It was hard to believe only two weeks before I had been on the stage at Mons Venus strip club. Whipping my shirt off, I had violated numerous variations of the infamous 6-foot law in the name of freedom of speech and Budweiser. My exotic buxom form was a lush show, even in that doublewide trailer of exposed flesh.Now at Viva La Frida Cafe y Galeria, waiting for my turn to read poetry for an Irritable Tribe of Poets event honoring artist Frida Kahlo, I had my hand on my beef bayonet. My knob. My Johnson. My oafish oboe. Or in this case, my pants were filled out with a female condom stuffed with the daily horoscope. Mine said to try something different.
And so, I did.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin to do it. Boldness has a genius, power and magic to it. —GoetheI met Carol on Matchmaker.com on one of my periodic forays into online singles dating. I didn't know what I was looking for — biker, business man or cabana boy — but Carol knew precisely what she was seeking. Girlfriends. Carol wanted to meet girlfriends.
Matchmaker has a bold environment. Unlike some of the women who had written me, she did not want to sleep with me. She did not have a cheesy line about the beauty of girl-girl love. She did not want to share me with her man.
Primarily because Carol was a man. Or rather a "gender-enhanced male."
At the age of 7, she had tried on her mom's garter belt and stockings and found it the most natural thing to her. Carol has been a cross dresser for 24 years, married 16 years and venturing into the public as a woman for only the past five years. Carol is 45.
As a man, he is Dave. A married, home-owning professional who has a good life in a nice town where no one knows about Carol. Not his family. Not his parents. And definitely, not his coworkers.
The Web site of Tri-Ess, an educational, social and support group for heterosexual cross dressers, estimates that 5 percent of all adult men are cross dressers, although it gives no details about how this estimate was derived. It is unlikely they will ever be "cured."
While they come from all walks of life, they share some essential traits. Many consider themselves male lesbians.
Transvestites do not seek sexual reassignment surgery though they frequently consider women the superior sex. Predominantly they are over 40, married, Republican and Christian. Judges, engineers, truck drivers, computer programmers and ex-military men crowd their ranks. These men open themselves up to their feminine leanings, veiling themselves in anonymity from the public at large.
And for good reason. Primarily heterosexual, they are quiet behind the more visible transgender community of transsexuals, drag queens, female impersonators and a number of things that fall under the Gender Dysphoria, a term used to describe people who experience discomfort or confusion about the gender they were born with. Cross dressers are not accepted by the heterosexual community because they are often perceived as insufficiently masculine or perverted. Neither does the homosexual community embrace them warmly, sometimes regarding them as fence sitters scared to admit their homosexuality, or treating them with vague amusement. They just don't fit.
Cross dressers are a highly individualistic group, dressing as women for many reasons, from the erotic to the emotional to even the spiritual. One definition for cross dresser or transvestite does not fit all any more than the term female describes all women. Their one common desire is acceptance.
The cross dresser remains an outsider in a rapidly changing world that has allowed many walls to fall, but in which the definition of the heterosexual man remains confining.
I decided to take a walk in Carol's high heels to attempt a glimpse at crossing gender lines, passing and feeling the fear of discovery.
True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes oneself, to actualize oneself. False guilt is that guilt felt when we are not being what other people feel we ought to be or assume we are.
—R.D. Laing
I didn't follow Carol's instructions. She told me I couldn't ask for help changing from the hyper-feminine RhondaK to male Max Fly.
'I had to do it alone," she said with uncharacteristic sadness. 'You should do it alone."
Women learn from other women — mothers, sisters, family and girlfriends. A cross dresser operates in secret in fear of discovery or shame. Catalogs become an instruction manual on everything from how to size and measure to appropriate undergarments and accessories. They are tiny case studies in how to present as a woman.
I cheated with my friend Justin Martz. If I had not done so, I would have walked out of my house looking like the male version of Nora Desmond.
'No," he advised, brushing away the eyebrows, pork chop sideburns and beards I had bought from Features Costumes, 'You need to be subtle."
