Donate if you like her work and/or if you’d like to own a copy. She needs just under $3k in a month. (Tell her Helen sent you! My thanks to Lannie Rose for the heads up.)

Photographer: Andrew Hawley

Just a couple of things I want to say first. As one of the conditions for this is no names, I shall refer to my beloved in boy format as B*. This stands for Beloved. Another major character is X, which refers to the ex-wife. Finally, please excuse any pronoun confusion that may arise. I have tried to use “he” when referring to my dearest in “boy-mode,” and “she” when referring to same in “girlie-mode” (his own terms) but there are still times when I’m not sure which to use when.

Chapter 1: In which Tink sees photos.

I think I first fell in love when I saw her picture. The problem was, he belonged to somebody else- a friend of mine- and so I put it out of my mind.

I had known B* for a couple of years. He was going out with X, who was a friend of mine, and we became good friends ourselves, the kind that sees each in other in the pub, but with occasional deep and meaningful conversations between just the two if us. This was one of those times. Most of our other friends had retired early, and it was just the two of us in one of those dodgy local rock clubs that you seem to find in every city. He was entertaining me with pictures on his mobile phone. They were various models, singers and actresses all looking beautiful. I had the difficult task of putting names to the faces, and my knowledge of popular culture kept letting me down. He selected another image and presented it to me. Again I was clueless. She was slim and beautiful like all the rest, with lovely long, dark hair and dressed in black. I took a wild guess.
“Morticia Addams?” Apparently I was wrong and had to look again. “I have no idea, but whoever she is, she’s very pretty.”
“It’s me.”
“Wow!” I was stunned. I looked again, and I just couldn’t believe it. She was just amazing.

A while later we had a girls’ night. It was shortly before the annual over-running of the seaside town of Whitby by several hundred Goths, an opportunity for everyone to get dressed up and show off. And B* wanted to do the same, but was unsure how well it would be received, so he sent X along to the pub with a few more photos and get a feel for the general opinion. She shared them around, and everyone was ooh-ing and ah-ing. I found myself going very quiet. I looked at the pictures, and I realised I was jealous. Very jealous. So I kept my mouth shut and just stared, letting myself indulge in the feelings. Then we put the photos away, and I put my feelings back away, and didn’t look at them for a long time.

Occasionally, I told X how lucky she was. She would tell me something nice that he’d done, and I’d say “You’ve got a good one there, hold onto him.”

Chapter 2: In which Tink gets lonely and B* makes her smile.

They got married the same day I graduated from my theology course. It may have been due to all the excitement and lack of fluids, but it’s the one time in my life that I’ve had a full-on migraine. I look back now and think maybe it was some kind of premonition of wrongness. I do remember talking to another friend that day, and saying how I felt that I would never find anyone that wonderful. She promised me I would.

After that I started going a bit wobbly. I got into another tarting phase. I would go out with my friends, seeing them all happily paired off (or so I thought at the time) and put a brave face on things. B* was the one who noticed when I was quiet, when voices louder than mine wouldn’t listen. He was the one who could always make me smile.

Around this time, I lived next door to a pub we went to. He asked me a favour: Could he come round my flat to get dressed up before we went out? Of course, I was delighted to have anybody visit me, and even more so to have what I call “a getting ready party.” He bought a huge bag of stuff, we gave each other outfit advice (K: “I was thinking this top and that skirt” T: “Hmmm, not quite, but you could wear that skirt with that top” K: “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right” T: “Do these sleeves work with this outfit?” K: “Um… no”) drank vodka and coke and made a complete mess in all 3 rooms of the flat. I was in heaven, and I bounced around a lot.

We did this a couple of times, I found myself looking forward to it. I found myself almost pretending that she was mine. I knew that the boy part belonged to someone else, but with the girl part, I could almost pretend. Almost, but not quite.

I heard of a job going in a distant town. I felt like my life was going nowhere fast, so I applied. I was amazed when I was successful. It meant I had to move. B* came and helped lift everything down two flights of stairs into the van.

Chapter 3: In which the morals are temporarily partially suspended and things go a bit tits up.

