Big Grin, ;D I got in trouble a lot as a kid for wearing my moms bras, sanitary pads, pantyhose, jeans, tops. As a teen I got caught in my mom's dress a couple times. Got in trouble for shaving my legs a couple times as well using moms razor.
Show of hands, Who also CD'ed and got busted by family?
Lisa
Quote from: Lisa89125 on December 13, 2018, 11:19:08 PM
Big Grin, ;D I got in trouble a lot as a kid for wearing my moms bras, sanitary pads, pantyhose, jeans, tops. As a teen I got caught in my mom's dress a couple times. Got in trouble for shaving my legs a couple times as well using moms razor.
Show of hands, Who also CD'ed and got busted by family?
Lisa
Yes I got caught as a child 5 or 6 years old. Mum didnt sternly rebuke my curiosity. She even allowed some dressing& makeup & jewellery. As a child I didnt wear skirts or dresses in public but I often had an andrdgynous appearance in the 1970s.
I dressed quite a few times up until age 13 when my friend let me wear her dress at school camp.
My parents and myself went off the idea of my feminine expression as I approached high school.
Ironically now my parents think Im a weirdo when I cross dress at age 49.
Kirsten x.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
I've never been confronted about it, but I suspect that my mother knows I have been cross dressing since forever.
Actually now that I think about it, my mother did catch me putting on lipstick and a red silky blouse one time when I was 3-4 years old. I don't remember much, but I think I took a small beating that time and got yelled at.
It is why I have not yet come out to my family, but soon I will! :)
I have been dangerously close to being caught multiple times since that incident. I remember I would stay home alone just to cross dress and I would be so happy looking in the mirror, just there alone thinking about what life would be like had I been born female... suddenly I hear the front door opening and I instantly, with cat like reflexes, jump out of the restroom and across the hallway into my room. Mind you the front door stares directly into the hallway, anyways, there I am slamming the door to my room shut and as fast as lightning, struggling, against all odds I'm tearing a dress off and putting on guy clothes. Oh the good times... :P
Just there dreaming of one day becoming a woman. I never thought it possible, maybe it's not, but I will never stop trying!
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I was never caught doing it but when I was about 12/13 I applied foundation (badly) and forgot to wash it off. My friend's mum seen it and asked and I denied it, said it was dirt, but she must've known I was lying.
That one incident set me back years as I was so socially anxious I dare not do anything else IN CASE I got noticed
As far as I knew never...Until that was I came out to my parents and the very first thing my father said to me after that conversation as we stepped onto the deck to smoke a cigarette....he says to me
"I knew what you were going to to tell me"
I was floored....Circumstances then prevented me from following up on the spot as to what he meant....it took me nearly 12 months to get an answer out of him and then he lied...[emoji26][emoji26]
Did I get caught....oh yes, I think at some point around 5 it became a real issue for them but a simple discussion with me could have clarified that situation...but we are barely talking now so it doesn't matter anymore.
Take care
Liz
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When I was 7 maybe 8 my step dad saw me one time with my moms bra on well that upcoming Christmas one of my gifts under the tree was a matching set of bra and panties and he humiliated me and told me to go put them on and prance around the room (full of about 15 people) like a fairy.
Needless to say I looked good and now he's kicking himself in the ass lol
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Quoteusing moms razor
That's a hanging offence! ;)
I don't know if my mother ever suspected, but if she did, it was never mentioned. I used to "borrow" things from my sister and mother, before I was able to buy my own.
Multiple times. It always ended poorly.
The worst was when my mom had painting my two sisters' finger nails, and then not to leave me out put a clear coat on mine. My dad lost it when he got home from work. Both me and my mom were talked to firmly about that.
Do not take at as my mom supporting me...She was the one that caught me in her high heels and my sister's princess dress.
The worst I can remember was being caught by mom around 12/13 in her stuff and being yield at the top of her lungs. She even called me a freak and said "what are you transgender or something" in a bad way.
Lisa
Caught? Once, when my mom woke briefly (She mumbled something and went back to sleep. Surprisingly that was that.)
Observed? Well, I used to spend hours in the bathroom where my sister got ready and dressed. I wasn't aware of moisturizer or foundation, so I am sure that what I was doing was literally written on my face.
Punished? Never really. Looking beyond just dressing, I think that my mother tried to expose me to things that weren't always "masculine" (theater, fine arts) and to guide me away from making choices that would be ridiculed (I remember that she once gently guided me towards notebooks with pictures of cars on the cover and away from the soft focus pictures of horses. I was a little sad, but I didn't get beat up over it at school.)
