At what age did you realize you were a CD?

[jenny logan]

I started dressing at 12 when I "rescued" some of my mothers clothing from the donation pile. From those scary first times to the present I never have stopped and despite all the usual feelings of guilt and shame I somehow survived intact and the wife and I have come to accept my female persona as an integral part of what makes me me. Now that I am pushing 50 I look forward to the days when I can do this when I want to as often as I want to because the kids will be on their own.

Jenny L.

[Juanita O]

I started to cd about age 10, but i didn't realize what i was until i was about 24.

[jennifermay]

I didn't start experimenting with crossdressing until about age 35. I don't know what possessed me to start thinking about it and doing it. After a couple of purges I realized by age 40 that it was something I loved to do and I realized I would never be able to quit....which enabled me to let go of my inhibitions and truly enjoy it. Over the past sixteen years or so I've been making up for lost time. I can only imagine how much fun this would have been to do as a teenager (assuming I wouldn't get caught by a very violent and angry father).

[Tomara]

For me I have crossdressed since age 6 or 8 years old but always thought that there was something wrong with me . Sometime in my thirties I realised that this part of me wasn`t going to go away , infact the desire was getting stronger ! I am now 52 and have only over the past few years have really embraced my feminine side and really started to enjoy all of the feelings that I kept inside me all of those years . And it feels GREAT!! Tomara

[Ashlee]

i was 6, I clearly remember wanting to wear my cousins pantyhose and I would always be busted by my uncle. I didn't realize I was a "crossdresser" until maybe the teens when the desire increased. There's no sense in disavowing it, it's who and what I am.

[Emily Anderson]

I knew exactly what I was doing. It's one of my earliest memories, and like I said, I willfully chose to put on that night gown. My answer stands. 5 or 6 years old.

Thanks. Just wanted to be sure.

YOU didn't answer the question.

True, I didn't. It was around the age of 16 when I saw one in a mag and realized I wasn't the only one.

[Melissa Anne]

I can remember being drawn to female clothing from my earliest memories. I did not experiment with dressing until about 7 or 8 when I started wearing my mother's things. Like so many of us, it just took off from there. I always felt the guilt and shame and wondered why I had the desire to dress. It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that I finally heard the term "transvestite" and realized that is what I was.

[CD Susan]

At age five I knew that I was different from the other boys. I enjoyed seeing the girls in my kindergarten class wearing thier pretty dresses and wanted to dress that way myself. I had three sisters and used to wear thier clothes when I had moments of being alone. I did not know why I did this or that there even was a name for it untill I was about 12. Before this age I really did think that I was the only one who did this. This was in the 60's and there was no internet or access to information on the subject available to me. When I first read about this subject and learned that what I did was called being a transvestite I was surprised to learn that there were other people who did this. At this time I began to understand what I did was common and there was no reason to feel that I was 'wierd' anymore. Since my discovery of what I am at age 12 I have accepted this part of me and would not want to change it even if I could.

[Deborah Jane]

I,ve suspected it since i first started dressing up as a girl when was about 5 or 6 years old.
I knew for sure last year when i came to this forum and thought..."Blimey, they,re all like me...I must be a crossdresser then".

[PrettyGiGi]

Somewhere around 12 or 13. My mother always hung her pantyhose to dry in my bathroom and one day I just couldn't resist. After that I spent endless hours with the JCPenney catalog imagining the foundation garments I'd wear once I finally lived alone. Ah the innocence of youth.

[Jodi]

I started to dress at age 8. I knew I liked women's clothing, but I didn't here the word "crossdresser" until I was in my mid 20's. Therefore; I didn't know what I was until I heard the label.

Jodi

[jackie_p]

I started dressing when I was around 8 but it wasn't until my
late teens that I realized that it was a part of me that wasn't
going away. Still I repressed it until I was about 40. Thats when
I embraced it and began to have fun with it.

Jackie

[sterling12]

I knew I liked "girly Things" very early; I think I was around age four. I have very early memories of having a collection of stockings in a little wooden box, and I remember episodes of getting into my Mom's and Sisters' underwear drawer at around the same time. I don't remember thinking I was weird, just different. Fast forward a few years and with mother's hysteria, I had built up a fair amount of guilt feelings for being "different." I think I did a good job of eradicating those feelings pretty quickly, when I hit puberty.

It's a very logical question, but I'll be darned if I can remember a seminal moment, when I would have put a formal label on my behaviors. The term "crossdresser" didn't exist, so somewhere during those years I must have blundered on to the term "Transvestite."

I will guess that an "awareness that I am a Transvestite," is some time during puberty. We had no connectedness to others, in those days long before The Net. In fact, my only probable way of knowing about Transvestism must have been through one of those magazines you could buy down at some Raunchy Adult Bookstore in the wrong part of town. I will guess that I was curious and blundered into "That Section," of The Adult Books. Probably saw some title like "Trannie Heartbreakers," recognized the cover picture was a male and voila', started reading and learning.

Peace and Love, Joanie

[sissystephanie]

I don't really know when the idea of being a CD crossed my mind. I also don't think any of us on this Forum thought about that at age 5 or 6, or even a little later. That we liked to wear soft feminine things, Yes! Bt not that we were CD's, or as some seem to like to call it, Transvestites!

