Tired of Hiding

For the first time I am considering openly and sharing presenting my femme identity. I’ve concealed my identity for two years of college, and I don't think I can any more. Fear is what kept me in the closet up to now. Now, my experiences the people I’ve meet in these first few weeks of school have opened my mind to the possibility of realistically and safely living my identity. While I accept the possibility that I may find this plan to have too risky in practice, as of now I plan on living my identity by the end of this semester.

I’m a crossdresser, and for two years at college I’ve hide my identity from almost everyone; classmates, roommates, teammates; The only people I told were my 4 closest friends I made first year.

Concealing this part of myself has had costs. I’ve denied my desires to dress many time because I believed the risk of getting caught was too high. When I had gone to QSU (Queer Students Union) meetings, despite the safe and inclusive environment I felt as if I were deceiving the people who were attending; By hiding my own identity while they lived theirs, I felt as if I were lying to them. Because of this feeling I stopped going. I was uncomfortable in my own dorm, I was uncomfortable in safe spaces, Where ever there were people, I had to play “normal”, and I was uncomfortable playing “normal”.

I continued this way because for all this time because I believed it was absolutely necessary. I feared that presenting this identity would damage, even destroy some of the friendships I had built. I feared presenting this identity would damage my career options; I believed companies are less likely to hire a queer person over a normal one; I feared that presenting my identity would damage my relationship with my mother, a relationship of un-conveyable importance to me still.

Well, I don't feel like I can sustain this deception much longer; I don’t intend to continue operating this way; Most importantly, I don’t feel like I need to continue living like this. I plan on openly living my identity by the end of this semester!

This semester I choose to take LGBTQ studies. This class been central to my decision to live my identity. First, LGBTQ studies has given me an academic reason to spend time reading and thinking about marginalized gender and sexual identities. Naturally I would think about how concepts and identities and communities related to my experiences; I realized that I’ve wanted to have a community of people like me.

Second, the variety of people in the class, people not afraid to live their identities showed me was I was looking for; a community. Once when leaving class, I was invited to a study group for a queer coed fraternity; I went found people I could be comfortable with, If I presented my true self. I’ve begun forming connections and friendships with other queer people.

Now I see far more possibilities than I did before. While I realize there is the potential to lose friendships by presenting my identity; I now see my friends in an accepting community who presenting my identity. While I realize I may be reducing my career options by presenting my identity; I’ve realized that taking a job in a place where I cant be myself would be putting myself in the same position I’ve been in all this time. I feel my happiness is worth a smaller paycheck or less prestige. And I’ve realized that I now posses the freedom and independence to ensure that I can live my life without my mother knowing. While I would still be presenting a false identity to her, I am in largely control of how frequent this is necessary.
I accept the fact that with time this feeling of confidence may fade, and even disappear. I accept the fact that unforeseen risks my cause me to re-evaluate my decision or alter my timeline. As Mr.Savage once said “Failure is always an option”. Because of these facts I leave the exit open, stopping is always on the table. Because there are no “take-backies” on revealed I plan on doing this in stages.

Any feedback, ideas, potential pitfalls would be greatly appreciated; and thanks for reading, I know this was a long one.

TL;DR - Im tired of pretending to be something I’m not; I have a feminine identity and plan on expressing it. Suggestions are nice:battingeyelashes:.

in the end you can only be the woman you are. by being true to yourself you empower others also to be true to themselves, and this is revolutionary and what we're all about!

I think you have great courage! You seem very smart and I think you will be very successful in whatever career you pursue with the support of the strong, accepting, like minded people from the community you are immersing yourself in. Going at your own pace is essential and I feel you are wise for leaving all options open, though if you really feel you need to be open about yourself then the only way is through. I wish you good luck.

Bcpmax, that's a really insightful and mature post... I'm very impressed with your observation of 'happiness vs prestige' as I believe that's a philosophy that many of us with this condition miss at a young age. Of course, you have the benefit of more resources now compared with 30 or 40 years back, but you still have to do this yourself and it sounds like you've thought this through and your head and feelings are all in the right place. :)

I wish you the best of luck with this and hope it works out well - it would be great for others in a similar situation to hear how it goes in the future, so I hope we hear more from you...

Katey x

Be yourself dear. You don't get any extra points for making yourself miserable. If you lose friends, you'll make new ones. Your true friends will stick by you.

Actually, I think you're perfectly on track. You're in college where you're supposed to be exposed to a wider perspective than you've ever had and your you're supposed to find out who you are. It sounds like you're doing both those things. This is the time when you can "come out" and discover it's a mistake or it's really what you're all about. Go for it! I greatly envy you.

Hi bcpmax (what is that all about? :heehee:)

I'll simply say, ditto to Katey's reply and hope that you find all that you wish for. In my day (just to get my age across here :devil:) it would have been foolhardy to have disclosed my inner self to anyone, but things have moved on for the better in this respect.

Coincidentally, I came out to a friend from my Uni class of 2007 (I was a mature student) a couple of months ago and he was brilliant, offered to have a beer together ...or maybe even a red wine. A real good guy.


Rebecca

One observation aquaintainces may come and go but true friends are for life no matter what.