I guess I know where it truly started. Are you just starting?

First, I will say this - none of this is meant to offend, but I will use the words as I understood them back then. I knew so little... :o Sets the mood you know?

I was about 23 maybe. 1997'ish? Wife and kid were going out of town for a month. I wondered what it would be like to dress completely as a woman. I knew what size pantyhose I wore, but what about the rest? And makeup? Heh, that was a blast to try learning from books and secretly trying on clothes at goodwill. I was gonna learn to dress in drag somehow.

I bought some books. One was by Miss Vera. THIS held the secrets to being a REAL drag queen or transvestite or whatever it was called. Not a word about how to pick your clothing sizes or do makeup. I had waited over a week for this book and drove (after dark of course) to the gay book store for this POS.

Well I called some "gay services" thing in the phone book and they put me in contact with a leader of a local TG group. So nervously I called. I mean I had never talked to a REAL transvestite before. We met for lunch at a gay bar. She told me stuff about HRT, mannerisms and things related to transition. I thought, "Well great, she told me about estro-something and not to walk like a man." I wanted to ask how to dress like a woman (hadn't even shaved my mustache yet) but didn't even know where to start with THAT. It was still awesome though cause now I had contacted a REAL transvestite. Man, there were TWO of us living in this town, even if I was just starting out. I survived the experience and this other one was just like a real person!

Now I was motivated and put things in high gear...

Put together my first outfit with a black skirt, tee shirt, some dumb looking heels, a gold belt, and makeup. Bright red lipstick of course. Hit the clubs, met with other trans, started learning about this life.
I even had a horrible name picked out - Trudy. Well someone gave that name to me. Oh my gyod, my stomach hurts typing that name. But I got by hiding in the night of course. Oh yes, the hiding...

Fast forward to today. I cannot remember when I last heard my male name (other than my ex, she my son are the ONLY ones allowed to use it). Go to work each day as Erin, my gender just isn't an issue. It feels like I have been Erin my whole life. Went from hiding in the night to just "being". I cannot imagine my life any other way.

Alright look - by now someone is wondering what the point of this ramble is. For those starting out or struggling, one day you too will get to where your gender just isn't an issue. You won't think much about it other than brief passing thoughts that fade instantly. I mean it flies by so fast. I laugh when I think about all the silly crap I did during the learning process like going to a mall on a saturday night in a mini skirt or some of the horrid attempts at dressing or maybe before I trained my voice and I just avoided communication. One time I was out "dressed" and I walked into a breakfast place and said, "Look, I am a man dressed like a woman, is it still Ok if I use the restroom?" Damn I was crazy.
You too will make some awkward blunders...

I do have one regret about it all - I wish I had kept my first actual outfit.

I guess it truly started for me around 4 or 5. Before I was old enough for school. I knew the difference between boy and girl, kinda, but I just knew that I was supposed to be a girl. I played in the neighborhood with both, but really seemed to be having the most fun with the girls. I even told my Mom I was a girl, and was told to stop being silly. Then my older brother beat me up and teased me enough for me to learn to never speak of such things again. I would take pillowcases and towels and make dresses but I was careful to keep it a secret.

I did for almost 50 years.

Then one day after my second divorce I was cleaning out a closet and came across a wig my ex had left behind. At this point I had worn some womens clothing but it was a piece here or something there. Never attempted to try to go all the way. I decided to try and see.

I shaved my mustache, bought some makeup (all the wrong stuff....blue eye shadow ohhhh) got a complete outfit with shoes and all. I put it all on. I looked into a mirror and had a breakdown. For the first time in my life I saw.....ME. Yes I looked awful, but it was me in there. I must have cried for hours. The next day after thorough removal of all makeup and a shower, I could still see a girl in the mirror. I was terrified, if I could see it everyone else will too? Oh crap what had I done?

I had opened a door. A door that led to transition. Two years later here I am. I live as me, I am never treated any differently than other women, and unless I come in here I really don't think about it much, unless I am having sex. Then it is a bit of an issue, but not much.

Angela, and Nicole, Both your stories resonate so well with me. Looking in the mirror the first time fully dressed...Wow...I was so beautiful! (My God I looked terrible, blue eyeshadow, and all). I wore a black knit dress, black pantyhose, and (Why?) a brunette wig. Witch!

Now I'm just Paula, everyday, and I don't think about it much. Sometimes I pause at the mirror, and say 'You've come a long way, baby'.

lol I had a blond wig.....

