Coming Out to Others

"Coming Out" to the ones you love is one of the most difficult tasks we will undertake and if you are like me, you will try to do it the wrong way. All of us who have come out totally or partially, have run the gamut doing it with a gradual "sit down talk" to a full blown "meet up" at the door in heels and hose...intended or accidental. Whatever the case, a genetic woman is going to "categorize" exactly what "Coming Out" means to them. More than a few immediately begin looking for a divorce lawyer but then again many don't.  Take this recent Cyrsti's Condo comment from Pat as an example:

  "The other night at dinner my wife passed me a nice comment about the cleavage that I had created as I sat across from her at the table. Just one more joy of being able to cherish my gender issues."

Obviously, Pat and I both were "out" to our wives, which I know isn't so common in the cross dresser / transgender world. For whatever reason, more than a few women refuse to accept "their man" in a pair of panties, let alone full feminine attire. As I have written numerous times my wife did not have any problems with me being a cross dresser. She couldn't. She knew from day one.  Done deal, who cared, worse problems. However, her life was good with me as a crossdresser not as a transgender woman. Which I understood.  In all fairness to myself though,  I didn't really know how I identified for much of our marriage and transgender was just a little known word. As I began to consider I was much more than a cross dresser,  I never wanted to admit it to her and my whole situation became one of "trust". I didn't love her enough to trust her with the knowledge even though both of us knew it would be the end of our relationship.  As we all know trust is the very glue which holds a relationship together.

Over the years, I have had numerous people ask me how I came out to the people I did.  The brutal truth is I have only came out as transgender to my daughter and a couple other friends who pretty much wrote me off. (one did-one almost did).  For the record, I have never came out as transgender to a male but have as a cross dresser. Why?  I think most certainly telling someone you have this "thing" about wanting to wear feminine things is easier than telling someone you want to be one of those feminine things. You are jumping "camps" and men immediately distrust you for wanting to and women wonder why you want to jump on board their bandwagon.

All the problems are compounded of course by being in a relationship which may even involve children.   An important point to remember when telling a spouse is she may not think your gender issue is a bigger deal than the trust issue which came hand in hand with it.  Specifically, how long has this been going on and why was she the last to know?  When and if you can seal this wound, then it's extremely wise to tell your whole gender story.  Don't be like me and say "a day or two a week living as a woman was cool when I was thinking about HRT."  It was about that time in our relationship when my wife laid down the infamous line "be man enough to be a woman and stop the torment for both of us."

I have no scientific stats to back this up but I think the younger generation is doing a better job of accepting relationships where one of the partners is trans.  At least I hope it's the case.  In the meantime, my best advice to those seeking to come out to love ones, don't get sidetracked by thinking they will get "freaked" by your gender choices.  They may already have figured it out or will get hurt by the fact you didn't trust them enough to tell them.