I was at my local hospital waiting for my partner's routine procedure. I was at the cafe which is at the end of a hall and no other departments next to it. So, no way to think, "perhaps this person was in the ER after a night of partying or something." The ER was nowhere near this facility.
I grab my cup of coffee at about 10 am to sit and wait and lo and behold a man with a paunch in his mid 50's with a bad platinum blonde wig, holding hands with another man, walks past with a very tight cheap black dress, short. Knee-high boots, thigh highs, and of course those are attached to garters that snake further up his dress.
10 am. Hospital cafe. In a liberal part of town so no one looks twice. Everyone acts like this is the most normal thing to see.
And I think, beyond the obvious cosplaying womanhood in the worst way, another thought hit me, if it was a woman dressed like that she would be stared at, shamed, absolutely judged and policed. Not to mention, should she be "hot enough" oggled and followed and hit on if not worse.
That, as women, we are judged and controlled. There is NO WAY any real woman would ever dress like that in this kind of setting and even if there was some insanely extradordinary circumstance that would have made it so a real woman was dressed like that, she would display body language to show she feels bad about it or embarrassed.
Yes these AGPs are cosplaying womanhood in the most offensive way possible and no one bats an eye. They look away fearing their TRaNsPHoBia.
Yet, what man has ever feared his own misogyny when a woman is dressed similar at the nightclub or what have you? Not a damn one. In fact, they see this as permission to let their misogyny fly!!!!
If that isn't privilege I don't know what is.