Longevity

By Stephanie Julianna

Hello to all of Stana's readers. My name is Stephanie Julianna and like many of you, I have been an avid reader of this site for years. I have had the honor of having two stories of my adventures in crossdressing posted here. One story is about a Halloween back in the 90's when I worked my entire shift in feminine mode as an RN and one, more recently about being out and about in NYC back in the 80's.

Today I am submitting my inaugural article as a regular contributor with Stana's blessing. To get started, I will give a very short autobiography that will explain my credentials for being a member of this incredible community.

My name is Stephanie Julianna and I have been dressing since 1956 when I was left alone at home for the first time without one of my sisters babysitting me. I was seven years old. That was the first time that I rifled through my sisters' clothes and tried on their petticoats and dresses.

I never questioned why I had this incredible urge to dress like my sisters simply because I had never known a conscious moment to date that I did not love their clothes. But I also was very aware that I was singular in my desires among my other little boy friends. This began decades of secrecy and self-loathing for a host of reasons that I will talk about in future posts.

My life has been an incredible journey of love, rejection, self-loathing and eventually self-love and all that baggage that came with my love of the feminine during decades when it was not accepted and even spoken of as an aberration and sickness. My hope is by telling my story now and in future posts, that I will help many of us here that still struggle with their desire to present as female.

These are wonderful times compared to the decades I grew up in. Society has become so much more accepting as a whole to our community. However, many families and communities still believe that there is something “sick” or “wrong” with anyone that enjoys our lifestyle. They just do not realize that there was never a real choice. Just like genetic girls (GG's), we were born with this part of us baked into our DNA. So, like I wrote earlier, I have never known a day being any other way.

The pictures here are photographic evidence that support my claim of my longevity. The one with the black taffeta dress is my earliest surviving photo taken in 1980 in Provincetown, Cape Cod at a Lee Brewster Columbus Day weekend event. The one in the floral dress was taken this July at a friends house. To save you all from doing mind-numbing math, I was 31 in the early picture and I am now 71 years young in the latest one.

I look forward to telling my stories in the future with the hope of guiding, educating and even entertaining you. If my effort also helps some of you realize that what you have is actually a gift and is a part of what makes you the wonderful person that you are, that would warm this retired nurse's heart. Once a nurse, always a nurse.

Wearing Yumi Kim

Femulating in a music video done to the tune of  Lady Gaga’s “Boys, Boys, Boys/Fashion.”
You can view the video on YouTube.