I was violently threatened and told I should be ashamed at age 4 or so, so I hid my crossdressing- I didn't feel shame, I felt ignorance and cruelty and people wanting to look good in the eyes of others at the expense of what was honest and simple.

For 60 years I tried to explain to people why it was ok, with not much success. Most people are pretty invested in the mythology of he men and pretty women. Finally I saw the end of my life coming down the road and said, its now or never.

I told my wife, who screamed.

I then spent 6 years analyzing every possible reason why I shouldn't be who I am. I pretty much know gender upside down and backwards, every corner, every hope, every dream that will never be, every lie, every natural impulse that gets squashed or altered, or promoted. The power structure involved, in enforcement and control efforts, the politics, the bargains, all of it. And that's before we even get to what it even means to be trans-ish!

Bottom line is that your desires, as you feel them, are perfectly valid, but your social setting is structured so as not to support them. You have, like many of us, gotten by with your meager ration of crossdressing, but the burden of restriction is heavy, so we want to throw it off [purge].

The cause of it all is the constant temptress within, who is actually just our own plain jane girl self wanting to be seen and known and play her part in our life.

I can say that when we get older, particularly, hardly anyone really cares what we do any more. We aren't in their way and they don't have to please us, nor do we really have to please them, most of the time. If someone thinks you will pervert the grandkids, the grandkids will actually get very curious about you and want to know who you are someday. That's a rotten thing to do, but they will pay a price in time too. But other than that,most people will still let you bring them groceries or fix their car or whatever, or work on a committee etc.