by Graham Holmes
Introduction
I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about some issues which ought to be of paramount importance to us as crossdressers, and yet which are considered tantamount to heresy within polite crossdressing society. They address the fundamental nature of what we consider ourselves to be, how we view - and are viewed by - the outside world, and the impact of the things we do - or don't do - on future generations of people like us.
First of all, a short personal history is in order for you to better understand my philosophy. I started crossdressing at about 6 years of age, and spent the next 12 years being interviewed by a succession of psychiatrists, based on my mother's belief that there was something wrong with a boy who wanted to wear girls' clothes. I left home at 18 for university, where I continued to dress in secret using whatever I could lay my hands on. I was in my late 30s when I decided I could no longer live this way, so I joined the Beaumont Society [1] and TransEssex (as it then was) [2] in March 1996 under the assumed name of Sally Watson, and launched myself onto the crossdressing scene. However, it was just six months before I began questioning the accepted crossdressing culture of masquerading as women, and I rapidly realised this wasn't going to be right for me. In creating Sally, I'd merely swapped one closet for another, and this hadn't resolved any of the underlying issues.
So I began to experiment with mixed-gendered presentations, and soon became comfortable in this mode of dressing, being accepted by the vast majority of my friends, neighbours, and work colleagues. Then around Christmas 1999, I became a "man in a skirt" full-time, having negotiated with my employer BT for the right to wear a skirt and high heels to work under their diversity policy, and being assured by the Musicians' Union that I can't be victimised for wearing a suitable skirt-based outfit for my work on the professional theatre circuit. But it hasn't all been plain sailing. I've been verbally abused, I've been threatened, and I've been warned that if I persist in going out in public without my wig, I'll get beaten up. Ironically, this behaviour has come not from the public, but from members of the Beaumont Society.
Crossdressers' Perspective
The Beaumont Society's Constitution [3] actually says nothing about required modes of dress or behaviour except that members mustn't bring the Society into disrepute. Nevertheless, both the Society as a whole and its individual members promote the lifestyle of dressing up as women, which invariably includes make-up, a wig, false breasts and other body padding [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]; in fact, this is a common thread running through all major support groups [13,14,15,16,17]. It's also widely accepted in the crossdressing community that we should learn to emulate women in behaviour and mannerisms, and to try to pass when we're dressed [4,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]. Along with a female name and identity, this is supposed to allow us to express our femininity, or to release our "inner woman" [27].
But this lifestyle is riddled with philosophical and logical contradictions. For example, the argument that it's necessary for us as men to use women's clothes - far less wigs, false breasts or female identities - in order to be able to express our so-called "femininity" is problematic. For one thing, it erroneously implies that non-crossdressing men are incapable of expressing feminine emotions. Just as nonsensical is the reciprocal inference that women might wear false beards and fake penises to make themselves feel more masculine, but how often do we see young women pretending to be men so they can indulge in rowdy behaviour down the pub? The issue of passing is similarly contradictory. Most crossdressers claim that, above all else, they want to be seen as real women by the public [7,18,22,23,28,29,30,31,32], and they go to extraordinary lengths to try to achieve this. Many also insist that this practice will lead to the public acceptance of male crossdressing, but crossdressers who pass are - by definition - invisible as crossdressers, so how can they achieve this?
The cornerstone of traditional crossdressing is its reliance on maintaining and accentuating the distinction between masculinity and femininity. But even this is troublesome: let's not forget that these are man-made constructs designed in a bygone age to prescribe which behaviours are acceptable for which sex [28,33]. Nowadays, with women in government and the military, and men in nursing and childcare, these boundaries are blurring, and "masculine" and "feminine" are becoming obsolete social descriptors. Of course, women's fashion has been a victim of this change, and much of what contemporary crossdressers define as "feminine" - flowing dresses, corsets, suspenders, seamed stockings and stiletto heels - has virtually disappeared from modern female wardrobes. However, it's worth noting that a few crossdressers have expressed a desire to see women return to a 1950s-style appearance [29,34,35,36], for without a clear boundary between the sexes, there's nothing for them to cross. In other words, if all women exercised their contemporary right to wear trousers, tank-tops, trainers and no make-up, how could men wearing big wigs, dresses and stiletto heels claim that they were women?
