Reading it for the first time!

[Krystyn]

Practically since I could remember,I knew I was different.I would see pretty girls or actresses and want to look like them,not only look like them...I wanted to be them...dress like them...talk like them...walk like them...you know the whole nine yards.

When I was about 8 years old I was reading one of those advice columns in a newspaper magazine,the question and answer type.The question was from a wife asking the author why her husband was wearing her clothing.

I thought to myself...wow I'm not alone...I continued to read the answer...blah,blah,blah....TRANSVESTITE!!!
I stopped reading. They had a word for it...and I fit the word!
I was totally shocked.That's all I could think of for weeks.I was a freak!
I went to the library just about everyday and searched and absorbed all the info I could get on that awful word...TRANSVESTITE...I hate that word.

Do you remember when you first stumbled upon the meaning of your existence?

Krystyn

[SheilaM]

My story would read exactly like your's does, just change the age from 8 to 12. My little quirk went from innocent to medically-described perversion in 60 seconds. It changed the way I saw myself and it wasn't a good thing.

[Eugenie]

Discovering that there may be other people who were x-dressing was only many years after I started x-dressing (well sort of as I was only using girdles early on...)

There was a very famous transsexual person who made the from page of news papers as she was one of the very first to go through sexual reassignment in France her name was "Coccinelle".

I didn't associate very much to her as my x-dressing was more a kind of sexual fetishism then...

I think that the first time I really got the message clearly was when I discovered quite by chance the "Renaissance" association on the internet.

And it took reading a lot of posts here and in other forums on x-dressing for me to start really feeling better about it...


Eugenie

[Nicole Erin]

Don't remember how or why exactly but the first word I ever associated with CD'ing would be "Drag Queen". I THINK cause one time my dad showed me an article in the paper and said "Do you think she is pretty?..."
And whenever he asked that, I knew it was a photo of a guy. I also think my dad's favorite word for it is drag queen so that is how I stumbled upon things.

Of course I didn't think I was one one of those people, I was just a guy who liked to wear hose, my sisters gymnastics leotard, tights, dance shoes...

[il.dso]

Yes, I have similiar memories of reading newspaper articles about "transvestites."
I also remember television talk shows with male/female married couples dressed in the same outfits (i.e. as woman).
I always was amazed by these brave souls who were able to be in public and at peace with themselves.

[Kathy Renee]

I remember quite vividly. When I was about 14 a friend stole his brother’s Penthouse. I found a letter to the editor that dealt with crossdressing and saw crossdressing advertisements. This was a life changing moment for me because I realized I was not alone. A lot of guilt and relief was released that day; however, more guilt built up with time until I accepted myself for who I am.

[Angie G]

It never bothered me that I wanted to dress up in girl thing I always ust loved going it and still do @ 59 years old
Angie

[celtic.blue.eyes]

He,' don't feel bad. My first exposure to the term was when I first saw Alfred Hitchcock's film "Psycho". I was about 10 at the time, and all I could think about was "YIKES, I'm gonna be like HIM?" (meaning the infamous Norman Bates)

[Margo Paulse]

Year 1973. I remember looking up transvestite information in the high school library. The article explained about the Society of Second Self (TriESS). I felt less freakish, knowing there was others.

[docrobbysherry]

As a youngster, and later, I read articles about those weird Pervert Tranvestites. When I was in Frisco in my 20's, my girlfriend and I went to a Drag Queen show. We wondered how much they would have to be paid to dress up like that! And what kind of strange people they must be!

When I became interested in dressing at 50+, I was SO happy to find out I was a Crossdresser, and NOT one of those other bazarre characters! Transvestites and Drag Queens, what's up with those sick folks anyway?
RS

[coco8132]

My first memory of seeing others like me was during a "Real People" episode. For those who don't remember, it was a tv variety show. They had a segment on a nightclub in which all the female performers were /were once male. I was envious of them.

