I started dressing in my early fifties out of the blue. The urge came at the end of several years of major crisis in my marriage and I guess I wanted to escape who I'd been. I'd tried on a couple of items of my wife's clothing over the years, but it was never more than just curiosity.

My dressing started with panties and progressed to encompass about half my wardrobe by now. I've never left home dressed until the subject came front and center after a couple of years with my therapist. Since September 2022, I've dressed for sessions, mostly changing to femme in the office while she waited in the lobby. Over the last couple of months, I've been going into the lobby dressed, but not hiding the fact that I'm a man. The first time I went in dressed in obvious women's clothes and accessories, there was a thirty-something woman in the lobby. She didn't really acknowledge me and I ended up sitting across from her distracting myself with my phone. My natural inclination is to think I made her uncomfortable, but that may be just nerves talking.

The next session, I told my therapist that I'd had sort of an epiphany on the former session. I realized that, even if the woman was uncomfortable, even if she was appalled at the way I was presenting, I was glad that I'd been bold enough to express my taste in a somewhat safe environment. I told my therapist that, on the former session, sitting in the lobby, "For the first time in my life, I FELT PRETTY."

I am a man in women's clothes and I'm not trying to present as a female. I've got a full beard and the physique of a sedentary 67 year old man. But, I felt pretty all the same. I felt like I imagine a woman feeling when someone compliments them. My own image of myself warranted that feeling for me. That hasn't happened before. I am happy to settle for being a "pretty man" when dressed.

Peaceful was the word I'd always used to describe how I felt dressed up until that day. Now, I regularly see pretty when i look in the mirror, even with a full beard. I love being a guy. I have no intention of losing the beard. Now, I'm coming to grips with the idea of being pretty and owning it.

Does this strike a chord with anyone else?