What are your answers to questions raised by a mildly eye-popping (for lack of a better word) video?

I would imagine he learned to apply the make-up the same ways girls do, magazines, videos etc., it’s not like we (women) are born with a make-up bag in our baby pockets.

In fact, he could do my make-up any day.

Issues? Some men like to cross dress because it feels good. Other men want to trans over their sex, i.e. become female. Others are sissy boys, there are a multitude of reasons, that only become issues for other people. I have no idea what their parents think/know. I reckon all parents have their own individual views about it. As they are individuals like the guy in the video.

@LornaLove I would imagine he learned to apply the make-up the same ways girls do, magazines, videos etc., it’s not like we (women) are born with a make-up bag in our baby pockets.
I assumed the “art” was handed down from older sisters, aunties, mother, grandmothers, etc. Not left to magazines and videos, that smacks too much of trial and error to me. Maybe I am wrong and you can learn to apply makeup flawlessly the 1st time from a magazine. I can hardly imagine a boy going to his mother and asking how to apply foundation, or put on false eyelashes, unless she suspected he had su8gar in his tank all along.

Some men like to cross dress because it feels good.
That is something I cannot fathom….I really can’t.

Other men want to trans over their sex, i.e. become female.
Equally cannot fanthom.

1. All the sources you mentioned, some of them, or somewhere completely different – friends, for example.

2. Could be both.

3. Though it may surprise you, mothers have their opinions, just like the rest of us do. There isn’t one particular “mom’s opinion”.

4. “Good heavens, what if dad knows…” There are tolerant dads too, you know.

5. No.

6. Probably.

Not sure what’s eye popping about these videos. They’re pretty impressive, but eye popping?

1. Depends on the person, obviously. The same way women learn to apply makeup – and some do it better than others.

2. Again, depends on the person, and I’m not sure why they’d have to have “issues” here, but whatever. Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it.

3. Yet again, it depends on the person. And, what @longgone said. I’m sure some moms would have no problem with it, some would have a huge problem with it, and some would fall somewhere in between.

4. Same answer as #3.

5. No, not really.

6. It depends. I’ve been to many drag shows and, while some are obviously male, others make you think twice. My husband (yes, my husband, a straight guy, gasp!) and I went to a drag dinner show and our server, one of the performers, had better legs than anything I’ve ever seen on an actual woman. He’d clearly had surgery, but dude had some killer curves as well. I was just a tad jealous. Their makeup at these shows are meant to be dramatic, not “realistic,” but I’ve seen a few of them dressed as women in “real life” (on Facebook, for instance) and a few of them really do look like women.

• How did they learn to apply the makeup correctly? For instance, trial and error, older sister, mother, books, Youtube, etc.?
I was raised female and no-one ever taught me how to apply makeup. I learned by trial and error, from books and from copying celebrities on TV. Nowadays I expect it’s mostly Youtube.

• Are they straight doing it for fun (heaven knows why), or do they have identity issues going on?
The only way to know is to ask them. Lots of guys do it for fun, for sexual excitement, for a challenge, for any number of reasons. The majority of crossdressers are straight men with no desire to physically change their sex. (This is why those of us who do have to jump through so many hoops to get approved). BTW, gender identity and sexual orientation are unconnected. Transsexuals and crossdressers can be straight, gay or bi, just the same as non-trans people.

_• Do you think their mother knows and what do you believe she thinks about it?
• Does dad know, and what does he think about it. _
Again the only way to know is to ask the parents. Not all parents are unsupportive.

• When you see a woman with lots of makeup do you wonder who is really under all of that?
I usually wonder if she’d look any prettier without all that gunk on her face.

• (Being completely honest with yourself) If you passed by them at the mall, big box store, on the street or in a dark club (You may have even had a fake I.D. so don’t be silly and think they would never be in a club), you would not question they were female?
The two boys in those videos? No, I wouldn’t suspect at all. Though the fake eyelashes on the second one look totally ridiculous and I question why he is trying to look so sexualised at 13 years old. But if I saw them in public I wouldn’t even consider that they might be boys. I know many trans people, men and women, in my city. Some of them I can tell they’re trans and some I can’t.

