If They Only Knew

I'm now somewhere in the middle of my transition.  Though I'm mentally ready, and indeed, impatient, there remain some things that I want to have in place before beginning to live completely as a woman.  In the meantime; I am troubled and rather in a quandary regarding when to come out to some of my oldest friends.

Recently I have been getting some invitations to cookouts, parties, game nights, etc. from friends who don't yet know what is happening with me.  Though I still care about them and want to see them, they expect to see me in my male guise, and it is becoming difficult for me to bring myself to "dress in drag" for their sake.  So I make excuses, and the bonds of friendship grow ever weaker.

Why don't I just bite the bullet and tell them, you might ask.  There are two main reasons.  The first is that I fear losing their friendship.  I haven't told these people because I doubt that they will be able to accept me as I really am.  Yes, intellectually I know that if they can't accept me, they weren't really my friends.  The person they have known all these years has been a shadow of my full self, and in a way they really don't know me at all.  Still, the bonds of friendship are old and deep, and I am loath to risk severing them.

The second reason revolves around my job.  I feel it is necessary that my employer and coworkers do not find out about my transition until I am ready to tell them.  Now, I have two main circles of old friends.  In each circle, there is at least one person that has some connection with my employer and/or my coworkers.  If I tell one person in either circle, I think the entire circle will know.  So there is a real risk, especially if they don't react well to my revelation, that word would get out prematurely, and possibly dim my prospects for a successful transition at work.

You see my dilemma.  While I'm in this in-between state, there seems no good solution.  However, it is getting emotionally harder to continue going to work as a male, and my impatience to get on with it is growing.  It may be that I will come to the point that I need to proceed before I have all the desired ducks in a row.  I know difficult times are still ahead, and I look forward to a time when all this is well behind me.

Reality Check

Note: I recently suffered a serious loss, but I'm not going to write about that now.  The wound is still too fresh.

The past couple of weeks I have experienced an unprecedented amount of life as a woman.  Parties, lunches, Zumba, candlelight vigils, and even performing music on the stage.  I'm very out these days...but only in select company.  Specifically, among my church friends and in the local LGBT community.  Sometimes I get caught up in the euphoria of being Wendy and start to forget that my very existence is threatening to some people.  If I'm seriously thinking about living full-time as a woman, I feel like I need to bring myself back to earth by remembering times when I didn't experience such warm acceptance.

Not that I have experienced any real threats or violence so far--thank goodness--but there have been times when I knew I was clearly an alien presence to someone.  A couple of examples will suffice.

One Sunday afternoon a couple of years or so ago, I decided to go out shopping.  I was dressed very casually with the intent to blend in.  I wasn't very successful, apparently.  As I emerged from a store, I encountered two well-dressed middle-aged ladies, obviously fresh from church.  As soon as they saw me, one audibly gasped and dropped her bag in shock.  The other indignantly exclaimed, "Look at him!"  I chose to ignore them and walked to my car, but I was utterly humiliated.  I lost all heart to shop and went home soon after, my tail between my legs.

More recently, I was enjoying a potluck lunch after the service at church when a couple I'd never seen before sat down near me.  This was their first time visiting our church, and a friend introduced me to them.  I smiled and greeted them both.  The wife smiled warmly and said, "Nice to meet you!", but the husband did not speak and refused to look at me.  I could tell I made him very uncomfortable, and he in turn made me very uncomfortable.  After a few minutes he got up and left, never acknowledging my presence in any way.

As you can see, I have never really experienced anything earth-shatteringly bad (yet).  Just enough to remind me that the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and that the farther I walk down this road, the more of these prickly moments I can expect to experience.

Coming Out Stories

A Night at the Opera

I thought that it would be nice to share some of my coming out stories on this National Coming Out day.  Yes, stories plural--I am not out everywhere and to everyone, but I have come out to quite a few people at different times over the years.

