Okay, I Guess We Should Talk About This

It was a perfectly normal Tuesday.

WAS.

It was also Transgender Day of Visibility and that adds a little irony to what happened. You know, the day that encourages gender nonconforming people to be VISIBLE.

Anyway, these days it’s hard to determine what is real, what is a joke, and what is AI. You see something on social media and it feels so… out of nowhere that you assume that it’s fake and then you move on. Buuuuut then you see it again and then news outlets start to report on it and you begin to realize that maybe it’s real.

Let’s get to it, shall we? A former government director’s spouse has been outed as a crossdresser.

Like coming home after a photo shoot, there’s a LOT to unpack here.

I want to acknowledge that NONE of this is our business but I thought based on the emails I have been getting we kind of should talk about it anyway.

What someone does in their home, and what someone wears, is their business. Obviously I would be incredibly hypocritical if I criticized anyone who wore what they wanted.

I clearly don’t feel that there is anything inherently wrong with crossdressing (more on that in a minute). I do understand the stigma and how potentially embarrassing it could be if this aspect of yourself (or your partner) was made public. That is one of the main reasons I keep my own gender identity private, afterall. I don’t want to put my wife through anything.

(Of course, my wife is not a public figure the way that Kristi Noem is, but regardless we all likely have people in our lives that we would prefer to not know about this aspect of ourselves. My wife is no different and I respect and honor that.)

One of the things that annoys me is someone being hypocritical. Kristi Noem is asking for privacy while she and her family deal with this revelation. Personally I see no reason why someone deserves the grace and respect of others when they shoot puppies, hold photo shoots at prisons, and waste taxpayer money.

Again, what her husband (or what anyone) wears in private is no one’s business. There’s nothing inherently (there’s that word again) wrong with crossdressing, buuuuuut as I’ve mentioned before, it’s rarely the crossdressing itself that is problematic, rather it’s the actions and decisions that are adjacent to one’s crossdressing that becomes the problem. Usually these actions involve spending more money on stilettos than you should, but sometimes the actions are more egregious and destructive. Beware the Pink Fog.

Doing something behind your partner’s back is problematic. Not coming out to your partner is problematic. Hiding that you are sending money to a fetish model is problematic.

Yes, he was outed and yes, that sucks for him and it’s not something that any one of us wants to happen to ourselves (unless you have a humiliation kink but that kink seems to be a short term thrill with lasting negative impacts on one’s life). We all know the risks that are involved when it comes to this side of ourselves. There is ALWAYS the risk of being outed (such as your panties peeking out of your boy pants), but this guy really put himself out there and courted fate. Sending money to someone leaves a paper trail. Sending photos to someone means that your secret is in the hands of someone that you might not know very well. Video chats are recorded which opens the risk of it being leaked. If this was a book it would be called “What Not To Do When You Don’t Want To Be Caught Crossdressing”.

Bob Dylan wrote that “if you live outside the law then you must be honest”. This is not much different. If you want a secret kept then you must be discreet. There’s also the saying that if you’re going to be dumb then you better be tough, but I digress. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that his wife was as oblivious as she wants people to think. I mean, how on earth could you hide THOSE breasts?

But seriously, I think we can relate to keeping something private that we don’t want to keep private but we know that we kinda have to. We want to live authentically and we need support, or at least lack of feeling shame when it comes to who we are. I think we can all relate to the feeling that we must remain in the closet out of the respect of others in our lives. If he had the support that we all need when it comes to who we are, perhaps things would have been different. But you can’t get support if you are not being honest with yourself or with your significant other. Support won’t find YOU. YOU need to seek it out.

He made a lot of wrong choices. And as the saying goes, “fuck around and find out”. And boy, did this guy do exactly that.

Again, what people do in their own homes is their business. It doesn’t impact anyone else. But in this case, well, it kinda impacts people like us. Whether you identify as transgender, as a crossdresser, or as anything else, we know from personal experience that the gender nonconforming community is misunderstood (putting it lightly) and (usually) demonized. We know that regardless of how we identify, we are all, more or less, painted with the same brush. To many people, there is no difference between someone who has transitioned and someone who dresses up as a fetish. Any deviation of gender norms/gender as a binary is commonly thought of as a sex thing.

