Intention Deficit

I'm looking at my recent wave of posts and thinking, "How many different ways can I say 'I want to come out, but I won't, because I'm considerate and selfless?'" followed immediately with "Could I just shut up and pick another topic?"  Obviously, the self-sanction/self-denial contradiction has been weighing on me this summer.

It probably started last month when Erica, completely of her own volition, broached the subject of me taking a "girl day."  I actually faltered (in shock, mostly), demurred (because I'm soooo selfless, have I mentioned that?), and gradually relented, since it's been entire years since I've had spouse-sanctioned permission to switch wardrobes, much less when it's her idea!

The time was delightful.  Erica insisted there was no problem spending the day with me "as friends," and we even tackled downsizing our full-to-bursting closet together.  I made her try on every outfit she owned and did the same with mine, and we gave each other feedback on what worked and what didn't, what to save and what to donate.  As women do.

Later, we binged TV shows and ate junk food
in pigtails and pajama pants. As introverts do.

The process of rummaging through my clothes showed me an unprecedented premise, regarding the kinds of clothes I've been collecting over the years: dresses, skirts, shoes... naturally.  Also: tops, pants, sweaters, shorts, overalls (long and short), assorted lingerie, including underwear, bras, legwear, nightwear, & *ahem* playwear.  In short, my wardrobe doesn't reflect someone who obsesses with dressing as a woman, so much as it indicates the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of someone building their female identity.  If I didn't know any better, I might say that subconsciously I was taking steps to transition from one life to another.

I'm not, of course.  And I realize that sounds like denial, and many readers are shaking their heads and placing little bets with themselves that I'm about two years from announcing my full, legal abandonment of all male entitlements and privileges.  It's because I really want to, yes.  I admit it.  But still, I won't.  Because I don't have a good enough reason.

I've definitely got reasons to come out, though, you betcha! ... Shall I list them?  You betcha.

1. I like being honest.  If there's one trait I possess that's both a virtue and liability, it's truthfulness.  Don't go thinking I'm all pious, because I know how to lie, and lie well.  (It sorta goes with the closet life.)  My issue is that I want to proclaim truth.  This makes me trustworthy and dependable, while at the same time completely annoying to my Facebook friends who constantly post stupid inaccuracies in the news and with various memes.  Usually, though, I pair my truth with tact, for maximum effectiveness.

Put another way: when a relative of mine once said he could always count on me to tell the truth, this was less of a compliment and more a way of pointing out that I always tell on myself.  Truly, I find intimate personal divulgence romantically idyllic.  People close to me have no idea how easy it is to get the truth out of me, if they try.  Although, maybe they don't want to.  Which brings me to...

2. Hiding my femme identity is exhausting.  As I've mentioned before, there are loved ones who know of my secret feminine self, but most of them don't want any part of this world.  I make the effort to keep them shielded from it.  And then there's... the rest of the world, basically.  For half of them I'm good, since I really don't care if the men catch on (in fact, I prefer it).  My problem is the distance between myself and other women.

I could (and might) write an entirely separate article on how agonizing it is to know women, to have them as friends, and not be able to explain how deeply I relate to them... more so, to withhold the opportunity for them to care.  It's indescribable, the heartache of socializing with women and knowing they still see me as male, being the only one who can see the invisible wall between us.  At least if they knew, there could be an informed decision.  Of course, once or twice the wall has fallen, and the response was... less than optimal. Leading to...

3. I hate the idea of getting "caught."  It's only funny in sitcoms.  The old "It's not what it looks like!" routine followed by a laugh track, or the wail of a sad trombone.  In real life, there's shock, anger, a tragic lack of adequate vocabulary, and wild ultimatums.  In the best case scenario, there's still debris to clean up, left over from the world everyone once knew but is gone forever, a sense of loss, the pain of change.