@Hypocrisy_Central ”Some men like to cross dress because it feels good.
That is something I cannot fathom….I really can’t.

Other men want to trans over their sex, i.e. become female.
Equally cannot fanthom.”

And that is exactly why you don’t crossdress or want to change your sex. People who can’t fathom it don’t want do it.

@downtide BTW, gender identity and sexual orientation are unconnected. Transsexuals and crossdressers can be straight, gay or bi, just the same as non-trans people.
Ahhhhh……a nugget, please elucidate. How can they be two different issues from another? Let me put it this way, if I wanted to dress as a ”passable” woman, even in public, but I have no desire to have sex with men, what is the motivation? Even if I did want to have sex with men (which I never do), the men that would want to have sex with men, I suspect want their sexual partner to look like a man, hairy face and all (OK, maybe clean-shaven also). Why would a gay man want to be with a gay man that looks like a real woman, if he wanted that, would he not just get a ”real woman”, thus making him straight and not gay.

@Hypocrisy_Central Because sexuality isn’t black and white.

OK, lets take some examples; fictitious but typical of the types of people you can find in the trans-spectrum.

George is a middle-aged truck driver. To everyone who knows him, he’s a typical bloke; married, straight, has kids, watches football at the weekend and goes down the pub with his mates after work. In private though, he likes to wear women’s clothes, because it turns him on. Sometimes he can’t get sexually aroused any more without borrowing his wife’s panties or nightdress. He sometimes wonders what it would be like to go out in public dressed as a woman; the idea excites him but the one time he tried it, he received a lot of hateful comments so he doesn’t bother, and only does it at home now. His wife knows, and she worries about how it has affected their sex life, but he doesn’t dare tell anyone else because it would ruin his reputation as “an ordinary bloke”.

Peter is in his early twenties. When he was sixteen, some of the girls in his class at school challenged him to dress up as a girl. he thought it was a stupid idea but because he fancied one of the girls, and thought it might get him a date if he agreed, he went along with it. They loaned him some clothes, taught him how to put makeup on and do his hair. And he was surprised to find that he made a pretty convincing girl. He even went out clubbing with them, just to see what would happen, and nothing did. No-one noticed. He had fun pretending to flirt with some other boys and then finally telling them “gotcha! I’m a boy!” Since then he’s done this on a regular basis, for a laugh and because he likes to see the look of horror on the other lad’s faces when they find out he’s not a real girl.

Jamie is an art-student in his mid twenties. He’s a spiritual person; not religious but is interested in various new-age concepts. He believes that he has two souls in his body and that one of them is a girl. Sometimes, when the girl-soul is more dominant and he feels more feminine, he will dress as a girl and he will go out in public, even to college, dressed that way. He’s bisexual but prefers women and when he’s in “girl-mode” he says he’s a lesbian. He believes that he is what Native Americans sometimes call “two-spirited”. He does not want to undergo medical transition because he feels it would upset the balance but he would like his body to look more androgynous.

When Claire was four she knew already that she was supposed to be a boy. She screamed when her parents tried to make her wear a dress and she always preferred boys toys. No-one was surprised when she came out as a lesbian at 15, but even then, she felt that something was wrong and she didn’t fit. She was more butch than any of the other lesbians she knew and always felt that she had very little in common with them. In the end she realised that she could no longer call herself a lesbian because she didn’t even feel like a woman. She decided to undergo medical transition. Six years later, Claire now lives happily as Calvin, regards himself as a straight man and is in a steady relationship with a straight woman.

Jeremy, known to his friends as “Jem”, is a gay man in his mid thirties, and a very flamboyantly camp one. He dresses in drag for performances at his local gay cabaret and even when he’s not performing his manner of dress is still very feminine. He likes to be pretty, he likes to be a queen, he enjoys being the centre of attention. He is comfortable in his identity as a gay man and does not want to undergo medical transition.