Annnnd there’s nothing inherently (word of the day, I guess) wrong with a kink or a fetish. As long as what you’re into is safe and ethical and consensual (if it involves others), then there is *probably* nothing wrong with what you are doing.

And that is what I keep thinking about because the stereotype that exists for anyone that is gender nonconforming is exactly what people are seeing from this story. Let’s review, shall we?

(Yes, I know the schoolgirl look is another crossdressing cliche and leans into the stereotypes that I am discussing but that’s part of the joke here.)

I am not kinkshaming, so please understand. But my thought is that these actions are exactly what the general public thinks that people like us do, no matter how you yourself choose to identify. The actions that this guy chose to just compound the stereotype that has existed for time out of mind.

I would be remiss if I didn’t address what happens whenever ANYTHING happens, that being the memes. Memes are (usually) meant to poke fun at a topical… thing. Some are malicious but for the most part, a meme is supposed to be silly and tends to have a short shelf life, if you will. But a meme, whether created or reposted, usually reflects a person’s opinion or values. As you can imagine, there are plenty of memes about this annnnnd most of them are arguably transphobic. Some of them are poking fun at his, admittingly, ENORMOUS breasts and some of them are linking crossdressing with sexual identity. But my point here is that these memes are a reminder that we as gender non-conforming people have a loooong way to go when it comes to undoing the stereotypes that have haunted and shamed us for our entire lives.

Of course, many stereotypes exist because there is some truth and some basis of fact. There are others like this guy who seemingly crossdresses as a kink (but to be fair I personally don’t know) so it’s fair to say that this perception is fueled by that, but I don’t feel that this stereotype is appropriate or applicable for a significant majority of gender nonconforming people.

But haters don’t care about reality. Stories like this support their argument (whether it is accurate or not) that EVERY gender nonconforming person is dishonest and a pervert. Again, I can’t say if this guy dresses as a kink or if he is in the early part of his journey when it comes to discovering who he is, and like many of us, is blindly finding out who he is and who he is not. Afterall, many people who identify as transgender at one point identified as a crossdresser (myself included) and could have believed that all of *this* was indeed a kink, and only a kink.

How this couple moves on from this isn’t my business and I don’t really care, to be honest. I think both of them are pretty horrible people (but for different reasons). I think the actions that Kristi Noem did are reprehensible when she was the Director of Homeland Security. If something ruins her life, then good. Killing puppies and terrorizing children during ICE raids? Good God. And she calls herself a Christian?

To be clear, I do not think it is embarrassing to have a partner that is gender nonconforming… BUT I do know that this is one of the worst things to come to light for others. If something ruins her life, well, I don’t have much sympathy for her.

One more thing (goodness this post has grown longer than I had expected) to think about. Our own partners. I would hazard that most of our partners are on edge about this side of us being revealed as we are, if not more. Our partners are possibly terrified about how others will react and how we will be thought of. And they are also likely apprehensive about how they themselves will be seen. The reactions and the aforementioned memes aren’t doing much to quell the fears that they already have. If anything, all of THIS is a reminder about how frightening it could be if we were ever outed. THIS is a reminder of the potential risk that comes with having a spouse like me, and possibly like you.

Our partners put up with a lot when it comes to who we are. It wouldn’t surprise me if my own wife was letting her old, familiar, and understandable fears get the best of her as she sees the fallout from all of this.

The actions that her husband took are also horrible, but not because he is a crossdresser. Again, it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that crossdressing in itself was wrong. Rather it is the ACTIONS that can be associated with his crossdressing. Simply put, I do not feel you should go behind your partner’s back and I do not feel you should be dishonest about your gender identity. I DO know that not everyone has a partner that they feel they can be honest with when it comes to who they are. This guy probably felt very alone which could have led to connecting with others that he probably shouldn’t have. Again, I get it, the Pink Fog happens. He knew better but his judgment was clouded (or fogged) but that doesn’t excuse his behavior.

If you are gender nonconforming then you probably need support. This is probably a significant aspect of yourself. No matter who you are, then it is important you are living your truth and living your life in an authentic way.  

Love, Hannah