Whitby again, a year and a few months ago. I had just moved, and felt like this was the last big gathering I was to have with all my chums, so it was full of that sweet sorrow. Again, B* was the one who noticed, who listened to my fears, who encouraged me.

There was a lot of alcohol, dressing up, shopping and dancing. Kate was looking especially gorgeous one night. I won’t go into all the circumstances here, because unless you were there it’s hard to understand what was going on. However, that night I was lucky enough to have the chance to kiss Kate.

Weak at the knees does not begin to cover it. I could say there were fireworks, or the earth moved, but in truth it was like everything else fell away, and she was the only thing that existed for me. In that moment, I didn’t care about any of the moral dilemmas or being alone or that I knew it was only temporary. In that moment, she was all mine. It was the most amazing kiss ever. It was the most wonderful feeling.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept trying to put it out of my mind, but it wasn’t working. X had told me that things were not right between the two of them (for reasons other than the kiss, I hasten to add.) I felt guilty for everything I was feeling, and I was worried about what might happen next.

So there I was- new flat, about to start a new job, a hundred miles away from home and all my friends. Then B* called me, saying that X had left. We talked, and I promised if there was anything he needed I would do all I could.

As I thought about it, I realised that I did love him, that maybe that love had been there longer than I realised. And it felt right, and real, in spite of the complications. So many times I’d thought I’d been in love, and I wasn’t sure I’d recognise when the real thing came along. My friends told me “you just KNOW” and all of a sudden, I did know.

So what to do now? The answer was clear, I had to wait. There was no point in rushing into a disaster zone and ruining any chance I had. For the first time in my life, I didn’t mind waiting. Before I moved, I felt like I was almost dead inside, I thought I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Now it felt warm and colourful and happy. It didn’t matter if he returned my feelings or not, it only mattered that I wasn’t empty anymore.

So I would wait. I would be there for him, help him as much as I could, but I wouldn’t do anything about how I felt. No pressure.

Chapter 4: In which Tink engages in an old-fashioned courtship.

We talked a few times on the phone. Just doing that made me happy. And after a while I persuaded him to come and visit with a couple of other friends. It would be good for him to have a weekend away. When he arrived, he kept asking why I was smiling so much, and all I could say was “I’m happy to be going out with my friends.”

So we all went out, shopped, chatted, drank. On the bus home late at night, I was really desperate for a pee. It was agony. So we all got off the bus, and I very quickly found an almost suitable bush. B* stood guard over me, with his back turned. I was so grateful and impressed.

Another bus came along, and we got back to the flat. The other two went to bed, but me and B* stayed up drinking more. We ended up talking about everything in depth, for hours, about everything that we had done and thought up until that point.

In the end, I told him that I loved him, but it wasn’t the right time for him to say it back yet.

There were more conversations over the phone, long emails and analysing things from even more angles, and one more visit (me in his direction this time, though I stayed at other friends’ house). Then, just before Christmas, he slipped up on the phone, and referred to himself as a boyfriend. I pounced on the word, and he gave in.

Chapter 5: In which we are together.

We spent the New Year together. I was so nervous about staying with him at last, but I needn’t have worried- we had a wonderful time, and everything was as it should be. I even helped scrub the kitchen.

But there was one more thing I wanted, and that was to spend time alone with her. Girls are easier to shop for than boys, so I’d bought her an outfit. I was also a reason to get her dressed up. So he poured me some wine, sat me in front of the TV with the cat, and disappeared for an hour or two.

I was nervous again- more wine, more cigarettes.

At last she appeared. I cannot describe how amazing she looked, or how stunned I was. I just couldn’t believe that the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen was actually mine. I definitely got the euphoria that night. I found myself constantly looking at her, as if to reassure myself of the reality, and savour every moment.

So, it all went on from there, and it just gets better and better. Ok, so we had a hic-cup or two, (after all, nobody’s perfect) but when we work it out it’s as if everything is magnified and purified.

Even now, a year later, when I get the chance to have an evening in with Kate, I still find myself looking over. I know it’s real now, but I still get that warm fuzzy feeling.

