"Didn't sign up for this"

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Originally Posted by sometimes_miss

Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder what 'they didn't sign up for'. For my ex, the crossdressing was the straw that broke the camel's back so she said. My own thoughts are that I didn't sign up to be married to a nasty, blackmailing, vindictive evil bitch. She had lots of flaws that she conveniently ignored while focusing on what she perceived as mine. Life isn't fair. We all have secrets, and only the people who we keep those secrets from can tell us whether those secrets are important to the relationship or not.

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I can certainly relate to this, Lexi. When I got married, there were lots of things the wife didn’t tell me, which I might have wanted to know about. She didn’t tell me about all the stuff that, after several years of it, would eventually have me literally screaming with frustration.

Did she deceive me, betray me? I’ve never said so, mainly because I know for a fact that she wasn’t aware herself of the psychological problems that she had then and still has today. I know for a fact that even now she’s not aware of them. So how could she have filled me in on them? The only way she could have done that would have been for her to do some honest self-analysis.

It would have been very good for me, my brother and my sister if our parents had engaged in some honest self-analysis. I think we could have been a fair bit happier than we were.

We transpeople are accused of “lying by omission”, being “deceitful”, “betraying” our spouses. Every bit of it true. But who out there is any different? How many people are into honest self-analysis. From time to time I suggest that there might be benefits in that, and the reaction you get from a lot of people is basically, “Fiddle-dee-dee! Can’t be bothered!” How many people are 100% honest with themselves? I think Socrates and Michel de Montaigne were. Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson. I can’t think of any others off the top of my head.

Another thing I don’t like about the accusation of dishonesty levelled at us is that people often refuse to consider where that dishonesty comes from. Let them walk a mile in the shoes that a lot of us walked in when we were young and that probably a lot of young people are still walking in today, they’ll learn pretty quickly where it comes from.

We transpeople don’t grow up in a society that encourages us to be honest. What would my parents have done to me if they had known? They were two people who were strongly convinced of the value of violence against children as a corrective measure. At the age of 4 or 5 I got a serious beating over a pack of gum. What would I have got for TGism? There’s very little I’d put past my dad in particular.

When you’re trans, you learn to lie, you learn to sneak around, you learn to hide—even from yourself. You do it for self-protection. And so for me, it’s quite a slap in the face when people accuse me of dishonesty. Yes, I’m dishonest. What do you expect? Does anybody truly want us to be honest? Fine. Then let’s have no more of this:

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...ager-s-consult.

Or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glrh2...eature=related

Or this:

http://counselingoutfitters.com/Hunter2.htm

That is, if you want people to be honest, remove the penalty for honesty. It’s too easy to accuse people of dishonesty and ignore where that dishonesty comes from.

When transpeople can live the way they want without penalty or prejudice, then they’ll have no reason to be dishonest. I understand both sides of the argument here: a woman doesn’t want to get into a relationship with a CDer without knowing about it beforehand. I understand, and I don’t blame her in the least. But an accusation of “deceit” or “betrayal” is very cheap if she refuses to recognize why a CDer doesn’t tell the whole truth from the beginning. Transpeople will be more honest when society as a whole decides that it wants us to be so.

Annabelle

There are a whole bunch of us who grew up with this thing being a real taboo, something we'd disclose to no one, not even a potential spouse. And since many of our spouses grew up at the same time we did, they felt the very same way about it. So many of us married without disclosing our crossdressing to our wives. So in a very real sense, they in fact DID NOT sign up for this.

I am very fortunate and relieved that my wife didn't chuck me to the curb over it all. I do my best to keep it away from her. But it's hard to know what the future brings. And frankly, my situation is changing. I may very soon not have the opportunities to crossdress nearly as often as I can right now. In fact, my opportunities may drop down to almost zero, which is causing me quite a bit of concern.

But I still don't blame my wife for not wanting anything to do with this. I wouldn't like it if she exhibited the same behavior in reverse. So who am I to dictate how she should feel?

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Originally Posted by Annabelle Larousse

Another thing I don’t like about the accusation of dishonesty levelled at us is that people often refuse to consider where that dishonesty comes from. Let them walk a mile in the shoes that a lot of us walked in when we were young and that probably a lot of young people are still walking in today, they’ll learn pretty quickly where it comes from.