It's the concept - "caught" - that highlights the difference between asserting oneself and becoming a victim of circumstance.  Basically, you can't get caught at something if everyone knows you're doing it.  Feeling guilty because someone learned about your secret, outside of it being your decision to let them know, somehow suggests wrongdoing.  In moral circles, they say that whatever you practice in secret must be immoral, if you don't want anyone else to know you're doing it.  Truly, if I were to out myself as transgender there would still be judgment, but I believe that might be easier to endure than this gender purgatory I dwell in now.

They also say the grass is greener, over there. That could also be
because there's more fertilizer to step in, if you know what I'm sayin'.

As I continue my journey, I notice another trend that hasn't quite caught on yet, but may impact events in the future: I'm less concerned with secrecy.  It's become more a job than an obligation, to the point where I should classify it as "community service in lieu of jail."  Except that I've been serving time as well.  And I still don't see how I'm guilty of any crime.  One of these days, I may just blurt it out in a flash of blind rebellion, just because I need to evoke a reaction.  At worst, I'll get sideways glances and hasty exits from the rooms I walk in.  Maybe that kind of treatment doesn't worry me anymore.

Social norms.  Can't live with 'em, can't leave the house without 'em.  (Although if I decide to try, I've got maybe two weeks' worth of outfits before I have to come home to use the washer & dryer.)

-- HCP

Tingling Teeth

I used to hate the term “coming out.”  The meaning of this phrase, of course, is derived from “coming out of the closet” which was almost exclusively a gay metaphor which basically everyone else appropriated.  Even straight people can “come out” about their guilty pleasures.  (i.e. “I’m a closet wrestling fan” or “I don’t tell many people this, but I have sexual fantasies about Daisy Duck.”)

"It gets really in-depth after the third
volume of my unauthorized fanfic."

Call it “confession” or “disclosure” …I don’t care anymore.  These days, letting people in on my closet-sized secret is all I want to do. I’d go so far as to say it’s a bit of a discreet mania.

I haven’t shared my gender identity situation with anyone in years, which is down to basic consideration for my wife, who would prefer to never know what it feels like for our friends & family to learn that she married a bi-gendered person.  I get that, I really do… but from the perspective of a trans-person trying to get some basic identity acquiescence, it’s a frustrating arrangement.

I’ve shared my female identity with seven people in my life (not counting the pre-marriage counsellor, who was, in retrospect, wholly unprepared to deal with that specific sort of speedbump in a burgeoning matrimonial relationship; but she did try, bless her heart, even though “wrapping myself up tightly in a sheet from the arms down” is not valid replacement therapy for actually wearing a dress… but I digress).  The hope was always to have people I trust and care about, and who cared about me, be comfortable at any given time to freely address my transgenderism, so that I didn’t feel so alone and helpless in my distress.  I assumed part of the process would involve some acceptance that I, on occasion, would dress the part (in their absence, of course… unless otherwise indicated… in which case I would just be thrilled).

Instead, what happened was the establishment of two camps of interaction:

Camp Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell - this is inhabited by friends who don’t know how to integrate transgender topics into natural conversation.  Their inhibitions seem derived from a fear of saying the wrong thing and offending me, or - in the case of those opposed to my practical application of a wardrobe - unintentionally implying that they approve of my preferred modes of expression.  Broaching the subject in this camp is generally a complete waste of time.

"Could one of you at least give me a push?"

(To be fair, I’m the only one of my kind whom these good people have ever met. Everything about addressing transgenderism has been new territory for them since the 1990s, thanks to me, exclusively.)

Camp Practical Listening & Shared Wisdom - this camp has an enrollment of one.  Even when she admits she might have no idea what she’s talking about, she still has something to say.  It helps that we’re both wired with the same belief, in that there’s no such thing as analyzing something too much. Unfortunately, this angel belongs to a popular club - “Life Obligations” - that prevents her (and potentially everyone else in the world) from getting too involved in my problems.  (Currently, we are on friend hiatus while she strengthens bonds with her husband, cares for her children with special needs, and celebrates an endless parade of birthdays in her ever-expanding family, all while enduring a weight loss battle.  I have no grounds for protest.)

