A woman who met her cross-dressing partner on TikTok said the pair often get mistaken for two women on nights out.
Linda Bailey, 43, first came across Phil Walsh, 37, in his cross-dress persona on the social media app in December 2021. The pair starting liking and commenting on each other's videos, before chatting privately.
By February of this year, they realised they had romantic feelings for each other and decided to meet up in Sheffield the following month. After hitting it off, the couple started dating and Phil, who previously lived and worked in Oldham, proposed in June.
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The pair now live in Coventry and love to dress up and do their make-up together. Linda, who works in clinical diagnostics, said: "I've never known Phil any other way as when I first saw him it was on his TikTok in cross-dress.
"I don’t see it as anything I need to support him on because it’s just him. People can assume he is homosexual or trans because he likes to cross-dress.
"He gets asked out a lot by men because he looks amazing as a woman. We’ve had men come up to us to sit with us as they think we’re both women.
"He’s better at doing make-up than me too. We’re both confident in who we are and that’s what matters."
Phil, a field technician, said: "For the last 10 years I would come home from work and put a skirt on. I've always found feminine clothes more comfortable.
"I joined TikTok about a year a go and decided to go for a make-over and had a wig put on and my make-up done. It was amazing and a massive weight of my shoulders.
"I never had to hide who I was from Linda. She liked both sides of me from the beginning.
"We have dress-up nights or come home and put our matching pyjamas on. She loves me for me."
Linda came across Phil after he popped up on her 'for you' page on TikTok and the pair started engaging on each other’s videos. "I saw his social media account which was under his former cross-dressing personality name," she said.
“I also have a background of elaborate dressing and used to be a cyber goth so I’d wear six-inch platforms and corsets. We started chatting privately and realised it was more than a friendship."
The pair decided to meet up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to go ice-skating for their first date in March 2022. "It was a whirlwind from there,” Linda said.
Phil started staying at Linda’s and commuting from there. In June, Phil asked Linda to marry him and the pair officially moved in together in October after Phil found a new job in Coventry.
"We walked past a jewellers and Phil just asked me which ring I’d choose and then asked me to marry him,” Linda said. "It was very sweet."
Linda has always been supportive of Phil’s cross-dressing a now the pair have a shared TikTok page where they positive videos all dressed up together. "He’s just a man who cross-dresses," Linda said.
"Any negativity doesn’t bother us. We have no room left for clothes as we both have so much stuff.
"We have a massive wardrobe and rail. We go from looking ordinary to looking insane but we love it."
The couple share wigs and make-up and Phil loves to cross-dress whenever he has time. "We can’t swap clothes as we’re different sizes," Linda said.
"He’s better and quicker at make-up than me."
Phil added: "It took me a while to work out where I fitted and know where my place was. But a whole new world has been opened up for me now.
"I'm not hurting anyone by cross-dressing - it's just clothes and make-up. When I'm dressed up I feel happy and I've realised it's part of me and just something I do.
"I want others to know they are not alone and to just be themselves."
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