Susan's Place Transgender Resources

After reading the thread about being a good 1950s wife, which was hilarious,  I decided to check out some 1950s videos on YouTube. OMG, what a riot! I found the "teenage social guidance " films especially hilarious. There was the film warning boys about homosexuals and giving advice on how to avoid being "predated"  by them. There was one for girls about lesbians titled " unnatural urges". There were a couple warning teenage girls of the dangers of "parking" with boys. Parking! That's what they called hooking up. Lol! There was a film about a teenage boy who smoked some " reefer" , reefer, OMG how hilarious,  and went psycho and slaughtered his entire family. And I found the duck and cover films really funny. A nuclear bomb is about to be detonated over the city and they tell school kids to crawl under their desks. Did they think being vaporized under the desk was better somehow to dying in your seat? And I loved when they told people if they were outside and they saw the flash to drop and cover their head. If they saw the flash they would be part of the upper atmosphere before they had time to drop and cover. Lol. And I loved the words they used like " slick" and "keen". 😂  The teenage boys in the films looked ok aside from being dressed weird and having greasy looking hair but why did all the teenage girls look like they were in their 40s?? And the parents all looked older than my grandparents! In one scene an entire family was gathered around this gigantic radio in a living room. It's a radio so why gather around it? It's not like there was anything to see. Lol.

If anyone wants to check some of these out just enter 1950s videos in the YouTube queary. The are only like 5 to 10 minutes long. I found them funny but also quite interesting and also sad. I felt really sorry for those poor people having to live back then.

Not me, I feel sorry for the Tide pod eaters falling in manholes and stepping in front of trains texting!  :laugh:

Quote from: Devlyn on September 06, 2018, 06:20:05 PM
Not me, I feel sorry for the Tide pod eaters falling in manholes and stepping in front of trains texting!  :laugh:

Lol.

Some of the thoughts were just plain wrong in those films but many had a reason.

Parking wasn't hooking up as hooking up implies sex. While people had sex, it was best if unmarried couples didn't. This was before the birth control pill and prophylactics were the only form of protection. Abortions were illegal in most states  so if you were unlucky, you carried the baby to term and put it up for adoption. The sexual revolution completely changed how the world viewed sex.

As for duck and cover, yes a close nuclear bomb would really spoil your day but duck and cover might protect you if the building fell on you. Even a small improvement in the odds of avoiding injury is a wise thing to do.

Children had little freedom in how they dressed. They wouldn't have been permitted to dress in many of todays fashions as they where considered immoral. There was little choice in off the rack clothing and if you wanted something like that, you would probably have to make it out of wool or cotton. Some of the fabrics that stretch just weren't available back then.

Sitting around the radio, don't knock it until you try it. They were far better at telling stories than Hollywood is today and you wanted to follow the description carefully so you created the proper mental image of the story. You didn't have a screen giving you the images so you needed to "see" them in your own mind. This is much the same thing as reading a book, something your not really interested in. You might want to try it sometime as it's a great source of entertainment.

Quote from: Dena on September 06, 2018, 06:29:37 PM
Some of the thoughts were just plain wrong in those films but many had a reason.

Parking wasn't hooking up as hooking up implies sex. While people had sex, it was best if unmarried couples didn't. This was before the birth control pill and prophylactics were the only form of protection. Abortions were illegal in most states  so if you were unlucky, you carried the baby to term and put it up for adoption. The sexual revolution completely changed how the world viewed sex.

As for duck and cover, yes a close nuclear bomb would really spoil your day but duck and cover might protect you if the building fell on you. Even a small improvement in the odds of avoiding injury is a wise thing to do.

Children had little freedom in how they dressed. They wouldn't have been permitted to dress in many of todays fashions as they where considered immoral. There was little choice in off the rack clothing and if you wanted something like that, you would probably have to make it out of wool or cotton. Some of the fabrics that stretch just weren't available back then.

Sitting around the radio, don't knock it until you try it. They were far better at telling stories than Hollywood is today and you wanted to follow the description carefully so you created the proper mental image of the story. You didn't have a screen giving you the images so you needed to "see" them in your own mind. This is much the same thing as reading a book, something your not really interested in. You might want to try it sometime as it's a great source of entertainment.

