Do you regret no coming out earlier

[Periwinkle]

Welp, twenty years ago I was a baby. I didn't have the words to come out. XD

My mom also liked putting me in both boys' and girls' baby clothes, so I probably had no complaints.

[Jenny22]

I'm in my early 80s and still not out to family, only to a few forum sisters. Do I regret it? No.

[CONSUELO]

I admitted to my girlfriend that I was a transvestite. She wanted to go ahead and marry anyway but afterward, when I dressed she objected. I refused to back down and I dress openly but we have had many tense moments. My advice to unmarried cross dressers is to not marry. Even if you are open about your cross dressing, it will likely cause problems later on.

[StephanieCLT]

That's a tough question for me. My first thought was "definitely." I might have done some things differently and I'm certain it would have affected my dating processes. On the other hand, like someone said earlier, I look at what I have, largely from a family perspective, and I wouldn't give them up for the world.

[Tina_gm]

I can't honestly say how much more I would have come out, as I'm still generally in the closet with exception to my wife and 2 others. What I do regret is my denial to myself. My own lack of self acceptance and the internal battle I waged for decades. I lost that battle in the end and I gave up so much energy in fighting myself. It has also been one of the primary reasons for my alcoholism. And quitting that is yet another hard fought battle, that one never truly ends, although I've gotten to a fairly healthy place with it, but maintaining that place still takes some effort to. How much more if any I would have come out, who knows. But I do deeply regret my self loathing , self hatred battle to change what I cannot change.

[Micki_Finn]

No regret at all. It was very NOT OK to be a crossdresser when I was young. The only guys who dressed like women were mentally ill, at least as far as conventional wisdom held.

[Samantha Clark]

No I can't say I have regrets. I wasn't ready earlier, and I expect that the few I have come out to so far weren't ready either. I wish it could have been different, but that's the way it is and I accept it.

[Karen RHT]

If I kick the bucket tomorrow, I'll leave this world without any regrets. I do have a few disappointments that relate to my crossdressing. One is that it took so damn long for my wife to arrive at some level of acceptance, (over 40 years) and a second is that she continues to swing back and forth about what is acceptable to her. g


Karen

[Rosemary+]

Thank you ladies for taking the time to reply to my post.
I hope to have some time tomorrow to answer a couple of queries

[gina shiney]

Late 70's was not a time to "come out" HIV was just rearing it head and hysteria was rampant. People didn't know anything like they know now, if you crossdressed or even wore makeup (while not being in entertainment) you would have been victimized. Crossdressers weren't accepted by the gay community (because most of us do not identify as such) and were called freaks, the gay community wasn't accepted either and what little acceptance they had wasn't shared openly. Your town/city might have been more accepting but here in this "city of churches" life was very dark.
(A wonderful word) If I was the age that I was then NOW things might have been different, my wife who accepts on one level might of still have committed to a life shared, I would have dressed around my children without the fear for them , my wife and myself.
These are more enlightened times and anyone living in them that HASN'T made a life under the oppressive thinking and self preservation of those unenlightened times have the freedom to live openly with LAWS that in theory protect them.
Do I regret no

[Kate J]

Yes Yes Yes Im now over 50 and it has been in my life on and of from the age of 8.

[Ina Girdle]

2 Minor regrets;

1st, All the shame, guilt and denial I carried around for so many years. All that time wasted not accepting who I really am.

2nd, Not telling my wife before getting married, you cannot admit to someone something you cannot admit to yourself first. I may not have had the opportunity to marry her if I had, and that would have been tragic.

i am still one foot in the closet, as my wife is the only one I have told / come out to and to online CD friends, I use a nickname and don’t have the courage to show a picture of myself.

Great thread, I have enjoyed reading the reply’s and agree wholeheartedly with many of them!

[Nikkilovesdresses]

I regret not experimenting more when I was young and liked what I saw in the mirror a lot more than I do now.

[GracieRose]

40 years ago crossdressing was much more dangerous than it is today because society's tolerance has changed (as has been pointed out by others here). If the amount of information that is available now was available then, and the tolerance level by the general public was where is i now (still far from where many of us would like it to be, but more tolerant nonetheless) I suspect that I would have integrated more feminine dressing and pursuits into my life. Do I regret waiting so long? My life is my life and I have a lot to be thankful for. Probably more to be thankful for than most of the world's population. I can't be sure if the peace that dressing gives me would have overcome the negatives that I suspect would have resulted from yesteryear's societal perception. No use dwelling on the past. Better to look forward.

