I’m sure that if you’re a CD and have a public page somewhere, you’ve had the following experience, sooner or later: some guy (usually young ones) starts being very insulting on the comments, calls you names, tell you that you’ll burn in Hell… all those sorts of things. They get seriously pissed up at you for no reason. They stalk you, write annoying things, and put a lot of energy and hate into getting you out of a public website.
Why?
You can simply say it’s simple discrimination: transgendered people aredifferent, and since they’re different, they’re always a target for discrimination. That’s obviously the simple explanation: you hardly need areason to discriminate others, since it’s purely irrational. Logic and reason will only tell you that every other human being is just like yourself, so its pointless to discriminate at all — but, alas, human beings are everything but logic and rational…
So I’m never much surprised at the insults and nasty comments. In fact, they are a good practice! The less I get affected by those, the happier I am 🙂 I’m very fond of irony and sarcasm and usually reply like that — e.g. to “you fucking tranny!” I usually reply “actually, I only fuck women” 😉
But a pattern has emerged. First and foremost, almost all people who write the insults are male, heterosexual, and usually young. Country or culture is normally not very important; all react in pretty much the same way, although some cultural influences will show in the degree of the insults (Anglo-Saxons tend to be much freer in expressing their views, since freedom of speech is something in their culture which is often above politeness 😉 A Japanese, for instance, would never dream to be so unpolite to strangers in public).
Women, for instance, might simply not comment at all. If they’re on a website to find a date (and so many are!) they might be intrigued and ask nice questions. Many find it hilarious, and women are so much better at making connections — they sometimes ask simple questions like “where did you get that dress?” or “how do you keep your hair in such a perfect shape?” (I have to explain that it’s a wig 😉 ). They’re aware I’m not a genetic girl, but they just find it amusing. Some — specially if they arevery beautiful — surprisingly might find a crossdresser (one that looks reasonably well) a “rival” and can be pretty much insulting too, although they’re far sharper in their insults.
Why a rival? Well, popular tradition still considers all crossdressers gay. So, in their minds, we’re competing for men. And unlike plain homosexuals, we’ve got different tools to compete, namely, the very same ones that beautiful genetic girls have: our looks, our dresses, our glamour, our personal style, our whole image.
While of course a lot of crossdressers wear women’s clothes because they are, in fact, attracted by men (specially the kind of men that like crossdressers, of course), that’s hardly universal among crossdressers. Surprisingly, it’s also a cultural thing. In my country, for instance, an absolute majority of crossdressers I know (online) tend to get attracted to men (and actively hunt for them!) while dressed; when they undress, they tend to get attracted to women. Outside my country I see the reverse happening: of course many are attracted to men, but the majority just like to crossdress, that’s all (like myself). I might tease with a guy just because that’s what’s expected by women — it’s just part of my feminine image! — but I have absolutely no interest in going to bed with them.
Genetic women seeing us a “rivals” don’t know that. So even if they are perfectly aware that we’re crossdressers, they treat us simply as rivals. Thus the naughty comments. However, I should say that this is quite rare. Most genetic women do not see us as rivals. They might find us funny and amusing, and not much more than that. Or simply ridiculous and not worth paying attention. A few, however, find us very interesting — online, I certainly can claim to have a lot of good, faithful, online genetic females as friends, who simply respect me and just find it intriguing that I like to crossdress, specially when I explain that I’m actually only interested in genetic women. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that this might be attractive to them (although of course in the BDSM world this is also a popular fetish!!), but definitely intriguing.
No, the majority of people who insult crossdressers are really just the (relatively) young males. The younger they are, the more insulting. At first, this might be surprising. If the popular culture says that all crossdressers are homosexuals (duh!), we wouldn’t be “rivals”, so there would be no point in being angry with us T-girls. Even if some guy is clever enough to understand that we’re not after other guys after all, they would dismiss it: most women like guys that look like guys — and we’d not be “competing” anyway. We would only be “competing” among the few genetic women that might find a crossdresser intriguing — which would obviously not be the right kind of women these guys are after.
So, why the hate?
Besides the simple, straightforward answer — we all hate what is different — there is a slightly more subtle one. Most people you’ll ever know in your life (specially online!) are, in fact, way more insecure than they appear. Crossdressers that “come out”, either online, but specially in public, arevery, very secure about themselves — they have to be, since it takes a lot of courage to be a crossdresser in public! So we might think that everybody else is pretty much like we are — they just have it easier.
That’s hardly true. Most people will never admit how insecure they actually are.
So what happens is this. Some guy comes across your picture, either on a webpage or on a public chat. As a crossdresser, you give out all those signals males are trained to catch: glamour, style, sexy. Or, well: slutty, available, easy. Whatever your personal style is, the point is that you’re emulating female “signals”, and guys are receptive to them. They might for a second get confused — thinking you are, in fact, a genetic woman.
