Well, this is a well known bug with IE and jQuery:
What I am asking: is it possible to somehow remove that ugly transition effect, before the "fix" is applied. Test this in IE:
http://www.kevinleary.net/wp-samples/ie-fade-problems.php
Although it is a solution to a worse problem, is the possible to fix that tranition and the flash of "un-clear-type" content?
It wouldn't trouble me that much, but it is for my main website menu in jquery (superfish) - those transitions are pretty much visible...
Edit: just one thing to notice - does this happen on your browsers too? Maybe it is something in the IE settings?
There's no way to fix the cleartype going ugly while the fade happens on that content. This is just a (IMO) bad decision the IE team made about how to implement their opacity filter (Direct X, which the way it's implemented in IE doesn't support ClearType).
The only other option that works well is to fade something else, like a <div> on top that fades in, rather than your content with the text fading out...but you said your use is for a menu, so that wouldn't really apply here.