Silence of the Lambs had a negative impact on me. It was a set-back for me at the time.
Silence of the Lambs had a negative impact on me. It was a set-back for me at the time.
I think it was an old Aime show Princess Knight from Osamu Tezuka on the mid seventies even It was a FTM character, I was fascinated by the gender bending theme
princesa.jpg
We look to Scotland,for all our Ideas of Civilisation-Voltaire
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A woman who loves to wear beautiful clothes is like a flower.
A man who loves to emulate these women is a special flower-a rose Facebook:Sophie Johnson
I can remember reading one of Frank Baums books- he wrote the Wizard of Oz. In the end the main character is transformed into a female. It turns out he was changed by a witch so he could not be Ozma the Princess of OZ. I read that as a 9 or 10 year old and so wished it could have been me. Latter I also watched Bosom Buddies- Peter Scolari was a much prettier female than Tom Hanks. I also remember an episode of fantasy island where a husband and wife changed places. I think the man may have been Vic Tayback.
I also noticed the crossdressing in Mad and Cracked mags. Also everytime Danny LaRue or any other female impersonator was on Magum, TJ Hooker or any other show I was glued to the tv.
And another thing..... after I was diagnosed with my pitutary gland issues in 2004.... A TV show came on that really got the pink fog flowing.. "He' a Lady". www.tbs.com/shows/hesalady/ I got sucked into this and it was like a reawakening... After 10 years of very little dressing (thanks to the brain tumor).... I was out of the closet... Big time.
Oooh, so many instances. There is Christopher Morley in Freebie and the Bean. I know it's a bad role model because he was a crossdressing assassin, but he looked fantastic and that was probably the first time I realised you could actually dress and look like a woman. Dr Jeckyll and Sister Hyde (the 70s Hammer movies) was something that I really longed for, to be able to change into a woman lke that. I also remember seeing Renee Richards on the telly one time and I was stunned to hear that a man could actually have an operation to become a woman. There was a very early youth show in the 1980s on the BBC called Riverside which featured an interview with someone I don't know the name of, but this was a guy in a dress with big hair, makeup and the works and this made me think I could try dressing in full. There were the New Romantics I was so jealous of because they were wearing makeup and great clothes, especially David Sylvian from Japan. Then I saw Boy George and he blew my mind, he was gorgeous and again gave me something to aspire to. Let's also not forget Roger Taylor from Queen in the "Want to Break Free" video, though that was later in my life, but still had an impact. Otherwise I was always looking out for newspaper articles on transgendered people that occasionally cropped up, even though they invariably showed the subject as a pervert or a weirdo, but it did help me realise there were others like me
These were mostly in my early teens, but there wasn't much in the way of real crossdressing on British TV before then, or not that I saw. You had comedians like Dick Emery who did some female characters, but he was clearly a man in drag, or Monty Python who were the same but actually funny, and there was Danny La Rue who was more glamourous, but I never really saw much of him. We have pantomime with the dame characters, but these are just men in dresss with the worst cartoon makeup. I was always more envious of the principal boy who is a woman playhing a male character, who is unquestionably an attractive woman in a very short skirt and sexy boots playing a boy.
I think Bosom Buddies was my earliest exposure to it, but it didn't make me want to do it at all. What made me want to do it was seeing these gorgeous images of women in lingerie from Playboy. I equated lingerie, stockings and garters with what turned me on, and soon enough those items alone turned me on, even if a girl wasn't wearing them...and eventually I started wearing them myself!
Wow no mention of variations magazine supplement to Penthouse? And as for "He's a Lady" I must confess I am still in love with Alberta. Pure fox!
I saw the "Christine Jorgensen Story"movie in the mid 70s. It was critically panned BUT it was an eye opener for many in the TG/TS community and many characters in the movie were actually respectful to her. That was a rarity back then for anyone in the TG life.
Years ago, Tula (Caroline Cossy) made the rounds on the talk show circuit to promote her book "My Story". It was around 1990 or so if I remember right. I am fortunate enough to have several recordings of these appearances and have preserved them digitally. She was an amazing lady, too bad she is not in the public eye anymore.
Bosom Buddies definitely had an influence on me, I loved that show as a kid. I was fascinated by Donahue and other talk shows of the day whenever they had on TV/TS folks on, and often recorded them and watched them over and over again. The episodes of Donahue featuring JoAnn Roberts and the one where they went to Wildside in Toronto were my favorites.
Debs, I remember much the same as you, I think I have a video recording of the Riverside Studio incident (apparently he got friends to sneak in a change of clothes for him, so it was not expected by the interviewer) somewhere.
Two other major television influences for me, were :-
1. An (1970s Christmas?) advert for a portable hairdryer with hood, in which a 17th century cavalier on the run from roundheads, restyled his long hair using curlers and the hood, and got past his pursuers disguised as a woman with ornate hair, corset, floor-length dress, etc.
2. In the cartoon 'Arthur! and the Square Knights of the Round Table' an episode has Lancealot accidently being transformed into a beautiful woman.
I certainly liked the idea of trying both of these out for myself. I would dearly like to see these short items again.
Regarding Christopher Morley, I think he was in a number of U.S. programmes & films, including a hospital soap where his 'female' character had a number of weeks, before being exposed as a crossdresser.
Is there a website/resource where those of us who have such clips could share them with our fellow members?
Sandra
Sandcastle is a bit buried.
Debs and Sandcastle,
Thanks for mentioning Christopher Morely. I saw Freebie and the Bean about a year after I first cross dressed and it was a revelation. I think he was in several shows/movies in the late 70's.
I also came across a story in a Playboy type magazine about a writer who was sent to a feminization service by his editor at about the same time.
And finally I was in San Francisco just before my senior year of HS and we were walking down Broadway and stumbled past an adult bookstore that you could see the mags in and there was one with a TS on the cover with her boys and girls in all their glory. At the time I found that so exciting I thought maybe that's what I wanted.
Anyway, OP great thread idea.
Haha! Sounds like a reference to Bonnie Prince Charlie, and his escape from Britain disguised as a woman. Only in the UK could they have a commercial like that.
Didn't Billy Crystal play a crossdresser on an evening soap? It was one of his earliest TV programs; did I say TV???, I meant television. There was a black and white 'B' movie, named the Christine Jorgenson Story and a segment on the Marcus Welby series, where Robert ???? (the dad in the Brady Bunch) had a sex change operation.
I think that I was most influenced by the beautiful women in movies and the clothing that they wore; I really wished to wear some of the geogeous outfits and see what I looked liked in them......if I could only look like them......be still my heart!
The tv game show "To tell the Truth" with Gary Moore as host had a segment about
some college boys who changed into girls while the panel members were blindfolded which
influenced me. A newspaper story of a club in Germany whose patrons where all cd somtime
in the 60's made me aware that we existed.
Pink is more than a color: its an attitude!
I guess, just like others, it was movies like "Some Like it Hot" but also there was pop music TV shows and when in 1977 when I was 14 years old, I saw David Bowie singing "Boys Keep Swinging" I was curious about the three backing singers but I thought they were girls, however my eyes nearly popped out of my head when it got to 2mins 15 secs in the video! I had no idea! That was the first time I realized that perhaps it didn't happen just in movies. Here's a link if you want to see what I'm talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SoiXlp0HAU
However, it wasn't until 1989 that I really did something about, what was fast becoming a kind of obsession for me and that was when I saw an add in a national UK newspaper that said: "From He To She" ... it was for a crossdressing service called "Transformation" (the Stephanie Ann Lloyd one) I went there for my first real experience of "doing things properly" and not just something for fun for a costume party. The rest, as they say, is history!
.
The River City Gems - Northern California's largest and most active crossdressing & transgender support group!
ahhhh bowie is the greatest !
[SIZE="2"]"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not"[/SIZE]
Milton Berle was my inspiration,I just wish I looked that good.
Drink up me heartys,yo ho!
Kate
At 4, 5, or 6 it was Flip Wilson's Geraldine and many antic of cd on Laugh In. Between 6 and 11 it was Klinger from MASH. At 11, Billy Crystal played Jodie on Soap which while still part of situational comedy, offered a seriousness to his life style right down to suicidal depression. It was also around this time I read a Robert Heinlin novel about a rich old guy with a rare blood type who was paying for a brain transplant but the only available person to be killed during this crucial point was a young beautiful woman...I was mesmerized and finished with the hope that one day I could get my brain transplanted into a beautiful woman. I think it was called Stranger in a Strange Land (?). Then, there were also Saturday Night Live, Second City TV, Monty Python, Bennie Hill and countless other variety type comedies throughout my life...Bosom Buddies, Crying Game, Soldier's Story all came later but still provided validation that there may be a few others out there that are interested in things that interest me.
A lot of TG folks dismiss Klinger as a negative burlesque, but I always got a kick out of him. The way that it started out simply as a dodge, then began consuming him to where he was really getting into it, sewing his own clothes, keeping up with fashion, and seeking tips from the nurses. I remember once when a nurse bribed him into "looking the other way" while on guard duty by promising to loan him a particular blouse and peasant skirt of hers that he had admired.
The book is "To Sail Beyond the Sunset." Though "Stranger in a Strange Land" is another Heinlein classic. (Hell, anything by Heinlein is a great, entertaining and thought provoking read.) A lot of his stories had elements of gender change themes.
Last edited by Starla; 12-26-2010 at 09:45 PM.
"Television is very educational. Whenever somebody turns it on, I go into another room and read a book." -- Groucho Marx
If it was shown in the daytime, I think the soap opera in question was "Santa Barbara". I know that one had a crossdressing character (a real crossdresser if I remember right, been 20 years or so.)
If I remember right, To Tell The Truth also had a TV (and FI) and their wife on the show; the celebrity panel later revealed they read the TV/FI immediately and thought something was up. It was the 80s version of the show.
My first awareness that I wasn’t alone was also from a 1966 Life Magazine article on Sunset Strip in California that included a mention of boys dressed as girls working on the strip. Maybe not the best role model but I vividly remember it as a moment in my life when I realized there was another world out there.
Does anyone remember a Johnny Carson show that hosted a man, he was quite tall, like 6'7", and his very short wife and their only child, a daughter? The couple both crossdressed and the daughter brought pictures that she had drawn for school showing dad in a dress and mom, of course, in pants. The daughter was about 7 or 8 years old and accepted what their parents were doing as very normal.
Of course, there was Johnny hosting Tiny Tim and his eucal (I can't spell it), his banjo type instrument. Didn't Johnny dress up as Aunt ???? on occasion.
This thread inspired me to re-watch Freebie, its not a great movie by any means. But wow Christopher Morley was sex as hell a boy and as a girl. If you get the chance I suggest giving it a watch.
Unfortunately everything I saw was intended to use Drag as bad, over-the-top humor. Milton Berl, Red Skelton and the others. I didn't have control of the TV at home so anything that could have been close to a positive interpretation of a Crossdresser was on the channel I wasn't watching. When I did see a CD on Television I only wanted to turn them off since I knew they were going to be embarrassed at the end, and if they were not, then I would be embarrassed for them. Now I know that all I was doing was projecting my insecurity onto the characters I was watching. By the time the attitudes were changing I was out of the house and went years without a television. I now have the remote control in my hand thank you.
Sarah
Being transgender isn't a lifestyle choice. How you deal with it is.