All of that is why I felt sorry for them. I hadn't thought about a building falling on you. I suppose the nuclear weapons back then weren't as powerful as the city killer war heads we have now. I do like to read and I read a lot actually. I just don't like reading books. I read ebooks on my Kindle.

Quote from: Dena on September 06, 2018, 06:29:37 PM
Some of the thoughts were just plain wrong in those films but many had a reason.

Parking wasn't hooking up as hooking up implies sex. While people had sex, it was best if unmarried couples didn't. This was before the birth control pill and prophylactics were the only form of protection. Abortions were illegal in most states  so if you were unlucky, you carried the baby to term and put it up for adoption. The sexual revolution completely changed how the world viewed sex.

As for duck and cover, yes a close nuclear bomb would really spoil your day but duck and cover might protect you if the building fell on you. Even a small improvement in the odds of avoiding injury is a wise thing to do.

Children had little freedom in how they dressed. They wouldn't have been permitted to dress in many of todays fashions as they where considered immoral. There was little choice in off the rack clothing and if you wanted something like that, you would probably have to make it out of wool or cotton. Some of the fabrics that stretch just weren't available back then.

Sitting around the radio, don't knock it until you try it. They were far better at telling stories than Hollywood is today and you wanted to follow the description carefully so you created the proper mental image of the story. You didn't have a screen giving you the images so you needed to "see" them in your own mind. This is much the same thing as reading a book, something your not really interested in. You might want to try it sometime as it's a great source of entertainment.

And if parking wasn't hooking up then what did it mean?? How could doing anything but hooking up with guys be considered  dangerous?

Quote from: Julia1996 on September 06, 2018, 06:42:22 PM
And if parking wasn't hooking up then what did it mean?? How could doing anything but hooking up with guys be considered  dangerous?

Parking would have involved hot and heavy kissing and petting (hands on upper body). The problem is that in the passion of the moment it might go farther than that. The point of the film was to avoid anything that might cause you to go to far. As sex education isn't what it is today, they might not have anything to protect themselves with so they would have unprotected sex.

Parking activities weren't just limited by the lack of birth control.  This was before the sexual revolution triggered one of the most important inventions since the front-clasp bra: tinted windows. 

One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is "In the days before television."  A family staring at a blank wall. 

Life in the 50s and early 60s was pretty much straightjacketed for many of us.  We had our roles to play, and deviating from them marked us as 'different', not a good thing.

Some films picked up on and mocked this social conformity.  "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) with it's high paranoia contend and 'fear of the other' is a classic.  For those of us who did deviate, see the comedy "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) set in 1963 Oregon from the book written in that period.

Not a great period to be a 'different' child.  :(

I was literally laughing out loud at Kendra's post, as I read yours, Michelle.

Thanks, Michelle for being a total buzz kill!

;D

(OK. It was not bad. Realism is probably a good thing.)

And, Kendra, you seem to be in such fine form for humor today! Thank you very much for it!!! (My wife is talking about leaving me as she does not want to be married to a woman, and your humor has been a VERY pleasant part of a relatively bad day...)

K

Quote from: Dena on September 06, 2018, 06:29:37 PM
Sitting around the radio, don't knock it until you try it. They were far better at telling stories than Hollywood is today and you wanted to follow the description carefully so you created the proper mental image of the story. You didn't have a screen giving you the images so you needed to "see" them in your own mind. This is much the same thing as reading a book, something your not really interested in. You might want to try it sometime as it's a great source of entertainment.

Audio-only storytelling is making a comeback after decades of neglect, with podcasts like The Adventure Zone and Hello from the Magic Tavern telling long, sweeping narratives. It really is a great medium, and I'm glad it's back. Audio is especially good for improv comedy, because the actors can just make up whatever crazy stuff they want without having to worry about producing it visually.

I've listened to a bunch of old X Minus One radio shows as well, they're also really good if you like 1950s literary sci-fi.

Parking was "necking"!  My grandparents had the big radios.  They kept them when Televisions became available. 

Kids dressed similar to their parents.  Casual clothing as we know it wasn't around.  Jeans (actually "Bluejeans" were something sailors and farm workers wore, though different styles.

It certainly was not a good time to be different!

