01 August 2009

Crossdressing and politics

I've been thinking about this for a few years now.

Is Australia ready for a crossdressing politician? I don't mean someone who is in the closet about their crossdressing. I mean a heterosexual, married man who publicly admits that he is a crossdresser, complete with a sizable collection of publicly accessible photos on flickr in various places online. [edited October 2010 - flickr photos no longer publicly accessible but there are photos online elsewhere.]

A few years ago, I seriously considered being involved in politics but wasn't going to be out about my crossdressing if I did. Not long before my candidacy would have become public, a TS friend made a comment to me in a chat room. Her comment was something like "It's not if you get outed, it's when. If you go into politics, you will be outed." I knew that what she was telling me was true, and that I'd been trying to delude myself into believing otherwise. I had also gained a fairly good insight into how dirty politics really is, so I withdrew and that was that.

After a while, I had a bit of a think about all of that, and decided that if I ever do get into politics, I will have to be completely out about my crossdressing before I even start.The reality is that I've been letting people around me know about it, but telling the world at large is something else entirely. I'm not sure whether I'm ready for it, and I'm not sure that I want to do that to my wife and son.

Then there are the politicial ramifications. If I'm completely open about my crossdressing, will a political party want anything to do with me, and would anyone vote for me? Imagine for a moment that there was an election where the 2 leading candidates were a married crossdresser and a guy who had abandoned his wife and children to shack up with his secretary. Which one would people vote for?

The only political positive would be that there'd be no skeletons in my closet. :)

3 comments:

  1. There would probably be very negative publicity associated with a crossdresser running for office, but sometimes the first person helps to make progress for later people.

    You raise some interesting points ... you never know, if the other candidate was a cheater and family abandoner, the voters may believe a crossdresser to be "the lesser of two evils" ... :)

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  2. I personally dislike people who cheat on their partners.

    Have you ever asked what your wife & son think about the possibility of you going into politics?

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  3. The big problem that I keep coming back to is nothing to do with crossdressing. It's the fact that being involved in politics for altruistic reasons is not the "right" reason any more.

    I've asked my wife several times about it. I made it clear that I'd have to be completely out about the crossdressing before I'd be prepared to do it, and that didn't seem to make any difference to her. She's certainly not negative about it, but she's not enthusiastic about it either!

    My son is 6, and knows about my crossdressing but doesn't seem to be particularly aware of politics and politicians. My biggest concern is that if other children at his school knew about me, it could cause him problems, and I don't want to do that to him.

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