Contrast this with the modus operandi of the growing number of clothing-rights advocacy movements [37,38], including my own political group, TCR [39]. These are being formed by men who simply want the same freedom of choice in what they wear as that already enjoyed by women - this may not always include women's clothes, but may incorporate make-up, jewellery, and other feminine styles or accoutrements. There are no hidden dress-code rules, no unverifiable claims of femininity, and no hankering after outdated social conventions. Under pressure from such people, policymakers are beginning to concede that it's discrimination to deny men this basic right to freedom of personal expression [40,41], and I'm excited to be at the cutting edge of reform programmes involving human rights, social recognition, and employment protection in this area [42,43,44]. However, most traditional crossdressers can't understand a man who wants to wear women's clothes and not be seen as a woman [45]; some have even said that presenting as a mixture of male and female is simply unacceptable [4,18,19], and threatens the safety of the closet. But why? What's to stop the closet and activism co-existing? After all, despite their political activities, doesn't the gay minority still have a closet?
In the absence of a political forum like Stonewall, one might expect that crossdresser support groups would provide safe environments for open discussion on key issues such as this. However, years of social isolation have allowed them to degenerate into breeding grounds for hysteria, paranoia, and lies about the alleged hostility of the outside world towards men who wear women's clothes, resulting in the present situation in which crossdressers are afraid to go out in public unless they can pass successfully. Passing has thus become an obsession of pathological proportions in contemporary crossdressing circles. Yet much of the so-called "evidence" that we have to pass is hearsay, rumour, and anecdote, promoted by those who've never stepped outside their front doors dressed. On the other hand, I have years of personal experience which proves that passing isn't necessary. I know the overwhelming majority of the public doesn't care how we dress: it's just not an important issue to them, and an increasing number of less-than-passable crossdressers are confirming this [29,33,42,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57].
But despite my best efforts at encouraging alternative modes of male presentation, one only has to look in a typical crossdresser magazine [8,15], or at the participants at a typical crossdresser meeting, to realise that the ideas of presenting as women, pretending to be women, and passing, have a stranglehold on our community. This presentation is too short to speculate about how many crossdressers really are women psychologically - while I'm willing to entertain the possibility that some are, I can't accept that it's universally the case: the statistics just don't add up. Compared with the female population, there are far too many men masquerading as the opposite sex in secret, and far too few exercising their right to simply wear the clothes of their choice without masquerade. I propose that the current crossdressing culture is the result of decades of brainwashing - specifically, the insidious enforcement of a prescribed mode of dress and behaviour onto a vulnerable, impressionable, and frightened group of men. I'm certain that, had they been given a free choice in the matter, many would have chosen to present themselves in an alternative manner as I do; indeed, a half-dozen of my friends and colleagues have partially or totally rejected the traditional teachings over the last few years [50,58,59,60], and without coercion from me. Contrary to popular belief, my goals don't include forcing my views onto traditional crossdressers, but they do include blowing the whistle on the large number of traditional crossdressers who persist in forcing their views onto everyone else. Fundamentally, I believe that crossdressers should be presented with all the options, then left to decide for themselves how they wish to present.
Unfortunately, such freedom of choice is anathema to some in the crossdressing community, and a small number have attacked me for exposing the sinister undercurrent of intimidation and threats directed against those who question the established philosophy. They've tried to belittle my activities, discredit my evidence, and destroy my reputation amongst my friends [4,18,61]. It's ironic that, while one might expect such macho bully-boy behaviour from petty tyrants, it's here being perpetrated by men who claim to display the classic feminine attributes of compassion and caring; this simply reinforces my belief that such claims are nothing but a sham. This offensive and abusive subculture must be purged from our support groups; until it is, the transcommunity will remain backward, support groups will remain ineffective, and crossdressers everywhere will remain an oppressed, misrepresented, and invisible minority. This is not acceptable.
