MASCULINITY IN AMERICA: A 'real man' in a dress

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This is part of a series.

MASCULINITY IN THE COWBOY STATE

The reinvention of a ‘real’ man

A mother’s charge

Eight seconds to pain or glory: the story of a bull rider

A ‘real man’ in a dress

MASCULINITY IN AMERICA

A ‘real man’ in a dress

A small-town widow drives across Wyoming with a playwright to share the story of the Cowboy State’s most beloved cross-dresser: her deceased husband

By Jose A. Del Real
December 21, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Reported in Douglas, Laramie, Cheyenne, Buffalo, Sheridan, Cody, Jackson, Rock Springs, Riverton and Casper, Wyoming

ACT I

In late March 2020, 12 days after the death of her husband of 51 years, Vickie Goodwin received an email.

She had spent the past several weeks at home in central Wyoming sorting through his clothing, a common if painful burden for a grieving widow. In this case, however, the garments had weighed heavily on the life she built with her husband, Larry Goodwin, a onetime airplane mechanic, military veteran and rodeo cowboy. Skirts and peasant blouses dangled in their closet, alongside petticoats, dresses and hair ribbons. They were Larry’s.

His cross-dressing had been a private matter when Larry and Vickie first married in 1968, and their lives from that point might have unfolded in the same way as many other families of their generation. After years as a housewife, Vickie went in search of a career, selling Tupperware before she joined an environmental nonprofit and, later, became involved in local Democratic politics. Larry, meanwhile, jumped between trades before working his way up at the power plant near Douglas, Wyo., where he and Vickie lived with their two children. They were intent on climbing into the middle class. ... But in the early 1970s, Larry began to wear feminine clothing in public.

The threat of violence loomed over them from that point on, especially in small-town Wyoming, the Cowboy State. No matter that Larry was in many ways a conventional man from rural America: great at building things, gruff in voice and demeanor, traditionally manly in almost every other way down to his calloused hands. He wasn’t gay and he wasn’t transgender — he identified as male and was attracted to women. But to break any one rule of masculinity was to be excluded entirely, and Larry became a warning about what would happen if you did so.

He was punched, teased, dragged, jumped, pushed and kicked, sometimes in front of his family. He was harassed by police officers and arrested on several occasions for wearing women’s clothes in public — which was not a crime. He was bullied at work. Once, Vickie recalled, Larry had his teeth knocked in by a stranger on their front lawn, some tough guy, as their son watched helplessly.

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Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3jW1HRI

By Jose Del Real
Jose A. Del Real is a reporter for The Washington Post. He travels the country to write in-depth feature stories about American life and politics. Twitter https://twitter.com/jdelreal