At what age did you realize you were a CD?

[Emily Anderson]

There have been plenty of polls about when you first wore female clothing, but at what age did you actually come to the realization that you were a crossdresser?

That is, at what point (age) in your life did you say to yourself "I am a crossdressser!" and what brought you to that realization?

[SweetCaroline]

I was around five or six years old when I WILLINGLY put my older sisters nightgown on for the first time. I felt pretty when I did, even tho my younger brothers were around and laughed at me.

I spent the rest of my childhood/ adolecence wanting to wear womans clothing. I didn't start fully dessing untill I was nineteen. Even then I didn't start wearing make-up until last year. I didn't start going out and about until late July 2007.

I've been a more or less regular Crossdresser, for as long as I've been left to myself. So I'd say, it's basicly a part of who I am. There's no closet and no stopping it now.

[Emily Anderson]

Caroline,

At six years old, I doubt you knew what you were doing, and why you were doing it. The question was at what age did you realize you were a crossdresser?

[Nicole Erin]

hahahah yep this subject looks familiar. Mine came in stages over several years.

Anyways, have been dressing in some form since maybe 6?

When I was 10, Boy George was who I thought was the prettiest, ummm, "girl" on Television. My best friend laughed at me.

Sometimes in high school, I found a photo in some gossip magazine of Ru Paul in a leotard and fishnets.... ummm nevermind. :o I felt pretty ashamed.

But for me, I kind of realised and admitted my fascination with women's things at about 19 when I loved women's magazines [yes go head and laugh, Cosmo was my favorite mag.] Before 19 I was trying too hard to be manly.

At about 22 or 23, I said to myself [I am not joking about this] "I wonder what it would be like to be dressed completely as a woman?"

So, I guess 23 was when I said to myself [in my own words]"I am a crossdresser" and embraced it.

[Angie G]

I started dressing @ 11 or 12 back then most kids didn't know what they know how I didn't even know I was a cross dresser until a few years latter back yhen I didn't know alot of words as I do now.so I think about 13 or so.:hugs:
Angie

[daviolin]

I started at five years old. But the time I considerd myself a full fleged crossdresser was at puberty. It used to really bother me at that young an age. As an older man I can trully except it. Hurray for womens clothes. Life would be so boring without them.:iagree:Daviolin

[epsxyblkm]

I would say that I was about 32-33. Was not able to fully embrace my feelings for at least another year.

[lisalove]

I guess I was 18, when I first started wearing full time. Til then, even though I dressed up, I didn't know what CD was. I don't even know for sure exactly when I heard the terms CD,TV,TS,TG. I just knew I like the clothes the girls wore, and when I wore them, I felt better

[victoriamwilliams1]

About 5 but closer to 6.

[Jonianne]

I started at age 7 when I read or was read to, in "Huckelberry Finn" about how Tom Sawyer dressed up as a girl on one of his adventures. Also I knew someone who dressed on Holloween as a girl. I said in my heart "I want to do that" and I would put on my mom's dress in private. That was in early 60's. Years later, in school, I found in the dictionary that I was a transvestite.......O..Noooooooo! Took me till I was in my mid thirties to be OK with myself.

[CaptLex]

That is, at what point (age) in your life did you say to yourself "I am a crossdressser!" and what brought you to that realization?
YOU didn't answer the question. :tongueout

[Terry V]

I knew I liked the things the girls were wearing very early on but saw a news article about TV's at about age 12 or 13 and knew then that was what I was, and was more than a little uncomfortable with that understanding for a long long time. I wish I knew then what I seem to know now.

[renee k]

I knew I liked the things the girls were wearing very early on but saw a news article about TV's at about age 12 or 13 and knew then that was what I was, and was more than a little uncomfortable with that understanding for a long long time. I wish I knew then what I seem to know now.

Hi Terry,

I agree I wish I knew then what I know now my life would be totally different. I knew I was a CD when I was fourteen/fifteen. Also knew there was something different about my gender. Just wish there was more information and support back then.

Huggs, Renee

[Tashee]

I don't ever remember starting.