The Role of the Support Groups
My experience suggests that the majority of the public isn't aware of our obsession with being seen as real women, and while many people play along with our charade, they still see us as men dressed like women. The popular conclusion is that crossdressers are homosexual - an impression reinforced by exaggerated displays of female mannerisms from both gays and crossdressers. However, I'm much more alarmed by the beliefs that crossdressers are freaks, perverts, or paedophiles, which, because they've never been formally challenged, have become firmly established in the public mind [62,63,64,65]. When I moved house in 1999, for example, my new neighbour told me that a local man had recently been sent to jail following his conviction as a paedophile, and if I didn't want to be the subject of a hate campaign, I should keep my crossdressing secret. More recently, one of my friends had his house raided by the Police, after a neighbour saw him wearing a skirt and reported him on suspicion of dealing in child pornography. And so on. All other minority support networks have political agendas and a presence in wider society, and such offensive discrimination on the basis of an assumed lifestyle isn't tolerated. It's because the crossdressing minority has consistently resisted the forging of this vital link into the outside world that we're now caught in a vicious circle of events: our secretive way of life has spawned a damaging public-domain mythology over the last few decades which, although erroneous, nevertheless serves to perpetuate the secrecy today. I believe our support groups are wasted in their present role of what amounts to little more than a set of anonymous contact networks for closet crossdressers, and I maintain that we should be encouraging them to be active on our behalf in breaking this destructive cycle.
Some groups will argue that they're already active in this arena, citing their contacts with support organisations such as The Samaritans, Relate and MIND [66]. However, the only time that Relate for instance is likely to have anything to do with crossdressers is when a woman has discovered a stash of female clothes in a suitcase in the attic, and suddenly her husband of perhaps thirty years has become a filthy pervert from whom she wants an immediate divorce. In fact, far from being a valuable liaison exercise, our dialogue with such organisations is mostly damage limitation; for the unfortunate crossdresser in the above situation, it's too little, too late. Effective support would seek to remove the potential for such discovery scenarios, and this can only be achieved through proactive widespread public education programmes about the nature of crossdressing. I therefore strongly applaud the fine work recently carried out with Essex Police by TransLiving's president Stacy Novak [67]. But our paranoia runs very deep, especially where the Police are concerned [68,69], and I was disappointed - although not surprised - to hear that Stacy's work was greeted by the membership with disinterest. Nevertheless, this is precisely the sort of public initiative we should be taking, and I urge other support group leaders to follow Stacy's example on behalf of their respective memberships.
Now before the knee-jerk reactionaries start spreading their propaganda about the potential dangers of such activism, I ask them to think about what's actually involved. I'm talking about cultivating a sense of "tranny pride" to replace the unhealthy fear and paranoia currently pervading the transcommunity. I'm talking about dissociating the image of crossdressers from the less savoury elements in our society, and challenging the gutter media when they persist in making damaging accusations about us. I'm talking about persuading discriminating employers to change their conditions of employment. I'm talking about lecturing in schools and colleges to break the perpetual cycle of taunts and insults from teenagers, and instilling in them an understanding of what we are, so as to prevent them growing into ignorant and prejudiced adults. And, of course, I'm talking about making the outside world a place where crossdressers will feel safe. Do such initiatives necessarily lead to our unwelcome exposure? No, of course they don't - on the contrary, they can all be progressed by our support groups while maintaining the secure environment which they've traditionally offered to their members. But by shaping the social climate in our favour, support groups would by default encourage the development of a forward-looking agenda, thereby facilitating our personal growth as equal members of the human race.
Ultimately, of course, real support means making support unnecessary - an interesting paradox which requires support groups to work towards their own demise. However, the president of a major UK support group has recently expressed the view that support groups will be needed indefinitely because there will always be "confused people" who need to be shown "the right direction" in a world where crossdressing will "never be totally accepted" [70]. Cynics might interpret this statement as proof that support groups have a self-serving interest in pursuing an agenda which ensures internal stagnation regardless of external social change. To me, it's also confirmation that those at the top of our support groups suffer the same stifling fear and paranoia as the regular membership; unfortunately, from such a position, they can offer us nothing in terms of guidance or support. Such influential positions ought to be filled by those with the courage and the will to lead from the front, and we should be demanding that this is so.
The Role of the Medical Profession
Many crossdressers hold the medical profession in great esteem on account of its ability to grant them their Dream Ticket of becoming the women they claim they ought to have been. But let's get one thing straight - the primary function of the medical profession in this respect is to use counselling or surgery to remove from society those who don't conform to the conventional two-sex two-gender model which is alleged to characterise the human species, and it justifies its actions by categorising such people as mentally disordered. It has no interest in true male freedom of expression, because that invariably involves some crossing of traditional gender boundaries. In the final part of my presentation, I want to explore this offensive and archaic eugenics-type philosophy, seek the reasons for the medical profession's stubborn refusal to update it, and consider what we as the affected minority should be doing to force the issue. So I'd like to introduce The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM version IV [71], last revised in August 2000, which contains the current definition of crossdressing and its diagnostic criteria as a mental disorder.
