Hey all, ummmm this, from the other day:
Part 1
...just a statement of, "I did it." Equally, I'm not sure if it counts as 'coming out.' But: Labels, whatever!
Tonight I told my girlfriend that, "sometimes I like to dress up as a woman."
It was a hard thing to tell her, but she wasn't repulsed. (Dutch courage did help). I believe that we Brits can still have a way of underplaying the tough stuff, in that old spirit of the 'stiff upper lip', but I wish to say that this *really* felt tough to do: right up there with jumping out of a plane, or being in a war: tough stuff.
I then spouted to her lots of things that I've only learned about over the last few months, bio sex vs gender, sexuality being separate; about when I first started this expression as a child, how it didn't vanish: all that stuff in a big careful blurb.
I found it difficult to work up to opening up to my girlfriend about this topic. I tried before a number of times, but tonight felt more right: we had an argument a few days ago that had chucked up some big questions about our relationship, (yes, I'm guilty by the way of the thing that we had a hiccup about...) so with everything on the table, and things at a crossroads, it felt OK to let it out - not to dissemble or divert from the thing, but as part of the follow-on repair.
Um, these are my initial, late night/only morning ramblings, so I don't really know how it feels yet. It feels normal at the moment. That makes sense, my reality hasn't changed much: my other half's has. But she's really supportive so far, even though she thinks my makeup brand of choice is a bit crap!
Recalling what a new friend told me at BNO the other month, "You're not a weirdo. You're a YOU."
Come on lets have a read of part 3
Is your wife or Girlfriend going to sign up here?
Hannah (wife)
Woop woop part iii
Hey Davina, Katie, Hannah & Emma - thank you. I probably have enough to make a Pt iii now. I'll give it a go.
A
Hi Anneka
Looking forward to part 3
Emma (wife)
Hi Anneka
Nice girl name
A good read looks like you have an accepting gf there don't push too much and get her on here if she'd like to chat openly with us wives and other tgirls as no doubt she will have much to ask and settle in her mind the sexuality one her main concern I expect.
Hannah (wife)
Hi Anneka
Looking forward yo hearing more from you.
Katie
Thanks for posting this.
Some girls wonder how to tell a girlfriend or a wife and how they'll react.
Wives and Girlfriends can do one of things the worst is burst into tears (like my wife) oops or some can just say ok so tell me more about it.
I feel very lucky that after fretting for ages then telling her then her tears then a few years of on and off discussing it with it so hard a subject to broach (she burried her head in the sand which I think Katie's wife is doing and Sindy to an extent).. lots of talking and reassuring and my wife came to understand it better.
I dont understand why i dress fully so can't expect her to other than it's something I do and fab to read your girlfriend gave a pretty positive response.
Looking forward to hearing more about how things pan out for you.
I love to read the Quantum leap in acceptance some tgirls find with wives and girlfriends makes me feel I went about it all wrong but turned out ok in the end.
Thanks for the post keep posting
Davina
Then this:
Part 2
A few girls have kindly asked how it's gone so far, so this is a meandering presser from the Union of Amalgamated Updates:
Telling Her
Basically, I decided to create a window of opportunity when it could be best to tell her, but whilst realising that it would be OK to create a window and not have to use it if it didn't feel right. This really took the pressure off. The first window I created was at Halloween when we went to a restaurant in costume-lite & I wore eyeliner. But the public environment didn't feel right to broach the subject.
A few days later, when we had an evening in with the TV on, with a programme about 80s music icons including a fair few guys who'd pushed boundaries wearing make-up, I sensed my chance and started off with something like, "You know I'm a *weirdo, well sometimes you know that you're a weirdo from when you're very young.." and then continued with "and sometimes I like to [pause, deep breath] dress up as a woman."
And the world didn't end! She was pretty calm about it, and thought that it explained a barrier that I'd had up with her. After I'd told her, we weren't able to speak for a couple of days and I felt like a Coke can that had been shaken up and pierced with a drawing pin. It was like having to hold my thumb over the hole to stop all more than 10 years of thoughts escaping in an ill-timed rush of excitement and relief. I wanted to talk about clothes, make-up and the surprising things that I'd learned from going out in heels, (toenails) but I had to wait, which was actually useful.
Order of Things
It gave time to digest lots of kind advice & suggestions from girls here on Chix, and to make an order of things to explain to her, and to take it slowly. Fine in principle, but last week I let her know about a LGBTQ event that I was thinking about going to, and she offered to come along! This blew my mind a little bit & I do keep wondering, "why aren't you shocked about this yet?"
Since then, I panicked for a few days because I saw lots of pitfalls if we were to dive into the deep-end of going out together before we'd managed to cover all the bases...! Especially after we had a distance conversation that touched on sexuality and mostly ended up confusing us both.
So, I've told her this chosen name and we've talked about how someone *may* *nod change their behaviour when they change their gender appearance. I fumbled for analogies, but kept it lighthearted, "it's still me but kind of girlish; perhaps you could imagine that you're on a night out with my sister??"
After succeeding(?!) at all of the tough stuff... I finally showed her some photos. In a good way, it was an anticlimax. She was mainly relieved that I didn't really look too much like me! (Hang on - is that right?) Not like the usual me, anyway.
Going Out
& that's where we're at. Fingers crossed again...
TBC