I have written about crossdressers so far because although I empathize with transgendered individuals and their experiences, I am not transgendered and I feel that any attempt to write from that perspective runs the risk of being patronizing and false. I'm certainly willing and able to write from a perspective other than my own but for some reason I see certain points of view as being difficult or impossible to approach. On the other hand, I feel that in only writing about crossdressers (and in particular crossdressers that act as the fool of their own stories) I am somehow suggesting that there is something foolish about appearing as you are not.

To be clear, I do not believe that is the case for transgendered people as transitioning is about presenting yourself to the world as you know you are. For those who choose to not transition in a public manner the choice does not change who they are.

Rather, I see certain depictions of gender in the media (such as in advertising or popular fiction) as presenting false ideas of what it means to be male or female. Those ideas and people who hold onto them are worthy of satire.

I suppose I wrote this in an attempt to give myself permission to continue to write comedies in this manner. What it means to be male or female is complex and goes far beyond appearances. To reduce gender to physical attributes and to then assume deeper aspects of identity based on those attributes is absurd, demeaning and worth mocking.