Costumes and Cross-dressing

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The Bible says it’s a sin for a woman to wear a man’s clothing and vice-versa, but does this apply to a woman dressing as a male character for Halloween, cosplay, etc.? What about for an all-male or all-female theatre production?
My friends and I were planning on having a little fun next weekend and going to a Renaissance fair dressed as the Doctor (A time-traveler from a pretty wonderful TV show, if you didn’t know.) The thing is, we’re all women, and the character is male, so it would involve cross-dressing. Does this go against God’s law? (And would it make any difference if I put on some makeup and left my hair down?)
 
No, it does not include such actions. My understanding is that it’s speaking more specifically of donning such clothing with a desire to become or convince others you belong to the opposite gender.
 
There are some incredibly funny, campy, and silly cross-dressing comedy acts. My absolute favorite is this one. All of these guys are professional ballet dancers from big companies, and they do a schtick on excerpts from classical ballet. In ballet, men do not generally dance on their tiptoes (en pointe) as women do. The fact that they learned to dance en pointe in addition to the choreography for the roles make me really respect them as artists, and I’m a retired dancer from the New York City Ballet.

These are all men, and remember, most of these men are straight. (It’s a very big misconception that most men in professional ballet are homosexual.) It’s a comedy act. These guys are doing this as a comedy routine, and they’re not transvestites. They’re in costume for a legitimate theatrical performance (and they’re darn good at it.) And I seriously doubt God gives a hoot one way or another about it.

With genuine assaults on marriage, the family, the perverting of young people’s sexual identity and sense of decorum and modesty, He has bigger fish to fry than whether or not you are participating in a re-enactment of some historical period. I actually thinks He gets a big laugh out of it.

We Catholics need to get over the idea that life is *exclusively *a vale of tears, that our bodies are evil (the Pelagian heresy, if I’m right on that one,) and that sanctity requires that we look like we were weaned on a pickle. Christ Himself says so in His treatise on prayer. We are joyful people, why wouldn’t we be joyful? We already know how it all works out, if we are serious about repenting from sin. We win.

Here are links to the comedy acts I wrote about:

youtube.com/watch?v=1giFy6ktVYE

Or this:

youtube.com/watch?v=6rpqmcXqcNw

I’d have to consult the catechism, but something tells me that cross dressing is sinful when it becomes obsessive, overtakes someone’s identity, or is used to deliberately defraud. Wearing a costume, or playing a role of the opposite gender, isn’t. If it was, I doubt the Sisters in my all-girls high school would have permitted us to put on “West Side Story” as our junior musical. (I had to play a Shark, because my skin is dark.) I’d also like to remind people that St. Joan of Arc initially had to “cross dress” to become a part of the army of the day. I don’t think we’d refer to a canonized Saint as a sinner.

But if you continue to have doubts, I’d suggest you contact your parish priest.
 
odile53 said:
There are some incredibly funny, campy, and silly cross-dressing comedy acts. My absolute favorite is this one. All of these guys are professional ballet dancers from big companies, and they do a schtick on excerpts from classical ballet. In ballet, men do not generally dance on their tiptoes (en pointe) as women do. The fact that they learned to dance en pointe in addition to the choreography for the roles make me really respect them as artists, and I’m a retired dancer from the New York City Ballet.

These are all men, and remember, most of these men are straight. (It’s a very big misconception that most men in professional ballet are homosexual.) It’s a comedy act. These guys are doing this as a comedy routine, and they’re not transvestites. They’re in costume for a legitimate theatrical performance (and they’re darn good at it.) And I seriously doubt God gives a hoot one way or another about it.

With genuine assaults on marriage, the family, the perverting of young people’s sexual identity and sense of decorum and modesty, He has bigger fish to fry than whether or not you are participating in a re-enactment of some historical period. I actually thinks He gets a big laugh out of it.

We Catholics need to get over the idea that life is *exclusively *a vale of tears, that our bodies are evil (the Pelagian heresy, if I’m right on that one,) and that sanctity requires that we look like we were weaned on a pickle. Christ Himself says so in His treatise on prayer. We are joyful people, why wouldn’t we be joyful? We already know how it all works out, if we are serious about repenting from sin. We win.

