By Monica M
Pre-teen, I must have been a worry to my parents. They told me stories of wanting a doll and pram for Christmas and also stories of not standing up for myself in the school playground.
Though such things were not talked about then, they must have worried that I might be gay. Certainly, when you look at photos of me from that era, I looked like a bit of a Mommy's boy! To toughen me up, they sent me off to martial arts training. That lasted about six weeks… until somebody hit me on the nose and made me cry. I never went back.
The early teenage years were a rush of hormones and guilt. My staunch religious background did not help. It was during those years that (under the powerful poison of testosterone) I changed from being a person who knew she was female to being a crossdresser. My mother's clothes bore the brunt of this. I was never caught… well, if anybody suspected, nothing was said. There were favorite 1960s dresses that I now pine for. In my early teenage years, my mother and I were a similar size… even the same shoe size. This is how I learned to walk so well in heels! (As the Jesuits say, “Start them young!”)
During those days, I even sometimes went to school wearing a full girdle. I can remember walking down the street and hearing the metal garter ends clinking and hoping that nobody would figure out the source of the sound.
I was exposed once when my mother decided to clean out my room. She found a pair of her panties and her slip in a rucksack hidden in my wardrobe. She tried to get me to come clean about it, but I lied because I had the sense to know what would happen if I came clean. I blamed it on one of the younger children playing in my room. It was never mentioned again. I guess she put it down to teenage experiment. She was wrong!
During those years, I did all the things that other transgenders do to try and hide the soft and female side. I played football, joined the scouting movement, joined the army reserves, went hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, and had crushes on girls. If my parents were worried before, they had no worries now. But I knew deep down that this was all a mask for who I really was. The problem was I could not see any way out of the groove I was in. There was no alternative for a male of my background. I had to grin and bear it… and I did. However, I still either crossdressed or fantasized about it.
In my early 20's I went to college and met the woman of my dreams. We got on very well together and I guess we both knew that we were right for each other. I knew deep down that I had to tell her my secret as we could not go ahead with a relationship based on a lie. It was a big risk for me. What if she broke it off after hearing my secret and then went and told her friends and it got back to my friends and family; not a good scenario!
When I told her, she responded with some questions about what I did, etc. I explained as truthfully and as in depth as I could. She took it in her stride. Of course, neither of us knew then what the future had in store, especially as the testosterone started to run out! Maybe she would not have been so sanguine had she known. But I like to think that even if she had known, she would have gone ahead --- for both of us, the ride has been worth it!
(Part 2 of One Person’s Journey to Womanhood appeared here yesterday. Part 4 will appear here tomorrow.)
Femulator in 1962 street style.
Wearing La Femme Image.
Thank you Monica for this lovely trip down memory lane to the 1960s where young femulators like us had little or no source of knowledge regarding the thoughts going on in our young heads about women and the clothes they wore.
ReplyDeleteAs a teen I was always fully occupied. Between sports and other school related activities I never caught the early bus home. I went to a strict boys school so we had 3 hours of homework every night and I worked odd jobs on weekends since we had no money.
In college I worked almost full time, was married at 21 and continued my education at night school while I worked full time until I was in my late 20s. I then took a job that called for 70 hour work weeks and then we started a family. While thoughts of dressing were always in my mind my lifestyle as a hard working married father made the emergence of my feminine side a secondary issue.
Now, in my 6th decade I have a bit more time but I find myself so established with work, friends and family that my dressing must still remain mostly closeted. I do get out when I can and try to follow the T blogs. I am still learning about life and about myself and I do not think that process will end until my days are done.
Thank you again for sharing your life and developments. I think that it is important and helpful for as many of our stories to be told as possible so that we and the society in which we live can accept that we are people just like everyone else.
Pat
Thank you Pat for sharing your story too. The more we share the more people see that gender is not binary but is a spectrum.
