The Crossdream Life forum for gender variant people is back online!
The Crossdream Life forum, a safe space for all shades of transgender and genderqueer, has been hard to reach for the few days, as forum host Lefora has moved over to new servers.
The forum is now back online. Let’s meet over at Crossdream Life and talk about what it means to be trans gifted!
I have been reading Felix Conrad’s new ebook on gender variance and sexology. Well written, interesting and provocative, as always. This post will not be so much a review of the book as a commentary on what it covers. We agree that we need a new narrative that makes sense of the sexuality of gender variant people.
We need a new model, a new narrative, a new way of thinking about sexual desire and gender variance, because right now we are far too busy reacting to the belief systems of old:
You know, the ones that sort gender variant people into categories like “effeminate gay men” and “autogynephiliacs”, “real trans women” and “fetishists”, people “trapped in the wrong bodies” and “sexual perverts”.
We are lacking a new synthesis
The fact that we are arguing against the old is inevitable. This is how human thought evolves. To use the vocabulary of Hegel: We start out with one way of looking at the world (thesis), which is then challenged by another (antithesis) until the world moves on to a third position (synthesis).
What we are lacking is the synthesis. Felix does not provide us with that new model in the book, or at least not fully, but he gives as a pretty good idea about where we have to go.
If I understand him correctly we have to get to the point where we discuss the sexuality and sexual desires of queer and gender variant people freely and openly. We have to get to a point where we are able to make those fantasies an integrated part of transgender identities of all kinds (and I use the word transgender here as an umbrella term for all types of gender variance here).
Right now sexual fantasies of the crossdreamer kind are considered invalidating not only for transsexual women and men – who have transitioned or who want to do so – but also for non-transitioning transgender people (including those genderqueer, crossdressing, drag and more).
The Crossdream Life discussion forum for transgender and genderqueer people, crossdressers and crossdreamers, has moved to a new location: crossdreamlife.lefora.com.
Talk about your life and your interests and how to cope with being trans or gender nonconforming.
Read about gender variance
Discuss crossdressing, crossdreaming, trans and gender variance
Chat with friends
Just a little reminder: Crossdream Life is a safe place open to all transgender and gender nonconforming people. Stop by and tell your story!
[James] spends his life balancing
between what the world expects of him and what he wishes to expect in
his world. [He] embraces beauty, and takes on challenges with full
belief in the power creativity has to transform one’s self [into Maxi]. Now the
lines blur more than ever between what is reality and what is make-up.
Taken over the space of one afternoon, I had no goal but to capture
images of Maxi’s gradual transformation. Gathering together varying
materials and make-up, we avoided setting boundaries or restrictions on
what we wanted to see through the lens. The focus was on the process,
not on the outcome.
Turning away from the notion of drag as creating another persona to
live through, Maxi and I believe the recreation of drag empowers a
larger, more genuine self, a self that is ever-present, to break free
from the usual physical and social limitations contemporary life sets on
our identity.
To Maxi, all is filled with potential and through experimenting with
varied cosmetics, clothes, fabrics and fibres, we see the building
blocks of an ever increasing complexity of character, the shadows that
lurk inside Pandora’s box, the ultra-ego.
This
season’s ad campaign represents a series of connected events; a visual
narrative. It is a personal diary of people who have and continue to
inspire me and open my mind to different ways of seeing and thinking. […]
The
spectrum of individuals photographed in our Spring/Summer 2016 ad
campaign represent a celebration of my America. [… T]he people featured in
our campaign personify this collection of fashion through their
individuality. Collectively, they embody and celebrate the spirit and
beauty of equality. […]
She
expressed thoughts and ideas that have filled my head and heart always
but had never been so eloquently captured in language that was so
tangible, intelligent, poignant and full of possibility. I found myself
referencing Lana’s words in my daily life and sharing her speech with
close friends.
In
the days before our Spring/Summer ‘16 fashion show and through a
fateful series of communications, much to my incomprehensible delight,
Lana accepted an
invitation to our show in New York City and thus I took her, “fashion
show virginity.” Lana’s ineffable beauty captured by David [Sism] in this
portrait reminds me of the personal sentiment she shared with me about,
“learning you can make important friends at anytime in your life.”
DAN DONIGAN aka MILK:
One
night while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race I recognized one of our men’s
sweaters on a tall, handsome contestant. His unique, artistic drag
sensibility reminded me so much of the amazing drag characters of my
club days at The Pyramid, Copacabana and other New York haunts I used to
frequent.
