reactions to CD images while younger/growing up?...

[kwebb]

What were your reactions when you were much younger (grade school, high school) when you saw an image of someone CDed, either in person, print, movies ,etc.

Did you identify with it? Were you appalled by it, did you laugh at it or ridicule it along with the other guys?

I got to thinking about this one this morning when I happended to turn on the television (which in itself is rare for me) and came across the old classic Tom Hanks film "Bachelor Party". I remember seeing this with friends in the 11th or 12th grade years ago when it first came out in the theatres.

Anyway there is a point in the movie where the lil nerdy guy falls for a TG person at the party, only to have 'her' come into the bathroom and pee standing up. I remember seeing this back then and having the same reactions as the duped character. He tore off his clothes in disgust and immediately jumped into the shower.

I remember when we saw this as kids, my friends were moaning in angst as well, but there was something in me, that did not want to laugh. It intriqed me to see this but I still did not neccessarily identify with it at all. I ridiculed it just like they did. It was weird seeing that this morning.

But I do clearly recall identifying with the beautiful actress that played Tom Hanks finacee's character, especially when she and her girlfriends showed up at the party and she was decked out in her gorgeous baby blue/white bustier/garter set. THAT part I identified with, wanting to dress like that and be her, but not the character who was supposed to be TG. Theories on this anyone?

Then there was another time when this singer we liked got into a car accident with a TS and he got paralized. An article came out about it in a popular magazine, this was about 1981. They had a pic of the girl in there, and we were remarking about how much she passed, and how we could see how he may have been duped by it. But again, I laughed and ridiculed it.

Now today I identify with images like this much more fluently. As I look back over life and see the development of this side of me, I am astounded by it sometimes.

[Angela Burke]

I found the gradual realisation that I
was not the only boy in the world
who liked wearing girls clothes to be
absolutely fascinating.

[Marla S]

Tough one !

I think I had mostly negative reactions.

In my younger days I kind of felt caught and maybe embarrassed, when there have been TG content on TV while watching with my parents or friends.
(Though I felt kind of excited and very interested too)

On the other side I learned this way that I am not the only one, but had difficulities to identify as most of the time the context TG appeared have been cliché like: Cabaret, red-light district, prostitution, gay-scene, and even mentally disabled, or where crossdressing was shown due to outer cause (Some like it hot, Mrs doubtfire, Tootsie). Leaving me alone again, because non of it refered to my situation.

[Kate Simmons]

My first reaction was Wow! Neat! Ericka

[Sonia_cd]

First time I came across anything TG was an article in a magazine about a guy who dressed up a woman for a day on a whim and his experience. All I can remember thinking is why that wasn't me!!!

Sonia

[Calliope]

Some Like It Hot. As I recall, Jack Lemmon (congenial in all his screen roles) was dressed and having a lovely, albeit comedy-loaded, girlie chat with Marilyn Monroe in the sleeping quarters. Positive stuff (although I'd be apprehensive about viewing it again and losing my fond, possibly erroneous, first impression).

[Teresa Amina]

Mostly I was terrified that someone would notice how much it appealed to me!
I was a very sensitive child and to just to be innocently teased tormented me horribly.

[Karren H]

In 10th grade english class, 1968ish, we were looking through magazine articles and I came across an artile in a Life or a Look magazine on transvestites in NYC. I was mesmerized and yet I was embarased that and didn't want anyone in class to see me looking at them. But I kept comeing back to that article, for many weeks! I couldn't believe that others did and felt the same way I did. Had been dressing for 8 years but it was kind of my first exposure to the fact that I wasn't alone. Even though I still felt alone but I knew there were others out there. That feeling stayed with me up until 3 years ago when something clicked.... I happened upone URNotAlone one day, then crossdressers and couldn't believe it!! Like finding your long lost family. Lol

Love Karren

[Helen MC]

ENVY! and relief that there were others like me.

I have to say that I would be turned off to see a man en-femme standing to pee as to me that is a total negation. Since I started to wear panties age 12 I have sat to pee in a toilet stall (cubicle) unless in an absolute emergency when I have had to pee outdoors or use a urinal which I hate, and that hasn't happened for years I am very pleased to say. The Mrs Doubtfire film was ruined for me when he was caught by his son in the toilet standing to pee while in Mrs Doubtfire clothes. I know that it was essential to the plot that he be found out but his secret maintained by his son, but could they not have had him soaked in a rain shower and the boy walk in on him getting changed in the bedroom or some such scenario?

