Close Call

By Sally Stone

My wife and I were planning to meet friends for drinks at a favorite watering hole in a town about 50 miles away from where we live. The location was ideal because it was equidistant from us and our friends and it afforded my wife and I a certain level of anonymity or so we thought.

When it comes to my feminine persona, I kind of lead a double life. I’m very social on one hand; on the other, our family and most of our friends don’t know anything about Sally. And while I know it is always a possible to encounter someone who knows my male persona, I feel fairly confident that mitigating such an encounter wouldn’t be too difficult. My confidence stems from the fact that when I’m presenting as Sally, I look significantly different than when I’m in male mode. I think even close acquaintances would have to get up close and personal to recognize the male me.

That’s me though. As for my poor wife, she is never in disguise, making her obviously recognizable. I think it’s the primary reason she’s not as comfortable as I when we are out as girlfriends. Such was the case on a recent Saturday outing when our plan was to rendezvous with friends who know Sally.,

We parked after paying the lot attendant, got out of the car and began to make our way across the street towards the restaurant. From the parking lot we had to climb steps up to street level and just as I reached the top of the steps two of our close friends, who don’t know anything about Sally, were walking down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Jane, the wife, actually looked in our direction and I panicked a bit at the thought of her seeing my wife, who was just behind me still coming up the steps.

For several seconds I was certain that my wife’s biggest fear was about to be realized, that she’d be recognized and because we were together, I’d be outed. I have played scenarios like this over and over in my head, wondering how I would deal with such an eventuality and I have thought the best answer would be frank honesty. Certainly, there would have been shock on the acquaintance’s part and I would probably feel a little embarrassed, but my poor wife’s embarrassment would certainly be much worse than mine.

Fortunately, there was no recognition of either of us and our friends passed by continuing down the sidewalk. I breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing I had dodged a bullet. For my wife’s part, she had no idea the close encounter had just taken place. I thought about telling her, but knowing how the revelation would have rattled her, I chose not to.

And to be honest, my decision was for the most part, a selfish one. Had I told her, I’m certain the gravity of the near incident would have damaged her already fragile resolve making here even more apprehensive about accompanying me out in public.

Even with such a close call, I kept telling myself that a repeat occurrence was quite unlikely. But that really isn’t true. I can no more control situations like this than I can the weather and being honest with myself, I know I can’t fully protect my wife no matter how carefully I plan our outings.

So, I ask myself, “Is it just a matter of time before the inevitable happens? Is it a forgone conclusion that at some point, I'll have to face reality and reveal my feminine persona to a circle of friends that have no idea Sally exists?” I know I could weather the turbulence that would certainly follow, but I worry it won't be so easy for my wife. The selfless thing to do would be to put Sally back in the closet, but no matter how noble such a decision might be, I would be subjecting myself to eternal pain and misery. I can't and  I won't do that. I need my feminine self-expression to stay sane.

A compromise, the best I can hope for, is to minimize my wife's exposure to such threats. To do that we need to limit our girlfriend outings. That's sad and I'll miss her company, but it is a sacrifice that works to achieve two important objectives. The first is I retain the trans balance in my life that gives me my joy and my sanity and the second is I don't expose my wife to situations where her presence would serve to out me and ultimately embarrass her.

Wearing Venus (Stana likes this dress so much that she ordered it for herself.)

Kazik Mazur femulates Zdzisława Sośnicka on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo.

Outed?

Femulating at Airline High School, Bossier City, Louisiana, in 1982

In case you don’t read comments that follow my blog posts, Paulette had this to say about Friday’s All the Pretty School Girls post.

I hesitate to cast a cloud over anything you do on this site, having been a big fan for many years. 

(Now comes the 'but'...)

However, have you considered the possibility that these old buried cross-dressing photos (aka womanless beauty pageants) are better left undisturbed? In today's fevered environment, being outed on the internet could be most unwelcome. A dusty schoolbook yearbook is - thankfully for many - lost to history. And despite our prurient fascination in others like ourselves, we have no right to dig up potential problems that will strike 40-50 year olds and their families, like a proverbial bolt from the blue.

Just sayin'

On more than one occasion, I have considered Paulette’s point, but fter writing about and posting over 4,000 womanless images from online school yearbooks, I have never received a complaint that someone has been outed. I believe there are primarily two reasons for this:

Although we like to think differently, most of the people in the images are not femulators. Their high school femulation was a one time occurrence, so there is nothing to be outed about.

About half of the images do not name the people captured in the photo; their anonymity provides protection from being outed.

If anyone ever complains, I will delete their photo immediately.

Wearing Metisu.

Femulating in the 1984 Italian film Cop in Drag.

SaveSave

Like Clark Kent

Like Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, I have a secret identity, although it is not as secret as it used to be. And even without Lois Lane snooping around, it can be difficult keeping my identities separate.

I compartmentalize my life in order to maintain my secret and in general, I have done a good job. Femulate readers who are determined to find me out can and have figured out who I am. And that is not a concern.

However, there are friends and relatives who do not know about Stana and  I want to keep it that way for now.