She tells me that I can make them bigger in a few months, too. Betty’s starting to worry.

If you’re coming here after Fantasia Fair, do remind me of the resources I said I would post. I know some (a lot) of them are probably about sex, so you might want to start by browsing the posts marked s.e.x. on this blog.

I’m not going to say that there is any one right way to transition. We all know that those paths are as unique as the individuals who tread them. However, if a couple is going to have any possibility of remaining intact each partner must be willing to recognize that compromises will be an integral part of the process.

Every time I hear a story about a trans-partner who has moved forward without being open and honest before taking those first steps the handwriting is on the wall. While the transition itself is certainly a huge issue, I venture to say that the bond of trust between two individuals is even more fundamental. When that trust is breached there really is not much more that you can do.

One thing that I learned while transitioning with my wife is that we had to take it one day at a time. In order to do that we had to acknowledge that the future was uncertain. We would make the steps that we felt we were able to handle together and then sort of reassess where we were in a relationship. If things were okay we would discuss further steps and so on. At this juncture we decided that we would keep any information regarding my transition to ourselves. Our thinking was considering that this was going to be a very difficult and emotional journey for us both. To bring in children and friends would just muddy the waters and lead to people breaking off on different sides. Now remember, our children are grown. This would be an entirely different scenario if there were young children still in the home.

The whole issue of pacing is one that really calls upon our commitment to one another. For the trans-person it’s always much too slow and for the non-trans person it’s always much too fast. That being said my transition so far has taken seven years. It took a full five years for Jeanne and I to conclude that we might have a chance of making it. It was at that point that I went full time. This is also when we began telling our children what was going on. The two boys took it very easily which was strange because I thought it would be just the opposite. Our daughter had the most difficult time and there again I thought she would have the easiest time. There really is no way to know how people will react.

For the past year our children and our grandchildren have been totally at ease with Grandma Dee. I transitioned at work in the year that I went full time (2005) so that was two years ago. However I didn’t tell them either until it was “launch commit.”

Fast-forward to today. We have several close friends male and female who have either not been in the area or whom we have avoided for the last two years. Quite frankly we’ve never really believed that there would be any chance that we would be able to transition with them in place. Well, three weeks ago we broke news to them. We explained what was going on and the things that led up to it and the fact that I had been full time already and successful for over two years. Their reaction? At first they needed some time to digest the information, but within a week each and every one of them had written supportive letters and committed to our friendship regardless of my transition. In the time since we have had them over for dinner at the house where we talked until the wee hours of the morning… since then we have gone out with them to dinner and we are planning many autumn activities as we enter the holiday season.

Now, right up front I have to say if it were not for Jeanne and her level head this never would’ve been the outcome. Likewise, if I was not willing to put on the brakes and work with Jeanne while at the same time really listening to her… my world would be a vastly different place today.

So I offer all of this to all of you not as a prescription for success but as one anecdotal story of one couple, at one time, in one place, who managed to make it work. Others may approach it slightly differently, but whatever a couple tries to do throughout the process there must be love, communication, compromise, and a willingness not to move forward until everyone is on the same page.

Suffice to say having a trans-partner does not necessarily mean the end of the relationship. Consider this a post dedicated to hope.

Julia Serano is a Bay Area slam-winning poet, author, performer, activist, & biologist. She organized the GenderEnders event from 2003 until last year; plays guitar, sings & writes lyrics for her band Bitesize, and oh – has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. We got to meet her when she was in town promoting her book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, recently published by Seal Press.

(1) I loved Whipping Girl, for starters. I think it’s a pivotal work for trans communities, especially in building trans pride. But you know I kept waiting for you to actually define “feminine” – maybe if not for all time, but in some way that I could understand what you meant by it specifically. Your “barrette Manifesto” came close, except that I see barrettes as childish, not feminine per se. So can you help the genderblind like myself? What is femininity? Can you be feminine without being girly?

