Kristy_Iowa_CD
04-10-2012, 04:04 PM
Good afternoon Ladies!
I haven't visited here for a long time. My oldest will be starting school this fall so other priorities have been taking my time. However today I felt compelled to post, mostly just to vent or perhaps for a little bit of therapy.
I am still in the closet about my cross-dressing. This is due almost exclusively to my family and career. I work for a large employer and they make a fairly big deal about acceptance and diversity. However, my career is typically a male-dominated field and despite my company's attempts at tolerance I am bombarded with homo-phobic and intolerant jokes and remarks on a daily basis. At work I am “just one of the guys” and no matter how many times I have indicated I am not interested in such humor my co-workers seem to think that my views on politics, sexuality, and gender are just as narrow-minded as theirs.
Unfortunately my family is also just as intolerant. I come from a close, loving Irish Catholic family. My parents raised me with excellent morals and I love them dearly. I have never in my life heard my parents make a crude, intolerant, or discriminatory remark about someones gender identify or sexuality. They have however, made their intolerance perfectly clear to me throughout my life by letting me know that they believe issues of gender identity and sexuality to be a matter of choice and that those who choose to engage in those “lifestyles” should not have any rights to do so.
I decided at an early age to keep my cross-dressing in the closet. The turning point came when I was 16. I had been experimenting with my mother's makeup and clothing since I was in grade school. When I was 15 we had a neighborhood-wide garage sale. I was helping one of our neighbors, who had a college-age daughter at the time, load clothing that had not sold into a box for Good Will. Although it was wrong I ended up taking a floral print bodysuit, pair of women's jeans, and a pair of panties that had all belonged to their daughter, for myself. I am not happy about having stolen them, but I figured since they were going to Good Will no one would really miss them and this was the first time in my life that I had my own female clothing.
Almost a year later my mother found the girls clothing hidden in my room. When I arrived home from high school that day my father immediately took me to my room to talk. I will never forget that talk in my life. Although my father was a gentle, caring man, I could see the anger in his face and voice. He demanded an explanation of what the clothing was for and where I had got it. For the first time in my life I was terrified about my cross-dressing. Rather than tell the truth, I made up an elaborate lie (I don't even remember what it was now), which my parents eventually accepted (whether or not they believed it I do not know). My mother, in the mean time, had thrown the clothing in the trash.
Like my co-workers I have made it clear to my family that I do not share their views about gender identify and sexuality. However, their political views (e.g. LGBT rights, etc.) still surface in my presence occasionally. I respect that everyone is entitled to their opinion and as I mentioned earlier, my parents (or immediate family members for that matter) have never made a crude or insulting statement about gender and sexuality in my presence. This all changed last week however.
Last week in my Inbox was an email from my mother. She had forwarded a joke to me and some other immediate family members. I am not going to repost the joke, and I will acknowledge that the story was written in a humorous vernacular, however the subject matter was extremely upsetting to me. The basic premise of the joke was the murder of a transgendered person made to look like an accident once the other characters in the joke realized she was not born a female (it makes me sick just to write that). I was appalled that my mother had sent this out. Even more upsetting another family member (who I thought was fairly tolerant) sent a mass-reply of “too funny!”.
I do not think my mother did this intentionally, I doubt she even remembers the incident with the bodysuit, panties and jeans, but seeing this kind of humor come from my mother has really bothered me. I contemplated sending an email back in defense of gender identity, and to once again let my family know that I do not appreciate this type of humor, but I decided not to. If they haven't gotten it by now, they never will. This has been weighing heavily on my mind. It is bad enough that I have to put up with these types of jokes at work, but to see them passed around so casually by my own mother really hurt me.
I guess I'm not really looking for any answers or guidance here, just wanted to vent about something that bothered me. Thank you for your time for reading my long post! ;)
I haven't visited here for a long time. My oldest will be starting school this fall so other priorities have been taking my time. However today I felt compelled to post, mostly just to vent or perhaps for a little bit of therapy.
I am still in the closet about my cross-dressing. This is due almost exclusively to my family and career. I work for a large employer and they make a fairly big deal about acceptance and diversity. However, my career is typically a male-dominated field and despite my company's attempts at tolerance I am bombarded with homo-phobic and intolerant jokes and remarks on a daily basis. At work I am “just one of the guys” and no matter how many times I have indicated I am not interested in such humor my co-workers seem to think that my views on politics, sexuality, and gender are just as narrow-minded as theirs.
Unfortunately my family is also just as intolerant. I come from a close, loving Irish Catholic family. My parents raised me with excellent morals and I love them dearly. I have never in my life heard my parents make a crude, intolerant, or discriminatory remark about someones gender identify or sexuality. They have however, made their intolerance perfectly clear to me throughout my life by letting me know that they believe issues of gender identity and sexuality to be a matter of choice and that those who choose to engage in those “lifestyles” should not have any rights to do so.
I decided at an early age to keep my cross-dressing in the closet. The turning point came when I was 16. I had been experimenting with my mother's makeup and clothing since I was in grade school. When I was 15 we had a neighborhood-wide garage sale. I was helping one of our neighbors, who had a college-age daughter at the time, load clothing that had not sold into a box for Good Will. Although it was wrong I ended up taking a floral print bodysuit, pair of women's jeans, and a pair of panties that had all belonged to their daughter, for myself. I am not happy about having stolen them, but I figured since they were going to Good Will no one would really miss them and this was the first time in my life that I had my own female clothing.
Almost a year later my mother found the girls clothing hidden in my room. When I arrived home from high school that day my father immediately took me to my room to talk. I will never forget that talk in my life. Although my father was a gentle, caring man, I could see the anger in his face and voice. He demanded an explanation of what the clothing was for and where I had got it. For the first time in my life I was terrified about my cross-dressing. Rather than tell the truth, I made up an elaborate lie (I don't even remember what it was now), which my parents eventually accepted (whether or not they believed it I do not know). My mother, in the mean time, had thrown the clothing in the trash.
Like my co-workers I have made it clear to my family that I do not share their views about gender identify and sexuality. However, their political views (e.g. LGBT rights, etc.) still surface in my presence occasionally. I respect that everyone is entitled to their opinion and as I mentioned earlier, my parents (or immediate family members for that matter) have never made a crude or insulting statement about gender and sexuality in my presence. This all changed last week however.
Last week in my Inbox was an email from my mother. She had forwarded a joke to me and some other immediate family members. I am not going to repost the joke, and I will acknowledge that the story was written in a humorous vernacular, however the subject matter was extremely upsetting to me. The basic premise of the joke was the murder of a transgendered person made to look like an accident once the other characters in the joke realized she was not born a female (it makes me sick just to write that). I was appalled that my mother had sent this out. Even more upsetting another family member (who I thought was fairly tolerant) sent a mass-reply of “too funny!”.
I do not think my mother did this intentionally, I doubt she even remembers the incident with the bodysuit, panties and jeans, but seeing this kind of humor come from my mother has really bothered me. I contemplated sending an email back in defense of gender identity, and to once again let my family know that I do not appreciate this type of humor, but I decided not to. If they haven't gotten it by now, they never will. This has been weighing heavily on my mind. It is bad enough that I have to put up with these types of jokes at work, but to see them passed around so casually by my own mother really hurt me.
I guess I'm not really looking for any answers or guidance here, just wanted to vent about something that bothered me. Thank you for your time for reading my long post! ;)