10 Ways to Come Out of the Closet
By Marcia Armstrong
'Coming out is hard to do...' as Neil Sedaka might have sung. The idea of other people, especially one's nearest and dearest, knowing what we get up to is for some trannies a vision from hell.
We imagine horror, betrayal, ridicule, disgust... I know one TV who has spent over thirty years in a stable and loving marriage with grown up children, and all without breathing a word to his wife.
'If I had known in my youth what I know now,' he told me, 'I would probably have saved up for the operation. But in those days it was unheard of, so I followed the conventional route. Now, how could I possibly tell my wife, after keeping it a secret for so long? What would I say? "Oh, by the way darling, I thought I ought to let you know that I've always wanted to be a woman and I spend my weekends away dressed in high heels" ? No, the scene is hardly to be imagined.'
But many of us do manage to break the news without too much trauma. Are there any tips to pass on? Here is my personal repertoire of possible routes out of the closet, but first a health warning: some are more successful than others!
Tell it straight, tell it early
I must have been about 19 when I told my fiancee (now my wife), after we were going steady but before we were engaged. I can't claim to have had the nerve to say it face to face - this was in a letter. Perhaps the best method from some points of view, as I was able to pick my words carefully; she had time to think it through, take soundings from her best friend, look it up in the encyclopaedia, whatever.
It wasn't for several years that she actually saw me in a skirt, but knowing about it in advance took some of the shock out of it. And more importantly, it avoided the hurt of an unadmitted secret. On the other hand, perhaps she was so astonished to get any sort of letter at all from me in those student days, she was prepared to overlook what I put in it!
'There's something you need to know...'
This was a technique that I used with my two assistants at work - Geoff and Janet. I was in a politically sensitive job, and decided that if the news ever did come out, it was better to have my colleagues prepared and on my side.
We were all three radical and broad-minded, of similar ages and good friends, but not emotionally close. Geoff's response was: "Oh, is that it? I thought for a moment you were going to say you were having an affair."
Janet's reply was to ask me if I wanted any clothes out of her mail order catalogue, and would I help her buy undies for her gay friend as a Christmas present, as I'd have a better eye for his style than she would.
'Oh, that old thing...'
This method is one I keep in reserve for more casual acquaintances, where the topic comes up in conversation and admitting to being a TV is no big deal. It depends on the casual throwaway and goes along the lines of :
"'Tootsie'? Oh, yes, I really enjoyed it, but you know that it's nothing but showbiz. I didn't think it portrays at all what being a transvestite is like. The only film that really gets us right is 'Just like a Woman'. What me? Oh yes, been one for years. Anyway, I'm a real fan of Dustin Hoffman, but I do think he was far more convincing in 'Rain Man'...."
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