I Just Want To, But I Can't.

[Dana L]

I have a very wonderful wife who accepts me and actually enjoys me being Dana. If I could have this acceptance by my friends and family, my life would be complete. I realize that isn't going to happen that easy. I'm tired of hiding who I really am around them. Sometimes I just want to tell everyone and get it over with so I can be myself. I just can't get up the nerve to do that. Some have asked me about some of the things I've done like my hair being long with highlights or going tanning or my shaved legs and getting a tattoo on my ankle. I guess if they've connected the dots they might have figured it out by now. Still I wonder, is it better to keep hiding the feminine me or is it better to get it out in the open and deal with whatever fallout may happen.

[ReineD]

If you told everyone, would you then like to present as a woman all the time except for work perhaps? Or would your goal be to keep switching back and forth?

[Tracii G]

I wish I could answer that for you but only you can make that decision.

[Dana L]

If you told everyone, would you then like to present as a woman all the time except for work perhaps? Or would your goal be to keep switching back and forth?
I'm not sure. I'd probably just be more feminine (clothes, shoes, hair, ect.), and present as a woman when I felt like it. Defiantly stay masculine at work.

[ReineD]

I think that probably the people you know might take it like your wife ... they'd be OK with it although to varying degrees, as long as they just saw you dressed in private? The issue is that most people believe that society in general is not accepting. So they wouldn't want to be seen with you in public? What makes people feel queazy about the whole thing, I believe, is fear of being judged negatively.

Strangers, however, don't care. They don't know you and they won't see you again. My SO and I go out in public all the time without any issues. People we run into have the grace to keep their opinions to themselves. But I can't imagine our families and friends wanting to go out to dinner with us while my SO is dressed. They'd be concerned about what everyone else thinks, just as I did in the beginning and as my SO did for years before she began to go out in public.

I'm not sure how people take a male who dresses femininely vs. full cross-gender expression. I'm guessing to the general public there is not much difference, in other words one would cause just as much tongue wagging as the other.

[Anna H]

I'd Love to just say to hell with it and be myself too, Dana.

There are few people left in my life who'd care or feel hurt,
so I often feel like I'm getting closer.

My only fear is that while 99% of people don't pay any attention
or don't care, there's the remaining 1% of idiots out there who
are dangerous with their attitudes and that could bring problems
for my wife. I do have to put her well-being before myself...

Of course, where someone lives will vastly affect the odds of
having any troubles, but I'm stuck where I am.

Still, I'm tired of not just being able to live as I please.
Maybe one of these days it'll work out....

~Kate~ ♥

[Alice B]

I rethink the first thing you should do is discuss it with your wife. If she is open to your telling your family it might be a good thing to do to relieve your stress on the matter. If she is against it then let it be.

[Rachelakld]

I agree with Alice, ask you wife how she would feel if other people know.
My wife has banned me from telling oldest daughter because of the strong relationships with family overseas (even though oldest is observant and bought me tights for Christmas).

[Joanne f]

Hello Dana,
Yes if you could have this big acceptance form everyone, unfortunately it is one of those things where you have to wayup what you will gain from what you may lose, I think people are inclined to think to different ways , you will have the ones that will think of you and your happiness and then you will have the ones that will think on how it will affect them with other people which may make them back off from you more than you would hope for , I know some would say true friends from not so true friends but it is not quite that simple as we all have this instinct to protect ourselves from the unknown or misunderstood things in life ,
my personal opinion would be to expand things a little to see who may have problems and who may not and then go from there as you have to remember for a while it doe's not just affect you it will affect every one you know in some small way but people do have away of getting use to things so it can happen to your liking .

[noeleena]

Hi.

At our camps we have over 100 men who dress in dress';s okay it's The SCA Renaissanc group, world wide im a member allso.

