Acknowledgment

[Julia1984]

"When a kite is caught in the most perfect of trees, it yearns for the wind, even if that same wind will destroy it".

As an older transitioner I'd love to hear how you, in a similar vein, came to know who you really were. For me it was after a dream: when I woke, the feeling of wholeness and rightness was, well, sublime. I'm working on recreating that feeling.

Hugs to all

Julia

[SusanCACD]

Hi Julia,
That is a very hard question. I guess it is the wind is what I am afraid of. I have known about me for a very long time. I have always been the family joke. My Mom used to tell the stories of when I was small women asking if I was a little boy or girl. Always got a lot of laughs. I guess I don't want to be laughed at anymore.
Susan

[Vikky]

Hi Julie

An interesting question. I am in my late 60s and I started CDing about two years ago having resisted the temptations for too long. I joined this site (a brilliant place) and gradually started accepting my feminine side.

I am not one for analysing things but when I think back to childhood I think a lot of my inherent femininity was planted then. As a kid Mum often wandered round the house in her underwear and I recall watching at close quarters as she pulled up her stockings and fixed them in her suspender belt. Dad was away a lot working and I know she was very keen to have a daughter, so maybe she was demonstrating her femininity on me (I was the eldest of boys). Don’t know.

At puberty I became very interested in wearing female underwear but never tried putting it on. Then got married, mortgage, career, kids etc and kept my interest under wraps.

I have never really been a man’s man and always gravitated to the girls rather than talk ‘male’ subjects like footie, rugby, cricket.

Now in retirement it’s a case of now or never and I have an acceptable DADT arrangement with my SO and love the time I spend en femme. I underdress when possible and am gradually building a modest wardrobe. I would love to take it further – go out and about, socialise en femme, but need to consider the downside of doing so and its possible affect on my place in the community where I am well known. Softly, softly catchy monkey – maybe one day.

So acceptance has come in the last 12 months or so after trying CDing, realising how important it is too me and learning (mainly on this site) much more about the phenomena.

Vikky

[Nikkilovesdresses]

Beautiful quote (new to me) and an excellent question.

Although I underdressed as a teen, it wasn't until aged 18 I saw the French movie La Cage Aux Folles (not the crappy Hollywood version) that I suddenly realised I identified strongly with crossdressing and a hedonistic lifestyle. I saw it 13 times in the few weeks it was playing at my local cinema in Cupertino, Calif.

For any younger members reading this, one of my main regrets in life is that I didn't crossdress more when I was young, thin and (ahem) gorgeous.

Welcome Julia, by the way.

[Sarah-RT]

I've crossdressed at various points in my life but in the last year or two I've become me.
Wigs and forms help me complete the physical image but being out to friends and family has let me become me the most

[CarlaWestin]

............I'd love to hear how you, in a similar vein, came to know who you really were............

After @ 40 years of struggling painfully with that shameful perverted secret other self I just started to view everything with the correct illumination. I didn't need the baggage of false self judgement within other peoples moral parameters. Ninety percent of all stress we endure, someone else has dumped it on us. So, I eliminated all unnecessary stress. I realized that my moral compass was correct and totally accepted myself and my wonderful exciting and creative proclivity. And, I noticed that too many people were either ignorant, plain stupid or just psychotically damaged with superstition i.e. religion or quoting cliche statements as though that's how life really works. It was a life revelation and it validated Carla.

Unfortunately, as society is still mainly in the dark ages as to gender, I still semi-secretly exist under the radar of mainstream society.

[Nine]

My first dress before 6 years old.
I totally stopped CD during family life.
Love ends, it's time to be alone.
I decided many time, by many ways to stopped smoking, a doctor friend of me thinks that I must try Hypnotherapy...So Why not ?
I resume.....During therapy she ask me to be in a place, a sweety place for me.
So I was sitting above a lake that I knew when I was a child.
She told me to get out of my body and look at me...I was so surprised and felt so good and happy to see me in woman...

I was a bit afraid cause she told me before that hypnotherapy is forbidden for schizophrenics.
I was in a big trouble... but the following day, I bought my first dress.

I stopped smoking !!! and started CD again !!

[StefaniLara]

I started dressing in secret when I hit puberty. Back then, there really wasn't a forum to discuss things, so I felt like a freak. It wasn't until college and my first real girlfriend that I realized what I was and who I was. Acceptance came years later.

