Transvestite Shirts?

Google transvestite shirt acne and you'll find copies of a news release touting Acne's "Transvestite and Crossdressing Collection" of three shirts. You'll find an article from Time Magazine and UPI among many others.

I've been trying to see if the shirts button male or female, but I haven't seen a large enough picture. I'm just curious if they're men's shirts in women's style, or women's shirts being marketed to us gurls.

I've also been trying to figure out why this is a dumb idea. I know it is, but I couldn't figure out why.

I figured it out.

It's clearly a good way to get your product free publicity. A news google search for the above words gets a bunch of hits. A web search shows it being repeated in numerous blogs, plus Vogue, the Huffington Post, and New York Magazine. It's hard to pick out the actual articles, because google also indexes ads and sometimes there are articles about acne and the ad links to Acne transvestite shirts. But the name of the company is not why it's dumb. (They're partnering with Candy, which makes the searh even harder. Google "acne" and "candy".)

Today, I'm in my office wearing a women's Charter Club shirt. It's white with blue stripes and kind of like this or this. Other than buttoning the "wrong" way and not having a breast pocket, it look's like a man's shirt.

How many people in this office of 50+ know I dress? One. Maybe two. I have specifically pointed out to one that I was wearing a women's shirt and she hadn't even noticed. Even though I had told her in the past that I wear women's clothing to the office sometimes.

I think there are four large categories of crossdressers:
* less than 1% of the people they know (outside of the community), know. This is where I fit, and I think it's the largest category.
* nobody knows. Alas, this is probably the second largest category, and the loneliest.
* everybody knows. These are the gurls who go 24/7, or are out and proud. A small group.
* Many people know. The smallest group, and the hardest to control. One leak, and everybody knows. Stana walks this tightrope.

I have no statistics but I'd guess 95% of us are in the "less than 1%" or "nobody" category. We may want to enter one of the other groups, but we're either sensitive to those close to us who'd not share our enthusiasm, or we're terrified of reactions. Or there's a combination of the two.

So why the heck would we wear a shirt that basically has I'M A TRANSVESTITE written on the back in large glowing letters? I'd rather wear a nice skirt and blouse. I can probably buy several for the price of one designer shirt, and I'd certainly enjoy it more.