Upon realizing that Dan Donigan was MILK (who used to work with us at Marc Jacobs), I started following @bigandmilky on Instagram.
Today
I share with you […] the touching
direct message (DM) I received from Dan after “liking” one of his
photographs: “Hey there!
I want to start out by saying thank you!
When
I started working for the MJ stores 5 years ago, I wasn’t sure what I
wanted to do with my life. I was lost. All I knew was that I wanted to
flex my creative muscle and most importantly, be happy. Working for your
namesake company helped me along the way. It was living the summer of
2011 at the store in Ptown that opened my eyes to so many different
outlets of what the art of drag could be. It wasn’t necessarily about
female impersonation. It was about representing oneself in the most
fabulous way, whether it be a Cher impersonator or throwing a shit ton
of glitter on your face and dancing the night away in a basement! 😍
Where
I am now in my life is absolutely surreal. Of course I have worked my
ass off along the way which has only made it that much tighter and
easier to show off haha 😜As a 15 year old little boy, I would never
have thought I would be here, travelling around the world, putting on
makeup, and performing for fans. I am blessed to have had the past I
had, a life that pushed me to reach and strive for something unknown yet
better!
Long story short(ish)…Thank you for following me and contributing to my creative life. It really does mean a lot 💗
When you’re gay, the simple act of holding hands is anything but simple, says gay rights activist Panti Bliss.
“I am 45 years old and I have never once unselfconsciously held hands
with a lover in public,” she says. “I am 45 years old and I have never
once casually, comfortably, carelessly held hands with a partner in
public … Because gay people do not get to hold hands in public without
first considering the risk. Gay people do not get to put an arm through
another arm or put a hand on a boyfriend’s waist without first
considering what the possible consequences might be.”
Her gay agenda? To change that. To live in a society where hand holding
between any people is just hand holding and where everyone knows that
Bliss and other LGBTQ people are “just as ordinary, just as
unremarkable, and just as human as you.”
There are a lot of people out there who think they know you better than you know yourself. They do not. In fact, most of them are most likely trying to calm their own fears by forcing you into the narrow definitions of reality they were brought up to believe in.
The reason they spend so much time trying to convince you is probably because there is one part of them that suspects that what they have been taught is all wrong. Who knows, there may be important parts of themselves that are breaking those rules – rules developed by grumpy old men a couple of hundred years ago.
Straight, bisexual, gay or asexual? Cis, trans, genderqueer or nonbinary? Only you can find out. And if none of the labels fit, make your own!
The article presents photos taken by Kevin Frayer of drag performers in the Nanning, Guangxi Province of Southern China.
Frayer says:
“The drag queens showcased in my photographs work in the same night club. Some of them live and socialize together, and some are in relationships with each other. They are really wonderful people – warm, engaging, honest and inviting. It is nice to share their experience with others.”
No, I do not know the gender identity of these people. Then, as today, people would crossdress for various reasons, but researcher at the time (like Magnus Hirschfeld) tell us that many of them identified with their target sex.
![sallymolay:
“ A Man Breaking Free From The Limitations Of This Society Photographer Indrek Galetin writes:
“ [James] spends his life balancing between what the world expects of him and what he wishes to expect in his world. [He] embraces beauty, and...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/4d9d78d4c9ea6fc58aa6da4fb842bf51/tumblr_o2jcpdlHgi1tddzm2o1_500.jpg)
![sallymolay:
“ A Man Breaking Free From The Limitations Of This Society Photographer Indrek Galetin writes:
“ [James] spends his life balancing between what the world expects of him and what he wishes to expect in his world. [He] embraces beauty, and...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/93bf04848b9cfb70d6e2c3f36d43cacb/tumblr_o2jcpdlHgi1tddzm2o3_500.jpg)
![sallymolay:
“ A Man Breaking Free From The Limitations Of This Society Photographer Indrek Galetin writes:
“ [James] spends his life balancing between what the world expects of him and what he wishes to expect in his world. [He] embraces beauty, and...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/821feb45ce39cc21a3aeb811accd4916/tumblr_o2jcpdlHgi1tddzm2o5_500.jpg)
![sallymolay:
“ A Man Breaking Free From The Limitations Of This Society Photographer Indrek Galetin writes:
“ [James] spends his life balancing between what the world expects of him and what he wishes to expect in his world. [He] embraces beauty, and...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/34f9a588a1d73f98c4b549ab72a31b1e/tumblr_o2jcpdlHgi1tddzm2o4_500.jpg)
