Tell Her The Truth about Crossdressing

by Brianna Austin

	Brianna Austin.

There are many crossdressers that are sure that by hiding their dressing desires that they are "protecting" their wives and or girlfriends. But are they protecting the women they supposedly love, or themselves?

Many CDs are simply too embarrassed to acknowledge the truth about their crossdressing desires with the female they love. They hardly understand it themselves, so how are they supposed to explain it to someone else? But being trans is not something you do (unless you're a fetishist, which may be driven by things other than gender identity); it is something you are, and as such, by locking it away in the closet you're wife (or girlfriend) only knows you as a fragmented person, not the complete person you are.

Many crossdressers learn to become liars and manipulators of the truth to avoid the humiliation of having their secret discovered.

Truth can be hard. Especially when it requires telling someone you are in love with something you're embarrassed about. Fear is ever present; the fear she will look down on you, the fear that she will no longer want to -- or be able to -- love you, the fear that she will leave you. At the same time, to make her an unwilling participant in a secret life she is unaware of, which at some point in time will reveal itself anyway, is cruel and unfair. After all, you are allowing her to build a life based on a misconception about who you are as an individual, and who you are together as a couple. The concept that you're "protecting" her is just another lie that you convince yourself of. In truth you're protecting yourself at her expense.

Ultimately from every account I have ever heard wives and girlfriends in long term relationships ultimately find out anyway, probably because most TGs subconsciously want them to know. So do it in the beginning so that "if" you are going to have a relationship it begins with honesty and grows in truth. Otherwise when she does find out it shatters everything she thought you were, and everything you had together. She will likely feel bewildered and betrayed. You will have tricked her into a false understanding of who you are, and how could she ever really trust you again?

Truth does not always result in happy endings however. I know this from personal experience. Yet even through unhappy endings I am still a fan of truth at all costs, because the little white lies we tell to hide our secret lives can evolve into habits of deception that permeate other areas of our lives, sometimes without us even realizing it.

I wrote a song many years ago and the lyrics seem relevant here:

Everyone of us has known sadness
Everyone of us has known what it is to cry
Always chasing love, never knowing quite why

Know why you seek love from the beginning. Ask yourself why you are looking for a relationship with this woman. Is it love, lust or validation?

It has been said that doing the right thing is hard. But its not. Knowing the right thing is what's hard. But once you know what the right thing is, you'll find yourself compelled to do it. We did not choose to be trans, but we can choose how to deal with it in our lives. We can choose to tell those that we want to share our lives the truth, with love and honesty.

She then has a right to feel however she feels about it, and we cannot and should not try to control that. She may be shocked, horrified, amused or a host of other things. But in the end, if with the truth you are accepted anyway, then you have a real relationship, based on who you are, and if not, you never did, and never will.

As always, be happy, be safe, and think pretty.

About the writer:

Brianna Austin is co-author of "I'd Do It Again," a free lance writer, and publisher of TG Life, LINK, a website by, for and about the transgender community.

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