as there is risk of rejection, many choose to wait until they feel comfortable that the risk has lessened, or keep it a secret forever.Fear is not the only reason for the secrecy exhibited by transvestites. Many have feelings of shame. According to Garber (1992), many cross-dressers start early in life. Often they are told it is wrong to express feminine characteristics as a male, no matter how natural it may seem, and thus begin to mask the behavior. Many people convey the belief that the cross-dresser is in need of counseling or psychiatric treatment to find a “cure” for this aberrant behavior (Rudd, 1995). Due to this, the dominant judge and jury is frequently found from others rather than from within the individual.Cross-dressers may become confused because they feel a high and perhaps erotic pleasure from wearing women’s clothes. Many do seek psychological help to understand the emotions of both guilt and pleasure that tend to accompany this. However, good counselors and psychiatrists realize that there is not, or even necessarily need be, a cure. They, therefore, provide help not to change the person, but to change the cross-dresser’s way of adjusting to a possibly hostile social environment. Ideally, after examining these feelings, the cross-dresser will begin to develop a self-awareness and become comfortable with their true self, despite social opinion. This self-awareness and acceptance is the most important hurdle to overcome before letting others in on this way of life (Garber, 1995). Dr. Peggy Rudd, author of Crossdressers: And Those Who Share Their Lives (1995) is also the wife of a crossdresser. Upon first learning of her husband’s secret, she admits to feelings of resistance and negativism. She did not relish the idea of spending the rest of her life with someone who went against social norms and her own social conditioning. As she had no knowledge of his crossdressing prior to ...