In the next to last chapter of the book, “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism,” I talk about that a bit, but I’ll try to define it here a little more clearly. I would say that femininity is a heterogeneous set of traits (some of which are cultural in origin, some biological, some psychological, and many are a combination thereof). The only thing that all feminine traits have in common is that they are typically associated with women in our culture. But they certainly aren’t exclusive to women, as many men and MTF spectrum transgender folks also express feminine traits (similarly, many women express masculine rather than feminine traits). I think most of us tend to express some combination of both feminine and masculine traits.

I appreciate that you asked whether a person can be feminine without being girly, as I feel that pretty much describes my experience with femininity. While I have experimented with high femme in the past, these days I definitely don’t see myself as a girly-girl. I only wear make-up or dresses on special occasions and most days I probably come off more as a tomboy than anything else. At the same time, my personality is definitely more feminine in other ways, for example, in the way I tend to be verbally effusive and emotive, and in my concern for others. I don’t believe that these traits “make me a woman,” or that all women should express them. They are feminine traits solely because they tend to be associated with women in our culture.

Your point about how many of the things that are seen as most feminine in our society are also associated with childishness is important. I think there is a tendency to infantilize femininity in our society. One can definitely see that in how teenage girls are so regularly sexualized in our culture (while teenage boys are not). And when we think of icons of femininity, things like Hello Kitty, Barbie and so forth come to mind. Yet, when we think of masculinity, we never think about toy trucks or Transformers. We assume that masculinity is inherently mature, even though people often do the most childish things in the name of masculinity.

(2) We’ve both talked about some of the ways the queer + trans communities meet, or don’t. Can you talk a little bit about your own personal experience with these two communities? Is there a place where you feel at home?

I guess I feel simultaneously at home and not at home in the queer community. I feel at home in queer spaces because I have so many friends there – so many truly wonderful, sweet, creative and interesting people. I would say that most of the people who seem to understand me the best identify as queer. Yet, at the same time, I also feel that there is so much policing of identity in queer spaces, almost as much as there is in straight spaces. Large contingents of queer folks try way too hard to prove that they are “queerer than thou,” or that people they don’t like for whatever reason are “not queer enough.” It’s sad how much the queer community reminds me of junior high school sometimes.

What disappoints me the most is that “queer” is supposed to be an umbrella word for all different types of people who in one way or another are deemed “not straight” by society at large. Of course, the people who are most often accused of not being queer enough by the community are bisexuals, trans folks and our partners. It’s as if the word “queer” keeps reverting back to cisgender gays and lesbians only.

One of the best things about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that the artistic communities in general are pretty genuinely cool with queer and trans folks, so I also enjoy a sense of community in the local spoken word and music scenes. Folks in those circles may not be aware of all the minutia of queer/trans politics, but they respect my work and my female identity—sometimes even more so than queer folks do.

(3) I was thinking about your observation lately, about me & about you, on Trans Group Blog: that you tend to know more queer-identified trans women who are way post transition, and I tend to know a lot more who are in transition, about to transition, & just transitioned. Here’s my concern: the community I know isn’t very hip to feminist ideas at all, & I wonder sometimes if, for trans women lacking a feminist consciousness, they will get all riled up about their own rights without getting certain stuff about women’s spaces, women’s history, women’s rights. That worries me. Tell me why I shouldn’t worry, or if I should.

I’ve found that many trans women undergo an evolution in their thinking about gender issues. When they are first transitioning, they may be more inclined to see themselves as trans first and foremost, and often they’ll focus solely on trans rights. But post-transition, after having the experience of being treated as female day-in and day-out, they’ll begin to develop a feminist conscious as they begin to face many of the issues that cissexual (i.e., non-transsexual) women face. And many will begin to draw parallels between the misogyny they face as women, and the trans-misogyny they face as trans women.

While many trans women gain an appreciation for feminism either before or after their transitions, I agree with you that some trans women never seem to make this connection. In my book, I critique the whole “single-issue” gender activism approach that occurs when people fail to make connections between their own marginalization and those of other groups. Transphobia, homophobia, biphobia and misogyny are all inter-related—they are all forms of sexism. Therefore, it’s crucial that we recognize the parallels between feminism and transgender and queer activism. So I agree with you that single-issue activists who only fight for the rights of trans people, but not for women or LGB folks can be a problem, and I am concerned with it to.