A second is all it takes. Before the male brain starts to react rationally, its subconscious is already stimulating the pleasure areas. “Sexy” triggers “passion” — all it takes is a quarter of a second, while rational thinking might take longer. So suddenly this guy is, well, for a lack of a better word, getting horny. He visualises himself, even if just for a fraction of a second, having sex with you, because he captured your signals and is now responsive to them.
Then rational thought kicks in, much delayed after the emotional response. And it tells the guy: “Warning! That person is not a genetic girl! She just looks like one!”. If you have a low self-esteem and are still insecure about your own sexuality (which definitely is more frequent when you’re younger), this is a powerful override of the initial impulse. In fact, it’s so powerful, that the pleasure will all be channelled into hate instead. The guy has been deceived. He was anticipating some pleasure with someone he thought was a girl. Now that he saw the reality, that pleasure is gone — instantly. Immediately it is replacement by a suffering of loss — thanks to that ugly crossdresser, a moment of pleasure is rendered useless, and now this guy is furious at this loss. So the second reaction is to turn hornyness into nastyness — and become offensive and insulting.
But it goes even deeper. After this rush of primary emotions is over, rational thought goes even further. Now this guy analyses his initial feeling over and over again. And he’s troubled: how on Earth could have he fallen in for a guy? If their own sexuality is not on the safest grounds — say, having recently broken up, or being in general not very successful with women (because, well, they’re jerks and don’t know better) — they get confused. They ask themselves if they might not have a homosexual strain somewhere hidden in them. This they utterly reject. And it will just lead to more confusion. If they’re straight, how could they possibly have looked twice at a crossdresser? Many will now be angry at themselves — for “falling into deception” — but immediately channel all that hate towards the object of deception. Who knows, they might have made a nice comment in public chat (or to a friend who is watching the chat) like “hey, that girl looks great!”. What will his peers now think of him?
Humans react a lot depending on their peer pressure. Admitting (even if only to yourself!) that you actually found a crossdresser attractive, even if just for a second, is a way to feel “less male” for some reason. And that cannot be. So the reaction is to back-pedal as fast as possible, and publicly claim otherwise. Even if it’s only to themselves. But in truth it’s pushing out this simple message: “I’m a straight male, I have no doubts, I was deceived, crossdressers are the spawn of Satan because they can deceive us, but now I’ve seen the Truth, I’m bound by my male honour to warn everybody (who is male and straight) to stay away from that Evil Creature”.
In fact, what most don’t realise is that for a male, being attracted by the image of a pretty female, is anatural phenomenon if you’re straight. Guys get excited and masturbate in front of drawings and paintings of gorgeous-looking females; they get horny with 3D computer models of the female body. The fact that “it’s just an image” never crosses their minds. They find it perfectly normal (and of course it is!).
So long as either a) there is a real, genetic woman behind that image; or b) there is nobody behind that image (ie. it’s just art).
We crossdressers are actually just artists. We shape and paint our bodies to create the art of illusion of a female image. That female image, however, is fully “animated” by our mind: so it’s way more than just a cartoon or a drawing or a computer-generated movie. We talk, we move, we look just like women. And of course, we give out the “correct” signals for males to find that image appealing. So, guys finding us “interesting” is definitely something most heterosexual males should consider “normal”. Heterosexual males have their brains “wired in” to detect pleasing female faces and figures, and that’s all a crossdresser is trying to do: get a female image.
Now try to reason with a young male who is still on very shaky grounds on his own sexuality 🙂
Well, I try a different approach. Fighting hate with hate is never a solution. Although I prefer to reply with irony and sarcasm, I’m aware that this will fail to register with most people. No, a far easier solution is to ignore the idiot and continue a witty and clever conversation with whomever is willing to chat. What usually happens then is that the idiot starts looking silly; there will always be people around who are sure enough of themselves, have no problems or doubts with their own sexuality, and are more than fine in answering back — sometimes with jokes, sometimes with serious chat, often with curiosity. When that happens, the offensive moron will be isolated and making a sad, pathetical figure of himself — and he’ll stop (and often leave). I managed to do that on some chatrooms where I started by being kicked out for being a “tranny”, but after an hour or so, I slowly succeeded to turn from “Spawn of Satan” into just another ordinary person who is fun to chat with.
It naturally helps if you’re not actively seeking sex online, of course. Which is always my case; instead, I much prefer stimulating conversation, being in touch with fellow human beings. Sex, well, specially online, is totally overrated. If you’re really into porn, you’re far better off renting a movie done by pros 😉
