Late Onset CD/TG

[Jacqui]

I think that most of us knew at very early ages that there was something different about ourselves...whether the desire to wear clothing of the opposite sex or our feelings that we wanted to be or should have been born female.

For me, I knew at about 4-5 years old, although it wasn't until I was about 9 when I had my first "dressing" experience.

I am curious to know if there are any people who learned at a much later stage in life, say 20's, 30's or later... of their desire to dress or to have transgendered feelings... and if so, what was the defining moment?


Jacqui

[Tanya13]

Jacqui... I also started at 4-5 years old...wearing petticoats and full slips...i don't know why?

tanya 13

[Laurie Ann]

I fall into the category of 4-5 years old

[theresa]

Earliest thing I remember from my childhood, is wearing my moms skirt. Always been this way and lovin it.

[joaniecd]

I was 4or5 when I 1st had feelings to be a girl and started dressing. all my friends in my neighborhood were girls and we played together doing girl stuff.
i just never stopped and luv it.

[Wendi {LI NY}]

i remember i as 6 or 7 when I first was to wear a slip and try a bra ,but it was way to big![lol] It was my grandmothers and she was a very big bust women !:D

[Paula Rae]

I was about 11 years old and was being sexually abused at the time. One of the things I was forced to do was dress in girls clothing and parade around like a model. That was my first dressing experience and I'm still doing it 53 years later.

Ricki B

[Deborah]

It was early, but i won't say what i did. To embarrased. <sp>
I didn't actually start dressing up until i was 11-12 though.

[DonnaT]

We've had, in the past, a couple of members commenting on their late start. One in her 50's and another in her 70's. There were probably a few others, but can't remember exactly.

I had the desire at 7 and finally got the chance at 10.

[Kadence_Lynn]

It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that I started wondering what it would be like to live life as a girl. That was probably about the time that i first tried my mothers high heels and undergarments on and paraded around my home. I kept those thoughts and feeling suppressed until just recently, I am 32 now, and have had a great time but scared that this may go deeper than just crossdressing.

Kadence

[LindaTS]

It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that I started wondering what it would be like to live life as a girl. That was probably about the time that i first tried my mothers high heels and undergarments on and paraded around my home. I kept those thoughts and feeling suppressed until just recently, I am 32 now, and have had a great time but scared that this may go deeper than just crossdressing.

Kadence

Hi Kadence,
I was 6 or 7 when I discovered myself. However, it was much later in life when I found out I was a TS. I only found this out about 4 years ago and at the age of 66 it's way to late for me to make a change like that. Take it from me, don't repress your feelings. Find out asap who you really are. Whatever happens, good luck.

[Paula Blair]

I had a little of both early and late starts. As a pre-teen I occasionally tried on my mother's clothes when home alone. I never got caught while dressed, but once I did still have traces of lipstick on one afternoon while playing with some of the neighborhood kids.

Anyway, the urge went dormant for years. In my 30's, I occasionally pulled a pair of my wife's discarded pantyhose out of the trash and wore them when I had the chance. But, the urge went dormant again until I was in my early 50's. When it came back then, it got strong enough for me to get complete outfits, wig, etc. The urge got stronger with time. One summer, I was alone for about 3 weeks on my sailboat. On that cruise, I wore female underwear full time, and at night, when anchored in a sedluded location, I dressed fully. What a state of euphoria! I was so high on being a woman that when I got home I told my wife, who was not amused at all. After a very rough year, the urge went away again.

Now, about 5 years later, the urge is back. I told my wife again, but a little more gently this time. We are still trying to work things out.

Even as I write this, I have to wonder what the hell is going on in my mind. If I had the chance to start my life over in the gender of my choice, I would definitely choose female. If I had the money to go for SRS, would I do it? I have no idea. Life would certainly be easier without the urge. All I know is that I feel very comfortable being dressed, even partially (i.e. without wig and makeup). Wouldn't it be great if men could wear skirts and dresses just as women can wear pants?

[Natalie x]

I always knew from childhood that I didn't feel right as a male, but it wasn't until last year, aged 60, that I did something about it and started to crossdress. Wow, what a year that has been, and it's mostly thanks to the lovely girls in this place, who gave me the confidence and support to launch myself into the world!

