Well, I say ‘people’. Narrow-minded, homo-nervous men, usually. Gay people almost never think I’m gay. I am very straight acting, and gay men tend to fucking GO FOR IT when then cross-dress in a way I don’t. Like Sphirex:

Heterosexuality is the centre of my trans-identity. Not that I identify with straight men, but that I fucking adore women. My affection for females is rooted in my very early friendships with my neighbours (ALL the kids on my street were girls) and the all-female cast of adult characters my early years consisted of (my older brothers were too old to take an interest in me and my dad worked extremely long hours).

It remains the case that the more I cross dress the more attention I get from the ladies. The way I can converse with women through the common interest of clothes and make-up is amazing. Even the straightest women tend to come on board when I tell them their shoes are from Aldo, and I’ve been after a pair of those for ages.

And yet here I come across a feminist issue. The fact that I often relate to women through the medium of the cliches that are said about them, “what’s with the women and the shoes?” means I sometimes have a skewed perspective on feminist problems. I love the artificial, constructed aspects of femininity. The current trend for very high heels and false eyelashes speaks to a part of my sexuality that’s somewhat at odds with my politics.

But the irony that cross dressing is seen as a gay thing is continually funny to me, when I consider the different ways men and women relate to me when I’m dressed feminine.

If you take an interest in girls’ things they like you more. I learned this through the medium of Barbie, and it’s never quite left me.

Nice boots, by the way.

This what I have mostly been wearing this week. Mostly.

It’s an uncomfortable fact, but the sexes seem to diverge as they age, presumably the different effects of hormones. I’m 32, I look young for my age, but I’m definitely conscious of how long I can keep this up. There is already a dissonance when I wear make-up. People still look at me in such as a way as to say ‘your face is wrong for that.’  Will there come a point when the dissonance between my masculine face and feminine presentation becomes too much for my own sensibilities? I only want to do this if I look good, to my own way of thinking.

I might change my mind, but I reckon I’ll probably do it less and less often as I get older. I do regret not starting earlier, definitely. I reckon could have passed when I was 15, with my unblemished skin and complete lack of facial hair. It makes me want to be able to contact ALL the young closeted transvestites so I can tell them “START NOW! You’ll have your look down earlier, and you look more androgynous now than you ever will!”

This brings me to an issue that has come up through comments, which is ‘the importance of what other people think’. I think I have covered this a bit before, but I’ll have another go.

I am pretty misanthropic. I have done lots of stand-up about this in the past. And I therefore take with a pinch of salt the expression of other people’s opinions. However, we all live in society. We may be able to dismiss the opinions of people we dislike, and the expression of negativity about gender spasticity may well be exactly enough to make someone unlikeable, but there are always some people we want to like us. Whether that’s family, old pre-outing friends, or people with similar interests and backgrounds.

I once went to a book reading in a skirt. The book was about Psychogeography, a subject I love, and which tends to attract fairly countercultural people. The author, a charming and well-socialised guy, was visibly uncomfortable talking to me. As often happens, it was only when I displayed my sense of humour and my knowledge about the subject that he relaxed and spoke to me like a normal person.

To give an idea of what this is like – imagine talking to someone while you have some shit on the end of your nose, but they are too polite to mention it. That’s the kind of look. A kind of I’d-rather-be-talking-to-anyone-else-but-you kind of look.

I took emails from people at the talk. I wanted some people to go on walks round London with. No-one got back to me.

You just can’t tell when someone’s going to have an issue with it. So I am conscious of what other people think. Against my will, it must be said!

This leads me to think it’s important for me to make a point of cross-dressing when I do gigs. It’s a rare opportunity to make people get on board with the whole thing. I present myself as self-aware, and funny (hopefully) and it subtly increases people’s acceptance of the whole thing. I am up on stage, being good at what I do, and it makes the whole thing seem more acceptable. (Hopefully.) I just really want this to not be an issue anymore. For anyone. Especially people less horribly confident than me…

Oh – and another thing: I got asked what I was wearing in a radio interview the other day. In the context of being a tranny. That was a bit awkward. He persisted, too. I was too bewildered to make the obvious phone sex joke at the time.

Of course, the weight a compliment carries depends on who has given it. If it’s someone you respect, or fancy it’s that much more potent.

If it’s from one of those crap, old-school type trannies, or someone who dresses really badly, the compliment suddenly associates you with something you don’t want to be.

An over-egged compliment can seem too much and carry the smack of “I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have me as a member.”

A lot of the compliments I get from women have an edge of self-deprecation. “You’re better at make-up than me,” “I could never pull that off,” “boys have better legs than girls.” It’s a reminder that the self-image problems transvestites have are also suffered by women due to the effect the fashion and advertising industries have.

So giving compliments sincerely is a good way of undermining the propaganda of the beauty industry. Plastic surgery can get fucked. Let’s make people feel good about themselves like the gay best friends we know we all want to be!

Best compliments I’ve had:

1. “I do.” Yeah, that’s got to be the best. The person I most adore in the world agreeing to spend her life with me.

2. A female friend of mine who I still don’t know that well asking me for advice on what to wear to a party. She laid out her dresses on her bed and called me in for my opinion. High praise. She’s completely hot too.

3. “Who does your make-up?” I do! I take that as a win.

Most hilarious, which I get semi- regularly after the stand-up I do about being shouted at for looking like a woman AS WELL as for cross dressing: “Don’t worry; you DON’T look like a woman”. Well intentioned, but missing the point to a depressing degree.

What are the best compliments you have received?

Thinking about family stuff reminded me of the fact that this sort of thing is always easier with new people. Those you have known for years, especially those who knew you as a kid find it harder to accept what they see as a change. Ironically, if you were closeted, they most likely formed part of the reason you were closeted in the first place.

The ignorance or conservative nature of family and family friends is by far a bigger issue than the reactions of strangers, however unpleasant. It’s something that never seems to leave. See my blog about having to come out again and again.