[tekla west]

First I ever heard of it were stories about Christine Jorgensen. Then I learned the word "transvestite" from Ann Landers. So I went off the to local library, then to the JC library, then to the college library, then to the library at San Fran State, and finally to the Bancroft at UC Berkeley. Along the way - with the help of lots of very nice liberians and a few students - I learned how to do real research.

Granted I had a 'fake' topic I was working on (that would later be the basis for my masters thesis) but research is research in the end. Had it not been for this I'm sure I would have gone for a PhD.

And in high school the movie - loosely based on the Christine Jorgensen story - Myra Breckenridge came out. I was hooked. If only I could have looked like Raquel Welch or like Farrah Fawcett (it was her first movie I think).

[bgirl]

They scared the crap out me. Made me want to hide even further in my closet. I couldn't possibly be one of those! But I am and now.....
Im ok, your ok. They dont scare me much anymore. Love their smiles.

[unclejoann]

Like Karren, I saw the Life article (I think) about police cracking down on the dressers in NYC. I immediately hated the police and felt afraid of them. These many years later I still feel uncomfortable around the police. I immediately identified with the dressers and wished I knew them. It was many years before I met a real transvestite, other than myself.

[Megan72]

I think publically I fell into the negative perceptions, but privatly I was intrigued and facinated. it may have been what lead me to try it the first time, i really can't remember why i started, but I do remember that movie well and laughing with everyone else at the nerdy guys oops moment. I also remember thinking, how he could not have known that it was a guy, if they were in bed together.

[GINA-CD]

I remember that movie but can't recall what I felt...

I do remember the first time I searched (not googled because that didn't exist back then) the word transvestite in the web... tons of sites, pictures, stories!!

My life changed from that day on, guilt disappeared and I understood I was not sick... I just was part of a different group.

[Joy Carter]

If you see a CD and your friend doesn't laugh, he might be a cross dresser.

God I have always struggled with myself over this issue I'm glad I have accepted my self and finaly found peace. I used to draw pictures of guys in drag and paid more attention to what girls wore than what guys wore. I felt perverse and queer I just never found my place in the world. Yeah I worked hard a my carrier and made decent money but I was never happy. Now I can say that I hold my head a little higher and a have more of a smile than a frown I'm just glad that I'm me.

[Kimberly]

I found it both intensily interesting and exciting. On the one hand, it felt strange seeing gender rules being bent or ignored - but on the other I felt jelousy, and some excitemnt that I could do that, and wanted to do that, too.

xx

[jo_ann]

i think for the most part, i was too naive to pick up on any of that.. then when I turned 14-15, I was shocked yet extremely intrigued by the notion of a guy dressing as a girl, and even more intrigued by how much they passed. Now I see so much transgenderness on tv/movies that I don't think twice about it "oh look, a boy in a dress, been there done that".

[trannie T]

From the age of 6 or so I found even the thought of dressing in women's clothing very exciting. To actually see a man en femme on television was incredible. For me to be able to do it now, priceless.

[sarahjan]

I remeber there had been various articles about sex changes in the papers and I had seen men in drag on the TV but the first time I really thought yes please was in the mid 70's and I must of been 14 one of the Sunday Papers carried a full colour article on this new business that had opened up in Manchester called Transformations.

We all now have a view on their services but at that time I so wanted to do it.

[Lady Katherine]

I was born in 1929 and came into sexual awareness during World Wai II. I was a very sensitive, somewhat scared little boy, certainly not muscular and more girlish than most. I kept wondered why I couldn't be a girl; I loved that my body would fit more nicely into a dress than into boy stuff.

Then I heard about female impersonators who performed at the local burlesque theater and was intrigued. (Does anyone else remember burlesque???) A neighbor boy, home from the war, told me about going there, and describing how soft and feminine the impersonators were. They're arms, he said, were like a girl's. (Well, my arms are soft like a woman's, and I began wondering.)

It wasn't until I was about 21 that Christine Jorgensen's story came out to intrique me. I wonder now, if I had been born in 1979 instead of 1929, if I would have transistioned as a young lady. I think I would have; I've always felt so feminine in many ways.

We were so naive then.

[JoanDDD]

I thought, gee those lucky guys and no one is going to tease them or make fun of them. They even had people help them with their makeup and wardrobe. I always wanted to see more of them on TV or the silver screen if they did not cast us in an unpleasent light, such as making us look like weird creatures from another planet.

[CaptLex]

What were your reactions when you were much younger (grade school, high school) when you saw an image of someone CDed, either in person, print, movies ,etc.

The first time I saw Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (back in high school) I stared . . . and then drooled. In fact, I'm still drooling. It wasn't just the outfit, though, it was also his attitude - he knew he looked good and defied anyone to tell him otherwise. Confidence is so sexy.