[Daintre]

I was in my early teens when I scoured the library for anything on transvestism, this was the late sixties. The only information I found was in the Psychology section in a book about abnormal psychology. Reading the articles, I found that transvestism or cross dressing was a perversion, so there it was.....I was a pervert. It took a very long time to realize that I was not.

[Aeslyn]

I grew up in a small and sheltered little coastal community. I just thought of my self as different. I never knew why I wanted to be a girl more than I wanted to be a guy. Which I did want that more till I had sex for the first time at 18, then my desire to be each gender settled out to about 50/50 but leaning more towards guy, just wishing I could turn into a hot little chick at will.

In high school we studied hormones and stuff, but my school was an an old school with lots of history so they never taught us anything that would be considered radical.

So it wasn't till I moved to the capital city of my home province that I became aware that others dressed and felt as I did. I became aware of all of the terms, or at least most of them, at the same time. And truthfully, I never liked any of them and always identified them as being something bad and I wasn't like that. It took a long time to over come that... and 4000 miles. Now, living around many CD's and everything else I see that it isn't bad at all. But more, talking to the people on this site I see it is more normal for me to dress than not too because if I didn't I'd be denying myself something that I truly enjoy and suppressing a big part of what really is me.

That's why I love it here

[Kate Simmons]

I know what you are saying and I learned about tranvestites when I was a youngster while reading a tabloid, so realized I wasn't alone with my "quirk". Being a CD or TV is only a matter of fact for myself however. I learned the true meaning and purpose of why I am who I am about four years ago and that has to do with balancing the male and female energies. Literally more to it than meets the "eye" in my case.

[Susan.]

My neighbors had a hard cover book with a list of perversions in it. After spending a lot of time with that book I figured out I was a "transvestite". I was excited to know there was a name for it, but it said I was a "pervert".

Later on, I saw Bennie Boys in the Philippines and drag queens in Singapore. I related but knew I was not like them.

It wasn't until I read Forum in Penthouse that I figured out that I was pretty much a mainstream "pervert".

[BethCD]

Krystyn, We may have both read the same one. Mine was Ann Landers and the wife stated that the hubby asked if he could wear one of her old housedresses to paint in so he wouldn't mess up his clothes. She told him how pretty he looked and it progressed from there. She wondered if this was normal. Ann cited "transvestite" and I had a word to look up. This was around 1969 maybe and the library had next to nothing on the topic.
I also remember a photo in the paper of a gay couple that got "married " in Vegas and man was "she" ever pretty.

Beth

[Claire3]

never had any conccious memory of a fixed time or event.just realised at an early age i enjoyed the feel of tights and my mums underwear and clothes.it went away 4 a while,came back and here i am now,

[SANDRA MICHELLE]

I went for many years thinking that I was the only "wierdo" doing this or at the very least it was a small number of us "wierdo's". I only really found out that there were many of us about 15 years ago, I guess that I always knew but kept trying to avoid the issue. I feel pretty good about myself now and am pretty confident in the knowledge that it's OK to be a crossdresser. I most of the times wish that I would get "caught" so I can come out full time, but then again I really don't want to put my wife through that so I am torn.

[Trudyann]

It was about 1936 or 37, I was 5 or 6 years old. On the radio was a program "Little Orphan Annie." Trapped in a house the bad guys were watching, Annie told her boyfriend, the only way they could get out of there was to exchange clothes and leave seperatly so the bad gus wouldn't recognize them. I thought that was the most exciting thing. I wished I could be her boyfriend and be able to put on her clothes. I had no one to exchange clothes with. 10 years later I heard of transvestites who danced as girls in a niteclub somewhere in Baltimore. I had no idea how to get to Baltimore. About 1979 I met a nice looking young ladywhen I worked in a blood bank, but didn't realize it till it was too late to find out who he or she was. I kept my secrete desire to dress as a girl until I was 69 years old. Trudyanne

[windycissy]

I went through the same library drama back in the (pre-Internet) day...also remember reading JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye which had a scene about a pervert prancing around in women's clothing in a hotel room...creeped me out!