Question for CDers: What would you choose??

Most of us CDers are very comfortable with our male selves. I have seen this said quite a few times in the short time that I have been here. I am also among those who feel that way.

Now I know we have a lot of "mature" members on this site, so I want all of you to just imagine that the advanced knowledge, therapy, and to some degree acceptance was around when you were very young.. With that said, here's the question:
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If you could go back to the age of 10, with the understanding that this feminine side of you was very important to your life, who would consider starting HRT or crossdressing a lot sooner (for those who weren't already doing it at that age)

If you think you would have done either, say which one (HRT or CD) and explain. If you would prefer it to play out the way it did, maybe explain that too.


I just started very recently myself.. So personally, if I could go back to that age, I think I would have started crossdressing then.. My gut feeling is that I would NOT want to start transitioning by taking hormones, but maybe if I had started then and fast forward to the present, I may have.. But I would still be straight!! There's just no attraction to guys for me.. Not that theres anything wrong with that at all.

Thanks for your input!!

if i knew about my present self and the maturity i will gain 10 years ago i probably wouldnt have struggled with the hundreds of questions that raised during my teenage and would have been much at ease

sonam

I'm an older lady. I started CDing in my teens at home so mostly underdressing. Now 40 years later I have finally embraced it. I wish I didn't beat myself up, deny, and hid it all these years. In my teen years CDer's were considered mentally ill by "professionals" in the field. If acceptance was like it is now my life would have been better, I envy young crossdressers now. I feel like I missed out on a lot. Therapists these days realize it really isn't a big deal (harmles) unless the CDer has stress related issues from it.

I am 59 years old and have been crossdressing since 5or 6 years of age to some extent. In my teen years had a lot of feelings I did not understand and thought I was the only one like this. If I knew then what I know now I would have transitioned and had SRS. The old saying "hindsight is better than foresight" is very true sometimes.

I'm one of those 'mature' members you've mentioned, At least in age anyway.
I probably started Cross-dressing about the age of 12. I have never felt the need for HRT or SRS. I'm sure I would still be a CD. I don't see why that would change. It just would have been so nice to have the knowledge I have now back then. I wouldn't have to live all those years with the terrible guilt, selfdoubt and aloneness I felt for so long.

Oops forgot to mention I'm not interested in transitioning. Or having real boobs.

I'm one of those who started insisting he was a girl around the age of three, refused to allow my hair to be cut or wear pants and would not go near boys.

I'm very cautious around men now because I expect them to be hostile toward me. I believe I cause them emotional confusion because they see a man but experience a woman on a subconscious level and receive mixed emotional signals even though I try to avoid doing anything that would make them feel this way.

There is nothing stopping me from transitioning if I wanted to step onto that path except myself and I don't because it would not turn me into a genetic female and for me it is an all or nothing deal so I live between worlds but this has had its own rewards for me because it has brought other gifts of a spiritual nature.

And in case you want to include us "immature" members as well, I'd have to say if I went back to that time, I might consider moving forward in a different direction... but of course that would be conditional depending on this alternate-reality's acceptance of the transgender world and my own comfort level as well... cos if we're saying I'm going back to be the same 10-year-old that I already was, I doubt very highly that I'd suddenly come to accept what I was (had I actually known what it was that I was) and actually embrace it the second time around...

Chances are, I'd simply go through life again worrying that there was something really wrong with me!

:)
jenn

I try to think i'm a little bit mature. i starter dressing very young probably 12 or 13 and have never thought anything about HRT. I just love being a crossdresser and would never change anything . i've got the best of both worlds

I'm just starting out after having been in denial for so long (I'm 24 and had first experience at about 4 or 5). Having gained confidence and acceptance of myself recently, I think with hindsight I would have started crossdressing sooner. Having said that I don't think I would have come out at school - I was never that confident as a teen and kids are often not quite that understanding! I don't think I would have gone for hormones though as I do like my male side and see no attraction to guys.

Well as far as i remember i was already CDing i doubt at 10yrs i would have had the understanding of HRT but at this point i think it would have been a lot easier if i had just been born a girl and not have to worry about it .
One of the problems is i think as you get older your hormones change so it could highlight any problems that you are having now which may not have affected you so much then.

not really sure if parts would be cut off..to speak. but yes i would have a good pair of c-cups all real.and most of my life at this time would be as loni..including job.

if only to go back in time and take over my body and remember all i know today.. life would not have been as hard, thinking i was some kind of freak.

Hi,

Im one of those who knew there would come a time i would be able to express my self as a female / woman & did at age 10 on,. , tho not in a way that others would pick up on , wrong there, tho that was around age 18 -19 . i was different in many ways tho i had a hard time of expressing what / who i really was / am,

Im 64 yet i did know back then just was not time for myself to be open & as a person i was closed down Tho Mum knew i hated male clothes & had issue;s being around males , Jos as well tho both did not see it or understand & i could not explain i was I S..let alone any thing else,

In our day 50 -60's no way , one you keeped your mouth shut or you would have been carted off to the nut house.
& even if i had known youd have to be jokeing to even say im a I S , trans or dresser.

