Dear Roe,
I am a closeted male-to-female cross-dresser and I'd like to tell my girlfriend of four years, who I also have a child with. I fear she won't be understanding and will tell people, as she's told other people about our personal sex life before. I was also very homophobic in the past, but now I've come to a point to where I don't want to be a hypocrite. I want her to know this side of me. How should I tell her?
Cross-dressing is a common act that allows people to play with their gender expression, that some people also find sexually arousing. It can be a fun, healthy, empowering way of exploring the idea of gender, sexuality and self-expression – and also shows how limited our ideas of gender are. The idea of gendered clothing has varied hugely throughout history and across cultures, repeatedly proving that clothes do not define gender, we do – and these definitions can be more expansive, inclusive, open-minded. The act of putting on a dress or lingerie should not be considered transgressive or radical, and people should be respected no matter what clothes they enjoy wearing.
This basic respect for other people and their desires appears to be missing from your relationship
For anyone concerned about sharing their cross-dressing with their partner, I would encourage them to share information about a wide range of gender and sexual expression, so that the relationship has a fundamental awareness of and respect for all different types of desire. Nobody is ever obligated to engage in activities that they don’t enjoy, but being able to express a desire without fear of being shamed or ridiculed is vital to the trust, communication and respect of a relationship.
This basic respect for other people and their desires appears to be missing from your relationship, both in how you have spoken about gay people, and how your girlfriend betrays your trust regarding your sex life. (I do think people need to be able to discuss their sex lives with people outside of the relationship, but the boundaries of who is privy to that information needs to be clear and agreed upon.)
You and your girlfriend need to have some long, hard conversations about how you discuss each other’s sexuality, and other people’s. You both need to expand your awareness, respect and empathy for desires, feelings and experiences beyond your own. Start a conversation with her about how you want to change how you think and speak about other people and each other, so that your attitudes around sexuality and gender are more respectful and open-minded.
Talk about your concerns regarding privacy and respect in your own relationship and agree on boundaries regarding what can be shared about your sex life, and with whom. Incorporate more media about diverse gender and sexual identity into your lives, and use them to start conversations, noting where any disrespect or judgment is creeping in, and correcting it.
This will allow you to set new boundaries around how you and your girlfriend think about sexuality, and will lay the groundwork for you both being able to speak about your desires in a more respectful, trusting, open-minded way.
Roe McDermott is a writer and Fulbright scholar with an MA in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University. She is researching a PhD in gendered and sexual citizenship at the Open University and Oxford
If you have a problem or query you would like her to answer, you can submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe