I forgot to introduce myself; such a lack of etiquette! Sorry :-P

[Sandra M. Lopes]

My apologies, this should have been my first post in this forum. I forgot to check in... I hope that Susan and the remaining moderators will forgive me this serious breach of forum etiquette!

So, mmh. Hi!

After 11,000 or so introductions, I guess that I won't be able to fascinate anyone with my bio — it's pretty much similar to most of what you've already read, over and over again. So I decided to write down my autobiography. It's pretty long, but, who knows, it might be interesting for some of you. There is romance, business, military action, some suspense, some glamour, and plenty of drama mixed in. Enjoy

I'm 43 as I write this intro, I live near Lisbon in Portugal, and I've adopted the name Sandra M. Lopes in 1995 or so. I had dressed once or twice before that (I'm getting ahead of myself), but that's the nickname I used in the days when IRC was the only "social tool" around on the Internet.

Why this name and not another? Well, there are a few stupid reasons. Back then, 99% of the people on IRC channels were clearly male. As a relatively recent crossdresser, I enjoyed toying with the idea of flirting with guys, and see how "convincing" I was as a female. Males and females write in completely different ways, and one striking difference was that the very few females showing up would have "realistic"-sounding names, instead of nicknames like xoxo28652 or DareDevil or things like that. I started with my own "male" initials, reversed them, and tried to fill in with names. To this day, I'm still stuck with the "M."

One of my earliest crushes was named Sandra; being an old computer geek, I naturally am fond of Sandra Bullock; and Sandra was a popular name among women born in 1969 in my country. So "Sandra" would be a very realistic name for someone of my age, which I never hid. I also happen to be partial to the name, for some unknown reason. Also, at some point in my teens, I thought that one of my cousins, named Alexandra, was the most beautiful girl I knew, but unfortunately, "relationships" with direct cousins are frowned upon. "Sandra" is a short form of "Alexandra", but for decades it has become a name by itself. "Lopes" is the second most popular last name in Portugal (the first one being "Silva"), so, although I'm not really fond of it, I have stuck with it for the past 17 years of my online presence as Sandra.

Like some of you, but not all, I came relatively late to crossdressing and questioning my own gender, and, lately, my own identity. Many transgendered people have memories of themselves from the earliest ages wishing to be the opposite gender; I do not. As a small child, my mother had no issues about what was considered to be "typical boy toys" or "typical girl toys"; my brother and I would play both with dolls and G-Men and Lego blocks. I learned to sew dresses for plushies and dolls very early, and my little sewing techniques were useful decades later during compulsory military service; while not being an expert, I would fix buttons for my comrades-in-arms, and sew back pants or shirts who got ripped. So I always thought that these "female skills" were as useful as any "male" skills, because that was part of my education — I'm comfortable with darning socks, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, washing and ironing clothes, and so forth. The only skill I never managed was to cook properly — I guess that's because my own mother was an awful cook herself (she learned it from my father, who quickly forgot everything he knew). I'm very fond of eating, though — having spent my teens and early adulthood eating what passed for "cooking" at home — and this gave me the reputation of being able to eat pretty much anything in vast quantities. It's a miracle how I'm not incredibly fat!

I also don't remember feeling the urge to wear my mother's clothes when I was very young. I have some memory glimpses that I did wear one of her skirts or so once, and tried on her shoes, but I can't say if this memory is real or not. I'm pretty sure, based on many transgender's descriptions, that if wearing women's clothing at that tender age were so important for me, I would remember it.

By contrast, I remember my teens rather well. Like all teenagers, when we get our bodies flushed with hormones, we start to feel new things and question a lot of things as well. I remember quite clearly that my first orgasm was at 11, just half an hour before I had to go to school, and I was quite embarassed; my parents are a bit conservative and never thought to explain things to me. And I also remember that when masturbating I immediately thought of my body as being that of a girl. This is rather weird, when looking back, but, at that time, I thought that all the guys would think like that, although I was ashamed to ask.

As a kid I was very shy, and while I adored women and was fascinated by them, I had no courage to get a girlfriend. To this day I'm not even sure which of the girls I used to hang out with considered themselves to be my GFs or not; I was too shy to ask them anything serious, but enjoyed their company, and they usually enjoyed mine, so we tended to spend a lot of time together In fact, as I grew older, I enjoyed "male talk" less and less. Girls, when talking to me, would always have to switch to their intellectual mode — since they would automatically assume that I had nothing interesting to tell them in terms of "girl talk", and I had little to offer in terms of "male talk" anyway. So, in my early teens, I always considered women to be wise, intelligent, witty, clever, and full of interesting ideas; while guys, in general, would only talk about sex, cars, and rock bands. Girls, by contrast, would talk about anything, and I found them so much more interesting!

Around 15 or so, I was very introspective about myself, and worried a lot, which is pretty much what all teenagers do, but I had no way of knowing that — I was too shy to ask. In fact, I was rather furious with myself for being so shy and so ugly. By that time everybody had a girlfriend (and I was led to believe that everybody had constantly sex with them; it was only decades later that I understood that 90% of all males lie about their sexual prowess), but I got none. The before-mentioned girl called Sandra, a hot blonde with white, alabaster skin, was my girlfriend for about two weeks, when we were placed on the same desk at class for a while. I suddenly noticed that she had pointed ears, just like the Elves I read about on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (one of my favourite books ever)! By sheer chance, I forced myself to overcome my shyness and ask her if she had read the book, too. She did, and that gave us some ground to talk for a bit, and I lived in bliss for those two weeks. Then she got someone else who was far more good-looking and I was left girlfriend-less for many months.

I thought about myself quite a lot, and wondered what was so wrong about me that made all girls run away as soon as I showed an interest in them. Maybe, I thought, I was "becoming gay", and the girls noticed that, and ran away. You have to realize that in the 1980s we had no sexual education at school except some bare-bones biology stuff. I really had no idea what "being gay" was. All I knew is that gays were attracted to men, and I hated men. On the other hand, I still masturbated imagining myself being a girl; I envied their dresses, their poses, their silky long hair, and all the lovely feminine things they were allowed to wear, which were forbidden to me — like lingerie. At that time, I was not really interested in wearing them myself, but I fantasized how great it would be to be a girl and being allowed to wear all those things and feel what girls could feel. But then I thought that this is what "gay people" must feel all the time (boy, was I so wrong!). I was pretty much confused about myself, as you can see.

So, after some feverish few days of reflecting deeply on all this, I made a very strong resolution: whatever happened, I would not be gay. I would only focus on becoming more attractive to women in order to get a girlfriend who wouldn't see anything "gay" in me. That would mean changing my own mindset; stopping being so shy; forgetting all my fantasies about "how lovely it would be to be a girl" and thinking instead "I'm so glad of being a guy, because that way, I can dream of having sex with girls, which I adore". I even grew a beard later on, because I thought I looked too feminine, and that might have put many girls off (I actually don't look that feminine; but I thought I did, and that's what it mattered to me). Well, I didn't get sex with any girls in my teens, but I certainly became less shy and more self-confident. What that meant is that I wouldn't wet myself when addressing a new girl, but would chat with her without thinking twice about it. This worked much better for me, and even though some shyness lingered for many years afterwards, I developed much more confidence in talking with girls. Ironically, that still didn't work to get a girlfriend, at least not beyond a couple of weeks, and I didn't lose my virginity until much later.

The late 1980s, however, brought a change in attitude for the girls. Suddenly, all of them started wearing their hair short, putting on T-shirts and jeans, and wearing unattractive tennis shoes. They would talk and act like guys, stop wearing makeup or accessories, and pretty much become "just like guys". I was horrified at the changes, because somehow I was seeing all girls I knew losing their femininity which I so much adored! It made me wince to see some of the most gorgeous girls I knew cutting their hair and "crossdressing as males" just because it was fashionable to do so. Here was I, admiring them for their looks, their poses, their dresses, all their female image, which I was so fond of; and here they were, emulating guys all over the place, discarding all their femininity without thinking twice. It was disgusting and repelling, and I think that made me less prone to find a girlfriend — sooner or later, they would all cut their hair, forget their skirts, never wear a dress again. The exceptions became rarer and rarer.

When entering college, I left all those ideas behind, and I remember that I made a firm decision: I'd get a girlfriend, no matter what! So, on the very first day, I zoomed on the most ugly woman of the group, the one who dressed worst, with the most unfemale-ish haircut possible — which I was pretty sure that no guy would take away from me — and immediately engaged in conversation with her. We didn't exactly become lovers, but a beautiful friendship ensured, because she was so clever and knew about everything; we would spend hours together just talking, and there was no limit to what we would talk about. We fortunately shared a lot of ideas. And I felt safe, since she was really the ugliest person in the class, and nobody would take her away from me!

Ironically, some years later, there were some nasty rumours that she was a lesbian (which wasn't true; but I always suspected that she was at least bicurious), and, in spite of her ugly looks, she got some other guy to fall in love with her and sort of "left" me. I was devastated. At that point, it looked like I really had no luck with girls and would never be able to keep a relationship; I had no idea why. So I stopped actively looking for a girlfriend; it was pointless to fret about it.

It was during one summer holiday spent at a (female) cousin's place — my parents' home was being re-painted while they were at the beach enjoying the holidays — when I had my first crossdressing experience. I believe I was 22 or 23 at that time. I had to return earlier to sign up for the next year, and since I couldn't stay at my parents' home, I stayed at my cousin's place instead (she was also away for the summer holidays). I love to be alone as much as I love to be around a crowd, so this was a great moment for me. And one day, without any reason — but probably still thinking about all these things that worried me: why girls insist in looking like guys when they're so fascinating being women, and why I had no luck with girls whatsoever... — that, all of a sudden, I got this strange idea to put on some of my cousin's underwear. I felt very stupid for even considering that idea, but the urge was really overwhelming.

Unfortunately for me, my cousin is petite, so nothing of hers would fit me, and I was scared if I would rip any of her lingerie, which, to be honest, was nothing special. But the feeling, which so many of you well know, was simply fantastic, and I couldn't stop myself from having an orgasm, which meant taking care to wash everything later... but it was simply awesome!

But seconds after that, I was mentally kicking myself again. What was I doing? Where did that urge come from? I was more confused than ever. Why did it feel so good? At this point, my biggest issue was that somehow there was some repressed homosexuality from my teens which suddenly popped into existence with violence. And I really didn't want that — I looked at my own feelings, and I was deeply disgusted about the idea. All I wanted was women, women, women. I had no doubts about that; that never changed. However, I couldn't explain how the pleasure of wearing women's clothing — even if it was just a bra, some panties, and hoses — would fit into that.

Totally confused, I repressed all those thoughts, even though, during the night, I would still masturbate thinking that my body was female, although I couldn't understand why I couldn't have "normal" dreams. In fact, I even tried to "force" myself to have "normal" dreams. Somehow it didn't work so well, although, with practice, I sometimes manage to get an orgasm imagining myself as a guy penetrating a girl. But it's harder.

This repression of those feelings actually turned me into a slight homophobe. While intellectually I know it's completely stupid, and I've often defended gay's rights publicly — sometimes to the extent that many thought I was homosexual myself — deep down, I'm afraid I'm still a slight homophobe and will always feel uncomfortable in the presence of a male homosexual. Obviously I do my best not to show; it's all my fault, not theirs, and it's rather unfair of me to feel that way. I don't condone them in any way, rather the contrary, I'm very happy that these days many gay people can fully express themselves and have wonderful, lasting relationships. It's just one of those things that I cannot explain rationally — like, say, someone who hates chocolate, but cannot give a reason for doing so.

For a few years, I didn't wear any women's clothing. At the end of college I got my first "serious" girlfriend — totally unexpected; she was reading an interesting book in a tea house which I used to go often, I managed to ask her about it, and ended up inviting her to watch a movie. She didn't accept, but we exchanged telephone numbers, and so it all started — and was pretty much convinced that this would be my future wife. She drove me into despair for thousands of times, making me envious of her hundreds of "friends" who constantly visited her, but, in spite of all that, we generally got along. For some reason, she didn't want to be very intimate with me — I understand now that it was her way to protect herself — but I was fine with however she felt about it. Oh, and did I mention that she was gorgeous? Indeed, she was. She even used to do promotions in supermarkets and such, and her agency was fond of her, because she looked so great. Perhaps she was not catwalk material, but very close to it. And she was also elegant, sophisticated, had a keen dress sense, long hair, and a very feminine attitude. We had entered the 1990s and all that silliness of "girls wanting to look like guys" of the 1980s seemed to be left behind, and good riddance!

Ironically, we never had sex together; more ironically still, on our common holidays, we even spent some time together in the same bed, but "nothing happened"...

As all things are bound to pass, at some time around 1997, after having been "persuaded" by her to leave my old job and start my own company, our relationship finally drifted apart, mostly because I was too busy with my company. But a few things happened first.

The World-Wide Web started to appear around 1992-3. At that time, one of my very close friends sent me a link to an archive of erotic stories, Nifty (yes, the site is still around). Even back then Nifty had a section called "transgender". I had never come across the word before, and I was intrigued. I'm not really a fan of porn — I tend to joke with friends saying that I have nothing against watching lesbian sex, but, to be honest, watching naked guys having fun (even if they're having fun with girls) feels strange to me. When they say that what matters is paying attention to the women in the movies, I jokingly tell them that, if that's true, then the naked guys are totally superfluous, and I have more fun enjoying lesbian porn. So, well, this means that my friends rarely send me links to porn, but the link to Nifty was an exception. And I went there to read the many stories about transgendered people (specially the ultra-long Joe Bates saga) and was not only fascinated... but also horny. Which was something I didn't expect to happen to me. Not necessarily horny about the content in itself, but because they were stories about men who fantasised being of the opposite gender, and acting, behaving, and dressing like women. This had a strange appeal to me.

Now you have to understand that in 1992-3 there were no search engines. Yahoo, at that time, was a mailing list: people would contribute with links of things they have discovered, and these would, in turn, be distributed to other members of the mailing list. That was how many people found about new things on the Web. And, of course, sites would link to other sites, and so forth. Nifty still carries a few links with information about transgender issues, and, through them, I started browsing the very first websites carrying valuable information about crossdressing, ->-bleeped-<-, and transexuality, even back to the first website of Tri-Ess.

I was utterly fascinated. Here, at last, seemed to be perfect explanations for my odd behaviour since my teens regarding my fantasies as a woman. I absorbed all that information and reflected a lot about it. It was clear that transition — hormones and surgery — were not options for me, but crossdressing was "perfectly normal" (at least in the United States!), so, well, perhaps I should view it under a different light. It was really a relief understanding that I could be heterosexual, fully attracted to women, but still wish to wear a dress and behave like a woman. I cannot explain how important that information was for me back then — specially because there was absolutely no information, and no way to find it, in my own country. Like many crossdressers, I thought I was the only person in the world thinking like I did (I wrongly thought at that time that all transformism artists — travestites — were homosexual), and it was very, very relieving understanding that I was completely wrong about my prejudice against crossdressing.

So... shortly afterwards I got a P.O. box near my workplace and ordered some fascinating things from Suddenly Fem. They've been in business for twenty years now, and their first website already accepted mail orders, which was a completely new experience for me: here I was, able to be ordering women's clothing that would fit me, in complete anonymity over the Internet, from the safety of my workplace! It was amazing!

I don't remember when I crossdressed with my own clothes for the first time — I think it was in 1993 or early 1994. By that time, I was still able to take a week off, now and then, and in spite of always trying to get my wonderful girlfriend to come with me, she usually declined. So I went alone. But this time I would bring Sandra with me!

I still have one picture from that first session. I was not overly impressed — and these days I get nightmares just looking at that picture! — but I felt that this could work out. I took a long time to understand how all those things fit together — breastforms, corsets, hosiery, the wig, the whole array of makeup: the beard cover, the foundation, the mascara. I remember doing my eyes over and over and over again for the first time; but I didn't get frustrated. I just told to myself, girls learn this with their mothers, and practice every day. I'm doing this for the first time on my own. It's hard (I'm not artistically inclined) but I'll manage. It can only get better. And, after countless hours, I declared myself happy with the results: I looked like a woman.

Well, a very ugly woman, but you know what I mean

I also remember that after this first time of "full crossdressing" I sort of relapsed; I thought, "this is so totally wrong!" and then "but why do I feel so great about it?" And finally: "where will this lead? Is crossdressing addictive?" The websites I read said so. But, like my repressed feelings in the teens, and the change of mindset back then, I tricked myself into believing that I could stop everything, and stop it then. So, for a while, I stopped even thinking about it.

But of course you all know how it is, sooner or later, the urge crawls back... so, on a subsequent "holiday on my own", I couldn't stop myself from dressing once more. It was clear that what I had was not adequate. I had a waist cincher which would not pull my belly in and give me a hourglass figure; I needed a corset. The wig was a horrible mess — bleach blonde, and a totally un-natural look, good for drag queens, but not for the sophisticated, elegant woman I pictured in my mind. I don't remember if I had ordered some latex breast forms by then, or if that only came later, but it was clear that they weren't "good enough". So I started to shop for more and more things, putting them into two bags in the trunk of my car, which "mysteriously" never left and which I never talked about. Nobody ever knew!

Persuaded by my GF, and encouraged by a colleague, we started a new company in mid-1994, while still sticking to our day jobs. These were fun days, but also days with little time left for myself and for my persona as Sandra; I stuck to IRC chat, and was fascinated by how long I could keep a conversation as a female, even with other women. Holidays became rarer, but, starting in 1995, I also started doing business trips, and the two black bags on the car trunk would come with me. So I would attend some business meetings, retire to the hotel, dress up as Sandra, enjoy myself for a while, and leave back for home in the morning. At my day job, which I kept until mid-1995 or so, I would still pick up packets from the P. O. Box, go back to the workplace, go to the toilet and try things out to see if they fit me. Nobody ever caught me, although I'm sure many found that I had some kind of bowel disease since I always took such a long time when going to the toilets...

Once I had to endure a very embarrassing moment at customs. In the mid-1990s, the post office and the customs were still unused to mail orders having been sent through the Internet. They're very anal about packing lists and proper invoices, and once one order was retained by them because there were irregularities. You see, the nice company sending me lots of things — mostly lingerie, if I remember correctly — also sent me a full catalogue of their products, because those days the Internet was so slow that they would not be able to put the full range of pictures there: it would take too long to download! The only problem was that the catalogue was on a CD. And for the customs people, unused to computers, a CD was an audio CD — something that was not listed on the invoice. It took me a long time to explain that CDs could also contain data and pictures, not only audio tracks... all that while they embarrassingly picked up pieces of extra-large lingerie, one by one, observing them — and me — carefully. At the end I just forfeited the right to claim the CD; they could have it if they wished, and destroy it, or ship it back, whatever they preferred; just let me have my clothes! Obviously, the moment I told them to keep the CD, they allowed me to take it with the rest of my things. Oh well. I was feverish from all the embarrassment, tension, and shame, and shaking all over...

I remember an episode, probably in late 1995 or early 1996, which was incredibly stressy, during one of my business trips. I went by train one day, to return the next. I had just bought my first set of silicone breastforms, and, even though I had tried them already inside a pocketbra, I wanted to feel them stuck to my chest. Those days, the only way to achieve that was by gluing them on with surgical-grade glue, so I had bought that, as well as some glue remover. So, well, that evening I had some fun dressing up with glued-on breasts, and it was fantastic, although the glue smelled horribly and there was nothing I could do to disguise the scent. But since I didn't intend to leave the hotel room, that didn't matter. I enjoyed myself for hours as Sandra, then, in the early morning hours, I finally went to sleep — getting a few hours only. Which was fine, since I didn't need to drive but would return by train, having plenty of time to sleep there.

Naturally enough, I slept with the breastforms glued on, which was a wonderful experience.

Except that on the next morning, while taking a bath, I found out that the glue worked too well. The glue remover wasn't having any effect. I have to say that this was one of my scariest moments in my life!

I spent literally a couple of hours trying to unstick them, to no avail, even after taking several baths. Time was running out. The train didn't worry me, I could always get a later train; but hotel rules meant that I had to leave by noon, or pay an extra day; this would even be acceptable in my despair, but the problem is, it would be obvious that sooner or later, around noon, someone would come up and ask me if I was going to stay another day... finding me with glued-on breastforms which were impossible to remove! I was truly panicking. The breastforms were C cups, and probably I would be able to disguise them enough to be able to pay my bill and catch that train — but what then? How would I explain the breastforms at home??

Watching every moment slipping by, I managed to unstick a tiny little bit of the forms at one of the edges, and that gave me some hope; bit by bit, another millimeter was freed, and I did very slow progress, until finally, with my skin already with a huge rash, I managed to get them off, just seconds before noon. I can only say that I never glued anything again on my body since then, and I'm really glad that current-generation breastforms are self-sticking, with pretty much the same adhesive capability that surgical-grade glue managed to give in the mid-1990s.

The increase in work with my former company meant that I struggled hard to be able to visit my GF as often as I could; but by mid-1997, disaster struck: I had been conscripted for military service.

