Crossdresser Heaven

Fashion, makeup and body movement tips for crossdressers who want to look and feel more feminine

Archives: February 2009

Joanna's Cross Dresser Success Story – Celebrating the Woman Inside You

Categories: Crossdressing Success Stories

Tags: cross dresser success story, cross-dressing, crossdressing success story

Published on: February 27, 2009

This week our cross dresser success story takes us all the way north to Quebec Canada, where we join Joanna on her journey through hardship to celebrate the woman inside. As regular readers know by now, cross dresser success stories are real life stories from wonderful transgendered woman all over the world. These ladies have conquered self-doubt, bad hair days and all manner of malady’s to achieve success in some aspect of their crossdressing.

Please share your own cross dresser success story . It can be funny, scary, dramatic, emotional or described by some other adjective completely. A small slice of your cross dressing journey will shine a light for those who still travel this road in darkness.

Meet Joanna

My name is Joanna and I live in Montreal Quebec Canada. I have been a crossdresser since a very young age. Now divorced and looking to start the next phase of my life. I am 45 years old.

Joanna’s Cross Dresser Success Story – Celebrating the Woman Inside You

Joanna Shares Her Cross Dressing Success Story

My story begins at age 5 or so when I was playing dress up with my 2 younger sisters. I remember donning a pair of mom’s pumps and putting a rag on my head to serve as long hair.

My mom sent me a strong message that day to never to repeat this (although she does not remember doing so) and things went underground from there. I continued to dress in my room and when there was no one home. I would go into mom’s closet and wear her dresses, heels and makeup.

As puberty hit and the dreaded orgasm appeared I started to feel the guilt around my dressing and began the dreaded purge cycle for quite a number of years. You see I was raised in a very religious household and this was an aberration. I remember one time as a teenager crying in the shower praying that the urge would go away. Of course it never did.
I married shortly after my father’s death from cancer (in retrospect a mistake) and tried hard to suppress my desires for as long as a year at a time. I would buy clothes and after having masturbated in them after an outing as Joanna promptly threw them out always promising myself to never do it again.

Then after 12 years of marriage I told my wife about my secret in a letter to her which she actually found before I could give it to her. At first there seemed to be nothing but understanding and compassion around this issue and it was great. I entered a gender therapy program at the hospital to try and figure out where I was going with all this. My wife even went out with me a few times with me dressed as a woman. Then some months later she turned on the whole thing and said she wanted a divorce.

Our marriage had never been the strongest from the start and now this was the camel that broke the camel’s back for her. I was not happy either and after having had a health crisis in late 2007 (as it turned out a small stroke) things started to really go downhill for the marriage. In fact during my 10 day stay at the hospital she came for a one hour visit.
I am now divorced and things seem to be going better. I am feeling more relaxed, my children are adjusting well and my ex and I are able to communicate better. We are co-parenting our children and focusing on them. The therapy helped me to accept myself as I am and to realize that I am this way for a reason. God loves me exactly as I am and there need for guilt or shame regarding this activity. My mother and siblings now know about Joanna and have tried to be very understanding – so while they may not relate to what I am doing they take my word that it is something very deep and trust that I need to express it. God love them for it.
I now celebrate the woman in me by regularly going out and doing the little things as Joanna. I grocery shop or go downtown for a coffee. I get tremendous peace from this and treasure this part of myself. I am currently living with my mother until I get a new place and she faithfully washes my boy and girl clothes. I know I really have a good thing there.
Although I am now alone and would welcome an understanding woman in my life, I will never again suppress this part of myself to please another. I have learnt that we all need to be ourselves and in so doing be a better person towards other people even if society rejects us for who we are.
Peace,
Joanna

Have You Experienced Hate and Intolerance Yet?

by Vanessa Law

Categories: Transgender Outreach

Tags: namaste, transgender discrimination, transgender hatred, transgender intolerance, Transgender Rights

Comments: 14 Comments

Published on: February 24, 2009

The Transgender Discrimination Dilemma

I’ve been blessed that a vast majority of the comments and email replies I’ve received for running Crossdresser Heaven have been positive. It’s been so overwhelmingly skewed that I could almost lull myself into believing that the comments on this site represent in some way the attitudes of folks out ‘in the real world’.