Maria used to be Marco, a long time ago. Maria knew from a very early age that she was a girl inside. When she was 14 her parents found out and they kicked her out onto the street. She survived by dressing as a girl and prostituting for money. She saves what little she can and spends it on hormones she buys on the black market. She has grown natural breasts and looks very feminine but she has no hope that she will ever be able to afford the surgery that she really wants and needs in order to feel whole. Maria has sex with men in her line of work but she hates it; she hates all men and everything about them because all they ever do is abuse her. She loves women, identifies as a lesbian and would love to have a girlfriend but she doesn’t believe that will ever happen either. One day, one of her customers will murder her in a rage because she has a penis.

These may be fictional names and characters but these stories are happening for real.

Here’s another nugget for you.

Your sexual orientation (gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, asexual), is solely about who you like to be with in bed.

Your gender identity (male, female, androgynous, two-spirit) is who you are in your head and (if you are lucky) in your body as well. Doesn’t matter whether you’re in bed with someone else, or alone. Your gender identity determines the sexual orientation of your partner, not you.

Why, then, if you were born male at birth but identify as female and lesbian, why bother transitioning? Why not just stay as a straight man?

Because nobody spends 100% of their waking hours doing nothing but having sex.

Identifying as a woman means all day, every day, in every social interaction. The most important thing in the mind of most transsexual people is to be identified, recognised and accepted by others as the gender they identify with. By their family, their friends, their boss, their colleagues, the postman, the next-door-neighbour, the cashier at the supermarket, the nice old man on the corner who always waves, and every stranger they meet every day.

@downtide well I could go by way of the usual Fluther response and blow all of that off because there is no fact to say any of it happened or would happen the way you illustrated. However, I am more expanded of mind to see each of those situations as plausible, with that, I will address it as such.

He sometimes wonders what it would be like to go out in public dressed as a woman; the idea excites him but the one time he tried it, he received a lot of hateful comments so he doesn’t bother, and only does it at home now. He sometimes wonders what it would be like to go out in public dressed as a woman; the idea excites him but the one time he tried it, he received a lot of hateful comments so he doesn’t bother, and only does it at home now.
Would he be going out merely as a ”man in a frock”, or trying to be a convincing woman? If it is simply excitement going out dressed in women’s clothes, would he go the extra 9 yards to try to be undetectable as a man but seen as 100% woman?

He had fun pretending to flirt with some other boys and then finally telling them “gotcha! I’m a boy!” Since then he’s done this on a regular basis, for a laugh and because he likes to see the look of horror on the other lad’s faces when they find out he’s not a real girl.
Then I suspect he figures never to end up like Maria, in some capacity. It would be similar to a story I heard from some sailors about a trip to Asia where one who was new on the voyage did not know about a particular ”Billyboy” that worked the bars frequented by military men. This newbe, thinking it was a real girl, spent most of the night sucking face with his he/she trying to cop a feel, but was being blocked. That is until way late in the evening when I guess the Billyboy was too trunk and let his/her defenses down and the newbe got a feel of 3rd base and found a man on it. Let’s just say the shore patrol had to show up before he dismantled the bar after pummeling this poor Billyboy into the middle of the week after next.

He’s bisexual but prefers women and when he’s in “girl-mode” he says he’s a lesbian.
I may get attacked for saying so, but that is to me, just a straight man that is confused, no different than a gal saying she is bi sexual but don’t want to date or be intimate with males; she is gay but trying to avoid saying it.

No-one was surprised when she came out as a lesbian at 15, but even then, she felt that something was wrong and she didn’t fit.
To me that is more a byproduct of her not feeling like a girl but unable to be a boy. Being seen as a lesbian she would still be by most to be seen as a girl who like girls; ”That is just Clair, she is into women”. It doesn’t speak to me as a girl trying to fit into society as a guy and being known by only that, which would not work with anyone who knows who she is. Just as the guys in the videos, it would only really work if they were playing to a crowd that did not know them, and/or never seen both of them all dolled up like that. If Clair cropped her hair, wore boy’s clothes, stuffed a rolled sock in her crotch, and manufactured a believable male voice, then I would say she was equal to the guys in the video because she was trying to pull off ”guy”, and not girl dressed as guy.