I could not really believe it. You see, in those days, military service was compulsory for all males as soon as they reached adulthood, and voluntary for females — the army was mixed, 2/3 male and 1/3 female — but you were allowed to extend the initial conscription date while you were studying. That was easy until the end of 1992, after finishing a 5-year degree; then I started to do a mastership, but abandoned it by mid-1994 due to lack of time. That gave me some extra years. By that time, less than 5% of all males got conscripted, since there were always good excuses to avoid military service, and they had far too many people than they can afford. Portugal was part of the war effort in Kosovo, and this meant that that a lot of money had to be invested in the army, which left little for running the compulsory service. I thought that a mononucleosis ("the kissing disease" — it gets transmitted via saliva, and has lots of strange symptoms, none of them very serious, but they leave you with a weakened liver) would be enough to leave me out of the military. I was wrong. Still, on the day I had to report for duty at some backwater barracks near my home town (I remember that they only had one gas mask and three working grenades; machine guns were manufactured in the 1960s, as well as the combat rations we got to eat), I thought they would simply let me go, being unfit for work. I remember I had some meetings later for that week, so I just viewed that "call for duty" as merely bureaucracy (army bureaucracy is ten times slower than government bureaucracy, and I had gone through that years before). It took me a while to realise that they were really intending for me to stay with them for a few months!

Well, lots of people tell wonderful experiences from their recruiting days in the military; others tell me that it was bad at the time, but they managed to have a laugh later, and retain fond memories of it. For me it was just living hell; I would be constantly sent to doctors and even hospital, as obviously my liver problems aggravated with the hard exercise. And psychologically I felt just like a prisoner who knows he's innocent but still has to be deprived of their freedom due to a judicial error. Granted, after seven weeks you're allowed to go out, but that was little relief, knowing you would have to report back again after the weekend was over. My own platoon was a group of people who, almost without exception, had good jobs and a family to feed, and who lost everything; one of my comrades-in-arms was a top heart surgeon in Madrid, and was shocked when he was told that he would not able to fly back to perform a live-or-death open heart surgery later on that week. "But the patient will die without the surgery!" he cried. And, to the best of my knowledge, that was exactly what happened; not to mention that he very likely lost his job at the hospital, too.

Being the owner of my own company, I was not in the same situation, but the company almost collapsed by then. After several weeks they started to swing back into operation and recover from not having me there all the time; and, by then, I at least could do some back work during the weekends, but meetings and such were obviously out of the question. During some of the 24-hour-turns which I sometimes had to do on duty, since there was obviously nothing to do, I used to write letters and emails on my laptop all day and night, to send them as soon as I could get an Internet connection back at home. So this was really an ugly time. The good news was that it didn't last long, just three months. The bad news was that, by then, my relationship was over. And while I have the dubious honour of being the only member of my male platoon who sometimes wore a bra, panties, suspenders and stockings under the uniform (it was fun to do that), it also meant a long period without being Sandra in full.

When I was finally released, a lot of things had changed in my life, the main one was that I had no girlfriend any longer. Very frustrated, because I had put a lot of emotional effort in that relationship, I somehow felt empty. Ironically, I remember that the only woman I could trust was myself as a woman: I couldn't disappoint myself, and I was always available for myself. So I resumed my lone vacations as Sandra — although just a few times per year. And soon things would change again.

Shortly after leaving the military service, my company had partnered with an organisation sponsoring a certain event, which was pretty much in line with my own hobbies, so I made a point of personally attending to the partnership. As things go, it was that way I met my future wife — she was the daughter of the then-president of that organisation, and we were naturally introduced.

She's not incredibly beautiful, but has nevertheless a certain physical charm — however, since I met her during Halloween Eve, all her beauty was hidden below a witch's costume I just felt attracted to her prodigious intelligence; she's one of those "unknown geniuses", who, in different circumstances, and probably in countries like the United States, would have been soon recruited for higher education in a research institution for Nobel prize winners. In my backwater country, however, higher intelligence is not really looked for.

I have to admit that I have a crush for intelligent people. All my life I have been surrounded by people who have vastly superior intelligences than mine; I found out that this stimulates me, pushes me hard, makes me want to learn more and more, just to be able to talk with them without looking like a complete moron. Due to my natural lazy disposition, I often need these intelligent people to challenge me to try harder and give my best; I have been lucky, I'm always finding those genius-class intelligences all throughout my life, and usually they become excellent friends — or even partners for life like my wife.

Now, having been very hurt in my feelings by my previous girlfriend, I was naturally cautious. I didn't want to involve myself so deeply as before. We still spent a lot of time together; at some point, in 2000, I decided to move closer to her mother's place, since I pretty much spent all the time at her mother's place to be with her as long as I could. My daily routine used to be to work my usual 10-11 hours per day, pick her up (she worked only during the afternoons and early evenings back then), get some dinner, drive her to her mother's place, stay chatting and playing computer games (she's very fond of them) for hours, and, sometime in the early morning hours, drive back home, sleep a bit, return to work, and so forth. While our relationship quickly became intimate, it's also very intellectual — by then, I was not so sure I would want to open up a flood of emotions beyond my control and let her manipulate me as my previous GF did.

[Sandra M. Lopes]

At that time, of course, I still didn't know that emotional manipulation is what my wife despises most... if I knew, I might have gone "steady" much earlier. But she was totally accepting the degree of intimateness that I was allowing her, and we even managed to slip away for a few days and fullfill our relation with wonderful sex — much better than I had ever had before, and, as said, I didn't have any with the "official" GF before her, so it had been a long time since I had had some sex... it felt good and it felt right: just what the doctor ordered.

Still, the issue about my crossdressing was nagging me. The more time I spent with my new GF, the less time I had for Sandra. And, by then, I was a "crossdressing addict" — I required my time off as Sandra now and then. Things were even a bit complicated, because, by then, I had grown a short beard. So my one-week holidays were usually started with shaving myself cleanly, dressing as Sandra for the first few days, and then letting the beard grow for the remaining days. Since my wife-to-be didn't particularly enjoy the beach, and we didn't have that much sex together as most relationships have — as said, we have mostly an intellectual relationship — I could remove most of my body hair as well, at least on the chest, arms, and legs. I think that it was between 1997 and sometime in 1999 when I had bought new breastforms, new corsets, a new dress, rather high heels, a human-hair wig (red hair but very natural looking), even a handbag, and a faux fur coat, all very elegant and not trashy — I started looking much more the woman that I always had in mind, and abandon the "drag queen" look forever.

It was at that time that I went out for the first time, just for a drive. All started rather badly: still unused to stiletto heels, and literally shaking from fear (and excitement!) from head to toe, I managed to break a heel while stepping down a stair, just at the exit of the hotel (this particular hotel had lots of entrances and private apartments, free from nosy cleaning maids, and having lots of opportunities to slip out unnoticed). The noise from falling down the stairs seemed unbelievable, at the early hour in the morning, but nobody came to see what happened. How I picked myself up, went back to the apartment, slipped another pair of shoes (with lower and broader heels), and still had the courage to go out again, I will never understand. But I managed all that, and drove around as Sandra, which was truly an unforgettable experience!

In late 1999 I had sold my company, became literally a millionnaire, and bought a tiny flat close to my future wife's home. I was excited at first because I thought I would be able to crossdress much more, on a new place where nobody knew me (the neighbours made a point of ignoring my existence; how things changed, these days they're the nicest neighbours one can wish for). But this was not to be. As soon as my fiancée understood that we would have a place on our own — even if it's a tiny bachelors' flat — she obviously induced me to spend there as much time with her overnight. We still hadn't decided to move in together — I didn't expect the relationship to last — and I intended to buy a bigger flat, as soon as we had a more solid agreement. Still, it meant that my two black bags had to be kept in the car's trunk as before. I would still occasionally dress now and then, when on business trips, and often on Saturday mornings — my wife rises late, and when she was staying at her mother's place, I used the Saturdays mornings to dress as Sandra and do the weekly house cleaning. Then, with plenty of time to spare, I would pick my fiancée up for lunch, and generally spend the whole weekend with her, including the night from Saturday to Sunday.

I had little time over the weekend for dressing, even though I sometimes slipped a bra before going to bed; I was starting another company, again with lots of work in the initial phase, and would spend the evenings at my mother-in-law's place, and get back to my new flat completely exhausted, and sleep deeply until morning. At first, I still managed the occasional few days off, either on business trips or on short holidays on my own, when my fiancée was unable to take some time off herself, and I would be able to crossdress a bit. But even in my early 30s, I soon found out that I got exhausted much more frequently than before. On some business trips, as soon as I finally returned to the hotel, all I wanted to do was to sleep. And the 14-hour-a-day working hours plus a few extra hours to be with my fiancée were also taking its toil; there was not much time left for anything.

Due to some complex circumstances, my fiancée abandoned her job to focus on her studies, but she had soon to stop that as well. This meant that she was now jobless. So, with the aid of one acquaintance, we set up a company for her to work in. This worked wonderfully well on the first year, but, due to an unfortunate sequence of circumstances, one of the partners mixed with a gang of criminals, who took over the company, swindled me out of all my money (the burst of the dot-com bubble, even though it didn't affect that company, brought a huge financial crisis which made the banks lose everything that was left after the gangsters took the rest — to this day, I blame the banks for their incompetence more than the criminals!), and, by early 2004, my fiancée was kicked out of her mother's place and had to live full time with me. Six months later, things were so dramatically wrong with the company, now taken over by the criminals, who even forced me to sign documents at gunpoint... things could not go on like this. Blackmail began, as well as visits for extorsion at home and at another company I was working for at that time; when my wife, accepting a job as babysitter, started to be followed by the gang when in charge with a little kid, we got really scared — she had a responsibility to keep the kid in safety. We decided to leave everything in the hands of good lawyers and my parents, see what they could do about the remains of the company, and moved away from home — to be precise, to a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, where my wife had some family, and where nobody can arrive unnoticed, since the only way in is through the airport or the port, meaning that the authorities would immediately detain those criminals. We laid low for a few months, but two things were clear: all the money was gone forever, and it was not even enough to pay all the debts — we will be stuck with those debts for the remaining of our natural lives; and it was clear that we would have to stick to each other to survive.

Things actually went quite well during our "exile"; it's a fantastic place to live. I still worked as a telecommuter for the same company as before, even though at half the salary, and my wife got an awesome job, which unfortunately didn't last long, but we had great fun while that lasted. All our worries seemed to be a thing of the past, taken into account that we had no money left, but we didn't mind much; we had enough to survive. We got some reports that the criminals, unable to find us, and having the police looking for them to answer in court, quickly disappeared forever — these days, they're probably in Brazil or such similar large country with little immigration control, very likely under an assumed name. Or perhaps not: they were petty criminals, not organized crime, and I'm sure they never thought they would have the police after them.

The only nagging issue I had was about my crossdressing. What to do about it? My "black bags" were half an ocean away, deeply hidden in a wardrobe at my flat. I had not brought anything with me; how would I explain it to the airport authorities or even to my wife? Well, at that time I hoped that the current relationship would quickly make me forget all about crossdressing; or, eventually, we would be able to return home some day, and I would manage to find opportunities to dress again. For the first weeks I didn't worry much about it.

