Thank You Kandi!

By Amanda J.

I wanted to do something special for my 50^th post here but even that has proved a challenge.  If you look on the link to all of my posts, you’ll see that there are five pages of 10 posts.  But, thanks to my first ever post – The Magic of a Makeover – being rerun a few weeks ago, I’ve actually appeared here 51 times.  But it gets even more complicated because one of the posts was not, strictly speaking, written by me – it was a gesture from Kandi when I had to cease posting for a while and consisted of a collection of comments I’d left on the posts of other contributors.  So really, it’s only 49 posts.  Or 50 if the double posting of the first one cancels out the one I didn’t really write.  Or 51 if it doesn’t.

So for the sake of the sanity of all of us, let’s settle on 50 and get on with the celebrations.

On 23 November 2023, Kandi’s post was similar to many others.  Perhaps less words than some of the others but it was a post that touched every other contributor here, literally.  Because that post was entitled ‘Thank You For Being a Friend’ and one by one, she singled each of us out to thank us for our contributions to her blog.  I think each of us could write a post dedicated to Kandi entitled ‘Thank You For Being A Friend’.   I personally thank Kandi often for giving me a platform where I can be myself but, unselfish soul that she is, she always bats it back and I’m sure that my co-contributors here all experience something similar, such is Kandi’s wonderful nature to give her all and seek nothing in return.   The truth is that no amount of thanks will ever be enough to acknowledge what Kandi has given to our community as a whole and me in particular but I do know that success stories make her particularly proud so I’d like to share my own thoughts about exactly what being included in the internet’s premier CD-themed blog has meant to me.

Since I first put my head above the Kandi’s Land parapet on 15 October 2021 by adding a comment to that day’s post, my life has taken twists & turns that I could never have imagined.  I’d been an occasional visitor before but on that day, I read a post that I found incredibly moving, not least because I knew that if I’d been able to read it in November 2013, I may not have made such a hash of confessing my CDing to Mrs A.  The post was, of course, ‘An Open Letter To Our Wives’ and that short piece managed to encapsulate everything we needed to think about before making our big confession, both from the words written and from the wealth of insight that reading between the lines revealed.  That piece was transformative enough at the time, prompting me to offer my services to Kandi as a contributor, but little did I know how big a part it would go on to play in my life just over 15 months later.

But I’m jumping ahead a bit here.  I just mentioned reading between the lines or, to put it another way, understanding the hidden messages in the posts, and I found much to savour by doing just that.  From some of the contributors here, the hidden message was ‘if I can do it, so can you’.  From others, it was ‘give respect and you’ll get it back in spades’.  And others screamed ‘just because you have XY chromosomes, it doesn’t mean you can’t look fabulous’!

And maybe that’s what prompted me to offer my services as a contributor to Kandi.  Every post, whether written by Kandi herself or by one of her growing band of contributors, exudes positivity and there’s nowhere else quite like it, well nowhere that I’ve ever found during the unhealthy amounts of time I’ve spent trawling the internet looking for answers anyway.  When I started on this phase of my CDing journey in July 2019, I used to use Flickr posts to share my views – post a photo and then ramble on a bit about how I was feeling etc. – but Flickr ended up being just too competitive.  As a photo sharing site, posts take the form of comments to a photograph and I soon got sucked into worrying about how many views, ‘faves’, comments and follows I’d get and, even worse, worrying about the quality of photos I was taking.  For us, CDing should evoke feelings of bliss, euphoria, relief etc., not anxiety, fear, self-loathing (if the photos didn’t measure up to expectations) and all of the other negative emotions that lurk in the shadows waiting to attack us.

It took a minor breakdown to bring an end to all of that but, in calling a halt to it, I needed somewhere else where I could be myself and finally Kandi’s Land became that place.  When I came on board, the contributors’ list was considerably shorter than it is now but I was in a minority of one and not only because I was then the only inhabitant of that strange far off land several thousand miles from the rest of them.  Every other contributor would post accounts of outings they’d had in the outside world and the acceptance that flowed their way whereas I was well and truly stuck in the closet.  But I was never made to feel anything other than welcome and for reasons that I’m still not entirely clear about, the ramblings of the mad British one seemed to be appreciated by the readership.

And to me, that was important.  I’m a living breathing human and, even though I’m an introverted loner at heart, I need contact with others.  As I became established here, friendships formed with several of the contributors (I won’t name you but you know who you are) which underlines that Kandi’s Land is far more than just a blog – it’s a true community.  So my first thank you to Kandi is for providing me with a place where I can be, and be recognised as, myself.

But as I wrote posts to submit to Kandi, I had no idea how much the posts I read, particularly the aforementioned ‘Open Letter’, would impact my life.

