Table Of ContentMan-Made Woman
Man-Made Woman
The Dialectics of Cross-Dressing
Ciara Cremin
First published 2017 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Ciara Cremin 2017
The right of Ciara Cremin to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3713 5 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3712 8 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0141 8 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0143 2 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0142 5 EPUB eBook
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
1 What’s in a Dress? 1
2 On the Lavatory Question 23
3 The Aesthetic of Cross-Dressing 53
4 Everyone’s a Fetishist 83
5 How Popular Culture Made Me (a Woman) 123
6 Full Exposure 179
Notes 194
Bibliography 198
Index 205
Acknowledgements
I sometimes read in envy the list of esteemed intellectuals that authors
thank in their book acknowledgements. Then I think about those I need
to acknowledge and the thought of an episode of The Simpsons comes
to mind. It’s the one when in front of television cameras the family are
sat around the table for a meal and Bart is asked to give thanks. He does
so with the words, ‘We paid for this meal, so thanks to no one.’ I wrote
this book, so thanks to no one. But in truth there are lots of people to
thank whom I do hold in high esteem and consider intellectuals in
the best sense of the word, beginning with the two people who read
and commented on earlier drafts of the manuscript: the wonderful and
multi-talented Janet McAllister and Juliet Perano, friends to whom I
express my indebtedness. The publishing process has been fraught
with difficult challenges and bizarre situations, none of which I have
encountered with my previous books. There were plenty of low points
along the way and few highs. Even close to the end I had cause to
consider giving up on the project entirely. Once again, I have David
Castle at Pluto Press to thank for taking on this project and having faith
in me to deliver a book worthy of such a publisher. It appears that this
is a controversial topic for a left publisher, or perhaps any publisher, to
take on, and so I am more grateful than ever for David’s support, and
all the staff at Pluto Press, including the copy-editor, Jeanne Brady.
There are many people who have given me courage during the
period that I have dressed openly. Some acknowledged here have been
a tonic when my confidence was ebbing and have enthusiastically
embraced my gender-variant presentation. But there are many more
people over the years that have given me courage in respect to my
desire to wear women’s clothes. There are friends with whom I have
been on strange and fascinating journeys, some of which I have lost
contact with or for different reasons may not want to be mentioned
here, which is respected. The following list of acknowledgements is a
hotchpotch of close friends through to acquaintances that for different
reasons deserve a mention. So in no particular order (and my sincerest
vi
man-made woman
apologies if for some reason I’ve neglected to mention you): Suzanne
Lloyd; Caroline Blythe; Flint Whincop; Robert Myles; Selina Mitra
and John Garner; Lane West-Newman; Rosie Warren; Suzanne Skelly;
Angelica Sgouros; Suzanne Woodward and Luke Goode; Carole Wright;
Nick Wright; Tracey McIntosh and Steve Matthewman; Julie Lord;
Carisa Showden; Liz Greenwood and Adam White; Claire Meehan;
Rebecca Scott Bray and Greg Martin; Warwick Tie; Bruce Edmond;
the Auckland social sciences admin posse – Suzanne Powell, Faith Cu,
Viola Laban, Yogita Nand, Denise Layzell, Kristen Moana Wineera and
Nicole Wallace; Jessica Terruhn and Bruce Cohen; Kellie McNeill;
students past and present – Monique Warder, Janaki Somaiya, Shannon
Walsh, Nils Makauskas, Naoise McDonagh, Bartek Goldmann, Eliana
Boulton, Dylan Taylor and Anna Fielder; and colleagues and students
in the social sciences not mentioned here from whom in various ways
I have taken courage. To those in my midst who are merely tolerant,
inwardly bitter or resentful, or who recoil at the thought let alone the
appearance of someone who deviates from the gender prescription:
get over yourself. The university has supported me with stipends for
conferences and research assistants during this period, for which I am
grateful.
Finally, I’d like to thank Akiko, the person from whom I derive the
greatest strength, affirmation and courage. People say, ‘How does she
cope?’ How do you cope? We cope fine. Super fine.
vii
1
What’s in a Dress?
Out of the Bat Cave
Without giving prior notice, on 27 July 2015, after a lifetime of looking
and dressing as a man in public, I came to work, the University of
Auckland where I lecture in sociology, wearing full makeup, a blouse,
a black skirt that ended above the knee, pantyhose1 and court shoes.
I walked down the steps of a lecture theatre in front of a hundred or
so seated students and, without making any reference to what I had
on, gave a lecture on popular culture. Cross-dressing at home had not,
as I imagined, prepared me for the effect this change would have on
my own sensibilities and relationships to men and women, colleagues,
students, friends and strangers. I don’t subscribe to essentialist notions
of gender, sexuality, or identity. Yet in those places that seem relatively
safe in which I do wander dressed in women’s clothes, I feel more
at ease in myself, and my sense of alienation in the world appears,
if only momentarily, to diminish. People relate to me differently too
and, adjusting to this change, I in turn relate to them differently
and see myself in a different way. A shift in perspective has made
me more aware of the depths of misogyny in our society but also
more cognisant of assumptions I’d made about gender. I didn’t cross
that threshold as a one-off performance nor, originally, did I expect
it would be a permanent change of clothes. I envisaged dressing as
a woman occasionally, regularly at first for people to get used to it,
but a little less frequently after a while. I expected the novelty would
wear off. But it hasn’t. Blockages in my psyche that I attribute to a
lifelong investment in masculine presentations are unplugged and
now that they are, I wouldn’t want to plug them up again. The change
that that first act of ‘dressing’ has brought about is now, two years later,
evidently an integral part of my life. And my mind is still awhirl with
the implications of this.
1
