Acceptance

We all want to
be accepted (even warmly) by our families, friends and co-workers
without qualification. Especially with our families “unconditional
love” is the way humans act. Or should act. Humans are normally
gregarious creatures and it shows when we go out to a restaurant or
night spot where you will see people interacting, having animated
conversations at their tables or even embracing on the dance floor.
While not exactly pack animals like a wolf-pack who use the pack as
their hunting device in order to survive, humans do better and are
generally happier when they have friends and good relations with
other humans. BTW wolves are generally gregarious too.

This is why we
have clubs. Similar or the same interests brings people together to
form clubs like our CD Girls club “Masquerade” that aims to
foster camaraderie and help for members. And we do try to help girls
who are new to getting out and about and with girl clothing and all
the hundreds of items, thoughts, fears that most or all of us have
about being a MtF Girl. I adore those times when I can dress up as a
woman and without reservation head out the door for an event or
appointment. Our club helps people to get to that stage and it
certainly helped me as a budding CD girl. In our club men who like to
dress as a woman are accepted without question.

We have said
before that things in this society (The West on Planet Earth) are
better than they were only fifty years ago. Remember those nefarious
pictures of MtF Cds getting arrested in supposedly cosmopolitan
cities like NY? Crazy to think that dressing in a glamorous evening
gown could get you arrested if you were a man. But it did.

Over the last
few years some people in the CDLGBTxx community have pushed for
acceptance and even beyond that for “celebration”. I recently
read of a CD girl lamenting that she could not tell everyone about
her “other life”. That other life being living as a woman in a
male body for much of her life. We have to be careful with this.

Acceptance is
one thing and it is perhaps a step beyond mere “tolerance” which
in itself is a pretty good development. We can mostly go out as MtF
CD girls without fear of getting bonked on the head. Tolerance. Many
people accept that others these days want to live a somewhat
different lifestyle from theirs and in our society we are free to do
that. Acceptance. I feel accepted when I go out solo in public and
I'm not under the illusion that I'm passing as a woman from closeup.
When met with the comment in the TV show MASH “Hey, from closeup
you're a man!” crossdressing Corporal Klinger would simply say
“Yah, from far away too!”. LOL.

Frankly, I
think we are doing pretty well at getting the “acceptance” part
done. The vast majority are ok with me going out to Costco or Safeway
dressed as a woman. But some in our broad alternative lifestyle
community are not happy with that and are actively pushing for
“celebration”. And thus a backlash is developing in broader
society which may affect those people who merely want to crossdress
in security without attracting undue attention.

It is really
nobody else's business that you want to crossdress and go out in
public. It's your business not theirs. But unless you like to perform
in Drag Shows I don't think it is useful to bring undue attention to
ourselves. This is the bottom line. Most people see that there are
two sexes, male and female. That is never going to change. When I
crossdress I am a man dressing up as women used to do in happier
times. I am still a man. Some people are further along the gender
continuum and feel they want to be seen as being a woman through out
their life. That is fine just do not try telling other people that by
willing it you have changed your chromosomes from male to female. (In
sports you will still have an unfair strength advantage over a
female.) It doesn't work that way. The louder and more brash the
community is in wanting “celebration” by everybody else, the more
intense the backlash is going be.

General
acceptance is great but, you know, there will be some people who will
never accept that I'm a man who likes to dress up as a woman. And,
yes, I have seen them out in public. Just stay away from them. Even
if you tried, you would probably never change their minds. Going from
“Acceptance” to “Celebration” carries its own risks.

Yours always,
in caution, Brianna