But after a few months, specially when I stayed working from home and my wife was at her workplace, I started feeling those urges again. How would I be able to keep them off for so long? I had no idea how much time we would have to spend in exile; as things were progressing so nicely, "forever" was rather likely. And I didn't mind the place and the people at all — in fact, a year ago, I returned there on business but had a few hours left to visit one old acquaintance, and I'm not ashamed to say that I wept as I passed through all those lovely streets and the gorgeous views. I was really fond of living there. Still, it meant no crossdressing forever. Could I cope with that?

Well, I had went through a lot already. Leaving crossdressing "forever" would surely not be that hard?

I still bought a bra on a cheap shop, just for the sake of the "old times". A bra is easily hidden. I would wear it during the whole day, while my wife was away. But of course I would also think... first the bra, then what will be next? I could still hide some panties and some stockings somewhere... and perhaps even a dress... and... well, no, this would be going too far. I would have to resist temptation!

By the end of the year, my wife's work was finished, and there was no chance of getting another job soon, so we had no option but to return — I didn't earn enough to keep us both and pay the rent of the place we were staying. Back on the mainland at least I had a place of my own, for free. Even if we didn't get anything else to live from, it would be cheaper; occasionally I would get a customer or two, besides my regular job, but that money would only last for a little while. We couldn't count on that for paying the rent every month. So, well, we returned back by Christmas.

Things were now a bit complicated for me. It was clear that 2004 had been a very rough year, but the result was that all my plans had changed radically. Instead of living comfortably — I had made enough money to be able to retire at 31! — now we lived well below the poverty line, and still in debt on top of that. While I still had a low-paying job, my wife was jobless, and now we were stuck with each other. There was no place left for Sandra in my life.

I gave this a lot of thought over a few weeks. At some point it became clear that I couldn't live without crossdressing "forever". I could definitely "hold out" for six months or perhaps even a year or two. But "forever" is simply too long to consider. It was impossible.

But it was also clear that, with no money left, and no more excuses to leave my wife at home for a few days — the job I had didn't call for business meetings, it was 99% telecommuting, and 1% attending a few scattered meetings at my home town — there was no time left for crossdressing. My wife doesn't have any friends, and half of her family lives elsewhere; while relationships with her mother had improved over that year, it was clear that my wife, who doesn't drive, would be stuck at home, 24 hours a day. How and when would I have time for crossdressing? The answer was clearly "never".

I had to make a decision: I had no option but to tell her. And accept her reaction, whatever it might be. As you might imagine, by then I was pretty much attached to her, even if our "passion" was mostly intellectual, but bed-wise we were not that wild. I discovered, in the mean time, that I have an unusually low libido (while hers was normal at that time). At that time, I still thought it was a mix of stress, anxiety, worries, and so many years repressing my own desires, since, strangely enough, except for my wife, I really never had sex with any of my girlfriends — just with other friends and occasional acquaintances during the time I was "between relationships". It's odd, but it's true. So lack of sex never worried me; lack of affection, intimacy, and a solid relationship based on the strong and earnest wish to make each other happy — what most people forget that "love" is about — is another story, I was enjoying having all that, and it was silly to throw it out of the window just because I had these crossdressing urges.

But by then I had read tons and tons of documents on the subject; I had participated in many discussion groups and forums like this one, and had a pretty good idea about crossdressing, ->-bleeped-<-, and transexuality. I had met online dozens if not hundreds of people, with which I keep in touch, who feel pretty much what I feel. So I knew by then that crossdressing is not something you can "cure", or, even more naively, can "wish away". It's impossible. I can suppress the urges for a long time, but not eradicate them.

So in early 2005 I made the decision to have a chat with her and talk about it. Mind you, I had two advantages.

The first was merely a product of chance (if you believe in chance...). I mentioned that my wife is a computer game fan. During our "exile", since I have a Mac and she has a PC, I looked for some "game" that we could play together, and that worked on both platforms. I found a June 2004 article describing something sounding very interesting, a social virtual world called Second Life. I joined it and originally created a female avatar for my wife, just to test it out. Now I should say that usually I lose interest in those kind of things after about 15 minutes. I surprised myself that I had spent 90 minutes just personalising the avatar! Clearly, there was something special about this strange "virtual world". When after 20 hours I went to sleep for four hours and returned for another 16-hour-long session, I was completely hooked. This was awesome!

Ironically, my wife initially didn't find Second Life very appealing. But after a week, she decided to join it too, although she said she would start with a new account, leaving me with a female character. Well, I was quite pleased with that, since I hadn't logged in to a real-time chat since my IRC days. Here was something pretty similar, just with stunning 3D graphics, where we could build whatever we wished — and be whoever we wanted. And at least I could be female without anyone knowing otherwise, and engage in female activities without anyone raising an eyebrow. It's like "virtual crossdressing" with perfect bodies. What could a crossdresser wish more?

Now three interesting things happened. The first was that my wife got used to see me playing a female avatar, and she found it "amusing" — she never "outed" me in front of strangers. Most people still believe to this day that we're lesbian lovers or something like that, although my wife's preference for making male friends baffles many. Whatever people think about it, I don't worry much; what was encouraging was this idea that she was getting used to see my feminine side, and didn't comment much about it.

The second thing is that, of course (and this was more true in 2004 than it is today!), there were a lot of gender-benders around Second Life, from autogynecophilists who would never dream to dress as females in real life, to crossdressers, to all sorts of people with GID. My wife slowly got in touch with some of them, and learned as much as she could about that, even though she cared little about what people said about themselves. But she had to deal with it.

The third thing is that my wife is an avid learner: she is a well of knowledge, and used to be known as "the walking Wikipedia", because she knows everything; she's probably the only person I know able to recite the whole list of Kings of Britain, and she's not even British; she profusely quotes Shakespeare and often corrects native English speakers about their own history, literature... or even their grammar usage. She discusses quantum mechanics and general relativity fluently with her uncle, another genius in the family who is actually a physics major. She vastly knows everything about art history and constantly argues with her own mother about it — who is an art history teacher (now retired). She discusses philosophy and religion with Buddhist teachers. During her exile, I taught her the principles of music composition (I just know a little bit, from my high school days), and after a few days, she could do her own compositions as if she had been doing it all her life. She usually argues with doctors about her many medical conditions, since she usually knows more about them than the doctors themselves, by being up-to-date with everything being researched and published these days. It's a bit uncanny, but I'm used to living with a genius. Oh, and at the same time, she will also know what is fashionable at this time, knows all the names of the major fashion designers, probably knows all Christmas carols and all lyrics from the 1980s by heart... so it's not just high-brow things that she is aware of. She knows everything, and what she doesn't know, she quickly learns, because she is an avid learner — of all fields of interest.

Knowing that, one day in early 2005 I became very serious and asked her to read a few things, which I had pulled from a support website for crossdressers' wives (I'm not sure, but I think it was from Tri-Ess). I think that I had such a worried look on my face that she thought I had a terminal disease or something like that and was preparing her for the worst. But without a word she started to read what I gave her, and quickly went to the Wikipedia to learn more, and so forth. She remained in silence for a while, thought a bit about it, and then said: "Ok, I think I understand what you're telling me. I just have a question to ask you: do you want to change your body surgically?"

My (very relieved!) answer was: "No! I'm just a crossdresser!" and that seemed to ease her a bit. Although the worst was over, it meant discussing for a few hours some details of what she had read. I had to explain that unfortunately I would need some time to dress, but obviously I was flexible to discuss the how and when. And of course it wouldn't be "now" — I would give her time to assimilate everything first. I also explained that I had not the least interest in any kind of sexual experience while being dressed as a woman; crossdressing, for me, is an intensely erotic experience on its own, and I'm very deeply attracted to (genetic) women, and this will not change.

And of course I encouraged her to talk it over with some of our Second Life friends, some of which she knew they were transgendered, and let them explain it a bit better how they deal with it. Which she immediately agreed with.

Well, I can't tell how much relieved I was. It was quite clear that she wasn't excited with the idea, unlike what happens to some couples when the loving hubby reveals, ashamed, that he is a crossdresser: "Oh, honey, I'm so happy to know that! I have a fetish for men in women's clothing! I had always wanted to ask you if you minded wearing some of my clothes, and now — surprise, surprise! — you tell me you've been a crossdresser all this time and I had no idea! We're so lucky!" Fortunately I know a decent amount of couples where this is exactly what happened; they have incredibly strong bonds these days, their lives have improved dramatically, and now they can have fun together in a very girly way, both deriving pleasure from that.

This is not my case; my wife, interestingly enough, has a slight homophobic touch as well, and, for her, men dressing like women is not attractive. Her own fantasies involve mild bondage, not guys in feminine attire. However, it was clear from that day that she tolerates the idea, because, in her own words, it doesn't matter how I look like on the outside, but only what is inside. You can't believe how great that made me feel!

So I patiently waited for her to be "ready". I explained that I had some clothes stored on those two black bags, and she admitted that she had always been curious about the bags. But it was many, many months until one day I hinted that I would like to crossdress again some time, if she felt she was ready for it. I offered to do it only if she wasn't present; we could arrange for her to go out with her sister or her mother or even some of her few friends; I didn't need her to be around, if it shocked her somehow.

But instead she said that she had some mild curiosity to see how I looked like. We went through my old clothes and accessories, and she said that these were "too old" for me, I needed something more casual and modern. And some new makeup; what I had was long past the date. So we arranged to go out shopping on a very cheap shop and she picked out a green long-sleeved top and a white asymmetric skirt for me, as well as some makeup. My old human hair wig was by then still serviceable, although it required a bit of maintenance from a professional stylist, so we had to improvise — she braided a strand on it to make it a bit more interesting. And on that first time she even helped me with the makeup — although she hardly ever wears makeup, she used to do so in her teens — and took a lot of pictures of me.

Looking back at those pictures, even if it wasn't that long ago, I looked ugly. But who cared? I was extremely happy. I got a shy compliment from my wife, saying that I didn't look as bad as she thought I would look. She said she could still see the "me" inside that she loved. So I enjoyed that "first time" to the utmost.

And then we set some "house rules". She didn't mind having me crossdressed around the home while she was there, but she didn't want me to crossdress every day — once a week was tolerable. She was fine with my removing body hair, except for the belly, because for some reason she loves the hair there — I personally don't mind, since that area is covered by the corset anyway. Revealing myself to anyone else was out of the question; going out was to be postponed "until she deems that I look good enough to pass".

Well, that was certainly a challenge!

Time brought over many changes. The first was that the old clothes, and the new ones that I slowly started to buy now and then, would have their proper place in the closet, so that they wouldn't be wrinkled and acquiring smells for lack of airing. But she had often to stop me from buying too much stuff; we were still not well off (and things would get worse over the years), and, besides, our place is too small for two persons (plus a cat!) and I was adding a third person's wardrobe to the closet. In fact, after a few years, I confess that I own more female shoes than male ones; I have more dresses than male business suits; I have far more bras than ties. In fact, I have four times more bras than my wife has :-P And many clothes have been given away for charity (at least those that were minimally acceptable for giving away), including my dear black faux fur coat bought in the late 1990s, as well as a fancy velvet evening dress I had for 15 years and still as shiny as when I had bought it. But my wife taught me to appreciate more casual wear; I can be elegant and wear casual, too.

