Following Sometimes Steffi's advice from the intro. forum:
I've had a shoe fetish for as long as I can remember. In my early teens, this progressed to trying on women's shoes (mostly the mothers of my friends, as mine didn't go for heels). This persisted for a few years, until none of them fit any longer. It turned into a desire to have girl friends dress in heels, and for several years buying them for them (once, I remember, being very put out when a shop assistant insisted that they looked too small for me, as I'd told her several times that they were for my gf).
About 11 years ago, I realised I still wanted to wear them myself again, and started buying pairs online. It took several attempts to get a decent fit, and of course I started off way too high. Initially, it was for the thrill, but quickly, it turned into a challenge to learn to walk properly in them. It wasn't long before just putting a pair on made me feel infinitely more relaxed, and I'd start wearing them about the house for day to day chores, and when working from home without a second thought. With high-heeled sandals came the need for polish, and very quickly the need for skirts rather than trousers to wear them with.
Within three years or so of starting to wear heels, I was getting dressed up just to feel relaxed, with no thought to sexual thrills. And, a bit further along, that's where I am today - I paint my nails (toes red, fingers usually only clear matte in public), shave my legs, wear heels, skirts and leggings behind closed doors at every opportunity (I always travel with a few pairs of shoes, skirts, panties and stockings). I've started thinking about dresses, but no real desire to attempt makeup or wigs yet, or to try to pass. I think if I did, I would look rather like Eddie Izzard (i.e. not that convincing); in my more courageous moments I expect that one day I will dress more or less regularly at least up to the waist and fingers, with a style that sort of works, but I'll be very obviously a man, though I'd walk with a woman's gait and be as careful with my nails as they are.
Internally, the more I've dressed, the less masculine I've felt; taking online tests and assessments these days I score anywhere from Androgynous to M2F in-transition, but never more M than F. This is much more gender fluid than I used to expect to feel (for some years, I thought I would just be a man in a dress- now, I think I'm more likely to be "me in a a dress and heels" for values of "me" well toward the middle-right of the M2F spectrum).
Anyway, that's a lot of background for a simple question. Did anyone else start with shoes, or anything else in particular, or was it always simply "I want to dress like a woman"?
Julie Anne