Secrets and Lies in Alabama

Fair warning: this story doesn't end well.

On Quora this week I came across the tragic story of Fred L. "Bubba" Copeland, the mayor of a small town in Alabama, in the United States. Copeland, 49, was a local businessman, the pastor of a small Baptist church, and was married with three children. Outwardly, he was a pillar of the community.

Pillar of the community: Bubba

Behind the scenes, things were somewhat different. Bubba led a secret life as a "transgender curvy girl" (his phrase). His fem name was Brittini Blaire Summerlin, and under this pseudonym she posted social media pictures of herself; exchanged flirty messages with other users; and wrote erotic transgender fiction.

Unfortunately Copeland's secret was discovered by far-right Alabama news website 1819 News. They didn't go public straight away, but approached him for an interview.

The original article didn't give a transcript of the interview (although it does give a link to the full text of one of his pieces of erotic fiction), so it's hard to get context around Copeland's statements, and I don't believe the article intended to present Copeland in any sort of fair (let alone positive) light, so we must make some inferences.

Copeland apparently said he's been dressing as a woman since his youth, for relief of anxiety and "getting rid of stress", and regarded it as a "hobby". He told 1819 News that he isn't in transition and isn't taking medical gender treatment. He said he only dressed at home, and compared it to cosplay and "dress-up".

Curvy: Brittini

Here are some remarks that 1819 News has quoted directly from him:

Copeland: Just my wife knows about it. It’s a hobby I do to relieve stress. I have a lot of stress, and I’m not medically transitioning. It’s just a bit of a character I’m playing. I don’t go out and seek solicitation or anything like that. (...) I don't do it in public.

It’s just a hobby that I have inside my own home that has not travelled outside of my home. I have not done anything outside of my own home besides post or publish anything on the internet, and that does not affect anything with inside (sic) my jurisdiction.

What I do in private life has nothing to do with what I do in my holy life. Does this have any effect on me being mayor, that I sometimes put on a dress or sometimes put on makeup? Does that have anything to do whatsoever with me being mayor or being a pastor?

According to the article, Copeland asked 1819 News not to out him, and he immediately deleted his social media accounts. There wasn't much likelihood of them agreeing to keep quiet about this: from their perspective, this must have been quite the scoop, and they gleefully published their article online on the 1st November 2023.

Ironically, the article also briefly discusses Copeland's political career. They quote him describing life as mayor of a small, close-knit community, from an earlier interview (my italics for emphasis).

Copeland: It really is like everybody knows your name. You know, everybody dies famous in a small town. That’s what it is. It is Friday Night Lights. It is mama’s apple pie. Our community is very, very low crime, very low drug abuse. Our number one problem is suicide. It is sad. I think a lot of it has to do with military. I think some of it has to do with social media and the reality of that. That’s the number one problem we have.

Wife's top: Brittini

On the 2nd of November, 1819 News posted a second article in which a visibly distressed Copeland addressed his parishioners from the pulpit about the revelation. They obviously had someone there to film the whole statement, which lasts over 6 minutes. That second article contains many titillating screen captures from Copeland’s social media feed.

Copeland: Yes, I have taken pictures with my wife in the privacy of our home in an attempt of humour, because I know I'm not a handsome man nor a beautiful woman either. I apologize for any embarrassment caused by my private, personal life that has come publicly.

Poor Copeland was doing his best to make light of all this—but there's nothing funny about any of it. Understandably, he then went on to reiterate his devotion to his family, to his city, and to his church. He then read out the biblical passage “The Lord is my shepherd”.

The only tiny light of hope in any of this is that, during his address, Copeland mentioned that he had received many messages of support, despite the news only being public for a short time.

Copeland: …again, I’m sorry for what my actions have caused, and I’m thankful for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who have reached out to me today, in love. And I know that there are others that have not. But just know I love you, and Jesus loves you as well.

Tragically, on the 3rd of November, 2023, only two days after 1819 News published their article, Bubba Copeland shot himself in the head with a pistol. According to internet sources he is survived by his wife, Angela (a teacher)  and a son and two daughters.

Not ashamed: Brittini

This story shocked me when I came across it, and it has prompted me to write a post about it. The news has gone worldwide, with many news outlets reporting what has happened. A Wikipedia page about Bubba Copeland has appeared. The editor-in-chief of 1819 News is a man called Jeff Poor, and he has been the subject of considerable social media outrage after Copeland’s death. Newsweek.com reports that Poor gave a message of condolence in a radio interview.

Poor: Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Smiths Station, the parishioners of First Baptist Church of Phenix City and the victims and family of Mayor Copeland.

Just a minute: “victims”? What victims? There has never been any allegation—not even by Poor’s own news agency—that Copeland had any “victims”. This is an especially ill-chosen form of words, and makes what could almost have been a gesture of apology—however late, however vague—into an insult.

There are so many aspects of this whole business which are worthy of commentary.

Responsibility

I hold 1819 News fully responsible for the suicide of Bubba Copeland. There’s nothing to suggest that he was suicidal before their article outing him. By their own admission, they contacted him before they went public, and he asked them not to publish. They did anyway. If they hadn't gone public, he would likely have been able to continue living his double life.

Happier times: Bubba and Angela

They must have known that this would cause outrage among the local communities in Alabama. They must have known that Bubba Copeland would receive a great deal of hatred. I don’t think they intended him to actually take his own life, but I'm certain that they wanted him to feel named and shamed. They wanted to stir up ire among those people who believe in Republican Jesus, who they knew would be vocally critical of Copeland's lifestyle. They wanted a boost to their ratings—and no doubt, they've got a much bigger boost than they expected. Without this story, nobody outside Alabama would ever have heard of them.

Nothing to be ashamed of

This point lies at the heart of this issue. Copeland said that he had nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing to suggest that he was a bad mayor; a bad pastor, or a bad husband or father. How he dressed in his spare time is literally nobody’s business but his own.

I am still carrying decades of internalised transphobia, although gradually this burden is getting lighter. I have struggled to come to terms with my feelings, and tried to suppress them, before finally coming to embrace them, and I’m sure that Bubba Copeland had a similar journey. But that shame was still in there, and I'm certain that shame, that dissonance between who he was, and who people thought he was, is what caused him to take his own life.

I have republished the photos of Brittini because I think she looks really great, really happy, and because I think that dressing like that is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I am absolutely certain that there are loads of other people secretly doing exactly what Copeland was doing. Some of them are undoubtedly very similar to him: Republican, prosperous, prominent in the community, God-fearing. Some of them may even have openly condemned Copeland, from their pulpits, or even just to the good ol’ boys in the pub. This behaviour is called signalling theory, and it's something that we all do, without exception.

Not amnesic: Dawn Ennis

Coming out at a time of your own choosing is extremely stressful. US Broadcaster Dawn Ennis (formerly Don Ennis) came out as transgender in 2013. Despite apparently considerable support from her colleagues, after only 3 months, she de-transitioned back to Don, and blamed the whole business on amnesia, of all things. I'm sure that she found it just too difficult, in a personal sense, to transition so publicly.

