He's the mayor! He's a queen! He's the mayor! He's a queen! Stop! He's two, two, two people in one. OK, I got the old commercial reference in, and by now you've figured out that I'm talking about New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He'a man with real balls...and rubber tits. Word has it that when Rudia Giuliandrews hit the stage in full drag mouths fell open, and many in the crowd asked the question, "What's he on?"
Of course, it's good news for us, girls. Just think. Next time someone says something derogatory (isn't that one of those old photographs?) tell 'em if it's good enough for the mayor of New York... it's good enough for you.
New York is the world's largest closet so it's only appropo that the mayor should dress up. I figure he can get away with it if he limits his dressing up to the occasional night at LIPS or Edelwiess. Just don't take the offical mayor's car and staff. One more appearance in a frock at a high profile media event, like this $400 a plate charity dinner, and it's good bye re-election. Unless perhaps Howardette Stern get's out the drag queen vote. hink of the campaign promises Rudia would have to make.
Rudia's won a place in history cause she's the only (known) mayorof New York to appear in drag. Ed Koch came close in 1984 by appearing in a gold lamé stretch bodysuit with a mechanical pigeon on his head. I hope the pigeon didn't clash with the bodysuit. Were there any mechanical pigeon droppings?
While the media made a big hoopla over Giuliani they didn't say much about the rest of the mayor's staff. The whole crew, except for stick-in-the-mud Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington, crossdressed for the event. (The female staffers wore tuxes.) Like they say, the staff that crossdresses together...uh, um...shares mascara! Or something like that.
Anyhow, The Diva applauds the mayor's hutzpah and encourges more elected officials to cross the gender border. After all if politicians are really interested in a kinder, gentler" approach to government what better way to achieve it than by getting in touch with their feminine sides.
The Mayor's drag show brought inspiration for a piece in March 9th's New York Times. The article contended that the Mayor couldn't get away with an act like that twenty years ago, but now, "...drag is safely desexualized, presented as a lovable exccentricity..." While it may raise a few eyebrows (properly plucked, I hope) and get people talking, the Mayor knew that it wouldn't really effect his popularity, anymore than Howard's appearances as Howardette lost him any fans. The common people won't imagine that the Mayor or Howard might enjoy dressing up for more private functions. If they suspected that, then it might be another story.
The article quotes New York drag queen Hedda Lettuce in regard to the idea of heterosexual crossdressers. She says, "Their denial is as great as their need to wear bad make-up." Look out Hedda, them's fightin' words. Although, I do agree that many hetero CDs do wear bad makeup. Can you say the word "trowel?" What she's wrong about is a common misconception among drag queens: that dressing up is a gay thing. That you have to want to sleep with men to wear a short skirt. So, when a CD says she's heterosexual Hedda and the girls scoff cause they don't see the seperation exists between being turned on by wearing women's clothes and being with women, and being turned on by wearing women's clothes and being with men.
A theater critic, Linda Winer, is quoted from an essay in which she compared straight men in drag (in theater, but she probalby feels that way about them on the street) as akin to minstrel shows with white men in black face. She say, "At least RuPaul is the real thing." Well, excuse me. Does it mean that I have to sleep with men if I want to wear a dress? I don't think so, girlfriend. And as far as straight men in drag roles, does the word "acting" sound familiar. Actors are called upon to be many characters that have nothing to do with their own personality. Did Carrol O' Connor have to be a working class bigot to play Archie Bunker? Did Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon have to actually be on the run from the mob to play the characters in Some Like It Hot? No, they were acting.
It's really because of the role clothing plays in sexual attraction that people get confused. A hot red dress and spike heels pushes a man's "turn on button." If the outfit is on a man then people don't understand why he wants to wear it. Is he trying to turn on other men? Well, then he must be gay. The man in the red dress is turned on by wearing the dress. He's also turned on by other people being turned on over him wearing the dress. He doesn't necessarily want to sleep with men. But as the Chevalier D'Eon said ages ago, he might be willing to grant "small favors" to those who admire his feminine presentation. In modern day terms, I'll rub up against anybody when I'm feeling hot and sexy. That doesn't mean I want to make a life with them and bear their children. (I can't anyway, thank goodness. Children make glamour so hard to maintain.)
The bottomline is, (Beavis turns to Butthead and says, "She said "bottom.") there are many degrees of crossdressing desire and many degrees of sexual orientation. Depending on how these different desires manifest in an individual (pretty high faluttin' talk) determines how that individual will turn out. To further confuse things, we are all in a state of flux. (Uh oh, we're not in Kansas anymore.) Our desires in both areas can shift over time. Welcome to planet Earth kids. It's all mixed up but it can-be a lot of fun...in the right wardrobe.
Here's an item sent from across the pond by our loyal reader, Peter. It will either make you laugh or cry. Possibly both. The Independant newspaper carried a story in February about eight "transvestites" who are sueing their doctor over breast implants. Thailand is even more confused about gender issues than the U.S. so it's safe to say that we would probably call these girls (in our typically American desire to label everything) transgenderists or transsexuals. Women here have sued over silicon breast implants that leaked and caused problems. The Thai doctor who operated on these eight ladies, thoughtfully, did not use silicon. Instead he used salt water, but not in the approved type of implant. This genius used condoms filled with salt water. The ladies are suing for malpractice and damages. They plan to use the money to have their breasts rebuilt. I do hope this time they'll pick a surgeon who didn't get hlis degree out of a box of Cracker Jacks.
