We're a creative bunch, those of us males who like to wear women's clothes. I've never seen a bunch of folks so intent on inventing new words to describe every little nuance of just why they do this or wear that. My sisters seem to have an endless capacity to transform every Greek or Roman root for two into some new combination of syllables that exactly describes their motivation for putting on a dress. Perhaps this is done in an effort to communicate just exactly who they are, where they're going and their political stance as they travel, but I rather suspect it has more to do with being able to put a label on the other person for our own comfort. I find it all very confusing.

Perhaps we gender benders should take a cue from a those whose sexual orientation has been so much cause for comment. They seem to be satisfied with simply "gay" and "lesbian", a sexual segregation which perhaps makes sense. With just these two descriptions they have created some great acronyms, yet the simplicity of the labels speaks for itself. Personally I'd be satisfied with "man-in-a-dress" and "crossdresser" is good enough for me. I really don't need to have some esoteric combination of "trans", "bi" or "tri" grafted awkwardly to some classical root stock to let the world know I (1) wear dresses for the fun of it, (2) have no interest in rearranging my bodily plumbing, (3) know all too well I don't look feminine in the least and don't care and (4) do not take part in group activities involving farm animals, small children or occult trappings.

It seems we are trying to pack more and more information in a simple word. why I even learned that The Transsexual Menace sees a political statement is spelling Transsexual with one 's'. I'm sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but I hadn't even noticed the deliberate misspelling until it was pointed out to me, let alone its political import

But where there is a need some Red Blooded American Entrepreneur will find a way to make a buck, and I am no exception. A while back I invited the world's fashion mavens to make me their poster girl for their next clothing line, but the silence has been, well, silent. In fact you could hear my slip rustling and the elastic stretching in my bra straps for all the response I've gotten. So there is only one thing to do, I am announcing my own line of TV fashions that not only will flatter your figure but will provide anyone in the know with an exact label for your brand of crossdressing.

I have applied my vast electronic knowledge to create set of earrings with a powerful miniature computer inside. This computer will constantly scan the apparel of anyone within 100 feet of you and, when it spots someone wearing one of Ricky's TV Fashions, will discretely whisper in your ear the information coded into the dress pattern. Rest assured the thing will only talk to you and not accept voice commands. We are conspicuous enough as is without having someone walking down the street whispering in their own ear to attract attention.

With my line of clothing and accessories you can make a political statement a the same time you make a fashion statement. When the whole world is on line, there will be no need for any more new words in our community.

I did have a bit of a problem in getting the proper way of encoding the information, though. Since the accepted Fashion Wisdom is that vertical stripes make you thinner, I tried a variation on the supermarket bar coding at first. It worked well, with the earrings successfully translating the encoded message to my squadron of testers as I wandered around the mall. I had to abandon it after going to the grocery for a head of lettuce when the supermarket scanner flashed my weight on the checkout screen and they made me pay $7.99 a pound before I could leave the store. I was very lucky that the scanner read the runs in my stockings as a half price coupon and what with coupon doubling I got off lightly. I did look kind of funny doing high kicks until the scanner read my leg properly.

My next idea was a small radio transmitter with the antenna woven into the fabric of the dress, After all, what CD could resist the urge to buy something so functional in gold lame? Again it worked, but every time I got near one of those cute electronic kiosks for the lottery it flashed my bra size and gave my odds against passing as over a billion to one. Two ladies did place a bet on me, as they were the best odds they had seen in the lottery for some time. I finally settled on a fractal pattern with the outfits coming in complete Mandlebrot sets. No one seems to have used that for a commercial information system and all those lovely pastels make a really nice pattern.

So keep your eyes open, soon you will be able to cruise the malls without that agonizing guesswork when you see someone who might be a sister but you really don't want to ask for fear of being foolish in a public place. The next time someone invents a new word for transvestism, refer them to me so I can encode it quickly and spare you all the trouble of having to decide it it's as dumb as all the other words we have invented in the past.