Of course, I didn't believe her, and I'm sure the excuse sounded pretty flimsy to everyone else too. However, less than a year later, she re-transitioned, and has been Dawn ever since, and seems to be doing quite well.

So if that was Dawn Ennis, who presumably thought very long and hard about coming out the first time, how much more difficult must it have been for Bubba Copeland, who had no time at all to deal with the fact that everyone he knew had seen his pictures and knew the secret that he had carefully guarded (as I did) for his whole life?

Hypocrisy

There's a lot of hypocrisy in all of this. How did 1819 News find out about Bubba? Did some other guy who likes wearing female lingerie and enjoys that sort of social media content recognise that Brittini looks a lot like Bubba, and decide it would be a good idea to out him publicly?

It seems Bubba's dressing had his wife’s knowledge and approval. That brown top with the large leopardskin pattern belongs to his wife—or at least, 1819 News found a social media picture of her wearing it.

Did she know about the flirty, sexual social media messages? I cannot say; it's between the two of them. I'm inclined to think she probably didn't. I definitely think it’s not a good look, but again, it’s his private business, and surely everyone has their various private sexual fantasies. Did he act out those sexual fantasies with other people? I'm inclined to think not, based on his speech to his parish. If there had been evidence of this, I'm certain 1819 News would have published it, and Copeland would likely have apologised for it. Again, it's not our business, but again, I'm absolutely certain that there are plenty of Republicans in Alabama who have broken their sacred marital vows.

My main question about hypocrisy though, is this one: did Bubba Copeland preach against trans people? I don't know; I cannot know. After his death, it seems to matter little, but Baptist preachers in the Deep South of the USA are known for their intolerant style of preaching. Perhaps Bubba was preaching that there's plenty of room around God's table for everyone. Perhaps he just avoided the topic entirely. But if he openly spoke out against gay and trans people from the pulpit, then I would be disappointed.

It has been reported recently that the gay dating site Grindr has been so disgruntled by the rise in anti-gay legislation in the US state of Florida that it has threatened to publish the names of every Republican legislator and party official who secretly uses their app. Unfortunately, this has turned out to be a hoax. But the very fact that this report went viral demonstrates that there are a lot of people out there who think that the Republican anti-gay agenda is deeply hypocritical.

There but for the grace of God

One of the things which shocked me most was my own realisation that Copeland and I have quite a lot in common. We’re nearly the same age. I’ve got kids. I’m not a pastor, or a mayor, but I am a doctor, and I do have a secret fem identity, which has been there my whole life, and has an online presence, and provides me with pleasure and fulfilment and relief from stress and anxiety. And, while I'm more out than Brittini, and my various interactions with people have been incredibly positive and affirming, I am absolutely certain that there is an element within my community that would love to report, with feigned outrage, that there’s a cross-dressing doctor looking after vulnerable people in their local hospital.

As a result, I’ve been extremely careful. I had kept this blog for about seven years before I posted a clear photo of myself on it—even now, there are only a few. My Facebook account is private. There are only a couple of photos of me on Quora. (You’re not going to find flirty or erotic social media messages or photos out there from me—because that sort of thing isn’t my cup of tea).

Everybody dies famous in a small town

Seeing what happened to Bubba Copeland made me very upset on a number of levels. How awful that a decent family man was driven to take his own life, because he had the same feelings as I do, but lived in a society which is so intolerant of those feelings and behaviours. How awful that a "news" website found something about a person's private life, and deliberately chose to publish it, knowing it would ruin him. Bubba received "hundreds" of messages of support. How awful that he found he couldn't cling to those, and the love of his family, to help him weather this storm (was his wife's reaction part of his decision to commit suicide?).

Everybody dies famous in a small town—but Copeland's story has reverberated around the world, and drawn a lot of attention to his fate. There has been a backlash against what happened, which is obviously too late for Copeland, but might possibly help the next person this happens to. Ultimately, though, I don't think that backlash will be strong enough. Jeff Poor and the 1819 News will not be brought to account. And the secrets and the lies and the hypocrisy will continue, in Alabama, in the rest of the Deep South, and in other parts of the world where being trans is forbidden—until the next time.

Let me close by hoping that Bubba Copleand and Brittini Blaire Summerlin rest in peace.

Edit: my thanks to Lynn Jones for pointing out the tragic suicide of primary school teacher Lucy Meadows in the UK, in 2013. Meadows was hounded by the right-wing UK press; in particular the Daily Mail. She eventually took her own life at the age of 32. You can find more detail here.

In Search of Beauty

Hallowe'en is a time of year when a lot of closeted cross-dressers feel safe to dress in public. It's acceptable to put on a face and a costume you wouldn't normally wear, and show yourself off. I've read quite a few descriptions of this online. It tends to be more marked in the US, where Hallowe'en is an enormously popular occasion, and where people seem to spend a lot more time and effort on the whole business than the rest of the world, though what I see is that, year on year, Hallowe'en is growing, everywhere.

One leg to rule them all...

So imagine my discomfort when I was invited to a very large and "authentic" Hallowe'en party last year. The party was hosted by a woman I work with. Unfortunately my partner couldn't attend, so it was up to me to go along, with the kids.

I very quickly dismissed the idea that I would go dressed as a woman. First, I'm not out to this woman. Second, I didn't know who else from work might be invited and show up. Third, the irony is not lost on me that Hallowe'en costumes are supposed to be a costume; as I've mentioned before, putting on a costume feels like pretending to be something I'm not, while getting dressed as a woman feels like becoming something I am (even if not every day). I definitely didn't want to do some sort of costume version of Vivienne; I couldn't imagine something less comfortable than turning up dressed as a pantomime dame. While if I dressed nicely, it could be a dead giveaway that this wasn't a once-in-a-year costume, but something I do much more frequently.

Mind you this Gandalf outfit, by Melbourne student Tjitske van Vark, might possibly work for this year. Gandalf the Pink, anyone?

But there was a further catch, which is that the hostess herself is extremely good at both makeup and costume. I've seen some of her work before, in pictures, and it's dazzling. So I knew she was going to set the bar very high, which in turn meant I didn't feel I could just cut two holes in a sheet, put it over my head, and call myself a ghost. In the end, I got a decent fantasy swordsman costume, and some decent props, and I didn't disgrace myself. But that's not what this post is about.

Lex Fleming from MadeYewLook

The hostess had indeed gone to great lengths. Her house was lavishly decorated, inside and out, with skulls and spiders and pumpkins and gravestones. But her own makeup was simply extraordinary; it was clearly professional-quality work. In addition, she had spent a lot of time getting her costume just right. It must have taken weeks of planning to put the whole thing together. While I am not going to include any photographs of the hostess herself, here is a comparable image of a young woman doing something similar, and let me say, the hostess was every bit as striking as this image here; not just her face, but also her costume.