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They can't identify with it. Even educated women usually can't accept it, it simply goes too much against what they have learned to define what's appropriately masculine and what's appropriately feminine. My ex was a tomboy. Was into sports, liked to drive my truck instead of a car, wore sneakers/workboots, jeans and t shirt or sweats about 95% of the time. She liked my tool belt so much, she bought one of her own. So I thought she would at least have a clue as to why someone might want to adopt attire designed for the opposite gender. WRONG! Oh, so very wrong. Women reserve the right to wear mens clothes for themselves. They simply cannot understand a guy wanting to dress up like a girl.

Apart from birth and death, there is nothing more basic and permanent to humanity than gender. It's a fundamental part of who we are and for 95% of the population (heteros), it determines our sexual attraction, which ensures the survival of our species. I know that you're not talking about transition, you're just thinking of the CDing, but CDing messes with someone's perception of gender. Big time.

It's not something that can be compared to the life changing events that happen to some people. Still, some people are more flexible than others and they can accept gender variance, as long as the issue hasn't been complicated by the betrayal of not having been told, as Babs mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Annabelle Larousse

Another thing I don’t like about the accusation of dishonesty levelled at us is that people often refuse to consider where that dishonesty comes from. Let them walk a mile in the shoes that a lot of us walked in when we were young and that probably a lot of young people are still walking in today, they’ll learn pretty quickly where it comes from.

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Originally Posted by sometimes_miss

They can't identify with it. Even educated women usually can't accept it, it simply goes too much against what they have learned to define what's appropriately masculine and what's appropriately feminine. My ex was a tomboy. Was into sports, liked to drive my truck instead of a car, wore sneakers/workboots, jeans and t shirt or sweats about 95% of the time. She liked my tool belt so much, she bought one of her own. So I thought she would at least have a clue as to why someone might want to adopt attire designed for the opposite gender. WRONG! Oh, so very wrong. Women reserve the right to wear mens clothes for themselves. They simply cannot understand a guy wanting to dress up like a girl.

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Originally Posted by ReineD

Apart from birth and death, there is nothing more basic and permanent to humanity than gender. It's a fundamental part of who we are and for 95% of the population (heteros), it determines our sexual attraction, which ensures the survival of our species. I know that you're not talking about transition, you're just thinking of the CDing, but CDing messes with someone's perception of gender. Big time.

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Lexi, I take your point, but I think we're talking about two different things here.

You're talking about the difficulty cispeople have in understanding transpeople. You're pointing out that your ex displayed a number of what would be considered masculine traits, yet could not understand your desire to display some feminine traits. You and I can agree on the inconsistency, but that's because we're looking at it from a trans point of view.

Reine's post is correct, I believe. The problem cispeople have with us is that we mess with their perceptions of gender. Big time. Transpeople like you and me--though this certainly isn't true of all transpeople, as we on this forum know well--do identify as female, at least to a certain extent, and that's why cispeople have trouble with us. Not being trans themselves, they don't have the emotional experience of wanting to cross the gender line in that way. So they simply can't understand it.

Now why did your ex fail to understand you? Hard for me to say since I can't get inside her head. But we might speculate that despite all the "masculine" traits she displayed, she still perceived herself as female. In her mind, she'd not crossed a gender line, and so she wasn't equipped to understand someone who did.

TGism is all about feelings, how you perceive yourself--which means that a woman can do things traditionally defined as masculine, yet still perceive herself as female. This means that she's not trans. And society does evolve. Things that used to be perceived as masculine are now perceived as gender neutral. When I was young, virtually all lawyers and doctors were male. Those two professions would have been perceived as masculine. But no more. A woman who becomes a lawyer or doctor isn't perceived as masculine.

Now what your ex is into still strikes us masculine, but there are enough women these days into that sort of thing that a woman can "get away with it." That is, she might be perceived as an unusual woman, or a tomboy, but nonetheless a woman. I agree with you: it seems unfair to us--but the difference is that you and I are perceived as crossing the gender line. In fact, that's the way I perceive myself. That's what makes me trans. There can be a very fine line sometimes between who's perceived as trans and who isn't. Frustrating for us, and yes, unfair, and hopefully some day soon, cispeople will stop caring about who's crossing the gender line and who isn't.

