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Emily Alford

Invisible, in Plain Sight

By Emily Alford

It's a commonplace piece of advice to people thinking of going out "dressed" for the first time: go where there are lots of other people, and convince yourself that you belong there too, as you are. Curiously, that's also a commonplace in spy fiction. What is plainly visible is hardest to see.

Getting more and more confident of my woman-self, I find that it's true. Perhaps people just see what I present. Perhaps some read me, see that I'm okay about myself, and just pass by. But I've begun to notice something curious, about presenting myself as a transgender person when I'm making no pretence to being a woman at all.

It began within my family. I've written before about being entirely "out" to my spouse and to two of my three grown children. I've also written about being decidedly not out to the third child, for the very good reason that she has more than enough to cope with already. That was true in her youth, and remains true now. But she is a sensitive person, and she does pick something up. Several times in her own adolescence she asked me if I was a "TV." She went as far as christening what she perceived as "Trixie Belle." When she asked, I always would say "of course." My tone would be jocular, and that would be that. Sooner or later, of course, she will know. I won't have lied to her.

Building on that, I've tried it in other ways. Once, my spouse was going to change her clothes in my office, and I was bringing in the fresh dress. "Ed," exclaimed a colleague, "I didn't know you were becoming a transvestite." "Always have been," was my response, "but this is hers." Again, end of discussion, whatever he thought.

Not long after that I changed jobs, moving from England to Texas, which is a serious move. When I arrived, there were welcoming parties, and at one a new colleague asked what drives me. By then I had figured out that all my best professional writing is about being torn between impossible alternatives, whatever the actual subject. So I said so. Her response was "I'll bet you're a crossdresser." I made no attempt to deny. By that point in the evening the conversation was well fueled on chardonnay, and she's said nothing since. Does she remember? I do.

Two incidents recently have driven the issue home. One happened in a Laura Ashley, where my spouse was shopping. She had finished with one dress and asked me to put it back. As I was rehanging it a saleswoman asked if she could help. "No thanks," I said, "I'm just looking for my size." "Okay," she responded and wandered off.

The other happened in the mail area of my university department. I had ordered some things (for my spouse!) with a credit card that had my professional address, and ever since then catalogues have kept coming, addressed to me. My graduate students happened to be in the area when the mail arrived, and one noticed the women's catalogue. "That's where I get my drag," I said. "Oh," she responded, "do you dress in women's clothes?" "Of course," was my answer. "What's your name," chimed in another grad student, who is male. Lying for the first time, I responded "Florrie Belle-- if I'm going to do it, I'll really do it." He then shifted talk to Miss Chablis, and one of the others commented that Clint Eastwood had had her play herself in the film of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. "Yes," responded the guy, "she's finally gotten the fame she wanted." And that was that.

Did they read me? Did they care? Who knows, who cares? It's simply a non-issue. And that, it seems to me, is how it ought to be.

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