Earliest Influence

[Pretty Sissy Dani]

What do you recognize as the earliest moment when you were aware of a desire to dress as the opposite sex? Is there an influence, an image, or something else that triggered that desire?

After years of thinking about it, I narrowed mine down to one thing--a Mighty Mouse cartoon, of all things. It's called "Svengali's Cat"...and searched for years to find it, finally discovering a site on the web that had it. Here's the relevant moment:

Mighty Mouse: Svengali's Cat (http://www.strangetoons.com/strangetoons%20root%20folder/shows/Mighty%20Mouse%20girls/MMgirls18.html)

Is there anything YOU can point to in that way?

[Karren H]

I was 8 nd I have no clue why....

Karren

[soccervixen]

I was 47 and have no idea what started it.

[Angie G]

I was about 11 or 12 found some things in the attic and just did it :hugs:
Angie

[DonnaT]

Many of us realized that we liked to dress after donning something fem for the first time.

For me, it was triggered after coming across an old nightie of my mom's, probably from her teenage years, in a box in the basement and I put it on. I loved the feel, found a blouse and skirt in the box, and put them on. I was hooked.

But, then again, something else may have triggered it if it hadn't been that.

I know this because I saw a girl in my 1st or 2nd grade class a few years earlier dress her brother up, and I wished it were me.

Heck, that may have been the trigger for all I know.

[Teresa Amina]

Kinda like your Mighty Mouse cartoon transformations (especially magical) into the female gender grabbed me by the soul and twisted me up in knots. When that first was I don't know, very young though. I do remember something with a magic potion which I then imitated by mixing random stuff up from the medicine cabinet. Luckily for me I just poured it down the drain instead of getting a trip to the emergency room :o Must have been 6 or 7 at that time. The Wannabee stings early in life...

[Jennifer in CO]

Influence? ...the slip n slide. I was 10. The only swim suit available to me was a girls bikini. I was staying at my Aunt's who had a beauty parlor in her home didn't want it looking like she had a half naked little girl running around in front of her house if I only wore the bottoms. That night I slept in one of my cousin's gowns. The rest, they say, is history...

Jenn

[Hermione Simpson]

i started dressing in secret when i was 7 as i wanted to know what it felt like to be a girl, but most of my families told me that when i was 2 my mum dressed me up as a girl for a party, so maybe this started it for me, if so thanks mum

[JulieC]

I recall seeing a superhero woman tied up on some torture machine with a ramp that was moving towards some deathly shredding machine. Might have been Batwoman. Anyways, black body suit with full legs exposed encased in pantyhose. I was young, maybe 4 or 5. That night, I remember trying to twist my legs into the same way she had hers, and remember wishing I was dressed like she was. I was hooked.

[Valerie Nicole]

It started for me with some of my sister's discarded costumes when I was a young child. Then I stopped with those. Then, for pretty much the duration of my grade-school education, I never dressed. Though I was still attracted to feminine things at that time, I never acted on it. It was early high-school when I got the urge to dress up again...I remember it well.

I was playing a wrestling game for my N64, creating a female wrestler. I put her in a skirt and then I just sat there, staring at her, thinking about how much I would like to be in that skirt. Then it hit me: my sister's room was just down the hall and nobody was home. So I snuck into my sister's room, searched her closet, found a skirt (I believe it was short and black...though it might have been a short red plaid skirt that I soon fell in love with), and then I took it into the bathroom and put it on.

I then dressed all through highschool, and to be honest, I don't really remember what happened after that. I fantasized, a lot, in my first year and a half in university, but I don't remember actually dressing. Last November I started coming out, and in doing that I started accepting myself, and in doing that I allowed myself to dress. For the first time, it was guilt free.

So that's what triggerred my dressing. It kind of happened in steps, but I'd say the deciding moment was that first trip into my sister's room where I found that black skirt.

[Chantelle CD]

As soon as my mind started holding memories, i have always been able to express, feel these more female emotions, as they were a part of me right from the start, might have been the reason my father belittled me saying thinks like, men dont do that ect, age 8-12 i started to rummage threw moms things, stooped when she found hosiery i borrowed hehe i have always taped into these feelings my whole life, chose to express them as myself, didn't really play with dressing until i moved out. I can live without it, and just feel these things inside, choosing to dress now, to expand them, may stop again at a later date, doesnt really matter to me at all. The ability to feel these things express them, as far back as i can remember.

