In gay parlance a woman who gives cover to a man wishing to remain closeted is often called a 'beard'. I have recently grown one, Facial hair that is, not another woman.
We have joked about Dee being a 'beard' on shopping trips since it provides 'cover' of purchases that are actually for me.This works better though on those occasions when I am actually embarrassed enough about what it is I am doing to remember not to announce in a loud voice that "I already have on like that!" or "Oh, a 34B will definitely fit me!" Such was the case when several of the guys of varied ethnicities happened to be walking by from the loading docks to the front of the goodwill stores. Having just given the approval to put that $1 long-line boned bra into the cart, they cheerfully inquired if we were finding everything OK. I cheerfully and obliviously responded in the affirmative. I missed entirely their bemused expressions as reported to me by Dee later.
Anyway I got to thinking, why beard? Dee postulated that a beard if a common disguise. Makes sense except when the term I think was invented when gay culture was fairly effeminate. It seems to me that it was only during the permissive porno fueled seventies that the bearded gay man became an archetype.
It stuck me that it that crossdressers being associated necessarily with gay men does actually make sense historically. Before my theoretical time line of 70's porno mustaches, gay men were presenting more effeminately than they tend to do now. I think that it may not be defensive straight crossdressers distancing themselves from the Gay community so much as that gay men rejected femininity at some point recently and the phase of facial hair was a way of asserting that the male form is attractive in its natural state.
Or maybe since everyone associated a limp wristed foppish dandies with being gay*, perhaps growing a stash or a 'beard' was actually started to hide their orientation. SO maybe the term 'beard' originally meant exactly that.
I realize this is all circular logic and harks of chicken and egg, but it is interesting that regardless of how divergent gay trends and crossdressing trends diverge, the public still lumps them together.
Probably nothing that a gay drag performer or a bisexual crossdresser thinks about anyway, since in those instances there is a correlation.
*Not that there is anything wrong with ....................being a foppish dandy!
We have joked about Dee being a 'beard' on shopping trips since it provides 'cover' of purchases that are actually for me.This works better though on those occasions when I am actually embarrassed enough about what it is I am doing to remember not to announce in a loud voice that "I already have on like that!" or "Oh, a 34B will definitely fit me!" Such was the case when several of the guys of varied ethnicities happened to be walking by from the loading docks to the front of the goodwill stores. Having just given the approval to put that $1 long-line boned bra into the cart, they cheerfully inquired if we were finding everything OK. I cheerfully and obliviously responded in the affirmative. I missed entirely their bemused expressions as reported to me by Dee later.
Anyway I got to thinking, why beard? Dee postulated that a beard if a common disguise. Makes sense except when the term I think was invented when gay culture was fairly effeminate. It seems to me that it was only during the permissive porno fueled seventies that the bearded gay man became an archetype.
It stuck me that it that crossdressers being associated necessarily with gay men does actually make sense historically. Before my theoretical time line of 70's porno mustaches, gay men were presenting more effeminately than they tend to do now. I think that it may not be defensive straight crossdressers distancing themselves from the Gay community so much as that gay men rejected femininity at some point recently and the phase of facial hair was a way of asserting that the male form is attractive in its natural state.
Or maybe since everyone associated a limp wristed foppish dandies with being gay*, perhaps growing a stash or a 'beard' was actually started to hide their orientation. SO maybe the term 'beard' originally meant exactly that.
I realize this is all circular logic and harks of chicken and egg, but it is interesting that regardless of how divergent gay trends and crossdressing trends diverge, the public still lumps them together.
Probably nothing that a gay drag performer or a bisexual crossdresser thinks about anyway, since in those instances there is a correlation.
*Not that there is anything wrong with ....................being a foppish dandy!
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