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."