Word is going around that you can get a cheap sex-change in Thailand. When I first heard this I had to wonder about the quality of the service. I think this item shows I was right to question the surgical skills you might get for a bargain price. Remember girls, you can bargain shop for clothes, you can bargain shop for accessories, you can bargain shop for shoes, but... if you are considering serious body modifications go first class, if you can.
The hour long talk show format is less than effective for presenting alternative ideas and lifestyles to a general audience. In view of this most of the large transgender groups in the country have declared a moratorium on talk show appearances by their members. It'strue that you are never going to convince Joe Sixpack and his significant other that it's OK for men to wear dresses by appearing on a talk show. About the only thing you can accomplish is to let people who already feel like wearing the attire of the opposite sex that they are not alone and there are support groups out there for them. So, unfortunately, the only effect the moratorium has had is to fill the seats on talk show stages with loose cannons who promote their own brands of transgenderism. While these people may be correct in the things they say about their own situation, (and I doubt that many of them are that together) they tend to make sweeping generalizations that could scare some poor guy who's struggling with his TG tendencies.
Such is the case with a recent appearance by "Alice: Had a Sex Change At 50" on the Jerry Springer Show. Alice stated her reason for appearing on the show as a desire to have people know, "...some of us can be good citizens." Now what the hell is that suposed to mean? It implies that she feels that most transsexuals (which was how she identified) are not good citizens. During the course of her interview I found myself (God forbid) siding with Springer. He asked her why she felt she had to have a gender change at fifty. She replied, "It was the right thing to do" When asked to expand, she went into the typical crap about expressing her sensitivity, being gentle and feminine. When asked why she couldn't do that without totally changing her gender she said she just couldn't. That sounds like a real hangup to me.
Alice further explained that a year before she had her operation in Thailand (hope they didn't use condoms for her breasts) she tried to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. She claimed that deep depression over her gender issues made her do it. She didn't really mention any counseling or therapy. Could she be a self diagnosed transsexual? The trip to Thailand is a clue. I don't think the Standards of Care are available in Thai.
She made a couple of other statements that made me cringe. One concerned the nature of transsexualism. She claimed that many transsexuals know at an early age that they are TS. Then she made a snide remark about TSs getting into one upmanship about how early they knew they were TS. It's obvious she has had a few debates. Her topper was that she, like many others had crossdressed for years and then "develop"(ed) into a transsexual. This is where I had visions of the poor guy at home watching, fascinatated by the whole thing, thinking of finally calling a support group and coming out of the closet suddenly getting scared that he would be starting down the road to surgery and slamming his closet door.
Alice can say she is a transgenderist. She can say she feels more comfortable with female genitalia. All that may be valid for her, but she shouldn't say that she is a transsexual. While it may only be my opinion, she's not. I think so because of her inability to be sensitive and gentle as a male. Another clue was how she had to interject (twice) how wonderful she felt trying on an expensive fur coat the day before. She said she felt like a woman trying on the coat. I have news for her. I can get in my car any day and go to the fur store, in drag or out, and try on coats to my heart's content. I won't feel like a woman. I'll feel like a crossdresser, and that's the extasy I heard in Alice's voice when she described thatexperience.
Some members of the community have felt that we should make some protest over the presentation and treatment of trangendered people on shows like Jerry Springer's. Well, we should. You can write to Jerry and demand that he get his facts straight, at least, if he is going to have the transgendered on his show. Alice was the only guest on this particular one. What about a dissenting opinion? Write to: Jerry Springer Show, 454 N. Columbus Drive, Chicago, IL 60611. Tell him to treat us better, to check his facts and get some people with the latest information. It may do no good, since his show depends on controversy and drum und strang for ratings, but at least you'll feel better after making your feeling known. I know I do.
That's how you say "short stuff" when you've got a thesarus. The Imperial Court, and I'm not talking about the one ruled by the Emperor from Star Wars, is 25 years old. San Francisco's Imperial Court of Emperors and Empresses celebrated their anniversary recently. I always wondered how they decided on the Imperial Court motif and thanks to an item from the Bay Area Reporter I not only know, but can share the information with you.
Back in the l9th century a guy named Joshua Norton (nothing to do with Norton Utilities for your computer) proclaimed himself Emperor of San Francisco and became the cities' unofficial mascot until 1880. Time marched on and around eighty years later a drag entertainer named Jose Sarria started using "The Widow Norton" as a stage name. The Widow claimed the title "Absolute First Empress." Sarria and the next six empresses that were elected all ruled without consorts. After that the ladies felt they needed some emperors to help their benevolent rule.
The silver anniversary celebration was blessed by the attendance of all of the former empresses. While some where a bit long in the tooth a good time was had by all. The Imperial Court system has been copied around the country by 61 other groups and all are involved in community service and volunteer work. Let's hope they're around for another 25 years at the least.
Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, California held a crossdressing day recently. Now it's always a good idea for kids to learn about gender roles but ya gotta be careful putting the boys in skirts. Ya wanna ease into something like that. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of the details on this one, but it seems the event got out of hand and the kids almost started a riot. They had to call in the Sheriff to get things under control and some arrests were made for throwing things and inciting the crowd. It just goes to show: Drag is always a powerful thing.
The organization PFLAG (Parents, Families, and friends of Lesbians And Gays) has a webpage. On their page they have information from their TransParent project. (Is that a parent you can see through?) It is meant for parents of transgendered people but it also has info on how to come out to your parents. Check itout. It's well done. They also have an Internet mailing list.
Well, that's it for March. Don't let anyone get you in any April Fool's jokes and stay pretty.