My main source of inspiration is actually my mother-in-law. A few years ago, she underwent surgery to regain the slim figure that she had when she married, and now, being retired and divorced, she eagerly started to increase her wardrobe in a very elegant style, even when wearing casual. As she started to lose weight, I "inherited" some of her clothes, specially her skirts, as my wife hardly ever wears a skirt, and — at least in skirts, but not in anything else, since she is petite, but well-rounded — we have the same size. I often toy with the idea of revealing myself to my mother-in-law, who is rather open-minded, and actually loves seeing good-looking, stylish transvestites on TV. But so far this has always been postponed.

As, for many years, my "going out" as Sandra has been postponed. I was stuck to crossdressing at home.

Now there is a huge difference in crossdressing occasionally, under many restrictions, like I had done before meeting my wife and in our early years of our acquaintance; and dressing regularly at least once a week. Firstly, one starts getting a real experience in what works well in terms of looks and styles. There are plenty of opportunities for experimenting. After a few years, I have to admit that I'm much better with makeup than my wife, although she has a background in Fine Arts; that shouldn't be surprising, since, unlike her, I wear makeup every week, while she does it once or twice per year at most, and just uses minimal makeup (we do share the makeup, but 99% of all we got has been bought by me...). Even though I have no other option but to buy cheap clothes, first from eBay and online shops, later having the courage to buy them on physical shops instead, these have the advantage that they're, well, cheap, so I can see what fits me better, and give away what I dislike. I quickly learned to do a lot of things on my own. Sometimes I got precious hints from my wife: for instance, that I should avoid necklaces, since with the breastforms I use, they will always look "wrong". So I had to "tone down" the accessories a bit, and also learn to apply makeup that is not so "loud" — in fact, I aim for a natural look, which, since I don't have overly feminine features (just nice lips, which is fortunate), means applying a lot of makeup just to look as if I'm not wearing any makeup at all! Learning to use the eyeliner was a huge challenge, as well as painting my own nails, after getting tired of gluing false nails all the time — these days, I can paint my own nails better than my sister-in-law, who paints them every other week. And I'm not sure if any of the genetic women I know is able to use liquid eyeliner...

On the other hand, the more I practice, the more I criticize my look. Looking back at those 2004 pictures — or, even worse, at the few 1997-1999 ones — I get shocked at how ugly I looked. One thing changed dramatically: I learned to smile instead of doing "sultry looks" which really don't work well unless you know how to do them properly. But I did pretty much everything wrongly! These days, however, I have much more confidence, but I'm way more demanding than before, and always a bit furious at myself for not looking better, blaming my lack of skill. But there is a limit to how much I can do, and while I push those limits every time I dress, it seems that the Ultimate Feminine Image is impossible to obtain — without hormones and surgery.

Around 2007 or so I started to wear more natural hairstyles, which improved my image a lot. By then, my wife's health started to deteriorate dramatically, and she had to go through surgery to remove some myomas from her uterus — and, as a side-effect, she also lost all her libido. While I admit shamelessly my selfishness, the truth was that this was the first opportunity to finally go out as Sandra in the middle of the night, and walk a bit around in high heels, while my wife was recovering at hospital.

Finally, after more than eight years, I was able to go out again, fully dressed!

It was simply fantastic; one of the best experiences I had so far. Before the turn of the century, I really just had stayed inside the car and drove around a bit. That time, however, I went out on the sidewalk, lighted a cigarette, walked a bit, and enjoyed every second of it.

I wasn't very truthful about that to my wife; I told her that I had crossdressed, but didn't went into details; by then, my crossdressing at home was just routine. I usually pick Sundays, because we have the afternoons free, but because I still work at home, I can actually pick most of the other days, too. However, since I'm strongly conditioned by all activities that my wife wants me to do, as well as a few of my own, this means that I have far less time than I wished (I'll expand on this later).

I would say that since then, crossdressing became pretty much a routine for me. It's part of my life, and fully integrated in the weekly schedule, so to speak. But things were still grating in my conscience and nagging me all the time.

The first thing was simply being allowed to go out as Sandra. By then I sort of lost my "fear" of discovery, at least to the extent of my personal "fear". Let me try to explain this a bit better.

Since 2007 I've also been practicing some techniques to deal with fear, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, and so forth. Thanks to some good teachers, and a lot of time spent practicing over the years, I managed to figure out a few simple facts about myself, which also allowed me to understand that all the above things are not intrinsically true. Put into different words: I generate my own expectations, based on exaggerations of the pleasure I will feel (e.g. dressing, going out, feeling good as Sandra, whatever). This, in turn, creates an idealised image of what will happen, which will be present in my mind for a long time, and continue to get exaggerated, and, as such, become more and more desirable. This is what drives the urge to dress and so forth; it becomes more and more unbearable. When I finally am able to dress, there is a momentary release of the accumulated tension over the days, and we feel that as "happiness" — finally, the urges and anxiety are gone, because I managed to dress!

But then something strange happens. Like every other crossdresser, once I'm dressed, it never feels "enough". So I stretch the time I'm dressed as much as I can. But there are limits: I start to get tired. I know I have to sleep sooner or later. Some items of my padding start to chafe and itch. But the urge to remain crossdressed continues, but now, even though I'm still dressed, I feel the frustration for not being dressed for a longer period. Frustration sets in: now that I was having great fun, I have to contemplate going to sleep, or I won't be able to wake up next morning (or will do so with a headache due to lack of sleep and remain the whole day irritated and with a low capacity for work). So, reluctantly, I go back to the bathroom and start removing everything; each little bit hurts, knowing that I eventually will have to get rid of my femme image, go to sleep, and start pining about the next session, which I might not yet know when it will be.

So, in essence, there is actually just a short period of intense pleasure: that's pretty much when I finally get to dress, finish all my makeup and so, and enjoy those first moments of Sandra. But the clock starts ticking for the frustration of not being able to dress longer to appear. This can take hours, but eventually, I'll be feeling that frustration.

It gets worse if some of my expectations are wasted. For example, these days, my wife, who suffers from constant anxiety (she went through a couple of panic attacks already, one of which landing her in hospital; panic attacks can be dangerous, because they look and feel like heart attacks, and, although they're purely psychological, the mind overrules the body making it "think" that it's a heart attack — and the heart can, indeed, suffer. Yes, it's terrible how much influence our mind can have over our bodies!), says that contemplating the idea that I'm on the street dressed as a female is too stressy for her. She imagines all kinds of accidents that can happen while I'm dressed, and she has a much wilder imagination than I have!

[Sandra M. Lopes]

Here are a few things that cross her mind:

• neighbours seeing me (ok, that one was expected)
• having a car accident and being crossdressed (that would never have crossed my mind!)
• being stopped by the police (ok, I thought of that, but it's not so bad)
• being distracted while driving, running over someone, being arrested by the police (gosh, that's wild!)
• car breaking down or flat tire, having to call a mechanic or getting it towed (that could happen... my car is ancient and falling apart)
• getting mugged, even when inside the car when stopping at a semaphore (well, it's unlikely, but not totally impossible)
• having a heart attack or similar medical condition, with or without a car accident (unlikely, but, you know, if you have a wild imagination, anything is possible really...)

And so forth. When she starts thinking about all those things that could happen, she needs to take some medication, even if I don't actually go out! That's how bad she is.

So, to play it safer, I agreed to wait until she gets sound asleep. So far so good, right?

Well, yes and no. We have a very odd daily routine, mostly because, for many years, we worked from home with people living on different timezones; so we tend to sleep at the most strange hours. This means that my wife routinely goes to bed at around 3-4 AM. When she does that, unlike me, she doesn't immediately fall asleep: she needs at least half an hour of reading, and another half an hour of tossing around in bed until she's in deep sleep (by contrast, I'm deep asleep the moment my head touches the pillow, and wake up instantly with a start and am out of bed in a second!). So that means that I need to patiently wait all that time to finally be able to go out for a bit. And it's really "a bit" — if I go out at 5 AM, at 6 the first neighbours will start waking up and going out for work. On the other hand, I don't have the same endurance that my wife has; after all that time waiting for her to go to sleep, I'm really and truly very tired, even with the excitement of going out, so I don't trust myself to be alert and watchful at such late (early?) hours.

I suppose I could try a different model, e.g. sleeping while my wife is awake, and going out when she's asleep, but the trouble is that I have strange sleeping habits as well, and even though I try to do my best to adapt them, it's often very hard to time it just right. Sometimes I'm "almost finished" with my dressing routine while my wife is having an afternoon nap (which actually takes a couple of hours or so), but I never managed to go out while she was asleep during the afternoon; she just wakes up or is clearly in a state of light sleep from which she will wake at any moment, so I don't dare to go out.

What this means is that it's hardly possible for me to go out with other CD friends, or even to go out to somewhere... everything is closed at 5 AM. Due to a stroke of luck and a lot of coincidences, I managed to meet once with a CD friend at around 3 AM during the week: she had some days off, and on that day, my wife went to bed at 2 AM, so we managed to get together, chat, and walk around for a bit. It was awesome! But unfortunately it's very hard to repeat that experience: the scheduling is simply too complicated.

So this is pretty much the current state of my crossdressing. My wife, besides anxiety, suffers from a long list of diseases, many of which are chronical, and few are treatable. She doesn't drive. Our flat in a peaceful suburb is far away from the nearest supermarket, so she can't even go out to shop — merely walking 10 minutes will tire her and subject her to excruciating pain on most days. Due to all her illnesses, she pretty much had to stop working altogether. This means that she's totally dependent on me to do everything for her.

Now luckily I'm currently "just studying" and have a few odd jobs besides that which are done remotely, and which can be done at odd hours — there is no physical presence required. This, of course, is ideal for my wife: at any moment, without giving me a second's notice, she will demand that I do this or that for her. I might be engaged in solving a particularly complex problem taking many hours of work, when she "suddenly" needs to go out and get some sunlight because she's feeling depressed; I immediately, without hesitation, have to stop whatever work I'm doing and drive her around for a few hours, and pick up the work where I was, working late hours to catch up, sleeping just a little, and be ready to wake up with a smile for whatever my wife feels she needs the next day.

All my days are completely unpredictable and unplanned. I have never the slightest idea of what will happen.

On top of that, there is actually some extra routine: I'm always busy on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night. That rules out the two best days for going out — 99.9% of all CD events in my area are Fridays or Saturdays. But even the remaining days are always a surprise — my wife wants to spend at least one evening per week with her sister, but I never know when that happens. Sundays is usually the "best" day for me, but we lunch with my parents, and often that takes too long, after which my wife might want to go shopping for food, meaning that we will return home too late for me to be able to dress... putting into other words: with such an unpredictable routine most of the days, and the few days which are planned ahead totally excluding the possibility of dressing, actually finding a "free day" is next to impossible. And even when I manage to squeeze a few hours now and then (at least once per week, sometimes twice), I'm only free to go out when pretty much everything is closed, and every one of my CD friends are soundly asleep. It's frustrating!

