I’ll bet the vast majority of us are “in the closet.” We keep our crossdressing, underdressing, and gender identity to ourselves — a closely guarded secret. For those of us who are married, usually our wives know (with widely varying degrees of acceptance), but almost always no one else knows. That, to me, is part of why connecting and communicating on forums like this one are important.

But, I’ve often considered telling someone else — someone in my day-to-day life, some one close to me. Each time I’ve considered this it has been because I was feeling isolated, or lonely, or maybe even just the pressure of keeping the secret was getting to me. And each time I’ve considered telling someone I’ve found multiple reasons not to do so, most of all, not wanting to burden them with having to carry a secret of mine that they didn’t ask for. They then would have a secret of mine that they couldn’t tell anyone.

Plus, I knew that I couldn’t predict how anyone would handle it. I’ve ended up concluding that my wanting to share my secret is selfish — that it really would not benefit, for example, my sister, for her to know, or even a close male friend. I think it would (or could) alter our relationship in unpredictable ways that really does not benefit them and would only benefit me if they embraced my “gender issues” and offered support and understanding — but would they?

So, I stay in the closet. It is lonely in here, but safer. I realize that I have been more forthcoming (about this) with SAs at DressBarn and Soma than I have been with my best friends. Anybody have success with voluntarily (not being “outed”) venturing out of the closet? Nancy