(4) You coin words in your book, like transmisogyny and effemimania and trans mystification. You’re liberal in your use of transphobia. Do you ever feel that coining new terms loses some readers? I’ve met trans women who get upset about trans discrimination who seem otherwise entirely unaware of their own class or racial privilege. Do you ever worry that some of your salient points might be lost because you use new words, or that your readers don’t have the background in the kind of theory and language you’re steeped in?

I was very worried about using so many new words in the book. For example, I went back and forth for a couple weeks trying to decide whether or not I should use the word cissexual (which I did not coin) rather than non-transsexual, because I was worried that it wouldn’t register with people and they would just put the book down rather than continue on. The reason why I eventually decided to use that term (as well as others which I did coin) was because I felt they were necessary, that they helped illuminate issues that previously remained largely invisible.

Of course, a lot of the coining of new words was inspired by other movements (for example, those to end sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, etc.), where activists similarly created new language to articulate marginalized perspectives on those issues. It’s hard for me to say how people who are not familiar with these movements will react to the language I use. I’d like to think that maybe the book could become a jumping off point for them to make connections with these other movements. In the book, I talk a lot about being at the intersection of different forms of marginalization, and the last thing I would want is to have people use my book to argue for transsexual or trans women’s rights without making connections to those other important issues. After all, it would be hypocritical for a trans person to expect other people to acknowledge cissexual privilege if they themselves are not willing to look at the privileges they may experience because they are male, heterosexual, white, middle-class, etc.

(5) You seem to posit, in your chapter on being submissive, that you had to move through that phase, that it was somehow part & parcel of your experience of being trans, that your move through (and away from) being submissive meant you had come to accept yourself, & your transness, more. Do you think being submissive is a bad thing, or a sign that something is up mentally or emotionally?

I really wanted to include that chapter because so many trans women (myself included) have submissive fantasies or forced feminization fantasies in the years before they transition (and sometimes after). This of course has lead many non-trans male psychologists (such as Bailey and Blanchard) to view our desire to be female as a “autogynephilic” fetish. They seem oblivious to the possibility that the desire to be female comes first and that the submissive fantasies are merely a coping mechanism to deal with it. That’s how I experienced it. I wanted to be a girl before I had sexual fantasies. I had a lot of shame about my desire to be female (most of which grew out of our culture’s misogynist attitudes), and those fantasies relieved a lot of the guilt that I was feeling. I think this is similar to how a lot of cissexual women feel ashamed about their own sexual desires, and so they may learn to relieve that guilt through rape fantasies. It’s not that they want to be raped, just as most MTF spectrum folks don’t really want to have someone force them into feminization or submissiveness—it’s just that the fantasy enables us to unleash taboo and repressed desires.

I don’t think that having submissive fantasies are necessarily a bad thing, as they are often a survival skill and can be personally empowering to those who experience them. Also, there is a big difference between being a submissive or bottom sexually and being submissive in day-to-day life. Most people I know who are sexually submissive are not very submissive in their day-to-day life.

Bonus Question!!

(6) Call me a Marxist feminist, or Second Wave or something, but I was pretty surprised you wrote so much about femininity and specficially feminine presentation without mentioning consumer culture. Marketing to young girls and tweens and teenagers is over the top these days, and I’ve watched as the moms of my various nieces have had to battle with the girls wanting *everything* that involves ponies and barrettes and girliness in general. So you can say something about the consumption of girliness?

In the book, I talk about how masculinity often comes off as natural while femininity comes off as artificial. For example, many feminists have argued that high heel shoes or make-up are inherently unnatural and artificial, and that they only exist to appease or attract men. What underlies many of these arguments is the presumption that their masculine counterparts are inherently natural or practical. But this clearly isn’t the case. Most men shave their face (something that is arguably unnatural), and those who do it every day often do so in order to look presentable or attractive. But nobody ever talks about all of the time and money men waste on razors, shaving cream, and aftershave. And plenty of men spend an exorbitant amount of money fancy Italian shoes or the latest fad sneakers – there is nothing practical about that.