2023 started as normal.  I was a deeply closeted CDer operating completely under the marital radar, breaking a promise to stop that I’d given after being issued with an ultimatum by Mrs A after my first confession in 2013.  Every day, I looked for a way that I could be honest with her about something that I knew caused her immense emotional distress without just feeling that I was dumping everything onto her to relieve my own conscience.  And then, towards the end of January, a computer glitch caused me to accidentally ‘out’ myself for the second time.  That happened at around 10:00 on a Saturday morning and I knew that it would be around 8 hours before I could go and sit down with her to try to save my marriage.

The first hour or two were not easy to say the least as I tried to figure out exactly how to extricate myself from the situation and wondered whether I’d still have a marriage.  But then I remembered the ‘Open Letter’, found the post and read it through once again.  I cannot begin to describe how much strength reading that post gave me and by the time I’d read it a couple of times, I knew exactly what I had to say to Mrs A, wrote myself a script and emotionally delivered it to her when the time came.  I’ll never know whether anything that I said based on that post swayed Mrs A towards giving her blessing for a DADT arrangement and away from giving me my marching orders from the marriage but what I do know is that, without it, I would have found it very difficult to confront her and I honestly don’t know what I would have done.  I know I’m not the only person who owes Kandi a debt of gratitude for that post, such is the power that it has.

And so, with 2023 ahead of me and no more guilt, the scene was set for what has been a truly memorable year, not that I realised it when I breathed a sigh of relief that my marriage was still intact and Mrs A had agreed to look the other way, so to speak.

So let’s take stock of the situation so far.  Kandi had given me a platform where I could be myself and had saved my marriage.  That’s pretty good but there was more to come.

I got my first chance to retrieve my stash two days after Mrs A gave her blessing to DADT.  And as I put on my clothes, the feeling was off the scale amazing.  No more deception, no more guilt.  I’d also temporarily stepped back from posting here while I waited to see whether things would all unravel and, in many respects, nothing had really changed.  I was still deep in the closet, protected from prying eyes by the four walls of my house.

Now, I had been out of the house a couple of times in the past.  But in doing so, I made absolutely sure that no one would see me and returned back to the safety of my house quickly (those two outings were measured in minutes and not very many of them).  It was going out for the sake of going out – something along the lines of ‘been there, done that, bought the T-shirt’!  But the truth is that there are only a certain number of times that one could read about the adventures that Kandi, Dee, Jocelyn, Gwen, Lisa, Tina et al had in the outside world before the need to follow suit became overwhelming.  And these were definitely adventures; not a case of a furtive trip out when no one was about but forays into the outside world, mingling with others and looking unbelievably happy as a result.  And these outings weren’t happening in the rarefied atmosphere of the CD community but rather in normal society doing normal things like visiting shops and restaurants.

Read between the lines on any post here and there’s an important message – the only barriers that exist to spreading your feminine wings are almost always those you put in place yourself.  Needing to keep it away from family is an important barrier (and, as I’ve said before, operating under a DADT arrangement is a clear indication that the wife wants nothing to do with it and, in particular, doesn’t want to see it) but fear of not passing, fear of being seen by other people or even just fear of being outside in women’s clothes?  Those were all self-imposed fears and one by one, I found them evaporating, both from seeing the inspiration & example of others here and from the realisation that the consequences of those fears are unimportant.  I don’t pass?  So what, it doesn’t matter!  Someone will see me?  We’re a sociable species and it does happen!  A guy wearing women’s clothes?  It’s not illegal!  And so on.

And so began my adventures mingling with society in the outside world, each time pushing the envelope a little further.  So Kandi, you can add being the leader of a group of wonderful ladies who inspired me to escape the confines of the closet to the list!

But I’ve saved the best till last!

2023 was a momentous year for me.  I’ve already related how, armed with Mrs A’s blessing for a DADT arrangement, I was spending time in my female guise without guilt and how I was pushing the boundaries in a literal sense, going out into the outside world whereas the four walls of my house had previously been the limit.  But while I was going out, I always felt a degree of nervousness and always placed an invisible barrier between myself and the rest of humanity.  There was still one hurdle to overcome and that was interaction with others.

Interaction is a big step.  We can convince ourselves that no one will notice us as we walk anonymously amongst other shoppers and that’s generally true but as soon as we open our mouth, the sordid truth is almost certainly going to be revealed.  Even if we’ve managed a transformation that would fool our own mother, the low pitched voice that emanates from us leaves no doubt in the mind of anyone within earshot.  And then, surely, someone will out us with a shriek of ‘yes, SIR, what can I do for you?’ or turn to their companion and in the deafening tones of a stage whisper declare ‘don’t look now but that’s a guy’!

Except they won’t.