I'm still trying to figure out a way to deal with that. After many years, I finally got permission to go out on one of those CD events, which usually get announced weeks in advance. But there is always "something happening". My wife might be too ill and needing to go to the hospital; or she might completely have forgotten that I was supposed to go out on that day and had already arranged for us to visit her sister; or, even though I managed to switch the schedule on a certain Saturday, to be able to attend a CD dinner, at the last possible moment I will be informed that the switch has to be cancelled because of this or that, and would I mind keeping to the original schedule? (Usually, my wife replies affirmatively on my behalf saying "oh, sure, we don't have anything to do anyway" :-P ) And, occasionally, the best laid out plans, when everything clicks, are foiled, because, due to my constant exhaustion, I sometimes get ill, too, and don't recover quickly enough to be able to attent that CD event. Just to give you an idea on how complicated this gets, there are some CD friends of mine that are waiting for me to meet them for dinner... for 15 years. I still haven't found a way to meet my schedule with theirs!

So what's the future for me?

One thing is probably going to change. Due to the ongoing financial crisis, and the lack of jobs for someone at my age (I'm overqualified, and these days, only recently graduated college kids have a chance to get a job in my field of expertise, because "anyone older" will "demand too much money" — even if, in fact, I live under the poverty line for my country. But companies are often willing to pay even less than that for part-time jobs, since the crisis doesn't allow them to pay more; kids living with their parents are quite willing to accept a job under those conditions — it's better than no job at all), I have no choice but to emigrate elsewhere. This means that I will have to go back to a 9-to-5 job, something I haven't done since 2001, and, in those days, my wife had no health issues. We will have to move to a place which has a supermarket on the same block. It will mean no more weekly crossdressing but sticking to the weekend instead; the good news, of course, is that all my current schedules and limitations will disappear, since wherever we go, there won't be anybody around for my wife to arrange her social events. The bad news, obviously, is that I won't be able to meet my current CD friends but will have to find new ones. But, in general, even though I'm not very keen in emigrating, I see a few advantages — besides the obvious, financial ones — in getting a routine which my wife will be unable to disturb; she will have to adapt to it, no matter how ill she feels. Or she will have to overcome her anti-social tendencies and find new friends willing to go out with her when she's moody, because I will be stuck at work most of the day.

The other thing is that for a few years I've been seriously thinking about myself and my identity; this comes from some reflections while logging to Second Life (everyone who actively joins Second Life will quickly start to reflect about their own identity and their own self; it's inevitable to do so), but also from my Buddhist mind training. I realise that the "crossdressing" label which I had so long ago applied to me might not be 100% correct. Crossdressing is just what I do because I cannot be a woman — I'm socially conditioned to act and behave as a male, and I don't want to disappoint family & friends by acting differently.

Now I had long ago rejected the "transexual" label, because, in the mid-1990s medical literature, a transexual was someone who felt, from their tender age, that they had the wrong body for their mind. They were absolutely sure of that, and, since society forced them to behave differently from their gender, looking merely at their exterior, they suffered terribly. Since this condition was relatively easy to diagnose, our societies evolved quickly a legal and medical system able to deal with it. While there is still a lot of discrimination against transgendered people, in general, there is a "way out" of this terrible condition; over the years, HRT and SRS became available to younger and younger ages, in the hope that the transgendered person is caught on as early as possible and can still enjoy a happy childhood (or at least their teens) in a body that is aligned with their mental gender. This is rather very encouraging, specially because the earlier HRT is taken, the more likely the person will develop fully as their intended gender, becoming physically next-to-impossible to distinguish from genetic males or females after transition, at least externally.

But literature in the late 1980s and up to the mid-1990s had to deal with a second class of transexuals — so called "secondary transexuals" or "late transition transexuals". These were individuals (at that time, research was done mostly on males) who had lived successful lives as men for several decades. Most would be strongly attracted to females, marry them, have children, and become exemplary husbands. But something felt "wrong", and, over the years, there was a build-up of tension about being in the "wrong" body, which, all of the sudden, cannot be denied any longer. Many crossdressed but didn't find it absolutely fulfilling. This often lead them to deep depressions, and when they started seeing therapists about it, these were baffled. The usual questions made to so-called "primary transexuals", about if they had started crossdressing in their earliest years, and if they felt that they were "a woman trapped in a man's body", were answered evasively and often in the negative. Still, they claimed they nevertheless wished to go through transition, and were absolutely sure about that.

This didn't fit well within the standards researched up to that time, and it was just with some reluctance that many managed HRT and SRS. In some countries, "late transition transexuals" were not eligible for HRT or surgery, so what did they do? They lied. They claimed, like "primary transexuals", that they had felt all along they were in the wrong body, but, due to many circumstances, they endured what they had to endure because of social pressure and so forth, but now they couldn't hold on any longer — either they went through transition, or they would have no choice but to commit suicide. This was pretty much what doctors and therapists wanted to hear, so they allowed the therapy and the surgery. In fact, I have come upon many sites specifically aimed to those "secondary transexuals", coaching them in the "right" answers to give to doctors in order to get HRT and SRS.

But somewhen in the mid-1990s, this could not go on any longer. Suddenly medical experts had to revise all their data — how many transexuals had lied to their doctors in order to get surgery? It was found that it was a huge amount; the whole "conspiracy" was revealed, and this gave the medical community a lot of food for thought. The whole concept of gender and how it's experienced had to be revised, and we came to our current, modern approach to the subject: things cannot be classified into neat, tiny little boxes with labels. Everybody is different.

Nowadays, as you all know, what therapists try to figure out is merely if it was a depression that led to the idea of gender change, or if the idea of gender change led to depression, because those two conditions often happen together, and they're treated in radically different ways. But details like age, feelings in their youth or during the teens, sexual orientation, ability to work or pass as either gender, and so forth, are irrelevant for the diagnosis.

As a result of all this work, a lot of new documentation and scientific articles were published, and I started coming across them a few years ago. By then my wife had already allowed me to crossdress regularly at home, and all I know — which she actually warned me that would happen! — is that the more she allows me to do, the more I want to do. If she allows me to dress once a week, I want to do it twice. If she allows me to go out and drive around, I want to attend CD parties and events. If she starts accepting that I do that, I want to have some vacations (with her, of course) fully dressed as Sandra, 24h/day, in a place where nobody knows us. But if she allows that (we have discussed it and she says it's a possibility), what will I want next? Well, as said, I'm already toying with the idea of revealing myself as a crossdresser to her mother, because I think she will accept the idea well. The rest of my family and friends are extremely conservative. But if we emigrate to a different country... what will restrain me? Everybody I'll meet has no clue about my past. They will have no prejudice, they won't be shocked; if they already meet me "as a crossdresser", either they reject me from the start, or they will tolerate me from the start. It will be a completely different situation!

But what does a "full time crossdresser" (or at least one seriously considering that) do? Well, for starters, they will wish to start changing their bodies. For purely practical reasons.

Full body depilation is thankfully acceptable for males and females these days. I've long ago decided, and have my wife's agreement, that I would go through permanent hair removal of most of my body hair. I haven't started yet, but just because we barely, just barely, have enough money to eat. But once the financial issues are solved, I will immediately start with permanent hair removal. This means half an hour less time spent on shaving, but also facilitates the makeup — no more "two-step" foundation, first to cover the beard area, letting it dry, then the opaque foundation on top, letting it dry, and be able to start doing the "real work" afterwards. All that can be safely skipped; this will allow me to crossdress much faster, and, as a result, I will do it even more times.

Now part of the time spent on my makeup has to do with the hair and the ugly nose, which is next-to-impossible to disguise. So, very likely, my next step will be to get rid of the nose — and while I'm doing that, why not go all the way through facial feminisation surgery? I'm lucky with my lips, though, so probably I just would need to correct the jawline, which is too masculine, and, of course, the nose. But I might also start growing my hair very long. I've heard from fellow crossdressers that these days, clever hairdressers can do a very feminine cut which, once braided together in a simple ponytail, is completely unnoticeable. That was a revelation! My wife doesn't like me to wear my hair long, mostly because of what other people might think, but, in a different country, where nobody knows me, I would have no such scruples. I don't even need to paint it, even though I prefer to be a redhead; but I'm fine with my current hair colour, and, strangely enough, even at my age I don't have any white hairs yet.

What I have is alopecia, like most males at my age. So that would require some treatment, and probably some hair transplants as well.

The next step is a bit more daring, but I might go through it as well — getting rid of my slightly protruding belly. I'm not really much overweight, the belly is mostly due to age and lack of exercise. But unfortunately, due to a condition on my back, I cannot do any exercising, and, even if I did, I would not want to develop extra muscles, which would ruin any chance of passing as a female — I have already a wide frame as such. So, well, some carefully crafted surgery might be able not only to get rid of the belly, but create the illusion of a more feminine waist. Since I hate the beach anyway, nobody would really notice, but it would allow me to forfeit the corset — more time saved that way.

But if I went through all that, what would come next?

Not long ago, I went to an interview about the crossdressing and transgender community in my country. It was lead by a nice sociologist (and not a psychologist or a therapist), and, besides what immediately concerned her work, we also did some chatting about ->-bleeped-<- in general. At some point she was curious about my low libido, since, in her research, she found out that all crossdressers have a certain degree of hypersexuality. They might keep it in check for many reasons, but it's always present. I told her jokingly that I might be an exception, a low-libido crossdresser, but in general I agreed with her, all crossdressers I know, without exception, exhibit hypersexuality to a degree. I admitted that perhaps I didn't know enough crossdressers (or that they were all lying about their sexuality and libido!).

Her answer, however, surprised me. With a very faint smile and a thoughtful look, she said: "No, that's not what I meant. It's usually late transition transexuals who have low libidos, because they subconsciously are not happy with their gender, and, as such, they don't feel very excited about sex wit their current bodies. The low libido is often reverted after their transition. However, I'm not an expert in the field; you should ask a psychologist about it."

That sort of stunned me. I even talked about that interview to my wife, and started looking for more information on the subject. And the more I read, the more it seemed that this sociologist was right. I've been coming across a lot of acquaintances who, thanks to much better legislation, are now swiftly progressing through transition as "late transexuals". Some of them I have met online a year or so ago, exchanging tips and tricks about crossdressing. Then, all of a sudden, they start going out as women, and shortly afterwards, go through transition. This is happening more and more. Interestingly, though, most of them — not all, but most — hint that they have low libidos, and that this process has nothing to do with desiring to have more and better sex, or due to some sort of sexual frustration — they just want to have a woman's body. In fact, they pretty much have the same attitude towards sex that I do: it's really of little importance. So many other things are more important.