Very quickly the scientific part of my brain would kick in and bring up phrases like ‘self-selection’, since you’ll get very few transgender haters surfing the Internet looking for crossdressing websites. The few that do don’t have the best intentions at heart – As a quick word of warning to sisters who run a website, never NEVER publish your address or phone number on your website. This is usually a recipe for disaster.

Sometimes logic and reason isn’t enough to persuade us and we require the passionately hot prodding of an emotional attack to wake us from our fantasy land. This happened for me the other day when I received a comment from a user named psychosausage on my post ‘America’s Top Transgender Model‘. It went like this:

sick. you think its acceptable for our children to grow up thinking this is normal and that freaks should be paraded out on national tv. i hope a bunch of redneck hillbilles catch hold of it and drag it behind a pick up for a few miles…

As you can probably tell this comment isn’t overflowing with love and support. Yet I’ve left it up for a few reasons. First, I’m a strong believer in the a discussion that includes all points of view. Even though we may not agree with the other person they deserve our respect as a fellow human being. I wrote a bit more about this earlier – what does Namaste mean for the crossdresser?

Secondly, I think it’s important that we don’t get lulled into a sense of complacency. I’m passionate that my small piece of the Internet world provides all people in the transgender community support, love and encouragement. An important part of this is the realization that there are those who practice discrimination against the transgendered, and it would be naive to assume otherwise.

Finally, I believe that one cannot defeat hate and intolerance with more hate and intolerance. Hiding the hate under a rug might calm it for a little while, but many times it continues to mutate and thrive like a fungus rejoicing in darkness, far from the light.

To my reader’s comment now. Thank you for giving me the honor of your attention, for taking the time to share your thoughts with your fellow human being. I’m disappointed with the viciousness in your violent proposal. I do think that it is interesting to consider the affect that societal acceptance of those in the LGBT community will have.

Collectively as a society this poses good questions, and I can appreciate the fear that children who would otherwise have grown into “normal” heterosexual cisgendered people become something they are not because the option is available to them. It is also interesting to ponder the affect that this choice has on the individual so eloquently described by Barry Schwartz in his talk The Paradox of Choice. If we can truly be whoever we want, the choice of figuring out who we are becomes much more difficult. I’ve spent a significant portion of my life grappling with my transgendered nature, trying to define (or discover?) who I am. It would be easier intellectually, though more painful emotionally, to hold fast to the belief that any deviation from the normal is a sin and something to repent from.

What do you think of transgender discrimination? Do you think the fears I mention are well founded, or just another tool of intolerance meant to subjegate our lives to another’s limited scope of acceptance?

Mandy's Crossdressing Success Story – The Encouraging Crossdresser's Wife

by Vanessa Law

Categories: Crossdressing Success Stories

Tags: crossdresser success story, crossdressers wife, Crossdressing Success Stories, crossdressing success story, how to tell your wife you crossdress

Comments: 3 Comments

Published on: February 13, 2009

Crossdressing Success Stories are real stories from crossdressers who have overcome fear and self-doubt to let their feminine beauty emerge. Their story of success may be one of triumph over adversity, or the blossoming of a special relationship of openness with those they love. Perhaps the crossdresser’s wife played an even more integral part of their success story.

Share Your Crossdressing Success Story

Please share your crossdressing success story, it only takes a moment and your crossdressing victory will encourage a sister who is just exploring her transgendered nature. I’ll post your story on Crossdresser Heaven within a few weeks.

Meet Mandy

I’m a 31 year old white male, heterosexual, and live in the Seattle area. I’ve had the desire to crossdress for about as long as I can remember.

Mandy’s Crossdressing Success Story

I think it started when I was maybe 5 or 6? My best friend, a girl, lived across the street from me. She was really big into dance, and as such, had lots of different costumes. I remember she had me try on one of her pink tutu’s one day (don’t know why…. she probably thought it’d be funny.) I remember once I put it on, the embarassment went away and I felt oddly comfortable, and even satisfied. For awhile, every time I went over to her house, I wanted to try on the tutu. The humor in it wore off eventually, and I started to experiment on my own. I remember taking naps in the afternoon when home, and while mom was at the other end of the house watching her soaps, I’d sneak into her room and steal a few things from her drawers.