Understandably there were a lot of photographs. The hostess took photos of all the guests; in groups, posed and unposed. And she was also in lots of photos, including photos of me. Standing beside her while those photos were taken made me feel uncomfortable, and I've been reflecting for some time on why this should be.

First, I am extremely conscious of beauty around me. When people talk about beauty privilege, I completely understand exactly what they mean. I cannot help paying attention to beautiful people, and it's almost always female beauty that I am talking about here. So when there is someone beautiful near me, and I want to just have a normal conversation (with someone else, about something else), I can sometimes find it difficult to concentrate unless I sit where I cannot be distracted by the view.

Has anyone got a pen I could borrow?

For me (at least) beauty doesn't necessarily have to be the sort of thing you would put on a magazine cover. There are a thousand things which women around me do which I think are beautiful. It can be as simple as a particular smile, a turn of phrase, or an endearing gesture (such as putting your pencil into your bun, which I think is gorgeous), while others might see nothing particularly special.

Second, beauty is something I really aspire to. Perhaps it's because I had a rough time at school (as a sensitive child I was commonly picked on), I tend to equate beauty with popularity, and I am envious of people who are beautiful.

This is something which I have really struggled with. As I've mentioned before on this blog, it's not enough to look feminine: I really want to look pretty. I don't think that the camera is anywhere near as flattering as the mirror, but I also think the camera comes a lot closer to showing me what other people see when they look at me. I love to take photos when I'm dressed, and I can feel very flat afterward when I look at the photos and don't feel great about what I see.

Meanwhile it's hard not to feel even more dejected when I look at the Internet and see what seem to be thousands of gorgeous images of trans women, and I think that, in a month of Sundays, I could never look that good. I know I am not alone in feeling this. Even Hannah McKnight (whom I admire for many reasons) has posted lately about feeling this way, and I've had conversations with some of my Facebook friends about it. Sometimes I think: why should I even bother? What would be the point?

The third thing which I really noticed about my Hallowe'en friend is that she wasn't just looking spectacular, she was also acting differently. She was definitely acting more flirty, more sexy, especially in front of the camera. She was owning it. She was doing beauty.

So there I was, feeling awkward and foolish in my own costume, seeing my friend completely owning the Hallowe'en femme fatale thing, and knowing I will never look remotely as good. That was a potent stew of emotions indeed. My costume was no disgrace, and I could have been strutting around and posing like Conan the Barbarian--but honestly I just wanted to get it over with and go home.

I know that these feelings are temporary; that there will be times when I feel fantastic--both pretty and feminine--again. I am also enough of a realist to recognise that probably everyone feels a bit like this, when they try to compare themselves to others. And of course the people on the Internet post their best photos--of course they do!-- and they don't show you their mascara malfunctions or their bad hair days or their photos taken at unflattering angles.

Mind you, it's interesting to consider: if I were an attractive man, would I be less bothered about trying to look pretty as a woman? Would I be able to get some of that beauty "fix" in my male persona? It's impossible to know. If Timberland decides to pick up my modelling contract again, perhaps I will be able to let you know.

The Gender GP

I was browsing one day through Quora. It takes up far too much of my time, though I can’t seem to get away from it. As you might expect, one of the topics I follow on Quora (among plenty of others) is gender, and I was delighted to come across a doctor writing openly about gender issues, in particular trans-gender issues.

Helen Webberley: Gender GP

The doctor is Helen Webberley, a General Practitioner from the UK. Her website, www.gendergp.co.uk, offers amazing access to a sympathetic doctor: “advice on gender issues, counselling and diagnosis, blood tests and monitoring, prescription medication”. And it comes with a plethora of means to get in touch: an email address, a mobile phone number, and the option to do face-to-face video conferencing with Helen. There is also a series of short videos explaining her own views about transgenderism and its treatment, and explaining how Helen can help.

If you’ve read any of this blog at all, you will know how much I am looking for answers to my questions, not just about my own gender, but about the medical treatment of transgender people. You will also know how sceptical I am about the current state of the science behind gender treatment. I have (several times) approached doctors who treat transgender patients (including surgeons who perform sex reassignment surgery ) and also doctors who are themselves transgender, for their own perspectives. They have all quietly declined to be interviewed publicly.

So I wasn’t filled with confidence that Helen would agree, but I got in touch, and she replied immediately and very positively. Here she is, sitting on my virtual couch:

How did you first get interested in treatment of transgender people?

I have always been interested in equality and diversity – it has always appalled me that anyone should be bullied due to their size, colour, hair, gender, preferences, religion etc. I got very interested in Sexual Health in the 90s and did lots of specialist training in this area, and then taught widely on how the medical profession should not judge differing sexual behaviours.

When I became a GP in Wales, I had a transgender person asking me for help, and the nearest clinic was in London. I made it my business to find out more about gender issues and how to treat them, and how to help this person who couldn’t possibly travel to London. It was fascinating, and very rewarding.

What made you decide to pursue it as far as you have (the website, etc)? Why not just treat patients in your own region?

I love technology, and was intrigued as to why healthcare was so far behind the rest of business when providing services online. I made my own website www.mywebdoctor.co.uk offering free advice to those who couldn’t get in to see their GP. I thought it would sit at the bottom of the huge pile of websites in the sky, but I was surprised at how many people asked for help.

I had an idea to offer specific help for transgender people, so I made a special dedicated Transgender page. When I woke up the next morning, I realised just how big a need it was!! From here it has progressed to www.GenderGP.co.uk .

Do you still have a normal GP practice?

Doctor, doctor! Gimme the news!

Until April 2016 I was the senior partner in a GP practice in Wales. My interest and work with the transgender community has meant that I have had to let this go, as I no longer had time to do both. After a brief spell of ill health, I decided to pursue my current interest and now I am a freelance GP and a full-time gender specialist.

What opportunities exist for other doctors who want to specialise in the treatment of transgender people?

There isn't really any official training available in transgender care. But with access to the Internet, there is now endless opportunity for doctors to read policies, guidelines and research to help them to understand more about the needs of the trans community and how best to help them.

I really believe that gender care should be a routine part of General Practice, just as contraception and menopause treatment is. GPs are good at dealing with stress, family issues, workplace problems and hormones. These are the nuts and bolts of gender care and GPs should be offering this routinely.

I have found that a lot of the dysphoria that gender variant people suffer is not due to their variance, but the attitude and responses from society and, ashamedly, the medical profession. If we sort that out, we are a long, long way toward making gender care very simple and easy and less demanding on the doctor and the patient. Trans people are startlingly well-informed: listen to them about their diagnosis and management plans – they have done most of the work for us.

I am presenting a piece of work at the WPATH this year – "Gender dysphoria or medical dysphoria: what causes distress amongst trans patients?"

I find myself concerned about transgender children. How does one determine whether it's ethical to treat children for transgenderism, especially since no long-term studies have been done looking at the outcomes?

