It's not been the best of weeks. Crossdressing was in the news this week due to author J.K Rowling's new detective novel Troubled Blood (written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith). I won't go heavily into this as Ms Rowling and her comments on trans people are quite well known and this has stirred everything up again. Also, I've not read the source material myself. The story can be found below.
I find it a shame that transvestite killers are still a trope in this day and age. Silence of the Lambs has been mentioned however I think it goes back at least to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho although there was at least a reason why Norman Bates dressed up and it wasn't anything to do with a fetish. It's still seen as something very seedy and something to be scared of. Hopefully programmes like Ru Paul's Drag Race and more public figures embracing crossdressing along with ongoing discussions about different gender identities will at least help it become more acceptable and less like a seedy, perverted activity performed by lonely men in run down bedsits.
One more thing I wanted to mention is something I meant to last week and that's a TV programme Hayley Goes...Gender Curious. It's one in a series in which Hayley Pearce, former star of The Call Centre documentary, tries out various things for a month including going sober and going vegan. It was a pleasing grab bag of various gender related talking points including pronouns, crossdressing, male make-up, gender identity and trans issues. Hayley is a bubbly, likeable, down to earth presenter which I think helps with the issues presented. There's also a particularly good explanation of the 'they' pronoun through the use of a jacket on a chair.
One final mention is for a company I've just come across, Bettertights. I can't vouch for the quality of the product though. So why am I mentioning it? Well they're another company who have championed diversity and inclusivity which is always nice to hear because we all need less judgment in our choice of clothing.
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