My father was somewhat distant. He may have been avoiding me, but he was quiet to begin with. He was born in the South almost a century ago, and it was hard enough for him to accept my big sister becoming a hippie.
Quote
...Using moms razor.
Oops!
My sister used my dad's razor once. They argued a lot, and I am sure that it was a passive-aggressive act!
Surely, almost all trans women were caught in childhood. Many times, I should think, unless the "culprits" were being very clever. The only exceptions I could imagine would be if the behaviour was always tolerated (or ignored in the hope that it would go away) so being seen might not count as being caught. I wasn't one of the clever ones.
Before I was big enough to try on my mother's clothes, my parents, mostly my mother as my father worked long days or worked away, would catch me naked except for my mother's headscarf and sometimes a towel. Until I was eight, I thought that girls also had willies so I thought that ditching my boy clothes was enough.
When my mother caught me, especially when I was older and wearing her dresses, she was always scathing. She used the word "sick" a lot but I wasn't sent to a psychiatrist until I was about twenty. I had soon learned not to wear her make-up as I could never get it off in time but I could never resist using her Eau de Cologne. On an occasion on which my father caught me hiding in a cupboard, he said nothing to me but I heard him speaking loudly to my mother and hers, who was visiting.
I was regarded as a quiet and harmless individual so I was a popular choice for house-sitting for my family's friends. While house-sitting, I felt free to live as a woman. On my first job, I found (yes, it was wrong and I am not proud of it but I was starved of the opportunity to be myself) that the sandals and dresses of the lady of the house fit my size, if not my shape. Living as a woman, I found it hard to bear wearing my male clothes so I ventured out as a woman and bought my own clothes. It was quite dangerous, I think. I can remember raids on cross-dressers in the country in which I was living, as it was equated with homosexuality and a group of more than two cross-dressers was an illegal "homosexual party". The police were unlikely to be sympathetic if they caught me even by myself. There was a common but possibly erroneous belief that "impersonating a woman" was illegal. I was recognised by friends of my mother, though and she said that she despised me.
My mother caught me only once while house-sitting. I didn't lock the front or back doors when I had a shower, as I thought that the dogs would alert me to visitors. They recognised her, though and didn't make a sound. I wore children's make-up as it comes off easily, so when I heard my mother call, I made sure that it was rinsed off and ventured out wearing a towel to meet her. She just glared at me. If only I had remembered that I had painted my toenails bright red. It was the only time that she caught me and didn't actually say anything. After that, she always called before visiting. I know that she didn't respect my privacy, so it must have been because she couldn't bear to look.
Another embarrassing incident was when I took some photos to be developed. I must have thought that I had made my toenails very pretty as I took photos of my feet inside and outside of the house. The kiosk attendant must have clocked me although she didn't say anything. Apart from me probably not passing, I was expecting strange looks anyway as I doubt that many people took in photos of their feet. She mixed up my photos with those of another customer and I got more strange looks from her as we sorted out the photos. I know from the expression on her face that the attendant mixed them up deliberately.
When the lady of the house returned, she thanked me and didn't mention anything about me cross-dressing. However, she did say that one day, I would make somebody a good wife. I don't know who told her. I doubt that it was my mother, as she would have been too ashaamed. I house-sat for that family on several more occasions, though, as well as for other families. I suppose that they felt that at least with me, they knew what I was up to. Better the devil you know.
There was one incident that made me smile, though. While not house-sitting and while wearing male clothes, I was attended in a shop by the same woman who had served me when I had bought my women's clothes. I had to dispute something. While I was leaving, I heard her say to someone "She thinks she's the Queen of Sheba".
That's quite long, isn't it? I suppose that in answer to the question in the OP, I should have just put "Yes".
Yes. Emphatically yes.
I really don't remember when it started but by the time I was 4 or 5, I was probably playing "dress up" fairly regularly. While my mom thought it "cute," my father was of a decidedly different mind.
By the time I was 7 or 8, Mom had created spots in my dresser and closet for my "special clothes" which magically seemed to get larger as I grew. When I was 10, my feet fit her shoes perfectly and I discovered the feel of nylon upon my legs; unfortunately my feet kept growing :( That was also about the time my sister (3 years younger) started wearing my hand-me-downs.
7th (and later 10th) grades were torture for me. Because I was compelled to take a PE class those years, I had to revert to boy's briefs and leave my more comfortable underwear at home on weekdays.
Susan
As a 12 year old, I got caught wearing my mum's lipstick, one of her bras, and suckling my best friend.
Quote from: MaryT on December 14, 2018, 02:15:52 PM
That's quite long, isn't it? I suppose that in answer to the question in the OP, I should have just put "Yes".