The process was sensual. Undeniably sensual. Martz used an eyeliner pencil to fill in my arched brows. He grudgingly allowed me a small soul patch goatee under my lip. With a brush, he gently swept black powder across my jaw line to emulate a 5 o'clock shadow. Instructed in the proper way to use Royal Crown Men's Pomade, I slicked my long hair back into a ponytail.
Finally, the moment of true pain — the female version of 'tucking" — I forced my 44-DD breasts out from the center, pressed them down into a too tight body suit, changing my form from Mae West to Danny DeVito.
'I don't think my dick is big enough." I had used a female condom instead of the stuffed male prophylactic that many drag kings use to enhance their pelvic region. A female condom is about three times as wide as a male one, and it gave me the sort of girth I thought might be taken seriously. A strap-on dildo wasn't workable because it provided appearance of an erection.
Martz eyed my package seriously. 'Oh, it is big enough. You just have it in the wrong place."
'I still don't think it's big enough."
'It isn't about the size," he said. I wanted him to whip out his for a practical demonstration, but my buddy Martz doesn't go for boys, much less this gender montage now in front of him.
Worse, I'm not my idea of the male ideal. I'm stocky. I'm short. To cover my femininity, I opted for a sort of Guido-like urban look culled from Wal-Mart sales racks.
Martz told me I look like I've been working on a car. That I'm the type of man he would avoid socially. That I look like trouble.
So much for young Elvis. So much for getting lucky.
Feminity is an act. —J. Alexander, runway model consultant
Carol has 80 pairs of shoes. This fact may ruin her marriage, though her wife often complains, "Why is it as Dave you don't care how you look but as Carol, everything has to be perfect?" They don't share clothes. Carol's life as a woman is separate from her wife's life with Dave the man. Carol's wife married a man and she loves Dave but allows him to be Carol about three times a week.
Carol's darkest moments have been trying to find girlfriends. She romanticizes women's friendships. She idealizes their warm, quick intimacy. While Carol has been active in local and national transgender groups, she felt she needed more. Female friendship is the sort of connection Carol believes will help her grow into the woman the rest of us women take for granted. The nurtured female.
Her first attempt at friendship ended badly. The girlfriend told her, "Wherever, whenever, a girlfriend can drop another girlfriend for a man. The men always come first. For anything, anywhere, any time."
Frankly, having lived with this rule and lost girlfriends most of my life, it never occurred to me women had another code with each other. My best friend in high school became pregnant and got married without ever telling me. Without ever talking to me again. Women are like that. Aren't they?
Actually, a study by McGill University showed that both men and women believe that women make better friends. While men relate side by side focused on an event or activity, women face each other, relating quickly, sharing feelings and thoughts.
One of Carol's girlfriends, Doe Hewitt, describes a good girlfriend as 'someone who cares, unconditionally. Carol is one of the best friends I ever had. She has taught me that I can love again. She has taught me to feel from the heart, to get below the outside appearance."
Carol's ideal of female friendship is so high, I begin to rethink my low expectations.
My idea of being a man is so skewed, I can't get past my own homemade male penis' inadequacies, which says a lot about my own.
The truth is, this isn't the first time I have cross-dressed as a man. My measurements make it is impossible to be androgynous. The first time I dressed was in Charlotte, N.C., for a friend's bachelor's party. The groom-to-be was dressed in a long blond wig, tight sweater, mini skirt and go-go boots. He wanted to get over the desire. I still remember driving through that dark, deep Southern night. There was a surreal moment where I, a woman dressed as a man, made catcalls at streetwalkers out selling cut-rate blow jobs to men dressed as men, driving home to their wives who believed these scenes only happened on Jerry Springer.
Their man, after all, looked like man 24/7, a fact from which these wives should take very little real comfort.
If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare. —William Arnot
At Viva La Frida Cafe y Galeria, I read a poem celebrating Mexican artist Frida Kahlo at an event that poet Rhonda J. Nelson had put together. Dressed as a man, I scratched out the word "vagina" from the poem. I didn't believe I could say it without it coming out in a high squeak like that of a prepubescent boy. Kahlo herself dressed and painted herself as a man in her many manipulations of her image and its meaning.