I do remember being caught necking away by a policeman who was checking around the local lovers lane.

He was a bit shocked - nice boys didn't do that - with other boys!!!!!  :laugh:

Duck and cover has survived much longer than the 50's. I still learned that in the early 80's in 6th grade... it stopped shortly thereafter. Also a briefcase over your head apparently helps too. We had full training days in school covering everything from a grease fire in the kitchen, using a fire extinguisher, basic first aid and CPR down to earthquakes and the mandatory (cold war) nuclear bomb scenario.

I think the duck and cover your head was so that IF you lived you would not be blind.

In an at the end of the world scenario who would the nurse or doctor treat first? Who has a better chance during WWIII? Someone blind or someone who could see. Just saying.

Julia. Reading your comments, can you see the reason I did not come out until two years ago. The 60' prejudices were much like the 50's as were the 70's. By the 80's I had gotten sick and did not think I could transition. Surprise, Surprise. Thanks to advice from Dena I took a chance to reveal my lifelong dysphoria and depression. I no longer have either. And remember it was only 2001-2 we learned that plastic and duct tape would protect us from biological weapons. Bwahahahaha
The good thing about radio serials like Suprman, Green Hornet etc. it that you got to use your imagination.

I was born in 1957 so remember little of the 50s but we got those films at school. If an atom bomb was dropped put your head between your legs & kiss your ass goodbye! Remember the reefer madness & drugs films causing much laughter at the time (early 70s), no kid I knew had enough money to buy drugs, cider was cheaper! Contraceptives could be had from the barbers *Something for the weekend Sir?". Food was pretty dull, spaghetti was considered exotic! Fish couldn't be given away apart from Friday. Cars rusted to pieces in 5 years, 2 channels on TV, a BSA A65 was considered a good motorbike as the engine should easily last 6K between rebuilds! My cousin got crap from people for having a DA haircut & being a Marlon Brando type wild one (he rode a BSA Bantam 175, American readers will know it as the Harley Davidson Hummer). Many hotels in Blackpool had signs in the window saying no blacks or Irish! Sex change stories appeared in seedy Sunday  newspapers with lurid stories & pictures of burly sailors before they became glamorous ladies.

Quote from: Julia1996 on September 06, 2018, 06:09:20 PM. . . found the duck and cover films really funny.

         I was lucky enough to be born in the 50's . . . post WWII was the best of times for a growing small-town America! Have talked to people here in the South who walked to one room schools and their homes still had dirt for floors! Hand-me-down" clothing was standard! Father paid $15,000 for a brand new subdivision house commuting from the "pine-barrens" of NJ making $500/month and girl we were "well off" and happy! lol You actually rode the school bus just to make plans to later "play outside" with like-minded neighbors!

         Love watching the early JamesBond movies just to see the kind of cars that were fashionable! Earliest I remember was a huge black tank called a "Packard" and because dad was a new jet pilot he was one of the first to actually install 'seat belts' himself! Ever watch post-apocalyptic movies like "Transcendence" or "Book of Eli"? "Duck and cover" is passe' . . . picture life again with *no electricity* (or non-carberated cars) because our power grid is so antiquated and unstable a nuclear EMP attack is inevitable . . .

        Your own basement "fall-out" shelter would be a good idea . . . If a major city near you were to come under explosive attack radiation would clear after a week or so (unlike in Book of Eli where it took 'years') in which case we have a 7KW backup generator and 3.6kw of solar power! I live in "Walking Dead" country so a 10round .357 Henry rifle for self-defence wouldn't be a bad idea either!

I don't know, but I would have loved to see Buddy Holly and whatnot.

Every era has it's problems and it's advantages. For instance in the 1950s most women with children were married and stayed home with their children. While this was less than fulfilling for the wives, the children benefited from having parenting during the critical early years of life. Latter day latchkey children have a great many issues caused by not spending enough time with their mothers early in life.

Of course there were also more health hazards from undiscovered chemical dangers, such as the ever present cigarette smoke that filled most homes and public buildings until the '80s or so. And, as mentioned, the different social mores of the period made life quite miserable for any transgender person. As screwed up as a lot of things are right now, it's still a pretty good time to be us.

