OK… I have been putting this chapter off for over six months, but I’ve decided to finally exorcise this demon and share it with you. As mentioned previously, I consider the following to be one of the most stressful and upsetting periods of my life. *Deep breath* Here goes…
By the age of 19 I was dressing a bit more regularly. Thanks to the Rocky Horror Show the year before, I finally owned a few of my own clothes. Still living at my mum’s house, I kept them clumsily hidden at the back of my wardrobe in a plastic bag. By this point, my girlfriend was more aware of my feminine side and had become the first person I had ever opened up to. I’ll leave the full details of that story for another day, even though I really would love to digress right about now.
Leading a very active social life, one evening I found that I actually had some time to myself. Resigning to my bedroom that evening, I decided to get fully dressed up – dress, wig, heels, the lot. I enjoyed simply spending a few hours as me, doing the things I usually did, but with an added sense of inner peace that was usually missing from my daily routine.
I have always been somewhat of a night owl. My brain is forever coming up with new ideas, seeking stimulation or trying to make sense of this wonderfully complex situation that I have been born into. This often keeps me up most, if not all of the night, and I am always the last one in my street with a light on. It got so bad at one point that my sign to finally go to bed was hearing the milkman making his rounds at 6am.
However, tonight was not like those other nights. I felt relaxed and settled down on my bed to watch some TV. Except I didn’t. I fell asleep. Fully dressed.
My next recollection is of feeling disturbed. I sensed that something in my environment had changed. Perhaps I’d heard a noise or was tapping into an unknown sense. Either way, my brain had become conscious again. As I slowly tried to open my tired eyes, I could see a blurry shape as my eyes tried their best to focus. In a single moment, two thoughts entered my head:
- That shape is my mum! Why is mum stood at the side of my bed, staring at me?
- Oh my God, there are strands of a blonde wig at the sides of my vision!
Somehow in the night I’d managed to drape part of my duvet over me. Did she know the extent of what I was wearing? Maybe she could just see the wig? My nylon-encased foot felt colder than my body so I quickly retracted it back into the duvet, with a high heel trailing behind it. I’m really not a morning person and usually operate in auto-pilot mode as I get ready each day. But this was different. My mind was racing but I was completely unprepared for this situation. My mum was still looking at me and I was essentially trapped with nowhere to go. It seemed like time had stopped, and as mum became aware that I was now awake and looking back at her, she immediately said: “Why are you dressed like that?”
Silence.
At this point, I didn’t even have a proper answer to that question. I had kept this part of me so deeply buried since I was young, that I’d never considered what I’d say if somebody accidentally found out, because I could never let that happen. Except, I just had. Still feeling incredibly groggy and with my heart racing out of my chest, I somehow got mum to leave the room.
As she closed the door behind her, I felt like my entire world had come crashing down. I felt very sick, scared and equally angry at myself. My secret was out and my brain had gone into overdrive. I immediately got changed into my standard uniform of t-shirt and jeans and stashed my clothes back into a bag. I knew that I couldn’t hide upstairs forever, so decided to go downstairs to face the music. I quickly walked through the house and made it to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and then heard my mum enter the nearby kitchen. I waited a few minutes longer to see if she would retreat back to the living room, but she didn’t and I found myself trapped again, albeit with more acceptable clothing on.
As I made my way out of the bathroom, I walked over to the sink where she was standing. “Why were you dressed like that?” she repeated. I was truly still lost for words and didn’t know how to reply. So I didn’t.
She then said that I could tell her the reason and she would understand. Except, based on her reaction to me getting my ear pierced and having longer than average hair for a guy, I didn’t believe this to be true. I felt that she was just trying to lure me into a false sense of security as she fished for additional information.
The questions kept coming. “Are you gay?” she enquired? I responded with a very quick “no”. “Do you want a sex change?” she continued. At that point, I just wanted the conversation to end and replied with another immediate “no!” I have since learned that these two questions are almost a right of passage that we all get asked at some point. I had pretty much shut down at this point (in panic mostly) and had nothing further to offer. Her line of questioning soon ran out as I didn’t give her anything additional to go on.
