Lockdown and coming out as trans

I haven't felt like posting for a month as there's been little enough going on here whilst I and most of the world stays at home and physically distant from others. For me, happily, it's been a time to feel truly feminine all day and to try a bit of experimenting, too. Here, for instance, is a wig I bought ten years ago but which only ever had one outing, and as my face changes with age (and too much food!) I was wondering if it suited better. Friends polled on Facebook feel my usual longer, thicker style suits me better but other views are welcome here.

I've received masks from the Civil Protection Agency to guard against coronavirus when I go out. But they are very flimsy and of little protective value so I made my own grander version from a cotton pillowcase and linen tote bag, with various layers of filter inside.

A number of fellow bloggers have floated the idea of whether coming out to family is a good plan during this time of isolation at home together. Every relationship is different and, if it's a strong relationship and you are coping well with isolation, then it may be a good time. On the whole, though, I'd sound a note of caution. If your partner had no idea till now that you were trans then this will be a big, big revelation to them and being cooped up together with an issue that can be a surprise powder keg may have bad results. It's strange how many of us do not fully understand, even after years together, how a partner could react.

My own policy since finally accepting that I was trans back in the 1990s is to tell any person I have been dating after a few weeks when things seem to be going well. The reaction has never been one of shock, revulsion or rejection but more like uncertainty and wishing that it wasn't so. But no-one's ever run away. I have never married but that's because no relationship got that far for reasons altogether unconnected with transness, money issues being the chief one.

Of course, to be very fair to us all, nature is cruel to us in that we usually spend much time experimenting with our gender variance as children and teenagers, then in our late teens and twenties so many of us feel the need to stamp out all that supposed silliness, settle down with a spouse, start a family and feel that being trans is not part of that picture. How many of us MtF trans people seek out more overtly macho careers like the military to try to stamp it out? And of course we all purge our clothes, photos, accessories, diaries, etc. Only for our femme side to re-erupt with a vengeance twenty or so years later. It's a well-documented pattern. We could never have known it would recur, and now we have to explain the reality to an unsuspecting partner after such a long time that they have known only the one side of us. If you've been telling lies about where you've been (that dressing service or that trans club rather than that football match or work conference you said you were at) or have been spending lots of much-needed family money on your secret trans life, the revelation is not going to go down well.

Personally, I'd say wait for the Covid-19 crisis to end. Dealing with just one big issue at a time has always struck me as best. And when the pandemic is over you will again have a genuine choice of physical spaces that you or your partner can occupy if the revelation takes some explaining or some time to come to terms with.

If you are frustrated with the lack of dressing possibilities now, hang on in there. It must be horrible but we'll get over this. You are merely in a cocoon waiting for the right day to spread your beautiful wings again.

Best wishes and stay safe.

Sue x