DeleteMonica M
First off testosterone does not change you from "knowing you were female" to a crossdresser. What utter rubbish along with the simple fact your obsession with girdles early on is called a FETISH which you kind of miss along with everything else that defines one as transsexual as a child.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways I feel sorry for you because you believe this fantasy you have concocted from the narratives of those that were actually born transsexual. Liking girdles is a fetish and has not one thing to do with believing one is female because one did not believe one was female but simply a girl because one's gender was not in question. What was in question was one's sex identity because our sex was incorrect and when we learned that we became obsessed with fixing it and testosterone had ZERO effect on it.
Only another transvestite would believe such drivel and would accept this fantasy as "fact" when it is a fiction concocted in the delusional mind of a heterosexual male cross-dresser as they claim they are somehow a woman when theey don their frock as you have basd on the title of your fantasy.
I could care less that you are a 60+ year old crossdresser and wish you zero harm and beieve you have every right to enjoy your "feminine" side in women's cloths but I am always baffled why all of you somehow claim it makes you women but then not one of you has a single clue about what it means to be a woman since you view the world through the eyes o a heterosexual male crossdresser and that does kind of blind you to the truth of both the present and the past.
I realize this comment will nit be allowed through but I did have to have my say.
Thank you for your posting, like the rest of us here, you are entitled to your opinion. Your opinion is your opinion it is neither right nor wrong, just life as you see it. We see life a little differently to you, that does not mean that we do not respect the humanity that we both share.
DeleteMonica M
Monica
DeleteI find it highly disingenuous when people make baseless comments not based in fact or science such as you have. Having been one of the kids I know what it is like and when people like yourself post this gibberish about testosterone changing you from thinking you were female anyone with an operative brain cell should know it is baseless. That was not an opinion it was a fact.
It is a fact that your obsession with female girdles is a fetish and does not make you believe you were female which I seriously doubt you ever did but it is a convenience of many of you to make said claims. The problem is none of you truly understand the problem. It defines you as a fetishistic transvestite and to be honest that is your right as long as you keep to your side of the street.
You see life through the eyes of a man and I see them through the eyes of a woman so yes there is a major difference. in our views on life. You delude yourself into believing you understand what it means to be a woman bit you do not.
Elizabeth, you are hilarious, You say the same thing twice and expect that it is true because you say so. You seem to buy into the gender binary, which none of the rest of us do.
DeleteYou tell us to stick to our own side of the street..and yet you are the one who comes here uninvited to berate us. Your behaviour and demeanour is so male - being a troll is a classic immature male behavior pattern. How many cis-gendered people are here doing the same thing?
I am sure you will be a wonderful person when you really get in touch with your feminine side. Please come back when you have matured into your femininity. Come back when you really understand what it is to be a woman, you may have something positive to contribute then....and we will be proud of you.
Adieu, this is the last time I will feed the troll and indulge such male adolescent behaviour.
Monica M
Cross dressers and transvestites like me have many fetishes, all of them wrapped up in a lifetime of regret and a mind filled with what-ifs that never quite come true. Some, like the lovely Stana and Monica, allow the rest of us to live vicariously through their courageous ventures into public, where they act and live as the women we all wish we were.
DeleteThere will always be genetic girls like Elizabeth who hate us because we want to be beautiful rather than the repressed little men that occupy our every-day lives that she simply does not understand. I don't know about my sisters in femulation, but I was never the star quarterback or egotistical son of the wealthy father. I was just a guy who gazed with fleeting eyes at pretty girls who never looked twice at me, trying to understand why I did not quite know if I wanted to kiss them or be them.
As a cross dresser, I gain so much of an important connection to myself through this blog that I don't think I can adequately explain it. Here, I find others of my mindset, of my situation ... of my tragedy. And here, I can find just a hint of the acceptance that has been completely lacking in the rest of my life.
I am sorry that Elizabeth finds me, and my sisters, so disagreeable. Perhaps she should return to the sports section and see what her favorite quarterback is up to and leave us alone to our harmless fetishes and satin desires.
Excellent comments, Jamie.
DeleteBy the way, Elizabeth bills herself as "A girl that survived being born transsexual." She is no more a genetic girl than you or me.
Then I apologize to Elizabeth and also applaud her for taking steps that I lack the courage to face.
Delete