20 odd years on ....

[Catherine_B]

I remember being a cross dresser pre internet times.

At Christmas time it seemed (in my mind) it was OK to buy lingerie as you could say it was a present for the wife.

Buying make up was fraught, I had no idea what suited me but I kept learning and buying usually at great expense, I wish I could of plucked up courage in those days as I do now and just tell the girl behind the cosmetic counter ... I LIKE TO DRESS AS A WOMEN

Two weeks ago I was browsing cosmetics as I wanted to buy contouring creams, the lady asked could she help so I explained I cross dress and she was lovely, she was around 50 years of age, and I was totally fascinated by her make up. I am sure you ladies get that. I think we are all guilty of meeting a GG and thinking that dress, her make up is simply wow. I spent loads but it was worth it, wife loved the lippie but I WILL get that back!

We live a charmed life these days, silicone boobs in the 1990's were a fortune, my first wig was over £200 in 1980. Dresses from specialist shops were eye watering money, now we can cruise the internet and dress to impress for so little money !

Happy days ladies!

[LeannS]

Yes Catherine it has come a long ways but still take a bit to get out in the real world.
and btw welcome to the forum glad to have you aboard Leann

[Seana Summer]

It is amazing not only how much less expensive things are, and also what the world wide web has made available! I doubt that I could have purchased shoes in my size 20 years ago!! I suspect availability will only get better for all things CD

In a way I would like to be 25 again and living by myself in that little house that I used to rent but with the knowledge and wardrobe I have now. I would probably be getting dressed up and going out every weekend!

Probably just as well I cant go back. I would probably miss out on other things that I treasure......

[Petra Lynn]

It’s true access to our fem wear is much better than 20 years ago. I’ve gotten a lot more confident and also don’t really care what anyone else thinks anymore. About a year and a half ago I decided it’s time I get out dressed and went into the local Ulto shop and asked for makeup advice, a Mac artist helped me get what I needed, including doing a foundation color match. The next day I had a wig appointment, I did my makeup put on my bad wig and out the door I went. Found a wig I loved bought it, then back to Ulta for a makeover. I usually shop for my wife en femme now.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Catherine , It sure was lonely way back on the old days,

The adult magazine stores was the only place to find anything,

The public library had a couple books but you didn't want to be seen checking them out. >Orchid ..OO..

[Meghan4now]

Ah, yes the old days. All of that is correct, but I think the bigger difference is me. I wasn't willing to admit to myself it is ok. As far as lonely, while there are certainly more connections today and more people are "out", there was a thriving scene, just harder to find. Crossport formed in 1985!

And shows like kids in the hall weren't as widely noticed. Had I watched that back then, I might have had more courage

[alwayshave]

Catherine, I think the difference between now and then, was back the I thought I was alone.

[Helen_Highwater]

Catherine,

Ah, the bad old days. It was perfectly ok to make jokes about "queers", I don't ever recall seeing someone CD out amongst the general public and any representation on tv was an effeminate drag queen.

Shoes were for me one of the hardest things to buy. Most shops didn't go above a 7, 8 if you were lucky. I recently tried on a pair of size 7 heels that I used to squeeze my size 9's into and it was cripplingly painful. Thank goodness I never went out in those.

Yes the www has made life so much easier in shopping terms and as Jamie rightly points out, it helped end the feeling of isolation.

[GretchenM]

If you go back even further, the contrast becomes blindingly brilliant. In the 50's crossdressing was only done by "really weird people with severe mental illness that needed to be committed." In fact, they were just like us, but even tolerance was impossible and acceptance as rare as cheese on the moon. In the 60's things loosened up a little, but little is a relative term and can be viewed as really little as in tiny. The 70's a bit more as the word transgender had been invented and appeared in the news once in a great while. Actual studies of us as a population began with Dr. Sandra Bem and others. A little more understanding.

The real jump occurred in the 80's when a few shows on television were done about men who transition and how that impacts their marriage with either divorce or, more commonly, acceptance by the wife . Transgender actually advanced to a rare topic in general conversation, but the majority view was that it was still a very serious mental condition that needed to be corrected. That attitude is still present in many, but it is fading fast, even among the most conservative. The 90's advanced a bit more. But it seems the real explosion began with the turn of the century.

Through it all, women's styles changed and clothes became more reasonably priced as well as less expensive for manufacturers to make. Making a dress is an art. My mother and my wife used to make a lot of their own clothes rather than pay the high prices. I know some trans people who make some of their own clothes today. Mostly that is because they have a very male build and can't find women's clothes that fit everywhere correctly. The real joy in the story though is that men shopping for themselves has become more and more acceptable and the social stigma has faded a lot. Manufacturers seem to be recognizing there is a market there and we see men's clothes in more feminine colors so it is not so drab. Put all of this together and the growth curve of acceptance is getting steeper and steeper in its upward trend. I suspect the newbies today will have a far better go of it than those of us war babies and baby boomers. We are becoming a market for the manufacturers and it will only get better if society continues to accept us more.

[Beverley Sims]

Mind you, I did like the fashions of the 60's.

The internet has changed a lot.

If we were able to meet like this in the 60's they would have locked us up. :-)

[Stephanie47]

I remember the olden days too well. I am a decade older than you. Those olden days were terrible. I'm relating to the 1960's. There was no internet. There was no reading material at any library. There was the Kinsey Report which was sequestered behind the head librarians's desk. Gays were discriminated against. To be a boy or man who wore women's clothing automatically meany you were gays. Total confusion for a teenage boy. My only source of women's clothing was my mother. When I outgrew them that was it. It wan't until the mid 1970's I started buying lingerie "for my wife." Then came the dresses. I loved Halloween because I bought heels at different Payless stores. No guy going to a party in drag would stock up on heels at one store or buy multiple wigs. I had a week to stock up. Of course, Christmas and Valentine's Day and Mother's Day were looked forward to. It was customary for a young man/husband to fumble his way through the lingerie department on those occasions. Back then I had a physic which many women had. Now, not so much.

Anyway, God bless the internet. Order whatever you want. No questions asked. And, thank you for the self service checkout stations at my local Walmart, Target and Fred Meyer. I've been thinking of ordering some Vanity Fair nylon briefs in two new colors. They're only a click away.