Self Discovery, At Any Cost in Public

I often feel like a bit of an outsider, even among crossdressers. I have gone to a couple meetings of local groups and not found much common ground. I have gone on to message boards and not gotten much other than creepy, unwanted offers of casual sex hookups. So many crossdressers are so different. Stats say that the casual hetero crossdresser is the largest demographic, but I guess we don’t have a huge web presence.

No role models or examples of people who have it all figured out, either. There are more and more for drag queens and transgendered people, but none for people like me.

There are a few book recommendations that keep popping up on various sites and forums, though. I hadn’t really read any of them since I do most of my reading when i am out at work…and around all the hyper masculinity, it is not really a good idea to have books like that around. Last year, I got an e-reader, one of the benefits was that I could now read those books discreetly. I started with one that easily popped up the most in recommendations by “my type” of crossdressers:

Alice in Genderland by Richard Novic
I have literally been wanting to read this book for years. I was eager to read this because:
- He uses a his masculine name, so he is likely not trying to transition and is likely more like me
- He is a psychologist! He most have amazing insight as to what goes on in our heads and can help explain it eloquently
- The back of the book/description mention the importance he places on balancing the masculine and feminine parts of himself

Sounds great!

However, it fails to mention he is a horrible person.

The book infuriated me so much that on two occasions, I had to put it down for a couple months in order to cool down. I finished hoping there would be some usable information or maybe find that he evolved as a person. He didn’t.

He was determined to find out about himself while completely disregarding the safety and feelings of the people who loved him. He made some bad decisions and deliberately hurt people who love him. Until the very end, he was unrepentant. It has been a while, so I have been able to block large parts of the book from my memory, but a few of the highlights were:

• He told his fiancee he was a crossdresser and she freaked out because she is uncomfortable with it. He did nothing to help her understand, and kept pushing her limits of what she was willing to accept. That is bad enough…Then, months before his wedding, he decided to see how far his womanly feelings went and solicited sex from a gay friend of his. When the friend said that he couldn’t cum with a condom on, Dr. Novic told him to take it off, because he needed his friend to cum inside him to know for sure. The friend did and later told Dr. Novic to go to the doctor because he had been diagnosed with HIV. Dr. Novic didn’t tell his spouse until after their wedding…of course they had sex in the mean time - EVEN WHEN HE WAS WAITING FOR THE RESULTS OF HIS HIV TEST!

• Every time after when he mentions his first wife (the one above), it is in a fairly condescending tone. She understandably freaked out over the HIV scare, but he is STILL mad at her for not understanding that he “needed” to do this to find out who he was.

• He finds a 2nd wife. 2nd wife is fairly accepting. they have talks, but she still has limits. He ignores them. They talk about hormones, and she says she doesn’t want him taking hormones and he does, anyways. When she questions why his breasts are growing and his penis isn’t working as well, he comes clean, but is unapologetic.

• His “happy ending” is that he essentially bullies his second wife into letting him have a night a week where he dresses up and does whatever he wants and she is not allowed to ask questions. He has a boyfriend and frequently has sex with him. Not only is she unaware of what happens, she is not even allowed to ask.

It made me mad because he is such a shitty person, but what made it so much worse is that HE IS A PSYCHOLOGIST! He counsels other people! Thinking of the advice he gives his client horrifies me.

Then I got really sad because this was so highly recommended by people who were supposed to be like me. This was supposed to be THE book. The crossdressers who were “like me”, raved about how it was a great book and very helpful. I thought that maybe “my people” had a role model. I thought there was a group I could belong to.

Again, I feel alone.

I never feel more alone than when I try to belong.

It doesn’t stop me from wanting to, though.

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Edit: I did some googling. Sorry, I was mistaken. He is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, for what it’s worth. Still the wrong occupation for someone like him.

I was also reminded of another one of his gems through googling. His second wife was so accepting that they went to the bar together when he was dressed up. They would treat it like a girls’ night out and would dance together on in a group with men. One night, a man put his arm around Dr. Novic. Dr. Novic’s wife mentioned that she was not a fan of men creeping on her husband. What was Dr. Novic’s solution? Was it to stop the disrespectful behavior? No, it was to stop bringing his wife along. What. the.fuck.

Crossdressers like myself would be overjoyed if our spouses went out with us like that. I would not do anything to mess with that dynamic and destroy the goodwill shown by an awesomely understanding spouse. She had a very reasonable request for her husband not to get close to creepy dudes. Instead of honouring his wife, he just did it in secret. What a piece of shit.

Last updated August 12, 2016