It made for a fantastic read! My face went from sad and understanding, to smiling and understanding, to remembering the good ole days of photo developing!
Thank you for the honest reply!
Lacy
I stayed up until 3:00 AM last night writing an all too lengthy and TL:DR reply to this question but then decided not to post it because my experiences were so different and it might be upsetting to some? Taking a fresh look at this today and having a bit of a re-think about it all I've decided to go ahead and post it anyway just to show the variety of differences we all have when it comes to this trans business. Trans kids, openly trans kids are a rarity on this site and I think it's somewhat important our side of these stories are heard because we have some place in all this too._______________________
The idea of getting caught wearing girl's clothes is an odd question for me. I couldn't say how loudly I wanted to wear nothing but girl's clothes and it became a real issue for me in the 1st and 2nd grade until my mom sat me down one day and explained the reality of the situation to me.
Damn. This is making me think of things I haven't thought about in a long time and I just noticed I'm frowning. These were hard times.I understood myself to be a girl. I didn't want to be different from other girls. I mean I knew why I wasn't a girl because of my body but I just was a girl because that's who I was. I understood logically but I really didn't understand.
I recently posted in another thread talking about getting clothes for Christmas and how after I was 15 or so that I had clothes for school and girl's clothes that were too feminine to wear to school and I didn't really think about it until just now but I had the same sort of thing going on my first couple years of grade school too.
I had accumulated a lot of my two older girl cousin's clothes and thought nothing of wearing them casually or just as an everyday sort of thing. When they'd come over I couldn't wait to swap clothes with them and rarely gave them back. It was seen as peculiar but no one really cared as I had always been different. It was just expected that I was going to do this and I did it into my tweens. After that they just gave me stuff. In my box of dress up clothes we used for playing house when my cousins came over there were a couple old housedresses you couldn't keep me out of too so when I did start school, I was very unhappy with how awkward and uncomfortable wearing real boys clothes made me feel and even more dismayed at even being thought of as a boy at all.
I had never been treated like a boy and I had never been like them and I had a very difficult time fitting into the world as one of them. This was clearly obvious. There's kind of a dark spot in my memory between the 2nd and 3rd grade because I was in a pretty dark and unhappy place, had already been in 4 different schools because I was so different and out of place and this whole thing of not being like other girls and what I could and couldn't wear came to a head and that's when my mom sat me down for a bit of reckoning.
I really don't remember the details of all the talks we had or even what I really said but we came to some kind of an understanding with compromises during that summer. In return for not wanting to wear girl's clothes all the time, my demands were met and I was allowed to grow my hair out. To me, this was a fair trade off and in the end, signaled to the world that I was a girl and made me more physically like other girls than girl's clothes ever could have anyway.
This pacified me for a bit. It was still common to wear my cousins clothes at home or my play clothes or be seen clonking around in an old pair of my mom's high heels and this was never something I had to do in secret so I made the mental adjustment that I just had to wear boy's clothes to make the rest of the world happy. It was just clothes but I still knew who I was and what I liked and wanted to wear so there was still a lot of arguing and uncomfortable feelings.
Over the next few years as my hair got longer and my problems in school only got worse, by the time I was 12 and started junior high, people that didn't know I was supposed to be a boy didn't know what I was. I had been in 14 different schools by the time I finished 6th grade because the rest of the world
wasn't happy with me and boy's clothes didn't seem to really make a difference. Adherence to the binary and gender conformity was expected but I never felt that applied to me and I didn't know how to act or be different anyway.
Regardless, I had managed to find a balance point in between being a boy or a girl and
that pacified me for a bit. At home, I was still borrowing clothes from my cousins and even had some old stuff that my mom didn't wear and as long as we weren't going anywhere, it was no big deal to wear them as just a regular thing. There was no fear of getting caught because there wasn't anything to hide or sneak around about. My folks teased me about it a bit but they teased me about everything always with humor and love. My individuality and apparent queerness was concerning and problematic but respected. We had a lot of talks about being gay especially after my 8th grade crush on a neighbor boy I went to school with ended rather dramatically and for a while, I just let them think I was gay because it made things easier and more peaceful. I mean, why else would I be acting and trying to look like a girl if I wasn't gay, right? We were all so ignorant.
At 15 in the 10th grade, unfortunate events set things in motion and I sat my folks down and had a bit of reckoning with them. I simply refused to keep living my life as a boy and my difficulty in doing so had become more than evident so there were more understandings and more compromises. I could be all the girl I was and wanted to be, that didn't matter but I had to stay in school and to do that I had to be a boy. Once again, I reconciled with myself that clothes were just clothes and not who I was and my folks compromised by letting all my clothes be girl clothes as long as they were something that boys
might wear. I also got my ears pierced, my eyebrows professionally shaped at my mom's salon, razors to shave my legs and things that smelled good.