[Ms. Donna]

I don't recall having any reactions to CDs on the TV. I remember Flip Wilson, Harvey Korman and of course Monty Python and thought the skits were funny, but I never identified with them. It wasn't until later that an image of a CD had any real effect on me.

It was during my sophomore year of high school that I 'discovered' what I was while at a friends house. I was sleeping over and we were reading some ‘adult’ oriented magazines he had. One of them had a photo spread of a man in a bra, panties and heels with a woman in leather standing over him, wielding a riding crop. All this time, I thought that I was the only person in the world who did this (TV skits not withstanding) - and yet, here in front of me was a picture of some ‘guy’ in women’s underwear. I could not stop looking and thinking to myself, “Is this me?” As I continued ‘reading’, I found that the subject being 'disciplined' was described as a transvestite. What an awful sounding word I though – and yet, it matched the general feeling I was developing about myself: awful.

I was overcome by a confusing mix of feelings. I identified with the man in the pictures: clearly, he was being ‘punished’ for something – I just wasn’t sure whether the underwear was part of the punishment or the reason therefore. Nonetheless, I found something exciting about the whole scene. Not ready for all of this and, not wanting to ‘let on’ anything to my friend, I tossed the magazine on the floor as if I wasn’t interested in it. He looked down at the magazine and said, “Oh, yea… That one’s a little weird.”

That was one way to describe me, a little weird...

I went home the next day feeling unsettled by the whole experience. I pulled out the dictionary and looked up ‘transvestite’. There in black and white was a definition of who I was and what I did: it was under my nose all the time. This new found knowledge did nothing to make me feel any better or less alone: if anything, it made me feel more so. I now saw myself as more of a freak than before.

That set a tone for me mentally for a long time and was ultimately behind my 'drive' to be a regular guy (a self delusion if ever there was one). No matter how much I identified with the 'guy' in the magazine, I did not want to be him.

After that, TV and movie 'skits' - comedy with crossdressing - still had no real effect on me. I saw them as just that: comedy. In general, there is a derth of sympathetic TG characters: i.e. one's who aren't psychotic. As a result, I never really identified with them either.

Perhaps the only one I ever identified with was Jaye Davidson character Dil in The Crying Game. There was a sadness about her character with which I connected - while still firmly in denial as to who I really was.

Love & Stuff,
Donna

[noname]

Earliest I remember was a special on TV about a guy who's body started growing boobs. They interviewed him as which way he was going to go. He remember he was currently dressing female and hasn't decided but was leaning twards female.

I remember my grandmother saying something along the lines about growing boobs being controllable and it's just a mental thing for him. I didn't buy it though. I did find it interesting though and didn't think of him of wierdo but did feel bad for him.

The media holds some responsiblity for peoples feelings and reactions for such. Most times cd are protrayed as wierdos, freeks or something to laugh at.

[Julogden]

Wow, thinking about your question is bringing back some old memories!

Actually, my first memory of crossdressing on TV is from my early childhood (mid 1950's). In an episode of Mighty Mouse (OK, giggle all you want), he dresses as a cute girl mouse to fool the evil cats, but I don't remember much more than that about the plot, but I do remember wishing I could dress like a pretty girl too.

A few years later, I remember an episode of Dobie Gillis, where he and Maynard had to dress as girls too, another favorite.

I also saw "Some Like It Hot" when it was in the theatres, and really enjoyed that one!

Whenever I saw an article about drag or transvestism in the newspaper or magazine (it was rare back then), I'd do my best to cut it out and save it, as I was always intrigued.

Some time in the early 1960's, with my parents, I went to a nearby restaurant that had an attached bar. After eating, as we were exiting through the bar, I became aware that there were 2 males dressed as women in one of the booths, accompanied by 2 men. I remember my parents hurrying me past them, but I got a good look, and was amazed. That took guts back then.

I was never apalled or put off by any of this, just made me want to dress up too.

By the time that I was in high school, I was realizing that it went deeper than just enjoying dressing up, and started to go into denial. That's when something happened that, in retrospect, I handled really badly.

When I was a kid, my oldest and best friend and I dressed up together a couple times, once with his mother's help, once with my mother's help. Another time, he came over right after I had been dressing up at home with a neighbor girl (mom OK'ed it!), and he saw that my lips were still red from the lipstick, and I remember him being jealous, should have known something was up.

Anyway, one day when I was a freshman in high school, he told me that he wanted desparately to be a girl, and went on about how he had felt that way all of his life, and I froze up. Instead of being a good friend and telling him about myself, I just acted like it was weird. Stupid, stupid, stupid......

Anyway, those are some of my childhood memories of crossdressing.

Carol