But around 18-20 Is when The Holy Shtttt came...That is when I realized I'm like this and I'm not going to change. Before that honestly I never put much thought into it. I just did it.

But then I thought . Hmmm I must be gay? But that is another thread.

[Jilmac]

I think I was in my late 20s when i first heard the word crossdresser, so I looked up the definition. Up until then most people who spoke of those who dress in womens clothes, used the word transvestite, (and sometimes more derogatory terms). I liked the term crossdresser because it best defined what I had been doing since my mid teens. I must have been around 28 or 29 when I finally admitted to myself that I was indeed a CROSSDRESSER.
Luv and :hugs: Jill

[KarenCDFL]

I was about 3 or 4 when I started putting on mommies stockings and dressed on and off till puberty and them WHAM Big Time.

I actually realized what I was doing when I was about 12 or so and I had read the "Everything You wanted to know about Sex" Book By Dr. David Ruben. He had a small section that explained about this thing called cross dressing. Up till then I had no idea that anyone else in the world actually did this.

[Lara Smith]

I was in my early thirties before I would actually admit it to myself.

[Stormgirl]

When I was around 18 and was start of the whole internet boom took off. I wore female clothes way before 18 but I didn't understand it at the time.

[SweetCaroline]

Caroline,

At six years old, I doubt you knew what you were doing, and why you were doing it. The question was at what age did you realize you were a crossdresser?

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.

[Jamie S.]

I've always known that something wasn't quite right with me. It wasn't until one of my older cousins dressed me up in a dress that I realized who I was.

[Claire3]

Hi Emily,thought it was 8,then i guessed it was 21,then i knew it was because i replied to your thread:love:

[LovelyRita]

Well I always felt I was too "nice" Translation: sensitive to be a popular guy. In my teens I dressed and of course it had the sexual excitment so I fooled myself into thinking it was becuse I didn't have a girlfriend. But once I was married at 21 and she went to work and I worked nights and slept in her nighties. That is when I knew it was lifelong.

[tammysuetv]

Early teens for me. It started with a pantyhose fetish and took off from there.

[lynnmcarthur]

I understood my wanting to be a girl at age 3 or 4. That si when I started dressing. I knew I was different but had no frame of reference until Christine Jorgensen and that was very scarey.

From then on I often would wish it would go away. I began to accept myself in my 20s and really ahve never realized full acceptance

[TracyH]

I was about 3 or 4 when I started putting on mommies stockings and dressed on and off till puberty and them WHAM Big Time.

I actually realized what I was doing when I was about 12 or so and I had read the "Everything You wanted to know about Sex" Book By Dr. David Ruben. He had a small section that explained about this thing called cross dressing. Up till then I had no idea that anyone else in the world actually did this.

Ugh. That book was so full of stereotypes and preconceived notions about gays and crossdressers that it wasn't even funny. But, I suppose for being written in the time it was, it was a pretty open minded view.

As for me, I started when I was 13, didn't realize I was a crossdresser until probably 16, but I remember thinking about crossdressing from the time I was about six years old.

[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. :tongueout

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.

[whitelace]

I first started dressing at ....well let me put it this way....One very lazy summer day I went for a long walk. I was vaguely aware that I was in search of some sort of answers to the messages I was receiving from my subconscious. I saw my shadow gracefully keeping pace as I walked on and couldn't help but notice my body language.... I was at first startled to recognize and to be suspect of a female presence in me and suddenly all the pain of being him was gone. As I walked on to other neighborhoods as my new self , I met a whole new set of friends of various ages who immediately liked me for who I was which I assume to them was neither masculine or feminine just a happy spirit . I was very happy in my own skin and it showed
The dressing came shortly afterward. I had adopted certain items of clothing
a gold belt, earrings. white lacy scarf, girls boots, a wonderful girdle that had a silky crotch and always skin tight jeans ....all this occurred before I was 12. To me the dressing became the outward sign of the inner feeling but dressed or not I could always feel her wonderful presence....lacie:battingeyelashes:

[deja true]

My first memory was very early, maybe around 5 or 6. The neighbor girls, twins, dressed me in one of their party dresses and we played in their bedroom with the door locked. We knew it was wrong, but it was sooo much fun. I stole items from the 'dress-up' box at after school day care and kept 'em hidden under my bed all through primary school.