This all happened in 1970 and unisex fashions were a thing then which made things easier but as I got older and after our "understanding", I had a lot more say in what I could wear and how I could look when I wasn't in school so by the time I was 16 people that didn't know I was supposed to be a boy always just assumed I was a girl without them having to think about it or question. My folks and family began to use she/her pronouns because things had become awkward in public and it just made things easier without having to explain I was just weird.
I had girl's clothes for school that passed as boys and I had overtly and unquestionably girl's clothes for when I wasn't in school but no matter what I wore, by the time I was 17 I couldn't have passed as a boy even if I had wanted to. That made school so much fun. I hated life. I hated not just being like other girls even though I had long blonde pretty hair more than halfway down my back some told me they wished theirs was like. I hated I couldn't wear makeup to school or my prettier clothes or different earrings. I loved Saturday nights going out to fancy restaurants for dinner with my folks when we'd dress up a little and my mom would do my hair and I could wear a little makeup and whatever I wanted to wear. I borrowed stuff from my mom all the time and I even had a couple casual tops she borrowed from me occasionally. Having girl things of my own and looking like a girl pacified me for a while.
But this was also about the time things crashed for me. Being socially a girl for all practical purposes but known as the opposite gender five days a week when I had to force myself to go to school became all too much. Bad things happened but as a result, my folks had found me yet another therapist that in a nutshell, took one look at me, put me on HRT and explained to me what transsexualism was. Say what? I guess that made sense and gave me a little more understanding about why I was the way I was so with his guidance and my parent's insistence, I managed to make it through my senior year of high school after which I never had to be known as a boy or wear things because they sort of looked like boy's clothes ever again.
The notion of getting caught cross-dressing in girl's clothes is pretty foreign to me. I was a girl so that was a normal thing to want to do. There was never any shame or embarrassment or hiding or worrying I might get caught doing something I shouldn't be doing. What bothered me more was that at most, all I could do was to wear androgynous things for school. There were some issues though. My aunt got pissed at me for me for having so many of my cousin's clothes and my mom had stuff I knew she'd kill me if I touched. There were raging battles between my mom and I about what I could wear to school because she was more concerned about me getting kicked out of another one and my ideas about what was too girly and hers differed wildly and I was a total raging beyotch about it but somehow my struggles with all this were understood and tolerated. After I graduated and didn't have to be a boy anymore, there was a grand sigh of relief from everyone that this insanity that had been my crazy life had finally come to an end. Even though my boy clothes were really girl's clothes, the ones that weren't girly enough or too androgynous for me went to Goodwill.
My mom died when I was 25. I got all of her clothes, jewelry, good china and purses except her mink stole my aunt wanted that I had no use for anyway. I kept what I wanted and gave the rest to charity. Nearly 40 years later, I still have a few things that were my moms I've kept for sentimental value and her good china still comes out of my hutch for holiday dinners.
Quote from: Susan Baum on December 14, 2018, 02:44:20 PM
7th (and later 10th) grades were torture for me. Because I was compelled to take a PE class those years, I had to revert to boy's briefs and leave my more comfortable underwear at home on weekdays.
Sounds like I wasn't so different after all and I can relate to that. Two days after I was allowed to start school when the whole legal debacle over my long hair got straightened out, I was expelled from 7th grade for fighting a gym teacher that tried to force me into the boy's locker room. I got taken to two different psychologists that were clueless about trans stuff, this was 1967 and they just thought I was super gay but I still ended up getting excused from PE and never had to worry about that sort of thing again.
At 14 I was cross-dressing at my best friends house often. She and her whole family knew about me and treated me the way I needed to at that time. No one even said anything about it specifically because I was extremely emotionally vulnerable at the time having just been freed from 8 years of emotional, psychological and physical abuse at the hands of a stepfather. I was referred to by her brothers as their second sister. Her mom once told me she always wanted a second daughter as I helped set the table for dinner wearing one of my friends skirts and makeup that she had put on for me.
When I first started hanging out at her house her dad went over the rules. One of the most important was the "No boys in her room with the door closed. If I catch you in there I will throw you bodily out the front door, and throw you cranially out the back door! If you know what I mean." The man was a big burly ex-biker and looked really mean. So three months later he opened my friend's door to tell her that dinner is ready and with a sweet kind smile on his face turns to me and says, "You're of course welcome to stay too." and closed her door on the way to go find his sons. I asked my friend why I wasn't just thrown out of the house and she said, "He knows you're not a guy."
