Fluidity

Hello,
Many Queer (I use it as an umbrella term) people have had such a hard road to carve out space for themselves. I feel I am a bit of an interloper. I am a tom-boy (I type of gender queer I suppose), man-loving, women. My husband announced he needed to live as a women. It was very hard for both of us. Coming out was as hard for me as it was for her. Our co-workers asked me infuriating questions about how we had sex, and what my spouse genitalia were, if he were planning surgery. All subjects my spouse was not shy about but I would cut off my arm before feed the water-cooler gossip more fodder. My spouse was fired quietly (and legally), while I had to work double shifts under the o try and make the chauvinist pig that did it to try and make the difference. Our oldest friends asked us not to come to family friendly functions, or worse asked only me to come. My family decided I was gay. Neighbors reported to Child Protective Service that were deviants and abusing our son, as we have a beautiful baby.

During this timed I went on a personal journey to discover my own gender identity as a women, what it means to be a women, and most importantly my sexual orientation. I left my spouse when I decided I was not attracted to women, or worse I wasn't attracted to her. But it is not that simple.
While we dated he had cross-dressed occasionally and privately and I had enjoyed it. I took her out of that closet. I helped propelled her into transition. I enjoy sex acts that are typically male. I enjoy male gay porn.

More relevantly I love the person I married.  When I returned home (from a deployment) I found that she had begun living as a man again. He identifies as gender fluid. I missed him so much during the last year and a half.

I moved out of state for a better quality of life. I brought my spouse with and we are trying to make domesticity work. It has been great. But I know this masculine swing isn't going to last. I am afraid. I am anxious of what it will be like when he feels he needs to be woman again. I am afraid of the neighbors. I hated being asked things, being mistook for a lesbian, being turned off by the female trappings. I hated his self hate, I love his body, his broad shoulders, his narrow hips, and manly arms.
I know gender fluid is different for everyone. He and I talk all the time it doesn't put me at ease like I want it to. I wish there were people who could understand. My friends know, they respect my decision but they don't understand why we are together again. I want a husband. I want my husband. I want to support him in his identity but I did that once and it was horrific. It caused havoc in my life, and my heart I am not soon to forget.

Where do we go from here? What is fluidity mean, in my life, for my family?

Dis-Orientation

Broad shoulders, deep voices, and whiskers on jawlines, these are a few of my favorite things ::sings:: I love how easily men can be distracted and stimulated. I love awkward advances from men who are certain that they are about to be rejected. I could write a lovely lewd ode to the wonders of male genitalia. I love men, this was never uncertain. However, CD's are adorable. I have always found them brave and earnest in their gender expressions.  Put me in a room full of men and I will find the gender variant one the most attractive. It is my six sense. He will be manly, charismatic, and a secret gender outlaw. This affinity and apparent attraction has caused me some confusion. So what am I?

My CDing husband confided in me that he felt he needed to live as a women three years into our marriage. Perhaps I will recount the happenings of trying months that lead up to his revelation but today I would like to share what happened to me when I supported his journey and stayed at his side while our colleagues, friends, and family watched with shock and awe as he transformed. I, a self identified lover of men, suddenly was a lesbian.

Many of my personal heroines are feminist, brash, lady-loving women. I am drawn to tough jobs, military, law enforcement, mining, etc. that call for tough women who are, at a higher rate than the general population, stereotypically, lesbians (or bi-sexual). I had been always proud to be counted in the ranks with my LGBT friends.

I was struck by the positive and negative attention my new status gained me. Acquaintances came out to me assuring me I wasn't the only lesbian in the joint. Others emphatically announced they had lesbian relatives in hopes of making me feel at ease. My father confided that he knew all along that I was one. Some suddenly avoided me as if it was rumored I carried a dreadful antibiotic resistant disease. I was hit on by women (which had happened in the past but not with such frequency or gusto).

I became angry. I wanted to shout I am not a lesbian! In denying the label I was perceived as homophobic, sadly confused, or, in the truest sense, a deviant. If there is a term for a women who enjoys sex and romance with a CD surely it would have almost fit. Right? It was not I who was confused but the public. If I insisted my husband was a women and I loved her I would have to love a women. No one can tell me who I am oriented towards; but they sure tried. I was miserable. My husband laughed off the attention. She took some pleasure from the befuddled looks, answered the personal questions with ease. She took no offense from the mislabels or confusion. Yes, saint like, I know.

I had an identity crisis. I shaved my head. I questioned my motives and inspected myself for signs of hatred. I looked long and hard at definitions of seemingly simple terms like Women or Homosexual. If I had sex with a women once would I forever be a Bisexual? How about if I found the female form attractive and sexual? but what if I disliked sex with a women? What if I found that you could enjoy the touch of a women but could never bring myself to return the that pleasure? No I think one must love women and enjoy sex with women to be a Homosexual women. 

I was not homosexual by my own definition. Why still did being assumed so bother me? So what if the world has got it all wrong? Should I really be bent on setting each and everyone straight? They are wrong. It is very hard to be labeled something you are not even when that label is not negative. Like being called George instead of Jorge, or being (God forgive!) Sir-ed instead of Ma'am-ed, or being mistaken for Mexican when you are Hawaiian. They are just plain wrong.

When my husband came out I felt I entered a closet. I am a dick loving Heterosexual. It is easier let the world think I am a normal lesbian. It is not fair. My husband is back in the closet, and I am out as a Hetero women again. It is good for me. Bad for him, I think. Perhaps he is more resilient than I am. Perhaps I am just cruel for not being more flexible and understanding. I do know that having gone through the coming out with her once. I will not do it again for so many reasons.

Cross-Dressing vs. Gender Dissonance

I knew my partner was a Cross-Dresser when I married him. I should be grateful. I am not. I am the first in a new generation of wives of CDers. We are the generation that gets to make informed decision about their lives in regards to their husbands gender. I have always let my heart choose and it will choose love every time. Maybe that is the right answer. I don't know. I don't have answers for you. I do know that I searched as if I was on a holy quest for truth; and no women had the answer for me. No one could tell me what would make me happy. I do know that his Cross-Dressing didn't make me terribly unhappy, but eventually his gender dissonance did. Or perhaps it is my gender that makes me so uncomfortable.

According to Wiki:
Gender variance, or gender nonconformity, is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female. People who exhibit gender variance may be called gender variant, gender non-conforming, or gender atypical.^[1]


I identify in this blog as a wife of a Cross-Dresser because that is how my husband presented when I married him and now. There are so many colors in the rainbow that is gender don't ever feel boxed in by terminology. Gender is much less straight forward than sexual orientation or sex I discovered.  

I was, and am afraid that he is unhappy living as the handsome charismatic man I fell in love with. I am afraid that he will need more than I ever can provide. I am afraid that I am already living with a woman. In this safe space I have carved for myself I will share my journey that has not ended.