However, this wasn't what I was talking about in my post. I was talking about the accusations of dishonesty, deceit, betrayal that are frequently levelled at us, and I find these particularly frustrating. I understand why cispeople don't understand and don't like us. We're outside their experience. But I do believe they are equipped to understand why we often feel the need to hide our trans tendencies from others, and I think that often they simply don't try hard enough.

Is it really so hard for them to understand? Lexi, I look back on my childhood and youth, and I shudder at the thought of what would have happened to me if my parents had found out that I was trans. I'm not exaggerating here, I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I honestly believe that if they had found out, knowing them as I do, the experience would have left me a psychological wreck. I was scared to death of them as it was. Their finding out that I was trans would simply have been the icing on the cake.

I do believe that cispeople are equipped to understand the penalty that we transpeople sometimes pay for being open and honest about what we are. A lot of us instinctively know that we cannot afford to pay it. So we learn to hide, we learn to be dishonest. And what cisperson has the right to blame us for that? They're the ones who force us into dishonesty. Let them not afterwards blame us for being dishonest. I've never been dishonest out of choice. I instinctively became dishonest because I had a good idea what the price of honesty would have been.

Now I can understand why a woman would be upset when she learns that her husband is trans, and I can understand why she would feel she's been betrayed. And I've never wanted to lock horns with the GG's on this forum over this issue, because there are a lot of really sweet women here, and I understand their hurt and I don't blame them for it and I certainly don't want to sound as if I think it's nothing at all. Because I know well it's not nothing.

I'm quite convinced that we transpeople are often guilty of not trying hard enough to understand women's feelings in this matter. But I do often feel that sometimes they don't try hard enough to understand where this "betrayal" came from. In the heat of the moment, I can understand why a woman would be distraught. But as time goes on and maybe things cool down a bit, if she sees where the "betrayal" came from, she'll see that if we're not honest about ourselves, it wasn't out of choice. Dishonesty was forced on a lot of us. And maybe that will help her feel better--I don't know, maybe it will--because she'll understand that the man she loves and who loves her never willingly hurt her. The world put him in a bad position, and he didn't deal with it properly because he'd never learned how because he didn't have anybody to teach him when he was young. And that doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him a person who's lost in life, and sometimes lost people hurt others, even those they love.

Best wishes, Annabelle

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Originally Posted by sometimes_miss

My ex was a tomboy. Was into sports, liked to drive my truck instead of a car, wore sneakers/workboots, jeans and t shirt or sweats about 95% of the time. She liked my tool belt so much, she bought one of her own. So I thought she would at least have a clue as to why someone might want to adopt attire designed for the opposite gender. WRONG! Oh, so very wrong. Women reserve the right to wear mens clothes for themselves. They simply cannot understand a guy wanting to dress up like a girl.

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I need to take exception to this. As unfair as it is (and I agree that it is unfair), women are now culturally allowed to be tomboys. Maybe it will be acceptable for men to be tomgirls in the future, but we're simply not there yet.

Still, women who are tomboys do not try to pass themselves off as men. It's common for girls to play sports. It's common for them to drive a truck. If I have to get some lumber for a project, I'd much rather use a truck than my car. It's more practical. And when I'm working on projects, a tool belt is handy. And unless your wife was wearing clothes purchased in men's stores, getting men's haircuts, and gluing fake hair on her face, she was not crossdressing. Women who wear the clothing appropriate to do the activities they enjoy doing are not CDers. They are instead dressing like independent, capable women, who have learned how to do all the stuff that requires wearing a toolbelt.

Likewise, a man is not crossdressing when he wears an apron while he's making the spaghetti sauce. Nor is he behaving like a woman when he sews a button on his shirt, vacuums, or changes the baby's diaper.

You can't compare a man who presents fully as a woman (makeup, wig, breast forms, on top of the clothes), to a woman who is handy and wears a toolbelt and drives a truck. But, if a man were to present as a man and wear a manskirt, (like women who wear women's jeans and flannel shirts), then you might make a comparison.