:GE:

[RenaCD]

I Too started young,about 8or10 under very strange conditions. My mother was a counselor at a Girl Scout Camp and I had to attend,we had a couple of very hard rains one week and the only clothes left dry for me to wear were hamiedowns form the girls. I Loved It! And my Se cert took off there. Not understanding why I need to dress, I felt so very alone and bewildered for so many years.
And once again I say Thank You to all the Girls at this forum and those who gone before us for be there.
One other thing does stick in my mind.
As a young boy in a group in school one of the other boys explained that he liked wearing his sisters panties and the rest of the group really gave him a very hard time about it.
Dwight if your out there I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you the way I should have.

Rena

[ReginaK]

I've always exhibited the behavior of being transgendered (dressing in moms clothes, relating better with women than men, etc), but I didn't actually know what it was until early 20s.

I just assumed I was different. I never knew there was a word for it.

[Amelie]

I started dressing around 18-19 years old.

I really don’t know what happened, I think there was some kind of shock to my system. Something in my brain snapped and I came to the realization that I am a woman. I have been having sex with men since I was 15, mostly older men. I didn’t feel like I was gay at the time, I was very confused. I think that my exposure to these guys had an effect on my brain. They made me feel like a girl, so some where along the line, I became that girl, the whole deal, clothes, looks, attitude.

I do believe that my wanting to be a girl was caused by some traumatic event or series of events that came from being with these guys. I know this may upset some here who have different views, but I do believe that a mental defect has caused me to be a girl. I am not a shrink, so I can’t go deep into theories and tech terms, I don’t know the reasons why or how?

I don’t look at my being a girl as a negative thing, I am quite happy living this way.

[FionaAlexis]

Hi Jacqui,

I knew when I was around 6 or 7 that I wanted to be a girl and started dressing around 9.

Itis a topic that interests me too. About 2 years ago I ran a poll on this subject of Roses and the results there were:

under age 10 53%
11 - 15 31%
16 - 20 3%
21 - 25 1%
26 -35 5%
36 -45 5%
+46 2%

104 people responded.

So A reasonable chunk [12] discovered after age 25.

It might be interesting if you ran a similar poll here - not sure I needed so many age splits.

Fiona xx

[SherriePall]

I have always felt that I should have been a girl. When I was in first or second grade I started to have fantasies about the girls in the class taking me and dressing me as a girl. However, it was not until I was 13 that I tried on a woolen skirt of my mother's. From then on it was this item and that. It wasn't until my late 20's that I dressed fully. And only the past 6 1/2 years that I have really been serious about it -- full make-up and new wigs.

[tara 24-7]

i was about 9 when tara unleashed herself, i had a very hard time around puberty, like us all i guess? being irish, and the religion here made it real tough, i was allways felling real guilty with myself, i aint knocking religion tho, each to there own i say kisses tara,, xxxx

[Fallen Angel]

Honestly I was in my thirties when I decided I was going to do for me and be happy but ive been doing it on and off since my teens

[Jacqui]

Sorry that I didn't put this in a poll format, but I'm not sure how to do that.

It seems that with only a few exceptions, the "magic window" for most of us was between the ages of 4-13.
Some of us have had "dormant" or latent periods in which we did not act on our feelings... or during which time the urge was not there. But in all of these cases, we did eventually succumb to our desires. Some of us did not act until much later on in life...

GRACE, I think you win the award for longest holdout! Congratulations and welcome to the club!

RICKI...53 years! I think you beat Cal Ripkin!
p.s. you don't look a day over 39!

FIONA, it looks like your poll based on many more responses is probably pretty accurate: 84% under 15.

PAULA, I've had similar dormant periods that have lasted many years only to find that the desires get stronger and stronger.

KADENCE..."scared that this may go deeper than just cding"....
I'm already deeper than I thought I ever would be. And I'm sure there are many others. I don't think we can change. But this forum helps to learn from one another.