One area where I have come close to outing myself is with e-mails. I have two e-mail accounts - one for him and one for her and on occasion, I used her e-mail account to compose his e-mail and vice versa.

After that happened a few times, I figured out a way to avoid the problem. I simply added a "signature" to her account, so whenever I compose an e-mail en femme, the signature is automatically inserted at the end of the e-mail. If I am composing an e-mail for him and see that the e-mail already has a signature, I know I am using the wrong e-mail account and switch accounts before proceeding. (My signature consists of a jpeg of myself en femme, so I can't miss it!)

Since I added the signature, I have avoided outing myself via e-mail.

Just a thought… imagine if Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman was transgender, too!

 

 

 

Wearing Robert Rodriguez.

 

 

 

British sailor femulates as Miss Everton in the 1950s.

Wednesday redux

Back to work after a week's vacation, I soon ran into my friend and co-worker, who I saw Wednesday evening when I was en femme attending a conference.

We exchanged "good mornings" and she gave no indication that she saw me on Wednesday evening.

I did not see her until about an hour into the conference even though she was sitting just two rows in front of me, so chances are that she did not see me at all. And if she did see me, she did not seem to recognize me.

'Nuff said.

women wear what they want and so do I

I admire Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard because they are males who wear female clothing and make no bones about it. They don't have secret identities that they hide behind when they crossdress like I do.

"Women wear what they want and so do I," says Izzard.

If I did not have a family to love and support, I believe I would be out there, too, dressing in women's clothing without a secret identity.

But today, I have too much to lose because there are no laws to protect me if I came out as a crossdresser. My employer could let me go for that reason and I would have no recourse.

Also, I love my family and I think that they might be embarrassed and upset if I came out, but I do not know that for sure. It is something I might explore with them if our legislators ever get around to affording some protection at the workplace.

Anyway, I just discovered another male who is out there wearing women's clothing without a secret identity: Andre J.

Not only do I admire Andre J. for what he is doing, but I admire him for how he is doing it, i.e., I like his style. I can definitely see me wearing some of the outfits he has worn, although without a beard.

"tranny" outs herself on live television

The Golden Globe Awards were on NBC last night and I watched it for the usual reason: to see beautiful women wearing beautiful outfits.

I also watched E!'s "Live From the Red Carpet" show that preceded the actual awards show.

Near the end of the red carpet show, actress Megan Fox passed through the red carpet gauntlet and an E! talking head interviewed her. After the talking head told that she looked lovely, Fox replied, “No, no. I’m a doppelganger for Alan Alda. I’m a tranny. I’m a man.”

outed in the worst way

Updated Below

This morning's local newspaper outed a local man as a "crossdresser." Here is the story as it appeared in the newspaper with the names and locations removed to avoid any further outing.

Around 7:30 Friday night, a man standing in the parking lot of [location] Apartments saw what he thought was a half-naked woman being forced into a white van

But there was no abduction — and no woman. It was [name], [age], of [address], dressed as a woman, trying to remove his transvestite attire in the gated lot of the [location] apartment complex.

The witness, whom police will not name, believed some­thing was wrong, so he moved his vehicle to block the van from leaving the driveway. [name] was so determined to escape that he plowed over a snow bank and onto [location] Road.

Police said [name] didn’t want to stop because he was driving with a suspended license and was embarrassed about being caught dressed as a woman.

The witness entered his vehicle and chased the van, heading north on [location] Road toward [location]. He called 911 and reported an abduction to police.

[location] Officer [name] swerved behind the van — and in front of the complainant, who was following.

[name] turned on his lights as the van made a right onto [location] Road. [name] didn’t stop, leading eight police departments on a high-speed chase from [location] to [location].

[location] police called for help from [location] police as the van sped down [location] Road, [location] Street and onto Interstate [location]

[name] got on and off the highway several times in [location], trying to evade police. Eventually he got back on [location], reaching speeds of 90 mph.

After running over spike strips set up by state police and blowing out a tire, [name] got off at Exit [location]. He continued to [location], where he finally stopped.

[name], wearing a dress, nylons and high heels, got out of the van and kicked off his heels and ran into the woods. With the help of a K9 unit, police found him hiding in a patch of thorns with cuts all over his body.

[name] was transported to [location] Hospital for treatment and released into police custody at 4:30 a.m. Saturday.

Police charged him with interfering with police, engaging police in pursuit and driving with a suspended license. [location] police department is handling the case because the 911 call originated there.

[name] hit at least one car in [location] and may face additional charges. As of Saturday night, he was being held on $15,000 bond.

What a nightmare!

The poor guy made a lot of mistakes, but I know a number of local transwomen who have had to deal with the state and local police while en femme and none of them have been outed in this manner.

UPDATE: This story also was on the news of some of the local TV stations. An online comment to the story at one of the TV station's Web site indicates that the crossdressing was the result of losing a bet. According to the commenter, "i was there when he got dressed my girlfriend and i helped him get ready... bad choice of a bet...if we knew about his license or that this would of happened we never would of made such a bet... too late now"