Rhonda J. Nelson had no idea that I was who I was. As I handed her a shirt I had borrowed from her, I could tell she was confused. She offered, "I thought you were not only a guy, but related to one of the other readers that as a guy, you looked short and stocky. Then I made a note of the great hair. I tend to be attracted to guys with long hair."
That's right, as Max Fly — I had game. I"d passed.
Reading poetry out loud is always a challenge, but reading in a restaurant full of hungry people with my faux hair soul patch goatee coming unglued took me to new heights of horror.
MAX FLY: "Disfigurement…"
RESTAURANT PATRON: "I'll take that sweetened. With a lemon."
MAX FLY: "It isn't the after, but the forever after …"
RESTAURANT PATRON: "Quiet! That man is trying to read…"
I failed as a poet reaching the hungry masses. But I had passed with more than one person. The night was to end at Malio's Steak House, where I was to meet Carol and see how well I had done.
Carol's first time out in the daytime was far more rewarding. She went to the mall at 8:45 a.m. for an appointment she had made at Glamour Shots. When making the appointment she had carefully explained her situation. As she reached the door, a mall-walking gentleman opened the door for her, calling her 'miss." At Glamour Shots they told her they weren't open until 10 a.m. then did a double take as she explained she was the cross dresser who had made the appointment.
After the photography session, she was able to walk through a mall for the very first time as Carol.
I envied her that walk and wanted to know what it was like to walk in her shoes.
Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less. —Susan B. Anthony
Cross dressers don't always have the support and love that Carol has in her life. Tri-Ess is an international organization that provides support and education to cross dressers and their partners. It is a group limited to heterosexual cross dressers, and it treats wives or significant others as equal partners.
The local chapter, Tri-Beta, was begun this year by Dee. She calls herself the den mother for the group. A wife of a cross dresser, she revels in what it has brought to her life. As part of her activities with Tri Beta, she takes newbies and men without support partners shopping. The membership is paid, not open to the public, and confidential.
Tri Beta recommends honesty, particularly in dating or marriage. Rather than suffer or inflict disillusionment, share the truth with your partner. When dating, tell the woman by the fourth date. Throughout her 18-month engagement, Carol was up front with her bride-to-be, who, although she wouldn't be upset if Carol went away, is appreciative of what Carol has brought to her marriage with Dave.
Dee adds, "It is important for a cross dresser to recognize that a desire to cross dress is a part of his whole self and to accept that gift." She sees her charges become happier and self-accepting when they feel comfortable with who they are and others accept them.
In 1996, in a study from The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, researchers found that transvestites as a group were indistinguishable from the average man in tests of personality, sexual function and emotional distress. Nearly 100 years ago, German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, M.D., coined the word 'transvestite" and concluded that cross dressing was simply a way some men expressed their personality.
A century later, however, the stigma remains.
In the midst of winter, I finally understood there was in me an invincible summer. —Albert Camus
When I arrived at Malio's Steak House, the penis I had been complaining about all night all of a sudden seemed too large, too detached and far too clumsy for the long walk across the restaurant in front of what seemed like a sea of staring people.
As I turned to see Carol, her gaze was magnetic. Her big smile was a well of appreciation, support and humor. I felt like a 30-year-old man with the blind eyes of a newborn puppy. I had been read.
As she smiled knowingly, I began to get it. Her quest for sisterhood, friendship and female experiences made sense.
Max Fly, the bastard son of New York City drag kings Moe B. Dick and Buster Hyman might have game, but he didn't know dick. Outside, I was a thin shell of a man, but inside I was huge. What I thought about my own gender, much less the male one, rattled around in what felt like a warehouse. And the woman smiling at me was a person, a thoroughly warm, provocative person who sought the sort of wholeness that required lonely walks through censure, pain and uncertainty.
Here at Malio's, she was surrounded by her girlfriends for a girls' night out. It was clear she was held in high regard.
I felt Carol was proud of my attempt to walk in her high heels, but she knew I wasn't a man.
She may not think I'm much of a woman, either, but we can work on that.
After all, that is what girlfriends are for — the long run, not just the short walks.
This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2002.