Quote from: Lyric on September 07, 2018, 11:35:49 AM
Every era has it's problems and it's advantages. For instance in the 1950s most women with children were married and stayed home with their children. While this was less than fulfilling for the wives, the children benefited from having parenting during the critical early years of life.

This was actually common only in one specific demographic, which happened to be culturally dominant and so reported on as being the 'standard and usual practice'.

In other demographic groups both the mother and father were working full time, sometimes with a grandparent or neighbor helping to supervise what were essentially latchkey kids.  These demographics were generally underreported in the popular media.

The culture and it's self-image in media in the 1950s USA was very interesting both for how it was seen and recorded, and for what was hidden from sight.

Yes, there were certainly different groups in other situations, but the United States had an actual middle class in the 1950s, greatly due to government benefits aimed toward WWII veterans and other factors. The larger part of manufactured goods were made in the US then, and there was more of a cultural norm of retaining employees for long periods.

That said, most of those advantages tended to be more available to anglo saxon citizens, while ethnic minorities suffered greatly in many areas. The "make America great again" slogan seems to aim toward a 1950s-like period, but the apparent greatness was the result of turning a blind eye to the darker side of society.

Ah, the good old days  ... for some.

Quite severe racial discrimination was legal in many countries including the USA, Australia and African colonies. 

Women, as the article Dena presented confirmed, were also encouraged to be submissive and sometimes had it much worse.  I'm an Andy Capp fan but there is a 1950s Andy Capp cartoon that still chills me.  It shows his wife Florrie lying on her back with Andy standing over her.  The caption is

"Look at it this way, honey.  I'm a man of few pleasures and one of them happens to be knocking yer about."

Like the other Andy Capp cartoons, it was obviously intended to be funny.

My memories before 1960 are those of a very small child but from 1963 to 1975, I spent about ten years of my life in countries in which television had not been introduced, racial discrimination was common and usually legal, and attitudes generally were mostly very conservative, so I think that my upbringing had an early 1950s-like background. 

I do sort of miss listening to the radio instead of watching television.  Television requires too much concentration but with just radio, I could read, write and do my homework without worrying about what programmes I was missing.  I haven't indulged for quite a while but my nostalgia caused me to acquire a substantial collection of OTR (Old Time Radio programmes), during which time I found that there are many like me.

My parents married in 1957.  My mom is from a small town in Hokkaido Japan, dad from a small town in Utah.  They caught some flak for that.  A decade before they met, US citizens who looked Japanese were automatically sent to prison (internment camps) for several years under US Presidential Executive Order 9066.

When I was born my existence was evidence of a felony in several US states and continued to be illegal until 1967 when the Supreme Court overruled local laws prohibiting interracial sex and marriage. 

I have seen and experienced things that help explain why some people have said "enough" and pushed for change any way possible.

I was with my parents in 1971 when we stopped at a fuel station in Marysville, Washington State - an hour north of Seattle.  We had purchased fuel at that business on a regular basis, but never again.  The employees thought my mother was Native American and told her she was not allowed to use the restroom.  The fuel station is still there today.  I don't know where those employees are now but I hope their kids know better.

Well personally I survived the 50's by being totally hot for my friends' older sisters who were still wearing girdles with suspender stockings, petticoats, swirrly skirts and protruding sweaters.  Not to mention hanging onto sort of greasy looking guys with sideburns and cars with loud exhausts.  My friends' older sisters all thought we were pests and they were right.  We'd sneak through their laundry baskets after they went to bed when they got home and play with their damp panties. 

Ah yes, the 50's.  Good times.   

   Carolina

Quote from: Julia1996 on September 06, 2018, 06:09:20 PMAnd I found the duck and cover films really funny. A nuclear bomb is about to be detonated over the city and they tell school kids to crawl under their desks. Did they think being vaporized under the desk was better somehow to dying in your seat? And I loved when they told people if they were outside and they saw the flash to drop and cover their head. If they saw the flash they would be part of the upper atmosphere before they had time to drop and cover. Lol.

Going by witness accounts from Japan of the A Bombs, there were actually a lot of survivors in the cities within buildings, the problem was that the buildings were on fire or the people in them had been peppered with shards of glass from the windows, etc. I would say the picture I got from those books about it wasn't a scenario in which everyone would be instantly vaporized within a mile, so I suppose getting under a desk would have helped provided the building was strong enough.

