The cross-dresser at the rodeo

Sissy Goodwin is a defiant cross-dresser, said John M. Glionna in the Los Angeles Times. Since he lives in the big-buckled Cowboy State of Wyoming, the 67-year-old has spent decades dealing with stares, catcalls, and sometimes beatings. The heterosexual married father of two has been called a queer and a pervert, has had his front teeth kicked out by strangers, and is regularly booted out of stores and restaurants because of his feminine attire. But Goodwin refuses to let his intolerant Wyoming neighbors win. “When someone doesn’t meet their expectations of what a man should be like, they run him out of town,” he says. “I wasn’t going to go.” Raised by an alcoholic mother and an abusive stepfather, Goodwin says that dressing up in girls’ clothing became a “safety valve, an escape from a hostile environment.” His secret obsession persisted into his adult life—he would compete in rodeos wearing panties under his chaps—until he finally confessed to his wife-to-be. Having glimpsed the lace beneath his blue jeans, she wasn’t exactly shocked, and from then on, Goodwin vowed to be true to himself. When a woman called him a sissy, the linebacker-size college science instructor boldly assumed the name. “First I was offended,” he says. “Then I saw it: ‘That’s who and what I am. I wear women’s clothes.’”

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