Now i invite people in to see what we do in our reinactment of the times , okay i know they are not trying to be women i know all of them and some, now i'v never heard a comment of who are they trying to fool dressed like that. from out side our group

Now heres something i never thought of, one of our women thought i was dressing like a woman of the day 1400 to 1700 times

And she thought like many others i was a male dresseing and taking on the personer of a woman, and how coragous to do that, then after a while she thought something is not quite right, she was seeing a woman now i dont act or do anything that is not true to myself in all aspects .

so she had a talk with me and said your not a male are you, i said .....no ..... im a female
just im different and explained to her what i was / am. the others 250 of our people were told in front of every one apart from i'm female i was given my rank of a Lady, with in the group , now a male does not recive that,

Now this is the case with all the other groups im a member of well over 1000 people who i know and i'v talked to every one, so im well known.

What we need to remember is had i tryed to fool others into thinking i was a female and not i would have been found out very quickly, trust me my friends are very astute and i'v spoken to all of them so they know and accept who i am. i never lost any of our Jos and i friends because i told them all about myself being the way i am and have had a fantastic acceptance and i never dreamed of or thought could ever happen,

I expected i'd lose our family and our friends, i now have more friends now from 10 years ago than i'v had in the rest of my life, now i mean real friends .

Mind you and i know you wont do it , i went on TV two stations papers and the net and interviewed nation wide, plus did talks to large groups , and some of my friends go back to 1956 and still are my friends,

What im trying to get over is be honist up front and get this bit ....INVITE .... others to be part of your life, to enjoy who you really are, , no dought i did it all out there, and the change was so lovely so neat i never fooled any one ,

...noeleena...

[Teresa]

Hi Dana,
We're all at different fences around the course, I would like be at your fence and be openly accepted by my wife, you're ready to jump to the next one and be open with family and friends. I suppose you're nervous because you've got the whole tolerance-acceptance thing to go through again and I suppose you risk losing what you've gained with your wife.

[Erica Marie]

Hi Dana. It must be a WI thing. I feel like I am in the exact same situation. I too just want to come clean and lift a weight off of my shoulders, but Im not sure how it would be accepted. I too am slowly working my hair more into a gender neutral style, my pierced ears, my not-so manly figure. For me it would be to relieve the stress of hiding. I dont think I would go full time but I would just like to be me and live how I feel at the time. More of a gender neutral or gender fluid look.

[kimdl93]

I have little advice to ad. I understand the feeling totally. Realistically, it just can't be done that way. You certainly can come out very selectively, but there reaches a point where it's going to become common knowledge, including at work if that's problematic, then it may be necessary to live two lives for a while yet. Hang in there!

[Beverley Sims]

No not yet, while you have doubts your confidence is not high enough yet.

Wait and make a wise and considered decision when you are ready.

[Wildaboutheels]

It looks obvious to me given your posts.

But I will ask anyway and the fact that your wife accepts has nothing to do with any acceptance by others. You seem to realize this.

What will you GAIN by telling others is not the question. The only question you need to answer is which CDing side do you lean to?

Is CDing more a HOBBY to you or are you consumed and controlled by "it"???

HOBBY is not a dirty word btw except here.

To some.

It's only a WORD and the definition fits most members.

But certainly not all.

Nothing wrong with having a favorite hobby is there?

According to most of the thousands of posts I have read here in 2 years, spilling the beans to everyone is almost a guarantee of losing at least a few friends.

Could you live with that?

[Debra Russell]

For me it's really more enjoyable to keep the two seperate in daily life: for (1. it's not fun to just look a little femm - all or nothing. (2. it's more difficult to just manuver through the day without the stress (3. ...think ?why? do you want to tell everyone? ...just more stress and drama - I don't need the attention

I find if I obsess about my femm self it bumm's me out - it's not worth it - be all you can , when you can and with confidence and be proud. just my $.02.........................Debra

ps If you "need" to take further maybe you are really TS and need to explore the options

[Dana L]

Thanks to all of you your advise is very appreciated. The reality of coming out to everyone is still a ways off, but when the time comes I will make it a decision by me and my wife. Like many of you said, something like this greatly impacts her too. This is more than a hobby, it is who I am. If there were a magic potion I could take and wake up as Dana from now on and everyone would accept me, I would take it and never look back.

[MissTee]

That has to be tough, Dana. That my wife knows and supports is enough for me. I'm not real certain if I wanted to come further "out" that she would embrace the idea. She probably would support me, but would be terrified. For that reason I would not act on it. She's just too precious for me to put her through that.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Dana, Make a list with all of the pluses & minuses .

