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We are all so lucky having the internet as a resource for working out the world and what it's about , many on here may not have known it any different .
However there's more than a few of us as young boys were drawn to a more feminine lifestyle but didn't have a clue what was happening . How did you work out who or what you are ?
For me I clearly recall stumbling upon an article in a magazine that talked in great detail about Transvestites. (The term cross dresser had not been invented ). After that it was a case of covertly skulking around certain books in the reference library including every encyclopedia I could lay my hands on . I also recall going into a porn shop in the mid 1980s , asking for and buying a couple of"transvestite magazines please" . Not really helpful but all part of looking things up 😀
We also had a gay neighbour loved a few doors down . With hindsight I'm sure he crossdressed at times although I never saw him fully femme . I did see him heading off out at times wearing trousers and tops I realised were from the womens section. He also kept his hair and hair styles gorgeous. I was always desperate to speak to him but for some reason never got around to it .
The things cross dressing leads us to .
As a young boy, it was mom's underthings, Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs. Toward my 20's it was Variations magazine. In my 30's I bought things that I gifted to my wife, but knew she wouldn't wear, but I would/did.
For myself, I never thought of it as a thing that defined who I was - i.e. "I am this." It was a thing I liked to do, like sports or movies or whatever. Even now, I don't think of myself as a CD, more that CDing is an activity I engage in.
Humans, however, are the world's best label makers, and I understand that one applies to me so the world can make sense of me, and that's fine.
I see my cross dressing as a hobby , an expensive one , but all hobbies are expensive . And in CDH we are members of a world wide club , in which like minded people share experience and hints and tips and have meet up , so why shouldn't we be left alone to enjoy our chosen hobby .
Those were strange days when there was nothing to gauge 'who' we were. No labels, no influencers, no nothing. There were Girls and Boys, Drag Queens on Telly so not much to choose so I would enjoy watching Danny La Rue on a little black and white telly but felt that I was more of a girl as it seemed more like me.
By the time the 70's came along and a more free society the papers had articles about 'Transvestites' and even 'Transexual' which were what we would now call labels. Where did that fit with me, only two 'labels', it was a bit confusing as I still saw myself as a girl in waiting but at least it was something to look at and read about. I scoured the papers for inspiration and even cut some articles out. In those days it seemed that there was nothing really sinister in the behaviour but a bit sensationalist and even some sympathy. I then began to see the occasional dresser and even a transexual, times were a changing as these were in public. Sure there was a few negative mumbles among the men but the women were more kind. This was a good for me and made me make a few decisions that moved me forward.
In the plethora of labels now it is quite understandable that the young can be confused with the spectrum, the pro and anti that praises and demonises. Although it was difficult for me to come out at least it was a much simpler time.
I have come from that 'girl in waiting' to the girl I always was.
I remember looking at a magazine as a young man that featured a transgender person, I couldn’t understand why i would get so excited, thinking about putting on a dress. I put it dormant for many years until I got married my ex had gone out of town to visit her family, so I tried on some of her dresses, felt guilty, being a catholic, thinking I was the only heterosexual in the world who enjoyed it. Few years later the internet exploded, what a relief, there are so many of us who enjoy dressing just for the fun of it.
I could just copy and paste the first half of Lucy’s letter for myself.
As an adult. I always felt like it was something that I could get hold of and control if I really wanted to (sounds familiar?) I just didn’t want to.
After my first wife, divorced me because of it, I realized that it was something that I just needed to accept was part of me. And I tried to integrate it into all aspects of my life.
When the Internet first came in to play in the mid 90s the first thing I dived into was finding information on “transvestism” and you all are right there was not much information out there to be found.
And I was so embarrassed when I had to go to the store to buy women’s clothes, because I just knew that the clerk knew it was for me and I didn’t want to be labeled by anybody.
Thank goodness the world evolved somewhat, because now crossdressing is such a joy in my life!
