For the longest time, I felt very alone, like I was the only one. I kind of knew that were crossdressers/transsexuals out there, but I had no idea how I would have ever met any of them, much less socialize.
It wasn't until Oct 2010 that I got the idea to google crossdresser and found this site that I really realized there were so many others out there and a way to communicate.
The internet really opened my eye's before that i would see a trans. downtown but i thought it wasn't the same.
For me, this forum has taught me that I am not the only one.
By this I mean, many of the people who post here have taught me that there are others who wish to allow a feminine, nurturing aspect of their persona to develop. Further to this, many of you have displayed great success in this area.
I am grateful for this knowledge because it has provided me with a gateway to further development without feeling shame.
There are some wonderful people to be found within this CD forum. Thank you for being here.
Carlene
I knew from an early age that I loved all the things girls liked. The clothes, make up, even the toys. I used to love playing games with my best friend (female) But somehow, I had blinders on and didn't even realize I was behaving this way. But in the back of my mind, I knew this was taboo, and kept it a secret as I grew up. I always thought there was something wrong with me. I hid it well through my teens and into my adult wife. I never thought anybody was like me until I heard someone say as a joke, that he wished he was a lesbian trapped in a girls body. Boy did that wake me up and I really started thinking about that and how true it was for me. I was about 30. The first thing that told me I wasn't alone was when we went to see Ed Wood at the theater. Every one laughed at Ed when he came out dressed up in that skirt and angora sweater. I thought wow, I wish I could do that. But when I heard all the laughter, I sank farther into my secret. When I hit my mid 40's, I discovered crossdressing on the internet. I had such a relief to know there were so many others like me. But the fear of being made fun of all my life had already done its damage, so I stay in my closet. Since I have discovered this site, I have been a little more brave and told a friend of mine. He even encourages me to dress, I'm not fooling anyone, but he says I seem so much happier. So you young people starting out, don't lock your selves away like most of us older generation. If I had the internet 50 years ago, who knows how my life might have turned out.
Fiction, perhaps. But most certainly has happened often.Originally Posted by ColleenA
As a boy, I kept my crossdressing from everyone. One day when I was about 12 or so, two friends and I decided to get some lipstick and make up as a clown. So we got some red lipstick, and went down to a basement. One of the boys drew red circles on his cheeks and nose. But the other boy and I applied the lipstick to our lips, and not in over-drawn clown style. Nothing was said about that. We all cleaned up and went on our way. Looking back, I wondered if had a potential crossdressing friend who, like me, was too clammed up to suggest it to the other. Colleen, your short story sure hit home with me.
I also thought I was the only one who felt this way while growing up. About 15 years ago I realized there were so many more like me. Good decent and intelligent people who happened to be CD or TS. Until then all I saw were the folks on the Phil Donahue type shows and they always paraded out those who were outlandish.
When I started I had no idea I wasn't one of so many. That was about 1959 or so. I kept it to myself until 6 years ago when I came out to my loving and supporting wife. It was way before that that I know there was a lot of us.And without the Internet I wouldn't have all my good lady friends here. Dressing always just felt like it was me who I should be.
Angie
Last edited by Angie G; 06-02-2012 at 10:21 AM.
I do recall, vividly, being with friends at about age ten or eleven and realizing, suddenly, that those other boys really and truly did not desire to be girls. Until then I more or less assumed other boys were like me, only the subject was such that none of them would ever admit it to anyone. But no, finally it became crystal clear to me: I was the only one, the only boy in the whole world that wished he could be a girl. I took it hard and withdrew into my own private world as much as possible. Being of the lower middle class, blue collar, catholic world of the fly-over zone, there was for me a lack of awareness of so many things which young people coming of age today (with internet and 500 TV channels) cannot even imagine.
But eventually, after I got out of high school and then out of the military, I began to spend hours in the public library, where I came across Conundrum, Mirror Image, and the occasional magazine article. But by then I was completely tangled up in my male role, in my life as a man. Wasn't all that bad, but one always wonders what might have been if ...
Last edited by Cindi Johnson; 06-02-2012 at 11:21 AM.
It never occurred to me that there weren't other people like me. By the time I had sufficient faculties to reason, extending one to many wasn't much of a leap (no pun intended).
Lea
I knew about Christine Jorgenson when I was young and I was drawn to her story. I read everything I could about her but I knew I didn't want to change genders like she did. I knew I was male but I was attracted to dressing female, mostly as a fetish. When I went to college in the mid 70's I starting going to the college library to try and research why I was so attracted to cross dressing and learned about transvestites. I realized then that I wasn't alone in wanting to dress as the other gender. I even went to therapy in college to try and deal with my "problem" and basically learned that I wasn't crazy or a deviant, I was a cross dresser. Once the internet exploded I learned that there are alot of people like me. I accepted it as part of me and realized that it would always be part of me.
[SIZE="3"]The early internet in the 80's was the first positive source of who and why I am Karen. Up until then from age 6 or 7 I saw myself as alone and cursed...a freak. My parents, church, siblings and public in general reinforced this all my young life. Ours and past generations grew up in the shadow of all this ignorance and hate and suffered the impacts that are felt all our lives. Just think what a positive, loving, understanding society or just parents would done to shape all of us!
