Sheren, now that is an interesting statistic, thank you. I also wonder what the future will bring with changing social attitudes
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Sheren, now that is an interesting statistic, thank you. I also wonder what the future will bring with changing social attitudes
10 Years Australian Regular Army from 1993. Dressed beforehand and in secret while serving. I find that I use dressing as a coping mechanism.
USMC 1995-2003
I didn't CD until a few years after my active duty time.
6 years British Paras in the 70's. CD as a kid, tried to purge while I service always felt bad. Been doing it since.
when i was been in arm soldier . i had little problems. i hv'nt got maskular body form . therefore they observed to me all of time :cheer:
I joined the U.S. Army in 1986, stayed active until 1991, for education and employment mainly. My desire to crossdress manifest itself around 11 or 12 years old. I wanted to be a soldier since I was like 5 years old (or at least as near as I can remember). As far as I can tell there was no correlation between the two. I've always been pretty confortable with my "manhood" weather in pants or a skirt, so maybe unlike some, I don't think there was any "compensation" motivation. My crossdressing has always been a pretty private thing, and yes I did dress privately while in the military. Anyway, that's how I see it.
Thank you all for your service, whether during war or peacetime, I and my family are truly grateful to all of you.
MeeShell
ARMY --US54834710------------IN COUNTRY JAN.20 1969-------------11Bravo----------Tigerland, North Fort Polk La. Sept. 1968---December 1968
I read in a book (long before internet) from a gg that all crossdressers she ever met were or are in the military. Count me in
USAF 1985-2005. Hid as much of my femininity, bisexuality, and transgender nature as I could, from myself and everyone else. Was attracted to military for lots of reasons, none of which I can connect to my, 10 years later, accepted nature.
First point here... each and every one of us is different but the same. ( confused ? so am I )
Been crossdressing since 5 or 6. I was my sisters play sister. Quit for years after she passed away. Started again when my two brothers left home.
Discovered girls and boys, prefer the girls. Six years in the Navy as a cannon cocker, General discharge after being outed by First ex. She knew from before we were married. Second ex also knew from before marriage, to long a story for here.
Ex deputy sheriff, been a long haul truck driver for over 40 years.
Growing up always tried to be macho in everything I do. It took me meeting my wife, yes I told her the night we met, to really begin to accept myself. I have come to realize I have some feminine tendacies but actually am just a guy in a dress. I don't go out and don't want to. My wife is supportive and very helpful.
Aside from the normal raging hormones as a teen, i didn't know about dressing. I joined the Navy at 19 and did a four year stint in the pacific from 57 to 61. My pink fog set in after I married and has been here ever since. The Service played no part in my little world but I saw some sad endings for a few who went a bit too far while in.
Usaf 1987 - 2010
US Air Force 1970-1974. Crossdressed before, during, and after. Just a nice part of me that has always been there...and I expect it always will.
What a great thread! I was never in the military but wish I had been. Thank you to all who served!
74 - 80 us Navy submariner , rotten Groton and pearl harbor .................. Dressed while I was in , being a van owner good place to hide clothes .......
I am a Navy veteran, I crossdressed long before I joined in the 80s. I'm not sure there is any correlation between serving and crossdressing.
USNR 66-75, active duty from 68-70. Quit dressing for a few years.
Same here. I tried to join in the 80’s, but had a GED because I was homeschooled. Peace time Marines didn’t want anyone with a GED. I had passed the ASVAB easily, but no dice. I have nothing but the greatest respect and gratefulness for all who have served our country. Thank You!Quote:
Originally Posted by Crissy 107
As a side note, my curiosity has been more along the lines of how many of us are there with a more typically masculine job, or strong masculine expectations placed upon us even from childhood? I know I started experimenting with girly things at a very young age, and I was the oldest. My younger sister and I have always been very close, but I can remember wishing I was a girl when I was very young (5-6?) because I recognized the difference in how we were treated. I love being a man, and considered a “man’s man” amongst my peers, but I also love this feminine side that I learned to accept and embrace.
In countries that use conscription systems, most trans women do not want to do military service.
Macey,
Some. For me I knew the older I got if I had stayed home the more I would investigate or question my crossdressing. I really needed a job, I had nowhere else to go really. I just had to keep my little secret. So I boxed up all my emotions and clothes put them far from my mind and new lifestyle so I could keep my job. And I survived 25 years.