That said, the A bombs they used in 1945 are feeble compared to the H bombs they've got now. They probably would just 'glass' everything.

You mentioned the moral panics of the 50s, 'parking' and 'beware the homosexual'... stuff that "corrupts the kids". They never go away, they just move on to something else. At one time it was collecting picture cards, then heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons, then "video nasties" in the 80s, then video games in the 90s and 00s... and now the latest moral panic is for having a conservative opinion. Lol.

Most of use that were born in the 50's had war veteran fathers and supportive homemaker mothers. My farther was a WWII vet from a very strict old fashioned family him self. All the things we take for granted today were taboo in those days. Yes, all those warning films of 50's, 60's and even the 70's are pretty silly by todays standards. Unfortunately todays duck and cover means there's a shooter somewhere. I'm glad that we have evolved far beyond the old fashioned, limited views of the old days. Back then reefer made you crazy. And now it's a valuable medication and is even legal in a lot of states. My family had those old fashion radios but we also had one of the first B&W TV's. I was glued to it with uninterrupted fascination during the Apollo 11 mission. All those things from the past had their place. Besides, I think I look great in those old fashioned shirt dresses. I mother could of been a supermodel.

Didn't you love watching the space launches? I happened to be in Hawaii when the moon landing astronauts splashed down. Big parade.

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Quote from: JudiBlueEyes on September 06, 2018, 09:13:11 PMCasual clothing as we know it wasn't around.  Jeans (actually "Bluejeans" were something sailors and farm workers wore, though different styles.

When I was in school, dress codes were rigid.  In elementary school (in the U.K.), kids had to wear a uniform.  It was a big treat when we moved to Canada, and we could wear civilian clothes to school. 

Girls had to wear skirts, even when the temperature was -35C!  It was considered a major victory for sanity when the school board relented under pressure and allowed girls to wear slacks to and from school, provided they changed into skirts before classes started.

Guys were not allowed to wear jeans.  Only juvenile delinquents wore jeans.

We didn't do any "duck and cover" drills.  They did have air raid sirens around the city, though, which were tested once a year.

There was no sex education in the schools.  There was none at home either, which is why the schools finally put together an experimental sex ed class when I was in my grade 9 year.  My parents refused to sign the permission slip, so I had to sit in the humiliating "alternative" class with the younger kids.  I still haven't forgiven them for that.

Quote from: KathyLauren on September 08, 2018, 02:55:08 PM
My parents refused to sign the permission slip, so I had to sit in the humiliating "alternative" class with the younger kids.  I still haven't forgiven them for that.

Oh that's soooo not fair! I'll sign your permission slip for you Kathy. I'm not afraid of sex education classes.

Hugs,
Donica.

The weird thing is, 50 years from now people will probably be saying "How did anyone survive the 2010s?" ;D

Quote from: Sephirah on September 08, 2018, 03:10:05 PM
The weird thing is, 50 years from now people will probably be saying "How did anyone survive the 2010s?" ;D

I can answer that one. We transitioned!

Stephanie

Quote from: Donica on September 08, 2018, 03:08:40 PM
Oh that's soooo not fair! I'll sign your permission slip for you Kathy. I'm not afraid of sex education classes.

Hugs,
Donica.

Thanks, Donica.  I kinda figured stuff out since then.  ;) 

A lot of the weird stuff that I realize now is trans-related, such as my not fitting in, I attributed for a long time to that event and my subsequent lack of knowledge in that area.

Quote from: Steph2.0 on September 08, 2018, 03:29:35 PM
I can answer that one. We transitioned!

Stephanie

Oh Stephanie!!! You always know just what to say lmao again. Yes indeed, WE TRANSITIONED! DUH!!!

Hugs Shephanie!
Donica.

Quote from: Sephirah on September 08, 2018, 03:10:05 PM
The weird thing is . . . "How did anyone survive the 2010s?" ;D

lol "Transitioning" is kinda like the free-love hippie thing of the 60's . . . really don't see much difference!  ;D At the time was still too young to really participate "Going up the Country" but, then again, managed to avoid Vietnam too. (youtube.com/watch?v=Hf0Dm-OaTNk)

Am told all those communal, anti-establishment "love children" of the 60/70's are the biggest democratic fan base today.