Taking mom’s stuff, or stuff from female friends and cousins, was all I did up until I moved out and lived on my own. Thank God for the JCPenney catalog, and the internet. I ordered myself a decent amount of underwear (that actually FIT!), then sort of lost interest in it all for awhile. Don’t know why. A good few years went by where I still had the free time to do it, just never really did. When the opportunity came to move across the country for a job, I took that as the chance to pitch everything (purge… I know, “don’t do it!!!”) as I thought I was done with all of it. It wasn’t until I told my wife about it a few years later that I got back into it, through her encouragement.

I’m now married, have an amazing wife who loves and accepts everything about me, and is willing (sometimes pushing) me to explore the depths of my interest in it all. I’ve learned a lot this last year, and am loving it more than ever! Hopefully, with the wife’s help, I’ll work up to a night out or something fully dressed

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It warms my heart to hear stories where the crossdressers wife plays such a positive and affirming role. I know that many crossdressers agonize over their wife’s acceptance, often keeping their secret for many years beyond what they should bear. If you are struggling to tell your wife, please read how to tell your wife you crossdress. If you’ve told your wife with great success, please comment and share your advice with others.

Hugs and blessings,
Vanessa

I see T-People…

by Vanessa Law

Categories: Feminine Appearance, Vanessa's Transgender Experience

Tags: dress like a woman, passing, t-dar, transgender detector

Comments: 9 Comments

Published on: February 10, 2009

T-Dar is an uncanny sixth sense we transgender seem to inherit when we embrace our trans-ness. It allows us to spot a potential sister hunting for a perfect skirt in the sale rack. Or an unusually tall woman from across the parking lot, or the otherwise perfect lady whose hands are just a bit large. With a few quick glances to confirm our suspicions (the adams apple and hands are usually the easiest places to tell), we feel a warm – if unspoken – bonding of community. Perhaps even a spark of inspiration at seeing a sister so confidently walking among us.

Transgender Shopping Staci writes an enjoyable blog called Femulate and recently she asked ‘Got T-Dar‘? Sharing the pitfalls of a T-Dar false positive, and the inherent inspiration. After all, if the six foot tall blond “woman” is actually a woman, doesn’t that give us more hope that we can maneuver our six foot selves around society without always causing a stir?

Over the last few years I’ve found myself getting more and more sensitive. It seems as if every time I visit Nordstrom Rack there are one or two ladies who get my T-Dar ringing. I’m torn between approaching them out of a sense of community, watching them for some tips, or quickly moving on so as not to draw unnecessary attention to them. After all, I imagine that I wouldn’t enjoy a similar amount of attention. I may perhaps even become a bit more disillusioned with any hope of passing in my momentary lapse, forgetting that the transgendered have this uncanny ability.

I can’t say that there is any one thing that sets off my T-dar. Height is an obvious factor, but I’ve been wrong more often than not relying just on this. I would say that after height, voice and body movement are the things I notice next. It usually starts as a subtle sense that something is amiss, that makes me pay attention.

Have you seen a transgender sister out and about? Have you approached them, or wish you’d approached them? Have you been approached by a sister while out and about?

Look fabulous!

Massive Shoe Sale Now on at Amazon.com!

by Vanessa Law

Categories: Fashion, Clothes and Shoes

Tags: crossdresser shoe sale, shoe discount, shoe sale, transgender shoe sale, womans shoe sale

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: February 6, 2009

Cute Pumps now more than 70% Off at Amazon.com

Thanks to Mandy for the tip - it’s so good I had to pass it on. Amazon.com is currently offering a massive shoe sale, that I’m not sure any crossdresser can resist. There are shoes with discounts up to 25%, 25%-50% and 50%-70% off!

For the crossdresser who is looking to scoop up fabulous shoes at insane prices, some woman’s shoes are being offered at more than 70% off the retail price!!

I’ve included a few cute shoes that I found in an size 11 Wide, but I saw some in sizes larger than that if you’ve got larger feet.