I agree with you that we live in a highly consumerist culture, and I’ll be the first to critique that. But I also think that when people talk about consumer culture and feminine presentation without also addressing masculine presentation, it seems to me to be really one-sided and sometimes even downright anti-feminine. Granted, women typically spend way more than men on clothing and most grooming products. But while growing up, I knew lots of guys who spent tons of money on things related to their image and presentation: they’d buy overpriced sneakers, or spend lots of money on prettying up their cars, and flaunting their money in other ways to impress women they’re dating or interested in. I’ve found that many (albeit not all) men are just as concerned about their overall image as many women are. It’s just that men are expected to spend money to enhance their image in different ways than women are, and they are far less often critiqued for it when they do.

Hey, every story has to begin somewhere, and this one’s starting with that. It’s the text of a personals ad, submitted to a local free weekly paper. The sort of thing that’s three quarters real estate listings.

I can’t claim sole authorship for the ad. My ex wife and I penned it. We started with the vague notion that it was about time I started seeing people. She, after all, had hooked up with a new guy and was rapidly approaching domestic bliss. I’d been moping around for a while, but was now finally starting to re-emerge into the world; to get my shit together, as it were.

We were fairly limited in the number of words we could use, so step one was to write down a list of words that really had to be in there. Tranny was probably the big one. I didn’t want to enter a romantic relationship under false pretences. Images of that scene in “the Crying Game” aside, it’s just not fair on all involved. Were I doing it now, I would use a slightly less loaded term. Maybe trans.
Love had to be there too. Indeed it was so important, we put it in twice. If the paper had let us, we’d have put it in bold, underlined. Love was, after all, the motivation behind this. I wanted to find someone who I could bond with. I wanted, like most of us, to fall in love, to live happily ever after.

Laughter, friend, and fun were words that we decided on to give the piece an upbeat tone. No point scaring people away with excessive mushiness, is there? And besides, I didn’t want someone who wasn’t fun to be around. There were other synonyms, but these were the ones that made the final cut.

The rest of the ad was a simple reassuring descriptor of yours truly. Yes, I look okay. I’m not going to frighten the neighbours.

Also noteworthy is one word that didn’t make the list. We discussed the partner that I was hoping to hook up with. Caring, intelligent, compassionate, gorgeous, active, not too old, fun loving, sense of humour. All adjectives that I used to describe that partner. Male, female, were not. I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion either way. So we left that descriptor off the list, quite deliberately.

So having our list of words, we just put them together into a sentence that made some form of grammatical sense. I took a deep breath, and sent it to the paper. The final destination for our small literary masterpiece was the “make a date” section, on the inside of the back page. Specifically, I’d requested that this ad go in the “seeking a friend” column, given of course that I wasn’t “seeking a man” nor “seeking a woman”.

A few days later, the next edition of the paper came out. I opened it eagerly, looking forward to seeing our work in print, as it were. A quick scan of the “seeking a friend” column revealed nothing. It was there though, just misfiled, under “travel companions”. Oh well, can’t win them all.

The wait for responses was agonising. The first came two days after the paper was published. I don’t recall the details of the letter, but it seemed positive enough. I called him, and arranged to meet at a local coffee shop. I was careful to ensure that we met during the day in a reasonably busy place, so that I could escape easily should he turn out to be scary. In addition, I arranged for my mum to call me on my mobile about fifteen minutes after we’d arranged to meet. Mobiles back then were new and novel, and receiving a call on one was still a good way to exit a situation.

The day of the meeting came. I went to the coffee shop a few minutes early, and he was already there. He was considerably older than me – probably in his forties. He came across as a little creepy and overly familiar. In between the “oh my god, you’re so beautiful” platitudes, he felt the need to tell me about his previous transsexual partner, who he’d apparently stuck by right through the op. It all sounded a little too practiced. I think he thought he was onto a sure thing, and I resented that. He was too smooth by half. When the call came from mum I pretended there was an emergency and ran away.