In the absence of old confidantes, my natural tendency is to seek out new ones.  The obstacles here are multifold.

• The older my peers get, the more set in their ways they become.  They become more guarded of the stability of their own lifestyles, and thus fear any changes that threaten the idyllic worlds their lives have become.  (This point is valid on the condition that everyone has a personal definition of “normal” that my revelation would endanger, which I believe most people do, on the whole.)  This makes me hesitate to bring newer friends closer.

• Telling more people makes the circle wider.  The bigger the circle, the harder it becomes to keep a secret.

• My spouse just loves keeping this secret.  She can live with it, but knowing that other people know is a wound - one which my convictions prevent me from exacerbating any more than I have.

Therefore, being able to out myself to certain people whom I believe could be intellectual and/or spiritual allies in my crusade for trans-recognition has become a crossdream fantasy in and of itself.

As I write this, I’m compelled to add an important fourth drawback, which suddenly seems very crucial to the matter:

• The point of telling someone a secret is to violate its status as a “secret.”  The point of letting someone know that you’re suffering from quiet desperation is with the hope that you might find an escape from it.  Sure, at least you’re not being quiet any more, but if you want things to change, shouldn’t you expect them to change?  Why, then, would I tell someone if I didn’t?

In that regard, my friend Angel once asked me point blank, “What are you prepared to do?”

Lorelai's been there.

It’s a wake-up slap, that question.  It basically means, “Make a decision right now, and see if you can live with it.”  Well… the hard truth is that I’m not about to make any decisions that benefit myself at the expense of my other.  I can’t be Holli and keep Erica.

Nor can I cease to be Holli.  That’s not even a decision I get to make.

Given any kind of chance to live the rest of my life as Holli without consequence of those I love suffering, I know I’d take it.  I don’t even know if that life is better than this one.  I would push that button, because I need to know.

Therefore, me not finding someone else to trust and telling them who I am is like refusing to walk in the room containing the button.  This is basically me admitting that I fear someone supporting me and telling me to go for it.  I fear someone telling me it’s okay to get what I want though it destroys someone else.  I fear that I could be convinced to be that person.

And I don’t think I’m that person.

At least it’s still my decision, even if making the right one isn’t as satisfying as making the one that feels good.

c. Charles Schulz

-- HCP

Say Nothing, Act Casual ... pt. 2

(In which Holli brings "desperate" to a whole new level...)

With the decisive neutrality of my two closest girl friends - Erica, my actual girlfriend, and Penny - and their reluctance to entertain the slightest positive thought regarding my cross-dressing, I seemingly at random picked a girl I knew to be my new confidant - name immaterial, for she was brilliant at listening, but contributed absolutely no thoughts to the process (thus having no extensive effect on my trans life).  I began to lean on her for support, as it were, but she expressed no interest in being my enabler.  After almost an entire summer of being sidestepped, I went to her home and tried on some of her outfits without permission, out of some paltry form of revenge.  Her nigh-indifferent reaction to this made me realize I'd placed too much expectation on her shoulders.  We remained friends, but never conversed so much as before.

I find it funny that at college I'd gone from total closet-case to practically unloading my needs on other people and expecting results.  Either my naivete was on a crash course with reality, or I believed altruistically in the dependability of more capable, confident people than myself.  Maybe both.  Poor girl.  Poor me.

And then I met Angel.  Wise, warm, funny, and such a kindred soul I couldn't even know.  I confided in her.  Then... she gave back.  A little too much, perhaps... rather, I didn't have the decency to stop asking. She shopped with me, helped me dress, did my nails (and I did hers), and every now and then my makeup.  She covered for me when I couldn't account for myself to others.  Angel even confided some of the bitter truths peering out from her own closet, feeling it was good for our bond if she added a little of herself to it too.  She devoted herself to understanding me and getting to know me better, unfortunately to the point where she developed a moderate crush on me.  This nonreciprocal love drove us apart for a short while.  Eventually she forgave me for being myopic and advantageous, and I toned down my desperation when we got together.

