Who Deserves "What?"

I have been following Terri Lee Ryan's series of posts on the cross dressing culture. She is one of the few I have found who does not mix in transgender women into the mix. For the most part, I have agreed with, or at the least read with interest the posts. But the latest sort of "rubbed" me the wrong way.

It was entitled "Cross Dressers Deserve a Happy Marriage." I immediately thought-and who doesn't? Actually, she was reiterating what all of us already know. Whatever tripped whatever "switches" in our psyches to forever attract us to women's (or men's) clothes as CD's or to feel sure our gender issues go much deeper-just aren't going away...ever.

So yes Teri, cross dressers do deserve a happy marriage. But as you yourself wrote, walking that tightrope with a spouse who has one hand on the family checkbook and the other with a speed dial number to her divorce lawyer, is tough.

Sorry, Terri, looks like you were just reaching for a topic to speak to a choir with on this one. Plus you didn't mention the number of women who outwardly don't mind cross dressers-until it is her husband in her new dress.

Don't forget women have egos too!

Marriage, Children and Cross Dressing?

Of all the various layers in our community, the cross dressers are likely the most silent, closeted and hidden from society. For obvious reasons. Most have families to raise and support. Plus on many levels a cross dresser just hasn't decided to make the much more serious leap into the transgender woman world. But recently, Terri Lee Ross has been blogging about cross dressers! Here is a lead in:

The cross-dressing community needs role models. So many of them are hiding in the shadows, unable to come forward and share their secret with their wives and families. They remain trapped in their own negative self-perception that leads to a lonely and an unauthentic life. Because of this, the image of cross-dressers remains a perversion, along with being thought of a transsexual woman, further wrongly defining them. Cross-dressers are not necessarily transitioning transgender/transsexual women. Many are comfortable in a dual-gender role, where they choose to remain a man, yet need to express their femme self.

Meet Brian, a cross-dresser who lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two young children.  Brian’s femme self is Alyssa, who is very much part of their life. Brian has found balance in living in his male and femme roles, while raising children. It is a story of hope that our society is moving forward in understanding just who cross-dressers really are, not necessarily the portrayed image of Caitlyn Jenner or other television shows on the transgender community that keep populating, like rabbits.

Here is your link!

Cross Dressers and Wives

In many ways, this is an "equal time" post here in Cyrsti's Condo. It's for all of you who identify as cross dressers.   

Through Tasi Zuriak and an e-mail she passed along- I can pass along (no pun intended) news about a new feature in the Huffington Post. It's written by Terri Lee Ross and called How to Tell Your Wife you are a Cross dresser. Here is an excerpt:

"Conflicted over your cross-dressing habit, you try to make peace with it and quit attempting to figure out why you have this desire to wear woman's clothing. Your therapist says you are normal, so why can't you tell anyone about your desire to dress and let your femme self out for others to see? The one person you want to share your femme self with is your wife, the mother of your children, your best friend and partner in life.

Yet, you don't know how to tell her. You are afraid she will abandon you or look badly on your behavior, thinking it is a sexual fetish that she wants no part of, when dressing is something that you were born with and a part of you that is begging to be exposed.

According to Sister House, a popular site for cross-dressers, about 70% of their audience have expressed that they have told their wives. The other 30% are still hiding in the shadows wanting to come out and share their femme self."

Follow the link for the rest of a great post that I can certainly relate to. Of course my situation was different because I told my wife before we were married. Over the course of a 25 year marriage and before she departed this world-the problem with me was dishonesty.  As I began to come to grips with being transgender, I was dishonest with myself and her.  She always made it very clear if I wanted to live as a woman, that's cool but we would just part as friends. So I tried to have it both ways (or hide it) which didn't work.

Finally, I just have to be a little snarky and point out when you do talk to your spouse-very quickly into the conversation, add in "Relax dear, I'm not like Bruce Jenner."