When someone is born, they are this precious little bundle named “baby” for most involved with the process. Not “baby boy” or “baby girl”, just “our baby.” Immediately following birth, just minutes into this routine, if not fundamental way of arriving here, someone, without warning says, “you have a wonderful baby girl/baby boy.” STOP. From that moment on, this is not just your “baby” any more, the delegate becomes a “boy” or a “girl”. All of this based upon the presence or absence of familiar anatomical characteristics that for the most part are recognized world-wide as the defining moment that we are assigned our birth sex. Not our birth gender, that is, how we think about it but rather what someone else thinks about it.
No one upon arriving casts a vote for anything or than the comfort of mom close by a loud and notorious cry, “I want my mommy” type of cry. Just having been evicted from a warm, comfortable dark place, into the harsh lights and atmosphere of a large sanitary environment, coupled with loud noises and indistinguishable gibberish coming from very large beings. Perhaps that is why we cannot see yet, it would be just to scary for anyone that new to see the surroundings. We are temporarily protected from having to deal with “the world-at-large.”
During the years that follow, no one in their right mind wishes to be anything other than what we appear to be. A boy or a girl. Simple. Life is one on one. Sports activities be it football or chess. Married. Any combination that expresses our humanity and all of it’s complications and complexities. So when we introduce the concept of difference, it just does not play with our way of thinking. If you were taught to think differently from the age of one until 21, you can be sure that this new thinking would then be “your truth” as we call it. “Your truth” is what you think everything is. The room is blue, the room is red. We often demonstrate this by calling 10 people into the room and asking them, “what color is this room?” Providing that they do not have any known visual acuity problems, they for the majority will give the same answer that you gave and all is right with the world as “we know it.”
One if one of those 10 say something different. We immediately turn and point at this person and say, “what’s wrong with you?” Well guess what? The person that you have come to know as a CD person is the 1/10 that sees things differently. If you are going to live 100 years and then die, get your calculator out and tell me what percentage is that if you use the primary number , “infinity” to divide by to get your answer? You say, that cannot be done. Infinity or eternity cannot be measured. You would of course be right. The mathematical answer would be so small that we have no description for so little time percentage. It is trivial.
Some will never get this. They would rather argue and disagree and stammer and stomp but the bottom line is, “what is your truth?” What are you willing to consider as acceptable behavior. Each person in a marriage is part of a legal contract. Setting aside religion for there are so many different concepts we just need to look at civil law. A contract of agreement that each party will participate to the best of their ability. More to the point, “human ability.” Which for the most part is formulated on “our own truth.” I cannot be better than what I believe about myself. Nor am I any worse for it.
Well this is fine so far right? It is yes or no? But, one day, someone threw in a “maybe” and then the entire concept of living became hectic. Thinking about this concept, yes I will do that or no I will not do that or well, maybe, I will or I won’t. Phew! It is enough to give one a major headache. That is what we have come to call sharing, caring, consideration, and perhaps, even, agreeing to disagree or “meeting one half way.”
CD people have a distinct advantage on this subject. They have had time to get accustomed and acquainted with the concept. Some of us for many, many years before telling anyone else. If you have been recently told about this, it is like hearing that someone near and dear just died? You had no idea. No warning. No chance to prepare for the impact. Whack! You were hit with a proverbial pie in the face. Just like that, please accept me as the “girl” that I am sometimes. Phew! I bet that goes down like a giant dry peach pit. It leaves a lump in your throat as a myriad amount of crazy video passes before your mind.
Here is something to consider before passing judgment. Men have been trained to think several things. One is that women should all look like the models they see in magazines and on television. An old song says, “and He (God) rolled up is sleeves and went around picking up clay, just 100 pounds, to make a woman for a man to love”. Ah, hmm, make that more like 150 pounds on average today in the USA. We are bombarded with how a woman should look and act and dress and behave. Women can dress in men’s clothing and we call it a power suit even if it is cut for their figure, that is just a means to excuse the cross dressing factor and the attempt to perhaps compete or dominate. There are many ways that this can all be taken and distorted. Keep your cool folks, this was not to inflame but to provide a concept and a parallel with how we are educated.
Okay, so the bottom line is, “what we think as our truth” is going to be significant in how we react to finding out our sweetheart is CD’ing. Keeping an open mind to something that is “Taboo” in Western society would be like accepting the fact that I go naked on weekends in the public park for some. I am going to get arrested because that is not an acceptable level of behavior in our society. Remember the “10 people in the room” analogy. What answer are you going to get when asking those same 10 people, what they think of you going naked in the public park?
Marriage is a contract and contracts can be broken, dissolved etc. The question is, “whit is your truth” and what have you invested in this marriage or relationship? Can it ever be the same again? Should you really have to adjust your way of thinking just to serve another’s interests? “For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health”, nothing about cross dressing there. Hmmm. The door is wide open for your input!
One last idea! When I dress, I feel like I have just crossed an invisible boundary. I have made it over to the other side of humanity. Whom is to say that I should not have this experience? Remember, only 100 years to experience life as we believe it to be!
DEEP 