Now that I am retired, and can explore more those feelings I have reached out and started to ask friends that knew my past, that knew what and who I was when I was Active Duty. It hasn’t been easy, for me and I have found that my softer side the side that has been boxed up for so long wants to assert itself more and more...
This trail is long, and full of obstacles and I am trying. I have a good compass and my map is current. So I guess we’ll see where it leads.
@—}——-
Michelle
US Army 1985 - 2009
Miss Mars, thank you for resurrecting this thread! I'm interested to hear about South Korea, CD and Trans acceptance there, conscription and military service, etc. I love learning about other places and other perspectives :)
Michelle, thank you for serving. If anyone in the states, you and all of the other vets have earned the right to live how you darn well choose. Keep exploring, you're worth it!
Darla, sorry I'm getting to your comment late! Interesting how the military standards shape over the years in times of peace and times of war and through the decades. My father came up hard. Hadn't been to high school a day in his life. He signed up the day the Korean war broke out, but being underage, they needed his father's signature, which he provided (forged, father dead for a decade, they didn't check this stuff out too carefully then). He got his GED while in the service during the war. He went on to double major at NYU. In the late 80's a friend of mine was given the choice by the judge (conversation between the judge and my friend's father), sentence or Marines. In those days 'jail or military' was still a 'thing', but not on an official level. When I joined during the first gulf war, much like with you, they weren't too interested in those who hadn't finished high school. This was still before the DADT policy as well, so they also tried hard to weed out homosexuals and also drug offenders.
With reference to military service during war time I encountered the Vietnam War experience. The marines and army were not choosy who they took. Essentially, each needed bodies to replace other bodies. I knew of many GI's who did not even possess a GED. Some did not even speak English. I remember a non English speaking kid from Puerto Rico who was paired with another who translated for him. I had no idea how he functioned in the Nam. There were guys who declared themselves to be gay under the premise they would not be drafted. Drafted anyway. Locally (Fort Lewis) there was a famous case of a career military guy who was discharged for being gay just before retirement. He had declared his gayness when he was drafted. The army did not care during the Nam period, but, some officer decided twenty years later to make an issue of it. The GI won his court case and was reinstated. In my squad there was a kid from the backwoods of KY who was given the choice of jail or the army. Took the army and survived. The way it worked for conscription during the Nam was each draft board which was run by civilians of the community were given a quota of bodies to meet. If there were many guys in the area the board took single guys. Otherwise, the boards dipped down into married, then married with kids. There were at least two KIA's in my company who were married with kids. One had two kids, one of which he never saw. I never encountered anyone in Nam who seemed to have joined up to be a macho guy. Maybe there were macho guys, but, combat beats that notion out of you real quick. Most of the guys were farm community/small town boys or big city kids, all of whom were of lower economic classes who were either drafted or enlisted. Personally, I never encountered anyone who was gay or a practicing cross dresser in a combat unit. You put your efforts into returning home alive and not maimed. I suppose stateside, if you had the opportunity to go off base, you could do whatever you wanted on your free time. When I was in the barracks life did not lend itself to any intimate encounters...forty to fifty men in an open bay barracks. With what I see locally (Fort Lewis) army life is a lot different now.
U.S.M.C. 1975 ~ 1995 (Retired)
I have dressed as long as I can remember.
My parents came to me and said we are not helping you with college. If you want to go you have to find one and you have to pay for it. They also said that once I turned 18 I was either paying rent or I was out of the house. I chose the military.
Joined the Army in 1978 and served till 1981. One day in the laundry room I noticed clothing stuck behind some pipes. I pulled it out and it was a skirt. We had no women in our unit so there may have been another crossdresser in the unit. When my roommate went on leave I would wear the skirt.
Started college while in the Army finished after I got out.
From the day my mind starting recording I was a crossdresser, so my time in the Army, between 1965 - 1967 did nothing to start my dressing. It just slowed down for the years I served.
Hi Macey :hugs:, In 1963 I spent three hours in the army at the draft center a Ft.Holabird in Baltimore MD.
they said that thy weren't taking fat boys this year
When I graduated I was over 300lbs @6'1"and over the next two years I got down to 200lbs
and now I am still there @203/5'11" last count.
I would like to thank all of those that served their countries. >Orchid
Marine 0311, late 70's. Been Cding since I was 5 years old.