As it happens, eventually we both found ourselves married.  While I was willing to make time for our relationship as girlfriends, Angel knew that it would never work.  (Ever try explaining to one's newlywed husband about spending time with someone else's husband without tipping him off that the other husband is a cross-dresser?  Me neither, but I bet it's hard.)  We agreed that ours would have to remain a correspondent relationship. It's still difficult to maintain, now a multitude of children have come into her life (she and her husband foster).

Which brings us to NOW.

Despite that Erica knows what kind of a person I am and what I'm inclined to do when the girlie itch needs scratching, we have more secrets between us now than ever.  I accept half the blame for this.  I simply do not tell her things I don't think she enjoys hearing.  This blog, for instance.  My chat room activities.  My board posts.  Purchases.  Private wardrobe indulgences.  In fact, as far as far as she knows I'm just sitting on a great big mountain of repression and doing just fine.  So in reality I'm exacerbating the problem, based on my worried reluctance to set the hurtful truth free.  There have been so many unexpected "walk-ins" in our relationship, I sense how tired she is of them.  I just feel like I'm granting her fondest wish.  Some people do prefer unfamiliarity.

Erica values secrecy.  She isn't just interested in keeping my closet door closed and barred, but she'd just as well forget her own alleged shortcomings.  Unfortunately, she married a person who's totally into disclosure.  If I had a complaint (haha... "if"... ) it would be that she doesn't know how to open up and explore, discuss, analyze, understand the things either of us say and do.  Of anybody I know - and tell me if I'm wrong, please - she ought to be the most interested in knowing everything she can about this irrepressible facet of my being.  Ought to be.  But isn't.  Much like I have to put up with her temper, but at least take time to understand why she's so angry and say how I feel about it.

Does anyone else get the impression that I'm the woman in this relationship?

I can tell the world my secrets.  Sure.  But the list of who I really give a damn about them knowing is pretty short, with her at the top.

That's all for now.  Erica's out and about for another half hour, and I've been girling it up all by my lonesome, spilling the beans to anyone who'll listen.  I think I'll go do the dishes.  And I don't care who knows it.  =P

~HCP

Say Nothing, Act Casual ... pt. 1

By now, if you've read everything prior to this entry, you may have gleaned that I'm not exactly a public figure.  You don't know my given birth name, the kinds of pets I keep, the specific nature of my work or the name of the town I live in.  I even provided a pseudonym with which we may refer to my wife, and will do the same for any close acquaintances who'll be mentioned in this very post.  My blog is deeper undercover than a Brazilian CIA sleeper agent!

Security matters to the closet TG.  A "free country" it may be, but there are too many circumstances where common knowledge of one's gender experiments will attract unfortunate consequences.  Even if most of us keep low profiles in real life, there's a very good chance that if there's a tear in the veil of secrecy then someone will lose something useful, vital or precious - even all three.

And I acknowledge that I've got a little of something from all three categories hanging on the line, should my bi-gendered activities go live.  Therefore, I exercise caution.  Not only for myself but for the main reason I keep the curtains drawn when I'm girling it up - Erica.  She cannot even describe the specter of dread that haunts her, that someday her parents, extended family, all of our friends, her co-workers, our future children, the Pope & the President will find out that she's married to a cross-dresser.  To clarify, I'm mostly in agreement with her.  My needs are complicated, but not the center of our marriage.  And with the economy shaping up to be what it is, I can't go losing my job because I'm deemed incompatible working with the staff or clientele.  (Or whatever excuse they'd make up.)

It's a lot easier to keep the ol' skeleton under wraps these days.  I have my own house, I get time to myself, and I can shop online (not that I'm sitting on that much extra cash; did I mention the lousy economy?).  But in days past, the life of this secret sister was a real pain in the ass...

