Leslie Langford
04-12-2015, 03:41 PM
...but before I elaborate any further on that thought, a bit of the back story here might be in order...
My wife and I are huge fans of the iconic 1970's British sitcom series Fawlty Towers, so when we heard that a travelling production company featuring an interactive dinner theatre version of that show was coming to Toronto for a limited engagement this spring, we were elated. Not only that, I was able to score a good price for the tickets through the livingsocial deals website, so off we were to last Wednesday night's performance. The show was everything we had hoped it would be - a madcap romp by the ensemble cast with active audience participation in an emulation of the dining room setting within the original Fawlty Towers hotel. The actors portraying "Basil", "Sybil" - and especially waiter "Manuel" - were spot on in terms of channeling the original cast, and they reprised segments of some of the most famous skits from the original show while all of this controlled mayhem swirled around the dining audience members.
Before the actual performance began, the cast members first started to mingle with the participants in the waiting area, following which we were all ushered into the dining room by "Basil" (his trademark ineptness in its full glory here) and in accordance with a seating plan allegedly devised by "Sybil". My wife and I were the first ones to arrive at our designated table, followed by what appeared to be a group of 6 or so friends/co-workers who positioned themselves immediately to the right of her. Other, non-related couples then joined us, completing the table. Now...this is where the "karma" part comes in - the person from amongst this first group and who ended up seating herself directly beside my wife was clearly either a crossdresser or a transsexual person somewhere along the road to transition (Disclaimer - this was a "date night" for my wife and I, and as the dutiful husband, I was fully in "guy" mode here).
Now, as most here who have been following my posts know, my wife and I have been in a DADT relationship for what seems like forever and which - although it has been thawing a bit of late - is still very much in place. The whole concept of crossdressing and transgenderism is still very distressing to her and makes her uncomfortable for a variety of reasons including her upbringing, her religious beliefs, and the rigidly gender-based social conditioning she experienced during her youth (the "Father Knows Best", "Leave It To Beaver", and "Ozzie and Harriet" era). While my wife tries to be somewhat open-minded about all this in principle, it still fundamentally goes against her grain and she struggles with it. And when it comes to me personally and with regard to my crossdressing, well, it's strictly NIMBY ("Not in My Back Yard"). You can easily imagine what a traumatic experience it would then be for her not only to come face-to-face with a real-life crossdressed transgender person, but actually to be seated beside one for the entire evening while being obligated to engage in small talk with them because of the rather intimate setting of this venue.
Now, let it be said that we have no direct proof that this individual was either TG or TS...nothing was ever said, the question didn't come up, no hints were dropped, and she behaved in a perfectly lady-like and above-board manner. Still, the clues were obvious - a deep, gravely voice with no attempt made towards modulation, a very pronounced Adam's apple, clearly wearing a wig, somewhat large, mannish hands, and a very boyish figure despite otherwise being very slender and of only moderate stature.
At the same time, our table-mate was doing her best to either pass or blend in, was dressed in a semi-androgynous/feminine manner (stylish blouse and well-tailored women's pants, suitably accessorized with nice rings, bracelets, and a necklace, subtle make up, manicure, and no apparent beard shadow etc.) I clued in right away, though; my wife apparently did so at the same time, but both of us pretended as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening here and did our best to act nonchalant. To be honest, I half-thought that my wife had actually missed all these visible clues at the time, and it was only during the ride home when - after a long silence - she asked me if I had noticed anything unusual about our table-mate. It was at this point that we had a full-blown conversation about it.
What ensued was what can best be described as a TG-themed Mars/Venus conversation. Naturally, I was very supportive of the person, praised her for her courage in being out and about in such a public setting, and also for being so comfortable there. My wife, on the other hand, felt imposed upon and offended that this person had decided to sit right beside her and engage her in conversation when she could just as easily have sat somewhere amongst the group she came in with and socialized with them instead. She said that she felt uncomfortable throughout the course of the event as a result, and that it spoiled what could otherwise have been a very delightful evening for her. She also admitted that she really shouldn't have felt this way, but having had to deal with my transgenderism and crossdressing throughout our marriage and this being the perpetual elephant in the room for us, this was too much for her and why couldn't she ever get a break from this even if it is for just one evening out?
Even worse, my wife began to extrapolate this cosmic karma happenstance as being some sort of plot that I had maliciously hatched to put her into contact with a TG person other than myself to "prove" in a passive-aggressive way my contention that not only are we everywhere these days, at the core of it, we are also just regular folks who like to do regular things while expressing our inherent gender identity, different though it may be from others. Refuting this ended up being something of a hard sell, as she knows that I go out en femme on a semi-regular basis, interact comfortably with others as "Leslie", and as a result she naturally assumed that the group this TG/TS individual was with were people that I knew from other, previous encounters (NOT!). In the end, my wife accepted my vehement denial of this, recognizing that our seating/table had been selected at random when I bought the tickets online, and that while our table had been pre-assigned, we were also the first ones to arrive at it after being ushered into the room by "Basil". Clearly, we had no control over who subsequently sat beside us, and in which order, so again - pure chance, and luck of the draw.