Article 302.3 of DSM-IV deals specifically with crossdressing - or rather with "transvestic fetishism", TF. This term appeared in DSM-III in 1987, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to link crossdressing with some form of sexual activity or perversion; indeed, as the associated text explains, "while crossdressed, [the transvestic fetishist] usually masturbates, imagining himself to be both the male and the female object of his sexual fantasy". However, it goes on to say that "in some individuals, the motivation for crossdressing may change over time, with sexual arousal ...... diminishing or disappearing" - a scenario which many "out" crossdressers will recognise. Curiously, DSM doesn't make clear how this latter form of crossdressing without sexual arousal can still be described as "fetishism".
The article also states that "[TF] has been described only in heterosexual males". This completely frees women from the stigma of dressing-related mental illness, regardless of what they choose to wear or their motivation for wearing it. DSM offers no explanation for why the breaking of an arbitrary set of social customs is acceptable for one sex, yet results in a diagnosis of mental illness for the other - neither does it comment on why gay men are exempt from this diagnosis. However, one critic has suggested that it reflects and promotes the higher social status of heterosexual men in western society [72]; while this is perhaps the most plausible explanation, it's nevertheless of some concern that a contemporary medical text should effectively label gays, crossdressers, and women as second-class citizens.
On the subject of males with TF, DSM further states that "although his basic preference is heterosexual, he tends to have few sexual partners and may have engaged in occasional homosexual acts. An associated feature may be the presence of sexual masochism." What's the point of such vague speculation? And where are the details of the control sample of non-crossdressers against which these statistics were compared? It's hardly worth arguing against such rubbish - however, as a point of interest, it's widely believed in contemporary crossdressing circles that the incidence of homosexuality amongst crossdressers is similar to that amongst non-crossdressers [73,74], and I suspect the same applies to sexual masochism.
The second diagnostic criterion for TF is equally vague. To quote, "the fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviours [surrounding crossdressing must] cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning". Once again, DSM fails to make clear whether this distress or impairment must be caused by a crossdressing-related pathology (such as latent transsexualism), or whether it may simply originate from the prejudice which crossdressing invariably attracts. In practice, the diagnosis is left up to the judgement of the specialist, who may be of the opinion that any crossdressing automatically infers distress, in which case a misdiagnosis of mental disorder is likely.
Finally, it's worth noting that TF comes under the heading of "sexual and gender identity disorders", subheading "paraphilias". I've already dismissed the notion that it's a sexual disorder, but is it a gender identity disorder? Well no, it's not that either: someone who crossdresses may feel that he doesn't fit into any of the traditional gender categories, but to classify him as having a gender identity disorder is to deny the validity of his particular gender identity. No-one can claim that one set of identities is "right" while another set is "wrong", and it's certainly not for the medical profession to create its own arbitrary distinction, then use it to categorise certain groups of people as mentally ill just because they have unconventional lifestyles. But what about "paraphilias"? Well, to put this in context, other paraphilias described in DSM-IV include exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual sadism, and paedophilia. The association of crossdressing with such repugnant criminal activities is outrageous.
Let's speculate for a moment on why the medical profession has chosen not to revise these aspects of DSM-IV. Its practitioners have plenty of experience of dealing with both crossdressers and transsexuals, and will have amassed large quantities of data on their respective lifestyles. Yet they've squandered numerous opportunities over the last few decades to put this information to good use. They've encouraged the conventional two-sex two-gender system even when it's crystal clear that such a scheme is inadequate to represent the human species, and in so doing, they've perpetrated human-rights abuses on everyone from crossdressers to intersexed children. They've done nothing to educate the public about the true nature of sex and gender, leaving transsexual activists and gender warriors like me on the front line to deal with the consequent threat of violence from a handful of small-minded bigots. They've witnessed in silence both the mountain of human misery and the staggering waste of human potential in one-sided relationships where the husband must crossdress in secret while the wife is allowed to "crossdress" in public. Then they've taken what in most instances is a benign activity, surrounded it with pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and invalid statistics, and placed it in a manual of mental disorders alongside voyeurism, sadism, and paedophilia where it clearly doesn't belong. I suggest that the medical profession is failing crossdressers by deliberately misinterpreting their embarrassed silence as some form of tacit agreement with its diagnosis of mental illness, because it doesn't want to be held responsible for the social, sexual and cultural upheavals which would result from the fundamental redefinition of gender values which it knows is long overdue.
