Fear and Loathing; Then and Now

Inspired by a recent post by Hanna, my friend from Minnesota, who posted on her Blog an article about the fear experienced by many cross dressers.  There is an almost universal fear amongst cross dressers that they will be found out, this can lead to all sorts of subterfuge, lots of lying, and on occasion some pretty unsafe behaviour.   The secrecy can lead to snatched moments of release, lone walks in dangerous dark alleys, moments in strange bars inappropriately dressed, lone drives which are fine until the car breaks down or the Police stop you!

Then, the first photo on this Blog back in August 2011

Once I realised the dangers of these sort of outings I quickly stopped, sticking to planed days out with friends or in populous spaces, like galleries, but maybe on days like this when the rain pours down and work would be impossible I might wait until the family had all gone out and then get changed, sneak out the back door and go off on an adventure.   I will admit that the subterfuge was a bit exciting, and truly made these outings adventures, indeed one of the things I did worry about before going "full time" was that in losing that excitement I would lose the whole point.   Mercifully that was not the case.

And now

Of course at first I was still frightened of being caught, indeed I was frightened of being caught not just in my cross dressing, but in everything I did.  I always had the scared feeling at the back of mind that I one day I would be "found out".  Whether it was playing music, chairing meetings, leading Bible studies or whatever, I always had this feeling that somebody would notice I wasn't meant to be doing it! So with the cross dressing I was really insecure.   It was only when I stopped cross dressing and started to transition that I began to find fuller confidence in everything else I did as well.   I still get nervous before I perform, but I no longer worry that I will be "found out", and thrown off the stage as they send for a real musician.

Maybe we should all ask ourselves why we are trying to hide?, what actually would happen if we were more public? would the sky fall in? would we lose our jobs? would we lose our family?
Once I started to be honest about this one thing in my life I stopped fearing everything else, and guess what, I am a much better me, and everybody seems to recognise that.