Out of all the emails and messages I receive, the topic of relationships and _________ come up the most. You can fill-in-the-blank with whatever term you feel is most appropriate, but that term usually tends to be “crossdressing” or some variation of gender identity, gender presentation, or gender expression.
The honesty and the vulnerability and the lack of filter is one of the most striking things about these messages. Emails from partners of people like myself tend to focus a lot on confusion, fear, frustration, and anger and the writer is usually just pouring their heart out.
The confusion is typically along the lines of someone trying to understand their partner. The WHY of all this. WHY does my man like to wear panties? WHY does he want to be “the girl” in bed? Sometimes the confusion is entwined with fear. Significant others may be afraid that their partner will leave them, cheat on them, or want to be intimate with someone else, perhaps with someone who has the same… interests as them. There is usually a fear that their partner is in denial, or lying, about their gender identity and/or sexual identity.
To be clear, most partners tell me that they are an ally of the queer community but they just want to understand their partner. Of course, being an ally of the transgender community is one thing, but when someone you are close to, specifically your partner, there is an added element involved. Let’s be honest, when something is impacting one person in a relationship, it will invariably impact BOTH people in the relationship. If your partner gets laid off from their job, that impacts both of you. If your partner gets into a car accident, that impacts both of you. It’s a partnership, afterall. Your gender identity, your clothing preferences, who YOU are, will absolutely have an effect on your significant other.
Once we start wearing clothes that align with our gender identity around our partner (or at least when we stop hiding the fact that we are wearing whatever we are wearing), there comes a new element in the relationship. Perhaps they will be driven mad with desire at the sight of us wearing a nightie, perhaps they feel ambivalent, perhaps they, well, hate it. Perhaps their reaction and feelings will change over time. Perhaps not. Most people are attracted to their partner. Most people WANT to remain attracted to their partner. It is not uncommon for someone to admit that they are not attracted to their husband when he is, well, she. It may sound shallow (although I don’t think that’s the right word), but I do not think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be attracted to your partner and being honest with yourself if any change they make, or will make, will deter that.
Your gender identity, your clothing preferences, who YOU are, will absolutely have an effect on your significant other.
Our gender identity, whether we wear panties under our boy clothes or we strut around town in a bodycon dress and stilettos, impacts our partners. If I were to transition and my wife continued to stay married to me, does that mean she is a lesbian? I mean, she would be married to a woman, but if she’s not attracted to women, would she still be a lesbian? In a way, her sexual orientation would be altered and it would be against her will.
A lot of fear from our partners is not knowing where all of this is going. One day your man is wearing panties, but will he be painting his nails in a couple of weeks? Will he be strutting around the living room in five inch stilettos after that? Will he start talking about hormones within the year?
Panties do not always lead to transitioning, but it’s not unfair for our partners to speculate about that. This is especially true when they watch us make small steps in our journey. Using the example above, going from panties to painted toenails to high heels is a progression. It’s not unrealistic to assume that there is always going to be a next step and possibly a last step… the last step being transitioning.
And to be fair, that is not a journey everyone wants to be a part of. This side of us is a LOT to ask. It’s a LOT to get used to. Not every partner wants to go through that with us. Yes, they may love us, but when our gender identity is evolving, or potentially evolving to a point where we are significantly different (physically and in other ways), it’s not unfathomable that we may become a completely different person than who we were when we met our partners.
Our partners commit to who we are. If we are no longer who we were at the time of commitment, it can become a harbinger for change. Which is fair.
But confusion isn’t always bad. Sometimes confusion is rooted in wanting to understand us so our partners can support us as they navigate their own feelings.
Sometimes confusion is rooted in wanting to understand us so our partners can support us as they navigate their own feelings.
Okay, so that’s confusion and fear. Let’s sashay over to anger and frustration.
In my experience, partners aren’t typically angry that their man wears panties. You’d be surprised by how many partners tell me that they really don’t care that their husband wears what they wear. Issues that arise in relationships that involve a crossdresser are not always about crossdressing. Rather, it is about the behavior that is associated with crossdressing. For various reasons, many of us, well, lie about this side of us. Even when we have an accepting, if not supportive, partner.
I am not justifying lying by any means, but I suspect not being truthful about this side of is done mostly out of habit. It’s not unlikely we have many close calls before we come out to someone and we need to explain why we shave our legs (because we… um, swim?) or why we have a pair of panties in our dresser (there’s no real believable reason we have a pair of panties in our dresser but God knows we’ll try to think of SOMETHING).
We also may lie because on some level we are trying to, hm, protect our partners from the depth of who we are. If you’ve come out to your partner, you may have downplayed this side of you. Perhaps you’ve told them that you wear lingerie because it’s a kink or whatever, but in reality what you wear just feels… right. You feel at peace, you feel happy. When we have The Talk, it’s pretty much a given that our partners will bring up sexual identity or whether or not we want to transition. We do our best to reassure our partners that what we wear has nothing to do with who we are attracted to and that we have no desire to start hormones. We try to calm their fears that this side of us is small and not a significant part of our lives and will not, well, progress to anything else.
But we might know otherwise. Again, wearing what we wear, or what we want to wear, feels right. It’s more than a kink, or maybe not a kink at all, but perhaps if we explain this as a fetish that they will be a little less uncomfortable about who we are.
