I'm getting tired of hiding. Need advice please.

[Ashley S]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to vent some of the things that have been floating around my head for the last week or two, and get some opinions.

My confidence and my self-esteem are coming back. Thanks to everyone here, I think I've accepted/embraced that I'm TG, finally. So now that I've got this positive outlook, I'm really feeling like I want to just say "To hell with hiding! I want to live my life and anyone who doesn't like it can piss off."

I've experienced this mental shift from feeling that being TG is a negative thing that I need to be ashamed of, to feeling that it's something that just is.

I guess what I mean is that I've finally stopped feeling like a freak.

Anyway, this has got me feeling that I should just do what I want, and not worry about the neighbours. I don't want to feel like I have to hide in my apartment whenever I'm dressed.

No one at work knows that I dress, but since I don't want to transition, I don't think it should be an issue if they found out. I've worked there long enough to prove myself as a valuable employee, so why should they care what I do in my personal time, right?

As it is, I've still never shopped en fem, and have only ventured out of the apartment maybe twice, but reading everyone's posts that are along the lines of "Get out and do it, the worries are all in your head" has really got me wanting to just do it.

I'm not that hung up on passing. I just don't want to waste my years as a 20-something CD hiding from the world.

So what does everyone think? Is this a good idea or a bad idea? I realize that I'm certain to meet some jerks if I do start living openly, but I can't help but feel that it's a good thing to give the general public some exposure to what being TG actually is, so they don't all believe what they see on TV.

Naturally, there's a million "What if" scenarios. But all the positive comments I've read on here are really starting to get me thinking that I should just hold my head high, do what I want, and take the bad with the good as it comes.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks again to everyone here, just for being the awesome people you are.


Opinions anyone? Is this a terrible idea?

PS. I'm mostly referring to things like BBQing outside, going to the grocery store, the mall, etc. I don't want to have to limit myself to LGBT bars, and shopping in other cities.

[Sarah_GG]

Ashley... congratulations on accepting your TGism. IMHO that's the first step.

If you're planning to go out, please try to hold your head high, smile at anyone who you meet and enjoy yourself. I think that the late night scurrying around that many CDers do adds fuel to the fire about all the myths. Why are you going out late at night? What are you doing? People add two and two together and come up with a number that's off the scale.

My SO is 57. His first time out - to a nightclub in London - was last year. Since then we've been out several times, found the sort of venue that suits us - magic-theatre.co.uk - and now even leave the house in the daylight.

My SO does get nervous about actually leaving the house, but it's becoming easier. At first, I would go out to make sure the coast was clear. Now, we walk down the front garden to get into the taxi with smiles. If we did see the next door neighbour we've decided we'd say "Evening Bob" and I'm absolutely 100% sure we'd never hear any negative repercussions about it.

Being up front and open about things is good. Scurrying around with your head down under cover of darkness in the wee small hours looks shifty.

I think it's a good idea to have an end goal, ie a club or place you want to go to. Everyone I've ever spoken to says it gets easier with time.

Good luck

[Carissa]

I'm not that hung up on passing. I just don't want to waste my years as a 20-something CD hiding from the world.

What you said right there is probably what the majority of us on here wish we would have said in our own 20's. I don't want to speak for others, but in my 20's I was far too concerned about how others perceived me and, in a way, wasted my best looking years shut away in privacy.

If you're really at a point where you can throw caution to the wind and go out strutting yourself in the big world, GO FOR IT! Don't forget to take lots of pictures!

[Tina B.]

All well and good, but depending on what type of work you do, and what type of people you work with, not sure how open I would want to be around work. Most of us seem to want to keep it away from our livelihoods. Some places have protection for workers, some places might try finding away to get rid of anyone perceived to different as a matter of cohesion in the workforce. In my state (a right to work state) they really don't need much reason to fire someone.
Tina B.
Sorry to sound negative, just would not want the old "pink fog" to get you in trouble with out thinking it through, you will know how you will be treated at work better than me.

[Ashley S]

All well and good, but depending on what type of work you do, and what type of people you work with, not sure how open I would want to be around work. Most of us seem to want to keep it away from our livelihoods. Some places have protection for workers, some places might try finding away to get rid of anyone perceived to different as a matter of cohesion in the workforce. In my state (a right to work state) they really don't need much reason to fire someone.
Tina B.
Sorry to sound negative, just would not want the old "pink fog" to get you in trouble with out thinking it through, you will know how you will be treated at work better than me.