The children I have met have been amazing. The diagnosis is often so clear cut, and allowing them to go through a life-changing puberty, that so clearly doesn’t match their true gender, is bordering on inhumane.

By blocking puberty and giving them time to mature and understand what they want and need for their future, you are preventing them from having to have life-threatening surgery in the future, and a life of mismatch and potential humiliation.

I so totally agree with you about the lack of evidence, and that we are guessing and feeling our way, hoping it is right. But we need to prevent transgirls developing into big hairy men, and transboys developing into shapely, delicate females. There is a reason why the suicide rate is so high in this group, and we must stop their bodies developing wrongly.

If you could wave a magic wand, and change one thing about the treatment of transgender people, what would it be?

Allow them to help shape and dictate their care. If they want to try hormones, take hormones, have an operation, change their bodies – make it easy for them, not the huge struggle they seem to face at the moment.

It seems that transgender issues seem to have burst onto the public stage in the last couple of years. Do you have any thoughts about why this might be? And where it might all lead?

The true prevalence of transgenderism of any degree (remembering that gender is a spectrum on which we all lie, somewhere between 0 and 100%) is massively underestimated, I expect. In the 80s, people felt more confident to come out as gay, and the same is happening now for the trans community. We are about to see the true extent of exactly how common it is to have some variance with your gender. Is ‘male’ and ‘female’ a human generated idea – and have we got it all wrong?

Human X and Y chromosomes

The concept that there are two genders is wrong (in my view). There are two sex-determination systems – XX and XY – and our society has presumed that our gender identity matches those and has made this dictate everything from what you should wear, to what job you should have, to what role you should take in life, to what bathroom you should use, to what gender you should choose to marry.

In the olden days, we also presumed that our sex-determination system also matches our sexual identity (who we are attracted to), but look how wrong we were about that. Again, society dictated that there would only be one sexual identity and we made all the rules about marriage and commitment to fit that. Latterly we have had to re-write the rulebook.

I believe that everyone is on a spectrum of gender (identifying as male or female or somewhere in between) and identity (fancying men or women or anywhere in between) and preference (liking pink or blue or fairies or sport or animals or trains). Society shapes this and suppresses our liberty to express somewhere else along the spectrum. I would love to see what happened in a new society, born without rigid rules and constraints and expectations. Would I have been a very feminine heterosexual?

My video talks about the sphere of diversity, and in that sphere are lots of spectra, and where we lie on each spectrum gives us a unique point within the sphere, unique to you and to me, and excitingly different.

Do you ever refuse to treat someone for gender issues? How do you determine if a person is suitable to be treated or not?

I would be very concerned about someone whose gender issues seemed to stem from a bad experience in earlier life. For example a person who wanted to hide from their genitals and sexuality due to a previous history of sexual abuse.

As my service is a remote service, I do not treat anyone who is shown to have manipulated the system in order to get medication.

Most people are absolutely honest and genuine and so grateful to have the chance to get the care they need, but sometimes I have to signpost people back to their GP.

Have you ever come under criticism from colleagues or the public for what you do?

Oh yes. In one year I have been reported to the GMC twice (but they have found no concerns) and threatened to once – all by leading doctors in this field in the UK.

AMAB? I thought you said...

A transmale counsellor working in the field said I wasn’t qualified. A well-known psychiatrist said that I wasn’t qualified and did not do a comprehensive enough assessment. If the diagnosis of an AMAB who has been cross-dressing for years, and would now like to develop some soft skin, breasts and shapely thighs isn’t a clear enough self-diagnosis, what is? Gay people don’t need a psychiatric evaluation before they are allowed a same-sex marriage. Not all people with abdominal pain are excluded for delusions before taking out their appendix.

Some of these healthcare professionals are supposed to be caring and helping the trans community, but the stories I hear of people’s experiences in their GIC make my toes curl, so I am not surprised that I am not always treated with respect. I wonder whether they are just keeping the GIC waiting list so long to fuel their private practice. I can’t see any other reason that they would not welcome an experienced GP who is helping relieve the burden of their work.

One of them publically wrote about how gender care that is straightforward should be delivered by people’s GPs, and in the same month I received a letter of concern from him via the GMC for doing just that!

Gender care needs to be brought under the auspices of General Practice, and done by good old (modern) GPs who are used to dealing with everyday people, every day. If we don’t start encouraging GPs to embrace this field of medicine, then the waiting lists for the GICs will soon be 10 years, not 2!

The public have been great, I have received so many letters, cards, reviews, testimonials – and every one has been truly complimentary. I have changed many lives for the better, and I expect saved a few desperate lives of people who thought they had nowhere else to turn.

Do you have any thoughts about the autogynephilia model of Bailey and Blanchard?

I had never heard of it so I just looked it up. The majority of transgender patients I have had the pleasure of treating could no way fit into this model. I guess that these ideas could be made to fit some people, but to generalise and say this theory explains gender issues is outright wrong.

I have never really thought about the philosophical arguments so much. I have always concentrated on the physical, psychological and social needs of my patients, so the theory is interesting but a bit mind boggling!

Which famous person would you most like to meet, and why?

My family and friends laugh at me because I just have no interest in ‘famous’ people. I would like to be famous for really transforming gender care in the UK and the rest of the world. I would like to shake hands with my future self for helping trans people to access safe and easy healthcare without fear of humiliation, prejudice or judgement.

===

As always in my interviews, I like to reflect a little about the answers.

First, Helen seems to be extremely unusual: a doctor who treats trans people and is willing to talk about it openly and willingly. She seems so open, so inviting, in contrast to the attitude of many other (but not all) doctors, which seems to be to be with awkwardness and silence (a vestige, perhaps, of the “shame, secrecy and trauma” which Alice Dreger talked about with intersex children).

Accepting: Webberley

In addition, Helen offers a multitude of ways for people to get in touch with her, which leads me to wonder how she can possibly get any work done. I seem to be forever answering emails, and I don’t have people all over the world asking me about hormones!

I approached a surgeon who performs sex reassignment surgery, and he declined to be interviewed. In fact, he was barely polite with my request. He would not consent to be named publicly. When I offered him an anonymous interview, he was sure that he would be recognised by his answers.

So I guess my point is: so what? If you are a doctor, and you are performing perfectly legal operations, believing in good faith that you are acting for the benefit of your patients, why should you hide? Surely you either believe in what you do, or you don’t. And if you don’t, why are you doing it?

Helen comes across as completely the opposite. Open, friendly, non-judgmental. Willing to discuss some very sensitive issues very freely. I see her very much as a step in the right direction: the direction which says that you don’t need to hide if your gender doesn’t quite fit the slot, but are deserving of sympathy and acceptance and respect. She isn’t hiding; instead she is out there trying to be noticed.

I found myself surprised (read: astonished) that she had never come across the autogynephilia model. I thought everybody knew about that one! But again I find this refreshing: that someone can come to a field (you might say a minefield) like gender, and just apply their own take on it, and be so positive, without being subject to what other people want you to think about it.

