Clothes make the man on June 1, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ll keep this brief…or should I say bikini? I have been married for almost nine years and have two wonderful children with my husband. [Two years ago] I found out through a snoopfest that my husband is a transvestite…and has been acting out his behavior for 25 years. It floored me and freaked me out. I had the usual questions such as: did I do this to him? Is he gay? Has he been wearing my stuff? We have remained married thought I have offered separation and divorce twice since learning of his fetish. We have not had sex in two years and it is getting hard to resist the urge to find someone else to have a relationship with. He says he can control it and won’t do it anymore … I doubt him. Our sex life prior to the discovery was infrequent at best…i.e. three to four times a year. He has since explained that this is because his fetish is such a sexual stimulant to for him. I love him for the person he is…but can’t yet accept the fetish and fear I am going to “die on the vine.” How long should I wait to possibly feel something for him again? Should I leave him and give myself credit for trying for the last two years …I am not in love with him or even attracted to him anymore…or is it my problem and I should live with it?

— WonderWear

(more…)

You thought the Ally McBathroom was controversial? While such progress is, in many parts of the US, stalling, the BBC reports that the Kampang Secondary School in Thailand — a country known for its tolerance, if not warm fuzzy embrace, of men who dress and live as women — is now providing its student body with girls’, boys’, and transgender bathrooms. (See super-keen sign at right; call it the international symbol for “adolescence just got a liiiiittle bit easier.”) Kampang is not the first Thai educational institution to set up such a system, though it may be the first secondary school to do so, reports FOX. This news has stirred not controversy but discussion in other schools now wondering if they should follow suit.

As for Kampang itself, head teacher Sitisak Sumontha estimates that “in any year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgender.” (No word, it should be noted — and perhaps explored in a complicated socio-cultural dissertation — on girls who roll as boys.) He explains that the boys who desire to be girls are uncomfortable in either girls’ or boys’ restrooms, and that often, the girls and boys are uncomfortable there with them. So perhaps there’s still room for some diversity education, but at least in the meantime, these boys will be that much freer to heed the call of nature.