The first person I ever came out to was my best friend.  We were both in our early twenties, I was deeply closeted and had never heard the word "transgender".  I was also a teetotaler.  After I heard him talking--with some amusement, but not unkindly--about some Penthouse letter he read in which the letter-writer, a man, confessed he liked to crossdress, my deep dark secret began to burn a hole in my soul.  I needed desperately to confide in someone.  So I arranged to hang out with my friend one evening when his roommate was gone.  I told him I wanted to try drinking some alcohol; I thought I could only overcome my fear of telling someone if I got drunk.  In truth, I don't think he gave me a great deal of alcohol, but in the early hours of the night, I finally, haltingly, told him that I liked wearing women's clothing.  He was very kind, even tender, as he assured me it was OK.

The next day, things were a little awkward.  He didn't seem to want to talk about or reference the night before, though he did call me later on to make sure I was all right.  In the years to come, he ran hot and cold about the subject.  Sometimes he didn't want to hear about it, other times he did and seemed fascinated.  He did eventually see me as Wendy, once, but I think it unnerved him a bit.  In recent years, we have lost touch.

In 1998, I began attending a transgender support group in Knoxville called Swans.  In the course of just four months, I went from being totally in the closet to hanging out with other trans people and even going out in public a couple of times.  I was riding high in what is sometimes called the Pink Fog: a state of euphoria brought on by the sudden release of my transgender feelings.  In this state, I determined that the time was right to come out to my parents.  After all, they were fairly liberal, relatively speaking.  I wasn't sure I could verbally tell them, though, so I wrote them a long letter (we don't communicate very well).  I told them that I was a crossdresser, but not to worry, I was not crazy and had no intention of transitioning to female.  I mailed the letter and waited in an agony of anticipation.  In a few days, I got a phone call; my mother assured me that everything was all right, that they loved me just the same.  Relief flooded through me and I felt on top of the world.

Then the other shoe dropped.  I got a letter in the mail in which my mother expressed all her fears (and my father's).  She was not surprised by my revelation, but my father was devastated.  They felt that I was deluded and perhaps under the pernicious influence of the people in the support group.  Their counsel was to get back into the closet and tell no one.  I was stunned; my euphoria was drowned under a tidal wave of depression.  My next visit with them was very strained.  I tried to bring the subject up with my mother, but it was clear that she was very uncomfortable talking about it.  When I showed up one weekend wearing shorts with my legs shaved, I was asked to wear long pants in future visits because I was upsetting my father.  Later, when I started growing my hair longer, my father unleashed a contemptuous verbal assault upon me.  He later apologized (after a fashion) in an email.  As it stands today, our relationship is cordial, but strained; we have established a don't-ask-don't-tell detente.

The third and final story I want to share today is a happier one.  After attending a Unitarian Universalist church for a few months I had become friends with a lady who, like me, sang in the choir.  She played violin and wanted a guitar accompanist; she and I began playing music together, and in that way we gradually got to know each other better.  In fact, despite a significant difference in ages (she was older than me), we became good friends.

One Sunday a member of our church, who happened to be gay, delivered a moving sermon about a transgender friend of his; I think his purpose was to raise awareness of trans people and issues.  I was very affected by this, and again, I had a burning desire to tell someone.  By this time I had been going to the support group for years (though it was ending) and was much more self-assured, but still this part of my life was very compartmentalized.  Anyway, I decided to tell my new friend.  I sat down with her and told her my little spiel and showed her a few pictures.  Her reaction was astonishing.  She was very interested in knowing more, was smiling broadly.  In a few minutes, she was going through her jewelry for clip-on earrings I could borrow and had me trying on high heels she no longer wore.  I had never felt such total and instant acceptance from a cisgender person before.  My head was spinning.

In the ensuing months, our relationship deepened.  She wanted to meet me as Wendy, face-to-face.  When I stood before her, feeling vulnerable, she embraced me and whispered, "It's nice to meet, you, Wendy".  She continually supported and even egged me own.  Our first night out together was as two women, watching an opera in Knoxville.  Our first vacation together was as two women, also; a trip to Charleston, SC, and nearby beaches.  Though I had difficulty dealing with the difference in our ages at first, we fell in love and eventually married.  She has always been my staunchest supporter and has never wavered in her total acceptance of all of me.

I have more stories to share, but that's enough for now.  Happy Coming Out Day!