Here are links to the comedy acts I wrote about:

youtube.com/watch?v=1giFy6ktVYE

Or this:

youtube.com/watch?v=6rpqmcXqcNw

I’d have to consult the catechism, but something tells me that cross dressing is sinful when it becomes obsessive, overtakes someone’s identity, or is used to deliberately defraud. Wearing a costume, or playing a role of the opposite gender, isn’t. If it was, I doubt the Sisters in my all-girls high school would have permitted us to put on “West Side Story” as our junior musical. (I had to play a Shark, because my skin is dark.) I’d also like to remind people that St. Joan of Arc initially had to “cross dress” to become a part of the army of the day. I don’t think we’d refer to a canonized Saint as a sinner.

But if you continue to have doubts, I’d suggest you contact your parish priest.
Click to expand...
Right on!👍👍👍👍 My favorite picture of Christ is the one that depicts him doing a belly laugh! Never forget that G*d must have a sense of humor because he created us. It is Satan who doesn’t have a sense of humor.
 
odile53 said:
There are some incredibly funny, campy, and silly cross-dressing comedy acts. My absolute favorite is this one. All of these guys are professional ballet dancers from big companies, and they do a schtick on excerpts from classical ballet. In ballet, men do not generally dance on their tiptoes (en pointe) as women do. The fact that they learned to dance en pointe in addition to the choreography for the roles make me really respect them as artists, and I’m a retired dancer from the New York City Ballet.

These are all men, and remember, most of these men are straight. (It’s a very big misconception that most men in professional ballet are homosexual.) It’s a comedy act. These guys are doing this as a comedy routine, and they’re not transvestites. They’re in costume for a legitimate theatrical performance (and they’re darn good at it.) And I seriously doubt God gives a hoot one way or another about it.

With genuine assaults on marriage, the family, the perverting of young people’s sexual identity and sense of decorum and modesty, He has bigger fish to fry than whether or not you are participating in a re-enactment of some historical period. I actually thinks He gets a big laugh out of it.

We Catholics need to get over the idea that life is *exclusively *a vale of tears, that our bodies are evil (the Pelagian heresy, if I’m right on that one,) and that sanctity requires that we look like we were weaned on a pickle. Christ Himself says so in His treatise on prayer. We are joyful people, why wouldn’t we be joyful? We already know how it all works out, if we are serious about repenting from sin. We win.

Here are links to the comedy acts I wrote about:

youtube.com/watch?v=1giFy6ktVYE

Or this:

youtube.com/watch?v=6rpqmcXqcNw

I’d have to consult the catechism, but something tells me that cross dressing is sinful when it becomes obsessive, overtakes someone’s identity, or is used to deliberately defraud. Wearing a costume, or playing a role of the opposite gender, isn’t. If it was, I doubt the Sisters in my all-girls high school would have permitted us to put on “West Side Story” as our junior musical. (I had to play a Shark, because my skin is dark.) I’d also like to remind people that St. Joan of Arc initially had to “cross dress” to become a part of the army of the day. I don’t think we’d refer to a canonized Saint as a sinner.

But if you continue to have doubts, I’d suggest you contact your parish priest.
Click to expand...
I agree with this! I think it pleases God to see his children at play! Afterall, would you worry if you had two litle girls who were playing make believe, and one played the king, or the dad? I wouldn’t. A little boy in the daycare I work at likes playing both fireman and put on the frilly apron and be a cook. Now, if he were to start only wanting to dress in girls clothes, and want to be a girl…obviously, that’s different than make believe. But it delights us to see him having fun playing pretend, so why wouldn’t it God with us?
 
odile53 said:
We Catholics need to get over the idea that life is *exclusively *a vale of tears, that our bodies are evil (the Pelagian heresy, if I’m right on that one,) and that sanctity requires that we look like we were weaned on a pickle.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Click to expand...
 
odile53 said:
There are some incredibly funny, campy, and silly cross-dressing comedy acts. My absolute favorite is this one. All of these guys are professional ballet dancers from big companies, and they do a schtick on excerpts from classical ballet. In ballet, men do not generally dance on their tiptoes (en pointe) as women do. The fact that they learned to dance en pointe in addition to the choreography for the roles make me really respect them as artists, and I’m a retired dancer from the New York City Ballet.

These are all men, and remember, most of these men are straight. (It’s a very big misconception that most men in professional ballet are homosexual.) It’s a comedy act. These guys are doing this as a comedy routine, and they’re not transvestites. They’re in costume for a legitimate theatrical performance (and they’re darn good at it.) And I seriously doubt God gives a hoot one way or another about it.

