A Dahl’s House

Diane has a harsh, but evocative term for folks like John, who became BlondeJohn and contemplated feminization only to become John again once the “pink haze” wore off —“fantasy gendered.”

Today I heard a quote attributed to Philip K. Dick that’s worth keeping in mind:

Reality is that which, when we choose to ignore it, doesn’t go away.

John is an extreme example, but I’ve seen “fan-gendered” folks all too often go over the cliff like Wile E. Coyote still running as if there was ground under their feet until they look down and sudden realize there’s the long fall ahead. Unfortunately, unlike the cartoons, it’s a lot harder for them to rise up out of the resulting crater.

So yesterday I had my weekly work-out with C., my Pilates instructor to whom I came out to last week. As requested, I brought a half-dozen photos of myself en femme. C. said she thought I looked nice and complimented me on a couple of my wigs.

We talked about my crossdressing during the rest of the session—albeit it was a bit of fragmented conversation, since it was I was trying to talk and work-out at the same time. Her questions were what you might expect: Did my friends and family know? Where did I go out? What did I do when I was out? Did I ever want to be a woman? What about dating? Did I have a femme name? And so on. She did like my analogy of crossdressers taking a “gender vacation,” which seemed to resonate with her.

C. seemed genuinely curious and puzzled by how deeply in the closet we are or why partners might have such trouble with. “What’s the big deal?” she said. I’m sure she’s got more questions—and there’s a couple points I wanted raise—so I’m looking forward to our next session. The thing is… I’m sure she doesn’t fully “get” it, but she doesn’t need to. She’s OK with it regardless.
In a bit of apropos timing, during the drive home that evening, I heard Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” interview actor Peter Dinklage, best known for his starring role in “The Station Agent.” Much of interview dealt with Dinklage’s dwarfism, and I really liked a number Dinklage’s comments, which were to the effect that it’s something that he deals with from time to time as part of his life, but it doesn’t define him.

On a forum for crossdressers that I belong to, a rather embittered member plaintively asked how exactly one goes about accepting yourself—she’s tried and failed on numerous occasions to get over the guilt and shame she feels.

Here’s my tip—drawn from Gerald Weinberg’s excellent “Becoming a Technical Leader,” which has a lot about learning to manage yourself before you manage others. (more…)

On a forum where I shared my story about cracking open the closet a bit, one of the members congratulated me on taking a step towards “dull routine.”

Today, I got a sense of what she meant. I’d bought some foundation last weekend while I was out en femme—unfortunately, I’d discovered the matte version of the foundation I was using which the same shade as the regular version, and consequently it didn’t match as well.

So today it was too much of a hassle to get dressed up to exchange it, so I went en homme the to Prespectives counter (admittedly at a mall that’s further away from than the one nearest to me). As it happened there was a “regional coordinator” there helping to break in a new hire.

I explained the problem, and then made sure to let her know that I was a crossdresser so I needed the foundation to blend on my neck, which is lighter than my face. She and the trainee didn’t bat an eyelid and I did bring along a photo to show them, so they could see what I looked like en femme—both to help them do their job, and to do a little education.

With a little experimentation that they found a different shade that worked much better and I exchanged it for the old. But the regional coordinator appeared to become quite concerned when she misheard me and thought I hadn’t gotten good service from the salesclerk last week—she asked me a follow-up question that clearly indicate she would’ve followed up on it had that been the case. However, I reassured her the other salesclerk had been entirely professional and the coordinator replied something to the effect that it was their job to provide good service.

Anyway, it was nice for it to be just another errand I had to run on a Sunday afternoon.

It’s the question I’ve been both anticipating and dreading for a long time.

I had my weekly Pilates workout this morning, where I usually banter with my instructor, C., during the session. We’ve talked about a lot things—her frequently changing nail color, her psycho puppy—and last fall she saw photos of my “Halloween costume.” More recently she was a bit amused when I got my toenails painted during a pedicure, but said I if wanted to paint my nails I shouldn’t worry about what other people thought about it. Today, I was wearing gym pants instead of the usual loose-fitting tights, and during some of the exercises the pant legs slid down exposing my legs with a bit of razor stubble.

So when I mentioned that I’d gone out to a drag show with a friend last weekend, I guess C. put two and two together. “I bet you like to do drag pretty regularly,” she said.

Gulp. Pause.

There are others who know “the real me” and know that I’m crossdresser—store clerks who seen my male name on the credit card, a few people I’ve met through crossdressing circles. But C. would be the first person from my “ordinary” life to know.

“Yes, yes I do,” I said, trying my best to sound nonchalant about it. “Except that I’m not really a drag queen, I’m what’s called a crossdresser.” From there it was the expected questions—what was the difference between the two, what was my sexual orientation, did my family know, and of course: why? I told her that we crossdressers had spent a lot of time trying to figure that out ourselves and that no one was sure, but gave her a quick summary of my thoughts about it.

I mentioned how the vast majority of us cower in the closet and C.’s reaction was “What are they afraid of, why shouldn’t they be themselves?” It turns out C. once worked with a butch lesbian who transitioned. We talked about why female-to-male crossdressers are pretty rare, and how crossdressing relates to the (unfortunately) still unequal social status between men and women.

The session ended with Karen saying she wanted to talk more about it next time and also that she wanted to see more of my photos. (Yes, C. does know the way to a crossdressers’s heart.)

All-in-all, it was weirdly anti-climatic. Mainly I was just thinking how nice it was to no longer need to compartmentalize my life when talking to C. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what our next talk is like.

A few days ago I heard linguist Deborah Tannen talking about her new book, which looks a mother-daughter relations, and there were two observations she made that I think were interesting in terms of perhaps helping women understand common behavior by men and by crossdressers.

The first touched on the advice-giving the mothers do – which often drives daughters crazy but is (usually) meant out of love. I didn’t hear enough of the interview to hear Tannen’s explanation on why mothers feel compelled to offer advice, but I suspect it’s not dissimilar to men—they feel a need to show their concern by problem-solving.

The second observation was that many of the women studied (as adults) ended up not disclosing many of their inner-most secrets with their mothers because they didn’t want to upset their mothers—of course, not wanting to trigger the resulting advice-giving probably was another factor. But I hope woman can understand that there’s often a similar mentality at work when crossdressers don’t tell their wives and girlfriends about their dressing. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s far better to disclose it, preferably early in the relationship. And self-interest, and yes fear, can also be major factors. But often I’ve seen a genuine concern by crossdressers who’ve spent their lives struggling with it and want to “protect” their wives from similar struggles. I’m not saying it’s the right decision, I merely saying that it’s a decision that can be based on more than just selfish reasons.