Insert knife. Twist. Repeat.

As a preface, the comments to my blogs have been inspiring and comforting during a difficult period. Thanks for caring enough to share your thoughts. You have lightened my load.

Now, about that load. My wife and I had a "conversation" Saturday night. Rather, I told her Iwas more than just a crossdresser, that I have gender issues. Then she talked at me for quite some time. So much venom, so much bile. She really hates what I'm doing. That's quite clear now.

I think she also just hates the trans community in general. She went on about how we have no idea what it's like to be a woman. How many of the "women" in your little support group could pass as women? Aren't most of them deluding themselves? You'll never look like anything other than a man in women's clothes. You'll still have broad shoulders and no hips and a masculine face. You're living in a fantasy.

Although this is clearly all about her, she fell back on the kids, particularly the nine year old boy. "Whether you like it or not, you are a role model for him. When he starts getting hair on his arms and legs, he's going to wonder why his father doesn't. He'll be very confused. I stopped wearing makeup because I wanted my girls to know that you don't have to look glamorous to please a man."

News flash: Being hairless equals wanting to get a sex change. I hope this won't shock too many of my readers. Of course, there are only men and women in this world, nothing in between. A woman as conversant and knowledgeable about autism as she, should be able to conceive that gender is also on a spectrum. I'm just moving a little to the left, trying to achieve some balance, finding my comfort zone.

My wife is as liberal as they come. I don't know where all this is coming from. We've had gay friends; she didn't tell them off. I've upset the apple cart, and I don't know if I want to set it right. She will not be married to a woman, she says. Well, she may not be married to a man for long, either. I can get abuse on any street corner; I don't need it at home.

So, in summary, I am a wuss and my wife is a harpy. There's an old joke, the best way to get rid of 170 pounds of ugly fat is a divorce.

"I hope tomorrow you find better things" -- The Kinks

Wha' Happened?: Bio, Part 2

"Things start splitting at the seams and now the whole thing's tumbling down" -- Band of Horses

I still don't know what triggered the woman within to start asserting herself. It hit me in October, last fall. My only guess, and it's a lame one, was that it filled the void left when my fantasy baseball season ended. I live and breathe baseball six months a year, and last season was more intense and more successful than usual. My obsession toggle was switched to "On", and maybe crossdressing replaced baseball.

It was sneaking up on me for awhile, I think. My brother and I typically give one another music as gifts. He noted last April that my list was skewing much more toward female artists. It seems my brother noticed the changing landscape before I did. Wait till I fill him in on the whole story!

So, in October, I began compulsively surfing for a pair of heels online. You may ask what kind of veteran crossdresser has never owned shoes that fit. Go ahead, ask. A half-assed one that was firmly in the closet. I first purchased 5-inch black pumps, size 13. I quickly learned that I couldn't handle five inches. (Get your mind out of the gutter!) They were too wide, a little large, and I could stand but not really walk in them. But 4-inch brown pumps, size 12, were perfect. With shoes I could wear for hours instead of painful minutes, I began sprinting toward an unknown goal.

I had always been able to keep my two parts compartmentalized. But now, the walls started crumbling. Female started bleeding into male. Internal cohesion is certainly a good thing, but it's disturbing when you weren't aspiring to it. I began engaging in very uncharacteristic risk-taking, like dressing after hours in the workplace, waist down and sometimes neck down. Didn't get caught, thank heavens.

By December, I was very confused by my needs and the unrelenting urgency to address them. I became very depressed about my wife's disregard for how important this was to me. This was a full-fledged crisis with no tenable resolution that I could see. Getting no satisfaction from my wife, and desperately needing to share my feelings, I reached out to a support group online.

After posting an intro, I got a private response within twenty minutes. It was a suggestion that I might want to look into some counseling. I guess my intro was a little over the top. But it was an excellent suggestion, and she gave me a couple of names to contact. I hate to think where I'd be without therapy, because I was in a nasty spiral when I started in January.

In early January, I finally got the final piece, a wig. It was cheap and not especially attractive (just like me!). I'd always been a neck down crossdresser, dabbled in makeup ten or fifteen times in twenty years. This was the new frontier! I acquired makeup for my coloring, not my wife's stuff. And then an unexpected day off work...

On January 18th, I put all the pieces together. I did a nice subtle job on the makeup, no clown college or kabuki theatre. I put on the wig, and saw Leslie for the first time. I really didn't expect to see a woman looking back at me. I was overwhelmed. My first impulse was to cry, but I resisted. Crying would ruin my makeup, and the illusion. I was euphoric to have finally achieved this after thirty-some years. But I was very sad to think of how much earlier I could have gotten here, how much time I had wasted in the closet. This was my graduation to transgendered status. I needed to know this woman better, see what she was made of.

