As I've grown older I've become bolder and over the last 10 or so years it's become WTF.
I don't really care what others think or say, even the neighbors, so I just go about my business and enjoy life so much more than I did when I was so concerned about hiding who I am.
I don't wear women's clothes, I wear MY clothes !
I'm in my 60s and have had a pink flu for as long as I can remember.
But if I'd acted on this when I was in my 20's at 5'9" and 135 scrawny guy, I'd very likely be a woman by now.
Respect for others feelings for sure and dressing appropriately for age and style go a long way. Why stand out like a sore thumb when you can blend in with what's around you.
Hmmm. Age 7 to about 15, guilt and confusion, with added terror at being found out even though I desperately wanted a girl to find out and accept me. After that, as I found out more about myself, the guilt part gradually decreased but never completely went away. Through early adulthood to middle age, I gradually stopped crossdressing as my social life erupted, and women were finally available to me. I felt that I either had 'beaten it', and didn't need to crossdress anymore, or maybe it was just a phase I went through because of my being abused as a kid. I really thought it was all behind me. But after a few years of marriage, and all the stress, the alienation from my wife, the desire to crossdress came back with a vengeance, and the strong desire has been with me ever since. Having studied psychology through much of my life at that point, I understood that it wasn't my fault (alleviated the guilt part mostly), and the confusion was gone, because I had figured out what had caused the desire to crossdress. But the sadness of knowing how much society frowned on it, the knowledge that there were so few women out there that aren't completely turned off by it, made me unhappy, and that sticks with me. I can't call it major depression, I still manage to go about all my normal daily activities, rarely feel the need to cry at my predicament, but there's always this lingering feeling of loss, as I go from relationship to relationship, and eventually having to break it off, because I've found out that the woman I'm seeing thinks that we're all perverts. As our current great communicator so often says, most of the time I just feel a little bit sad.
Some causes of crossdressing you've probably never even considered: My TG biography at:http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...=1#post1490560
There's an addendum at post # 82 on that thread, too. It's about a ten minute read.
Why don't we understand our desire to dress, behave and feel like a girl? Because from childhood, boys are told that the worst possible thing we can be, is a sissy. This feeling is so ingrained into our psyche, that we will suppress any thoughts that connect us to being or wanting to be feminine, even to the point of creating separate personalities to assign those female feelings into.
Another thought comes to mind and that is the ever deeper understanding and compassion of our lives as we get older. Situations whatever sort they may be have a different nuance all of there own. Everyday things become much more important than they were before and friendships become precious as well also my dressing has taken on a deeper meaning and appreciation as I get more deeper involved our world.
Thanks to all of you for your many replies. As some of you have also mentioned, I do feel that I'm more accepting of myself and my occasional dabbling in dressing. But I'm even more surprised at how my attitudes have changed about others here as a group. Initially, I was hoping to only find out where I could get certain things to further enjoy MY dressing and other things along those lines. But as I've been here longer, I now feel like I'm more ready to actually chat/talk with others about dressing... at least to the extent that I want to dress.
And, honestly speaking, I was a little fearful of how someone might interpret a complimentary remark that I might make. A comment like, "You have great looking legs," might be seen as my coming on to someone and I didn't want that at all. Even something like "Hugs..." or "Sweetie..." made me uncomfortable as I didn't want someone coming on to me. Through the friendship of a great guy who happens to be gay, I've learned a great deal of respect for that community but that road has no appeal to me whatsoever. Yet, as has been discussed here many times, the first thought that comes to most people's minds when they think of crossdressing is "He must be gay..." I don't know if it is the age thing, the exposure or what but I feel like I've gone beyond that and now would feel far more comfortable in complimenting someone or chatting privately about aspect of dressing or even articles of clothing.
To those of you who have stopped by my profile page, left a visitor message or issued a friend request, I hope you now better understand why those requests went unanswered. But I've changed and perhaps times have changed too. I think I'd handle those situations totally differently today.
Anyone want to talk about vintage baby doll pajamas or leotards? (I would have NEVER posted something like this comment when I first came here)
Lacy PJs
Age (62) and some reading, therapy, this website and the internet has led me to accept and understand myself as transgender.
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