I'll let you know in at the end of next week. I have a series of disclosure meetings with my seven kids and their four spouses.
I HAVE TO do this, and the anxiety headaches are awful.
Best wishes
MsVal
I'll let you know in at the end of next week. I have a series of disclosure meetings with my seven kids and their four spouses.
I HAVE TO do this, and the anxiety headaches are awful.
Best wishes
MsVal
Quarterly TG Invasions: TgDetroit.com
Facebook: MsVal Bralt
Carla
I am out as a woman to everyone except my work. I work from home and I will be coming out in the next 6 months there. I have a mother that won't speak to me and my former minister and his wife have cut off contact. A few other friends have quit communicating with me. However, the vast majority of friends and family have been accepting and mostly supportive. I have determined that I give people the opportunity to love the real me. What they do is not in my control or really my business. Oh, my wife and three children adore me and we are all closer than we have ever been!
Suzanne
I have thought carefully on If I would come out an whom may support me.,. butt after testing the water I found none would except my change that know me in my area.,. I am thinking of moving to a area not so closed minded but then are there any.,. large cities maybe as there are so many people there I could more then likely blend in unnoticed.,. Still not sure if an when i want to come out dressed in public.,.
So for now Im staying in my house an close to the closet lol Cheers
Im pretty sure mine would be about 10 percent, what can I say.
I really don't know how friends & family would react. This isn't a lifestyle 24/7 for me so I don't think anyone
really needs to know. Would I like to tell someone about it... maybe but I'm not sure what there is to gain from it
vs the potential loss. If you say your hobby is fly fishing they all say "oh cool". You say cross dressing
and it's "WTH is wrong with you?"
Hugs
Samantha
Well, I work as a contractor, so co workers and managers aren't really in the equation for me, but amongst my friends, family acquaintances and random people who happen to know me, I am yet to encounter any outright negativity since Abi first stepped out in daylight. Even alpha male types who only know me via other friends have had supportive words once they found out. And I thought I lived in a narrow minded backward town. I would put mine at around 80% based on reactions and opinions to date.
With us, I've noticed a difference between "true" acceptance/understanding, vs. "conceptual" acceptance. The people who truly accept are those who are connected to this community: other CDs/TGs/TSs, their spouses, etc. Among non-community people there are those who, no matter how much I inform and educate, will not approve and still think it weird. And, there are also people who are more liberal and who do accept the idea that my SO has the right to do what she does, but they still feel a degree of "wow, this is different" in our presence, or they prefer to not see my SO dressed (even though they tell themselves they have no issues with it and they do not judge my SO when he is in guy mode).
The proof, I think, resides not in what so-called supportive people say, but in what they actually DO (and to what degree) as a form of support. Are they willing to go out with us dressed? Would they invite us, while dressed, over to their Thanksgiving dinner with their children and extended family in attendance?
Strangers (SAs, restaurant personnel, other strangers we see when we go out) are easier and this is for the simple reason that we do not impact their lives in any way. They don't know our names, where we live, they can put on their polite and politically correct faces (whether this is genuine or not), and life goes on. A few people stare and who knows what they are thinking. Maybe they judge, or maybe they also have loved ones who CD or are TS, or maybe they're just trying to figure it out.
Last edited by ReineD; 08-05-2015 at 02:29 PM.
Reine
It may vary by degree of relationship. Acquaintances are least likely to be fully accepting, and family may be more likely as a general rule. True full acceptance is really pretty much out of the question in my opinion.
The best that can be hoped for, in my situation, is varying levels of tolerance, without understanding. I have only told my spouse and she's trying to understand and come to grips with it, but goes through varying levels of tolerating it. I have no reason to tell anyone else and don't plan to.
Putting the y (chromosome) in girly!
Hi Carla
This i think is so hard to answer for me because i think alot of the times the ones that you think have a problem with it often don't and vice versa.
But i know my family is supportive, maybe 40-50% of everyone else would be accepting. But this is a really rough estimate and i hope if i ever tell everyone that more would be supportive and accepting.