But then, at about age 12, I got a job at a newstand that was filled with hundreds of titles of magazines. There, on a back rack, way up high, was a magazine called "Female Impersonators". The pictures of the gorgeous ladies from the 1/2 dozen 'drag shows' around the country, told me what I was and what I could be. But...it also told me that that was the only thing I could be. If I kept doing what I was doing, there was no hope that I ever could be a 'normal' person. The guilt started from then and it was a continuous round of dressing and purging and dressing and purging for the next decade, until I was lucky enough to finally find information in my local library (never checked those books out, no sir!) that there were more like me...and that some even led 'normal', though hidden and stressful lives. I accepted that I was a 'transvestite' but also resigned myself to being a hidden and guilt-ridden 'freak' for the rest of my life.

Thank the goddess that Al Gore invented the internet when he did (:D). And the hundreds of sites that showed regular people with an irregular desire started to help me lose the guilt and angst. I still hid, but I didn't feel so bad about it.

I've got to say, though, that today, thanks to this site and the talk and information that is available here and through the links that are posted here and the wonderful mentors and friends that have come my way, I've actually become happy and contented in my
life. A life that used to be a duality, but is now heading towards what Arianna calls an 'integration'.

That's 50 years of personal history in a few paragraphs. Wish it hadn't taken so long, but life is like a box of chocolates, ain't it?

[Katheryn]

That is, at what point (age) in your life did you say to yourself "I am a crossdressser!" and what brought you to that realization?

I started with my mom's clothes, as probably everyone did, found I enjoyed wearing them, but I'm not sure when I had that moment of epiphany when I realized I was a crossdresser. Took me awhile to put it all together, with some help from some understanding friends who were more aware of such things than I was at the time.

K

[Lauren1973]

I can rember back to 8 to 10 range. I can remember it being something serious at 12 ish.

[Laura_Stephens]

I started wearing around 2 or 3, but I didn't "self admit" until my early 30's. I guess that I am just a slow learner.

Actually, I hoped for years and years that I would wake up and be "normal" and that the desire would go away. After all those years, I finally figured out that I am who I am. Profound, right??

[celeste26]

When I started the word cross dresser hadn't even been invented yet, but I was fully engaged in the activity around puberty in the early 60's.

[pinkeverything]

at 35. What a bummer.

[Kimberly Marie]

My parents dressed me up for halloween when I was about ten. But I really didn't realize until I was about fifteen.

[JenniferR771]

I started out at about 10 with my mother's bra and girdle. Later I spent considerable time reading Alex Comfort's "Joy of Sex", especially a few paragraphs about crossdressing.
But I didn't call myself a crossdresser until my late 40's when I discovered some magazines at an adult bookstore. Started to read pictures and articles. "Ladylike" magazine and similar.

[MWCMDarlene]

5-6yrs. old---Started playing in box of "dress-up" clothes that belonged to my best friend's grandmother. Didn't "feel" anything about CDing at this time.

12yrs. old---Read "Dear Abby" article about wife whose husband dressed as a woman. Was living with grandparents and mowed my aunts' yard. After mowing, let myself in to get a drink and in their laundry room was one of her bras. Put it on, stuffed it with washrags, and enjoyed the thrill. Then parents split up and was staying with mom. While she was at work, would dress in one of her bras and pull-over shirt that snapped at the crotch. Got caught wearing it by my sister once, but I had a shirt that was very similar to it, so I don't think she ever knew.

13yrs. old---Parents got back together and moved to another town. From then all through high school, dressed in mom's bras, panties, and dresses every chance I could while at home alone. Was busted several times with articles in my possession, but never while wearing them. Mom thought I was gay, but I knew I wasn't. Was just curious about wearing and dressing up in women's clothes. She took me to Psych doctor, but I didn't want to talk about it. Still didn't know anything about CDing, just thought it was wrong, but knew I ccouldn't quit.