In the end, it was good to talk all this through and not have this encounter leave an overly bitter taste in our respective mouths, but I am still disappointed. On one level, my initial reaction to this totally random encounter between this TG/TS individual and my wife was that it could prove to be a valuable teachable moment for her and perhaps soften her stance towards increased acceptance of my feminine alter ego. In the end, I saw that it proved to be just the opposite - it reinforced her biases (albeit with some accompanying guilt for feeling this way), as well as her desire to continue to keep this whole crossdressing thing of mine out of her face.
Still, I was very encouraged by at least one aspect of this whole evening - I saw another TG/TS individual up close and personal who not only was confidently out-and-about, she was also with a supportive group who treated her just like a normal friend. Not only that, the person who sat on the other side of her from my wife was clearly a GG, and from some of the comments I overheard and the body language between the two of them, it was evident that they were more than "just friends", with the GG perhaps being a wife or girlfriend. Given my personal circumstances, not only was I in awe of this, I was actually somewhat jealous of her good fortune as well.
It was also interesting for me to have been put into this fly-on-the wall situation to observe first hand the dynamics between a clearly TG/TS individual and a group of unsuspecting "muggles". Irrespective of how they might have felt (and perhaps in some ways shared my wife's discomfort deep down inside), they showed no outward signs of this and treated her courteously and respectfully throughout. This has been exactly my own experience when out in public as "Leslie", and it was good to see that my perception of my past experiences in this regard was not solely a figment of my own imagination, and that I was not just setting myself up as a target for mockery as my wife would like to have me believe.
So yes, sometimes karma can be a b*tch in more ways than one, and I guess the lesson to be learned here is that often the best that can be hoped for is for two people to just agree to disagree on divisive and contentious issues such as this. Perhaps the encounter I have described did nothing for my wife in changing her views or biases in any substantive way, but seeing this TG/TS individual leading a rich and rewarding life was most inspirational for me. It also reinforced my commitment to allow "Leslie" to continue to flourish, as well as keep going out in public while confidently engaging with the world at large every chance I get without feeling any guilt or shame.
My wife and I are huge fans of the iconic 1970's British sitcom series Fawlty Towers, so when we heard that a travelling production company featuring an interactive dinner theatre version of that show was coming to Toronto for a limited engagement this spring, we were elated. Not only that, I was able to score a good price for the tickets through the livingsocial deals website, so off we were to last Wednesday night's performance. The show was everything we had hoped it would be - a madcap romp by the ensemble cast with active audience participation in an emulation of the dining room setting within the original Fawlty Towers hotel. The actors portraying "Basil", "Sybil" - and especially waiter "Manuel" - were spot on in terms of channeling the original cast, and they reprised segments of some of the most famous skits from the original show while all of this controlled mayhem swirled around the dining audience members.
Before the actual performance began, the cast members first started to mingle with the participants in the waiting area, following which we were all ushered into the dining room by "Basil" (his trademark ineptness in its full glory here) and in accordance with a seating plan allegedly devised by "Sybil". My wife and I were the first ones to arrive at our designated table, followed by what appeared to be a group of 6 or so friends/co-workers who positioned themselves immediately to the right of her. Other, non-related couples then joined us, completing the table. Now...this is where the "karma" part comes in - the person from amongst this first group and who ended up seating herself directly beside my wife was clearly either a crossdresser or a transsexual person somewhere along the road to transition (Disclaimer - this was a "date night" for my wife and I, and as the dutiful husband, I was fully in "guy" mode here).
Now, as most here who have been following my posts know, my wife and I have been in a DADT relationship for what seems like forever and which - although it has been thawing a bit of late - is still very much in place. The whole concept of crossdressing and transgenderism is still very distressing to her and makes her uncomfortable for a variety of reasons including her upbringing, her religious beliefs, and the rigidly gender-based social conditioning she experienced during her youth (the "Father Knows Best", "Leave It To Beaver", and "Ozzie and Harriet" era). While my wife tries to be somewhat open-minded about all this in principle, it still fundamentally goes against her grain and she struggles with it. And when it comes to me personally and with regard to my crossdressing, well, it's strictly NIMBY ("Not in My Back Yard"). You can easily imagine what a traumatic experience it would then be for her not only to come face-to-face with a real-life crossdressed transgender person, but actually to be seated beside one for the entire evening while being obligated to engage in small talk with them because of the rather intimate setting of this venue.
