Reply To: Is it REALLY “just clothes”?

[Jill Marshall]

I know I’ve said ‘it’s just clothes’ to myself many times, but I don’t think of it as a line of reasoning as much as I do a defense mechanism, or a starting point in the process of acceptance.  Saying it sets aside unresolved questions for or about myself that I haven’t fully unraveled, so I can be free to go find answers in the experience itself.  It is a rebuttal in advance of negative judgement I anticipate, that dressing is an expression of some flaw of sexuality or morality or personality.  It is a reassurance to others, since there is no common vocabulary or shared understanding between myself and a non-CD of how deeply I believe in what I feel and see.  My ‘theory’ would be that the better you know and accept yourself, and the better others know and accept you, the less you say it.  I said it to my wife once, during the distress of revelation, but to her I would never have to say it again.  If I came out to others, starting from scratch?  Knowing what I know now, I’d try not to go there, but it might not be up to me.