College years---stole some panties from store once and took to college dorm room (no roomate). Would wear occassionally to classes, but was always afraid someone could tell I was wearing them. Still had't heard the term or phrase "CD". Knew I wasn't "queer" or "gay", but just liked wearing women's underwear.

Mid 20's---Got married and knew I was "cured" until wife was at school one day and I started dressing in her "naughties". She came home and caught me one time, but I played it as if I was playing a "sex" game and saw her coming up the driveway.

All the way until now (45 yrs old)---Can't stop and take advantage everytime family is away, like this weekend. Wife knows, but hates what i do and wants me to be "healed".

So, I would say it was when I was about 28-30 years old when I finally conceded to being what I am now...a man who like to wear women's clothes.

[Toni_Lynn]

But then, at about age 12, I got a job at a newstand that was filled with hundreds of titles of magazines. There, on a back rack, way up high, was a magazine called "Female Impersonators". The pictures of the gorgeous ladies from the 1/2 dozen 'drag shows' around the country, told me what I was and what I could be. But...it also told me that that was the only thing I could be. If I kept doing what I was doing, there was no hope that I ever could be a 'normal' person. The guilt started from then ...

I had a similar experience. When I began seeking info about what I was about .. shortly after I bought my first training bra and panties at age 13, and was emotionally abused by my mum because of it, I read some of the stuff in Dr David Ruben's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex .. but where afraid to ask. What a load of old rubbish! I recall his long involved answers about gay men dressing as women, and his short somewhat graphic description of the sad life of the hetero CD (as well as -- hmm the sexual aspect), and it filled me with guilt. I came away from it saying .. so I must be gay. I remember sitting and thinking about doing gay things and feeling that I was destined to only have sex in that way. I was disgusted. I wanted to like girls and be like them too. Only after a long talk with myself did I say ... I will be me, and not what this jerk classifies me as.

It took a long time to get over feeling dirty.

Huggles

Toni-Lynn

[Jaydee]

I finally got a chance to jump into this thread.

I first realized that I enjoyed wearing pantyhose when I was about 11 or 12. I "knew" it was wrong and kept it a secret. In my teens, I had seen articles in magazines about "Transvestites". I didn't like what I had read or the explanations of the behavior. I knew I wasn't gay, but then why did I like womens clothes so much?

I was married in my twenties and the desire, but not the interest went away for about 10 years. The desire came back suddenly and grew, but I still didn't understand it and certainly didn't think of my self as a crossdresser. It was only when I came across this site by accident a couple years ago that I soon realized at age 53 that I wasn't the only one in the world and maybe I wasn't some kind of mentally deranged pervert. So I guess the answer to the thread's question is age 53, even though I had been doing "it" for over 40 years.

Jaydee

[serinalynn]

I was 10-11 years old when i started wearing my mothers things panties at first then half slips, full slips, a bra and by the time is was 14, I was fully dressed including a nice dress, shoes, necklase, earrings. I felt so girly. I went to school on monday in boy mode just imagining how I would look as a girl walking the hallways and sitting in class as a girl. After HS graduation i took a long break from dresssing until i was 41 and when the urge to buy and wear womens clothes hit me again I've been part time ever since.

[AnnMorgan]

I guess I was around 6-7 YO. Stuffed it until my early 20's when I discovered what a kick it was to shave my legs and wear pantyhose at work. Then it's been on again-off again since then. I can just kick myself when I think of all of the dreamy outfits I threw out during the many "purges."

[susan2010]

Started borrowing my sister's petticoat when I was 4 or 5. I didn't think of myself as a crossdresser until I was in my 50's. I was just someone who really liked lingerie.
Susan

[suzy cool]

5 years old.

[Daintre]

I started dressing when I was about 10-12, I didn't realize what I was until I was able to do research at the library (that is a building with books). All I knew was that I was different from most boys and needed to find out who or what I really was.

