Another long story time from Christina!
So, to give a very breif back story, I started taking CDing seriously just over 1 month ago and told my girlfriend about it almost immediately, like 3 days after I started. She was very taken back (which I totally understand) and that first night after telling her was a very quiet one. The next day we talked a bit more, but I did get the impression that she wanted it to be a DADT situation.
A week or so later, I tried joking about it a bit to normalize the situation, but she didn't think it was very funny. She was getting ready for work one morning and dropped her concealer on the floor, causing it to shatter. "Well," I said, "You could borrow mine!" You could have heard a pin drop.
Fast forward to last night and we were visiting some friends, a male and female couple who are very involved in the local arts community, very intellectual, and liberal. We talked politics and religion the whole night, and gender came up frequently. I didn't say anything about my dressing or being gendefluid from my personal experience, but I did so hypothetically and theoretically. I should note that my girlfriend is very well informed on feminism, gender politics, LGBTQ issues, etc., so she was very engaged in the conversation and agreed with everything I was saying.
Well, early on in the 2 hour drive back home, she wanted to return to those ideas and talk about how what we were talking about applied to me and my CDing. We had a really great conversation, more than I could hope or want to relate word for word here, but the biggest step forward was near the end when we talked about the boundaries we'd both like to set.
I told her that at least for now, I wouldn't want to be dressed in front of her, which she agreed was for the best. I did ask her, however, if she would be ok with me hanging my growing female wardrobe in our closet next to my guys clothes. I told her how much I hated keeping everything pilled in grocery bags tucked away in various corners of our apartment, but I said, "I understand if even seeing my clothes on hangers would make it 'too real for you.'" Well, to my pleasant surprise, she said "Oh yeah, that's fine!" with no hesitation! :-D
So yeah, a small step forward, but at least now I feel like we're at a mutual agreement of boundaries. Like I said, I don't even like the idea or have a desire to be dressed in front of her, so really, this a great point where we're both satisfied and comfortable with the amount of transparency.