- Watch The Feed on SBS 2 at 7.30pm for a look inside Australia's oldest secret cross-dressing club
- Take a look The Secret Cross-Dressers' Society multimedia interactive
- Follow Andy Park and The Feed on Twitter
It was quite frightening when my husband told me he was a cross-dresser. My first thoughts were to run away as far as I could. It was still a new relationship, and he told me early to avoid the type of heartache that broke up his first marriage, but he was such a wonderful person that I wanted to get to know him better. I decided to give him a few more chances to buy me dinner to find out more.
I was much luckier than a lot of women who have been with their male partner for several years and then suddenly find another woman in the relationship, the female version of their partner that they knew nothing about. The most common complaint being; ‘if he lied about that, what other lies has he been telling me all these years?’ I was worried that I would be looked at as a failure, once again, because I ended up with another ‘Loser’. People would judge me by the man I was with. Many people assume that a cross-dresser must be gay, or that they are on the path to total transformation to a woman, this was not the case.
Over the next months, I asked about his cross-dressing whenever I felt I was ready to hear it. It seems to be a common factor that cross-dressers find the desire early in life, but feel that it is wrong and keep the secret for as long as possible. He would tell me as much as he was able to, but we regularly needed to pause the conversation so I could absorb it all.
My first experience of seeing my partner as a woman was through photographs he had done previously. After we had been together for a while, I had a shower one day and as I emerged from the bathroom, believing there were only the two of us there, I was shocked to see another woman in the room. I did not recognise her at all. When I did, I just laughed, it was not what I expected at all, I had expected a more uni-sex type of clothing, but he liked all the frills, colours and styles that any well-dressed woman would wear.
Over time, Susan (the female side of my partner) became a great female friend, I had both the supportive strong male known as Peter and then the caring friendship of Susan. Shopping was another experience altogether. I love going to Bunnings, just to see all the amazing things that are available out there. Clothes shopping never did much for me but Susan taught me that it is OK to have more than two outfits and to buy a pair of shoes just because they look good, even if they are not very practical.
The first really big event I went to with Susan was to the inaugural Seahorse Ball, held by Australia’s oldest cross-dressing society. I was very concerned that I would be mistaken for a cross-dressed male. The annual balls have been a wonderful social outing where everyone enjoys themselves, wearing fabulous gowns, or just enjoying the vast parade of beautiful women.
Susan was still learning too, about passing as a woman. The first time we went shopping together, Susan saw the solicitor that Peter had used to purchase a property recently and was sure that he would be recognized as Peter dressed as a woman. Of course, she walked straight past without a second glance.
We now live in a fairly isolated location, although we do have a great bunch of neighbours. In such a small community we can’t go far without running into one of the neighbours and they all know Peter, but they have come to accept Susan too, whether they know exactly who Susan is or not, she is just another character in the community.
There were times that Susan was taking a break from being Peter, when one of the neighbours would call around for some reason. I would be sent out to distract them while Susan retreated and Peter had a chance to emerge. The thing is that I don’t really think they would have worried either way.
After ten happy years of marriage, I have come to realize that wearing women’s clothing is such a minor issue compared with some of the other things a partner may do, such as drinking too much, getting violent or gambling away all the money. I feel blessed to have both a male and female best friend.
Sandra McCarthy is married to Peter, an active cross-dresser.