Regards
Wow, good question? My ex wife told everybody that I am a cross dresser. Let's see, one friend asked me directly. Never got a call from any others or my sister after that. No even to discuss anything. Clear slate, no acceptance. If you cant' please everyone, please yourself. I now live far away and go about my own business. My SO and I go to movies and dinners. We go to the lake in our bikinis. Kinda funny though when you fall off your high horse, nobody cares. I have not received a call from any of my old friends. Heck, just to see if I'm alright. Nope. I have called them though. One way street.
Part Time Girl
mm interesting question - obviously depends on individual circumstance & locale
.... taking it literally as fully accepting - id say 5-10% ...and in truth im still guessing who those would be .... the (collective) loneliness of the long-distance crossdresser!
If i came out to family, my siblings would be unaccepting as well as my parents. My wife is somewhat accepting at this point. Friends maybe one would be accepting other than my crossdresser friends. Work relations, i am totally unsure what would come of that. It would be tough to go to work and crawl into a greasy oily nqsty engine compartment, or under a vehicle with forms and a wig on. So i dont think it would work.
Candi
Perfection Is a Road Not a Destination
I've found family to be about 50/50. Half are ok with it, the other half keeps their mouth shut... and a few are actually supportive. Friends, I'll never know for sure. I cut out more than 2/3 of acquaintances from my life when I moved. Best guess, though, is that most of that group would not have been supportive.
Honestly I can only name 2, maybe 3 people in my life that would be accepting. I work in a kitchen which sometimes feels like the last bastion for the hetero norm. Family is very conservative but my sister for sure would be cool with it. After all she's the one who dressed me up when I was five, giving me the taste that stated it all
Carla,
My wife knows but how much she actually accepts percentage wise is difficult. My daughter knows is is very supportive she did let me show her some pictures and she thinks my wife should be more supportive ( Maybe I shouldn't have put her in that situation !) My son knows he's fairly supportive and thinks I should continue therapy but I don't think he's realised what the implications could be afterwards . He also told his wife, she's OK about it but has never mentioned it to me. Two out of three of my brother in laws know, one has been very supportive but the other hasn't mentioned it but I need to have that conversation with him over certain aspects . My sister-in-law is fairly supportive and I've had some good conversations with her !
I was self employed so work doesn't come into it , I wanted to come out to my art group, one member knows and just told me turn up dressed if I felt like it she didn't have a problem, my art tutor knows is very supportive, he came out to me that he's bi and how he's struggled with it.
All I can say is no one has given me a hard time apart from my wife, no one has treated me like a perverted freak ! I did post a thread asking how far out are you, all the people mentioned only know about my CDing no one has seen me fully made over in reality, that has to make a big difference in the acceptance percentages !
The important point is we aren't the only ones to CD, if we think we get a bad response maybe we've touched a nerve in the other person, if it's man maybe he's a suppressed CDer , if it's a woman maybe she's married to one !
Last edited by Teresa; 08-06-2015 at 04:20 AM.
If I were to tell everyone I know that I enjoy being a female, I would say most of them would not accept it. The exception would probably be my oldest sister and three of my close friends. Most of everyone else I know seem to be pretty "weird" around anything LGBT so I can only assume that they would be really surprised ...not in a good way.
Thus far among those who know (a minority as they are):
Family - parents both avoid the topic as much as possible and don't seem to like it. I hear the word 'pervert' and its variants thrown around often.
Friends - told at least 6, responses seem largely okay, but most seem not to like the idea.
Colleagues - most at my level know individually, all don't like the idea but frequently seem to encounter crossplayers at conventions at disproportionately high rates.
I don't know any CDers outside this forum yet.
I think one of the main reasons that I have not shared my cross dressing with anyone willingly is due to the expected negative reactions. My wife is the only one who knows, and I put her in the camp of tolerant (not supportive). I have to think that the rest of my family and friends would react worse than my wife, although a few may surprise me.
I guess it is a matter of risk and reward for my situation. I would like to think that the world is more tolerant than it is, but I am not willing to, at the moment, take that risk personally.
Posting Permissions
