The good news is that a would-be novelist joined one of the online forums I belong to in order to do researching on cross-dressing for a novel where the protagonist happens to be a crossdresser—someone who was fired when he was outed, but who has the huevos to stay in town and carry on with his life.
The writer, call him Philip, was open about his intentions, when it would have been really easy to fake a profile and present himself as a newbie. He doesn’t make crossdressing the centerpiece, rather just an interesting aspect of the protagonist (the focus will be on the character’s professional life, and he just happens to cross-dress). Philip had a few misperceptions, which we corrected, and seems genuinely interested and respectful. In fact, he said he’s rewriting some things in light what he now understands.
We did let him know that a crossdresser who’s out like that is pretty atypical (although Lacey Leigh was recently outted by a business rival and received quite respectfully a conference for her industry, where were her guy self was well known). But I’d rather have an unrealistically open and well-adjusted crossdresser than the unrealistic media protrayals we usually see.
Unfortunately a few members of the forum freaked out at having a non-crossdresser/significant other visitor and made some rather immature and prejudiced comments to Philip, insinuating he was a pervy voyeur, which prompted Philip to leave despite the forum owner making it clear he’d been admitted with her blessing and support. Sigh...
He does plan on keeping in touch with those of us who are interested, and even offered to let us read his drafts to see if we have suggestions. I’ve got no idea is he’s any good as a writer, or whether the novel will ever see the light of day, but one can hope.
It just pisses me off that some of the people who bitch and moan the most about how we aren’t accepted in general public were the same ones who drove this guy away. If they can’t handle posting on an anonmyous forum because there was an invited guest there doing research, God help them find the door knob to the closet and face the public at-large.
