And that is because cross-dressing has always been socially synonymous with gayness. I think this misconception is based on the fact that uni-gender lesbian and gay cross-dressers were socially visible and organized at a time when most bi-gender, heterosexual cross-dressers were isolated or members of “underground” organizations.

I don’t know if I agree with this, I think it’s more a result of the cishet (comphet?) worldview’s inability to understand that sexuality and gender are separate things, and to instead to view gender in an essentialist way w.r.t sexual activity (you want to be a woman, so that must mean you have an urge to be the woman or “receiver” in sexual relations). You even see it later in Linda’s story, where a doctor assumed she was gay for crossdressing, well before the gay rights movement in the 60s.

I liked reading the stories of Linda and Cynthia. There were parts I identified with but others I don’t, namely the part about being able to easily socialize with girls lol; I think it’s because I’m one of the ones that Linda described as carrying a constant sense of guilt, which influenced the way I interacted with other girls. I was always more interested in what my girl cousins were doing than the boy cousins, but I felt like I would be unwelcome or intruding among the girls, so instead I would hang out with the boys. Which is unfortunate, because I feel like they could have given me some great tips about dressing goth/alt in a feminine way, but instead I learned a bunch of shit about Bush era pro wrestling, a subject I don’t give a shit about at all . I guess I’d at least say playing basketball with them was pretty fun even though I suck, and to this day I prefer FPS games to Harvest Moon and such.

Feinberg earlier made a point that it shouldn’t matter whether a trans person was made that way as a result of nature or nurture, but I think there’s something to be said about whether the sense of guilt some of us internalize comes from nature or nurture. In my case I truly don’t know, I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, and am barely starting to unlearn it.