Robin Hunt and Katie Thomas

Kathy Richland

From “Bosom Buddies,” January 11, 2002

“Some of us, like Robin, are what’s called primary transsexuals, and they want nothing more than to be girls,” Katie explains. Katie, on the other hand, calls herself a “secondary transsexual.” She dresses in women’s clothing several times a week, yet enjoys coming home to a supportive wife. “When I was a kid, cross-dressing would have gone over like a lead balloon with my parents, obviously,” she says. “For years I had a pastime on the side. But I’ve raised my kids, and now it’s my turn. That’s really what this comes down to.”

Katie Thomas (not her real name) is a retired salesman who lives in a western suburb. When she first began cross-dressing in public a year and a half ago, she named herself after Kathy Levine, a QVC home shopping network host. “Kathy Levine epitomizes my idea of a feminine woman,” she explains. But she met so many Kathys at the Chicago Gender Society and at the Society for the Second Self, or Tri-Ess—a group for heterosexual cross-dressers—that in the end she settled on Katie.

Two or three days a week Katie, who’s in her early 60s, goes out as a woman. Some effort is required. She shaves her beard with a Gillette Mach3 razor. She also shaves her legs and upper chest and tweezes her eyebrows. To create a bust, says Katie, “you can use anything from sweat socks to old panty hose—just so it won’t be rock hard when somebody bumps into you.” She favors silicone forms designed for women who have had mastectomies—she’s found they pick up the warmth of the body.

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It takes Katie about an hour to get ready. There are nails to attach (“Contact cement works best as the adhesive”), makeup to apply, and a woman’s watch, a crystal-encrusted tennis bracelet, rhinestone wedding bands, and a fluffy blond wig to put on.

The clothing comes from Field’s, Carson’s, and Nordstrom. The shoes are from Payless and DSW Shoe Warehouse. “I believe in sales,” says Katie. “In my business life, I never paid $1,000 for a suit. I made sure I grabbed one for $300. It’s the same today. Paying more just isn’t necessary.”

She favors slacks, blouses, and blazers, having noticed on a visit to the mall that women out for the day generally avoid dresses. When she does wear a dress it’s a size 14. For special occasions she has five sequined cocktail frocks and a full-length nutria fur. All told, she guesses she has $4,000 worth of women’s clothing in her closet and spends $100 a month to maintain herself as a woman.

“This is not a cheap hobby,” says Katie.

Leaving the house, she gets into her late-model sedan, which is parked either in the attached garage or out on the driveway. “If the neighbors know, they know,” she says. “Now, I assume that the lady across the street must have an inkling, but what are you going to do? I made up my mind that I’m not hiding anything. If a neighbor came up to me and asked, I’d say, ‘Yes—it’s me. This is the way I am.’ Actually, I’m fairly sure the old lady does know. She’s a sweet lady. I’d love to have lunch with her.”

To Katie, nothing much beats a chatty con­versation over a light meal. “What interests me are personalities and relation­ships. To talk about the Bears, and who’s up for a trade, bores the hell out of me. The only thing that separates me in personality from a natural-born woman are my genitalia.”

On her days out, Katie hits the suburban malls, does lunch, and sees a movie. So far as she knows she’s never been recognized as her male self or even picked out as a cross-dresser. She’s worked hard to adopt feminine traits—mincing steps, fluttery hand motions. It also helps that she’s not especially tall. “With heels on I’m still under six feet,” she says. And she avoids one common mistake—the thick makeup, high hair, and short skirts that make some transsexuals look trashy. She learned her lesson the time she pulled into a gas station wearing a tight blue blouse over a leopard-skin skirt. A galoot came on to her. “He said he wanted to talk,” says Katie, “when all I wanted to do was get to the ladies’ room.”

As a man, she applied for a credit card in the name Katherine, supposedly a daughter. Along with a driver’s license that pictures a pleasant-faced bald man, she keeps an identification card with a photograph of herself and an explanation on the back: “Katherine A. Thomas is a male to female transgendered person who presents as a female. This is a natural expression of her personality and a requirement of her ongoing transgender therapy.”

She’s never had to show the card. For that matter, she’s never had any therapy. “For 100 bucks an hour, I can buy an awful nice outfit,” she says.   

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