It was a much more innocent time, couples on TV were shown sleeping in separate beds.  I tell people that we're "transgendered" now, because that other word has the unspeakable letters S*E*X in it, this delivered in a shocked/hushed 1950s schoolmarm voice.   :D  Heaven forbid you even broach the subject back then!  But at the same time you had bombshells like Monroe/Mansfield/Van Doren striding across movie screens, just oozing lust. 

Nuclear weaponry actually reached its apex of power in the early 1960s, as bombs were a bit inaccurate, so a warhead that missed its target would deliver such a punch plenty of damage would occur.  Later on ICBMs were more accurate, and delivered multiple smaller warheads.  I was big into this all during the 80s, when things looked really dire on the international stage.  I learned about Duck and Cover from a great doc on this subject, The Atomic Cafe.

Back then I also loved all these weird educational films we'd watch in HS on 16mm film, which would inevitably break down at some point.  They all seem to have been made at least 20 years earlier, people in cars being pulverized by trains they'd failed to see coming, Your Body And You, etc.  Also hilariously awful cinema like Reefer Madness - or Glen or Glenda.  Fun times.

Quote from: KathyLauren on September 08, 2018, 02:55:08 PM
...
There was no sex education in the schools.  There was none at home either, ...

My mother told me I was a boy because of my teeth, so I thought that if I wore dresses, grew out my hair and kept my mouth shut, I could be a girl.  When I was eight, my hopes were dashed when my mother told me that women didn't have willies.  I wonder whether there could be any little trans girls like that nowadays.

It was the really early 60s. I had a crystal radio and listened to radio plays on am radio. No power, no electronics. My patents couldn't afford to get the family a portable 1 transistor radio.

The iPhone X has 4.3 billion transistors.

I loved that radio. It was in the shape of a little rocket. The nose of the rocket had a little rod you would push in and out to tune. I had a little ear piece.

https://youtu.be/t5ww6bQg5ic


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 I think the reason they had  kids get under their desks was so they could use the seating chart to identify the remains.
Also if you see the flash you have already been exposed to gamma radiation as it travels at the same speed as light.

As a 1950 model myself, I have survived that and subsequent decades so I may have a different perspective -

I am the elder of two children in a prototypical 50's family; my sister is three year younger. But my upbringing was somewhat unconventional in that I was allowed to crossdress at an early age.
I really don't remember too many details but I had several dresses in my closet by the time I was six and had total freedom to express my femme self around the house and, occasionally, elsewhere. My underwear drawer was full of panties and tights and most of my shoes were decidedly girly. For years, my sister wore my hand-me-downs.
When I started first grade I was distressed when I was told I had to wear boy's underwear, socks and boy's shoes every day. Damn. Up until then, since I had the option of "he" or "she," it was a massive letdown.

Yes, my mom was rather "liberal" and not afraid of letting me express myself; Dad was another story altogether. After they divorced in 1963, I was able to "unhide" and expand my wardrobe. Mom taught me about gay men, lesbian women and Christine Jorgensen; she also taught me how to shave my legs, gave me make-up tricks and taught me how to walk in heels starting with a pair of tan suede thigh-high boots with a 3-inch stacked wood heel. (Talk about 60's retro... :))

I don't deny the 50's and 60's were dark periods for a lot of reasons but I am ever so grateful for coming to age when - and how - I did.

As Sephira said, "The weird thing is, 50 years from now people will probably be saying 'How did anyone survive the 2010s?'"

Susan

Interesting story, Susan. Actually, it sounds pretty familiar and some people think there were no kids like that back then that got away with expressing themselves beyond traditional gender expectations.

I was born the first week of 1955. From a small rural Ohio town, Mom and dad were high school sweethearts that married soon after my Marine Corps dad returned from the Korean war. We had a small house in town full of traditional 1950's kitsch. I remember when we got a toaster instead of making it in the oven on this little rack thing we had. Dad was a painter in a fluorescent light manufacturing plant a few towns away. Mom was an artist working with oil on canvas, stayed home with me, their only child, and was the quintessential 50's housewife. We spent a lot of time on the farms of their parents, my grandparents that were born in the late 1890's, having big family gatherings with lots of aunts, uncles and a zillion cousins. I have some great memories from this time in my life and experiences that have stuck with me throughout my years. I remember the first time I saw a color TV but that may have been in the 60's?

