Reader Question – Gender Identity

Recently I received the following comment:

Im going thru gender identity and i fill very feminine all the time and im confused about my sexual orientation and i love to crossdress and im bisexual im going to meet with a therapist next week and part of me wants to get away from the feminine sissy side and part of me wants to become a she and get put on hormones and start to transition and become mtf but i got kids to think about and plus my wife said if i do she will leave me and divorce me and at one time she use to support me and buy me panties and bra’s and cami’s and nighties and eyeliners and do my eyebrows but not no more she says im gay if i want to dress girly and im not gay i think never been all the way with a guy but i do know i love to dress feminine and be girly advice please

Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out and write to me about your concerns.  I hope that I can help you out a bit.  Please understand that the following is solely my own opinion based upon my own experiences.  Okie dokie!!!  Lets see here:

1 – There is a difference between gender and sexual orientation.  Your interest in expressing something outside of the norms for your gender assigned at birth has nothing to do with who you are attracted to.  Honestly to me it sounds as though you are indeed bisexual, in that you enjoy being with a male or a female.  And that’s fine.  In some ways I am jealous of your position, I mean you are in a position to be able to evaluate if you are interested in anyone you see, me though, I have half the population off the board right from the start!  Ha!

2 – I am not, nor have I ever been, interested in the ‘sissy’ side of cross gender expression.  I do however have some speculations about it.  In ways your comment reminded me of myself back in my teenage years.  Testosterone, and it’s resulting sex drive hit me hard as a teen.  Thus I found a good ‘safe’ way to express my interest in cross gender expression; if I brought it up during sex, then it was only a mere sexual fetish.  This was acceptable to me.  I couldn’t actually bring myself to say that I wanted to dress this way all of the time.  Not in a sexualized manner, but in a more typically feminine way.  This is what I think happens with many men who have a gender variance.  It can only come out during sex, because then its not an identity issue, it is just a fetish.

3 – Nobody is going to ‘put’ you on hormones.  Some may recommend it.  Someone will have to prescribe it.  But it will only be you who decides to actually do it.

4 – Kids are resilient.  Far more so than many of their parents are willing to see.  They are actually pretty simple.  Do you love them?  Do you give them the gift that no one else can, the gift of your time?  For that is what kids want.  They want time with the most special person in the world to them, you.  Not female you, or male you, just you, whoever you are, for you are their world.  You are their reason for being.  Without you there would be no them.  If you give them you, whoever you truly are, it is my belief that they will still always love you.

5 – Wives are not always so resilient, though they all certainly have the capacity to be so.  It is far more dependent upon you though.  Kids have an awe for their parents that is hard to kill, it is pretty much born into them, but for spouses, it has to be earned.  It is my belief that this is done through open minded, honest, consistent, committed communication.  It is far easier said than done.  But it is the path to relationship happiness.  At least for me, that is the only thing that I can think of that has brought both my wife and I to the point that we are at.

6 – The best possible thing you could be doing is going to see a therapist experienced in gender identity.  You truly do have my sympathy.  It sounds as though a whole lot of things are coming to light at this point in your life.  An experienced therapist, that you work well with, combined with a desire to work on yourself, can be a very rewarding experience.

Okay.  I think that is about all that I can offer up to you.  Seriously though, that therapist thing is ultimately where your best chance at a happy resolution is at.