What i did know was , i was told about the men in white & the white paddy waggon . if you were different. as a kid i knew that. & no way was i going there,

the day came at the right time & every detail was in place for me to grow be & have the experance of knowing i would be fullfilled as a female / woman as born. just i had to go through a lot of issues things learning & become one very strong woman , who would have failed if i had not gone through all of what i have, over that part of my life of 50 years .

I'v had so far coming up 16 years of being who i am. & the more i go on. im being accepted more & more. in groups .Soc. & a member of many groups & women only .

Different yes it is or i should say because im different .

...noeleena...

This is something I've been thinking more and more about. Looking back at my teen and pre-teen years, I now see that I had gender ID issues that I was not aware of at the time -- I mean, in the 50's Christine Jorgensen was not exactly mainstream, and my parents would not have understoood. (My mother knew I would get into her closet, but could never bring herself to talk to me about it.) So yes, if I were a teenager today with increased awareness of gender issues, I think I'd consider transitioning.

That big word IF! I started when I was four! LOVED IT THEN! LOVE IT NOW! By the time I was a teenager IF I knew I could of started HRT I would of in a heart beat! With no acceptance at home I had a hard life trying to grow up in a mans world! IF it weren't for health reasons I still would fifty plus years later! Hugs!

I was crossdressing at that age and, like Claire, knowing what I do now, would have opted for HRT. My reasoning isn't exactly TS/female identity, though. Rather, it's a preference for female presentation and social life, coupled with a strong dislike for male characteristics. At this point, my gender identity is rather androgynous. So while I might have preferred HRT, I might also have found myself presenting rather tomboyish.

Lea

Assuming that advanced knowledge, therapy, and some acceptance (especially on the part of parents) was prevalent when I was 10 I would most certainly have been on hormones and transitioned at a very young age. I remember being on my mother's lap at about age 6, poking her breast with a finger and being told to stop it. Then I asked, "will mine be like yours when I grow up?". She then told me that I would not have breasts as I was a boy and only girls had them. I began to cry and was devastated.
I so very much wanted to be a girl, but society and my parents directed me otherwise and I think that is a big part of why I am who I am and the way I am today.

Like Claire, the only knowledge that I was not alone until I was about 18 was the news I read of Christine Jorgensen.

I was crossdressing by age 10, and knowing then what I know now, I still would not have wanted HRT.

So long ago, I started around 5 years of age and have continued ever since, when I was in early pubescence I really longed and wished that I could of been a girl, but at that age knew nothing about HRT etc., in fact was frightened to tell anyone, believing that I was odd and it was only me that did these things, oh a big THANK YOU for the internet when I realised that there are thousands like me and I am not some kind of freak.
Now as I am happily married (27yrs) with a family I am glad that I stuck to dressing and didn't proceed further.

I started crossdressing when i was 14 and there was no internet or computers back then,i kept it a secret all my life, i had no parents and was living on the streets with no direction, with access to the internet as we have today i would have opted for HRT in a heartbeat, i didn't know about it till much later in my life, and tried to quell my feelings thinking i was abnormal, i married and came out to my wife after we had children, she new i liked to wear lingerie before that but not about my desire to dress fully as a woman, she is accepting and because of the children and my marriage i won't have HRT now.

Like many others expressed back in the 50's & 60's you could never even show interest in crossdressing and if things were back then as they are now and knowing what I know now I would at least be more daring and dress more often and would embrace this side of me more. I don't know about HRS but I would try to live as a women.

If I knew the answer to that I would have bought gold when I was in university in 1972( I think it soared to $ 60.00 an ounce.). I would also have finished my law degree and never had become an accountant. I would have invented a way to prevent head hair loss and a way to accelerate complete body hair loss( no, I would not have invented an epilator). I would have standarized bra sizes so that every 36D was actually, a 36D. I would have...............................! Thinking back though, I started crossdressing when I was conceived( I was wrapped in a pink blanket) so I guess I would have..................!

Crossdresser only. At the age of five i thought about removing mr. jingles; even sat down with a pair of scissors, but nothing ever came of it. None the less I would not want to be 10 again. Took me long enough to be comfortable with who I am now let alone trying to do it again even with what i know now isnt appealing one bit. If we went back we would still end up with the same situations in life. Most had mothers and fathers who repeatedly took us to therapists; ridicule from family and friends. Why do you think most of us couldn't wait to move out? We all made decisions based on life decisions and I want to make them where i currently am without having to backtrack 20 years.

Melody, I think about this question a lot. Whether I would have been prescient enough to demand girlhood at age 10 is doubtful. But what I do wish for -- though of course can't have -- is not to have spent so much mental and psychic energy repressing my feminine side for 50 years. Now that she is out, she wants it all, and it's kind of , um, inconvenient! But what's hard to know -- and help me if you know how to find this out -- is whether I really want to be a girl or whether I just want to let my feminine side (elizabethamy) have a share of the daylight. Looking back means everything to me, but only if it can help me move forward. my best wishes to you in your quest...

elizabethamy

I would have liked to have known about Tina well before age 55 (which is when we found her) but I really am committed to both genders and can't imagine doing anything (like HRT) to compromise the possibility of passing in both genders.

tina