Friday, 8 June 2012

WAR OF WORDS : Difference between Cross Dressers, Drags, She males & Lady Boys


After My 1st’ Article about Different Gender Identity Someone suggested me to write about difference between Cross Dressers, Drags, She males & Lady Boys. So here I am…
 These words bring lot of glitters, tinsels, hard make up and confusion about different roles and behaviors. So let’s see them closely and identify unique features of each set separately. 

Cross Dresser: It is a person mostly a man who dresses as a woman for the sake of fetish, fashion or his own comfort level. Conflict arises when even a man uses a simple woman clothing article like a scarf or handkerchief would fall under this category or not? Answer is not there! But mostly a person who wears women’s clothing, accessories and footwear is known as Cross Dresser. Sometimes straights also feel good by cross dressing.

  Drags: Drag is the one who wears the clothes of other gender to resemble with it. Like a man wears women’s clothing to portray him as a woman. This is mostly present in arts like cinema, dramas, and paintings. It started from Shakespeares Globe Theater where Males played the roles of Females in the acts and dramas due to no availability of female artists. Drag performance is not related to sex or vulgarity, It’s for entertainment, humor and can be an adjustment by putting males in the female roles because no availability female artists. It’s not necessary that Drags are Gays, Many times Straight Males be Drags to earn money.
There are two terms related to this word –
      
      Drag Queen: A biological Male who dresses as a Female for stage performance, entertainment or drag shows to earn money or for beauty contests with feminine expressions and behavior. It’s not necessary that he’s gay he can be a straight and acts in certain way just to earn his salary and may not have feminine behavior in his day to day life.

    Drag King: A biological Female who dresses as a Male with masculine attitude for the same reasons as above. This is not so popular and appreciated as Drag Queen.

Drag show is a vibrant part of nightlife and most popular in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas.

“So the person who cross dress for his/her own comfort is known as Cross dresser and person who dresses for his/her profession and to earn money is known as Drag.”

She males: A male-to-female transgendered person is referred to as transgender woman' or She-Male with male genitalia and mostly augmented female breasts. They dress, behave and act like a Female and they have kept their penis.

She males have different names throughout the world:
Lady Boys : Asia
Kathoey : Thailand
Newhalf : Japan
So She males, Lady Boys, Kathoey, Newhalf are different names given to Transgender. If they change their genders then they will be known as Transsexuals.

Transphobia (The irrational fear and hatred towards all those individuals who fall under this section) brings massive discrimination, violence and unbalanced society by giving less respect to these gender identities.

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