Like most here I started out young. I have older sisters who would dress me up sometimes and sometimes I'd sneak and wear their or my mothers clothes. When puberty hit it became sexual. I was 14 when both my sisters were off at collage so I had more access to the clothes they had left behind. I started acquiring my own clothes once I moved out of my parents house when I was 19. For years I had a deep shame for crossdressing and would purge and make promises to myself to quit but I'd always go back to it. Fast forward, age 29, my wife went out of town for a week, I weent on a shopping spree for clothes and makeup, I found this website, and decided I wasn't going to hide anymore. When she got back I told her and she tried (kinda) to be accepting. A few months later the shame returned, I threw everything out and pretended like I'd never said anything to her, so did she. By the time I was 34 the marriage was on the rocks so I left and then all this gender stuff just exploded out...again! I finally realized it was never going to go away. I started transition almost imidiately.

the wig I wore the most before my hair grew out was brunette. I had a couple.

For me there are no wigs, no first dress, or make up. For me it was just a lark and one night gown, something I still go to sleep in. The memories of the past sometimes flood back and remind me that I felt this way back then, when viewed with the lens of today's knowledge. Because back then I didn't know what was "wrong" with me, sometimes today I wonder if there is anything wrong but I feel like there is something wrong.

Today I long for that day. That day that I finally feel and look like the woman I am and not the freak that I sometimes feel like. Right now I take baby steps, and one day I will strut like the woman I know I am inside.

I understand what all of you are talking about, just from the view of a different window.

My earliest memory was sneaking and wearing my older sister's Wonder Woman underoos. I was 4 or 5. My sister is only a year older than me and there were too many times to count her dressing me up over the years. My mom didn't seem to care. From 6th grade on my halloween costume was something female.

I would dress on occasion as I got older. Temporary relief, but still not satisfied. My ex-wife went overseas for a couple months and I decided if I wasn't at work I would dress all the time. I went to a gay bar one night dressed and met another transsexual. When I started telling her my story, she said it was just like hers and she bet within 10 years I would transition. Actually it was only about 2. Her words that night stuck with me and were the true wake call.

Nice piece of writing Erin even though it was uncomfortable to read because it took me back to my teens and all the fear, shame and hiding.

Sometimes we pay such a high price to be what we know ourselves to be.

I don't know where it really came from for me. From my earliest memories I knew something was wrong. At that early age I didn't know sexual identity from shineola. All my life I was obsessed with being a girl though. At 10 years old I had found out about Christine Jorgensen. I knew it could be done. I started saving every penny I could find. I stood up at the dinner table and announced that one day I would be a girl for real. I got knocked across the room for that. It only made me more determined. Twelve years later I would start my transition and a few years after that SRS. That all seems like a lifetime ago today.

I knew at about 5 that I so wanted to be a girl. Girls who lived across the street dressed me up one day and I knew it was so right. Their mom found us and sent me home in shame. I hid my secret for so long. I never really fully dressed again until almost 40 years later when my wife helped me. I came clean with my secret and she transformed me. When she lead me in to look at the mirror I wept. I finally saw the real me! That was almost 2 years ago. Now I am out except when I am required to see anyone for work.

I knew something was wrong at an early age, and while I don't remember being punished for it, I know that I asked for birthday gifts that suited girls more than boys and always felt more at home with girls; and I'm pretty sure I revealed my "problem" to my parents in one way or another. Others have beautifully described the constant mental static, the shameful desires, the longing to be whole. My first dressing experience was just before puberty, when I painted my toenails and put on a dress of my mom's when my parents were away. A peace came over me that I had never felt before.

Unfortunately, I had neither an older brother to try to beat the girl out of me and thereby stiffen my resolve, nor an older sister or two to dress me up and encourage my dreams; and it wasn't until I was thirty-five that I first saw myself in the mirror, fully dressed, bewigged and made up by a woman friend who was into crossdressers.

And that was when I had the epiphany several others in this thread have expressed: I saw myself, the real me, for the first time in my life. From then on, it was a struggle just to stay out of women's clothes long enough to go to work and see friends, before going home and often staying up all night in my secret life. Meanwhile, I married twice, and was finally caught dressing by my current wife. She accepted my dressing, and all was well until I finally realized that crossdressing wasn't enough.

Once I had privately decided to transition, I sought out gender counseling and began HRT through an informed-consent clinic. I was over the moon; I started going out frequently, came out to friends and wrote a long letter which I gave to my wife, explaining the conclusion I had come to regarding my gender and trying to help her see how transition would benefit both of us. She reacted with shock and rejection--and discouraging alacrity. There was to be no discussion, no negotiation, no time.

The question became moot when I discovered I had cardiac issues and felt it was best to pause HRT and put my transition on hold. For me, HRT was a huge part of the process, as estrogen worked on me like a tonic, and I felt centered for the first time in my life. That's why I took a pause, and that's where I remain right now, keeping hope alive by dressing when I can and participating here. It's the only thing keeping me together, mentally and emotionally, being an active part of a community that really understands me, as only transsexual people can.

:) Lallie

First, I want to thank you all for shareing your stories. I can't tell you how comforting this is right now.

