Gender Bend

Crossdressing is generally addressed with smirks and laughs because the term generally conjures up the image of a man dressed as a women, down to falsie eyelashes and fishnet stockings. The transition is a convincing one and you’re faced with a glammed up uberwoman, taller, louder and more made up than any woman you’ve ever seen in your life. Or else, it goes the other way and you end up with what is obviously a man, playing a joke by wearing women’s clothes.

When women crossdress, people don't care. I guess it’s because our wardrobes are broader than mens’, we can wear trousers and dresses, pants suits and button down shirts. No one considers those things out of the ordinary. We simply take whatever men’s clothes we like, and we wear them. When men do this, it's rarely a success.

Even if we take men’s clothes, we still put our own twist on them. Yes, you can just buy the man version and keep it moving, but it seems the clothing manufacturers have caught on to this trick. Back in the ‘90’s, Levi’s came out with “boy cut jeans for women.” Yes, that is really what they called them, and sucker that I am, the name alone piqued my curiosity. I hit the Levi’s outlet looking for these mythical “boy cut jeans for women.” Why I wanted boy cut anything when I had hips and thighs is another subject. I never found the jeans, but I also never forgot the name.

Last month I received a Fossil catalog (apparently people still use catalogs in the internet age) and among the watch selection was the “boyfriend watch.” You can’t just buy a man’s watch and remove a few links to fit your feminine wrist, you have to buy a women’s watch that just looks like a man’s watch. There are also boy briefs for women, complete with a sewn up pee flap. No, really, I’m not making this up.