Great question Kay. I remember very distinctly hearing the word "Transvestite" for the first time. It was in the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". The police were trying to explain (incorrectly) why Anthony Perkins would dress as his mother when alone in the house. "He's a transvestite." I remember getting a pit in my stomach and leaving the room (It came out in 1960, and I was watching at home with family members - maybe 11 or 13 years old), and going directly to the dictionary. Looking up the word, I was stunned to know there was a name for the thoughts and urges I had been having. Is this me..? Yup. (But I don't dress as my mother and kill ladies in the shower 😉)
Thx for your post.
Up until 10 years ago I hadn't worked it out. I would be on a huge rollercoaster loving my times as a female then the guilt and shame would hit and I would be so disgusted by myself. Time would then pass and I had to dress again. I hit rock bottom so my wife convinced me to see a psychologist. After a few sessions feeling nothing could get any worse so I had nothing to lose I told the psychologist I have a great secret and I dress up as a woman. She smiled and reacted so positively and said that is fine there is nothing wrong with what I am doing. Shortly after I told my wife and she too reacted positively. 10 years on she still hasn't seen and still doesn't want to see me as Olivia but is happy I have to have my girl time. This changed my life and for the first time I had worked out who I was and was happy with who I was as for me it isn't a conscious choice to dress as a female but something I just have to do. No longer did I have to be ashamed of it.
Interestingly at the time neither my wife or the psychologist used any labels to describe what I do. We just called it dressing as a woman or dressing up. About 4 or 5 years ago I can't recall exactly where I first heard it but when I heard the term gender fluid I thought that is me. Sometimes male and sometimes female. I did feel quite happy that there was a term to describe what I am that didn't have all those negative stigmas that transvestite and crossdresser have.
How did I work it out. What an interesting journey it has been. When I was young I would be at home by myself after school and for a reason I don't recall decided to try on my mother's clothes (bra, panties, garter belt, stockings, dress and heels). It felt good putting them on and wearing them. I would only stay dressed for a few minutes afraid that someone would come home and catch me. I had a lot of guilt and shame about it at that time as in addition I was also having sexuality issues, but that's another story. Eventually I didn't have time to be able to dress even momentarily. I went away to college and one year for Halloween dressed as a female in my girlfriends clothes which was fun, but I was extremely nervous. That was in the early 70's and I was afraid someone (especially my girlfriend) would find out I liked it. Throughout my life I would dress on rare occasions, usually in between marriages (been there 5 times) in clothing they left behind (I was much smaller then). A few years ago I came out to my wife (another story). She suggested therapy, not to stop me from dressing but to understand why. As a result I have come to accept my femininity and enjoy my Suzanne time. My wife has come to accept this part of me and is supportive in her own way. We discuss my dressing openly and she helps me with my make up and shopping.
I can't help but think that growing up with 3 sisters and playing with them when we were home alone (Barbies, house, dress up, etc) may have had something to do with my desire to dress. Going school shopping found me spending a lot of time in the girls section while they picked out and tried on outfits, I guess I was jealous. There have been times in my life I have wondered what it would be like to be a girl/woman.
I am thankful that I have come to realize this part of me and accept it. While only my wife and therapist know about Suzanne (along with the lovely ladies here) it is refreshing and freeing to be able to be me.
XOXO
Suzanne
This is a great topic, and one I often think about, but never fully come to a conclusion about.
It took me years to become a CD, but the thoughts always lingered somewhere in the back of my mind. I had the most remarkable course on human sexuality at university in the '70s. It was an open and frank look at all aspects of sexuality from anatomy to the biology of hormones through the psychology of gender and various sexualities. We had trans speakers, movies, and discussions about gay/lesbian topics, even a brief mention of bestiality.
I was in my early 20s at the time and was busy chasing women and dressing never crossed my mind, though I did dress as a pre-teen a couple of times. It was many years later that I first wore my soon-to-be wife's panties that I started down the long road to where I am. I have never felt wrong in dressing since I knew from my class and now more world experience that there is nothing wrong with being different. Looking back I realized there were a few things that likely were related to my dressing later on. I always had a thing for the way girls dressed and presented themselves and wondered if I had sexy legs like the girls did. I never wore nylons at the time, not even thought about it, but realized in hindsight that I always wanted to.
Of course, all this was long before the internet, but when I did go online years later I had already known that dressing was a "normal" thing for a sunset of people. That just reinforced what I already knew and felt.
