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.

new news feature

About half way down this blog's sidebar, you will find a new feature: NEWS. Click on "transgender" for a list of transgender news articles or "crossdress" for crossdress news articles.

Blogging for LGBT Families Day

Via my friend Diana's blog, I learned that today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day.

I wish all my family acknowledged and supported my transness.

My wife acknowledges it, tolerates it, but is not supportive. And she does not want to talk about it.

My daughter acknowledges it and is supportive. (Goddess, bless her.)

With the rest of my family: some know about it, some have no clue.

The ones that know have never acknowledged it to my face. It is the proverbial elephant in the room no one talks about. They talk about it behind my back, but they never saw me crossdressed, so they don't have to deal with it face-to-face.

Being a crossdresser, my transness is not out their 24/7; I do not crossdress full-time, so my family does not have to confront my transness, so they avoid it.

That is understandable. Most people don't want to confront something when they can avoid it, so they don't confront it unless they have no choice.

Maybe I should give them no choice. Maybe I will wear my most feminine outfit on Father's Day and visit all my relatives.