We were in drama class/club together at school and for one particular skit we were doing I was playing the p[art of a girl. I was going to borrow one of her skirts to play the part but she didn't have enough room in her backpack to take it class with her. So I took it home and the next morning simply put it on and walked to school. I wore it hanging out with all my goth friends before school, through first period, and across campus to the auditorium to preform in drama class second period.
We did out skit and all were "drama"tically impressed. I took off the skirt and gave it to my friend who now had room in her pack to take it home with her. Two or three days later I was pulled behind a bush from behind by two JV football players and their roving crew of sycophantic sadists and they beat me badly enough I thought I was going to die. Just before the bell rand they each took one more kick to my head and spat on me and called me a "effin fairy" and walked away. The same group threw me out a window before the teacher got there on to a concrete pad in my physical sciences class two times within the next week. I completely stopped going to school. I thought they were going to kill me.
So each morning I would leave to walk to school before my mom left for work. I would go hang with my friends off campus before they would go on campus to go to class, and I would go back home because by that time my mom had already left. I would stay at home all day reading literature and practicing writing... All while wearing my moms clothes. I know I wasn't careful enough. I know I screwed up her makeup. About a month before the end of my freshman year of which I didn't bother attending half of it, my mom and I were sitting on the couch in the living room watching a sitcom or something. A commercial break comes on and she turns to me and says, "So... Do you like wearing women's clothes?" I froze. Denied it. My mother never protected me and there was no way I could have trusted her so I buried it all.
I stopped going to my friend's house and stopped hanging around all my friends who knew at least a little. Never dressed in my mom's clothes again.
A full year of descending into hell... Four more after that of actually doing everything I could to end up dead. Risky behavior. Drugs. I was an outright criminal. Once dared a cop to shoot me. And outright suicide attempts all the way that final step before something inside would stop me.
Then something happened. And I will leave that to another post perchance. Short answer to the OP... Yes. I got caught. :-(
<3
I don't know if this is getting caught but at 7 I was asking my Mom to dress me in my sisters costumes. By twelve I was doing it on my own. At 27 my first wife caught me and soon started an affair with a coworker.
Never caught....that I know of.
At a very young age mom and dad would be working and I would have lots to time alone in the house to explore. My favourite place was my mom's room and drawers, and later my sisters room.
I would put on mom's clip on ear rings, satin slip, undies, etc.. I really liked feminine things, which she ironically had very little of.
Later on, I estimate around age 10 - 12, I clearly remember putting on mom's sanitary pads, and putting on my sisters bra and panties (stuffing the bra with toilet paper) and going outside to play alone in my sand box.
I knew at a very young age that "I was a boy" but felt very different inside. While I could not resist the desire to be a girl, it came with a lot of shame and fear of being caught. Maybe that kept me from getting caught.
My mom died in the last 2 years, and my 2 sisters have me her jewelry box...they had no desire to have it. It really does not have anything of value. I opened it as they gave it to me, and broke down, not be cause of the loss of mom, but because of the overwhelming childhood memories of wearing her earrings, wearing her perfume, and my dream of finding a million dollars in her jewelry box and drawers.
Karen.
I was caught early on wearing my sister's clothes. I was busted shaving my legs as a teenager.
1st time: When I was 12 or 13 I had "acquired" some of my mom's best friends panties. We had been at her house and I had the opportunity to go through her panty drawer while they played cards. I hid them in my bottom dresser drawer. My mom found them. My parents confronted me.. I told them my friend Dave and I stole them from two girls who were swimming at the nearby quarry. Not sure they believed me.
2nd: A few months after this, I had borrowed my mom's pink silk skirt and blouse. I hid it under my beds box spring, up in that white felt like material that lines the bottom. I guess mom was looking to wear it and searched my room. She found it. She had dad come in and talk to me. He asked me if I was gay. I said no because I wasn't.
3rd: 9th grade. Mom bought this matching white, silky nylon panty and camisole set. I borrowed it one night and slept in it. The next morning my little sister was sent in to wake me up for school. She pulled my covers off of me before waking me up.... I had just enough time to pull the items off and shove them under my mattress before my mom came in the room. Except, I didn't... in my rush I didn't notice the panties fall to the floor.... she came in and picked them up, then asked for the camisole. I was quite humiliated. All she said was " I don't wear your things, please don't wear mine."
After that I became exceeding careful and crafty in my activites and where i hid things.