CHILDHOOD marks the first moments of my discovery that I wanted to be more like the girls.  But even a 1st grader knows there are some things you just don't tell other people.  Especially your peers.  Don't ask me how I knew, but somehow I got the memo that letting all your classmates learn that you'd rather play house than kickball would follow you around nipping at your ass like an angry shih tzu.

Parents were another subset of associates whom it was wise to keep these things from.  In my case especially, Dad, who rocked with Harley-Davidson, hung out with Jack Daniels, and liked to travel with Smith & Wesson.  Mom was exactly the opposite - fun, warm, funny, caring and yet something made me withhold my questions from her.  Even when she caught me two different times wearing her pantyhose, and even offered to talk to me about whatever I was going through, I dummied up.  Probably the tenets of shame and inappropriateness that most kids like us felt when examining our genders.

ADOLESCENCE wasn't so bad, inasmuch as there was one excellent perk for a teenage CD - self-gratification.  This, at least, was what adults anticipated youngsters to be doing in the privacy of their bedroom.  Whether they approved or not, nobody wanted to walk into the middle of that.  And it's not like they could read my mind and learn which fantasies I was mining from.  They sure weren't gonna ask.

My hormonal spike from grades 7-12 added another demographic to the "Do Not Tell" list: attractive girls.  This was agonizing, since they were exactly whom I would have chosen to open up to.  My fantasies expanded, but the closest I ever got to confessing my desires to anyone back then was my first girlfriend - we'll call her Mallory - who decided that she wanted to dress me as a girl for Halloween as a special exercise in dominance over an all-too-willing amour.  I went on letting her think I hated it, which seemed to inspire her all the more as she divulged details of the sweetly feminine things she'd make me wear.  I'd already lost my virginity to her; I wondered if it were likely I'd be the one wearing the lingerie at some point.

Three months into the relationship, Mallory dumped me.  October was three months away.  Not even close.  C'est la vie, as the heartbroken say.

Curiously, my next girlfriend (and one of my best friends to this day) - let's call her Juliet - had the unprecedented effect of distracting me almost entirely from my pocket obsession with cross-dressing.  I have no theories on this, but I can observe the differences: we were rarely a physical couple, her Christian faith gave me new ideas to think about other than sex and gender, and above all she had so much more to offer as a friend and companion than most girls I knew.  I decided to preserve our relationship's beneficial qualities, even after Juliet broke up with me, by never involving her in that part of my world.  (Currently renegotiating this policy.)

COLLEGE availed a brand new concept that was as frightening as it was exciting - independence!  Not only could I pursue examination of my gender on a potentially social level, but I could majorly screw up my reputation in the process! (Wheee!)  I learned a lot about "give and take" during these years, but not much about accepting status quo.  Never have I revealed my secret to more people than I would over the next seven years, nor would I.  And the beautifully ironic thing is that it barely seems to have mattered.

Some time after I met Erica and we started dating, I gave in to the impulse to raid her closet.  I'd steal the occasional scrunchie or pair of underwear, but later I would convince her to go off to class and let me sleep in her dorm room until she got back.  Halfway dressed, I had no idea she'd forgotten her text book.  I barely got back into bed before she came in - forgetting that I had a hair clip stuck on my head.  She saw it immediately but - bless her sweet heart - believed my story when I said I was going to dress in her clothes to surprise her for a laugh when she got back.  This story worked so well, she actually took pictures when she got back, and her friend down the hall, Penny, who was so amused when she saw the prints, made wardrobe suggestions for the "next time."  The following year, both of them made me over for the proceeding Halloween.  (Score!!)

After all of this transpired, I eventually decided to tell Erica the truth.  I was growing rather fond of her and couldn't bear to spring my big surprise on her years down the road.  She took it well, though I feared her head would explode from bottling up this information without someone to vent with, so I also told Penny, who'd become her roommate and best friend.  They immediately formed a consensus that I should never, ever give in to the desire to dress as a woman again.  (Un-score.)

Next: "Holli goes in-freaking-sane"

~HCP