TELLING SIGNS




BY RACHEL RENE BOYD

The students at Goucher College and Villa Julie College always ask insightful
questions. In a recent session one of the questions was, "How do you
decide whom to tell about your crossdressing?" Given the misunderstanding
about crossdressing in the general public, that is a very important consideration.
Tell the wrong person and you could lose a job, a friend, a spouse, a security
clearance or much more. The easy answer is, "You tell only those people
who need to know." Okay, but how do we decide who needs to know?

We may want to tell everyone, once we have come out to ourselves. We
are relieved, joyful and even exuberant when we have finally admitted to
ourselves that we are blessed with a special gift. But there are consequences
to telling other people. We have to remember their needs as well as our own.
Most people are going to be uncomfortable with crossdressing. Even those
who accept us as crossdressers often do so only after a prolonged examination
and consideration of what it means to be a crossdresser. They understand the
motivations for crossdressing even less than we do. Those we tell have to make
a special effort to understand and probably never do completely understand
our reasons. Some will reject us out-of-hand. Others will find the special effort too
much to bear to maintain a relationship with us. So we have to be very careful
in deciding whom we should tell about our special gift. So how do we decide?

Let's start with the one closest to us, our spouse. It is generally well accepted
that our spouse needs to know. Keeping something this personal from our
spouse risks disaster if and when she/he does find out. That creates feelings
of mistrust and betrayal. "If he didn't tell me this, what else is he keeping from me?"

That mistrust alone can be devastating to a marriage. So, notwithstanding the fact
that many of us have kept crossdressing from our spouses, even for many years,
it is best "fess up" and the sooner the better. Your spouse definitely needs to know.

How about telling our children? There is less unanimity on whether children
should be told. Some people keep it from their children indefinitely. Others wait until
the children are older or even wait until they are adults. A few chose to tell their
children and let them grow up with the concept. No one really knows what is best
for the children. Just remember that whenever you tell them, it places a special
burden in their lives. Their friends are not going to understand, so knowing you are
a crossdresser is either a dark secret they have to keep or a source of
alienation from their friends. So how about telling other family members?
Do they really need to know? After all, they are family, and should make an effort
to understand your little peccadillo. What you have to consider is whether
your relationship will be improved by telling relatives. They may not want to make
that special effort to understand and may resent you for placing that burden on them.
Telling your close friends can be especially risky. They do not have the same
vested interest in maintaining a relationship with you that a family member does.
They can simply choose to reject you. Do you know whether your friend
knowing will improve your relationship? If you don't know, you had better not risk it.

That's a choice I had to make recently. I have gotten close to one of my friends
from work. Bob and I have shared a lot of common concerns over the years.
We talk about the pressures of work, the joys of our pastimes, the challenges
of family and much else. Bob jokingly kidded me when I wore a dress
to a Halloween party he and his wife Patty were attending. Patty commented
that my make-up was done too well for someone who had just experimented with
crossdressing. Bob and Patty both hinted that maybe there was something more to
my crossdressing than just the Halloween party. I took that as an invitation to tell them
both. I planned how I was going to tell them and was looking forward to potentially being
Rachel with my long time friends. Then I asked myself, "Do they really need to know?"
Sure I would be happier, but would they be happier knowing their friend regularly
engaged in a socially unacceptable behavior? I've kept my secret to myself all of
these years. Is it fair for me to ask them to keep the very secret I couldn't keep from
them? Will they want to tell others? A secret is only a secret if only one person knows
it. Once it's told, it's no longer a secret. That happened to Marsha Edwards. Marsha's
alter ego told a good friend of his for reasons similar to mine. His friend was not upset
by the news. In fact his friend proceeded to tell others in their community in a hurtful
way. Marsha has now lost a friend and her privacy. This illustrates the point that you
cannot control the situation once you choose to tell someone else. Then there was a
scene in the video All Dressed Up and No Place to Go" (Cajun Films, 1996). This
is a documentary video about four crossdressers, their families and their lifestyles.

At one point the wife of one of the crossdressers told how she had shared her
husband's secret with her best friend of many years. Her friend said,
"That may be okay for you, but I need a real man." You could see the hurt on this
woman's face as she went on to say how her friend won't have anything to do with her.
You can never predict how a friend is going to react to knowing you are a
crossdresser. Yes, there are stories where people have told someone only to
find out that person has a similar proclivity. But I suspect that is extremely rare.

Given the prevalent rejection of crossdressing by most people, you are more likely
to lose a friendship than deepen it by sharing your secret. So when I ask myself the
question, "Do they really need to know?" I have to admit it is more my need than their
need that drives me. Bob and Patty are still friends, but they still don't know about Rachel.


This article first appeared in A Chesapeake Rose, the newsletter
of Tri-Ess chapter (Baltimore-Washington) of Chi Epislon Sigma.