~Mindy
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I got caught in my sister's princess dress by my older brother. He drug me out in front of everybody.
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I was caught several times between the ages 10 - 15. In the early to mid 1970's this was definitely not acceptable behavior. I was punished or threatened every time. The most memorable occasion was when I was 11 or 12 years old and my dad threatened to castrate me, make me wear a dress, then walk me up and down our street on a leash. I think that explains why I buried my desires so deeply. When I think about my childhood the only word that comes to mind is 'fear'. Oddly enough if I knew then what I know now, everything (except the leash) was what I have been wanting all of these years.
Quote from: Lisa_K on December 14, 2018, 05:19:36 PM
I stayed up until 3:00 AM last night writing an all too lengthy and TL:DR reply to this question but then decided not to post it because my experiences were so different and it might be upsetting to some? Taking a fresh look at this today and having a bit of a re-think about it all I've decided to go ahead and post it anyway just to show the variety of differences we all have when it comes to this trans business. Trans kids, openly trans kids are a rarity on this site and I think it's somewhat important our side of these stories are heard because we have some place in all this too.
_______________________
The idea of getting caught wearing girl's clothes is an odd question for me. I couldn't say how loudly I wanted to wear nothing but girl's clothes and it became a real issue for me in the 1st and 2nd grade until my mom sat me down one day and explained the reality of the situation to me.
Damn. This is making me think of things I haven't thought about in a long time and I just noticed I'm frowning. These were hard times.
I understood myself to be a girl. I didn't want to be different from other girls. I mean I knew why I wasn't a girl because of my body but I just was a girl because that's who I was. I understood logically but I really didn't understand.
I recently posted in another thread talking about getting clothes for Christmas and how after I was 15 or so that I had clothes for school and girl's clothes that were too feminine to wear to school and I didn't really think about it until just now but I had the same sort of thing going on my first couple years of grade school too.
I had accumulated a lot of my two older girl cousin's clothes and thought nothing of wearing them casually or just as an everyday sort of thing. When they'd come over I couldn't wait to swap clothes with them and rarely gave them back. It was seen as peculiar but no one really cared as I had always been different. It was just expected that I was going to do this and I did it into my tweens. After that they just gave me stuff. In my box of dress up clothes we used for playing house when my cousins came over there were a couple old housedresses you couldn't keep me out of too so when I did start school, I was very unhappy with how awkward and uncomfortable wearing real boys clothes made me feel and even more dismayed at even being thought of as a boy at all.
I had never been treated like a boy and I had never been like them and I had a very difficult time fitting into the world as one of them. This was clearly obvious. There's kind of a dark spot in my memory between the 2nd and 3rd grade because I was in a pretty dark and unhappy place, had already been in 4 different schools because I was so different and out of place and this whole thing of not being like other girls and what I could and couldn't wear came to a head and that's when my mom sat me down for a bit of reckoning.
I really don't remember the details of all the talks we had or even what I really said but we came to some kind of an understanding with compromises during that summer. In return for not wanting to wear girl's clothes all the time, my demands were met and I was allowed to grow my hair out. To me, this was a fair trade off and in the end, signaled to the world that I was a girl and made me more physically like other girls than girl's clothes ever could have anyway.
This pacified me for a bit. It was still common to wear my cousins clothes at home or my play clothes or be seen clonking around in an old pair of my mom's high heels and this was never something I had to do in secret so I made the mental adjustment that I just had to wear boy's clothes to make the rest of the world happy. It was just clothes but I still knew who I was and what I liked and wanted to wear so there was still a lot of arguing and uncomfortable feelings.
Over the next few years as my hair got longer and my problems in school only got worse, by the time I was 12 and started junior high, people that didn't know I was supposed to be a boy didn't know what I was. I had been in 14 different schools by the time I finished 6th grade because the rest of the world wasn't happy with me and boy's clothes didn't seem to really make a difference. Adherence to the binary and gender conformity was expected but I never felt that applied to me and I didn't know how to act or be different anyway.
Regardless, I had managed to find a balance point in between being a boy or a girl and that pacified me for a bit. At home, I was still borrowing clothes from my cousins and even had some old stuff that my mom didn't wear and as long as we weren't going anywhere, it was no big deal to wear them as just a regular thing. There was no fear of getting caught because there wasn't anything to hide or sneak around about. My folks teased me about it a bit but they teased me about everything always with humor and love. My individuality and apparent queerness was concerning and problematic but respected. We had a lot of talks about being gay especially after my 8th grade crush on a neighbor boy I went to school with ended rather dramatically and for a while, I just let them think I was gay because it made things easier and more peaceful. I mean, why else would I be acting and trying to look like a girl if I wasn't gay, right? We were all so ignorant.