Yeah, I've given that one quite a bit of thought, to make sure I don't make a "pink fog" related blunder. The positive side of things for me is that I work for an engineering/consulting firm, in the field of construction. So even though I have to spend my day out on construction sites with the garden-variety construction workers, the place that I work for is large and structured, and generally everyone except the youngest lab techs are highly educated.

I'm hoping that because everyone is highly educated, there might not be so much intolerance and bigotry. As well, it's gotten to a point where they would have a helluva time trying to replace me right now, so I feel fairly secure.

That being said, my biggest concern is still the people at work finding out, but since I don't feel I want to transition, or dress at work, I hope that it would be a non-issue.

Also, I think that I might be protected, but I'm not sure. I think we're a large enough corporation that they need reasonable grounds to terminate employees. And I'm pretty sure I could sue their asses for firing me over being a TG, because I'm one of their most experienced field-staff now.

Don't worry about sounding negative. If I need a reality check, I'm relying on you all to give it to me.

[Lexine]

Not that you would want to, but something I did was having pics of my girl mode pop up from time to time on my boy mode Facebook profile. Later on, I found out that there was a good group of people who figured it out and I IMed them about it individually to explain myself. Keep in mind that I live in California, so reactions will definitely vary.

The first time's gonna be nerve-wracking, but the more you keep doing it the easier it gets. It also helps to have a GG friend with you as kinda like your "training wheels." At the very least if you get lost in your gesturing or your manners you can always look to her to correct yourself

As with most of the girls, good luck and we want to see photos

[busker]

Sorry, but I'm having a bit of a time following your logic. You are not just a CDer, you are a TG CDer so your direction in life is much more toward the female than the male aspects of living. Your not worried about passing, you haven't been out more than twice, you are saying to hell with everybody, I want to get on with living (as what?????) and you don't seem terribly concerned about work.
Have you seen a therapist, social worker, a doctor, who might help you confirm that you are indeed a TG person? That would also hold you in good stead in work problems, now or in the future. Even if they didn't fire you for what you do in private--some companies also keep those things in mind though--whispers and recommendations down the road may come to haunt you. You cannot entirely dismiss the "grapevine" during your life of employment.
If you don't want to transition, just how much of this TG thing are you going to be expressing. You clearly don't want to dress 24/7 --e.g.live as a female and make that your permanent presentation.
I don't see a story cut from whole cloth but more or less a Swiss Cheese idea.
No offense, but you could be wanting to dress as a Yankee outfielder for part of the day, and make just as much sense here. Perhaps I have missed something in your dialogue.
Where along the spectrum are you on a scale of 1 to 10. Do you have any support --female or male--when push comes to shove as it inevitably will?
If you were to loose your job--nobody is indispensible--do you have the means to sustain yourself while you fall back, reconsider your options and maintain your grip on the requirements for survival?
I'm happy to hear that you are out of your depressed state of mind, but I do think that you need to fully consider how you intend to carry this off successfully.
just my thoughts here.

[Ashley S]

Sorry, but I'm having a bit of a time following your logic. You are not just a CDer, you are a TG CDer so your direction in life is much more toward the female than the male aspects of living. Your not worried about passing, you haven't been out more than twice, you are saying to hell with everybody, I want to get on with living (as what?????) and you don't seem terribly concerned about work.
Have you seen a therapist, social worker, a doctor, who might help you confirm that you are indeed a TG person? That would also hold you in good stead in work problems, now or in the future. Even if they didn't fire you for what you do in private--some companies also keep those things in mind though--whispers and recommendations down the road may come to haunt you. You cannot entirely dismiss the "grapevine" during your life of employment.
If you don't want to transition, just how much of this TG thing are you going to be expressing. You clearly don't want to dress 24/7 --e.g.live as a female and make that your permanent presentation.
I don't see a story cut from whole cloth but more or less a Swiss Cheese idea.
No offense, but you could be wanting to dress as a Yankee outfielder for part of the day, and make just as much sense here. Perhaps I have missed something in your dialogue.
Where along the spectrum are you on a scale of 1 to 10. Do you have any support --female or male--when push comes to shove as it inevitably will?
If you were to loose your job--nobody is indispensible--do you have the means to sustain yourself while you fall back, reconsider your options and maintain your grip on the requirements for survival?
I'm happy to hear that you are out of your depressed state of mind, but I do think that you need to fully consider how you intend to carry this off successfully.
just my thoughts here.

Fair enough, but note I'm using the term TG, not TS. Saying someone is a transgendered crossdresser is redundant. To be a crossdresser is to be transgendered. I'm fairly sure I'm not TS.

In regards to how much I want to express...I want to express what I want to express, when I want to express it.

