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When I was young, I remember my mother telling me that she had always wanted to have a girl. Even my father often called me Denise.
My mom used to recycle my big sister’s clothes on me: pants with side zippers, knee-highs length socks. Reverse button sweater. Ballerina slippers. Even ultra-shiny blue ski pants that clearly weren’t meant for boys.
When I was older, but still prepubescent, my sister often did my hair (my brother said she did my hair like a girl). One day she asked me if she could use my head to style her wig, then she did put some makeup on me and she even plucked my eyebrows pretending I had a mono eyebrow. She called my mother to come see the result and it ended up complimenting me and saying how beautiful I looked.
A few years later, a girl in my neighborhood asks me to come to her room to try on some of her dresses. And again she called her mom to show her how cute I was.
One day when I went with my parents to buy a snowmobile costume, the saleswoman told me that I should try on a woman’s costume because it would probably fit me better. Both my parents agreed and that’s what they bought me.
The existential question is this: did I become the woman I am today as a result of all this exposure to femininity or did everyone recognize me as the girl I never knew I would become ?
The chicken or the egg?
Hugs Denise
Experience makes us who we are. Environment plays a factor by laying the foundation. To answer your question, they laid the foundation, but you became you through the experience
Hi Anna Claire,
That’s probably true, but I still wonder if I really wanted all that exposure to femininity or if I was pushed in that direction. Maybe I’ll never have an answer to this.
Denise
Wanting it is completely different.
Well, my two cents are that growing up in that environment made you feel more comfortable and free about doing what you wanted. I think that gender roles are often very confining and more people would probably be less strict about them if they had more and varied experiences throughout their life. Maybe instead of a “chicken and egg” example, it’s a “let the tree grow how it will, rather than trying to trim it in a certain way” kind of thing.
I’ve often wondered what society and people would be like if gender was not a part of our culture. What if there were simply “clothes” instead of “menswear” or “womens’ clothes,” what if there were just “sports” instead of men’s and women’s sports? Obviously there are some biological constraints (like with health care, for example) but so many things are gendered that really don’t need to be.
…well. I knew I was the egg by the time I was three years old, there had not been any experiential feminine input, I just knew I was supposed to be a girl. I was getting into my mother’s things by the time I was 5 or 6, wearing her shoes by 10/11 years old, and trying on makeup by 12. I knew at that point I was considered a transvestite, and that was not a good thing to be as a boy during those years, so in the closet you go. Years later you are known as a crossdresser but you’re still in the closet but very intrigued by transsexuals… Further down the road and a few decades later you come to the realization and acceptance that you are transgender and always have been but the actual term wasn’t in use. Then you get hit by major episodes of gender dysphoria and realize that transitioning is definitely in your future.
That time arrives and you are now living as the woman you were always meant to be, and you finally experience the freedom and joy of coming out and becoming who you truly are.I think all of us have unique, yet in some ways, what we might see as similar childhood events that helped lead us to where we are today. Although I’m not sure focusing on the few similarities will be all that beneficial. And part of this comes from what we remember from our childhood and even more so, what we’ve forgotten.
I’ve thought about the memories I’ve already shared here, but I have to believe based on what little I remember that there had to have been lots more thoughts and perhaps actions that I took that are now lost in time. I haven’t yet mentioned, but I will now, that my father died in an accident when I was about 4 1/2. At that time I had an older brother and an infant brother. I have to wonder if I was at an age where I could have provided some of the affection my widowed mother may have wanted which might have assisted in the forming of my desires. Yet, I’ve also been made aware that my father (besides being very interested in things often at the era associated with alternate lifestyles) had at least two single close male friends that my mother later confided in me were probably living alternative lifestyles. And my father’s close ancestors did seem to have a proclivity to not ever marrying (his grandfather was 1 of 2 siblings of a total of 8 that did marry!). I have a picture of my grandfather from college where he was heavily involved in the theater group (not that that means anything), but when the college has articles about the history of that group, they tend to use that picture of him in costume, in a minor role, even – one that even F1nnster might enjoy (iykwIm)
So you can see that one not trying too hard, could easily deduce that there were nature influences or alternatively nurture influences on me – take your pick – depending on one’s own attitudes towards whatever we are.
Hugs ChloeC
I had just read first CloeC. response to your question about the chicken or the egg and then read about your question. This has hounded me my entire life just like most of us here I suspect. For myself I also had so many early childhood experiences with femininity and feel sure it shaped me as a lifetime crossdresser. However I also have wondered if maybe we didn’t have a choice. That our brains our so complex that we were just born this way. Just as gay people are naturally attracted to the same sex. We naturally have a strong desire for being effeminate. Maybe we had no choice. Just wondering. It’s like we didn’t choose to be this way. I have told my wife if I had the choice, like if I could push a button and be rid of all my Crossdressing thoughts and feelings I certainly would push it. Life has been too hard living the secret and the shame and guilt that goes with it. But one last thing. I have loved so much my Crossdressing experiences and plan to enjoy them more! Oh God! Am I in the wrong body? 😁
Rochelle
I too can relate to a number of experiences in my early years that lead me down the path to crossdressing. So on the surface I would probably say for me it is nature.
But my Mom had told me that her doctor said she was having a girl. This was long before the days of testing, and was more based on guessing. Could her belief that she was having a girl changed her hormones to make me more susceptible to the nature aspects? It’s a question I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer. (She also told me she had a different gynecologist for my older sister than for myself and my two younger brothers. lol)
I never once had any situations like yours as a child. I remember feeling like I was different but could not put my finger on it for the longest time.
I always kept away from anything remotely feminine as do not let anyone know I liked these types of things, had a girl asked me to play dress-up I would have been out of there faster than you could blink.
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This is a question that I don’t think will ever be answered and I think there could be many factors of influence. All of us have wondered why and I’ve read many theories but none are proven. I did my own investigation many years ago on the psychology side and became aware of some aspects of my behavior but not really why I feel I absolutely have to do the things I do. Go figure.
You seem to have been readily acquiescent in each instance so perhaps they saw something that even you acknowledged, even if subconsciously. My question is whether variations of such tendencies to certain modes of behaviour exist within us all and whether it is in differing degrees of urgency.
It seems likely that, in many males, any tendency to identifiable femininity is swiftly contradicted. The prevalence of a desire to be feminine may be greater than is evident but not as present as we often suspect.
Araminta.
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