At 15 in the 10th grade, unfortunate events set things in motion and I sat my folks down and had a bit of reckoning with them. I simply refused to keep living my life as a boy and my difficulty in doing so had become more than evident so there were more understandings and more compromises. I could be all the girl I was and wanted to be, that didn't matter but I had to stay in school and to do that I had to be a boy. Once again, I reconciled with myself that clothes were just clothes and not who I was and my folks compromised by letting all my clothes be girl clothes as long as they were something that boys might wear. I also got my ears pierced, my eyebrows professionally shaped at my mom's salon, razors to shave my legs and things that smelled good.
This all happened in 1970 and unisex fashions were a thing then which made things easier but as I got older and after our "understanding", I had a lot more say in what I could wear and how I could look when I wasn't in school so by the time I was 16 people that didn't know I was supposed to be a boy always just assumed I was a girl without them having to think about it or question. My folks and family began to use she/her pronouns because things had become awkward in public and it just made things easier without having to explain I was just weird.
I had girl's clothes for school that passed as boys and I had overtly and unquestionably girl's clothes for when I wasn't in school but no matter what I wore, by the time I was 17 I couldn't have passed as a boy even if I had wanted to. That made school so much fun. I hated life. I hated not just being like other girls even though I had long blonde pretty hair more than halfway down my back some told me they wished theirs was like. I hated I couldn't wear makeup to school or my prettier clothes or different earrings. I loved Saturday nights going out to fancy restaurants for dinner with my folks when we'd dress up a little and my mom would do my hair and I could wear a little makeup and whatever I wanted to wear. I borrowed stuff from my mom all the time and I even had a couple casual tops she borrowed from me occasionally. Having girl things of my own and looking like a girl pacified me for a while.
But this was also about the time things crashed for me. Being socially a girl for all practical purposes but known as the opposite gender five days a week when I had to force myself to go to school became all too much. Bad things happened but as a result, my folks had found me yet another therapist that in a nutshell, took one look at me, put me on HRT and explained to me what transsexualism was. Say what? I guess that made sense and gave me a little more understanding about why I was the way I was so with his guidance and my parent's insistence, I managed to make it through my senior year of high school after which I never had to be known as a boy or wear things because they sort of looked like boy's clothes ever again.
The notion of getting caught cross-dressing in girl's clothes is pretty foreign to me. I was a girl so that was a normal thing to want to do. There was never any shame or embarrassment or hiding or worrying I might get caught doing something I shouldn't be doing. What bothered me more was that at most, all I could do was to wear androgynous things for school. There were some issues though. My aunt got pissed at me for me for having so many of my cousin's clothes and my mom had stuff I knew she'd kill me if I touched. There were raging battles between my mom and I about what I could wear to school because she was more concerned about me getting kicked out of another one and my ideas about what was too girly and hers differed wildly and I was a total raging beyotch about it but somehow my struggles with all this were understood and tolerated. After I graduated and didn't have to be a boy anymore, there was a grand sigh of relief from everyone that this insanity that had been my crazy life had finally come to an end. Even though my boy clothes were really girl's clothes, the ones that weren't girly enough or too androgynous for me went to Goodwill.
My mom died when I was 25. I got all of her clothes, jewelry, good china and purses except her mink stole my aunt wanted that I had no use for anyway. I kept what I wanted and gave the rest to charity. Nearly 40 years later, I still have a few things that were my moms I've kept for sentimental value and her good china still comes out of my hutch for holiday dinners.
Sounds like I wasn't so different after all and I can relate to that. Two days after I was allowed to start school when the whole legal debacle over my long hair got straightened out, I was expelled from 7th grade for fighting a gym teacher that tried to force me into the boy's locker room. I got taken to two different psychologists that were clueless about trans stuff, this was 1967 and they just thought I was super gay but I still ended up getting excused from PE and never had to worry about that sort of thing again.
I love hearing that story. Yes it is diffent to a lot of the transwomen on this site.
The story always reminds me of a good friend of mine that never transitioned. As a child she often wore girls clothes- but not to school.
As a teenager she seamlessly lived full time as female - surgery and hormones fixed the minor detail. I think she must have transitioned as a baby(lol).
In her life she felt nothing shameful or unusual about dressing as a girl- even though her brothers and father disagreed. She simply expressed her natural self and knew no other way.
She and I have had some interesting discussions about how her experience of being trans is quite different to my experience.
She never fought herself over being male or female- she just was.
My experience was all about internal conflict, not getting caught and forcing myself to man- up as a teenager.
