feminine because of the way they feel and the way I feel about them. They are not boring (like men’s clothes) and they are not rigid (like men). But why are men rigid and women flowy? Why is femininity associated with a delicate flower when we have billions of people proving that not all women wilt at the sight of a spider? Some women wear pants! Some women chop wood. None of this makes them lesbian, butch, transgender or anything else unless they tell us otherwise. The same goes for the man enjoying cooking or cleaning. He doesn’t have to wear an apron and change his name to Mrs. Cleaver.

Recently there was that extremely confusing pointless commercial featuring the Androgynous model Stav Strashko advertising a car for Toyota. Some say a step forward for transgender rights and androgynous awareness. Others say it wasn’t the right way to push the cause to the forefront. I’m one of those people. You want a nation of horny men gaping at a tall beautiful skinny woman only to find out it’s a man. Great, we just described every transgender woman’s worst nightmare.

I don’t know what will ever get the planet of humans to understand that there are no lines between us. The only lines we should have ever drawn are those that people with penises can get together with other people who have vaginas and make children if they so feel like it. Everything else is completely negotiable as to the meaning, if it has any meaning at all. We’re not all androgynous but maybe we might as well be. Maybe we would be if we didn’t have to think about it so much. Imagine a world where you’re born as you are and you feel the way you feel. Nobody ever asked why you loved who you loved or why you wanted to wear a skirt instead of pants. Less pressure all around. I’ve determined a lot of people would still want gender reassignment surgeries, but I’ve also determined a lot of people wouldn’t.

I was recently a guest on a talk show where crossdressing came up in the discussion. The host of the show said he had tried a lot of things (being a gay man and a furry), but he refused to put on women’s clothes because it felt wrong in some way. If I remember correctly it sounded as if he thought it was actually somehow an insult to women for him to wear their clothes. He asked for a good argument as to why he should give it a try. I answered simply with the questions I have posed to you here in this month’s column. Why should stitches of fabric remain for one gender only? Why is a men’s Speedo okay but a woman’s thong not? If you fit into it and it makes your behind look fabulous then wear it. Your bits and pieces only matter if they’re falling out all over the place and that’s okay too if you’re into that kind of thing.

That talk show host promised me he’d give it a try and that I made the only argument that made sense to him about the subject. It’s common sense! And in a world where we have men trapped in women’s bodies and vice versa there is this desperation to do anything we possibly can to get the point across that “I AM _____________!” And it’s all the fault of the world for telling you just because you look like a man you are a man and should buy boring blue jeans with matching plaid shirts. Also the fault of the world telling you that you aren’t who you know you are.

This column comes to you in complete seriousness in the hopes of making us think. However, I can’t help but be a bit tongue in cheek and mention that I think most people would choose a dress over other confining fashions. Who doesn’t want to wear striking cuts and colors? And what man wouldn’t want to just lift his skirt to urinate on the side of a building? Women get all the good clothes and just because they’re women. Who comes up with this stuff!?

Then again I’ve always been the guy … or the girl … or the freak … or the human … asking who had the right to label anything. All I’ve ever wanted for us was to flow.

The Artist D is executive editor of Fourculture Magazine. He is also unearthing the underground as host of The Fabulous D Show every Sunday night at 7 PM EST at TheArtistD.com.

Tags: featured, Identity, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion