Giving It Up

Readers, the last time I wrote you I took the opportunity to vent about how the coronavirus was kicking the life out of our social lives. I’m not complaining. I’m not a ‘re-opener.’ I don’t mind wearing a mask even if when it is ‘Linda’ wearing it the mask picks up a bit of a honey beige ring around it. How does that happen? (Ask Donald Trump: I think that is why he doesn’t wear a mask.)

It is better that we have a less than lively social life for a while than too soon be a lifeless corpse for eternity. Or worse yet that we cause someone else to suffer. So hang in there babes.

However it seems that the coronavirus shutdowns are having at least one positive effect for me. I’m hearing by email from people I haven’t heard from in a long time. I guess we have a lot more hours to spend on the computer or smartphone.

Sorry I could not pick up and fly to Chicago to be with a male friend (a.k.a. ‘admirer’) there but hey, even if I had the money for the plane ticket which he didn’t offer to pay, right now Canada and the States are not letting each other’s citizens into the country for such frivolous things as a one-night/weekend stand.

For a while I WILL be missing the chance to attend that ‘adult lifestyle’ club in Toronto, the one that has regular ‘tranny nights’ every Tuesday and another ‘tg and friends’ afternoons the first Sundays of the month. Two parties; three nights in Toronto: does it get any better than that? Not that I would necessarily take part in the adult lifestyle part. It is always nice to connect with people who share the same interest in all things transgender.

Speaking of connecting with people I also heard from a friend from way back. It was great to hear from Susan. We had been roommates one year at one of JoAnn Roberts’ Beauty at the Beach weekends. I remember her cheerful, helpful self as if it were yesterday. She enjoyed talking about her ‘Susan’ self and, unlike me, she didn’t snore. What more could you ask for in a roommate? 

Thank you Susan for writing. Among other things Susan mentioned that she is a regular reader and enjoyer of my columns in TGForum. That is great to hear. I sometimes go a year or more without any feedback. So if the coronavirus brings us all a bit closer ‘virtually’ that is good, isn’t it?

I think the main reason Susan wanted to write was to comment on my article about how the coronavirus lockdown was negatively affecting many of us in the TG community. With her permission I want to share that with you. Then also I want to share and comment on her perspective on why many of us crossdress in the first place. It is a neat theory.

“Hi Linda,

Thought that I would send you an email after all this time. You and I were roommates one time at Rehoboth for BATB when Joanne [sic] Roberts had to move her event there after having to close down Paradise in the Poconos. Now I know you know how long it has been. I still have a pair of earrings you gave me back then. Have to say that I have enjoyed your stories in TGForum.

Susan

I don’t know how this coronavirus is effecting you, but I hope that you are well and will stay that way. I am particularly concerned about some of our “gyrls” because a good many of us are now in that vulnerable age bracket but especially for those that live in the closet and are stuck staying at home. I cannot imagine how I would handle living in a relationship hiding my femininity because my partner didn’t know or disapproved. Actually the stay at home order has been beneficial for me because my wife is not nervous about someone stopping by and finding me dressed. Silver lining being able to be enfem everyday but still no place to go.

Okay, sending you a pic of me in my new little black dress to jog your memory.

Stay Safe,

Susan”

Now Susan and I are pretty well anytime/anywhere crossdressers so it comes as a surprise to hear how some of the friends we have met over the years have been able to shed their femme identity so completely. She gave me two examples.

“Hello Again,

Yes, I did enjoy your article this week, well done.

I have been thinking lately about what drives some people and their resistance. This might be a topic for another article. I have two friends from BATB that seem to be able to put away their feminine spirit. This leads me to wonder how little they may be driven by their desire to express their femininity or is it that they have more fortitude to be able to resist their desires. One came to Rehoboth only one time having traveled across country to do so. She enjoyed being there and wanted to do everything that she could while en fem. I had corresponded for some time before she came so she knew what to expect and purchased some very nice things in preparation. My wife had corresponded with her wife and we learned that she was quite against her husband’s feeling. Upon returning home, this friend put everything away in storage and ultimately gave all her female items away. Has denied herself and only expresses herself in the male role.

The other friend has a somewhat supportive wife but has not disclosed her feminine side to any other family or friends. She has dark hair and so must shave legs and arms daily when en fem. Since she lives in a warmer climate, the result is that she only appears feminine during the late fall and winter months when she can wear long sleeves and pants to hide her shaven arms and legs. That means that she puts away herself and returns to full male mode for 9 months of the year. How can she deny her female side for this long every year and then return to it for a 3 or maybe 4 months?

Now during the stay at home orders in place, I have been able to dress and express my feminine side nearly every day. Prior to this, my wife and I had decided on once a week or so with longer periods to attend events like “Keystone.” That arrangement until now seemed to satisfy my womanly spirit. With the current experience, I don’t know if I will be willing to return to that arrangement. I think back to the time when expressing myself as Susan was sporadic with long periods between. Those were days of hiding and much frustration and anger. My family thought of me as being mean spirited.

So the question remains, how do others handle the lack of recognition of their feminine side? Is their desire and feminine spirit that much weaker that they can put her away? Is my male personality so weak that I cannot resist (the femme side)? Am I more female than them?”

That led me to think of my very first trip to New York City for a ‘Linda en femme’ weekend. It would have been a miserable weekend with the heat and humidity except for three people I met. They were Joyce Dewhurst, hostess of a Friday night party, Muriel Olive, leader of a Tri-Ess group meeting on Saturday night and Kay Gould who I met on Friday night, who took me to the Tri-Ess group and then to an after-hours fetish party somewhere in downtown Manhattan that same night.

At a Joyce Dewhurst party in NYC. Linda is third from the right. Kay is 4th from the right. Joyce is in diagonal stripes, second from the left.

Kay was a ‘really out there’ crossdresser. She would go anywhere anytime as Kay and she carried the photos to prove it. And this was in the era barely a decade after Stonewall. She also wrote a regular column for a newspaper called Transvestia, the ’70s-’80s equivalent of TGForum.

After about three years of keeping track of Kay through Transvestia [Editor’s Note: You can read issues of Transvestia online here] and writing to her occasionally I suddenly stopped hearing from her or seeing her column. I wrote about it here in TGForum, “Whatever Happened to Kay?” I got a reply from a former friend of hers. She had been outed. She had been presented with alternatives: 1) Give up Kay or 2) Keep having Kay but lose your family and most of your business in the divorce settlement. She chose Door #1. After that article was published I heard from one of Kay’s old friends. She is the one who had told me what happened to Kay. I asked her to say hello and she said she would but also pretty well guaranteed that anyone in the T-world would not again be hearing from Kay.

One more example: Jane came to one of JoAnn Roberts’ Paradise in the Poconos weekends. She showed up for the Thursday evening party, apparently her first time en femme and looked pretty rough. The next day Eric, the brilliant make-up artist took Jane under his wing. He gave his full treatment – makeup and wig and I think some jewelry and dress suggestions. She showed up at the Friday evening cocktail party and WOW everyone’s heads were turning toward her. I think we were ready to mark her name on our ballots for Princess of the Poconos or at least Miss Ingénue. Jane had no shortage of people wanting to talk with her, me being one of them but as the night wore on I got tired and headed for bed.

It turned out my room was directly opposite Jane’s. I left my door open hoping for the chance to ‘say goodnight’ to Jane. It was not hard to hear her heels coming along the wooden floor. I said goodnight but sensed she still wished to talk. I invited her in. She was very overwhelmed by the attention that her femme identity had gathered.  As we sat together on my bed I explained how her genuine feminine beauty brought the well-deserved attention. To make a long story short I seduced her and she was a willing ‘seductee’.

She left for her room and I went to sleep. The next morning with everyone looking for her we found Jane gone and all her newly acquired femme garb left behind. No one could understand what had happened to Jane that is no one but me. Privately I told JoAnn about how Jane and I had finished the evening. We came to the conclusion that Jane had been scared off by her own newly discovered sexuality. That happens.

I don’t think that most who relinquish their femme identities have choices as tough as Kay’s or as sudden as Jane’s but it is possible to slide in and jump out of the T-world.  I don’t know how it is done but I believe it is possible and those are two examples.

Next time Susan is going to help me explain some of the things that keep drawing us into our crossdressing.

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Tags: closeted, featured, History, stopping

Category: Transgender Body & Soul