I’ve always believed that my interest was sparked after playing a girl’s role in a little show that my parents were involved in at the community theater in my hometown. I was seven and they were putting on Showboat. For reasons I never understood, they needed one more girl to be in the background of several scenes.
It was presented to me as a “big adventure” by mom. I didn’t want to be a girl, but I didn’t know how to say no. I remember being shown how to put on my 1850’s styled little girl’s dresses, petticoats and I think almost everyone who saw the show had no idea that I was not a little girl. Still it felt embarrassing and once the show was finished, I didn’t like seeing photos of myself as a girl or talking about it.
As a young teen, I began to think about that experience more and more. I wondered what it would feel like to try on a dress with pantyhose.
One day when I was home alone, I saw one of mom’s dresses on a hanger in the laundry room and I couldn’t resist trying it on. Who’d know? I was young enough so that mom’s dress fit me fairly well. I walked around the house and decided that I needed to find pantyhose. Then I wanted to put on a slip under my dress.
Dressing up as a girl became a regular activity when I was home alone. I felt guilty for doing it and felt that something was wrong with me, but I didn’t want to know what it was nor did I want to stop wearing dresses and skirts.
Who knows if I’d have ever started crossdressing had I not played a little girl in a show. I’m sure there are opinions both ways. I love the feeling of wearing dresses, the swish of a chiffon hem against pantyhose, but I love being a man and having a wife and family. So I don’t share that aspect of myself with them.
However, from the couple of surviving photos of me from the play, I didn’t look too unhappy being all dolled up.
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| Wearing Hemant & Nandita |
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| KISS femulating to celebrate Paul Stanley’s 1977 birthday. |
Adjusting a bit for starting year, and front row as a ballerina in tutu with other femulating boys, the crowd loved it, and secretly excited me to enjoy my mother's clothes any time there was an opportunity!
ReplyDeleteMy first experience was similar - it was a school play where I had a part as a leprechaun. My mom decided to put me in green shorts with green tights underneath, and it changed my life. I wore those tights (always in secret, of course) until I ripped them one day because I'd outgrown them. Would I have found myself eventually anyway? Yes, of course, because we are who we are. But that was definitely a formative experience for me.
ReplyDeleteEven without your early "big adventure" I think crossdressing would have found you. To coin a tech phrase "it was built in". So many of us search for the reason / justification, without accepting the reality.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Flip Wilson was right all along - "The devil made me do it".
Oh, to some how be cajoled or somehow be persuaded to be dressed as a girl was always my fantasy. Sure, I would be glad to do it to show what a team player I could be. Somehow I could rationalize in my mind that if that was how I ended up being dressed as a girl that would assuage my guilty feelings for wanting to be dressed up. All my early experimentation with dressing was always followed by guilt and saying to myself that I was finished doing that! Geez, that really worked out well... lol!
ReplyDeleteSimilar. Halloween, six years old, we were poor, Mother thought it would be simple to dress me in my older sister's clothes. It stuck, became my usual Halloween costume. And a habit.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's more "abnormal" to not wonder what life's like as a member of the opposite sex. And to act out becomes simply a question of how far and often one wants to go.
I’m the Anonymous who sent Stana the original post. I should have included dressing up as a girl for Halloween as another trigger. When I was in college, a girl tried to talk me into letter her dress me up as a girl for a costume party. I brushed off her suggestion, but inside my brain I wanted to say yes so badly. I trembled and wished I could bring myself to say yes, but I couldn’t.
DeleteWhat a missed opportunity...
DeleteHaving a girl or girlfriend wanting to dress you up would be a dream come true for most of us and to be home alone.. how good is that?
I knew from age 4 or 5 that I wanted to see what it felt like to wear a dress. The girls always got so many compliments on their dresses and they seemed be exempt from the violent interactions other boys wanted to have with me.
ReplyDeleteThe real kicker was that I was blessed with very long thick eyelashes. Women would stop to admire them and tell me “you should have been a girl. Those lashes are wasted on a boy!” Later , around age 8, I grew my hair long enough to be mistaken for a girl. Maybe I thought someone would tell me it was ok to slip on that cute little summer sundress, since my hair and lashes were so long and pretty.
That’s so funny because girls would sometimes tell me that because I had long pretty eyelashes that I should have been a girl. When they said that I’d blush and wish that I could experience the wonderful feelings girls have when they dressed up in incredibly beautiful dresses. It seemed so safe and wonderful.
DeleteI, too, would receive comments when younger, always from females, telling me how my legs were so feminine and how jealous they were of them. Those comments served to reinforce that I was indeed a girl my mind and spirit if not in body.
DeleteAs for me, those comments were as outdated as telling a girl “ you throw that ball so well! You should have been a boy!” Why can’t I be a boy and have an interest in being pretty and feminine sometimes? I’m so happy women can hunt, fish, climb mountains and excel in sports these day without be accused of being a bunch of butch lesbians. All I ask for is the same consideration. Just because I’m wearing a pretty dress doesn’t mean I want you to believe I’m a woman.
DeleteI guess there's a difference for people who are transgendered like myself and those who are crossdressers. My parents would have never accepted it and I came to embrace who I was - even if it was a rocky road to get there since so little was ever said about it years ago. However, I was still very young when I knew I was different, and not just from a crossdressing perspective. I hated the mistake between my legs and struggled greatly by looking at what girls wore more than how they physically looked - even though I was always in relationships with women. One of my first public forays, if not the very first, was in a "joking" manner for the powderpuff football games, which was accepted by everyone to be dressed in feminine attire. I was in pure heaven, and always wished I had been a female cheerleader and/or a majorette in the band, but those are stories for another day.
ReplyDeleteJasmine, I am sure that there is a big difference between crossdressers and transgender journeys. There are many differences and triggers for everyone. I was never a little girl in any plays and didnt feel the urge until I was a teen. My urges became more with obsession over stockings and high heels. My mom and her friends dressed like real women back in the 60s and 70s. My love for women made me want to be like one and the feel of nylon on my legs and wearing a pair of black leather heels was incredible. I love shoes. I really didnt venture out until after a makeover as I was never confident of my passability and that was not
ReplyDeleteUntil I was in my 40s and business travel allowed me to play in my room. Stana gave me some great insights into having a better presentation and thus a better femulation. I guess I am a lesbian when dressed? Hugs Brenda
So many people remember school plays with boys dressed as girls.
ReplyDeleteA long time ago when I was in first grade, a note was sent out which said that for April Fool's Day all the girls should wear pants and that all the boys should come in dresses. To my dismay, my mother complied. I wore my other sister's dress and petticoat. At least I could hide amongst the other boys in dresses.
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