I attended my first support meeting on Groundhog Day. I went in guy mode, and could hardly speak. A couple of girls sought me out and conversed with me. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have spoken to anyone. Such interesting people, but slightly scary. I'd never met people like this before.

The March meeting was my debut. I changed in the bathroom because I couldn't leave the house in drag. A little shaky as I stepped out, but I felt lightened almost immediately. I was truly at ease dressed in front of these people, the first to ever see me this way. As the night went on, I approached people and started conversations. I made several friends. I have terrible social anxieties, especially talking to new people, but this night I was a social butterfly. Leslie really is a different person, and probably a better person, than my male persona. I like her better, anyway.

Hair raises its ugly head again

Part two will have to wait. I feel like I got dropped down an elevator shaft today. No clever quote tonight, just an open wound.

On Wednesday, I spent about an hour hacking away at my leg and chest hair with clippers, thinning and shortening. This was very liberating. It felt and looked so much better.

I decide that Thursday is going to be the big day. I'm going to take it off completely, at least legs and arms. I can live with the chest hair a little longer as a concession to my wife. I'll take it off in the morning, then celebrate my progress with my therapist in the afternoon. I love it when a plan comes together. This one didn't.

My wife has two conflicting policies about this whole gender thing. "No Surprises" means she doesn't want to find out I've advanced my cause without her approval. The other policy I have dubbed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". She hates to discuss the subject, never inquires about the goings-on in my head, doesn't want me to bring it up. I decided to honor the No Surprises directive today.

I told her I intended to rid myself of some hair today. The riot act commenced: Why do you want to do this? I think there's more to this than just crossdressing for leisure. (Duh!) I suppose you're going to tell me you want a sex change next. Loathing your body is not going to be solved by removing your hair. I am not interested in being married to a woman.

You see, last fall we had a calm conversation on the topic. I assured her I was only a crossdresser, that I was not a candidate for SRS. These words were true at the time. I was clueless as to the extent of my dysphoria. I was thinking of it more as a midlife crisis. I thought the urgency would pass shortly.

So, about all I could say to her accusations was that there are only two people on the planet who care whether I have leg hair or not, and they're both in this room. No one else gives a damn. But she thinks this will scar the kids, especially the 9 year old boy.

My therapist helped me sort thru all this crap. She recommends issuing an ultimatum: If you want to maintain some kind of relationship with an emotionally stable person, you will have to bend a little. Removing the hair might buy us some time, till the kids get older. Oh, and inform her that I'm transgendered, not a mere crossdresser. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I don't know if I can go through a confrontation like this. She has a very strong personality, very stubborn. This is a good quality in her when she's fighting with the school system about my autistic daughter's education. But it's not serving our marriage very well.

To me, the great irony is that I'm going to have to "man up", wear the pants, and put my foot down, in order to look and feel more like a woman. Life can be cruel, can't it?

Flashback: The Obligatory Bio, Part 1

"Whatever happened to you, to make you more girl than girls are?"
"As Girls Go" Suzanne Vega

I know this story is roughly the same for all of us, yet I feel compelled to tell how I got here. Bear with me...

I remember wishing I was a girl as early as age 6. Going to bed hoping to be transformed, dreaming of awakening to a closet full of dresses and jumpers. Inevitably, I was disappointed. I would spend lots of time in small, dark places, frequently my mother's closet. The smell of shoe leather, the softness of the dresses, transported me. When I reached latchkey status at age 12, crossdressing began in earnest. Like all of us, shame came with it.

Didn't have many friends in grade school. I really didn't fit in with the boys or girls. I was very shy and not athletic. I usually had a friend or two of each gender. Girls were a constant source of envy, especially the tall, thin ones. I could easily imagine myself in their place, full of confidence and grace, rather than a wart on the backside of life. Self loathing? You bet.

That I ever got entangled with a girl is a minor miracle. My senior year I was stalked and won by a funny, insecure, kind but judgemental, quasi-hippie chick. I don't know what she saw in me. We moved in together a month into college, wed at 21, and are still married. Of course, I was diving into her closet at every opportunity, and feeling a lot of guilt about it.

Leading up to the wedding, I desperately wanted to tell her of my secret life. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Two years later, my therapist finally convinced me to reveal my secret. She was blindsided, never suspected, but was willing to talk about it. For a few weeks, she maintained an open mind, went shopping with me, the best outcome I could've imagined. But being out of the closet was too exciting. I pushed too far too fast, and she made up her mind. The experiment was over. I retreated to the closet.

