My mother know I would get into her closet (and her clothes) but could never bring herself to talk to me about it. She never "caught" me outright.

There is something about this thread that bothers me. "Being caught" speaks to the guilt we probably all felt at first, and many of us still do. There is an alternative to "being caught": being proud to say "Hey, I wear women's clothes". (I mean my clothes! To quote Lacey Leigh: "They are my clothes -- no woman has ever worn them" -- well, unless I got them in a secondhand store, or lent them to somebody ...)

I would much rather tell people that I crossdress than worry about them "catching me".