Hi all
Apologies in advance for the length of my first post - it's a long one.
I be really grateful for any advice and support for someone who has been wrestling with a problem for a very long time.
The first indications that I can remember were as a five-year old and my early days at school. I spent a lot of time fascinated by my teacher, wondering what it would be like to be her - especially being able to wear the nice dresses, nylons and stiletto heels that she wore and to have bouffant hair as she did. These thoughts were very pleasant, and in my head I would make up stories with farcically improbable plots in which I would end up, for reasons of expediency, dressed in female clothes. I also remember feeling an almost magentic attraction to the lingerie sections of Marks and Spencer or British Home Stores when we went on family shopping trips. Inside I knew that this was "wrong" but I couldn't help myself.
Then comes a long interlude, during which I was involved with my school work and typically boyish things such making model aircraft and reading war comics. And then as a twelve year-old, for reasons which mystified me, I could not resist the temptation to try on my sisters panties. Wow! And when these were followed by tights and a pantie-girdle, an exponential increase in wow! Soon after I realised that wow = sexual arousal and I masturbated for the very first time. From then on, I took every opportunity to dress in my sister's, and when she left home (she is much older than I am), my mother's clothes. Despite taking meticulous care to ensure that these furtive activities would remain undiscovered the inevitable happened - I snapped the strap of a sling-back shoe on one occasion and laddered pairs of tights on others. We were never a demonstrative family and although my mother (I never knew whether she'd told Dad) was well aware of what had been going on, her disapproval was conveyed to me in a very oblique manner. I got the message, though, and stopped dressing, but this didn't stop me from taking a keen interest in women's clothes, reading the womenswear sections of mail order catalogues when no-one was around, stealing longing glances when passing women's dress shops and furtively eyeing up girls and women checking out their outfits and aching with envy that I was denied the opportunities open to them.
Then one day I opened the newspaper and read a headline and saw a picture. As soon as I was able, I took the paper to a quiet corner and with heart racing read the story of a man who had undergone surgery to become...a woman. There were pictures of this "transsexual", as this person was called, before and after a "sex-change operation" This blew my mind. I secretly removed the page before the paper was due to be thrown out and spent hours looking at the "after picture". She just looked like a "proper" woman and she was wearing ordinary clothes, unlike the "drag" stars such as Danny La Rue that I'd sometimes see on television. I threw the page away to avoid its discovery but by then I had could quote the article by heart and had memorised that wonderful picture. I then sought out and read avidly more articles in magazines and the papers, television documentaries and, of course, Jan Morris's book, Conundrum. I spent hours thinking about these women, partly because I just couldn't seem to get them out of my head and partly because, if I'm honest, I found the process of a male becoming female and living as a woman very arousing. I wasted so much time just daydreaming, putting myself in place of transsexual in the magazine stories, wondering what it would like to have breasts and a vagina; to dress in female clothing; to wear make-up and to have a female hairstyle.
Navigating the choppy waters of adolescence is difficult enough, but having to deal with the thought that I must be a really, really weird person because my brain was full of thoughts about women, their bodies, appearance, clothes and role in society in a way which made me feel so bad, but at the same time achingly envious, really messed my head up. My teenage years were spent mostly on my own.
Fast forward to university days and my first girlfriends. With one girlfriend I came very close to blurting out my interest in all things, things but I chickened out. Then, after leaving college, the time that I'd been longing for arrived. I was able to move into a place of my own. At last, I was able to acquire some clothes - purchased in a state of mortal embarrassment, with cheeks blazing red and hands shaking almost uncontrollably as I handed over my money, the notes almost wilting as a result of my sweaty palms.
I then met another girl who really was "the one". We discussed getting engaged, but I felt it was only fair to confess to my inclinations, to give her the opportunity to dump me before there was any serious talk of marriage. Any hopes that she would be accepting were swiftly dashed. She wasn't going to dump me, but I, on the other hand, I had to promise that I would dispose of my secret wardrobe and that I would never again put on any item of female clothing.
So what did I do? I loved her deeply (still do), so I promised, comforting myself that marriage would put paid to the urges. I know, I know. I deluded myself about the urges... but I did keep the promise. For 22 years.
Of course over that time, not being able to access this side of my psyche caused stress, depression and anxiety, not helped by a job which, itself was high-pressure and stressful. Every six months or so, the subject of my "other self" would bubble up because I'd be particularly stressed. She knew why I was feeling awful and she wanted to help, suggesting therapy or taking up hobbies, but the one thing that would have helped was strictly off limits.