My grandmother dressed me in dresses when I was about 5 or 6, so I could play outside with my siste and her friends and not get my other clothes dirty. I liked wearing the dresses, and playing with dolls!

When I was about 9 or 10 I tried on a pair of panties and was hooked. So I guess you could say that is when my CD activities started! They really took off when I went to college! Been doing it ever since, roughly 65 years now!

Sissy/Stephanie

Lady on the outside, but man underneath!

[Satrana]

The question was at what age did you realize you were a crossdresser?

That is a difficult thing to answer because I knew that I did not fit into the masculine role model and instead liked feminine things years before I ever encountered words like crossdresser and transvestite.

So I knew I was different at 11 but was unable to put a label to my feelings until I was about 15. It was only when I learned there were others like me that I realized I had an identifiable condition that was more than just silly, impossible fantasies.

[Bobbie_1544]

I eyeballed my Mother's and sister's clothes when I was 11 years of age. I grew up in a all female family 2 sisters and no father. One day my older sister wanted me to model a night gown of my mother's. We were in the bedroom together playin house. Needless to say I jumped at the opprotunity to be Swaggering my little tall feathers in front of a full lenght mirror was to much. After that event it was on Sister!! They are just lucky back in my days, my mother didn't wear to much make-up, or I would have had it on also. I gues I realized "something was wrong" when I became a teenager, I would have to say around 16.

Now at age 11 I knew that there was something wrong with what I was doing. Because after that I would hide and dress.. But I didnot understand exactly what it was. Little boys are suppose to be little boys and girls be girls. But what was going on with me? I love the silky feel of the clothes, I loved the colors of pink and hot red. I loved the way my body looked when I was wearing the clothes.

Then at the age of 16 I met a older TG/CD that use to entertain older guys on the streets of Pittsburgh, PA In some very private places. (Liberty Ave) And after that we became friends and I was hook line and sinker.

[rian]

I guess at the age of 8 or nine ...and since then I have kept it in secrect till I found our forum and our home ....

[Angela-Russell]

I started dressing in my sisters clothes at 12 or 13(& couldn't stop). A couple of years later, at about 15, I found an article in a Sunday newspaper explaining about transsexuals, transvestites & hermaphrodites. That's when I realised that I was a transvestite, & that I wasn't the only one in the world. It only seems to be in the last few years that the term "crossdresser" has come into more frequent use, probably more in the US than the UK.

[Andrea_girl]

for me it was at the age of 5/6 . I did not know at the time there was a term for what i did , i just enjoyed dressing.

I first realised there was a term for it and i was not alone in dressing, when i read a news of the world story about a man who had a sexchange. that was when i was about 12.

I kept that newspaper article for years.

[DonnaMo]

I was over 50 before the woman inside of me finally let me know she was there.....I had always thought CD's were all gay before that.I think what triggered my dressing was when I put on one of my wifes bathing suite......wow.....from then on it was buy everything femme I could.....

[Kathleen Ann Trees]

4-5 I first played dress up with the neighbor girls. I liked it!
12-14 Somewhere I was old enough to be at home alone and used Mom's clothes, shoes, & lipstick.
20 I bought my first pair of shoes (Saddle shoes that the cheerleaders wore)
AT THIS POINT I FRETTED OVER BEING A TRANSVESTITE
22 I had my own place and bought some "Christmas presents"
25 It really took off for a little with catalog sales delivered to my appt.
28 Met my wife, purged, and tried to stop (still snuck a pair of pumps)
34 Got married
44 FOUND CROSSDRESSERS.COM! HAD AN EPIPHANY.
45 Told my wife
46 Started my shoe collection (now about 35 pairs) and got my forms.
47 Started buying my own clothes (approx 30 outfits that some mix/match)
48 My own make up and jewelry.
49 Ready to be 50.

[MelindaC]

The seeds were already there at age 5 or 6, when I had a fascination with women's foundation garments. I tried on a girdle and stockings when I was 11 and was hooked from then on. During my teens opportunities to dress were very limited. Once I was out on my own, the whole CD thing just bubbled up very quickly. I went to the mall one day and spent hours shopping in the department stores buying all kinds of things.. When I got home and dressed in my new purchases (bras, girdles, slips, stockings, dresses, heels, etc.), I then truly realized I was CD - incurably ......

[MelindaC]

OOppsss... forgot to mention I'm 63 now and have been dressing for over 50 years.....

[AlisonA]

Probably the first time I wore female clothes, I was probably 8 or 9. Then as a teen I would wear my sisters things. As I got older I loved to put on some of my wifes lingerie and dresses/skirts. Then when my wife and I split, I was 28, I bought some of my first clothes. The last 12 years though, I have bought breast forms, corsets, wigs, a closet & dresser full or clothes. More makeup than I think my wife did the entire time we were married (and I used to complain about all the 'crap' around the sink and on the dresser, go figure). So i guess early on I had a fascination with female clothes, and the last 12years cross dressing and trying looking female.

[kaitlyna]

Started dressing around 6, actually had the "realization" about 25 years later. Denial is pretty powerful stuff.