David Hale looks great at 45 – he is tall, snake-hipped, has piercing green eyes and a thick mop of dark auburn hair. You’d never guess he has a quarter-of-a-century-old secret shared only with his closest, most-trusted friends.
David is a closet transvestite. His alter ego in the privacy of his home is “Debbie”, a glamorous “woman” who revels in bright jewellery, soaring high-heels, luxurious accessories and flowing hair extensions.
It’s difficult to imagine such a transformation. He appears relaxed and happy in his male skin and betrays no sign of femininity. When we meet over cappuccinos he seems an average, if good-looking Joe, sporting a leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt.
Could his troubled childhood of alienation and anxiety explain his adult predilection? It’s clearly a painful subject but he addresses it head-on.
David (not his real name) was sexually abused from the age of 10 by a teacher at his school. The paedophile then subtly ingratiated himself into David’s parents’ life to become a firm family friend. David found himself helpless to expose his tormentor to his mother and father for the abuse that was still going on.
“I couldn’t say anything,” he explained. “My parents liked and respected him so I was trapped. I never ever said anything. Only after he died could I talk of those demons he made in my head.”
I suspect had he been a girl instead of a pretty young boy he would have escaped the man’s predatory attentions. Could this possibility have crossed David’s mind, attracting him at an early age into transvestitism as a form of protection?
“I never really thought about it that way, in fact I never thought about being a woman in the full sense of the word,” David says. “I just wanted to dress in pretty clothes and be able to pass as a woman, and all this really started when I was in my late teens.”
Did he, I ask, ever have sex with a man either as David or as Debbie?
“No, never,” he replies, taking no offence at the forthright, deeply personal question. “I’m not gay. I only enjoy women’s company,” says David, who has been married twice. “I also thoroughly enjoy sex with women and if when I’m dressed as Debbie a guy makes a pass at me I quickly make my excuses and leave. That’s not what I am interested in – passing as a woman is enough for me.”
He continues: “When I get dressed as Debbie I feel so relaxed, so good about myself I become a gentler person a nicer person but, not an actively sexual person.”
Looking at photographs of ‘Debbie’ it’s clear to anyone that David can indeed pass for a ‘fit’ woman, albeit it a somewhat raunchier member of the sex, with a decided keenness for wearing full slap, fishnets and very short skirts.
It does seem that straight transvestites are rather challenged design and style-wise. Was this something he found – and did he reach out for help when it came to buying gear for Debbie?
“I do need help with my make-up, but the clothes I buy off the peg. There are dress and shoe shops here in Limassol that know me and the sales assistants are very kind, they will help me. After all, I’m paying, and I find there’s no real prejudice when money is involved. I rarely, if ever, go out on my own dressed as Debbie, I go with straight girlfriends and they will always give me some pointers.”
I wonder if his dressing up as a woman played any role in the breakdown of his two marriages.
“No, it didn’t,” he says, “because I told both my wives-to-be about it well before we got married. And no is also the answer to your next question – I didn’t go out socially with them dressed as a woman. I always kept Debbie as a strictly at home activity.”
He adds: “My second wife, Margaret, was the real love of my life. She was a dedicated and very clever career woman. But with both of us travelling a lot for business, we just drifted apart. She’s still the best woman I have known and yes we still keep in regular touch.”
Dressing as Debbie allows David to become a character he feels comfortable with. Women have complete freedom to wear clothes to match their moods, so why is what David does so apparently unacceptable in public?
“It’s got to be ignorance and fear, the classic duo,” he muses. “The thing is, because I dress like a woman, people believe I want to be a woman, that I’m a closet transsexual. The continuous fear we have as heterosexuals is that if family or work mates find out we dress in women’s clothing they automatically assume we’re either closet gays or on our way to wanting to change our sex by surgical means.”
That’s absolutely not the case, David says. “All I want is just to dress up as a woman, to enjoy being that women with all the lovely things that go with it – the shoes, the lingerie, the textures of the clothes, the silks, jewellery, earrings and painting my nails. Clothes do affect the senses: it’s got to be the ultimate, true narcissistic experience. I just become a canvas doing whatever I can to make myself as attractive a woman as possible – and it really doesn’t harm anyone’.
But given the taboo, why is he talking to me so openly about his secret?
“I know there are many men out there who feel the same as me. It’s so lonely unless you have good girl friends to stand by you. Also, there’s so much confusion with all the labels that are around now – bi sexual, gender disphoria, transsexual. People just don’t understand or want to understand that we cannot all be lumped into some category and label it either an ‘ism’ or unnatural, weird, or whatever.”
He insists: “I’m firmly a man. I have no illusions about that. I haven’t lost my grip on reality and don’t believe even when I am Debbie that I am a real woman — some might say that it’s just my feminine side coming out.”
There’s no doubt that David’s need for women’s clothing and love of make-up is deeply felt. It’s not a hobby, it’s serious. It’s not an illness, it’s a behaviour – it’s part of who he is and sadly the majority will always have problems with it.
It’s also impossible not to warm to this man, to like him, to enjoy his company and sense of humour — and to admire his strength of character.
For more information and advice contact:
The Beaumont Society this is a support group for transvestites, transsexuals, cross-dressers and their families’ friends and colleagues.
www.beaumontsociety.org.uk
E mail [email protected]
Address B.M Charity
London WC1 N3XX
Side Bar
Male Transsexuals want to be women
Male transvestites want to look like women.
A sex manual published by the Polish Government in 1999 suggested that Scotsmen are all inclined to wear frilly knickers and suspender belts under their kilts.
The manual was aimed at explaining the male pleasures of adopting female clothing and make up. Needless to say the Scottish parliament voiced their protests at such a slur on their traditional ‘dress’.
100’s of years ago males always wore the prettiest clothes; in nature it’s often the male who has the loveliest plumage and colouring, e.g. the peacock.
Acceptance is the holy grail of any transvestite. A man who dresses as a women has a compulsion to be accepted ‘for what he is’.
Acceptance though only comes if the man takes the trouble to look his/ her best. Trotting out looking like a pantomime dame, Blanche from the Golden Girls or a bricklayer in a dress, he will be instantly ridiculed.
Transvestism is not simply a matter of changing ones wardrobe and planting a wig on one’s head, every aspect of behaviour has to be re learnt and new sense of ‘self’ created
Psychologists suggest that most transvestites dress in a slutty manner as an echo of the paradoxical desire to date ‘loose’ women but to eventually marry a virgin.
Some experts on the subject believe transvestites escape into a woman’s world in order to escape from the stress and responsibilities of being a man.
A cross dresser is a person who wears only certain articles of women’s clothing such as knickers, or stockings, they are not considered as being transvestites.
Drag Queens are men (usually homosexuals) who dress up as women for a living. Rather than emulate women they take pains to parody them. This is an entirely opposite approach to that of the transvestite who will normally like and respect women.