I couldn’t help challenging Helen on some of her practices. I believe medicine should be guided by science, and yet the science is lacking in a lot of areas. Again I found her answer refreshing: “guessing, feeling our way, hoping it is right”. How humble, and how different from the dogmatic certainty of people like Paul McHugh.

I am impressed (in case you couldn’t have guessed) with Helen. I find myself hoping that she is in the vanguard of a new wave of doctors: open, receptive, non-judgmental, willing to listen to trans people instead of dictating to them . I wish there were a hundred like her—and perhaps soon there will be.

My thanks, as always, to Helen for her patience, not just with my questions, but with my flurry of emails requesting clarifications on several points. My thanks, too, to her husband Mike for reviewing the final draft.

Form an orderly queue, please. The doctor will see you now.
===
Addendum: 15th September 2017

The BBC reported this week that Helen Webberley has been "probed" for giving hormone treatments to children as young as 12. She has been blocked from unsupervised practice with transgender patients. Predictably, other media outlets have reacted with a more sensationalist spin on the story.

I am very disquieted by this news. As I stated above, I am impressed by Helen Webberley's stance on gender disorders. When I interviewed her, she told me that she had already been subject to scrutiny from the GMC as a result of complaints by others.

I know none of the details of the story, of course. But I find myself hoping that Webberley's clinical supervisor reports to the GMC that she is practising in good faith, within the boundaries of good medical practice and good medical ethics, and that she will be permitted to resume her normal practice. Transgender patients need good doctors, and that may mean that a few brave doctors need to blaze a trail for others to follow.

Galileo's Middle Finger - Part Two

This is the second of my articles discussing the book Galileo's Middle Finger, by Alice Dreger. If you haven't already, it makes sense to start reading at Part One, which discusses intersex individuals.

Dreger: When people ask me how transgender is different from intersex, I usually start by saying that that intersex and transgender people have historically suffered from the opposite problems for the same reason. Whereas intersex people have historically been subjected to sex "normalizing" hormones and surgeries they have not wanted, transgender people have had a hard time getting the sex-change hormones and surgeries they have wanted. Both problems arise from a single cause: a heterosexist medical establishment determined to retain control over who gets to be what sex.

Manly: legs

Here she is, shortly into chapter 2, Rabbit Holes, and characteristically getting right down to the nub of the issue. (For my own, similar take on intersex vs transgender, I refer you to this post, though you might need to scroll down a bit).

Dreger: In the great majority of cases, medical scans won't detect any intersex feature in a transgendered person's body. Nevertheless, many people believe that transgender must be a special form of intersex involving the brain.

This fits with my comment that some transgender individuals look to the existence of intersex individuals to provide justification for their behaviour.

Dreger: Although there is very little science to support it, this has become the most popular explanation of transgender, probably in part because it is the easiest one for uptight heterosexuals to accept. (...) In practice, this story of transgender can function as a kind of get-out-of-male free card for men who seek to become women anatomically. When that card is played, the comforting narrative of "true selves" is preserved.

And there are scientific papers (such as this one) which seek to demonstrate anatomical differences in the brains of trans people. Though mostly their brains are very similar, some studies purport to demonstrate subtle differences in tiny regions of the brain (for example, some regions in MtF transsexuals are less like men and more like women). Most of these studies have small numbers of non-randomised participants, and even if these findings are robust (and I am nowhere near convinced that they are), correlation is not causation.

Science may indeed unlock some of these puzzles in time, but the only thing I am convinced of is that the science is pretty unconvincing so far.

Controversial: Bailey

It's at this point in the narrative that Dreger introduces Professor J. Michael Bailey, the author of the controversial work The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, published in 2003. Bailey drew on the work of Ray Blanchard, and is therefore supportive of the autogynephilia model, to which I subscribe, as you probably already know. See here for a fuller discussion of this model. In that link, I also discuss how the autogynephilia model makes me feel uncomfortable about myself, because it insists the root of my crossdressing is in sexual desire.

Dreger points out that the French translation of autogynephilia is amour de soi en femme (love of oneself as a woman) which is a much nicer expression.

But where I feel uncomfortable about the autogynephilia model, a lot of people felt a lot worse.

Dreger: Before Bailey, many trans advocates had spent a long time working to desexualize and depathologize their public representations in an effort to reduce stigma, improve access to care, and establish basic human rights for trans people. (...) This is similar to how gay rights advocates have desexualized homosexuality in the quest for marriage rights, portraying themselves in living rooms and kitchens instead of bedrooms, in order to calm fearful heterosexuals.

Indeed, a few retrograde clinicians, like Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, still actively use the idea that male-to-female transgender is really about perverted sexuality and mental illness to argue against access to sex-transitional hormones and surgeries.

For Bailey or anyone else to call someone with amour de soi en femme an autogynephile or even a transgender woman-- rather than simply a woman-- is at some level to interfere with her core sexual desire. Such naming also risks questioning her core self-identity in a way that calling the average gay man homosexual simply can't. One really must understand this if one is going to understand why some trans women came after Bailey so hard for naming and describing autogynephilia. When they felt that Bailey was fundamentally threatening their selves and their social identities as women-- well, it's because he was. That's what talking openly about autogynephilia necessarily does.

Lynn Conway by Charles Rogers

It's worth digressing here to make a couple of remarks. Just because a scientific theory makes you uncomfortable, doesn't make it wrong. And just because you insist upon something, doesn't make it right. If you want to convince me, you need to do a lot better than insist. I respond to evidence, not vehemence. This has occasionally caused me to get into uncomfortable debates with other trans people when I dare to question them about their views and beliefs. Sometimes, when they are unable to explain themselves, they resort to some variant of: "Of course, you couldn't possibly understand. You're only a crossdresser, where I am a woman".

But back to the book. Dreger goes on to describe how a prominent transwoman called Lynn Conway, at the University of Michigan, started "what became a war" against Bailey, assisted by Andrea James and Deirdre McLoskey. Together they began to systematically ruin Bailey's reputation. They campaigned to have the book removed from consideration for the 2004 Lambda Literary Award. They cooked up stories about him practising psychology without a licence, doing research without appropriate ethical oversight, and even having sex with one of his research subjects. And Dreger digs deeply and thoroughly into all of this, interviewing as many of the original people involved as possible.

Dreger: As a result of all this, Bailey came across pretty clearly as an abuser, a trans-basher, and a sexual pervert.

After nearly a year of research, I could come to only one conclusion: the whole thing was a sham. Bailey's sworn enemies had used every clever trick in the book-- juxtaposing events in misleading ways, ignoring contrary evidence, working the rhetoric, and using anonymity whenever convenient, to make it look as though virtually every trans woman represented in Bailey's book had felt abused by him and had filed a charge.

But why did Conway, James and McLoskey feel they had to do all those things?

