To be sad that someone can’t be themselves?

[ImpeckableChicken]

Didn’t know which topic to put this in so I do apologise!

A close relative recently confided in me that he likes to dress up in ladies clothes. He is pensioner age, married 40+ years, 1 adult daughter and grandchild.

His wife found out years ago and told him to pack it in and threatened to tell their daughter.

He still does it in secret, and has said if he were younger he would consider transitioning.

He has terrible mental health issues and it’s made me wonder if it’s because he’s never been able to be himself?

I’m a problem solver and a part of me wants to say to him ‘Fk them all! Be yourself!!’

BUT

It would be chaos. He fears his family would disown him, wife would leave and god knows how his daughter will feel.

It’s hard to watch and not do anything. Anyone been in a similar position?

And yes I’d be the same, I couldn’t stay married either, I completely understand that, it’s not for everyone.

But it bothers me that instead of telling him, well I can’t be with you, blah blah it was ‘you stop behaving like that now or I’ll be telling our daughter’

Well not really, if the deal is “you stop that or I’m leaving” then he made a choice that his marriage was more important than his fetish. I’m not sure that crossdressing would alleviate his mental health issues because the cause of the fetish would need to be addressed, the fetish is a symptom. He should really consider trying to access some therapy for this.

Yeah I do agree with you actually, it’s not fair to weaponise children here, sorry I hadn’t read your OP accurately enough.

@SerenChocolateMuncher You rarely see trans-women in frumpy or modest clothing. Most wear highly sexualised clothing and makeup. Short skirts, skimpy tops, high heels, heavy makeup, false fingernails and eyelashes. They are sexualised caricatures of real women.

How many trans women do you actually know?

You named one person who agrees with you. I read the link posted about her, and she does not present the situation at all like you do either. She makes a very sympathetic case for her argument, which is completely absent on this support thread.

Who are all the other people with lived experience who are informing you of this? Or is it just that one person you choose to listen to, bc it chimes with your pre-formed view?

I know loads of trans women who don't dress as you describe. They dress in all sorts of styles, just like everyone else. I suspect you don't actually know of any trans women in your social circle, for you to come out with a statement like that.

I only know five in real life, but I don't need to know them personally to see them on social media and know what they look like.

I only ask because my DD lives in jeans, trainers and hoodies. I’ve met a few of her trans friends and none of them look like they’re starring in Priscilla Queen of the Desert either.

I find it extremely odd that all five trans women you personally know in real life dress in the way you describe. Where are you meeting these people?

It's also likely you have met many more in your every day life dressed ordinarily, and not realised.

To answer your OP without going on too much about the fetish issue, i think the same about this as all other trans issues and fall on the very reasonable side of JKR.

People should be free to live their lives as they see fit and to love any consenting adult so long as that doesn't impact on the lives of others.

In the case of your friend he can't force his family to be live alongside his kink, his wife obviously wasn't aware of it before their marriage and it is not something she should have to accommodate. So ultimately he is faced with a choice, of whether his kink is more important to him than his family.

This is the same with all trans issues, the problem I have with extreme trans activism is that women are being compelled to go along with men's kinks on a frequent basis as most trans identifying males (whether they are the ones with the kink or not) impose themselves on women's single sex spaces and demand that we call them women and use female pronouns. This harms women as a sex class. We now find there is nothing we can have for ourselves. It is essential to the males with the kink that we do this as being validated by women is part of the kink.

The other issue I have is the harms to children but that his not the subject of this thread so I won't talk about that.

Have you ever spent time with women in a space like that yourself, one that includes trans women (that you're aware of)?

I wonder because I think if you had, you'd understand how far off the mark your perception of transness being a man with a kink really is.

It's just so far away from my own experiences in such groups, which have all been positive. It's kind of preposterous to me to even consider there was anything sinister or sexual about it.

Yes.

Not that I need to explain myself to you.

I think that for the mental health of women, it is important that our rights are respected. We are not the same as men who identify as women for any reason, and there are times at which our sex matters more than any feelings a man might have about gender.

Women matter. We exist. We need spaces free from all males for safety and dignity.

Trans women are men. There is no other way to be a trans woman.

But to go back to this OP are you seriously suggesting that a woman who finds herself married to a cross dresser needs to just 'turn a blind eye' to the poor man?

That's some internalised misogyny right there.

I suspect he is "being himself" - as in he is a person with a secret behaviour he hides from his wife but shares with others on a "confidential" basis.

He must want to live that person with a secret-but-confided-behaviour life style.

He has apparently been doing this for decades.

He would have done something different if he wanted to - he doesn't want to - he probably likes the status quo exactly as it is.

No. She can either stay or leave. As long as it’s what she wanted and she isn’t forced.

Her being made to ‘turn a blind eye’ and stay with him while he explores being a woman is just as bad as her telling him to stop or I’ll tell everyone your secret. No one should be forced to stay in a relationship.

She clearly doesn’t agree with it so she should have left him.

