Exit Strategies in Crossdressing

Chanelle Nirok

Everything has a beginning and an end. The important question is: how will the end arrive? Planned endings are always the best because they reduce the stress of dealing with the unknown and the unexpected. A good term for a planned ending is one that is often used in venture capital funded businesses — an exit strategy. In venture capital, an exit strategy is when the investor closes a dedicated fund to a portfolio company (venture) and through a process, sells its shares (stake) in the company to raise money as a return on the investment — profit — and the base funds for the future ventures the investor wants to get into.

Retirement is also a form of an exit strategy. There comes a point in every person’s career when they will want to move on to new and better things or just take a break from everything and enjoy their life. Hobbies can also ‘get old’ and the hobbyist may want to completely retire or even take a break from their interest and perhaps someday come back to it, with a new perspective, new passion, and a rejuvenated mind. Crossdressing is such a hobby for many, for one reason or another.

This makes me chuckle every time I say it, but I did not choose the crossdressing life, the crossdressing life chose me. For many, this is also true because crossdressing never goes away easily. The need to temporarily transform genders is always there, even if there are breaks in the life of a crossdresser. Let’s define a run as a reasonably-consistent period of time when a crossdresser is engaged in the hobby and a break as a time when the hobbyist is on and off or taking time off and away from it. The duration of runs and breaks differs for everyone, but usually, runs last years and break last months to years.

A lot can happen in one year. A lot of clothes, shoes, wigs, accessories, cosmetics, etc may get accumulated in a year. If one has an online presence as their alter-ego or go out with people as their alter-ego, then they may accumulate friends and contacts that are valuable and should not be lost in a break from the hobby. To avoid losing what was gained in a run, an exit strategy is something to keep in mind prior to taking a break and/or planning on retiring from the hobby (remember it might come back). The following elements could make an exit strategy from the run period effective for the break period.

1. Planning a time to exit. It is better to plan a day or week that would be the last time for the hobby before the break. Certainly that is better than dropping everything all of a sudden.
2. Communicating with friends and contacts online that you will be taking a break will prevent you from losing developed relationships with people which could come in handy when you make a comeback.
3. Managing all the stuff you acquired over time — organizing and maintaining (i.e. cleaning, repair, etc.) and placing everything into a safe space for keeping will reduce future costs in case of a comeback. Purging, one way or another, will cause regrets and retaining things is more efficient for a future comeback.
4. Building up a focus on what’s to arrive in the future — new interests, new adventures, and new relationships (family or personal). Making a shift towards new things will help create a smooth transition between a crossdressing run and the new hobbies.

Tags: crossdressing, featured, opinion, purging

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender How To, Transgender Opinion