Maybe the medical profession is afraid of losing public confidence by admitting that crossdressers are mostly just regular men with an unconventional dress sense - but that doesn't justify our being used as a scapegoat. DSM's worthless description and diagnosis of transvestic fetishism must as a matter of urgency be replaced with unambiguous criteria designed to determine when crossdressing is a symptom of a more serious underlying problem; where these criteria aren't met, crossdressing should be viewed simply as a social or cultural matter. I regard this as the single most important issue affecting crossdressers today, because as long as the medical profession believes we're all mentally disordered, what chance do we have of convincing a sceptical public that we're not? In fact, transgender advocacy groups already exist with the aim of reforming DSM [72,75,76,77], and all we crossdressers need to do is empower our support groups to work with them; it's simple, it's secure, and it's in all our long-term interests. However, I've already shown in this presentation how our obsession with secrecy and anonymity is holding us back on every single issue to do with realising our future as members of the human race, and I have no doubt that we'll treat this new opportunity with similar contempt.
Final Thoughts
I make no apologies for placing the blame for our current predicament squarely at the feet of individual crossdressers. In many respects, it's unfortunate that we can become invisible by assuming the guise of regular trouser-wearing men when our safety is at stake, and I try to imagine how things might have turned out had we not been able to do so. For instance, would we still in the third millennium be disguising ourselves as women and meeting in secret - or would we have been forced to stand up for our individuality, our human rights, and the freedom of expression for which countless people have given their lives? Would we be expending so much energy on excuses about our "inner woman", our femininity, and the comfort of the closet - or would we have turned those energies to something infinitely more useful, namely securing our future free from harassment and abuse? Clearly, the reason we're all still in the closet today is because we can be - we've found ways of avoiding having to face the outside world as crossdressing men, and we've manufactured all sorts of fantastic lies, excuses, rules and rituals to ensure that this remains so indefinitely. And as if that wasn't bad enough, we've prostituted our so-called "support groups" into a trivial role where they provide nothing more than an extension to our personal closets. So instead of sitting around congratulating ourselves for all the advances we believe we've achieved for our minority, we should be in disgrace for our complacency, our closed-mindedness and our cowardice - for those are the reasons we've achieved so little.
References
| 1 | The Beaumont Society, 27 Old Gloucester Road, London, WC1N 3XX. On-line at http://www.beaumontsociety.org.uk. |
| 2 | TransEssex, now TransLiving International, PO Box 3, Basildon, Essex, SS13 3WA. On-line at http://www.transliving.co.uk. |
| 3 | Beaumont Society Constitution, latest revision January 1992. |
| 4 | Untitled letter from Lena. Beaumont Magazine 7/1 (March 1999), 64. |
| 5 | "The Prosthetic Dilemma - Revisited" by Helen. Beaumont Magazine 9/3 (September 2001), 24. |
| 6 | "Does my Bum Look Good in This?" by Lesley. Beaumont Magazine 9/3 (September 2001), 27-28. |
| 7 | "A Tale of Two Titties" by Penny Ellis. Beaumont Magazine 10/4 (December 2002), 40-42. |
| 8 | Photo Call. Beaumont Magazine, every issue. |
| 9 | TransCare (Basildon) - supplier of make-up, wigs, body padding. Beaumont Magazine, every issue. |
| 10 | Andrea McGill Wigs (Bridgenorth) - supplier of wigs. Beaumont Magazine, every issue. |