Dreger: "Narcissistic injury," the physician-researcher Anne Lawrence said to me, by way of explanation. "Followed by narcissistic rage." That, she told me, was the only real way to explain what happened to Bailey. The whole thing had been an attempt to kill the messenger bringing a message that Lawrence guessed wounded the accusers' sense of self.

Captivating: the book

By this point, we are barely a third of the way through the book. Several things stand out. First, the book is extremely readable, and the narrative is told in a personal, conversational style. Second, Dreger's scholarship is impeccable: many hundreds of hours of interviews and research have gone into this book (you should see the references), and Dreger seems uncompromising in her search for the truth. Third, it's clear that a great deal of her personal energy has been invested, not just in writing the book, but in sympathising with the people in it, befriending them and becoming part of their lives. Fourth, writing this book has taken considerable courage, and Dreger has herself come under fire, risking her own career and reputation (drawing parallels with Galileo, of course).

Overall, the book is a phenomenal read; gripping as a thriller, scholarly, yet incredibly human. There are so many points in the book where I thought: I can't believe I am actually reading this! I can't recommend it highly enough.

We part company with the book at this point, partly because this blog post is already way too long, and partly because the book leaves the subjects of gender and sex as Dreger finds other (compelling) subjects to sink her hungry scholastic teeth into.

I think the world of gender is changing more rapidly than it ever has before. The emergence of transgender celebrities like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner has caused mainstream society to become much more aware (and thankfully, accepting) of trans people and trans issues. Nonetheless, I am very uncomfortable about what happened to Bailey: vilified for his views, not because they were wrong, but because they made people uncomfortable. Dreger points out (and I don't know why I didn't think of this before) that as a result of Conway's attack on Bailey, "no one in sex research will touch male-to-female transsexualism with a ten foot pole any more. Which must have been just what Conway meant to do". That explains why there isn't good science: because scientists fear personal retribution if they publish results which are unpopular.

The way to enlightenment is not to silence people, even the ones who disagree with us, but to engage in open, civil, respectful debate; to seek out the best evidence, and incorporate it into the picture, recognising that the picture isn't complete and may yet change as new discoveries come to light.

Dreger's book has inspired me to be a little more upright, a little more outspoken in defence of the truth, a little more questioning of the "facts", than I was previously. And perhaps, therefore, a little more willing to extend my middle finger, just like Galileo.

Frightening the Horses

When asked to comment on a supposed homosexual relationship between two of her colleagues, British stage actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell (her stage name) made a comment which has become legendary.

Does it really matter what these affectionate people do-- so long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses!

Hay! How you doin'?

I suppose there are two ways to look at this comment (which has been widely quoted, misquoted, and even mis-attributed). The first is to interpret it as saying that homosexuals should keep themselves hidden from public view. The second way to interpret it (and the way I choose) is to take it as a whimsical remark saying: who cares what they do? What harm could possibly come of it?

This quote came to mind when my attention was drawn to this article, Conservative Men in Conservative Dresses, which was mentioned and discussed over on Thorin's blog. Written by Amy Bloom, and published in Atlantic Monthly in 2002, it is a ruthless (but not wholly unsympathetic) critique of male crossdressers. Bloom is observant, smart and articulate, and the article is well worth reading in its entirety. But it really hurts, and I've been struggling with my reaction to the article all week. The sub-title, taken from the body of the article, is this:

The world of crossdressers is for the most part a world of traditional men, traditional marriages, and truths turned inside out.

And the first line begins:

Bloom: Heterosexual cross-dressers bother almost everyone.

In the first half of the article, Bloom describes crossdressers. Distinct from transsexuals; distinct from drag queens. She talks to Ray Blanchard, and repeats some of his well-trodden dictums. Some of these, you will know, I agree with, including the one that crossdressers don't want to be like women; they want to be like men think women are. She talks to Tri-Ess, and quotes some of their material. So far, so non-descript. However, this material is probably new to the readership of the Atlantic, who are probably unfamiliar with the background.

Blanchard: Of course it's not relaxing. Heels and makeup and a wig and a corset? It's preposterous. Even women don't find that relaxing. Relaxing is a pair of sweatpants, clothing that doesn't even feel like clothing. Cross-dressers want to normalize this, to have it seen as relaxation and self-expression. Cross-dressing is an attempt to resolve an internal conflict, and it's not about fabric. If we had clothing for men and women that was identical in every way except men wore shirts with four buttons and women had shirts with five, cross-dressers would want more than anything to have the shirt with five. We don't know why.

Matronly: the Two Ronnies

I happen to agree with this viewpoint; it's not about the clothes! I would say that my crossdressing feelings are not about the clothes but about the role or expectations society has for me. It's a question I often ask myself (and consider on this blog): what would happen if men and women were all truly free to wear whatever they want? I think Blanchard's interpretation of the answer is as good as any other. And I absolutely do have an "internal conflict", whether it pleases me to admit it or not.

Bloom: This seems to me to be the heart of cross-dressers' dilemma, and the heart of mine in writing about them. Cross-dressing is a compulsion, but we must not see it as a sickness. A good wife should tolerate it because the man has no choice, but it isn't too hard to tolerate because it's a gift. It is about fun and pleasure—and it's a necessity. The necessity of cross-dressing is frightening to the men and to their wives, and their wish to tame it, to characterize it as a preference and a gift, is understandable.

In the second half of the article, Bloom deliberately goes on a cruise, with 25 crossdressers and their wives. She takes time to get to know them, motivated by an interest "in the less common ways in which people inhabit their gender". Bloom describes the appearance of the crossdressers.

Bloom: I have met cross-dressers whose presentation is just this side of Christina Aguilera [but] they look more like my formidable fourth grade teacher, a big, tall woman with a bolster-like bosom, thick legs, sensible pumps, hennaed hair, and twin spots of rouge on her cheeks. They have the matronly look so common to straight cross-dressers. A pronounced face requires pronounced makeup, and after the false eyelashes and even the subtlest contouring of the wider jaw and the thick brow, one can look beautiful or ridiculous, but one cannot look like most of the women around.

How they see themselves?

She describes how most of the crossdressers are eager to talk about themselves (something I can certainly relate to!) But then Bloom starts to discuss the wives.

Bloom: Sometimes the wives wish to come, to support their husbands and to enjoy the trip, or to hang out with other wives, like golf widows or wives in Al-Anon. Some come because their husbands need them to. Happy wives are everyone's favorites, but happy or cowed, enthusiastic or grimly accepting, the wives at these functions are simultaneously objects of much public appreciation and utterly secondary to the men's business.

It would be easy to dismiss this entire article as full of hostility, but I don't think it is. I think it is the result of someone who has really taken a good look at crossdressing, and come to her own (somewhat ruthless, but not entirely unsympathetic) conclusions. I suspect that Bloom and Helen Boyd would find much common ground.