[Anita Cosmolover]

It has taken a very long time for me to accept the feminine side of myself. I started reading Cosmo when I was 14 and have been hooked ever since. Reading COSMO helped me understand who I really am inside. All my best friends growing up and through my 20's were women. I started wearing pantihose first I guess in my 20's and for a period looked after a work mates house for a couple of months and started wearing his wife's slips at night in bed whilst reading my COSMO's - oh that was pure joy! I continued collecting my COSMO's in secret and started wearing lingerie in my early 40's - finally accepting who I really am. I kept this secret from my wife until a couple of years ago she found one of my COSMO's I'd accidently left outside on a table - OPP's! So I had to confess all to her. She's fine with my COSMO collection (reads them sometimes too), but not happy with my cross-dressing. I'm going slowly and trying to get her to understand what it's about and why I need to do it. She had many questions - "Am I gay? No.", "Will I want to transform into a woman? No.", What if the kids, neighbours, friends, etc find out? etc ,etc. I guess we just deal with this one day at a time. I've tried wearing a slip in bed and her "discovering" me, but this has failed with her getting upset.
If anyone has any suggestions that may help my wife understand me better, please advise. I've tried to get her to think that this is nothing to do with her - it's about me and my needs. She says she needs a "Man's man" - not a girlie man. I respond with "Yeah, I could go down the pub Friday night and get drunk and watch football with other "manly men", or we could read COSMO together and I give you a massage?". She finds it hard to counter that argument!

[Eryn]

I went through life with a vague sensation of something not being right. I couldn't put my finger on it because I had no points of reference. The major symptom was what I term an "inordinate interest in things feminine" which I easily rationalized as simply an interest in women. I didn't realize that other men had little interest in women's clothing and makeup and I knew that I certainly wasn't a crossdresser because those people were, umm, [insert bigoted slur here].

Still, the inordinate interest continued into married life. We have two lovely daughters so there was no reason for me to be macho Dad to a son. Time went on and shortly after my 50th birthday I finally got the courage to research the issue on the 'net. After plowing through a lot of unsavory sites I discovered that there were other people like me and being a crossdresser was actually a viable experience. I could live the experiences that I had only allowed myself to think when my guard was down.

I had some very serious talks with my spouse, I acquired forms and a wig and slowly started to build a wardrobe. I joined a CD group and left the house dressed for the first time, alone, to a meeting on the far side of LA. Scared doesn't scratch the surface, but something in the experience spoke to me and I craved more.

Through this forum I met my mentor and great friend, Persephone. She showed me that the mainstream world was also open to me and encouraged Mimi and I to explore it with her and her lovely spouse. we went just about everywhere.

I did some laser (disappointing) and started electrolysis. I spent the next couple of years going out, gaining experience, and confidence. My comfort level improved and I found that I felt better about myself while expressing myself as female than as male. I started to dress more and more and even my male presentation pushed the limits.

A little over a year ago Mimi suggested that I start seeing a therapist. I did, and though I didn't have the "transition or die" dilemma that many TG people report I came to the realization that I was probably further along the spectrum than a CDer. After weighing the pros and cons I decided to start HRT. I've been slowly transitioning my life, going places where my male self has never gone, taking performance arts lessons as myself, and coming out to select friends an colleagues. I've been leaving behind the safety net that I clung to for so long and it is remarkably liberating.

My last hurdle is work. That is a very tough nut to crack for reasons I can't presently go into. I'm creating a strategy for making the transition at work as smoothly as possible, but also with contingencies if things go badly. I'm lucky to live in California where I am legally protected, but I will have to deal with a lot of people who can make my life miserable by exercising their "right of free speech."

Through all of this Mimi has stood with me. I know that it wasn't easy for her, but I also know that our life together now is different, but better than it has ever been. Thank goodness that she was in love with me, not the masculine image that I tried to portray to the world.

[Lily Catherine]

I don't feel done even if I consider myself somewhere on the way there.

I first started coming to terms with myself when I realized my limitations. As much as I wish to look like the next 'hot' GG I see, I would only ever disappoint myself to make the comparison. Doubly so for idols and models and birds of that feather - supreme (if promulgated) standards of beauty the public is meant to aspire to.

And being 'one of the girls' doesn't entirely necessitate wearing a pinafore to school. I knew this long ago, and I should have known better given that I thrived extremely well under such. Above all, even if the clothes and makeup are fairly important to presenting this side of me, an addiction, an unhealthy dependence on them would be unwise.

To me, the idea(l) of being myself was never about putting on the clothes themselves, nor the very act of presenting myself as a girl. Part of it was nonetheless undeniably about feeling natural in those clothes, and never wanting to take them off as much as doing so was inevitable. I realized that during my drought after being outed; I missed wanting to keep one if my favourite dresses on, wanting to carry on lounging a while more in a camisole and boyshorts, wanting to cling on to the feeling of my long lush hair against the part of my back a strapless bodice always exposes, wanting to dress again and looking forward to it all the time. I don't think this is as much me as my manners of thought, my habits and my attempts at being sincere regardless of how I speak and for that matter dress.

Who I am definitely transcends any form of outward show, even though I may dress the part regardless of gender presentation. I won't be done dealing with this yet, only the individual parts of a greater sum.