For me, my childhood is still a hazy fog, I don't have many memories from. Some of those memories have started to slowly come back to me over the last couple years since I have come to terms with myself.

The earliest memories I have were from when I was about 5 or 6. My brother and I would say our prayers at night after our parents would tuck us in. After they left the room, I would quietly pray to myself "God, please change me." I didn't know what needed to be changed but I knew something was off.

Later, I would sneak washable markers into the bathroom when I took a shower, hiding them in my clothes. Before I got in the shower, I would use the markers for makeup and wrap the towel around myself like a dress. I would look at myself for just a few minutes before hopping in the shower and washing it all off. This was the closest I would get to being fully dressed for a long time.

Once I was in middle school, the teasing took it's toll, and I started to learn I had to fake it to make it. By the time I got to highschool, I had perfected pretending to be the person everyone else wanted me to be, and I was in hardcore repression mode. I stayed in this mode, playing my role, until just a few years ago. The yearning and longing was there, but I kept it stuffed down where I wouldn't have to deal with it. I turned to gaming to keep myour mind off of it, which turned into an expensive addiction in it's own right.

Then at the 2011 Phoenix Comicon, something changed. There was a panel at midnit on saturday. It was about crossplay. Something broke inside of me and I knew I just had to go. I even left a voice acting panel to get there on time. I sat at the panel, and even asked a few questions. It was the first time I had let myself indulge the idea since I was little, and the first time I had ever let Anyone know it was even the remotest of intrests in a public setting.

After I got home, I knew I had to do something, and began devouring all the information I could find on transition, and presentation, and anything else I could find. I also started to sort out my life seriously, gettino more responsible with my job and finances. Here I am looking at the coming year and I have more hope than I have felt in years. I am signing up for a new insurence policy and once it kicks in at the beginning of the year, I can start therapy. I am out to my close friends and family, and am feeling like my life is actually making progress. I know there are going to be plenty of obstacles on the path ahead, at least I am moving on the path.

I fantasized from about 6 or 7 about being a girl, but didn't crossdress until age 13. However, I never realized strongly that I wanted to be a woman until fairly recently. I remember the exact moment when it clicked in my brain: I was at a Christmas party in 2013 run by the local CD/TS social group and that's when I realized "This is really who I am... it's not about the clothes or a couple of thrilling outings a month."

I was very familiar with my mom's closet...especially her black boots and a skirt that I wore constantly... I have no doubt she "knew" something...I tried on everything I could....

its been my whole life as far as I can rememeber


I think the OP is excellent. It makes the point that patience and determination are going to be rewarded. Like Erin, I feel like I have been here as Kaitlyn my whole life. Although I intellectually know and understand the "old" me, it actually feels like it never happened...I think this is true about a lot of things in all of our pasts, but it may be helpful to know that when it seems like your female life is far in the future..

Life-long, with childhood memories as a toddler starting sitting under the ironing board as my mother ironed and putting on her slips and shoes. Also defying my father at 2-3 years old about not giving up my baby doll. I still remember my parents arguing about that one. My sisters also liked dressing me up. Like Kaitlyn, I became familiar with my mother's closet.

Yes, I shared my mother's closet until I outgrew my very petite mother. I mostly undergarments, hose and a bathing suit, but I eventually wore one of her dresses. In addition, she had made Halloween costumes for us every year when were in elementary school, and as I grew I found that the pants from some of them made quite acceptable capris--a hot, new style at the time.

When I was a teenager I discovered a paper sack backstage in my high school auditorium which contained a girl's gray flannel skirt and a pair of black flats. After making sure the shoes fit me, I stole that sack. It was a bad thing to do, but it led to an exciting late afternoon for me. Not long after, though, I threw the sack away, as I had a feeling my parents were going through my closet. I later found it to be accurate, but the subject was never openly addressed.

It took me a long time to understand who I was, amongst the jumble of half-formed concepts that plagued my mind. I bless the advent of the internet for giving me access to information that truly changed my life.

:) Lallie

Something Angela wrote resonated with me. Yes, I recall feeling different at 3-4... And learning that whatever I was doing(the details are less clear) it wasn't ok for a boy. So I opted for self preservation and attempted to bury and deny or simply hide whatever it was about me that was wrong. Yeah, I slipped up a time or two in adolescence and puberty, and by adulthood I accepted that I had a thing. I had a glimpse of myself in my first wife's curly wig and was momentarily stunned by who I saw...and I never wore it again. But it wasn't till five or six years ago that I decided to see how I might look if I went all the way. And despite clumsy makeup and a so so outfit, I looked in the mirror and saw myself. I came away from that moment with the realization that I could do this.

It started around the age of 10 for me. I found my mom's drawer with her panties and bra. I loved walking around dressed in them. I added her pantyhose to my dressing. Then i got caught, didn't dress for a a few years. Then I found my sisters clothes, and kept dressing!