With that experience under my belt, I was hesitant to reply to subsequent letters. Over the next few days I received three more, two from men who were stupid enough to come across as sleazes in the letter, and one from a couple. Needless to say, I was getting a little disheartened.

Then, when I’d pretty much dismissed the whole thing, I got another letter. This one started with “I almost didn’t write, because…”. My interest was piqued immediately. The letter was a good page long, it was a little self deprecating, yet still hopeful. There was only one oblique mention of me being trans, and the rest was a description of the writer, a 33 year old guy – doesn’t smoke, drinks occasionally, isn’t much of a party person, that sort of thing. There was some humour based around the whole travel companions thing, and it was well written. I sat down and thought about it for a moment. Here’s a guy who’s a little shy, clearly not very experienced, but who has plucked up the courage to write, and write quite well. Maybe he won’t be a complete creep.

He’d included a photo. Nice enough looking. Not exactly Arnold Schwartznegger, but a handsome guy.

After cogitating over his letter while preparing dinner, I took a deep breath and called him.

I think he was quite surprised at my call. We talked a bit about his letter, about the ad. We got one another to describe ourselves. He was easy to talk to. He had a really good sense of humour, and he wasn’t creepy in the least. Indeed, I got the feeling that he was just as afraid of me as I was of him. After chatting for a while, we agreed to another call the next night.

The next conversation was just as good as the first. We covered all the forbidden topics; religion, politics, what we were hoping to get out of the relationship (just fun, but open-minded about the future). Chatting with him was easy. He was clearly a pretty nice guy. He had only had one experience with a trans girl before, that only lasted one night. I got the feeling he felt a bit sheepish about that. He had, however, had several reasonably long relationships with GGs. One thing that became clear from talking was that he was concerned about how I looked before we met. I had a picture of him, but he had nothing of me. Luckily he was on the internet at his work. I gave him the URL of a picture of me, so he’d have some idea of what I looked like.

I was going through some impressive emotional turmoil. I’d only ever had one sexual experience with a man, and that was at the delicate age of 16, when I was pounced on at a party. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d always been attracted to men, but also to women. I was confused and naive about the whole lovemaking thing. What would a man expect from me? I certainly knew there were a whole bunch of things I just wouldn’t (couldn’t?) do.

Our phone conversations went on for the rest of the week, before we made a date to meet on Saturday 2nd March, 1996. It was a fateful day, because it marked the day of the federal election that toppled the Keating Labor government, and installed the Howard Liberal government. Makes it easy to remember the date, anyway

We met at a small cafe in the city, one of those cosy bohemian places next door to an independent cinema. He was waiting when I arrived. I’d deliberately dressed down for the occasion, wearing denim dungarees, with only a modicum of makeup. My objective was twofold; to ensure that he took me seriously as a person, rather than thinking I was a tart, and maybe more importantly to reassure him about the whole passability thing, as he’d expressed some reservations about that on the phone.

So there he was, sitting at a table, looking pretty gorgeous. He looked fairly casual, in a classy sort of way. Denim jacket, t-shirt, jeans. I was a little frightened of him, to be honest. He greeted me, was courteous. We ordered coffee and made small talk. He was something of a movie-buff, hence the choice of venue. He had a really wicked sense of humour, and I think he was deliberately trying to get a smile out of me. I felt like I was in heaven. There was no over-familiarity, no sleaze. A really nice, genuine, lovely guy, who clearly liked me just as much as I liked him.

Then it happened. Half way through my coffee, I was making some obscure point about something, with my hands in front of me on the table. He reached across the table slowly, subtly, and took my hands in his. A shiver ran down my spine. Goosebumps erupted all over my body. I melted, and completely lost my train of thought. At that very moment, I knew it could work.

Like any good fairy tale, I’ll end this one by mentioning our marriage, in July 2007, having already been living happily ever after for ten years.

Marilyn Frank

1) First, Marilyn, I want to thank you on behalf of all the partners out there, for stepping up at a time when most of us weren’t even in high school yet. Without women like you & Peggy Rudd, the struggle to have partners’ issues recognized would be a lot more difficult. So what caused you to do the educating you did?