In regards to "living (as what????)"...Living as ME!! I'm damn tired of having to fit into one mold or the other. I don't want to be a girl full-time, but I don't want to be a guy full-time either, is that so wrong? Why is it a requirement to be all-or-nothing?

I spoke with a general therapist back in college, but there are no gender specialists in my area, and all the comments I've gotten from the councilors in school were very general, and unhelpful. They mostly said "Do what you need to do to feel happy and fulfilled"...well, THANX!!

I do have support, and several other avenues available for work. These are not things I've taken lightly.

I didn't think my OP was too hard to understand. I'm not a transsexual, I'm a crossdresser who's tired of hiding from the world. I just want to stop hiding it and be accepted for who I am.

Also I feel the reference to dressing like a Yankee Outfielder is quite glib. Nobody out there is saying that Yankee Outfielders are all a bunch of degenerate perverts, and as I understand it, there's no such thing as a Yankee-phobe. There's a stigma associated with crossdressing that isn't represented accurately with the analogy of someone wearing a costume.

[Debb]

Yep, it's the stigma that's so hard to get past for so many folks, both us TGs and others.

I applaud you for making this conscious decision to be yourself. It's what most of us wish we could do; for some, it's not so simple for any number of reasons. For you, it seems that you have consolidated your reasoning and done a risk/benefit analysis, and that the benefits outweigh the risks!

Now to take advantage of those benefits.

I've contemplated coming out via my Facebook profile (my only one); there's a lot of people on there from work, and a lot of old-time and "now" friends, and frankly I think it'd feel good to be out in the open about it. Like you, there's no way I'd dress at work; I'd just like to stop feeling like I'm hiding part of me from my friends and loved-ones.

TG is what you are. It's not a part of your life; hiding your TG-ness takes a lot out of you, and you've figured this out in your twenties. It's awesome! You've got youth on your side, too.

I think if you're going to come out to work folks, be ready to answer some questions, maybe even preemptively. There'll be some folks who "thought there was something different" about you, and they won't be afraid to tell you that, either. Some of the questions will be just standard stuff that we deal with on these forums every day; some will not.

I say go for it. If you already have support, and the other benefits are valuable to you, it's really a no-brainer. The "action" part is the hard part. Good luck, and report back.

[Kate Simmons]

So, either don't hide or flip a coin and follow through with what comes up.

[5150 Girl]

It's my understanding that Canada, and more specifaly Onterio, is a pretty easy going, liberated place.
So if I can gout out here in the heart of redneck country, certainly you can!

[StaceyJane]

A few months ago I realized that this what I really wanted to do with my life.

It's like a light bulb went on. After a few nervous trips all of a sudden I feel totally comfortable going out en femme. I really love doing it and I hope you will find it within yourself to try it.

I promise you will only have regrets if you don't do it.

[busker]

Ashley, my apologies for what came off as a glib remark. I meant it in the same way that one could be patriotic and not wear a military uniform. One can be TG and not necessarily want to go about in women's clothing. There are , after all, some closet dressers--myself included--who prefer it. There is less anxiety, it is not well accepted in society, and in the wrong place it could very well be dangerous.
I did not understand enough of your story to see how the going out dressed would lighten your mental load, since you don't seem to care particularly whether you "pass" or not--perhaps just blending is what more closely matches your needs.
You are "tired of hiding" but one can express feminine things in most situations and still not be dressed -or hidden. You should be you no matter how you are dressed. So, I guess dressing and being out is more important in some way that I didn't get from your statement. I'm stuck in guy mode "problem solving", but I certainly wish you all the best in what ever you do in this regard.

[docrobbysherry]

First, I'm making it clear, u should do what u WANT to do. And, if you're like me in MY 20's, u will, no matter what anyone says!

Now, why do u want to go out dressed? Do u feel the need to present as female, or simply to show off your secret "looks"? The first is a bit TS, the second, more CD!

If you're prepared for EVERYONE to know u dress, AND ALL the consequences, DO IT!

Just remember, once it's known u dress, it'll be like squeezing your toothpaste tube! It's NOT going back in again!

[Josie M]

If you can, find a TG support group in your area, I'd say start with that. It could be a safe way to "dip your feet in the water" and share your feelings with others who've gone through or are going through similar things.

[Pattie O]

I also think finding a support group would be the best way to go forward with your dressing.I wish to take this step but unfortunately am not there yet.Also taking baby steps can feel safer ;eg a little underdressing at work and some clear nail polish and looking after complexion etc may start to transmit the message that your comfort zone is more feminine than male and if people start to ask you can then just say because I feel like it or because I want to!