Bloom: I come to see why so many women find themselves sympathetic to cross-dressers: Women are raised to be sympathetic, and protective toward the vulnerable, and there is something sweet, unexpected, and powerful about being a woman and sympathizing with a man not because he demands it but because you genuinely feel sorry for him, for his debilitating envy and his fear of discovery and his sense of powerlessness to live as he wants.

Debilitating envy? Check. Fear of discovery? Check. Sense of powerlessness? Check. Add in guilt and shame, and it would be a full house! But for me, the most powerful parts of the article are the vignettes of conversation with the various crossdressers and their wives. Here, she discusses "Felicity".

Bloom: On the third night of the cruise Felicity comes to dinner "en drab" as they say, looking like what he is— a heavyset Baptist minister who worked construction in his youth. With a flourish the headwaiter delivers roses to his wife, to applause from our four tables. Felicity puts his big hand on hers and squeezes it. He makes a toast to their thirty years of marriage and to her goodness and support. He begins to choke up; her remote look never changes. I can see that she is not pleased that he decided to dress like a man for her tonight. She is not pleased that he is so grateful to her for trying to believe that he cross-dresses only because he cannot express his warm and nurturing self while wearing trousers. Nor is she pleased, God knows, to sit with a bunch of men in makeup and dresses, some modest, some outrageous, some passable, most not, and call it an anniversary party.

Felicity says, "It's like there are three of me in this little boat: the husband, the cross-dresser, and the minister. I can hear the falls approaching, and I know, I know with all  my heart, one of us will not survive this ride." He begins to cry, and I get tears in my eyes. As I hand him some tissues, his wife glares at me and says, "You sure do get involved with your interviews".  She must think that some pretty fancy footwork is required to wind up so sorry for the crossdresser and not for the wife; when I look at her sympathetically, she almost spits. Pity from people like me is not what she wants either.

The men I met were by and large decent, kind, intelligent, and willing to talk openly. Their wives were the same, many of them under the additional pressure of having to make the best accommodation they can to a marriage they did not envision and do not prefer.

The final section is the one which Thorin quotes; the one where Bloom talks about crossdressing as an exclusively sexual fetish.

Bloom: The greatest difficulty people have with cross-dressers, I think, is that cross-dressers wear their fetish, and the gleam in their eyes, however muted by time or habit, the unmistakable presence of a lust being satisfied or a desire being fulfilled in that moment, in your presence, even by your presence, is unnerving. The combination of the cross-dressers' own arousal and anxiety and our responsive anxiety and discomfort is more than most of us can bear. We may not mind foot fetishists, but we may not wish to watch them either.

Wearing her fetish?

This notion touches on what another of my correspondents called, with unmatchable turn of phrase, "wanking in public". It is clear that Bloom considers this to be what crossdressing is: a sexual fetish expressed publicly. Perhaps she is worried about the horses.

So much for the article. Why does it upset me so much? Because I can see truth in it. I can pretend that none of it applies to me, but the fact that it makes me deeply uncomfortable doesn't make it wrong. I seem to fit Bloom's model pretty well: educated, professional, intelligent, kind, and willing to talk openly.

I do wonder what other people see when they see Vivienne. I am sure they don't see the same as I see. I wonder if they look at me with abhorrence, with scorn, or with pity, with silent tolerance rather than open acceptance. But I can cope with all that. What is worse is something Grayson Perry touched on: crossdressing causes everyone a lot of pain; the crossdresser himself, and his spouse (and sometimes their kids).

My wife really struggles with crossdressing, and we are a long way from her coming with me on a cruise where I can wear a dress every day. And yet a very good description of my wife would be "having to make the best accommodation she can to a marriage she did not envision and does not prefer". Grimly accepting, indeed.

I had hoped to summon a series of carefully constructed arguments to demolish Bloom's article, but I find I cannot. What she describes is not my present, but it comes uncomfortably close to what might possibly be my future.

Interestingly, Atlantic Monthly doesn't seem to have this article available in its online archives, though other articles from the same issue are available. I wonder if it has been deliberately withdrawn, and if so, why?

I can make some points, though. Whether Bloom likes it or not, my own crossdressing desires will never go away. I would rather not be this way, and I would really rather not cause anyone else (especially my wife) any discomfort as a result.

The fact that this is the way I am does not make me a bad person. It does not make me cruel, manipulative, exploitative or otherwise objectionable. Trust me when I say, I have a host of positive attributes. There are a lot of behaviours out there which are a lot worse than crossdressing, which seem to be tolerated.

I think things are changing. I don't think all crossdressers fit with Bloom's archetype (even she says as much), and I think that public crossdressing is becoming commoner (and less noteworthy) all the time. A generation ago, if we had seen two men or two women showing affection publicly, there might have been societal discomfort or even overt disapproval. These days, it's no big deal any more (though no doubt, disapproval persists in some quarters). Is homosexuality a fetish? Are gay people acting out their fetish in public? Surely homosexuality is all about sex? Actually no. But people may well have felt that way once. And in the same way, perhaps crossdressing will come to be accepted as nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody bothers any more to ask why some people are gay. The accepted answer is: they just are.

I can promise you one thing in closing. No matter what I wear, no matter how high my heels, or how red my lipstick, the horses will not mind one little bit.

===
Addendum 24th September 2014

I sent an email to Amy Bloom via her publisher, telling her the article was continuing to provoke debate, and inviting her to comment. I received this reply:

Sorry! I wish to thank you for the invitation and say that I am currently up to my eyes in a new novel. I don't have the psychic room, right now, to engage with other, interesting projects.

Regards,
Amy.

I am naturally disappointed that she has declined to discuss the article with us. If she changes her mind, I will be sure to let you know.

Alex Reid

Imagine you are a crossdresser. You meet and then marry a woman who is gorgeous, sexy, glamorous and adventurous. You reveal your secret to her, and she is thrilled: not only does she dress you, but she celebrates your fem side and enjoys making love to you dressed. How does that make you feel?

Masculine: Reid

Alex Reid is not short of masculinity. Handsome and chiselled, he is a mixed martial artist and cage fighter (though, seemingly, not a very good one). He has also been a bit-part actor. He shot to fame in the UK when he found himself dating a woman called Katie Price, whose stage name is "Jordan", in 2009. Here he is as he would like you to think of him. His Wikipedia article contains a single line about his crossdressing, and his personal website, nothing at all (unsurprisingly).

Price is a former topless model, whose career has included modelling, fashion and beauty, television and media, and writing books about herself.

Price is no airhead with big boobies. She is shrewd, ruthless and successful, having negotiated the treacherous waters of media celebrity for many years. According to Wikipedia, she is now worth over 40 million pounds.

Feminine: Jordan

At the time they got together, Price was splitting up from her former husband, singer Peter Andre. Andre released the single Mysterious Girl in 1996, and wowed teen audiences with his famous "washboard stomach", before disappearing without trace, until he was washed up on the celebrity career resurrection show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in the UK, in 2004. Down in that jungle, amid the bugs, the bush tucker, and the humiliation, love blossomed between Price and Andre.