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Originally Posted by ReineD

I need to take exception to this. As unfair as it is (and I agree that it is unfair), women are now culturally allowed to be tomboys. Maybe it will be acceptable for men to be tomgirls in the future, but we're simply not there yet.

Still, women who are tomboys do not try to pass themselves off as men. It's common for girls to play sports. It's common for them to drive a truck. If I have to get some lumber for a project, I'd much rather use a truck than my car. It's more practical. And when I'm working on projects, a tool belt is handy. And unless your wife was wearing clothes purchased in men's stores, getting men's haircuts, and gluing fake hair on her face, she was not crossdressing. Women who wear the clothing appropriate to do the activities they enjoy doing are not CDers. They are instead dressing like independent, capable women, who have learned how to do all the stuff that requires wearing a toolbelt.

Likewise, a man is not crossdressing when he wears an apron while he's making the spaghetti sauce. Nor is he behaving like a woman when he sews a button on his shirt, vacuums, or changes the baby's diaper.

You can't compare a man who presents fully as a woman (makeup, wig, breast forms, on top of the clothes), to a woman who is handy and wears a toolbelt and drives a truck. But, if a man were to present as a man and wear a manskirt, (like women who wear women's jeans and flannel shirts), then you might make a comparison.

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Reine,

I agree with you regarding the fact that women who incorporate men's items do not attach fake beards in order to deceive folks into thinking that they are a man. They are simply women wearing men's clothing. That is the different between women and most of the crossdressers on this site and most crossdressers do not realize or accept this fact. A lot of these women wear men's clothing (shoes, shirts, jeans, boxers underwear) purchased in the men's section rather than men's style clothing that is made for women. I would love to see Girlfriend's clothing that is made for men? Since we have boyfriend's clothing for women, why don't we have girlfriend's clothing for men?

I believe that my level of crossdressing is the same as what the aforementioned women are doing. I incorporate women's shoes, capri pants, a purse, and painted nails into my presentation. I never try to deceive anyone and present as a woman. Everyone can see that I'm a guy wearing feminine items. I sincerely believe that the path to acceptance of men wearing feminine clothing is to do it as a man because there is no deception involved.

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Originally Posted by ReineD

I need to take exception to this. As unfair as it is (and I agree that it is unfair), women are now culturally allowed to be tomboys. Maybe it will be acceptable for men to be tomgirls in the future, but we're simply not there yet.

Still, women who are tomboys do not try to pass themselves off as men. It's common for girls to play sports. It's common for them to drive a truck. If I have to get some lumber for a project, I'd much rather use a truck than my car. It's more practical. And when I'm working on projects, a tool belt is handy. And unless your wife was wearing clothes purchased in men's stores, getting men's haircuts, and gluing fake hair on her face, she was not crossdressing. Women who wear the clothing appropriate to do the activities they enjoy doing are not CDers. They are instead dressing like independent, capable women, who have learned how to do all the stuff that requires wearing a toolbelt.

Likewise, a man is not crossdressing when he wears an apron while he's making the spaghetti sauce. Nor is he behaving like a woman when he sews a button on his shirt, vacuums, or changes the baby's diaper.

You can't compare a man who presents fully as a woman (makeup, wig, breast forms, on top of the clothes), to a woman who is handy and wears a toolbelt and drives a truck. But, if a man were to present as a man and wear a manskirt, (like women who wear women's jeans and flannel shirts), then you might make a comparison.

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See Reine, this becomes a very gray area indeed. I don't try to pass myself off as female(no vocal changes, no body movement adaptations, etc.); and there are probably more guys than you might think that just wear the clothes simply because it feels like something we're supposed to do (for whatever reasons). After all, women were adopting men's clothing to wear long before they were making jeans and flannel shirts cut for the female figure. It really wasn't that long ago when pants on a woman was a rarity. And clothing 'appropriate for the activity' is always a personal choice. Women don't pass themselves off as men / Well sometimes the end result of the style of clothes results in the same thing; i've seen lots of women over the years adopt masculine behaviors and outfits when trying to fit into traditionally male 'bastions' of workplaces and society.