| 11 | Hair by Mervyn (Wisbech) - supplier of wigs. Beaumont Magazine, every issue. |
| 12 | Catherine Robertson (Falkirk) - supplier of panty-girdles for crossdressers. Beaumont Magazine, every issue. |
| 13 | Michelle Fashions - supplier of clothing, wigs, body padding. TransLife International, every issue. |
| 14 | Transformation - supplier of clothing, make-up, wigs, body padding, magazines. TransLife International, every issue. |
| 15 | Photo Feature. Repartee, every issue. |
| 16 | Kentucky Woman - supplier of clothing, make-up, wigs, body padding. Repartee, every issue. |
| 17 | TransWigs - supplier of wigs. Repartee, every issue. |
| 18 | Untitled letter from Debbie. Beaumont Magazine 7/3 (September 1999), 67. |
| 19 | Untitled letter from Sarahjane. Beaumont Magazine 8/1 (March 2000), 66-67. |
| 20 | Ashley Carrington on the unacceptability of bearded crossdressers, from "Dear Ashley". TransLife International 3, 45. |
| 21 | "To Become or Not to Become ..." by Sara Louise Hope. Beaumont Magazine 9/1 (March 2001), 4. |
| 22 | "Act Like a Woman" by Claire. Repartee 37 (Summer 2001), 47. |
| 23 | "TV Choice", by Penny Ellis. Beaumont Magazine 9/3 (September 2001), 55-56. |
| 24 | "Passing on a Budget" by Danielle Daniels. TransLife International 5, 10-15. |
| 25 | "Walking the Walk" by Kate. TransLife International 5, 49. |
| 26 | "Abby's Steps to Enlightenment!" Beaumont Magazine 10/1 (March 2002), 39-42. |
| 27 | Untitled letter from Angela. Beaumont Magazine 7/1 (March 1999), 66-67. |
| 28 | "En Passant" by Ama Tate. Beaumont Magazine 8/1 (March 2000), 10-11. |
| 29 | "The Invisible Barrier" by Sarah Jane Campbell. Beaumont Magazine 8/1 (March 2000), 46-49. |
| 30 | "Chester Finishing School" by Lena. Beaumont Magazine 7/1 (March 1999), 3-5. |
| 31 | "Some Passing Thoughts on 'Passing'" by Janet Grant. Beaumont Magazine 7/3 (September 1999), 8. |
| 32 | "Close Encounters of a Fourth Kind" by Jenny. Beaumont Magazine 7/3 (September 1999), 25-26. |
| 33 | "The Second Coming (Out), or Is it The First?" by Philip Ama Harris. Beaumont Magazine 10/3 (September 2002), 43-44. |
| 34 | Untitled letter from Susan. Repartee 33 (Winter 1999/2000), 54. |
| 35 | "Learning Curves" by Alison. Beaumont Magazine 10/2 (June 2002), 55-56. |
| 36 | "The Demise of the Dress?" by Danielle Daniels. TransLife International 8, 7-9. |
| 37 | International Men's Fashion Freedom Network. On-line at http://www.imff.net/. |
| 38 | Freestyle Fashion group. On-line at http://freespace.virgin.net/firey.fox/freestyle.htm. |
| 39 | Total Clothing Rights (TCR) advocacy group. On-line at http://totalclothingrights.org. |
| 40 | "Trade Union Congress Recognises Transgender Issues". Beaumont Magazine 9/3 (September 2001), 28. |
| 41 | "No Win Situation for Winn-Dixie!", Beaumont Magazine 10/1 (March 2002), 29. |
| 42 | "If You Feel like Going to Work in a Skirt, Do It" by Graham Holmes. Beaumont Magazine 8/1 (March 2000), 18-21. |
| 43 | "Your New Government Commission" by Graham Holmes. Letter to Barbara Roche MP, 12 August 2002 et seq.. Pub. TransLife International 9, 50-51. |
| 44 | "Discrimination in Rulings on School Uniform - The EOC's Position", by Graham Holmes. Letter to the Equal Opportunities Commission, 29 October 2002 et seq.. |
| 45 | Untitled letter from Lesley. Beaumont Magazine 6/4 (December 1998), 46-47. |
| 46 | Untitled letter by Stuart. Beaumont Magazine 7/4 (December 1999), 61-62. |
| 47 | "A Swallowtail Butterfly Goes South" by Angela. Beaumont Magazine 8/1 (March 2000), 7-9. |
| 48 | "Preston 1999: A Personal Liberation" by Lena. Beaumont Magazine 8/3 (September 2000), 47-49. |
| 49 | "The Renaissance Group of Blackpool" by Sara Louise Hope. Beaumont Magazine 8/4 (December 2000), 15-16. |
| 50 | "'Somewhere' is the Place to Be" by Philip Ama Tate Harris. Beaumont Magazine 8/4 (December 2000), 24-28. |
| 51 | "Wisbech River Festival" by Louise. Beaumont Magazine 8/4 (December 2000), 51. |
