Hi All,
I wrote a long piece on Medium to try to find a better way to bridge the gulf with so many of our SOs
Here's the link- https://medium.com/@therealphil/is-y...g-1f5b54426aec
Here's a shortened taste:
1. Is your SO crossdressing?
If someone you love is crossdressing, and it troubles you, I am offering my story as an introduction into a typical crossdresser’s world, and presented as a structured guide, to foster constructive understanding and communication between crossdressers and their families, friends, and partners.
....The rules for men vary from culture to culture, and family to family, but wherever there is a serious mismatch between gender role expectations for a boy or girl, and their own self understanding, some kind of self-help is needed. For many that self help is crossdressing. ... it affords a window of feeling into a persona that is clearly desirable. ... It just is a secret that is mostly not shareable.
Crossdressing is a desire that comes from deep within, and is immune to the ubiquitous and hurtful social policing and antagonism. My purpose here is to create a bridge for you, to show you that crossdressing follows a simple logic that you too would use to address the underlying needs.
I hope those that feel their love for an SO challenged by crossdressing will take a few minutes to read this, and be persuaded to take another look.
A. Your SO’s point of view:
Your SO feels stranded alone on an island, with people all around who they are afraid of, and wish they didn’t have to be. Your SO feels like crossdressing in exactly the way you feel like you want some exercise, or to read a good book, or to chat with a friend. I can safely say that your exposure to crossdressing is a white flag being waved by your SO, asking for rescue and safe passage from a gender ‘prison’.
B. Your likely points of view- typical emotionally charged arguments against crossdressing:
Crossdressing looks strange, doesn’t fit, seems contrived, isn’t necessary. i.e. “You aren’t a woman, so don’t wear women’s clothes.“
Crossdressing is an expression of moral laxity, or sinful desire.
Crossdressing is driven by latent homosexuality, or transsexuality, and tolerance of it in your SO means the end of your heterosexual relationship, or that you are not “all” woman {or man} yourself, your social acceptance is threatened.
Crossdressing is a developmental or psychosexual disorder of some kind. There is no healthy reason for crossdressing.
Crossdressing is a path down a slippery slope disorganizing the simple dual gender plumage plan that is everywhere around us, and necessary for reproduction and a predictable social order.
“It just ain’t right and everyone, including the Bible, will agree.” If there was a good reason for it, we’d already be doing it.
2. Focus on the goal of your relationship with your SO, and take positive action.
A. You love them....
B. You want to share deeply a trust-based relationship. .... [but] Your world of acceptance by friends, your jobs, your kids’ safety all may feel terribly threatened.
Step B. Set aside your fear and loathing for a minute, realizing that for a little while at least, what is needed in the relationship is for you to understand and talk about what is happening for each of you without trying to fix it. ...
C. Your SO is trying to share an intimate personal truth, and one that they are actually not ashamed of. It feels both necessary and right to them. Their love is prompting their basic trust in you. They understand that you are not sure you can support that trust, for fear of consequences that will befall you. They are torn between trying to keep the closet doors shut so as not to lose your love, and to throw the doors open and get a long awaited hug.
...Offer a safe space for your SO to tell his or her story. Set aside all your reasons and objections, and just listen and ask for clarification. Important- don’t challenge the detail, but do make them tell the story again at least 10 times. You will both see it become richer, more understandable, more flexible, and more nuanced.
D. You can be safe listening and understanding.
Only very cruel people would condemn an SO fulfilling the standard marital vow “to have and to hold, to cherish and protect….
E. Create space for your SO to experience him or herself with others while crossdressed.
You are the most important person in this. It might help to remember that being loved means being loved for who we are. Anything less is not love....
G. There are often deep roots and tangled emotions and needs, and the social backdrop is changing. Getting a full understanding will take many discussions. A lot is not clear to your SO.
...Ignore for the moment that you don’t want your SO to be doing this!...
H. Focus on the platform of trust that you are providing because you love them, and you see they need you to listen and help.
...Look for parallels in your own experience- where you felt imprisoned by gender rules. Look for ways your SO can liberate you as well.
Let me know if I missed anything! Everyone's story is unique, but hopefully this is a framework that can slow the emotions down and give some connection opportunity.
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WOW- 135 views and no comments? Please help me out here- what am I missing?
I wrote this because
-being accepted by loved ones is super important and usually not happening,
-there must be a solution which focuses on the underlying love
-perhaps it is as simple as making an opportunity to talk at length, and be known more deeply
-increased acceptance will follow, since so much of what we feel is really pretty normal