My Generation
I think it's a generational thing, the younger generations have, for the most part, very little difficulty in coming to terms with crossdressing, that's not saying it's easy, it most certainly is not, but they seem to be able to accept much more readily. Why is this, why do older and supposedly more wise people struggle with this issue?
Firstly we have to go back to out youth, in my case that means going back to the 1960's, the world was very different at that time, in England and Wales homosexuality was not decriminalised until 1967, at the time there was a widely held belief that any person crossdressing was gay. This was not helped by the way transvestism (the term crossdressing was not often used then) was reported in the media. An example can be found in a article published by a magazine called 'Titbits' in November 1968. The front cover is adorned with a photograph of an attractive woman with the headline in bold red lettering "THIS IS A MAN" "Read the incredible facts inside". The article with covered three pages was subtitled "The She Men" and went on to tell the stories of a number of transvestites is a sensationalist way. As a young teenager I was fascinated by this article but also worried, fascinated as it was the first time I had been able to read anything about other males that wore women's clothes but worried as it inferred that I should be gay and suffer a life long struggle. This was of course long before the internet, there were support organisations, and places for crossdressers, but by their very nature they had be be kept relatively secret, I have no idea where any young crossdresser would have gone to seek help.
Society at the time (in the UK at least) was very straight laced and the accepted norm was that there were men and women, thats how families were brought up, someone stepping out side of the 'norm' would be regarded at best as very odd or more often suspected of some mental illness. I learn't very early on that my desire to wear women's clothes had to be a very closely guarded secret. Some transvestites were even given electric shock treatment to stop their desire to be female. As a result of this people like me kept our crossdressing very hidden and even after the internet came about and allowed a flow of information to be readily available it has taken many, me included, years to even consider that we are in fact crossdressers, we are transvestites and we are transgender. Breaking away from our upbringing was in my case very difficult, and I suspect similar for many of my generation. I have several friends with similar stories, many of them have yet to 'come out' to the person who is closest to them, their wives. Because our upbringing has caused us to not only hide our crossdressing but also to avoid accepting it makes the very difficult task of 'coming out' a very hard thing to do, made even harder as each year rolls by.
When an older crossdresser does eventually come out, even if he explains that for years he could not admit his crossdressing even to himself let alone someone else, he will be accused of lying to his partner. An untruth that will undoubtedly cause much distress on both sides. It is here that the crossdresser can not win, by the time he eventually exposes the truth to his partner the damage is done. Not intentionally, in most cases, keeping the secret for a whole lifetime has become second nature, I developed a defence mechanism which allowed me to keep the secret but at the same time locked it away from all public view. This mechanism also steered me away from allowing any possible hint of my true feelings to escape. My public self always stayed away from anything that might be considered 'girly', 'gay' or not 'manly'. Many times my inner self would be saying "this a nice dress, or I love those heels" but outwardly I would be doing the manly thing of saying nothing or at most "oh it's OK I suppose".
The mechanism was there to protect me, I never knowingly met a crossdresser or anyone who might be sympathetic to my thoughts. If I let slip my feelings I would be ridiculed at best, outcast or even worse, it had to stay a secret. When I eventually came to terms with my whole self I had to reverse a lifetime of hiding this special part of me and releasing it out into the world was, and indeed still is, very hard. So the crossdresser has held this most personal secrets from the people he loves not only to protect himself, but also to protect them. Once he 'comes out' to his partner, she has to keep the secret as well, and from a lifetime of experience, that is not easy.
So to any partner of a crossdresser who happens to read this, yes we have kept this desire from you, yes we have hidden our inner thoughts, yes we have (in many cases) had a 'second' life, yes we have lied to you. But we did it in all honesty because we thought it was the best and possibly the only course of action open to us. In hindsight this is of course wrong, but with our background, our upbringing, our life in the society that created us we felt we had little choice.
If you are reading this in 2019, then whatever your upbringing, you are reading this from an enlightened point of view, this blog would not have been possible (in whatever format) when I was young or even 25 years ago, we live in a different world to that we were borne into, keep this in mind when you hear those words "I've got something to tell you.... I'm a crossdresser" It's a terrible shock, but it needn't be the end of the world.
Comments
Post a Comment