Eventually, we both realised that "my thing" was exacting an unacceptably high toll on my well-being and she agreed that I could wear women's clothes. There were plenty of strings attached, she would buy the outfits; I was only to dress when no-one else was at home and when the time of her or our daughters' return was known; the clothes were to be hidden in a place which was not likely to be discovered easily and under no circumstances were there to be wigs/make-up/shaving of legs or piercing of ears. I agreed to all of the conditions without hesitation.
A large box arrived. Inside: very plain white cotton panties; plain white bra; white cotton underskirt, opaque black tights; blue calf length skirt, a top, and a pair of navy blue flats and. Very mumsy and very ordinary. But I loved them. My first try-on and, oh, a wave of deep contentment washed over me, I burst into tears. Looking at myself in the mirror, a little voice in my head said 'Do you see this person? You're looking at the "real" you'.
Over the next few months, more packages. A dress, another skirt and a blouse, a long top to go with some leggings, more shoes and underwear. And then, disaster. My wife came home and found a pair of shoes I'd forgotten to return to my "stash"
I'd broken the rules. What if one of our daughters had found them? I'd blown my chances. The clothes had to go.
And they went. I was devastated and my wife knew it, but I think she was scared at how contented I'd become by being able to dress. I'm sure she was convinced that dressing up in private was just the thin end of the wedge and that I'd want more. In fact, on several occasions, she asked me whether I wanted to transition. On one occasion going as far as to say that she felt I was "more female than male". Each time I replied that I'd no interest in taking things further, but I think the fear that dressing was a "gateway drug" to something else was just too much for her.
That was two years ago and I haven't dressed since. This is has been so, so hard. For a time, I was drinking heavily and even now I still have to work really hard to keep this under control.
Every day I am faced with a harsh reality. That I am excluded from something that half the population seem to take for granted. I see my female co-workers next to me in the office but it feels like I am separated from them by a thick wall of glass: they are living in a world which is impossible for me to inhabit.
I have a enervating ache somewhere deep inside of me for much of time, now. I take on more and more work to take my mind off it but more and more work is exhausting and it also means that I spend less time with my family, which causes problems at home.
Thanks for staying with me this far, I'm getting to The Question.
I feel so comfortable in the company of women, I feel decidedly awkward in male company. I feel "at home" in women's clothes. Although content with dressing secretly at home, I would have liked to have ventured out into the real world and do "normal things" if I'd got my wife's approval. I'd like to have my hair done (if only it were long enough); wear make-up and nail polish, I'd like to shave my body hair. A stereotype of femininity, admittedly, but one which appeals.
So is this dull ache a symptom of gender dysphoria? Am I trying to hide from an unpleasant truth by convincing myself that I'm a cross-dresser? I'm so confused about this. I don't hate my male body in general or my genitals in particular and, although I have somehow never really felt "comfortable in my own skin", this is just a rather nebulous feeling rather than a specific rejection of my male body. I am plagued with nagging thoughts of buying hormones over the internet and beset by seemingly ever-present fantasies of gender reassignment surgery.
But, but, but. These thoughts and fantasies are arousing. As are thoughts of behaving as a woman and undertaking activities traditionally regarded as female. When my wife bought me the clothes and I was able to dress I admit that, even though it was well over 40 years since my first sexual experience with female underwear, there was still an initial phase of arousal but I was able to let this pass and just enjoy the freedom to wearing women's clothing. After all if I'd done something with the initial feelings of arousal and taken things to a conclusion, I would have had to take the clothes off, and that is exactly what I didn't want to too - every minute spent in a skirt was too precious to waste.
I am so confused. If I am still aroused by thoughts of a female body or behaving in ways which some would regard as typically female, or dressing as one, then I'm surely not transsexual?
But if I don't have gender dysphoria, why do I have this dull ache, this constant feeling that something is terribly wrong and that my life is both unfulfilling and unfulfilled?
I have never had anything remotely resembling a suicidal thought, but I am given to feeling this situation is causing me so much anguish that it might have been better if I'd never been born.
My wife and I rarely talk about this now - it tears her apart and that makes my feelings of guilt and remorse a hundred times worse.
I would be sincerely grateful if you could offer my any words of advice.
Thanks so much.
W.