[Katey888]

Sounds like you remain in control of the decision, Dana - I think that's the important bit!

Good advice here - take your time, set your own pace and goals, and think through the implications - only act when you feel the time is right..

Prudence... :)

Katey x

[MsVal]

Behold, the geek speaks:

There is an analytical tool used in project management for comparing risks and benefits. In its simplest terms:

Enumerate the bad things could happen from disclosing to various groups? (family, friends, colleagues, church)
How likely are those bad things? (slight, moderate, quite) What is the 'value' of each bad thing? (little, some, much)
The risk for each bad thing is the product of likeliness and value. The risk for each group is the sum of the products.

Do the same analysis again, but substitute "good" for "bad" and "benefit" for "risk".

Compare the benefit/risk ratio. If it's above 1.0 consider doing it. Under 1.0 don't do it.

Best wishes
MsVal

[Joanne f]

MsVal,
I am sure that it is very interesting how one would go about doing that but it is lacking one important thing , it cannot feel or sense instinct ,people can say one thing and do another, change their mind once they have more information and knowledge , yes it is sensible to work it out in risk and benefit but seeing peoples reaction can tell you just as much , I suppose the best thing to do is to run the two together and see what you come up with it would be interesting if they both showed the same POSSIBLE outcome .

[NathalieX66]

I live as female most of the time, except for work. My mortgage and my pension and my 4o1K savings depends on it. I'm lucky enough to show up to work wearing long hair, earrings, a plastic C-band hairband , and womens' jeans, but that's about it. I dress as male during my work hours yet I look like a gender confused person, which is fine with me.

[MsVal]

Joanne, you are absolutely correct, and right to call me on it.

While it was posted somewhat tongue-in-cheek (not very obvious - my failure), I believe there is merit to having a method for objectively identifying and comparing pros and cons. This one is no more than a pro/con list enhanced with values for the pros and cons. (how pro is Pro and how does it compare to Con?)

You are correct that simple formulas such as that do not take uncertainty into consideration. A line from an old old management seminar comes to mind "You will be called on to make decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate information. You cannot wait for the information to be complete or accurate, for if you do, the opportunity will have passed." In this context, anxiously waiting for certainty in a group's behavior that may never come, or the group may discover the behavior prematurely == opportunity passed.

Hence the vague and subjective terms for likelihood and value.


Off topic: People really *DO* say one thing and do another. The corporation I worked for conducted many focus groups to gauge public acceptance of design alternatives. What they ended up with were designs that seemed to be what people wanted, but when the product was available for sale and customer's money was at stake, people didn't respond the same way. In one case I am familiar with, people liked a nameless mockup that was based on a competitor's design but they disliked that same mockup when my corporation's nameplate was on it.

Best wishes
MsVal

[Marcelle]

Hi Dana,

There is a lot of good advice here and the key person to remember is your wife. She is a big part of the equation here and will also have to live with any decision you take in outing yourself to friends and family. I like you got tired of hiding who I am and after discussing it with my wife, I have slowly been coming out to various friends and work colleagues. It is an active choice I have made because to be honest I don't want those close to me finding out by accident or rumour so I was up front with them. However, there is a price. I did lose a very close friend and a few work colleagues are bit more estranged these days. On top of that once you release the information, you lose control of it. I know the rumours are making their rounds and I did have a friend come up to me and ask, so I told him the truth. But this is what I needed to do at this juncture in my life . . . do some people think I am "creepy tranny" . . . probably but then again if that is their opinion then I don't want to know them.

So my advice is to consider the consequences of your decision before you leap out to the world and consider how it is going to affect your wife.

Hugs

Isha

[Terri Andrews]

Dear Dana ,
Except for not having my own hair ,your story is where I am in my life .
If I was single I would not care ,but as others have said there is your spouse to consider

[cheryl]

I wonder the same too Dana, but then I think [and this is where I might be alone] do I really want to, because for me part of the allure is secrecy. My wife knows, and my family probably suspects, actually they know just haven't seen me as Cheryl. But I know where your coming from, just got to figure it out.