With genuine assaults on marriage, the family, the perverting of young people’s sexual identity and sense of decorum and modesty, He has bigger fish to fry than whether or not you are participating in a re-enactment of some historical period. I actually thinks He gets a big laugh out of it.

We Catholics need to get over the idea that life is *exclusively *a vale of tears, that our bodies are evil (the Pelagian heresy, if I’m right on that one,) and that sanctity requires that we look like we were weaned on a pickle. Christ Himself says so in His treatise on prayer. We are joyful people, why wouldn’t we be joyful? We already know how it all works out, if we are serious about repenting from sin. We win.

Here are links to the comedy acts I wrote about:

youtube.com/watch?v=1giFy6ktVYE

Or this:

youtube.com/watch?v=6rpqmcXqcNw

I’d have to consult the catechism, but something tells me that cross dressing is sinful when it becomes obsessive, overtakes someone’s identity, or is used to deliberately defraud. Wearing a costume, or playing a role of the opposite gender, isn’t. If it was, I doubt the Sisters in my all-girls high school would have permitted us to put on “West Side Story” as our junior musical. (I had to play a Shark, because my skin is dark.) I’d also like to remind people that St. Joan of Arc initially had to “cross dress” to become a part of the army of the day. I don’t think we’d refer to a canonized Saint as a sinner.

But if you continue to have doubts, I’d suggest you contact your parish priest.
Click to expand...
No that’s not Pelagianism, Pelagianism is saying that original sin did not taint human nature and thus man can choose good without divine aid
 
I didn’t see any harm in it at first, but the command in Deuteronomy is pretty straightforward, isn’t it? I mean, I can see how there would be exceptions if you literally have no other clothes, but it doesn’t say, “Don’t dress like the opposite sex unless you just want to have fun with it.” That’s something I’ve been struggling with a lot lately, the idea that God’s law is always absolute.
 
Hanna_C said:
I didn’t see any harm in it at first, but the command in Deuteronomy is pretty straightforward, isn’t it? I mean, I can see how there would be exceptions if you literally have no other clothes, but it doesn’t say, “Don’t dress like the opposite sex unless you just want to have fun with it.” That’s something I’ve been struggling with a lot lately, the idea that God’s law is always absolute.
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Except that you need to remember that the Bible is meant to be understood in light of Church teaching and tradition. Just because it is a statement that can be taken very literally and strictly does not mean that it actually has to be.
 
George_Stegmeir said:
Right on!👍👍👍👍 My favorite picture of Christ is the one that depicts him doing a belly laugh! Never forget that G*d must have a sense of humor because he created us. It is Satan who doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Click to expand...
Four proofs that God has a sense of humor: humans, mules, long-eared hounds, and duck billed platerbus. :eek::p:D:nerd:
 
thewanderer said:
Except that you need to remember that the Bible is meant to be understood in light of Church teaching and tradition. Just because it is a statement that can be taken very literally and strictly does not mean that it actually has to be.
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Exactly.You have to look at WHY that commandment was made. What is the sin it is trying to help you avoid?
 
odile53 said:
There are some incredibly funny, campy, and silly cross-dressing comedy acts. My absolute favorite is this one. All of these guys are professional ballet dancers from big companies, and they do a schtick on excerpts from classical ballet. In ballet, men do not generally dance on their tiptoes (en pointe) as women do. The fact that they learned to dance en pointe in addition to the choreography for the roles make me really respect them as artists, and I’m a retired dancer from the New York City Ballet.
Click to expand...
that would be the ballet de trocadero. Saw them on stage. Hilarious, yet brilliant dancing. They really played up on the idea that the central ballerina was a diva.

One of the funniest movies was 'Some Like it Hot" with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis pretending to be women to hide from the mob.

I also participated in 18th century living history and we occasionally had women who would dress as soldiers. It helped to fill the ranks. They often ‘changed’ back into women after the battle was over.

Friends of mine belonged to a fundamental church that said women had to wear dresses or skirts but his daughters wanted to show horses. They showed in split skirts but didn’t show well under the judges. I explained that women’s show pants had zippers on the side so they were not men’s clothing. His daughters were allowed to wear those pants to ride in.

The Bible says we are not dress as the opposite sex in order to hide our true gender as a lifestyle. Role playing is not the same thing.
 
I have no opinion as to whether or not cross-dressing to act a role a la Some Like it Hot or Bosom Buddies is a sin. I just know that I could never do it.
 
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