Who’s the fella in a skirt?

[HeelD]

I found this amusing article in the London Paper a couple of weeks back. Not really a freestyle piece but more of a general crossdressing article that I thought some of you might enjoy.

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/love?packedargs=categoryId%3D1157139732540

Who’s the fella in a skirt?

by Joshua Hunt. Wednesday, 13 December 2006

Me, in drag? Have I gone mad? It looks like it. I’ve finally agreed to accompany my friend David to Limehouse’s premier transvestite nightspot, Stunners. The only way through the door, however, is in lip gloss and heels. It won’t be my first time cross-dressing – I’ve already had a drag phase when I was seven.

Before then, I was routinely to be found in the classroom Wendy house in a tulle petticoat dragged from the dressing-up box, ordering everyone to call me Mrs Hunt. All the same, though it’s not entirely uncharted territory for me, I’ve got mixed feelings about my impending foray.

For a start, where will I start shaving? On top of that, I can’t help thinking that dressing up as a “lady” isn’t necessarily that radical or exciting any more. When I visited mainstream gay clubs in Manhattan’s ghastly Chelsea district (full of identikit humourless muscloids uniformly clad in Aberzombie and Fitch) I noticed that anyone not pumped enough to manage the muscle look had been hustled into drag. Rather than being the big ‘F*** You’ to gender stereotypes it should have been, donning girlie glad rags seemed to act more like sparkly camouflage for guys ashamed of not making the body fascist grade.

Still, some of my favourite people of all time – Hi-NRG diva Sylvester, operatic disco-punk star Klaus Nomi – have been gender benders of some sort, and the most amusing people in London all seem to be working an androgynous look right now. I see performers like pole dancer and bingo caller extraordinaire Jonny Woo and the hugely talented Ryan Styles everywhere, and they constantly show me up as the dowdy moth-like creature I have lazily become. Rather than expecting applause for looking like bald parodies of glam women, they both use their appearances as mere starting points for building ­extreme, spectacular per­sonas that give cross-dressing back the rough edge it requires.

They’ve convinced me that my jeans and trainers risk becoming the gay equivalent of a pipe and slippers, the cosy, safe attire of someone who’s given up. So if you see a skew-wigged man scratching his stubbly cleavage while tottering through Limehouse docks on wobbly heels, it may well be me.

joshua@thelondonpaper.com

[Dr. Shoe]

What an idiot! He is obviously gay so what would he do if someone slagged off his lifestyle like that? Does he not understand that there is a difference between drag and transvesticism?

[Guy N. Heels]

What an idiot! He is obviously gay so what would he do if someone slagged off his lifestyle like that?

Does he not understand that there is a difference between drag and transvesticism?

Apparently not!

[DandyDude]

There is also a difference between transvestism and freestyling as well.

[dr1819]

What an idiot! He is obviously gay so what would he do if someone slagged off his lifestyle like that?

Does he not understand that there is a difference between drag and transvesticism?

And cross-dressing and freestyling (thanks, DandyDude) and simple personal choice?

By the way, I'm no longer a "fashion freestyler," because it's just another label the ignorants slap onto someone when they see something out of the norm.

During my flight home, while waiting in the airport lobby in Denver, I had a conversation with a younger man (about 30) who was fairly open-minded, but was trying to figure out how to classify me. He asked me how I considered myself, so I said, "why don't you take a guess." After going through several classifications, he gave up, and I said, "I consider myself lucky to be alive," alluding to the two highway accidents I've had as an adult.

He looked perplexed, so I grinned and added, "I consider myself to be male. How do you consider yourself?"

"Well, male," was his response.

I found that rather telling given the large similarity in our manner of style, except for the very small 3.5" x 1/2" difference on the bottom of both of my shoes...