Is this lying to our partners? Well, technically yes. This side of us is not easy to understand. Even WE may not understand this side of us and that makes trying to help someone else understand it even more challenging. There’s an aspect of trying to protect our partners from their biggest questions by not being completely truthful. I suppose you could argue that we are telling little white lies with the best of intentions.
But here is where anger and frustration comes in.
Again, it’s not always wearing panties that upsets our partners, but the behavior associated with it. If our partners know we buy panties or heels or dresses, but if we lie about how much we spend on lingerie, then there is a problem. It’s not that we are buying lingerie, it’s that we are not honest about it. The conversation shifts to deceiving our partners about finances, not necessarily about what we are shopping for. Maybe our partners ask us if we chat online with others like us, but we tell them that we don’t… but then they stumble upon our internet activity and learn the truth. It’s not about WHAT we are looking at online, it’s that we are not truthful about something.
The more lies that are discovered that are related to this side of us, the bigger the problem this side of us becomes. Suddenly something (their man wearing panties) that wasn’t a problem before, becomes the source of countless problems. Our partners will likely feel frustration that despite them being supportive, we are still not being completely truthful.
I believe that in most relationships both people want to make the relationship work. We all (hopefully) took our marriage vows seriously and promised each other that we will do our best to support and love and understand each other. When people think about theoretical situations that may arise in a relationship, evolving gender identity isn’t usually at the top of that list. Therefore our partners aren’t really mentally prepared for that to happen. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to assume that most people have thought about what they would do if they caught their partner cheating, but I am not sure how many people think about how they would react if their man wanted to wear a bra.
Relationships are a lifelong (or at least intended to be) commitment. Two people can breeze through the day together if everything goes as expected, but it’s not realistic to expect that every day will be like that. One must prepare for terrible and heartbreaking and challenging and unpleasant moments in a relationship and decide whether or not they will do their best to support their partner when things go to hell. But when a challenging moment presents itself that neither person never even imagined would happen, such as their partner’s shifting gender identity, then we are often left with feeling unprepared or overwhelmed. It’s not an issue that most people expect to have with their partner.
Relationships and _________ (again, you can fill in the blank) CAN work. I have talked to countless people who tell me how they and their partner have adapted to this aspect of their significant other.
It is never easy.
Not at first, anyway. And likely not for a while, either.
Relationships take 100% effort. This is not to say that both people need to be at 50%, but rather the efforts of both people need to equal 100%. When one person is struggling or having a bad day, the other person needs to put in more effort, more care, more patience, and to support and love their partner if they need that from them. If your spouse can give only 20% that day, you need to give 80%.
When it comes to our _________ (whether this is crossdressing or gender identity or anything else), I feel that WE are the ones that need to put in more work. We are the ones that need to be more patient, kinder, and empathetic. This side of me, although does make my life a little more nuanced at times, ultimately brings me so much happiness and joy. This elation far outweighs anything else.
But for our partners it’s not usually this way. Yes, they may be happy for us and happy that we have something about ourselves that brings joy, but the fear and uncertainty that we may feel, or have felt, is probably much less intense than what our partners may be experiencing.
We are the ones that need to communicate in a stronger and clearer and empathetic way. We need to listen. We need to show that we are listening. We need to try to understand what our partners are thinking and feeling. We need to put ourselves in their shoes (which we probably have tried to do anyway lol).
We need to listen. We need to show that we are listening. We need to try to understand what our partners are thinking and feeling. We need to put ourselves in their shoes (which we probably have tried to do anyway lol).
Coming out can change the trajectory of the relationship. In some ways it will be marked as two different points: Before and After Coming Out. The relationship changes. Either this side of you is something that is discussed all the time, or something that is tip-toed around, or never mentioned again.
But this revelation is out there. It is sometimes the elephant in the room.
I believe, and this is influenced by what many partners tell me, that much of the stress, fear, frustration, and anger that _________ triggers is not necessarily the _________ itself. Again, it’s often the things that are associated with it. Sure, your wife might know you wear panties and she probably doesn’t really care, but if you lie about how much you spent on lingerie then the issue becomes fiscal responsibility and being honest with your partner about what you are spending money on.
And of course, your wife is probably wondering (to say the least) about WHY you are not being honest about _________. Is there something you’re not telling her? Is there a reason you’re not being honest? Is there something more going on that she needs to know? Even if there’s not something else going on, it can be frustrating, to say the least, to have your husband depleting the savings account or maxing out credit cards because they are buying clothes. Let’s face it, this side of us can be expensive.
Our gender identity is our responsibility. And we are the ones that need to make sure that we are being mindful and respectful about how this side of us impacts our partners.
My next article is all about how easily we can screw it all up, so stay tuned.
Wow, Hannah, I completely agree. This is a topic that I feel like a lot of us can relate to. The idea of being afraid to come out and share something that we find to be a part of ourselves. Therefore, we feel it is better to hide about it and lie in fear that we will hurt those who we love and care about. However, it is as you said through the lies and deceit that we hurt those the most. Your blog was written so eloquently and showcases how the most important thing is to just be honest. If they truly love and care about you as a person they will be much more understanding and likely much more accepting of honesty than lying. Hannah, you are a true role model in the crossdressing community!
Love,
Amber
Hannah, I can only thank you for this text. It relatated and organized all the the toughts ramaging around my mind for some time.
Thank you!
My god this is the best I’ve ever read. I truly thank you for sharing this with all of us. I could read this several times because of your interesting details .
Thank you so much!!