| 52 | "Meeting my New Wife" by Graham Holmes. Beaumont Magazine 8/4 (December 2000), 52-56. |
| 53 | "Total Clothing Rights and Eddie Izzard Fans" by Oliver. Beaumont Magazine 10/4 (December 2002), 45. |
| 54 | "Dressing-up the Camino de Santiago" by Philip A Harris. Beaumont Magazine 10/4 (December 2002), 55-56. |
| 55 | "The Opportune Flaunt" by Gloria Sarsse. Beaumont Magazine 11/1 (March 2003), 11. |
| 56 | "A Touch of Darkness" by Jean Winchester. Beaumont Magazine 11/1 (March 2003), 55. |
| 57 | "A Letter from Helen" by Helen. Beaumont Magazine 11/2 (June 2003), 47. |
| 58 | Untitled letter from Rich a.k.a. Rikki Ward. Beaumont Magazine 7/2 (June 1999), 65-66. |
| 59 | Personal correspondence from Debbie Linton, 15 December 2000 et seq.. |
| 60 | Personal correspondence from Rita Woodland, 1 January 2001 et seq.. |
| 61 | E-mail to the Beaumont Society and TransLiving International Executive Committees from Danielle Daniels, 21 December 2001. |
| 62 | "Will You Try to Understand?" by Rachel Miller. Beaumont Magazine 7/4 (December 1999), 18-19. |
| 63 | "Turning the Tables" by Graham Holmes. Beaumont Magazine 9/4 (December 2001), 27-29. |
| 64 | "Susie's Musings" by Susan Heywood. Beaumont Magazine 10/1 (March 2002), 27-28. |
| 65 | "Shirley's Story" by Shirley. Beaumont Magazine 10/3 (September 2002), 60-62. |
| 66 | Janett Scott. Beaumont Magazine 11/2 (June 2003), 2. |
| 67 | "The Police Are Approachable", TransLife International 9, 55. |
| 68 | "Evening, Madam. Is This Your Vehicle?" by Sarah Jane Campbell. Beaumont Magazine 6/4 (December 1998), 25-26. |
| 69 | "Trans Policing in South Yorkshire" by Pauline Anne Armitage. Beaumont Magazine 11/2 (June 2003), 55-56. |
| 70 | "An Interview with Jenny Baker" by Ruth Stewart. Beaumont Magazine 11/1 (March 2003), 51-54. |
| 71 | "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Version IV" by The American Psychiatric Association. Pub. American Psychiatric Press, 1994. ISBN 0890420629. |
| 72 | GIDreform.org. On-line at http://www.transgender.org/tg/gidr/index.html. |
| 73 | "The Great Sexuality Debate" by Martine Rose, Repartee 33 (Winter 1999/2000), 48-49. |
| 74 | "Transvestism" by Martine Rose, Repartee 34 (Spring 2000), 4. |
| 75 | Gender Identity Center of Colorado. On-line at http://gicofcolo.org. |
| 76 | GenderPAC. On-line at http://www.gpac.org. |
| 77 | TransAdvocate.org. On-line at http://www.transadvocate.org. |
About the Author
Graham Holmes is a professional communications systems engineer, a semi-professional musician, and a staunchly-political clothing rights advocate. For nearly four years, his everyday presentation has included women's clothes, but not a female name or identity. While he remains a member of the Beaumont Society and TransLiving International, he believes that the current crossdressing philosophy relies too heavily on secrecy, anonymity, and female masquerade, and he works within these groups to encourage support for mixed-gendered modes of presentation. Graham is a co-founder of the advocacy group Total Clothing Rights (http://totalclothingrights.org), which lobbies the government, academic institutions, educational establishments and the media in an effort to dispel the myths and taboos surrounding male crossdressing, and to gain a measure of legal protection, employment rights, and social respect for crossdressers everywhere. He's also a member of the LGBT working group headed by Suffolk Police as part of their public liaison initiative. Graham is the author of a number of essays on gender politics, and with his wife Kim has featured in Woman magazine (3 December 2001), and in an internet-based Video Nation for the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/videonation/man_in_a_dress.shtml).
Presented at the TransGender 2003 Conference, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, September 6th 2003.