The Women's Charter (CrossDresser's Dilemma of Coming Out)

Finally get some time to work on my blog. Cannot believe that I could post around 9 to 10 blog posts in November but hardly any time in December to work on one. It is quite unusual as December is a period where things start to wind down in many organisations and people start clearing their annual leaves. Anyway, I guess the festive season bug caught me too as I do feel kind of unmotivated to do anything.

Anyway, what has happened over the last few weeks is quite interesting. Isabelle approached me to ask if she can link her blog to mine for my article on Storage and Commercial Spaces for CD. I was more than happy and thrilled by her request as it shows that my blog can be a useful resource for the CD community. I agreed and saw a sudden surge of visitors to my humble blog. Hopefully my blog is kept up to standard. With that said, that means I must work harder to produce more blog posts of good quality to help the CrossDressing Community as a useful resource for them to turn to. 

With that said, I do have one topic on mind, but it may not be a popular one… This blog post is going to talk about The Women’s Charter in Singapore. Why did I decided to write about The Women’s Charter? Well unfortunately, CDs are not covered under this Act but I believe that transgenders, mainly trans women are protected under this statute. The reason for this post is for those CrossDressers who are married and are faced the dilemma or predicament about coming out to their wives about their CD tendencies. 

As we know, CrossDressing is usually frowned upon in Asia context and culture as it is associated with negative connotation such as gay, pervert, abnormal or crazy. However, a lot of CDs I know are normal straight males who just like to dress up as female as a form of mental and emotional release or getaway. Some are married with children, some got girlfriends, and some are looking for their better half of opposite gender. 

For crossdressers who are married, some came clean with their better half before tying the knot. For others, they may be like Isabelle case whereby the crossdresser revealed the truth after getting married. Coming out to their spouses having them to accept their CrossDressing “hobby” is NEVER an easy task and run the risk of ruining the relationship and face the wrath of THE WOMEN’S CHARTER. 

What is The Women’s Charter and what is so scary about it?

For short, The Women's Charter is an Act of the Singaporean Parliament passed in 1961. The Act was designed to improve and protect the rights of females in Singapore and to guarantee greater legal equality for women in legally sanctioned relationships. If you read the Act, it is filled with bombastic and legal sounding terms that no commoner can understand. Luckily for us, I found a summary on SingaporeLegalAdvice.com and the summary is as below.

I like to bring your attention to Point 10, which talk about divorce. For legal grounds to divorce, there has to be an “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage. This is the sole ground of divorce. In order to show an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, you have to prove at least one of 4 legally-defined facts. The 4 facts that can be used to obtain a divorce in Singapore are:

Adultery

Unreasonable behaviour

Desertion

Separation

For number 2, the grounds for divorce includes “One party has behaved in a way that the other cannot be reasonably expected to continue living with him or her”, which can be termed as Unreasonable Behaviour. 

For unreasonable behaviour, A has to show that B has behaved in such a way that A cannot reasonably be expected to live with B.

What constitutes unreasonable behaviour is subjective. That is to say, what are the actions that are unreasonable to you? Some examples include:

Violence

Constant late nights

Refusal to socialise

Drug addiction

Compulsive gambling habits

Deprivation of sex

Working too many hours 

The list is not exhaustive. Unreasonable behaviour is an easier fact to use for an uncontested divorce, as B does not have to admit to the behaviour. This is in contrast to adultery which has to be proven, and this can be embarrassing. It is unlikely that there will be consent to divorce for reason of adultery. Many a time, this is the reason cited for CD divorce…

And in Singapore law, all thanks to The Women’s Charter, looking at Points 12 and 13, the men (or CDs) will be subjected to division of matrimonial assets upon divorce and/or pay maintenance to his wife upon divorce, separation or annulment of marriage, which can be quite costly...

Why am I bringing all these points? I am not trying to advocate divorce or asking CDs to stay single and not to get married, or not getting hitched and probably turn gay in the near future. My main intention is to highlight all these points to consider as I have heard of sad stories of divorces and broken relationships after the CrossDressers either come out to their wives or was caught crossdressing. It was a dear price to pay…

How can we balance our CrossDressing “hobby” and married life? There is no easy and quick answer to this question as all couples are different. Communication, understanding, compromises and love may be the best answer but I also do not have a solution to this as I am also caught in this web of emotional struggle between both my egos at times… Probably this can be another more personal topic for me to talk about next time. 

Back to the point, what can a married (or attached) CrossDressers do? I am no expert but here are my personal thoughts of 4 possible scenarios.

1. Coming clean and Coming out, acceptance by spouse (BEST)

This is a daring leap of faith. If you know your wife’s personality well and can gauge her temper and reaction, you can do some groundwork in preparation for coming out of the closet. It will be good to know what are those red flags and trigger points of a CD that she cannot accept and try to avoid those or have a walkaround for those. Or maybe you can be like Isabelle (read all about how she come out to her wife here) and come out and hope for acceptance from your better half. There will be compromises and it will take a lot of communication and assurance, but this is the most favourable outcome. This really depends on the significant others as the ball of acceptance is in their court…

2. Coming out or got caught when CDing, no compromise by spouse (WORST)

I have heard of a few cases where the CDs come clean with their spouses and did not end too well… Despite that love should be unconditional, at times, there are some points where women cannot accept men who dressed in female clothes. If you are caught CDing, I guess the best is to confess and say why you CD and see if your better half is willing to accept the reasons. We cannot expect them to accept even though when they are supposed to accept the other person as a whole, the male ego and the CD ego, it is all very subjective… This is the worst case scenario and we want to avoid it at all cost…

3. Give up CrossDressing totally (HARDEST)

If you are serious about CrossDressing and also about your marriage, this will be the toughest decision to make. There will be purges and promises that you must keep. Once you chose this path, never look back. Just kill off your alter ego and bury it. No matter how much you want to get back, just dismiss that thought and tell yourself, CrossDressing is just a hobby. After that, pick up another hobby or activity that can help you to keep your mind occupied and off CrossDressing. Or find activities or hobbies that you can do with your wife and family, that might help to alleviate that urge to CD…

4. Remind closet and keep it a secret (POPULAR)

I guess this is the most popular choice as we just need to keep our CD hobby from our spouses and never to let them find out. However, I do know of some couples who do not really keep secret from each other. Besides, the best way for a relationship to grow stronger is through open communication. The way I see it, you can take CrossDressing as an “ex-gf” or “ex-relationship” that you do not wish to share with your wife. To each their own choices. Notwithstanding, you must weigh the consequences about telling the truth and possibly facing the fury of THE WOMEN’S CHARTER vs keeping it a secret and “live longer”… Which is a better option? That been said, keeping mum about has its downsides also. Firstly, some CDs like me, have to use a storage space to keep our CD stashes so that our partners will not find out, that is going to cost money monthly. Next, squeezing time out to CD and avoiding suspicion from your better half is always a walk on tight rope and not easy. It also run the risks of been exposed if you are not careful. 

Finally completed this post, I do apologise as this post is a bit long. I hope that I have shared some good thoughts and sufficient insights with my fellow CrossDressers and also bring you all through The Women’s Charter for you to consider. There is no hard and fast rule for coming out and be truthful with your significant other about your CD habits. Just think through carefully before you do anything. At the end of the day, just choose a path and outcome that you can live with. All the best and cheers.