[bobi jean]

Some where between 9 and 11 in the attic with a pair of moms heels, then girdle. bra, hose, on and on and on to this day. Dont wear a girdle any more (but I should)

[Tip or Ozma]

Under two :
As an infant I was placed in opened bottom dresser drawer to sleep. My parent's apartment bedroom had no room for a crib. Their landlady did not allow children and they moved when I was about six months old. Perhaps this was the dresser drawer where my mother's undergarments were kept. I have an aural memory of this as well as a life script (since overcome) of "be quiet, don't cry someone will hear you (the baby)."
I have mental images of watching my mother dressing as I lay on her bed--I must have been a toddler.

About four:
Wanting a dress like my sister had received on her second birthday, We share the same birthday day only two years apart. Apparently, I threw a tantrum, but I cannot remember if I ever got a dress.
I can clearly remember the feeling and visual aspects of my first babysitter's stocking clad legs as I walked around her or sat on her lap. She was a kind, older woman.

About five or six:
Being small enough to hide under tables and occasionally view the ladies from that vantage point. I do remember being at a wedding party and hiding under the longs skirts of somebody's dress.

About ten or eleven:
Taking stockings and underclothing out of my mother's bottom drawer and trying them on.
My sister had some dress-up clothes that consisted of high heels, old stockings, crinolines and slips that had belonged to my mother. These were in the basement and on occasion I put them on

Around thirteen to fourteen:
Being home alone all morning before going to high school (afternoon class schedule) and dressing completely in my mother's clothing--from the undergarments out--often including a smart looking basic black dress.
I also tried on stockings and a few garments at my grandmother's house while she and my grandfather were away in Arizona.
I was caught once by my father. I do not believe he told my mother. He got me a book about the facts of life, asked once if I had any questions and never talked about my dressing again--even as we sat alone together in his hospital room near the end of his life. Throughout my high school years, he did encourage and financially support my hobby of model railroading--perhaps thinking that it would keep me out of the bottom dresser drawer.

[ChrissyNWUK]

Staying at my nans house (about 7 yrs old) - sleeping in her bedroom while everyoneelse was downstairs, and feeling her satin nighty.. went on later to be moms clothes.. always satin stuff..

[Lovely Rita]

At 3 I could not resist putting on mom's nylons and heels and it never left me. I was hooked.

[Summer314]

When I was 12, my older cousin was visiting and left her bikini in the bathroom to dry. I put it on and I felt so good. It was a little risky and daring but I felt more sexy, pretty and excited than anything.

[Betti]

I was 4. I have a twin sister and we played dress up all the time. My Mom purchased only panties for me since she thought it was easier for us to share. Betti

[Jocelyn Quivers]

Very early childhood, 4-6 years old, as my mother made the life changing error of leaving a pair of her pantyhose out on her bed. Which I was drawn to for some reason and have been hooked ever since. Jocelyn

[Mitch23]

what a cool cartoon!

Mitch

[Julogden]

Hi Dani,

I remember that cartoon from my childhood, and I also remember one where the damsel mouse in distress turned out to be Mighty Mouse in drag. I also remember an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club that had a performance by a girl ice skater, who turned out to be a guy dressed as a girl, all were revelations to me.

My earliest memory concerning my own dressing had to be at the age of 3, maybe 4 at the oldest, as I was very little. I remember going into my mothers closet and working my way in between the dresses hanging in there and thinking to myself that one day I would have beautiful clothes just like my mother's. I don't ever recall feeling good about being a male, always wanted to be a female.

Carol:hugs:

[Patricia Danielle]

Well seeing how I had 11 sisters. I always had nylon night gowns to wear then one day I got one of my sisters cheerleader skirts ya know the ones that had the big box pleats , and I was in 7th heaven, Still talk to Michelle and Rachelle and we still talk about it. Ive looked all over the place and can't seem to find a skirt with box pleats anymore, got a few with knife pleats there nice but just not the same.. So I would have to say 4 of my sisters had the major impact on it.. Patricia:drink: I have coffee life is good..

[eleventhdr]

for me it was just always there just under the surface to be a girl

Suzy Ann!

[Mitch23]

Very early - 3/4years old it was the smell of her perfume, the feel of her nylons and the warmth and security I felt when I was with her

Mitch