You have to be yourself. It's really all you can ever be.

So far, I have one "follower," Zagria. She has a blog called Gender Variant Biography, so I decided to visit it.

I spent an hour or so browsing Zagria's blog, which assembles biographies of "gender variant" people from the present, as well as the recent and distant past. I congratulate Zagria for her research and highly recommend that you visit her blog. I found the biographies fascinating especially those that were new to me.

One biography, Paul Whitehaed's, brought up a topic that is near and dear to my heart, that is, coming out publicly as a crossdresser. In a nutshell, Paul is an artist and a crossdresser, who en femme is Trisha Van Cleef, who is also an artist. Paul is public about his crossdressing and sometimes Paul and Trisha exhibit their artwork together.

After reading that, I was hooked and had to find out more, so I searched the Internet and Google came up with an interview on Alice Novic's Web site Alice in Genderland.

The interview provided more fascinating reading and Paul's answer to the last question of the interview was inspiring. If you read anything, make sure you read the last answer from which the following quote originates, "You have to be yourself. It's really all you can ever be."

After reading the interview, I felt the same as I did when I read the Grayson Perry interview.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote this about Grayson Perry here, "She is my hero/heroine because she is a public personality (like me), who happens to be a crossdresser (like me) and is very out about it (unlike me)...

"I have considered coming out as a crossdresser in my writing world... sort of run it up the flagpole and see who salutes and who burns down the flagpole. It certainly would spice up my life. Maybe I'll do it soon, maybe never, but it is something to think about."

And I do think about it a lot.

Many of my friends, relatives, and co-workers know (or suspect) that I am a crossdresser, so my official public outing would not surprise them. So what do I have to lose?

Probably not much, but, on the other hand, what would I gain? Most, if not all of the gains would be personally motivated, so would my selfish gains be worth the losses, no matter how few they may be?

I dunno.

With a week 24/7 en femme at Fantasia Fair looming on the horizon, I wonder if that experience might push me over the brink.

I'll find out.