Maybe it’s due to the strict discrimination laws we have in the UK but more likely it’s just a reflection that the vast majority of humanity are fundamentally decent and compassionate individuals who understand that whilst someone may appear out of the ordinary, they deserve just as much respect as anyone else.  And if there’s one message that reverberates around Kandi’s Land more than any other, it’s that one.  That’s not to say that deliberately placing ourselves in what we fear could be the lion’s den is not a big deal – it definitely is because it fundamentally requires us to ‘out’ ourselves, albeit to people we don’t know personally.

Ultimately, all it takes is a mental shift from the position that asks ‘what if someone realises I’m a guy?’ to ‘so what if someone realises I’m a guy?’ and then the challenge is just to be the best we can possibly be rather than worrying that we fall short of a goal that is to all intents and purposes unattainable.  And that message comes through loud and clear on pretty well every Kandi’s Land post from every contributor, but in particular from Kandi herself.

And so it was that, on the 12 November, I put on my makeup, got dressed in a simple outfit of a sweater, trousers, low heeled ankle boots and a long coat and made my way to a local town where I bought items, queueing up with the other shoppers to pay the SA, before heading to a coffee shop to order a hot drink and pastry.  And no one batted an eyelid, just as every other contributor here had subliminally promised every time they posted.

And a few days later, I did it all again, this time in a skirt and higher heels.  I don’t know what happened during that second outing but when it was time to return home, I turned to face all of the other shoppers in the lift/elevator and smiled at all of them without any cares or worries – something that was inconceivable even when I left the house a couple of hours earlier.   I no longer fear those I encounter realising that under the clothes and makeup, I’m a guy – in fact I’d quite like it if they did realise that.  Because I also want them to see that in the same way that I don’t fear them, they have nothing to fear about me and the countless other people like me.   I want them to see that people like me have the utmost respect for womanhood and we try to represent it in the best and most respectful way that we possibly can.

And the truth is that without Kandi’s Land, most if not all of that would not have happened.  I would never have realised that society in general doesn’t care who you are or how you are dressed and will give you the same amount of respect that you give them.  I wouldn’t have had the confidence to open that front door, get into the car and drive to places full of people.  And I would still be in a blind panic if anyone came within ten feet of me lest they realised what I am.

I’d like to draw this post to a close with a photo (see above).  It, or one similar to it, has seen the light of day here before but it embodies everything I’ve said here.  From the fateful day when I found a pair of tights which my mother had discarded and tried them on, I’ve been fighting a battle to rid myself of this scourge on my life.  After all, who would go through life experiencing guilt, frustration, shame, deception and everything else that goes with the territory out of choice?  To be honest, this was a battle I never thought that I’d win; after all, however we try to frame it, the bottom line is that normal guys don’t spend their lives wishing they’d been born female or feel overwhelming urges to transform themselves into glamorous women.  And the whole thing is made ten times worse by the fact that we cannot generally talk about it to others.

But it’s a battle I did win, not by beating the inner woman into submission but by unconditionally accepting her and allowing her to flourish.  No one pretends that any of this is easy; it’s emotionally draining and demands us to master dark arts such as makeup application, walking in heels and doing up rear fasteners.  But, whilst it didn’t seem like it at the time, those were the easy bits.  Crossing the threshold into the big wide world not only presenting as our female alter ego but functioning as her is a huge step and one which, when I first signed on at Kandi’s Land, I never thought I’d experience.   And this photo represents the day when Kandi’s rules of the road – be smart, appropriate, confident and visible – stopped being rules and became the key that opened the door to amazing experiences.

So Kandi, this is all down to you, the example you set and the amazing people you’ve brought together.  Whilst our paths may never cross in the physical world, that is purely down to geography and The Atlantic; you are a true friend and the world is a better place thanks to you.  If I say T**** Y** again, I know you’ll only bat it back like you always do.  But I hope that you understand the depth of my gratitude and, more importantly, put your modesty to one side and actually post this because people like you are a rarity and the world needs to know about you!

Epilogue

If you read my last post – ‘Coping With Change’ – you’ll know that my feminine side is taking a rest from life for now.  I started writing today’s post some time ago when I was regularly (and frequently) CDing but I still stand by every single word.  Because whether or not I’m bringing the inner woman to life in a physical sense, she is still very much a part of who I am and never far from my thoughts.  And I know that I’m not I’m the first person here to say that the sense of belonging here helps keep the feminine spirit alive when circumstances conspire against us.  As I write this, I don’t know when opportunity & desire will align and I’ll once again hear the click-clack of my stilettos on our hard floors but what I do know is thatthis community will continue to support me, and countless others like me, until that day comes.

And finally….

I’d like the comments on this post to focus on Kandi, not me, so please feel free to add your own thoughts about what having Kandi as a friend means to you!