By contrast, even the most casual crossdressers I'm familiar with, all have incredibly high libidos. As said, most have to suppress it (for family reasons, and so forth), but it's clear that sex is constantly at the top of their minds. In fact, if I listed all males I know, and ranked them according to their libido, I would rank almost all my crossdressing friends at the very top, and the most aggressive macho-types much farther lower on the scale (I don't know many of that type anyway!). Well, not all. In fact, I now seriously suspect that all of those crossdressers with low libidos might be much closer to what I feel: someone who crossdresses merely because, for many reasons, they cannot go through transition.

Now I don't wish to claim that this is a "rule", just a possibility. If I'm very honest with myself, and ask myself: "if there were no social constraints from work, family, and friends, and no financial issues, would you consider transition?" I answer that with an undeniable YES, full of conviction. However, this is quite different from what a "true" transexual feels: they will want transition, no matter what happens, because nothing else truly matters. They're willing to change their lives, estrange their families, abandon their friends, and renounce to all financial stability, just to be able to have a body aligned to their mental gender. These are the clear-cut cases of transexuality.

I'm clearly not in that class!

However, in discussions with my high-libido crossdressing friends, who enjoy wearing women's clothes and having an elegant and sophisticated female image (because, among the many types of crossdressers, many don't), most of them are absolutely definitive about not wishing to physically change anything in their bodies. They don't even consider that idea — except perhaps for permanent hair removal — and are a bit confused when I tell them that I wouldn't mind doing some changes, if that was possible (which it isn't). When we're being serious about it — most of my conversations with them are in a light tone — many start pointing out the health problems and complications, the pain, and so forth. I tell them that I'm aware of all that, and all these things weight a lot against my desire to change much about my appearance, but they don't rule it out. When they bring the argument that SRS often means an end to orgasms (it's different for everybody, of course), and, having a high libido, they are completely scared about that, I tell them that I have no such fears. I already have a low libido. It cannot go any lower than this. Sure, I masturbate occasionally, and obviously I'm not exactly disgusted at having an orgasm — the point is, it's not really important. I can't have sex with my wife due to her many illnesses, and, to be honest, I don't even remember the last time we had sex together, it was years ago. Does that affect our relationship? Not in the least. It was fun at the beginning, but as said, I spent most of my early life wanting to have sex and never getting any, and when I finally got it, it simply wasn't that important. Good, sure, I'm not denying it's good! There is a big difference in enjoying it and constantly desiring it. So, if I ever considered SRS, and found out that I couldn't have any more orgasms, it wouldn't be the end of the world for me. Obviously, like many, I toy with the idea of being able to enjoy a female orgasm (multiple or otherwise), which, as a new experience, has its appeal, but... is it truly important? Not really. So if SRS means not having an orgasm ever again, so what? It doesn't worry me in the least.

So maybe the sociologist was right. Maybe. Maybe the only reason I have a low libido is because I think that having sex as a male is nothing so special, and, as such, of little importance. (Sex happens in the mind anyway!) Clearly my lack of interest in typical male activities have to do with my lack of interest in all of them; as typical female activities, which I enjoy, are not allowed for me outside the home, I tend to focus on "neutral" interests instead — i.e. intellectual pursuits, which are done my both males and females alike. Having been rejected by so many girls in my teens and early adulthood, I developed this idea that I'm a very ugly person, and I'm often shocked at what some women tell my wife about me when they think I'm not listening. I simply cannot look myself in the mirror and see anything interesting or appealing as a male. On the other hand, my female image is enticing and alluring to myself, just like every crossdresser feels, but it still requires a lot of surgery to look "just right" — makeup just manages to barely improve it.

Still, the major reason why I took so long to think of myself as "more than a crossdresser" is that I continue to feel deeply and strongly attracted to women, genetic or otherwise — all they need is to look great, their genetics are secondary. I still remain slightly homophobic. The more I see how males behave socially, the more I dislike them. To be honest, I pity the vast majority of women these days, who have horrible partners; males seem to be dumber and more egocentric every day. Of course there are exceptions — these are the very few male friends I've got (I have long ago suspected that they were all at least autogynecophiliac, even if they don't admit it, even to themselves), and they're very rare. They actually make wonderful husbands and have strong, lasting relationships. Their secret? They don't act and behave like "typical males", but enter this strange "neutral" ground. But I don't feel physically attracted to them! Even the idea fills me with disgust, to a point that it's really irrational.

Based on that, long ago, when first thinking about my identity, I had to reject the idea of being a transexual and starting my life as a woman running after men for having sex with them. It was as disgusting as the idea of becoming homosexual. For some reason, my mind developed something against males in general; I tend to hate the whole idea of maleness, it's so intensely disgusting for me, that, well, no wonder I like to look like a woman, at least for a little while, and surround myself with female friends. Ironically, as a male, it's perfectly socially acceptable to feel attracted to females, and remain in their company as much time as possible And, in fact, in my very small circle of acquaintances, I'm usually the only male present, and I'm more than fine with that. With very few exceptions, when another male slips into this circle, I'm expected to talk with him ("male bonding", you know), which is a torture for me; I would rather prefer to stick to the remaining females present. So, well, no, I have no wish to become a woman and run after men; so I rejected transexuality and adopted crossdressing, where perfectly heterosexual males (even slightly homophobic ones like me!) can enjoy themselves as women, and not feel the urge to suddenly switch their sexual preferences (even though, of course, in the vast spectrum of crossdressing, that is a rather frequent option — but the point is, it's not the only option!).

Of course, that was in the mid-1990s. These days, obviously, we know to classify gender differently from sexual orientation. You can go through MtF transition and be a lesbian; that's perfectly acceptable. Except that some doctors still frown at the idea. The ones up to date with the latest research know that the spread of sexual preference is pretty much the same between cisgendered and transgendered persons. And, interestingly enough, many late transition transexuals who have happy, married lives, when they have a partner tolerant of their crossdressing (and, later, their transgenderity leading to transition), tend to continue married with the same partner, as a lesbian couple. While this is naturally not frequent — unfortunately, for most cases, there is a splitting up before transition, due to lack of acceptance — it's not extraordinary. The 2003 movie "Normal" shows a typical example of this.

I know that my wife fully accepts my crossdressing, and tolerates it, even though she's not really excited about the idea. We've discussed my eventual transition, but, having a practical mind, she has shown that it would be completely and utterly impossible in our present situation. She's right. We have far too many relationships with conservative, intolerant people — and we depend on many of them for survival. I admit being attached to many friends and specially to my family. My own parents, whom I adore, are old and have already too much to worry about. They're also conservative and would see my eventual transition as a failure in their education; this would utterly devastate them, and probably lead to depression and an untimely death, blaming themselves all the way. I'm obviously not selfish enough to force that upon them!

My own wife would also have a hard time. She's currently dependent on me; nobody else is willing to take care of a 38-year-old woman who cannot work, cannot bear children, cannot even do simple house duties, doesn't drive, and whatever she does, after a few hours is completely exhausted and full of pain. Nobody in her own family has time or patience to deal with her issues, and, in that condition, it would be incredibly hard to get someone else. And, even if "someone else" appeared in her life, what would she do in the mean time, without money, without a house of her own, and without a means of getting an income? Obviously, this cannot be allowed to happen. But evidently she's not interested in living her life as part of a "lesbian couple". She doesn't feel the least attracted to women; interestingly enough, women, in general, disgust her as much as men do disgust me. On the other hand, she has far more female friends than male ones (I believe that she has only three male friends, met over the Internet, one of which is assumedly autogynecophiliac; and another one who was actually my own friend and whom I have introduced into our circle). The point here is that she would feel incredibly awkward living her life with another woman, even taking into account that "having sex" would not really matter in the relationship.

And then, even though I have not so many friends and acquaintances, there is a lot that would change dramatically. They would all abandon me, except for some few who would be condescending, and not sever completely the relationship, but just draw further and further apart from the "freak" they thought they knew, but were so wrong about him. Would I be able to endure all that?

Finally, of course, there are the ongoing financial issues to be dealt with. I have recently come across a Vlog from a gorgeous transexual, who went through transition a few months ago, and she talks about her experiences, her frustrations, her feelings, and how she is still unhappy about this and that (although not about her body; she's enthusiastic about the excellent results of her transition — who wouldn't be, she's young and gorgeous!). At some point, some commenters on her channel told her that she should be ashamed of herself, since she's the daughter of a millionaire and never had to really suffer like most transgendered people do, without a job and having to live on the streets. In fact, the media are a bit split between both extremes: they either show the super-successful cases, which are almost invariably from extremely well-off families, and who don't really need to work to have an income; and the transexuals who, being now unable to get a job, are forced to work as prostitutes and live on the streets, because they cannot get jobs.

There is a lot of middle ground, which depends on the country you're living in, and how good you actually look after transition. The media rarely focuses on those cases.

In my case, it could go either way. As said, I'm used to telecommuting jobs; I would be still earning a living from them if the economy hadn't collapsed. A transgendered person can perfectly work as a telecommuter. Even if they use Skype or some similar technology to keep in touch with their employers, I'm sure I could pass as a woman that way, after facial feminisation surgery. "In the flesh", in broad daylight, however, it would be next to impossible. So I would need to have a transgender-friendly job. This is hardly easy, although I'm considering an academic career, which, in most countries, at least for higher education, seems to be tolerated except in the most conservative universities. But obviously I have to evaluate if that's just "wishful thinking" or not. Even in a relatively transgender-friendly country, the shock of a university having now to deal with a transgender teacher might be too great, and they might just fire me, even if legally it's not possible to discriminate people that way; but there are many ways of accomplishing the same thing without infringing the law. What next? With a wife unable to earn a living, how would we both survive?

It's at this juncture that I have to seriously question everything. The transition process, even if long and painful, is something I would endure. Moving to a remote location, avoiding family and friends, was not a possibility until recently, but now it seems I won't even have that choice — I might have to move, no matter if I actually want it or not. So that's another barrier which will be overcome, sooner or later. But becoming jobless and aggravating our financial situation is something I cannot throw upon my wife — it would be way too selfish.

So what is more likely to happen is that I will continue to live my "double life" as a crossdresser, even though I'd like to do a bit more. As said, I might do some minor surgery — enough to make crossdressing easier, but not enough to be "forced" to live as a woman full-time, but, instead, be able to keep a job as a slightly odd-looking male (but in my mind I already look odd as a male anyway!). I can imagine a future with having long hair in a pony-tail, a thin nose, a feminine jawline, and hearing jokes all the time about how "girlish" I look, and being able to reply: "yeah, sure, but I've got a wife for 15 years in a very stable relationship — how about you? Are you male enough to do the same?" Such jokes about my looks are easily shrugged away, I don't give much importance to them. I quickly got used to people laughing about shaving most of my body hair. So what? I used to have a beard, which nobody liked except my father, but I've shaved it off; now I'm shaving all hair off — people change their habits and their looks. So people might laugh at long hair. So what? They laughed when I had a military haircut, too.