My understanding, and it makes a lot of sense, is that when the young CD is in the denial stage; it is very common to gravitate towards more masculine fields. The literature that I have seen shows a greater percentage of CD's in the Military, firefighters, police and professional sports.
US Army for 28 years and I dressed in ladies clothes quite a bit and totally enjoyed it.
U.S. Army for 24 years, 14 enlisted, 81-95 and 10 as an officer, 2006-2017.
Did I ever tell you how my typing teacher kept me out of Viet Nam? When I was a senior in high school, I had two study halls scheduled back to back. Asst Principal who was also typing teacher said no go and he put me in his typing class. This was 1967. Flash forward two years, I'm on the tarmac all set to go when the first sgt yells "Anybody here know how to type?" I raised my hand and the rest, as we say, is history. USA 91A but turned into a clerk typist this was pre computers.
I had dabbled in panties in high school but none in college or basic or AIT until I got sent to Germany. I was amazed at all the different styles of men's underwear and colors. I was used to boxers and fruit of the loom.
So here I am in a German department store looking over the men's underwear selection when a woman comes up to me and says, "Sex?" I think I said "Huh?" Because she again said "Sex. Sex." and picked up a package of nylon briefs.
I turned and quickly left the store. I was telling this to my room mate (not the part about wearing panties) and he started laughing and said she was probably a sales lady and thought I needed help in sizing. "Sex" is German for "Six" which she figured was teh size underwear I needed. (She was right).
I was both at a British boarding school and required to join the army cadets. Rejection of how incredibly badly both were run is part of the reason for what I am now.
I see no correlation with CDing and my Army service, personally. There are many facets to who I am and those are different parts of those manifestations.
I will say I had one trans soldier and one closet CD, which I discovered during a barracks inspection. Made no difference to me, obviously.
I enlisted in the USAF in 1964. In basic training we were told to box up most of our civilian clothes and send them home. It wasn't until decades later, after I had retired, that someone at home asked me what the story was about the women's clothes that were packed in with my civilian clothes. While I had played with my mom's lingerie when I was little, actually crossdressing never occurred to me. Of course by the time I was confronted, I had been playing around with it for some time. Totally in the closet...or what ever passed for the closet in the military. I recalled that there was a small group of guys from Louisiana that were openly gay. Two of them claimed that sleeping in the same bunk meant that they only had to make one bunk in the morning. That group did not last very long. To this day, I wonder if one of them had slipped the stuff into my box of stuff when I wasn't looking. Apparently my mom got rid of it pretty quickly. And no one bothered to bring it up at the time. I always wondered what it was exactly that they sent.
And, what my family thought all those years.
I was in the navy. While you're definitely right about the "hypermasculine" part, and I definitely started dressing a lot more after I got out, I also occasionally did it before and during my service. Although never fully dressed in public, and never even underdressed if I was going to the ship.
1966 thur 1970 Air Force
U S Navy July 1961-April 1968. Spent almost two years bouncing around in THE Gulf of Tonkin. Right after boot camp the ship I was on did make a NATO cruise.
USAF 2014-2018
I started dressing when I was maybe 10 and enlisted at 21 after flunking out of college. I did hope that the military would make me stop dressing but it didn’t really work. Maybe 3 months after basic training I had started assembling an entirely new girls wardrobe. I continued this through my entire enlistment and frequently wore panties and bras under my uniform and even a pair of female trousers on duty. My actual preferred “socks” for my blues was either stockings with a garter belt or pantyhose lol! Bra, panties, and trousers were completely unnoticeable in ABUs though, so it’s not like I had much risk ever.
Tamara, is this your first post? Good to hear from you! And thank you for serving!
I was dressing before the military. Joined the USAF in 83 just because I hated school and didn't want to go to another school. I snuck in dressing during my 9 years.
I never fully dressed until my later years but I have loved wearing lingerie ever since I can remember. So I was definitely into panties, bras, garter belt and stockings when I went into the army in 1971. Spent my time in Germany and wow did they have some sexy lingerie in their stores.
US Navy 1971 to 1975. I joined the Navy because of all the movies. All the stars in bell bottoms could tap dance. I assumed I would too.
I was cross dressing before going a the Army, while I was in and after. The service had nothing to do with it. It is who I am.