Wow, we agree on many things. I started wearing my mother's underwear, secretly, it gave me a lot of pleasure. Then I felt very ashamed, guilty, I felt like a cockroach. Then he went away and I dressed again. Years passed in these ups and downs. And a normal adolescence. I was not aware of having to be something (transvestite, queer...). It just happened. When I got married I changed my mother's clothes for my wife's, but very far apart. I recently started to inform myself, and! There were more people like me!, and they didn't feel bad. And they led a normal life. And I found CDH, and I feel so identified with you. I don't feel like a woman, but I have always liked everything feminine, and I love dressing up. And I've even talked to my wife. And I no longer feel bad, even relationship problems, sexuality, feeling inferior have been fixed by accepting myself. To let myself go and see that I don't do anything wrong.
Kisses from Carla
Like a lot of you I loved girls and admired how they looked. I surreptitiously combed through catalogs of the day, moving from the toy section when I was being observed to the women’s undergarments section when I wasn’t.
I loved Monty Python and admired how they often dressed as women and parodied them for laughs. They were role models for me. With some of the discussion about violence against transsexuals I was reminded of the Python skit of gangs if grannies that terrorized small towns and thought that’s maybe where we need to go to patrol clubs where louts create trouble. Anyone ready to form gangs of older cross dressers to keep us all safe? 😉
It took me a lot of time and reflection to come to terms with who I am, specifically working on healing my Anima, Carl Jung’s term for our inner feminine. I now fully embrace my feminine and am open with friends and family about her. Better late than never. I always knew I was different but I didn’t have the words or the courage to be myself until the last few years. ❤️
I remember exactly where I was and when I first realised that there was a word for what I was (transvestite) and oddly that I wasn't a freak. It was in my second year of university (1966) and I was living in a rented room trying to cram for upcoming end-of-year exams. I'd bought a copy of Penthouse magazine which had a sort of letters section where readers recounted their sexual adventures. Incidentally, I now know that all the letters in Penthouse were written by their editorial staff and were not from genuine readers but I was too innocent or naive to know that at the time. One letter claiming to be from a woman was about how she liked her boyfriend to wear her knickers because he always became very sexually aroused by this. The woman then asked if this meant that her boyfriend was a transvestite. Now having a label for what I was opened up the door to using every available written source (no internet in the 1960's) to try to learn more. I was still very much in the closet about my cross-dressing but at least I now knew that there were quite a lot of others like me out there.
I actually don't mind the word transvestite and I'm happy to accept it as a label for what I do. Obviously, it can be used as a term of abuse but then I think that can also apply to cross-dresser. I've seen articles recently in which both transvestite and cross-dresser have been used pejoratively. These have usually been by women talking about self-identification and women only spaces where the phrases of the type "any old cross-dresser/transvestite wearing a smudge of lipstick -----" seem to crop up regularly. To avoid accusations of transphobia, the articles then also add some weasel words about having "sympathy for those having genuine gender identity issues" implying that being CD is actually a "lifestyle choice" but not exactly spelling it out.
Being a teenager in the’80’s I too struggled to resolve my identity without any real resources. I grew up in a large conservative religious family and conservative social circle. All I saw about CD was from tv and news and it was mostly sensational or negative.
I wasn’t the greatest student and in high school and I failed a final exam and that really angered my parents. I didn’t have to retake the class but was offered to retake the exam at some point in the summer. My parents felt that studying in the house would be problematic with all the summer activities going on. So, they informed me that I was going to be driven to the local large university library every weekday for a few weeks to study without any distraction. Heh, “no distractions” they said
Studying was going well for a few days then I got the wild idea to peruse the card catalogs (drawers of cards listing all the books in the library) to see if they had topics relating to my dilemma. Of course they did but the vast majority were very scholarly. As a teen boy, the books were mostly a difficult read but I got the sense that I was not alone with my situation and it was not harmful unless it negatively consumed my thoughts or preoccupation. For a time in high school and college it was still an obsession but then settled down as I resolved some of my inner turmoil.
Oh, and I also passed the exam.