[StarrOfDelite]

I'm one of those who wonders what might have been different about my life if I had come to earlier self-realization about my nature. I grew up under pressure to succeed and achieve in the classroom, team and individual sports, marry the cheerleader/homecoming queen, succeed in business by out-competing other alpha males, et cetera. I have children and grandchildren who would never had existed if I had understood certain events and feelings which I had several decades ago and acted upon them then, instead of when I was in my forties, so I never indulge in regret or wishing things had gone otherwise. But, occasionally I do wonder, as Robert Frost did, about the road not taken.

[Dana44]

Rosemary, when I was young we had to be men. There was no crossdressing. I did cross dress with my first wife as a young lad. But It wasn't normal back then. still it was fun. Even just a few decades ago, you could be arrested for crossdressing so we had to be closeted. But as the years passed it became more normal and we have far less fear being out and about.

[ellbee]

40 years ago?


Heck, even 15-20 years ago (mid-'90s - mid-'00s), it was still pretty tough.

And even back around 2009/2010 (? ), I almost got into a fistfight because of CD'ing, simply minding my own business. And this was in "liberal" Massachusetts. ( )



I'd say the bulk of it easing up was more like in the past 5-10 years. Though even now, you have some who are openly & vehemently against this stuff... Hey, their right, I guess.


No, it's never easy for an individual to come out. But, sometimes you just gotta. Just be sure to pick your battles -- and those who you come out to -- wisely.

[Giselle(Oshawa)]

Sarah #1 i regret not coming out until i was 55(now 62) to my wife and the world
#2 i regret that at that late stage in our married life(27 yrs) it was too late for my wife to start over and i have always felt she feels trapped in our marriage because of our ages.
my wife has become tolerant or even somewhat supportive but deep down wishes she had known this before she married me and could have made her choice then without the
burden's of family

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi RoseMary , I came out to my newWife 54years ago it has been off an on over the years now it is a good
workable DA/DT she knows about everything but just don't want to see me while I am dressed. >Orchid......

[Rosemary+]

Hell ladies,
Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my questions
I suppose I should answer them as well.
I'm still very much in the closet, only a few close friends know about Rosie Do I regret not coming out earlier,, yes I probably do regret not coming out earlier. I was always the quiet effete boy of any social setting,, now I'm the quiet effete older person, I feel by not coming out when I was younger I probably could have followed the path of transition.i know it is still possible to transition, I'm 60 . I don't think I have the energy to go through with it all.

Thanks again

[Jane G]

No, I respect the wishes of my wife too much, no regrets life is not just about who I am. I thought very seriously about transition in my late 20's,to the point of taking hormones for some time. Now in my late 50's I'm very happy I did not. Guess my partner means more to me than transition.

[Stacy Darling]

Mmm!
Well Rosemary, I do regret not coming out when I was younger as I do know that my life story would differ much! Very Much!
I probably would have been the best Drag Queen on Oxford street! ( Guarantee that! )

I do not however regret not coming out earlier as I would not have met you!
I also can deal with life's hazards better in later in life!

Love, Stacy xxx

[DMichele]

Rosemary,
So many thought provoking views have been expressed here. One that caught my attention was by Natasha that I too wish - ...I had come to know myself like I know myself now.

[Ressie]

I haven't come out to the world and I don't intend to. But I did share some things regarding dressing and wanting to be girl with certain people up to 47 years ago.

I don't regret coming out to a few people as it's something that shouldn't be totally kept inside. But I don't have any reason to "come out". Things change so I'm not saying never.

[josie_S]

Like Ressie, I haven't come out to the world and don't intend to. Maybe circumstances will change and I'll feel differently, but I doubt it.

That said I wish I *could* have come out when I was 19 or 20. Through a support group I dabbled with for about a week I met a crossdresser who was basically living full time then and she was awesome. She had a great job, her own extensive wardrobe, her own condo that was decorated very tastefully...if it wasn't for the expensive looking coffee table book of photography featuring pin up style pictures of crossdressers, it'd be difficult to know who lived there (I remember her flipping through that book and finding a gorgeous picture of a blonde in red lingerie and the caption reading something about how the model thought she could toughen up so she joined the Marines..).

My point being that what she introduced me to was how...normal it all was. I remember her feeling my waist and saying that I was lucky to be so small (that was 20+ years ago!) and how I didn't have much facial hair (again, 20+ years ago) and that I could, if I wanted, keep some stuff at her house. I still kick myself. I couldn't handle it all for a bunch of reasons, not the least of it being that my family would disown me (and the irony of course is that I'm distanced from them now anyway for entirely unrelated reasons), so I never called her again.

I wish I had been ready. But I wasn't. Part of me regrets that, in theory. But that might also mean I regret the rest of my life since, and I don't. I can't say that the life I chose to live has made me happier than the life I chose not to, but I am still happy that I crossdress, that I didn't flush it from my system like I hoped to back then and for years after.

I wish I had my tiny waist still though