Reflecting back of 60+ yrs of dressing

[Glenda58]

last night I was thinking of all the times I've been dressing. From when I started at age 3 and half to now. Would I do it again? Yes! I love my grandkids and wouldn't change a thing so I could be with them. But back when I was younger there was no internet and I thought I was the only one dressing up. I always like girls and girly things.

But this is not about me this is about the younger girls here. I have gone though 3 marriages plus 2 relationships and CD has made it hard in every one of them. I have purge more cloths then I can remember.

I think the younger girl should seek counseling before getting into a relationship with a woman to see if they're transgender or just a Crossdresser. Things are more open than they have been in yrs. If the internet was around when I was growing up before my first relationship I might have change My life and be a woman today like I want to be.

I know not every one will agree with me but as you get older you look at things in a different light and wish they could be better. I just want the younger girls to think about this.

[Jane G]

Ouch Glenda I'm feeling some pain from your post. I've had a different journey, but the start and finish points are similar. I joined the Navy and married young to try and convince myself I was just an average Joe. I wasn't, we never will be. Big difference is my wife and I have made some big compromises over the years and we are still together and happier than ever after 34 years. I used to dream every night about waking up as a girl and think it was just me. The internet has changed so much. It offers so much information and presents choice as a result. Having to chose will never be simple though. So though I do wish I'd had the information in my formative years. I no longer envy the choices that young CD's / TS are now more able to make as a result.

[Dana44]

Glenda, I agree, when we were younger the internet was not there and we felt alone. Purged many times and had two marriages and many many girlfriends. But now as an aged crossdresser, we are certainly a bit more wisdom oriented and can tell the younger generation to fulfill their life. But I must say that in my later years it got a lot better.

[PattyT]

I too have been cross dressing for decades and felt I was the odd one out for so many years. The internet has been a great help in enabling me to come to terms with my CD inclination. Even before doing this, inspite of the problems, I did, in the end result, enjoy being a CD. Now I engage in cross dressing without any qualms. I realize it's an integral part of me and without it I could not be the real me. I would have to play the role of being someone else.
I don't regreet being a cross dresser, and in answer to the question as to whether I would do it again, the answer is a resounding yes!

[Glenda58]

I know if the internet was around when I was 16 or 17 I would not have been dating girls and looking for ways to get to be a woman.

[Georgette_USA]

Glenda
For you and others like you, I wish we could have known of each others like you. But in those days it was not easy to find one another.

None of this is to demean CDs, I have a very positive view of most of them.

I see plenty of CDs in their 50s-70s that are happy to be just that and not intending to change. Some do wish they had made a different decision when they were younger. I also see plenty TG/TS in their 50-60s that have decided to make the changes. Some to fully transition and some that just want to live full time as TransWomen.

I transitioned in 1974-77, There was NO Internet or other help. I was lucky and found others going thru the same. But we were able to figure out that we weren't just CDs. It was not easy, but we knew we had to make a change as we were NOT men. And yes there are many in their 20s-40s doing the same now.

I give as much support that I can to all. I find that a lot of the CDs really put as much as they can into it and are having fun. I guess I would be like some of the lazy GGs out there and dress more for comfort, and for me to just blend in with them. For my 40 years it had to be that way.

[CONSUELO]

This thread raises an interesting set of questions. While I agree with the originator of the thread that I have no regrets about being a cross dresser despite many difficult issues, I do wonder if starting out in the internet age would have made a difference.
I know a lot more about cross dressing and transsexualism today than I did as a teenager but would I have taken all of the knowledge and put it to good use? Glenda says that if the internet had been around when she was younger her life would have been very different. I agree to a certain extent but looking back to those years I remember that my cross dressing desires were quite weak during my teens. I still loved to dress up and in doing so I found sexual gratification but I also had a very strong interest in girls. Of course being a transvestite I also took a great interest in what they wore, but nevertheless I really was focussed on girls and loved to be in a sexual relationship with them.

I think that the information available on the internet would have been more useful in later decades when the desire to cross dress became stronger and more complex and perhaps I had the maturity to accept new information and think more clearly about myself.

I remember a conversation with a transvestite when I was in my late twenties in which he told me that I was a transvestite but I argued that I simply had a fetish for lingerie. He was right of course and he gave me a lot of information to try to persuade me, but I ignored or turned aside most of it. Would I have done the same with the information available on the internet? Thinking of all of the changes in desire and needs over my life I have concluded that we change so much emotionally during our lives that whatever causes that must influence our outlook on cross dressing.

One example has always perplexed me and that is of men who find very late in life that they are homosexual despite having had a successful marriage with children. Can it simply be explained by someone knowing that they are homosexual and determining to suppress that until they no longer can or is it the emergence of a homosexual desire late in life. There are also examples of men whose desire to cross dress emerges in mid-life and quite unexpectedly. Why is that and what might cause it?

Apologies for rambling a bit but I think I am trying to grapple with some fundamental questions.

[Amanda M]

Consuelo, they are fundamental questions, and sadly, no one of us has an answer that applicable to ALL of us on here. The very best each one of us can do is

(a) To reject guilt completely. All of us, crossdressers or not, put on masks. The Big Hairy Harley Davidson guys? It is just an act. The outdoorsman, the woodman, who can kill a squirrel at 100 yards? It is all an act, or a mask. While it lasts, it is great for self esteem and self image! I speak from knowledge. There was a time when I was not too bad a marksman. I could - and still can - light a match at 25 yards with an iron sight .22 rifle. But that is me proving I have a pair. Then at the weekend, I try to hide them.

(b) Be kind to those around. you. Love them. Show it.

That will be remembered after all our acts are gone and forgotten.

Big Hug,
Amanda

[Stephanie47]

Having the Internet around back in "the day" may not have changed anything. It's the content. It's the subject material. Yes, maybe I would have been able to realize I was not alone. But! In the 1960's which was my formative years I would have discovered I was not the only "faggot, queer, fruit" and any other term used back then to identify me! Us! Of course, in the 1960's I would have been told by society I was homosexual. So, the Internet would have only spread the word about my deviant behavior. Had my mother been able to prove I was wearing her lingerie, she would have still whipped my ass and left stripes from a belt. And, my father would have knocked me silly.

It's the content. The perception of who we are has changed, but, only for those who choose to research who we are..both ourselves and those around us.