"Republican values"?

The sky won't fall on Texas. Fanatic fundis there have forced a small school district to stop its tradition of allowing girls to dress as boys, and vice versa, one day per year. The motto of TWIRP Day was "The Woman Is Requested to Pay".

From a brief AP report, the custom seems quite straight; like the role-reversal found in Sadie Hawkins Day, plus reverse costuming which may also occur at Halloween.

But homophobes feared it might cause tolerance of mock transvestism --
which might possibly lead to tolerance of real queers and real transgender persons.

If the fundis had been well-read, they could also have argued that cross-dressing customs have ancient pagan roots, well-documented in ancient Rome and Greece; and presumably reaching deeper into unrecorded pre-history.

Meanwhile, Texas' second-most-powerful politician, Tom ("The Hammer") DeLay, benefits from Republican Congresspersons hastily making a travesty of their ethics rules. If he's indicted for alleged felonies back home, he'll be able to continue dominating the U.S. House of Representatives.


So "Republican values" forbid cross-dressing,
but wink at felony indictments.


Like, "First things last!"



-- queer ex-Texan
18 November 2004
Thursday

...........................................................................

PS 1: For details, please see:

[ SF Chron report on Republican amnesty for indicted leaders:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/18/MNGK69TFTS1.DTL ]

...............

[ AP report on homophobic fundis bullying a small Texas school district:


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/16/national1953EST0757.DTL ]


........................................................

PS 2:


In pagan Rome, cross-dressing was called "travesty" ( a sloppy pronunciation of trans-vesty; with TRANS meaning "across", and "VESTY" referring to clothes (vestments).

Some ancient pagans did "travesty" for serious religious reasons;
but if skeptics and Christians did it, they were just "fooling around".
[ Parallel in modern SF: our 12 Galaxies picketer
(today's Emperor Norton) is serious;
but his imitators aren't.]

In modern U.S. English, "travesty" is used metaphorically
("travesty of justice");
but in modern Mexican Spanish, a travestia is a drag show.

...........................................................
###