In the 1970’s I was a volunteer on a crisis intervention hot line in Morris County, NJ. When I became Director, I questioned some of the professionals in the group, who did not know much about cross dressing, but were able to assist me in finding people who did know. During this time we came upon Tri-Ess, and then in 1980 Len read the article in Playboy about Fantasia Fair and in 1981 we spent a few days at the Fair. I had many discussions with Ariadne Kane about the wives’ needs, and this brought Niela Miller to the Fair and that’s where my true education began. Since it had been a very lonely road not only for Len, but for me, I decided I would reach out to help others, so that’s when I started facilitating a wives group at our local Tri-Ess Chapter, which I did for for over 10 years. I also was instrumental in starting the wives’ program at the first IFGE Convention. My philosophy is that every time I help someone, I help myself. It’s true the marriage had its ups and downs where the cross dressing was concerned, but for us it was a small part of our overall marriage. We have always had good communication, enjoy many of the same things and do have a sense of humor (that helps).

(2) You mentioned when we met at IFGE again this past year that you were on TV back in 1980 – maybe it was The Phil Donahue Show? I know that was the one Ariadne Kane was on. What was that experience like?

I was not on The Phil Donahue Show, but on The Richard Bey Show and I can’t remember the year, in the early 80’s. I also appeared on a local WOR TV show and spoke from the audience at The Dr. Ruth Show (this was pre-arranged). When I did most TV shows I was in shadow, not ready to face “the world”. I also did a radio show. I usually was nervous, but if the talk show host was good, I was comfortable and even enjoyed it. After The Dr. Ruth Show she came over to me and said, “I love your husband.”

(3) In Lynda’s essay in Crossing Sexual Boundaries, two of your three kids comment on what a disciplinarian Lynda was, & how masculine. Do you see Lynda as having overcompensated for being a CD? Has she softened up any in her male presentation as a result of being more open about being a CD?

I don’t believe that Len’s discipline with the children was due to overcompensating for being a crossdresser. I was also a disciplinarian, but a little softer. We both came from families that were strict and I guess that’s what we learned. Lynda tries to give a softer presentation in her male role, but has not mastered that yet.

(4) I love the bit in Lynda’s essay about her giving you The Crossdresser & His Wife & you telling her you had other books to read if/when you had the time to read at all, but then you read it on the sly. I occasionally have CDs approach me who, in their enthusiasm, forget that almost no one responds well to that kind of pressure. Tell us a little bit about whether Lynda could have done anything “more right” in giving you room to find your own way, or alternately, what you find is the main way CDs screw up when telling their wives.

Remember that we are married 53 years and I don’t know if there was a “right” way to tell a wife then. Len honestly believed after marriage and having regular sex, the cross dressing drive would go away. He wasn’t even quite sure what a transvestite was. Today with the many books, movies, internet, etc. I think the crossdresser can find the right time and way to tell his loved one.

(5) It’s still occasionally said that wives like us are either proto-lesbians, or repressed, or alternately doormats. What’s your response to those kinds of assumptions?

I never felt repressed or like a doormat. We do “hang out” in lesbian bars and attend a gay Synagogue, but I haven’t met anyone I’d like to be with sexually, but could it happen? Who knows!

(6) We so rarely get to hear from partners you get an extra question – if you choose to answer it. When it comes down to it, do you think CDs are just like other heterosexual men sexually? So many wives have written to me that their CD husbands are less sexual, or auto-sexual, or less aggressive, or prefer cuddling over sex. What’s your impression, generally, after speaking with & supporting so many CD’s wives over the years?

I met Len when I was 11 and we got engaged when I was 19 and married at 20. A cousin of mine once told me how lucky I was to marry someone I loved all those years. She said it was a Cinderella Story and I thought ‘so how come I got Cinderella and not Prince Charming?’ All kidding aside, Len was the only sex partner I had. In 1953 not many couples were having pre marital sex (what a shame). I had other “dates” but never going all the way. I would have to say that Len was and still is the best sex partner for me. Of course as age and health comes into play there are changes, different but still satisfying. I do believe that my crossdresser is just like any other heterosexual man sexually.