He dresses in drag for performances at his local gay cabaret and even when he’s not performing his manner of dress is still very feminine.
Dressed in drag is dramatic and over the top. Even if his dress is feminine, or leans that way, I am sure no one would mistake him for a woman, nor would he be trying to pass, as the guys in the aforementioned video seems to attempt, by my opinion.

Maria has sex with men in her line of work but she hates it; she hates all men and everything about them because all they ever do is abuse her.
What type of men? Even if she has breast and feminine features, the dumbstick is still there, so guys having sex with her must be gay, but not wanting to appear gay because the penis is wrapped in long hair, breast, hips, and lipstick.

Though the fake eyelashes on the second one look totally ridiculous and I question why he is trying to look so sexualised at 13 years old.
All I can say, is if they are in the US, the media, and filtered down through friends, is that the more boinkable you are the better accepted, and desirable you are. To not have any one want to get naked with you makes you less than, or some trollish ghoul, hideous monstrosity, or cretin.

@Hypocrisy_Central all the extra questions and details you’re looking for, you can fill in yourself, and whatever answer you pick, you’ll be right for somebody in the world. These stories were intended to be brief little snapshots, not full biographies.

Just one thing I’d like to respond to:
that is to me, just a straight man that is confused
The straight part is irrelevant here – we’re talking about his gender, not his sexuality. Ignore, for a moment, who he wants to sleep with. Let’s change the story and make him asexual – he doesn’t like sex at all and doesn’t want to sleep with anybody. Now we can examine his gender identity in more detail and re-phrase your statement more accurately…

“he’s just a man that’s confused (about his gender identity)”

This is exactly right, but there’s more to it than that. If he was an ordinary man with no inclination to dress as a girl, no thoughts about his own gender identity being different in any way, he wouldn’t be confused. He would be 100% convinced that he is 100% male, just the same as you. But Jamie is not convinced. It is that very confusion that moves him off the “100% male” end of the scale and into something a bit more androgynous or fluid. If he felt 100% female, he would be a true transsexual, like Maria. But Jamie doesn’t feel like that either. He is the gender equivalent of a bisexual. people like Jamie would stop being confused when one of two things happen; either they eventually settle at one of the 100% ends, male or female, or they accept the blending/fluidity of their gender as a natural and comfortable way for him to be.

Now compare Jamie with Calvin and Maria. Calvin was almost certainly confused in his early life when he was trying to be Claire. The same for Maria as a child, Marco. But they have accepted their own gender identity as being firmly on the opposite end to the one on which they were born. There’s no confusion there. Calvin knows for certain that he’s a man, Maria knows for certain that she’s a woman.

The terms “trans” or “gender variant” apply to all of the people in my stories but the term “transsexual” applies only to Calvin and Maria because they are the only two who sit fully on the opposite end of the scale to the end on which they were born. Some transsexuals (like Maria) know right from the very beginning, as soon as they’re old enough to understand that humans are divided into boys and girls. Some, like Calvin, are “confused” for longer. But not a single one of them will ever be happy or comfortable sitting on the same end of the scale as where they were born.

As for me personally, I was one of those who knew from the beginning. I knew from a very early age that there had somehow been a terrible mistake and I was a boy, even though everyone kept telling me I was a girl. I also discovered that telling people that I was a boy was bad and would get me hurt. So I learned very quickly to never tell anybody. But keeping it all bottled up and secret eventually hurts more than fists do, and that’s the point in a transsexual person’s life when one of two things happens. Either they start to talk about how they feel and start making the necessary changes to express their hidden gender publically. Or they take their own life.

The percentage of people in the general population worldwide who commit suicide is 1.6%. Among transsexuals, that rises to 41% worldwide. This figure drops dramatically amongst transsexual people who are able to undergo social and/or medical transition to enable them to continue living their lives as the gender they always felt they should have been.

Without that, I would have been one of the 41% and @downtide would have quietly disappeared from Fluther some time in early 2010.