Mrs Benn

For a lot of t-girls, being “dressed” is all about looking as glamorous as possible. For me it’s not; it’s about doing everyday things when I’m at home in Sheffield, and when I’m away from home, it’s about sightseeing, galleries and museums. But every now and again its fun to get dressed up for a night on the town. Last weekend I was in Manchester for a large t-girl get-together. It was perishing cold, but fortunately the snow stayed away – as the photo shows, I didn’t bring the most appropriate footwear for snowy streets. I had a great time – dinner with friends, talking and dancing.

For me, Christmas is a family-focused period. I’m not going to “get out” until midway through January. But that’s fine: my family are important to me. I’ve chosen a life that involves compromises. I could have come out to my children, but they know me as their father, and for where they are in their lives right now, it seems too much to ask of them to expect that they come to terms with the idea of my having a feminine persona. I feel awkward living such a closeted life, but I arrived in my middle years possessed of the daft conviction that being transgendered was some sort of teenage phase that just got a bit out of control. Having enforced on my family one delusion – that I’m just a regular guy – it would be self-indulgent to require them now, after so many years, to adroitly readjust to the notion that in fact I’m not a regular guy at all. It’s been very hard for my wife, and nearly killed our marriage. So the compromises and self-restraint are just the way it has to be. I love my family very much. The role of father is one that I’ve sought to discharge to the best of my ability and I don’t intend to let up now.

Having said all of that, my first outing of 2018 is already in my diary…