Now, let it be said that we have no direct proof that this individual was either TG or TS...nothing was ever said, the question didn't come up, no hints were dropped, and she behaved in a perfectly lady-like and above-board manner. Still, the clues were obvious - a deep, gravely voice with no attempt made towards modulation, a very pronounced Adam's apple, clearly wearing a wig, somewhat large, mannish hands, and a very boyish figure despite otherwise being very slender and of only moderate stature.
At the same time, our table-mate was doing her best to either pass or blend in, was dressed in a semi-androgynous/feminine manner (stylish blouse and well-tailored women's pants, suitably accessorized with nice rings, bracelets, and a necklace, subtle make up, manicure, and no apparent beard shadow etc.) I clued in right away, though; my wife apparently did so at the same time, but both of us pretended as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening here and did our best to act nonchalant. To be honest, I half-thought that my wife had actually missed all these visible clues at the time, and it was only during the ride home when - after a long silence - she asked me if I had noticed anything unusual about our table-mate. It was at this point that we had a full-blown conversation about it.
What ensued was what can best be described as a TG-themed Mars/Venus conversation. Naturally, I was very supportive of the person, praised her for her courage in being out and about in such a public setting, and also for being so comfortable there. My wife, on the other hand, felt imposed upon and offended that this person had decided to sit right beside her and engage her in conversation when she could just as easily have sat somewhere amongst the group she came in with and socialized with them instead. She said that she felt uncomfortable throughout the course of the event as a result, and that it spoiled what could otherwise have been a very delightful evening for her. She also admitted that she really shouldn't have felt this way, but having had to deal with my transgenderism and crossdressing throughout our marriage and this being the perpetual elephant in the room for us, this was too much for her and why couldn't she ever get a break from this even if it is for just one evening out?
Even worse, my wife began to extrapolate this cosmic karma happenstance as being some sort of plot that I had maliciously hatched to put her into contact with a TG person other than myself to "prove" in a passive-aggressive way my contention that not only are we everywhere these days, at the core of it, we are also just regular folks who like to do regular things while expressing our inherent gender identity, different though it may be from others. Refuting this ended up being something of a hard sell, as she knows that I go out en femme on a semi-regular basis, interact comfortably with others as "Leslie", and as a result she naturally assumed that the group this TG/TS individual was with were people that I knew from other, previous encounters (NOT!). In the end, my wife accepted my vehement denial of this, recognizing that our seating/table had been selected at random when I bought the tickets online, and that while our table had been pre-assigned, we were also the first ones to arrive at it after being ushered into the room by "Basil". Clearly, we had no control over who subsequently sat beside us, and in which order, so again - pure chance, and luck of the draw.
In the end, it was good to talk all this through and not have this encounter leave an overly bitter taste in our respective mouths, but I am still disappointed. On one level, my initial reaction to this totally random encounter between this TG/TS individual and my wife was that it could prove to be a valuable teachable moment for her and perhaps soften her stance towards increased acceptance of my feminine alter ego. In the end, I saw that it proved to be just the opposite - it reinforced her biases (albeit with some accompanying guilt for feeling this way), as well as her desire to continue to keep this whole crossdressing thing of mine out of her face.
Still, I was very encouraged by at least one aspect of this whole evening - I saw another TG/TS individual up close and personal who not only was confidently out-and-about, she was also with a supportive group who treated her just like a normal friend. Not only that, the person who sat on the other side of her from my wife was clearly a GG, and from some of the comments I overheard and the body language between the two of them, it was evident that they were more than "just friends", with the GG perhaps being a wife or girlfriend. Given my personal circumstances, not only was I in awe of this, I was actually somewhat jealous of her good fortune as well.
It was also interesting for me to have been put into this fly-on-the wall situation to observe first hand the dynamics between a clearly TG/TS individual and a group of unsuspecting "muggles". Irrespective of how they might have felt (and perhaps in some ways shared my wife's discomfort deep down inside), they showed no outward signs of this and treated her courteously and respectfully throughout. This has been exactly my own experience when out in public as "Leslie", and it was good to see that my perception of my past experiences in this regard was not solely a figment of my own imagination, and that I was not just setting myself up as a target for mockery as my wife would like to have me believe.
So yes, sometimes karma can be a b*tch in more ways than one, and I guess the lesson to be learned here is that often the best that can be hoped for is for two people to just agree to disagree on divisive and contentious issues such as this. Perhaps the encounter I have described did nothing for my wife in changing her views or biases in any substantive way, but seeing this TG/TS individual leading a rich and rewarding life was most inspirational for me. It also reinforced my commitment to allow "Leslie" to continue to flourish, as well as keep going out in public while confidently engaging with the world at large every chance I get without feeling any guilt or shame.