Interesting that you feel ‘sad’ for him, rather than his long suffering wife who is dependent on him and no doubt has deep buried white hot fury about the whole thing. I would’ve kicked him out at the first hint of this grim self indulgent behaviour.

But you said she threatened to leave him and he now 'does it in secret' in your OP.

Is this real because the story seems to have changed if you are now saying she knows?

If he doesn't want to stay in the relationship and is continuing 'in secret' and this is affecting his mental health the onus is on him to leave.

I think the clothing fetish is sexually delinquent and a symptom of poor mental
Health rather than causing it

I never said she didn’t know. She knows. I know. Another person knows. He does it in private in his bedroom. Hence the ‘secret’. His daughter and the general public DON’T know.

I don’t know if he told her himself or if she caught him. But she told him to stop it or else she will tell their daughter. Not ‘or I’ll leave you’.

I also don’t know if she knows if he still does it or if he’s managing to be super discreet

You've got this the wrong way round OP, he's the one who tricked her into marrying a cross dresser who might be trans. I'm sure she would have run a mile if she'd known before she got married. He's still lying and manipulating her by doing it behind her back when she's told him she doesn't want him to do it.

The whole coercion and threatening to tell the daughter is nonsense - if he was going around wearing womens clothes all the time as he wants and playing at being a woman then the daughter would obviously find out anyway.

I think he sounds absolutely vile. I expect he's completely self absorbed, and obsessed with dressing up as a woman every time his poor wife's back is turned. I feel absolutely terrible for her.

Never really thought about it that way round… maybe cus I see their relationship… like he’s the pushover and she’s the more ‘in charge’ one. So I tend to feel more sorry for him. Think ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ with Hyacinth and Richard!

I think it’s harsh to say he tricked her. Many LGBT+ people try and convince themselves to live the ‘normal’ life that society expects, especially people from their generation. Maybe he thought if I settle down and have kids the feelings will go away?? Not I’ll bag myself a lady and make her stay with me while I do what I want. But you never know…

I hate to use Phillip Schofield as an example but he’s the only one that pops into my head.

Odd or not, it's the truth.

Two are/were work colleagues. One is the son of someone I know, one works in a restaurant I regularly visit and the other one is the ex-husband of a friend. All of them look like men pretending to be women.

The most convincing one is the son of someone I know. If you passed him in the street, didn't have any engagement and didn't look too hard you might think he was a woman. With only the briefest engagement with him, you would know you were wrong.

It is extremely unlikely (I am 99.9% confident in saying "impossible") that I have met even one trans-man, never mind "many" and not realised they were a man.

I think it’s harsh to say he tricked her. Many LGBT+ people try and convince themselves to live the ‘normal’ life that society expects

Theres a big difference between sexuality (LGB) and identities (TQ+). Sexuality is simply about who you love, no one is expected to lie for them or play into a bizarre fantasy to validate a delusional identity.

There is a theory that the small number of dysphoric men who transition tend to be gay men who have internalised homophobia and cannot cope with being a gay man. The majority of current TW are straight men with a fetish, and it’s well documented that many transition as a result of watching too much porn and needing to push further to feel euphoric (plenty of Reddit subs, Twitter accounts, real life TW speaking out either online or in person, to give evidence for this). Tbh many of the TW trying to defend themselves and their truth that TWAW show with their words and actions that this is indeed a fetish. And women fall over themselves to be kind and go along with it.

If this old man really wants to be himself he either needs to keep it private so he’s not involving any unwilling and non-consensual participants, or he needs therapy to learn how to overcome his desire to cross dress (which is most definitely NOT a sexuality - and to consider it as such is mind blowingly offensive to lesbians, gays and bisexual people everywhere)

He is completely 'being himself'

I really don't understand why you feel sorry for him?

If his wife has told him that she is not interested in being in a marriage with a cross-dresser/trans/fetishist then he is 'being himself' by preferring to stay with her and all the benefits that entails.

That's him making that choice.
You seem to be blaming his wife for having the right to not want to remain married to him if he makes the choice to cross dress or whatever.

Would you say that about his wife if she didn't want to stay with him because he started beating her or gambled or stayed in bed all day 'being himself'?
No, you would respect she had the right to 'be herself' and not stay to be treated that way.

Honestly you are either not a thinker or you are trying to wind everyone up? Which is it? Go on, be yourself and let me know.

And yes, the daughter would find out regardless. I know two daughters of suddenly fully-committed transvestites/cross-dressers as they were called as the men are now about 70 years old.
One man was a dentist, so very 'public'.
That daughter doesn't speak to her father, she feels he humiliated her and her mother.

The second one, the wife left and the daughter barely sees her father, but she hadn't gone fully NC, just moved to the other side of the country.

Be himself? I think you mean publicly display a kink.

Prepared for this to be an unpopular opinion but there are many other "kinks" that aren't (or shouldn't be) publicly acceptable in addition to autogynaphaelia:

Paedophilia (obvious one)
Necrophilia
Bestiality
Littles
Scat play

I'm actually gonna stop there aa I'm not enjoying the visuals.

TLDR It's just another "philia"