I Nearly Married A Man and then I Discovered His Secret Wife.

For years I have been an advocate for disclosure.

For the safety of the transgender people involved, being up front and honest about our status is imperative. This allows our prospective romantic partner to absorb this information and make an informed decision rather than feel deceived or misled about their intended lover’s body. So many transgender women who engage in sexual relationships with men without disclosing their status are often met with hostility, violence and even murdered.

I was never very promiscuous. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be, don’t be fooled. I desperately wanted to be swimming in sex, uninhibited and with abandon. I wanted to be liberated from the coils of my own insecurities.

I wanted to experience the human condition on a sexual level, with men, with women, with other trans people. I saw each person as a story waiting to be told, I wondered what shaped them, where they came from, what brought them here. Sex to me was as much between my ears as it was the legs because I had this intense thirst to learn about people.

Some might say my catholic guilt kept me on a tight leash. I had this overwhelming belief that if I stepped out of line or risked doing something I ought not to, I would pay dear consequences. I never did drugs because I knew my head would blow off my shoulders. I never sped in my car because I knew my luck. If everyone around me was going 80 and the speed limit was 50 and I was going 55, I’d be the one pulled over and given a ticket. I have never led the kind of life where I could actually get away with anything. And if I tried, I would be so consumed with guilt, fear and dread that I’d probably turn myself in anyway. I stole a pack of gum from Woolworths when I was six years old, and my mother discovered me eating it in the backseat of the car on the way home.

“Where’d you get that?” She asked sharply.

I was silent.

“You stole that!” She shouted!

And in the middle of the freeway she did a u-turn, went back to Woolworths and marched me inside to confess to the cashier who simply didn’t care.

“My son stole this gum and ate it.” My mom said to the young girl behind the counter.