(Trans)gressions

Hi Gabriel

Ok don’t laugh but I am writing a story in which my lead character has issues about his/her gender. I’ve had this idea that he will be born a man but in his teens he starts to experiment with dressing up in women’s clothes. I’m thinking he should get married and tries to suppress these feelings but they keep pushing through until he gets caught out by his wife. I’ve done some research into this and am grappling with whether he’s a transvestite or a transsexual. I know there’s a difference but can you spell it out a bit more and help me not to offend anyone!?

Thanks

Lerato  

Hullo Lerato

I promise I won’t laugh – first of all I’ve had my fair share of gender bender moments and I know that underneath the flamboyance there are often deeper and more intriguing (not to say unnerving) feelings. Also, for people who genuinely have issues with their gender identity, there can be pain and heartache. Quite often these matters are trivialised in the media – and movies often go for cheap shots and clichés to put bums on seats. What can be funnier than Wesley Snipes in a dress?

Perhaps before going to the nub of your question, I’d also like to suggest that it would be helpful to challenge either/or notions of gender. Of course most people are mostly male or mostly female in their inner identity and outer presentation (whether this is how we innately are or is a result of being subtly pushed in these directions by society is up for debate) but there are a lot of us out there who are on a continuum of gender and resist being pigeonholed. Society doesn’t deal so well with this and requires us to make a choice and live out a particular gender role that is safe and predictable.

So, thinking about your character, my hunch would be that he is a transvestite (or cross dresser) – often a heterosexual person who for complicated and not always clear reasons gets sexual pleasure from dressing up in the clothes of the opposite sex. He does not want to be a woman but will find comfort and pleasure – and sometimes a relaxing of the strictures and responsibilities society places on a man – from being soft, feminine and “other”, while still wanting to have sex with a woman. For these kinds of men it can be extremely liberating to finally open up to their partners (if they can cope) and these practices can be incorporated into their sex and relationship life.

If he was transsexual (sometimes the term transgendered is used) it would be more likely that this feeling of being emotionally and psychologically female, and a desire to change the outward appearance of his gender, would have emerged at a younger age. He would also not only want to dress up in women’s clothes, he would actually want to change everything about his body that was biologically masculine.

Confusingly, he might then wish to change his gender but remain attracted to women (in effect he would become a lesbian woman). In rarer cases he might have had a suppressed desire to be sexually and emotionally with a man and once having transitioned to becoming a woman, seek out male partners (in effect he would have gone from being a straight man to a straight woman).

All very overwhelming to think about at first – but if you really wanted to create an interesting character you might just leave all these matters quite fluid, and not have him make choices to be one thing or another. I hope this clears rather than muddies the waters!

Gabriel

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