AMELIE...I would amend your statement that you have a "mental defect" to that of a "mental difference." As you say, you don't have negative feelings, so that's good. Think positive! Your avatar is beautiful.

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far. If anyone would like to put further spin on the results, please do so.

Jacqui

[Helen MC]

I was 12 when I started to wear my big sister's knickers (panties) but had a fascination for women's underwear before that age and looking back on it also the urge to wear a skirt before I actualy did so in my early teens. So I would go for the 11-15 band but with latent urges before that possibly from about age 7.

[livy_m_b]

Isn't there a difference between the age of onset and the age of awareness? I had dressed a little and favored femme gender activities for years before I figured it out. Oh, wait, I still haven't figured it out!

[FionaAlexis]

Isn't there a difference between the age of onset and the age of awareness? I had dressed a little and favored femme gender activities for years before I figured it out. Oh, wait, I still haven't figured it out!

I assumed it was that moment in time when the penny dropped. The moment of realisation. For me - I had a childhood friend who was a girl - and I think in early life you don't really see gender. After a 'good talking to' by my Dad - I realised I wasn't going to grow up to be like Mum. And that there were different expectations of boys.

Fiona xx

[EjayeCD]

I was around 5 & only had girls to play with in my neighborhood, so we played girls games including dressing up. I GOT HOOKED !!!!!!!

[racquel]

I was around age six,can still remember the clothes,a lovely yellow outfit.:bs:

[Angela Burke]

From before I can remember.
I have to take my Mother and my sisters word for this.
But somehow I think they were telling the truth!

[livy_m_b]

Opportunity wasn't there in my home, for various reasons - six brothers, no sisters, strong discipline on leaving parents' things alone - but I remember wearing heels from a box of discarded shoes in the closet and early on being jealous of jeans that zipped up the sides and panties with the days of the week embroidered on them - all that came from one family of acquaintances with a daughter who would play with me at "tea" and with doll houses. Another member of that same family, incidentally, had a boygirl (Ma vie en rose - style). That family had at least one lesbian daughter and one gay son - one wonders. I can list incidents from 4 or so, but awareness? That didn't come until I was in my 20's at least. Of course I grew up in an era when the only public model for dressing was that of "transvestite" and I knew that didn't fit. The serious dressing wasn't possible until after my mother was invalided and a young neighbor woman left a box of her clothing in our basement for storage. I enjoyed the skirts, the blouses, the look of myself as a girl. So, age? Somewhere between 4 and 14 for dressing in earnest, somewhere around 20-24 for awareness of tsism. For me it's always seemed that I had to draw conclusions about what it might mean from my behavior rather than by conscious awareness.

[eleventhdr]

I can recall way back then looking at the girls in my nursery school class and just wondering what was wrong I had a deep feeling way back then that there was something wrong or missing i just could not artiulate it at that early age. This was way back in the early 50's I just wish i had been able to say something back then about it it migth have saved a whole lot of the problems that did follow in life as it progressed I kihgt have been a very different person all around had i known or been allowed to expresss what i was feeling back then. There was to me personally something very magically about girls i wanted oh so very much to say so but did not or could not express it as i lacked the capiblities to say it out loud having a very limited speech and thought process at that early age but inside i was just busting to say it I think it stems for me in the facts of knowing that there were other circumstaces at work in my mine back then as well but perhaps more on this in addition you know anyway I just really did want to say and let others know that even back then i was sure i was suppose to have been a girl being the thrid of four boys as it did turn out I was then confused about it all for a very long time as this life did progress along it's path but it was an as i am now realizing the unintented path and not the one it should have been. And then finally after much disruption as being taught to be male I finally did come back arounf much later and realized it had been wrong all along i was and am a girl if and when just still inside I wanted to be out and still do but am still struggling with it right up to now i know who and what and where i am just need to be allowed to be free at long last. Oh well. I do continue to fight for it as best i can and try to live it when allowed but it is perhaps never going to be enough until i can get to a real place and time and be who i am supppose to be I was suppose to be the girl in this family or something like that somewhere i do fit in I think my mom might know somewhat but she will very problay never say so out loud that she wanted a girl and it was suppose to have been me. Suzy!.