Keeping a Beautiful Secret

Hannah McKnight discusses why some of us keep our girly side well hidden--and why there's nothing wrong with that.

It can be, well, soul crushing at times to go through so much effort to be discreet. We go to great lengths to make sure all evidence of nail polish is gone, that the heels we wore last night are back in their box and placed in the highest corner of our closet in case someone happens to drop by. We scan our neighborhood to make sure no one sees us return from a day out shopping en femme. We use the self-checkout when we are picking up our foundation.

I keep this side of me to a VERY small number of people. Not because I am ashamed or because I am worried about what “they” might think (although to an extent there is a little of that). No, I keep my gender identity private-ish because it takes too long to explain. There’s too many nuances to discuss and I am exhausted just THINKING about coming out to more people in my life.

There are so many of us that are happy being a boy and happy being a girl. We love our wives and we love looking as beautiful as they are. Our gender identities are complex and are incredibly simple at the same. It’s the simplicity that is complicated for a lot of people. When we come out people can be confused when a boy sometimes feels like being a girl. It’s just how we feel, but some people INSIST there’s MORE to that. We are asked endlessly WHY we are who we are. Why we want to do, why we want to wear what we wear. Are we repressing something? Are we in denial about something? Is our gender identity a result of unaddressed trauma from our childhood?

Girl, please.

And, of course, people might think that we are “broken”. Although no one gets through life without SOME form of trauma, it doesn’t mean we aren’t healed from it. I had an abusive father and it forever changed me, but I have come to terms and made peace with how I grew up. I know that some people would trip over themselves insisting that my gender identity is a result of my childhood.

Girl, please.

I was sneaking dresses and heels long before my father turned into who he became.

This is a beautiful side of me. It’s a beautiful side of you. It’s, well, annoying and frustrating to hear others think and even insist that this side of us is related to something being “wrong” or “broken” about us. There’s nothing wrong with who we are or with what we do, or what we wear, even if we keep this side of us a secret.

I know what Hannah is talking about in those last two paragaphs. My own father was not abusive, but he was a functioning alcoholic and we were not "pals" in any sense. My interests--even outside of cross-dressing--were and are very different from his and my tendency to girlish things began long before I realized how little my father and I had in common.