[abigail43]

Yes I agree you should just get out and do it .If your not comfortable going shopping en femme may be you should try looking into some cross dresser support groups I have found these to be quite helpful. As for going shopping I do almost all things now en femme and although I get some strange looks and the odd degrading comment but I don't let this bother me I have found that being en femme I am more confident and it is doing wonders for my resilience .So if you confidence is growing get out there .about your work mates why do they have to know if you are comfortable with who you are and your not thinking of transitioning at the moment then why do they need to know your private business, with your work ethic don't you leave home business at home and work business at work .I know this works for me as I am an a student at the moment and I don't think everyone in my class would understand .Good Luck

[Ashley S]

So if you confidence is growing get out there .about your work mates why do they have to know if you are comfortable with who you are and your not thinking of transitioning at the moment then why do they need to know your private business, with your work ethic don't you leave home business at home and work business at work .I know this works for me as I am an a student at the moment and I don't think everyone in my class would understand .Good Luck

I agree.

I have no interest in dressing at work, as I stated before, so that's exactly what I would do, is just leave home business at home.

I was just saying if some of them found out, accidentally, it might not be such a big deal. Hopefully they would understand that what I choose to wear at home has no bearing on how I do my job.

[Mollyanne]

Hi Ashley, after reading your post(s) and comments from some of the other girls I came away with the feeling that you REALLY don't care what people may or may not say concerning your proposed lifestyle change. How about doing the following--- make a list of pros and cons side by side and then compare how you feel. If you have a real good friend who accepts your thinking and perceptions ask him or her what they think and what if any changes the or she would make.
I understand what you are thinking but can't feel what you feel. Remember this though; "What you do today will follow tomorrow"

Mollyanne

[Ashley S]

I hope I didn't come across as not taking the advice posted here. I'm very grateful for all the comments posted, and my reply's are simply my present feelings. I don't want anyone to think that I'm going to just rush into this. I think I will make a pros/cons list and see how things stack up, then review it a few days or weeks later, and make sure I still feel the same way.

It's true that I don't really care what the neighbours may or may not say about my CDing, but I very much value the opinions here, as they come from like-minded people, many with decades of life and crossdressing experience that I can learn from.

So again, thanks for the advice already posted, it's all information that I'm considering thoroughly. I welcome the input. It's not that I don't care what anyone thinks (I don't care what some people think). I just wanted to make sure that my feelings are well described to try to accurately communicate my point of view, situation, etc.

I've read through all the posts here several times, as I consider my priorities. And again, thanks so much for the advice everyone, keep it comin'.

[AKAMichelle]

Get out of the closet! What are you waiting for? You can play the What ifs forever and do nothing.

My vote is walk out the door dressed if nothing more than under the cover of darkness at first. But it's time to start living your life.

[linnea]

Anyway, this has got me feeling that I should just do what I want, and not worry about the neighbours. I don't want to feel like I have to hide in my apartment whenever I'm dressed.

I think that this is a common feeling and one that should encourage you; you aren't a freak and there is nothing morally, ethically, or legally (in most places) about your crossdressing.

No one at work knows that I dress, but since I don't want to transition, I don't think it should be an issue if they found out. I've worked there long enough to prove myself as a valuable employee, so why should they care what I do in my personal time, right?

If you're not worried about problems at work related to your crossdressing during your personal time, then you should feel free to do it. In my own case, even though I have come out to my grown children, my spouse, and a couple of my very closest friends, I would have problems at work if my employer and co-workers knew. So I dress at home, but I don't go out in my home town.


As it is, I've still never shopped en fem, and have only ventured out of the apartment maybe twice, but reading everyone's posts that are along the lines of "Get out and do it, the worries are all in your head" has really got me wanting to just do it.

My therapist has been great in helping me to know what it is that I want from my CDing and why I want to transition. She has also be wonderful in her way of letting me know that the world is not always safe for women and certainly not always safe for CDs. We have to be careful. However, with due caution (any woman would have to have some of this) and with sensible behavior, it can be wonderful to go out and have a good time.
It is better, if you can develop some CD and GG friendships, to go out with others (women typically go out in flocks or at least pairs). I have gone out alone quite a bit; I enjoy it much more if I can go with others--and it is safer.

PS. I'm mostly referring to things like BBQing outside, going to the grocery store, the mall, etc. I don't want to have to limit myself to LGBT bars, and shopping in other cities.

At home, you're pretty safe as long as you don't care if you have to go to the door to answer the mailman who is delivering a package or something like that.
Good luck! I know that you'll find the right balance of opening up and staying safe.
Hugs