I/we did not choose to be who we are. "I am who I am"
Karen Elizabeth [/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"][/SIZE]
I'm reversed. I generally knew that guys did wear women's clothing and/or wanted to transition to living as women, but I was never very interested in knowing much about it...until the day my wife and I discovered that Tina existed. Within a week I had visited hundreds of websites and got a real fast education!
So, Tina has always seemed quite normal and surrounded by a lot of similarly-minded girls!
It's kind of hard to say.
I had inklings of it starting in the early 70s.
There were Milton Berle, Flip Wilson and Tim Coway in drag, but they were commedians doing it for laughs.
And Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot (1959).
I read the book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex" (1971) shortly after it came out and saw the movie, but you can't believe everything you read.
There was an outdoor Halloween party at college and I saw my first CD up close and personal. Definitely a guy dressed like a girl, and her bra was stuffed with socks that were pushing out of the top of the bra. I was shocked, because I was primarily a bra and panty guy. I would never dress up completely and go out. Plus, we were right next to an artsy school, and Tweeter was holding a Halloween costume contest with real prizes. There were lots weirder costumes, like the girl dressed as a Roman stutue with a one-shoulder toga (use your imagination).
There were female impersonators in the French Quarter of New Orleans (in 1977), but that was their job.
In 1978 I read a copy of Penthouse, and there were a number of stories in the Forum about CDs. Little did I know that those stories were an early version of Fictionmania.
There were Tootsie (1982) and Mrs Doubtfire (1993), but they had ulterior motives (get a job and see their kids), and besides, it was their job.
There were Christine Jorgenson and Renee Richards (The Second Serve, 1983, 1986), but they were TS.
There were Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo in "Too Wong Foo ..." (1995), but they were more DQ or TS.
There was RuPaul (Lettin It All Hang Out: An Autobiography, 1996), but he was a DQ and gay.
There was J Edgar Hoover, but if we knew what he really was, you'd have to shoot me.
So, call me naive, but I'd say around 2000 with the popularity of the internet.
Hi, I'm Steffi and I'm a crossdresser... And I accept and celebrate both sides of me. Or, maybe I'm gender fluid.
I was watching an episode of a show called "Bizarre" on Showtime with my parents.
There was a crossdresser on there, clearly playing the part...talking with some fake senator or something like that.
I watched for a little while then got scared, and went to my room for the rest of the night...
Meghan
"No matter how far you've gone down a wrong road, turn back."
~Turkish Proverb
Yes, sounds very famaliar
At the tender age of five, I was lucky enough to share the exhilarating experience of wearing panties and a dress belonging to my childhood friend's older sister, while he did the same.
We spent hours dressing as girls on numerous occasions, playing with his sister's dolls, pretending we were girls.
So I knew right away I wasn't the only one who enjoyed CD'ing... afterall, my friend was the one who suggested it!
Like many here I had seen in on television or in a movie but it was always portrayed as a comedy. I knew I had a desire to dress and wear makeup but not to make a mockery of women. I had a stash of old cloths my mom and sister never wore anymore but were too lazy to throw out and stored them in the garage. I loved the feeling of the cloths but was scared to get caught. I knew I was different, but didn't have access to any information to clear things up, and certainly wasn't going to ask anyone. When the internet came out, it was a blessing for me in this area of my life. I was able to read on many sites like this one to learn the truth about cross dressing. So the answer is I never really understood it until the internet was developed. I found a lot of misinformation out there. I knew some parts of it rang true, but until I found this site I really didn't understand it. Crossdressers.com is the first site I found where people understand cross dressing and are not afraid to discuss it for what it is.
Growing up in the '60's I remember the Enquirer-like, but more "racy", newspapers that my grandfather bought, which occasionally included articles about "transvestities". Very sensationalized for the time. I somehow understood then that everything in the newspapers were over the top, and from that I at least knew I was not alone in my dressing urges, even as all the daily evidence around me suggested otherwise. From the '70's on, as discussed here, I've witnessed the opening up gradually. I would also agree with what many have written here in the power of the internet radically changing the pace of change and opening up. And, this site has been critical in finally providing a safe place to "be" and talk about our experiences in a shared community of hope and understanding.
Kate
I spent all of my adolescent years thinking that I was the only weird one who suffered from this "obsession". It wasn't until I was in college and in an abnormal psychology class that I came to realize that I was one of many who experienced the same desire to dress in feminine clothes. Ironically, crossdressing was considered a sexual deviation then LOL.
I'm a baby boomer (born in 1948) and I never actually thought about it. I knew that wearing female garments felt good to me, but it never really caused me to check if other males did the same thing.
I just knew that this was a part of me that I should probably keep secret from other people.
People who live in glass houses should pull the shades down!!
i have natural breast since i am 14. i realized my feminity after i weared skirts when i am alone.
Junior High
I read a book titled 'everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask"
it had a section on transgender issues
that is when I realized that there were others like me
I too have read and been aware of most of the books/issues/people mentioned above my whole life, but I don't think it all really hit home with me until I saw a staged version of "La Cage". I was them. They were beautiful, even the ones who couldn't pass. It was brought even more to my attention with the release of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", just as I was in the middle of the most stressful job I've ever had. I decided to go shopping for the first time. (My earlier experiences were mostly with the clothes my ex left behind). "Hedwig" remains an all-time favorite, and I dress every day in some manner.
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