The fear of coming out

Many of us lead a double life; the life as the outside world knows or sees us, and the life hidden in the closet as a cross-dresser. Cross-dressing is not difficult for me—I love being the woman I can be in my safe, single home environment—but sharing it with the people around me feels very different. However, I think the difficulty stems primarily from my own way of thinking, partly shaped by the outside world… Do we really want to hide the person we are or want to be our entire lives, simply because we are afraid of others' reactions? Shouldn't we think: "Let them be"? If someone, whoever it may be, rejects us for who we are when we say that we sometimes dress as a woman—or behave as a woman—and they subsequently leave or ignore us, isn't that, in fact, their loss too? The man they know is, in principle, someone with so much femininity that it makes him or her a sweet woman or man. Is love or friendship real if someone were to ban you from their life because you sometimes wear a skirt, a wig, lingerie, or makeup? A few centuries ago, royalty in Europe did that constantly... but our society didn't find that masculine enough and felt that gender needed to be clearly defined, forcing us into gender roles and imposing a certain identity that we had to respect.

I am well aware that when you have started a family, have many (business) contacts, and lead a well-organized life, coming out entails more "risks" than a single life with fewer responsibilities. We fear loss, rejection. Such a reaction is to be expected and probably normal, because their perception of who you are undergoes an earthquake. They are completely unfamiliar with the concept of crossdressing, or only know through the media that men who dress as women are strange and likely homosexual. We cannot blame them for not knowing or understanding it. That is why they can feel betrayed, as if you lied about yourself by hiding that part of your personality. However, that person has not disappeared; there is just more behind it that was confused and afraid to show itself.

It is easy to say that we should have come out sooner, after we met our partner/wife/new boyfriend/girlfriend. The process and the time it takes to accept ourselves, crossdressing, and femininity can take years, full of doubts, shame, confusion, "Am I normal?", feelings, and questions that we often struggle with. By the time we have found most of the answers to our questions, life has moved on and taken shape. We cannot turn back time and start over by immediately coming out to everyone we wish we had told about crossdressing in hindsight. Life would certainly have turned out differently; I don't know if that would have been better or worse, but in any case, I would not have ignored a part of myself that screamed to come out later in life. That is how I feel about it now. I'm still not sure if I want to come out, but at least here I can share my feelings and thoughts. What do you think? x MoiLo