Is it just me ?

[IAmM]

  Yeah, what we like or don't like, approve or disapprove of, those are our things. My exhaustive wall of nonsense is just what I have taken away from my experiences. Gah, if you can you believe it, that was more annoying to write than to read!

The blackface issue was serious beyond this to a point that I wish we could let that drop. It was part of a persistent, culture wide dehumanization of an entire race that should in no way be used as an example or an exclamation point for any other modern topic.

Bah! My views and I am done preaching. The Other Woman, one of my favorite movies, makes several jokes at transsexuals' expense and I struggle with that. On the one hand here is a movie that I could see a good bit of my relationships with my friends in, on the other they really push the trans issue into a negative light. And my friends think that I am being too sensitive, You are not like that, no one sees you like that so why does it bother you so much? The thing is it is still me, no matter how different I am from the majority of the trans community or how much I am excluded from it, at the center there is an undeniable sameness. I don't know the answers. I do know that I am tired of our culture of censorship, and a lot of how I react to many things is pushing back against that. Pay no attention to me. Lol, my one trans friend and I have had to develop an agreed to disagree attitude to a lot of issues. I won't express my views here anymore.

Yep, strip clubs and things like that are not for me either. There are girls that love them, and not just the male strip clubs. I do like the men but I don't have any desire to ever go to one of those again either. It was fun once, an interesting experience to say the least and I don't regret going but it is not for me. I think that I am indifferent to female strip clubs, I don't want to be them and I don't care one way or another to look at them, they are making money though and people seem to enjoy it so, okay. Honestly, I hate high heels the closest that I have is a pair of wedges that I never wear. My sister took me to a really expensive strip show one time that was really good. It didn't feel the same as other things that I had seen, it was a story with men and women and I thought it was beautiful. Made us both cry at one point which seem counterproductive to what a strip show should be about. My last roommate and I have been friends since high school and she loves boobs, and kissing girls but I don't think she a lesbian or ever had sex with a woman, sorry, got off track. She says that I was too critical of the women, I don't think so. At some point my mind needed something to keep it occupied and I started to compare them but not that one was better than others or that anything was unattractive. Oo, oo, I have the perfect analogy for the thread. My older brother lllloooooooovvvvveeeesssss drag and he used to make me go every year to a three day event with him. I only went one day, there are not enough guns in the world to make me go three. Seriously how do you look at cars and watch them drive down a short road for three days? Sorry, it is so lame how much enjoyment I get out of stupid things, still makes me smile that you were envisioning my brother making me go to a drag show with him. It was mind numbing to me for almost the same reason that stip clubs are, the noise and my indifference to the subject matter. Then again, I don't think anyone has ever gotten a sunburn at a strip club. Curse you fair skin! Thinking about the sun I believe I got a sunburn on my elbow just now.

Oh my god, there I go again! Seriously, I am not like this in real life, I talk much, much less. And I am always smiling. Hmmm, seems the me here is actually the anti me. Sorry?

Laters

[Lucca]

I haven't had time to read every post here, but I'll point out that before the term "transgender" was common and before it was feasible for most AMAB folk with feminine presentation to have "normal" lives and not be relegated to the dregs of society, a lot of people who would probably now be classified as transgender were called (and called themselves) "drag queens" or just "queens". These people tended to spend time in gay/queer bars like the now-famous Stonewall Inn, and the constant harrassment they received is part of what sparked the Stonewall riots.

I'm not certain what relation these past "drag queens" have with what we'd call a drag queen today, but it's worth pointing out. Additionally, literally anyone with a penis who was caught wearing women's clothing could be (and often were) charged with a crime and arrested, no matter whether they were "transgender" or not. Police would actually strip someone's clothes off and inspect the genitals. In this respect, both "actual transgender people" and crossdressers/drag queens were all in the same boat, no one really made a distinction in those days.

[Michelle_P]

I haven't had time to read every post here, but I'll point out that before the term "transgender" was common and before it was feasible for most AMAB folk with feminine presentation to have "normal" lives and not be relegated to the dregs of society, a lot of people who would probably now be classified as transgender were called (and called themselves) "drag queens" or just "queens". These people tended to spend time in gay/queer bars like the now-famous Stonewall Inn, and the constant harrassment they received is part of what sparked the Stonewall riots.

I'm not certain what relation these past "drag queens" have with what we'd call a drag queen today, but it's worth pointing out. Additionally, literally anyone with a penis who was caught wearing women's clothing could be (and often were) charged with a crime and arrested, no matter whether they were "transgender" or not. Police would actually strip someone's clothes off and inspect the genitals. In this respect, both "actual transgender people" and crossdressers/drag queens were all in the same boat, no one really made a distinction in those days.

That about sums it up.  We could be out, but only in certain parts of town.  In San Francisco, there were queens who performed in clubs, sex workers, and in the late 60s, kids looking for a place to crash, coming to San Francisco with flowers in their hair...  I got caught in one such raid, a street sweep in the Haight, hauled to juvenile hall, charged with a "false personation" morals charge as my top buttoned the wrong way for my genitals, and handed over to my parents.  There was no differentiation between orientations and gender identities, all lumped together as 'homosexuals'. 

There were regular police raids, particularly when an election was coming up.  It was almost a 'round up the usual suspects' scene in the Tenderloin, especially at Compton's Cafeteria, where a lot of the queens would hang out, checking in with each other to see who had made it through the night.  (I got "Dutch Auntied" by one of the regulars.). I think at that time, 1968-69, "transgender" as a word might have appeared in a few papers.  Harry Benjamin, the endocrinologist who came up with the first modern medically supervised hormone replacement therapy and transition protocols, had just started working with the city's public health department on a program that would eventually divert the queens for treatment if they so chose.  (I heard nothing about this at the time, but my late father-in-law had worked with Benjamin on the public health department side.)

[KimOct]

I love topics that tangent on to other interesting topics.    Lots of interesting views here - I love it.  And yes IamM
I did think you were talking about a drag show.   

And I realize I have to correct my strip club visits to 5.  I forgot (how could I )   When I was 15 years old we went on a school trip to London and France.  If I was a parent I would have killed our chaperones.  I grew up a lot in 10 days.
Anyway one of the sanctioned visits was to the Folies Bergere.   It is a long time ( 100+ yrs ) cabaret and Paris institution which also has naked women. 

OMG  I was 15 seeing my first naked woman.  When we got the itineraries at home before the trip my grandparents were shocked it was on there.  They knew what it was and they were paying for the trip LOL.  So yeah I started going at age 15 - well sort of.  It's supposedly sophisticated.

[Linde]

The view Michelle and Kim had during the 60, and probably 70's was absolutely different from the one I had living in Germany at that time.  By the early 60's, prostitution was made legal, and the ladies of the night had to undergo weekly health checks and had to pay taxes on their services.  I think anybody could run around in any kind of clothing, and nobody really cared.  Naked bodies and sexual interaction was shown on public TV channels during prime time, it was just not a big deal anymore.  But I still did not like the Drag Queens in Germany, because they were so into your face and seemed to be oversexualised that they were found in the red light districts only!