But not everything was quite so wonderful. I was different and unlike any of the other boys so I got a lot of special attention, some good and some not so much. If I wasn't playing house, dress up, dolls or having a tea party with my girl cousins, I was either stuck by my mother's side or in the kitchen with my grandmother. I was the archetypical mama's boy/sissy and was teased and mocked and embarrassed constantly by the men on my dad's side family trying to get me to boy up and to stop being such a girl. My dad and his brother's nickname for me was sugar tits thinking that would really help or something?

At home there was a lot of conflict. My mom and maternal grandparents were well aware of my feminine inclinations and interests and more or less catered to them and just let me be myself. My dad, on the other hand, had other ideas what his son should be like and saw me as an embarrassing disappointment that somehow reflected on his manhood and failure to make a little man out of me which created a lot of friction with my mom who just wanted to let me be me. I told them I was really a girl. I remember some of the sit down talks with my mom explaining why I couldn't be or look like them. Dad wouldn't hear it, made me stand in a corner, go to my room or got the belt and that was never good.

The final straw with my folks was a day I remember like it happened last week. I had been playing with my baby doll and had her in my arms. I walked into the living room where my dad was sitting on the end of the couch and I proclaimed I was going to grow up to be a mommy because I was really a girl. He reached out and backhanded me across the mouth knocking me to the ground saying he never wanted to hear anything like that from me ever again and my mom came totally unglued. They used words that day I'd never heard before but I knew they weren't good.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dooberville.com%2FPhotos%2FGrlAsBy.png&hash=b2808165b7e056ec62e0b5e0678a2d6290b121b4)
(I still have this 58 year old baby!)

Her and I moved in with my grandparents right after that and my parents got divorced. Curious tidbit: my grandpa never called me by my boy name. He always called me Jenny which was my mom's nickname when she was growing up. He did it until he passed away when I was 14.

I survived the 1950's but not without a bit of emotional baggage. I started kindergarten in 1960. I've already told the story what a nightmare that was until I graduated high school in 1973 after being on HRT for a year at that point and without fanfare, completed my long overdue social transition that had been in process for years if not for always.

Quote from: Sephirah on September 08, 2018, 03:10:05 PM
The weird thing is, 50 years from now people will probably be saying "How did anyone survive the 2010s?" ;D

Nobody has survived them yet.  A lot could go wrong before the end of next year.

Mary the Harbinger of Doom.

Quote from: Lisa_K on September 15, 2018, 08:56:19 AM
Interesting story, Susan. Actually, it sounds pretty familiar and some people think there were no kids like that back then that got away with expressing themselves beyond traditional gender expectations.

Hi, Lisa
Thank you for your reply and sharing your story. For the longest time I felt like I was the only with thoughts such as I had. Our fathers seem to have been cut from the same bolt of cloth; he was Army Air Corps (later known as US Air Force) over Europe in WWII. I am somewhat amazed that you transitioned in 1973. Your life is a beacon to all. 

When I started the journey into my teen years and adulthood, no one knew much about gender dysphoria; there was precious little information in the few scholarly tomes available and even my psychiatrist at the time was flummoxed by the thought of gender fluidity. His response was a steady diet of prescribed uppers and downers; I was 15 when I lost three days riding my body of these toxins and still have conflicts about taking medication, even HRT. Any wonder he didn't "fix" me?

Now, thanks to the internet, forums such as Susan's, lots of research and persistence, what once could have been a source of private angst and shame is now open and information is readily accessible for all to explore. Will we ever be rid of all bias and prejudice? Probably not in my lifetime or my granddaughter's either; haters will just move on to different targets.

Susan

Lisa, thank you for sharing your story.  Much of that youth period sounds familiar.  My parents, however, were quite religious and I learned to hide much of this.  I was finally caught in my teens,  and the combination of my parents, advice from the parish priest, and the pediatrician led to a rather different outcome for me.

Still, I did survive, am out now, and am finally free, happy, and living my authentic life.