After the show finished, they not only married, but became reality TV sensations, starting a whole franchise of programmes about their personal lives. We learned, at least at first, that Andre seemed actually to be quite a nice bloke. In any case, it relaunched his career very successfully. In a breathless moment of schmaltz, Price and Andre even released their own cover version of A Whole New World, the love song between Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. They had two children together, whose names they seemingly chose by picking letters at random from the Scrabble bag.

When the relationship came (inevitably) crashing down, the whole country was in on every detail of the separation. Depending where your sympathies lay, one could buy T-shirts, with "Team Peter" or "Team Katie" on them, to show the world whose side you were on. In other words, all eyes were on Katie Price, and who her next swain was going to be. Practically nobody had ever heard of Alex Reid, but suddenly he was being photographed on red carpets next to Price, and setting gossip columnists a-flutter.

Roxanne: seriously?

It didn't take long for things to hot up. Reports began to emerge that Alex Reid was a transvestite, whose secret alter-ego was "Roxanne". But all was not lost. Not only was Price untroubled, she seemed positively to relish having a transvestite for a boyfriend.

Contact Music: Katie Price has vowed to stand by boyfriend Alex Reid, despite revelations he is a cross-dresser. The glamour model insists she has no plans to dump the cage fighter over his feminine alter-ego 'Roxanne' and says they are very happy. She said: "We're very much together."

It was at this point that I started to take an interest. Initially upset that he had been outed, Reid seemed to calm down, when Price allowed him access to her enormous collection of clothing, cosmetics, wigs and other feminine accoutrements. She described it enthusiastically here on the Graham Norton Show:

Price: When he told me, I'm like, Oh my God, I gotta dress you up. In my dressing room I got wigs, eyelashes, everything. I went: you are perfect, you're my girl, so please let me do you up, please let me do you up. And he's like, hang on a minute, this is a bit weird, I'm not used to a girl saying "let me do you up", 'cause normally it's a private thing he does. But I'm well into it, it doesn't bother me.

Awww.... matching outfits!

Price is not simply feminine: she is uber-feminine. Everything is just a little more: the eyes, the boobs, the teeth, the tan, the hair, the lashes, the lips. This is all a carefully cultivated image, and the whole package, for me, teeters on the very brink of attractiveness, just above the cliff of grotesque. In addition, she is confident, powerful, and used to discussing her personal life in public.

Norton: Have you had sex with Roxanne?
Price: Of course! Call me strange, call me weird, whatever.
Norton: So when you're with Roxanne, are you... two women, or are you sometimes the man?
Price: I boss him about. He becomes quieter.
Guest: Can I ask, is there a bit of leather involved, and a whip?
Price: Honestly, you name it, he's been there, done it. Honestly, anything goes with him. I'm having such a fun time.

Faced with this level of approval, it was only a matter of time before we saw Roxanne publicly, and here they are, Jordan and Roxanne, in matching gold outfits, at the launch of one of Price's several autobiographies, in 2009. Price was reported to have ordered designer dresses to be specially made in Reid's size.

Getting his Rox off: Reid

So let's just pause here for a moment. What's going through Alex's mind? First, he is married to a woman who is considered to be one of the most desirable in the country, to say nothing of wealthy. Second, he seems to have entered transvestite nirvana: not only does Price accept his transvestism, she embraces it enthusiastically, and provides him with a level of access to feminine accoutrements which must be almost unparalleled. Third, Reid has gone from being a relatively unknown person to being one of the most famous faces in the country. This interview with the Guardian seems to get a very clear picture of him, without even mentioning crossdressing.

It seems quite understandable to me that all of this would be a bit of a shock; something quite difficult to deal with. And unfortunately, Reid just wasn't equipped to handle Price and her ruthless career machine. He was, unfortunately, merely a pawn.

It wasn't long before cracks started to show. Tabloids spoke of Price's disappointment that Reid was unwilling or unable to have a baby with her. There were reports of him having sex with other men as Roxanne, and the relationship shattered apart after barely one year.

It won't surprise you in the least that Price has continued to manipulate the media in her own interests. Price wrote it all down in a book, Love, Lipstick and Lies, published in 2011, excerpts from which made it into the popular press. Sex with cross-dressing Alex Reid was obscene, depraved and left me frightened, roared the Mirror.

Price: Think of the most disturbing porn you could imagine, and times that by ten. Only then are you getting close to what I witnessed and what Alex wanted me to join in with. I’ve tried a few things in my time, but I’d never before f***** a man dressed up as a woman who happened to be my husband. I felt as if I was crossing a line, going to a dark place where there were no boundaries, where there was no normal.

I just hope the poor girl can somehow get over it and just get on with her life.

Reid all about it!

I feel extremely sympathetic to Alex Reid. He is, without doubt, an autogynephilic transvestite. He wants what we all want; to dress freely, to enjoy it, and to have fun. At first, it must have been breathtaking, being dressed by Katie Price and having her order designer gowns in his size. And yet, we all look in the mirror and feel we are not as beautiful on the outside as we feel on the inside. How much more cruel is that comparison, when the face beside you is that of Katie Price?

And what about the effect on his sense of self, his manhood, when the press were calling him "Mr Katie Price" and he was known for nothing other than being her plus one? That must be pretty hard to handle. And what about those outfits? They were (almost certainly) chosen by Price for maximum impact; he would probably have looked very strange in almost any feminine garb, but careful wardrobe and cosmetics can be amazing. On the other hand, these two outfits, in which he was pictured publicly, are just dreadful. No wonder that, in every picture I've seen, he looks ill-at-ease. Partly that's because he wasn't dressed as Roxanne, he was dressed as Jordan, which is something that few women (and far fewer men) can actually pull off.

In another universe, the public acceptance of Jordan's transvestite husband would simply be mandated by her celebrity. There would be no arguing against it. Left a little longer, and it would have been downright cool. I can see young male wannabees shaving their legs and squeezing into those skimpy outfits to impress their girls. I had genuinely hoped these events would be a step towards public acceptance of crossdressing. But not in this universe.

And what do you do, when you open yourself up to someone you love about crossdressing, and they hurt you deeply? You purge, and you purge good.

Digital Spy: The cage fighter has apparently vowed never to dress up as Roxanne again after suffering emotional abuse when Price revealed his secret to others and made him dress in drag publicly for her book launch in 2009. According to The Sun, Reid told a friend: "Roxanne is dead and it was Katie who heartlessly exposed her. She murdered her. She is evil and she will pay."

I think this particular choice of language, with violent metaphors, points to deep emotional suffering. I do not doubt Reid never wants to dress again, but I do not doubt that he eventually will.

 

Katie Price is currently in another marriage, but will probably get divorced in the next month or so if she plays to form. Reid had a daughter with another glamour model, Chantelle Houghton, but the word on the street is that they have separated too.

Meanwhile, Reid is back pretending to be a real man's man once again-- but for how long?