Obviously I wouldn't be able to shrug off a pair of D cup breasts so I guess that's not an option! But perhaps I might be able to get a more feminine waist and hips; after all, as said, it's not as if I like to go to the beach. And what all these little changes would allow me is to take, say, 20 minutes to glue my breastforms, loose the ponytail and shake the hair free, slip on a dress, apply some makeup, and go out as a woman very easily, every day — and return to the day job as a male.

Even if at some point in the future I'm able to return back home, and people will find my new look a bit odd, I'm fine in shrugging it off. There are all sorts of plausible explanations. For instance, my ugly nose is slightly asymmetric, and I can simply claim that I asked the surgeon to correct it, but he made a mistake and gave me a completely new look, and, after a while, I got used to it so I didn't want to revert it. The long hair can be explained as "a typical fashion of the place I used to be, they all wore their hair long, I was the only one not doing the same, so I grew it to fit better in, and now I sort of enjoy it like that" — it's plausible enough: even around here there are many groups like that

At this stage, all this is still wishful thinking. Things may change. Things can improve in a way that I don't need to emigrate, and without being away for a few years, I won't be able to go through all those physical changes. At this point, I still don't know: the next chapter of my life is still unwritten!

~~~~

So, well, perhaps this is not really an introduction, but a complete autobiography of my femme side If you managed to read this far, congratulations: you clearly don't have a short attention span. Be joyful! You're an exception in this age!

All the best,

   - Sandra

[Kevin Peña]

I'm sorry, but I cannot read that. I don't have a good attention span. I'm a shame to this age. 

Anywho, welcome! Always nice to have another Latina on these boards. 

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Hi Sandra,

Welcome to our little family. Over 9344 strong. That would be one heck of a family reunion.

Feel free to post your successes/failures, Hopes/dreams.  Ask questions and seek answers. Give and receive advice.

But remember we are family here, your family now. And it is always nice to have another sister.

And be sure to check out these links ( MUST READS )

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Janet 

[Sandra M. Lopes]

Sorry. After posting this and re-reading everything, I noticed that I might have delved deep into some considerations of how some types of transgendered people feel and think, and how their lives are. In some cases, read with the wrong mindset, these thoughts of mine might be deemed offensive to some of you who are in transition or have finished transition.

I should have placed some kind of disclaimer. Obviously I've not gone through transition, so I don't know what it feels, what one thinks, and what consequences one has to face. Naturally enough, I have talked to a certain amount of people who have done all that, and thought about what they told me — besides reading a large amount of information on the 'net, both autobiographically and from scientific research — but I can only repeat what I have read and heard, and present my own opinions and views.

On another forum where I'm an active member (in my country), someone currently undergoing transition raised once the issue that "it's not rosy". While she, in general, only talks about her positive experiences, at some point she noticed that she was being used as a "perfect" example on how transition "only has positive aspects". In my long text above, I might have given, in some points, a too-optimistic view of transition, for instance, minimizing or overseeing the complications after surgery (even minor surgery). Well, to be honest, I went through surgery just once, to remove my hemorrhoids — one of the easiest kinds of surgery ever! — but, thanks to a stupid instruction from a doctor, I spent two weeks grunting with pain in my bowels (completely unrelated to the surgery; I just took the wrong medicine because the doctor was an idiot). So, while under a completely different scenario, I'm aware of complications and the pain that can come from that.

When re-reading the paragraph, "transexuals are either millionnaires or prostitutes", I might have been far too offensive to most transexuals reading this forum. I apologise; I'm not very good at "toning down" some of my writing and putting it into more politically correct words. This was not deliberately written to be offensive. I'm basically repeating some factual data from a few documentaries and research articles, based on statistical evidence, that showed that these two groups are, unfortunately, the largest ones — but it's not that black-and-white. Also, percentages tend to minimize the fact that thousands or tens of thousands of transexuals have normal jobs and a reasonable life, not being millionnaires, but also not needing to resort to prostitution to survive. The only point I wished to mention is that it's very hard to maintain one's standard of living in the same job (or a job one's qualified to do) after transition, but not that it's impossible — thousands or tens of thousands have had no problem in doing so, and continue to do so every day. Nevertheless, I still think that anyone considering transition ought to carefully consider their options, specially if they are living on their own and cannot get any support from friends or family and if their transition will not leave them perfectly flawless as a member of the opposite gender (i.e. they will have to face discrimination and lack of job security due to that). These, for people thinking like me, are strong disincentives to consider transition lightly. For most people going through transition, however, being finally be able to live with a body aligned to their gender is far, far more important than the financial issues that result as a consequence.

Finally, I didn't pretend to cover "all kinds" of crossdressers, but just enumerated a few typical cases. The very surprising explanation of the sociologist that "almost all crossdresses have hypersexuality" was completely baffling to me, specially because I'm so little interested in sex that I'm used to everybody around me having a much higher libido, and so, this link between crossdressing and hypersexuality never occured to me. Since then, I have carefully combed through my CD acquaintances, and, except for the ones currently going through transition, or at least considering it to be an option, it really seems to be the case. On the other hand, some studies show that it's only "recent crossdressers" (i.e. people who have just started crossdressing and are in their early stages of self-discovery of their feminine image) tend towards hypersexuality, but, as they crossdress more and more, the hypersexuality diminishes and goes back to normal libido levels. I'd love to hear your comments on this.

[Sandra M. Lopes]

Anywho, welcome! Always nice to have another Latina on these boards. 

Aw thanks You made me remember that, these days, thanks to JayLo, everyone with "Lopes" as a surname is automatically classified as "Latina"

As a matter of fact, my mother is German, with a mixed Jewish and (probably) Polish ancestry somewhere in her genes. My father is Portuguese, which have been such a mix of races for the past thousand years, that genetically they're almost a species on their own — on the other hand, 500 years ago, the Portuguese spread their genes among half the population of South America, so I guess that half of all Latinos are our descendants

[Kevin Peña]

I retract my latter statement. Well, Portuguese is close enough for me. (Just messing with you)

If you're curious, I'm Ecuadorian.

[Jamie D]

Sandra, welcome from southern California

[Sandra M. Lopes]

I retract my latter statement. Well, Portuguese is close enough for me. (Just messing with you)

If you're curious, I'm Ecuadorian.

Hehe that's all right, you don't need to retract anything! In fact, the original meaning of "Latino/a" comes from the indigenous population of Italy — the first ones to be conquered by Rome. Then it simply meant "anyone speaking Latin or a dialect", which certainly was the case of the people in my country, when they were conquered by Rome. Spain and Portugal conquered most of South and Central America (and slices from North America), even though what the Portuguese did was more "spreading their genes" (we were more interested in doing business, getting married with the locals, and generally getting along with whoever was there — it's more like a "conquest by assimilation", like the Borg!) and less "massacring populations and setting their cities to fire" (who would toil the fields and man the mines if everybody was dead?). As a result, Spanish became the language of most of Central/South America and Portuguese became the language of Brazil, and since these languages are very remote dialects of Latin, I guess it's appropriate to call the population speaking them "Latin-speakers", although it's really stretching the point

So, well, as an Ecuadorian, since you're a descendant of Latin-speakers too — I say, Hail, Fellow Citizen of Rome

Feels a bit odd of saying that after 2300 years, but, then again, the rest of the world are barbarians (using the Roman definition), so I guess we should proud of our heritage

[Emily Aster]

I made it about halfway through the first one. When I have time, I'll read the rest. You said in the beginning that you didn't really have these feelings at a young age, but reading through what I did, it looked like you did have them. You just didn't recognize them. My internet experience finding out that other people actually dealt with this was much the same. I did my research on gopher, I remember the mailing lists, and I spent a LOT of time on IRC.

[Kevin Peña]

So, well, as an Ecuadorian, since you're a descendant of Latin-speakers too — I say, Hail, Fellow Citizen of Rome

Feels a bit odd of saying that after 2300 years, but, then again, the rest of the world are barbarians (using the Roman definition), so I guess we should proud of our heritage

And since humans first settled in Africa, I say hail, fellow African.

Then again, we all evolved from the first life-forms, "cannibalistic" proteins. Thus, I say hail, my fellow molecule. 

[gennee]

Hi Sandra and welcome. I am a latecomer to dressing also. I started at age 56. I never had the desire or as a child or young adult. I was home alone when I got this crazy urge to try on my wife's skirt. I fought the urge until one day I gave in. It was the start of a strange and beautiful trip.

Today, I am a happy and contented 64 year old trangender woman. I'm out to my wife, son, granddaughter, and church family. My name is a shortened version of Genevieve. I've always liked the name so it was a natural choice when I began my journey.       

[Kevin Peña]

But then do you count french speaking canadians (Quebecois) as "latino"?

Canadians? What are those? (kidding) 

[Sandra M. Lopes]

Hehe thanks all for the warm welcome For the interesting way that the discussion split immediately in many subtopics, I can see I'm in the right place with the right kind of people — those that are happy to pretty much discuss everything!

I'm sure I'll be posting many "mistakes" — wrong articles on wrong threads, mixing things up, violating rules here and there, because, well, this is a rather very old forum with thousands of members who know everything by heart, and newcomers are just overwhelmed at the vast amount of information contained here and the huge size of a community that feeds hundreds (thousands?) of messages every day. So I'm sure I will be doing something wrong, sooner or later.

Just bear with me and be patient! I'm sure you were all newbies elsewhere at some point. Attribute my mistakes to ignorance, incompetence, or plain stupidity; but never to malice. I don't wish to hurt anyone's feelings, offend anyone or anyone's beliefs, and while it's true I'm usually long-winded, please ignore me if I'm not making any sense.

Specially when doing all-nighters just fascinated reading your messages  It's sooooo easy to get carried away, there is so much here to read and learn about...

[Devlyn]

Hi Sandra, welcome to Susan's Place! I live near Boston. You'll meet people from all over here on the site. See you around, hugs, Devlyn

[Catherine Sarah]

Hi Sandra,

A big Aussie welcome to Susan's family. It's good of you to drop in and say "Hi". Hope you like it here, and you stay for a while.

There is a mountain of information, resources and friendship waiting for you here, you just need to jump in start talking and ask any question you like. You're quite safe here and we are very accepting.

Thank you for sharing such a detailed account of you to this present day. It certainly was an interesting read.

Looking forward to hearing more of your story in time to come, but in the meantime, be safe, well and happy.

Lotsa huggs
Catherine

[Sandra M. Lopes]

Thank you so much! We live at opposite sides of the world, Catherine, but it's great to have forged a link through the Internet

[Devlyn]

I thought Australia was on the opposite side of the Moon!

[Kevin Peña]

*Insert joke about Australia's anonymity here*