Looking back, I can see that I made moves down the road to womanhood a couple of times before last year. A year after my disclosure, we got separated. It wasn't overtly about the crossdressing, but I think it contributed to the anger and tension. While we were apart, I began ordering clothes, underwear and shoes through the mail. I even crudely shaved my legs. If we had stayed apart, I might have been full-time in my twenties. I managed to get the genie back into the bottle, but the price was bottling up my emotions with it. The only strong emotion I had from 24 to 42 was anger, and plenty of it. We reunited, mostly so she wouldn't look like a failure to her family. Three children followed, and a world of dysfunction.

In 2002, I was away on a business trip for a month. I began shaving my back, which made me feel almost human. A lot of my anger subsided while I was out of the house, and I began to see things more clearly. I composed a letter late one night, detailing my intent to follow my muse, feeling that it would free me up sexually and emotionally. I brought the letter home with me, but within two days I knew I couldn't give it to her. Another door closed.

But in October of last year, the bell rang for real, and it would not be denied.

Long Day

"In the end there is one dance you'll do alone"
"For a Dancer" Jackson Browne

Today was the memorial service for my wife's oldest sister. She died suddenly two weeks ago. A difficult and draining day for her family.

This artistic and talented woman recognized in me a frustrated musician, and bought me a nice acoustic guitar about ten years ago. She was right. I taught myself to play, and that expressive outlet gave me an island during some very stormy years of marriage. She also awoke an interest in nature photography by encouraging my participation in photo contests. She enriched my life, gave it more depth thru the arts.

One of the other sisters had a lot of trouble holding it together, breaking down four or five times. As a guy, I have never been a touchy-feely sort. In fact, in 25 years, I can't remember embracing either of my wife's two remaining sisters. But I found myself wanting to hold this woman and comfort her. I felt terrible for her, because I have had days like this myself in recent months. I wanted to share my story and my pain, commiserate with her.

Alas, I could not step out of my long-time role to do this. I have a part to play, and I'll have to stay in character till I'm ready to come out. I have to fight the urge to divulge, and the urge is strong. I offered some sincere verbal support, but it felt half-assed. I really felt a need to nurture, and not following through on it was saddening, as I think it would have helped both of us on some level.

Therapy by day, emotional wreck at night

"Losing your mind for the sake of your heart" -- Feist

I'm starting to see a pattern.

I had my weekly therapy today. I love these sessions. Who wouldn't love the opportunity to talk about yourself for an hour, to give your psyche a good scrubbing? I always leave feeling great.

But within another hour, it hits me. The raw feelings start creeping in. The utter hopelessness of this whole transgender business, the fear of appearing ridiculous, the upcoming hurt to be applied liberally to myself and everyone I care about.

Two weeks ago, the night after my weekly session, I was reading an article on the Lynn Conway site about transgenderism. I came to a sentence about feeling ugly and ludicrous in male social attire. And I broke down and sobbed for twenty minutes. Then I had to wait a week to discuss it, after the raw nerve had become cold analysis.

I don't know if I have the courage or fortitude to go where my heart wants me to. I certainly don't have the financial wherewithal. Desperate times call for desperation, right? I've got that in spades. I reek of it.

So, I spent the rest of my day today teetering between wanting to cry and trying not to cry. Maybe it's self-pity, maybe it's melancholy turned up to eleven. Maybe I need a whole Zoloft, not a half. I think my therapy will have made a quantum leap when I can have the breakdown during the session, not six-and-a-half days before my next appointment.

If you're too hirsute, you can't wear her suit

"When I come to terms with this, my life will change." -- Tori Amos

Body hair: my singular obsession. Only because I have so much of it and I want none of it. My wife stands between me and bare skin. She prefers me to look like a Sopranos cast member; I'd rather emulate a character from Lipstick Jungle. There's not a lot of common ground there.

She'll climb into bed sometimes with freshly shorn legs, which, of itself, triggers an envy attack in me. Then she rubs my chest and says she likes my fur. At this point, I feel like a silverback gorilla, or a Saint Bernard blessed with opposeable thumbs. I tell her I'd be happy to give it to her in a bag. Then she could enjoy it anytime she wants.

I recently picked up a bottle of depilatory at the grocery and stashed it under the bathroom sink. This impulse purchase flies in the face of good sense. It's like someone with suicidal tendencies making sure there's a loaded gun in the house, just in case. Now my daily internal battle, between mind/body congruity and fear of the wife's wrath, has the potential for real action. Stand back! I have Nair, and I know how to use it!

Of course, if I did do the deed, a new obsession would likely take its place. I think it's that slippery slope that my wife fears more than a hairless husband. It's another step towards losing the man she married, gradually replaced by a woman she doesn't want to know.

Excuse me now, I have to go eat. It's feeding time in the monkey house.