[Jeanine]

I grew up without a father, just my Mom, my 3 older sisters and me. I have pronounced Gynecomastia and started to develop feminine breasts at 11 ... My "dressing" started at 13 when I decided to "try on" my sisters bras and found that my oldest sister's 36B underwire fit perfectly with no "stuffing" necessary ...By 14, Mom and all my sisters had caught me wearing their bras, panties, stockings, dresses, skirts, blouses etc. about a dozen times, so Mom decided that I had "Gender Identity Problems" and took me to see a Counselor ... It was my counselor who first defined me as a "crossdresser" and said she didn't think "crossdressing" meant I was crazy, or Gay.

Hugs-N-Kisses,
Jeanine

[Slip Affinity]

I guess my earliest memories are at about age 5. Like most have said, mom's things were the first items available to me. I had a sister who was 2 yrs younger but that doesn't mean I wasn't into her things but Iwas always afraid I'd stretch or rip them. My pre-teen/early teen years I was the most active and got "caught" more than once. Mom was convinced it was a "sickness" and I spent about 6 months in an institution, which ended up being just a big expense but no help. I picked right back up on it and have continued to this day, altho it has been a hidden part of my life. My wife of 40+ years has known just about ever since we met and I have the freedom now of dressing most anytime I want. Society pretty much accepts women in any type of clothing; too bad it doesn't work the other way. :sad:

[Amy Hepker]

I did not know they called it crossdressing, until the early 90s, but I have been CDing since the 60s.

[annekathleen]

When I tried on my first pair of panties and I love the way they felt, the way they looked, and the way I felt when I was wearing them. ( around 13 years old )

[SarahLynn]

Don't you just hate labels? i know i do. I knew i wasn't a homosexual but didn't know what label to put on myself until a few years ago. Saw that horrible movie put out by Woody Allen and found a title for what i did. So glad i have found this site because now i know i'm not homosexual just different in my expression of my own sexuallity. i have the best of both worlds, the freedom to enjoy my gentler self and my more rugged self too.

SarahLynn

[Tiana]

probably knew for sure around the age of 16

[LucyLuck]

I remember being around the age of 9 - 10 and getting into my mums clothes and running about the house just being silly, don't think my mother liked it much.
My mother was a hair dresser and we lived in the back of the shop, dad had moved out and my mother was out most nights leveing me by my self.
Thats when i started dressing not realy know what and why i was doing it.
It felt so go and so bad....
I can recall wearing a black mini shirt, black pantyhose (loved the feeling) And a black shirt with a long black wig I just couldn't stop looking at my self in the mirror. I just never had heels or make up witch would come years later or I probley would of whent for a walk.
Been working in the hobby ever since :)

[Celeste]

First I enjoyed dressing in my mid teens,of coarse I had the fear of being homosexual and thought women would despise me for it so I didn't really begin to accept it until around 30.I wasted a lot of time worrying about others opinions,so it kind of put the brakes on me being happy strait through my 20's.

[TommiTN]

I was 12 or 13 when I first started, but I had curiosity about all things female before that. When my parents began leaving me on my own sometimes I would sneak into Mom's lingerie drawer and experiment. Of course, she found out no matter how hard I tried to put things back exactly as I found them. This happened several times and they weren't pleasant experiences. She took it pretty hard because she tried to "raise me right". She even blamed herself because she dressed me up a few times for Halloween when I was much smaller. She said people who didn't know I was a boy commented that I was a very cute little girl. I honestly don't recall any of that consciously, but at the subconcious level? She even asked me if I wanted to be a girl once. I don't think it really would have happened since we were not wealthy enough to send me to Denmark, about the only place SRS was available at the time. Besides, I didn't really want to be a girl, I just liked playing at it. Or so I thought. Looking back on it maybe I should have taken her up on the offer. After my Dad passed early this year she told me she had caught him in her panties once. I have been CDing off and on ever since and, like you, I wasted a lot of time on guilt trips. I'm a good bit older than you and can't pull off some of the styles I could when I was younger. Guess I'll have to settle for the classy, middle aged divorcee on the prowl look now. Not so bad when you think about it.

[racquel]

I was around 5.5 or six and put on my sister's beautiful yellow skirt and top and was sooo excited waiting for her to get home so I could be her sister.:daydreaming:
"Take it off" was all she said and here we are 45 years later and it has never again been brought up by her.