It had taken me 19 years to finally start to accept who I was and a moment’s carelessness to through it all away. I was incredibly worried and felt that my worst possible nightmare had come true. One thing was for sure, I could never let that happen again. I went back to my room and phoned up my girlfriend at the first opportunity. I told her what had happened and she was very supportive and helped calm me down a bit. She came round to visit that evening and helped me try to take my mind off of things. I tried to avoid my mum for the rest of the day, as I was embarrassed and didn’t want to face another round of questioning once she’d had time to think about it.
This, dear readers, is the bit that I like to refer to as the dumbest thing I have ever done. No, not the bit you have just read, but the next bit.
That night I was still pretty stressed and unable to think of anything else, decided to put the clothes back on, perhaps for the very last time. I immediately felt calmer again. Phew, that’s bett…zzzzzzzzz.
Yes, that’s right. I bloody did it again! But it was ok, because mum never came into my room when the door was shut and yesterday was a one-off. Except I’d managed to collect quite a few cups and plates during my self-imposed solitude and mum wanted to do the washing up. Again I wake up with mum looking at me. For how long I don’t know. But something was different this time. Her tone was angry. Again she questioned why I was dressed that way, and then said “I don’t mind you dressing like that once to try it, but two days in a row?”
I’m sorry. You don’t mind? Like, I have your permission to try on something for fun, as I would a cowboy hat at a joke shop, or somebody else’s glasses? But twice is not acceptable, because then I mean it? I again offered her no explanation, and with a tense atmosphere, nothing else was said on the subject.
In the days that followed, things remained awkward between us and she didn’t seem quite as supportive as she’d promised when fishing for details. One evening I came home from work and she seemed annoyed again. “Why have you got a bra? You don’t need one?” Great, she’s found my badly hidden collection of clothes and taken the time to remind me that I don’t have boobs. Thanks!
Again, I had no logical answer to this question. But I wasn’t going to get away with simply diverting the conversation elsewhere or saying no repeatedly this time. She wanted an argument and clearly had a lot of built up anger to vent. She threw everything she could at me, and used my secret as the ultimate weapon against me. Not only was I left defenceless as I couldn’t explain anything, I was heartbroken that the person I cared about the most in the world was using my most personal feelings against me. As the argument turned into a shouting match, she then said something that was the final straw. She threatened to hang all of my clothes out the window for the neighbours to see. That was it. I had to get out of there right away.
My girlfriend was still living with her parents at the time and I got her to ask if it’d be ok to stay there that night in the spare room. I packed some things and then made a quick exit. I was very, very upset. Of course, I was unable to offer her parents any explanation either. A week passed before I had finally calmed down enough to phone mum up. The conversation didn’t last long though and descended into an argument within moments. The phone was slammed down and I was back to square one. By this point I had run out of clothes so ended up borrowing some of my girlfriend’s brothers old clothes as I got mine washed.
I felt like I was outstaying my welcome as another week elapsed. My girlfriend’s mum persuaded me to try to phone mum back up. She was still incredibly irate but I managed to get her to hold fire long enough for me to agree to return home. From that day to this (11+ years later), the events of those two weeks have never been brought up since. She has however passed negative comments whenever she sees a man dressed like a woman on TV, and now doesn’t hold back in letting me know that she hates my long, blonde hair.
Things haven’t really been right between us since that fateful day. They are certainly a lot better but I always feel like the next argument is just around the corner. She made it very clear when I was growing up that she liked men to be men, which I guess stems from her growing up in the 1950’s with her Dad in the Navy. A big part of me has always wanted nothing more than to tell her exactly how I feel and explain what happened on that day. However, I also don’t want to give her any additional ammo to use against me in future arguments. While I am personally at peace with who I am now, the thought of my mum potentially wanting to use that against me is still very upsetting, and a situation that I really don’t want to revisit.
This experience also knocked my confidence massively, and I decided that my girlfriend’s reaction must have been a one-off fluke. If the relative closest to me had reacted so negatively, how the hell would everyone else react? I had no intention of finding out and my true feminine side retreated back to where it was safest.
So there you have it. That was one of the worst experiences of my life and is something that still saddens me whenever I think back on it. The good news however is that things did eventually get better and this certainly isn’t the end of my story.
Stay tuned for the next chapter, coming soon!
Kate x