Lisa_K I would love to be upset by one of your posts!
Kind regards, Kirsten
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Quote from: Lisa89125 on December 13, 2018, 11:19:08 PM
Big Grin, ;D I got in trouble a lot as a kid for wearing my moms bras, sanitary pads, pantyhose, jeans, tops. As a teen I got caught in my mom's dress a couple times. Got in trouble for shaving my legs a couple times as well using moms razor.
Show of hands, Who also CD'ed and got busted by family?
Lisa
Hello Lisa
Three points from childhood I recall:
1. I was regularly trying on mum's lipstick and perfume - she didn't like it but I do not remember any major argument.
2. I first crossdressed at 7 while playing with girls of my age in their Wendy House (Play House).
3. I had told my grandmother at 4 I wished to be a girl; by age 10 she allowed me to dress in her dresses, cardigans and nightdresses. She must have told my mum who was her daughter. There was no argument. I assume Mum thought I would grow out of it. I didn't and I have been crossdressing for 56 years as I am now 63 and publicly transitioning at 64!
Hugs
Pamela
No but had a few close calls! Remember as a 14 year old a highly unpopular maths teacher saw traces of red nail polish on my fingers & asked if I'd been wearing nail polish. Quick as a a flash & with a straight face I told her I'd been helping paint my mate's brother's BSA motorbike. She then told me to wash my hands properly as people would think I was a girl. I secretly got a buzz from it!
I was never caught in the act, but I do remember my mom finding some of my sister's clothes in my dresser where I had hidden them. I made up an excuse that they must have gotten mixed up with my clothes in the laundry.
I think she might have suspected something at that point, especially since I wasn't exactly a masculine acting kid. I was extremely careful about hiding my cross dressing after that and I don't think anyone ever had a clue after that.
I was in my early teens. It was late at night and I was in my sister's night gown and had curlers in my hair. I went to the bathroom near my parents room to get something and I thought everyone was a sleep. I close the bathroom door and I start to hear my parents talk and mention my name. I panicked big time. I took out the curlers and turned the water on and then headed out of there as fast as I could back to my room.
A week later my mom and sisters were suddenly out of the house and my dad had a talk with me. They had gone thru my room and located my stash of clothing. Just told me we don't understand why but boys don't do that. Get rid of everything and don't do it again. I loaded up a big trash bag of clothes and threw them away. I stopped for maybe a week or two. Tried to be a little smarter after that.
Julie
It's so interesting how many of us share very similar stories. I would have never thought so many of us did the exact same things growing up. It's really incredible actually.
Lisa
Quote from: Lisa89125 on December 15, 2018, 12:01:51 PM
It's so interesting how many of us share very similar stories. I would have never thought so many of us did the exact same things growing up. It's really incredible actually.
Lisa
Hi, Lisa
I feel there are even more that have similar stories but have not yet told us.
I was sooo lucky in that my mother was much more willing to let me investigate and explore my "other" self than some other parents - such as my father - were. After they separated and it wasn't a taboo under our roof, I was able to live comfortably in both roles for better than 30 years. I only wish Mom had been around when the time came to bury <deadname>, I really needed go give her thanks for making it easy.
Susan
In case someone reading this thread is feeling left out, or unusual.
I want to share that I never cross-dressed as a child, or had any overt interest in the clothes of the opposite gender to what was assigned at birth.
~Dee.
Interesting, How then Dee did you come to realize your trans?
Lisa
Quote from: Lisa89125 on December 16, 2018, 12:04:54 AM
Interesting, How then Dee did you come to realize your trans?
Lisa
I didn't realise as a child that I was trans. I knew I was different, but was never able to figure out in what way. It was only as an adult that things started to fall into place.
This may sound surprising, but I never thought of trying on the clothes of my sister or mother to express what I experienced inside.
I guess my journey is a little different from the norm.
~Dee.
Dee, Everyone walks a different path. Not everyone has the same experiences. I knew but didn't come to terms with myself till 3 years ago.
Lisa
Dee/Lisa
It is just a fallacy to all trans people have childhood experiences. I think probably more than 50% of us do but some don't and as you say, you may realise you are trans at any age. It matters nothing whether you did anything trans as a child or not.
Wishing you both happiness on your transgender journeys.
Hugs
Pamela
Quote from: pamelatransuk on December 17, 2018, 07:13:02 AM
It is just a fallacy to all trans people have childhood experiences. I think probably more than 50% of us do but some don't and as you say, you may realise you are trans at any age. It matters nothing whether you did anything trans as a child or not.
Wishing you both happiness on your transgender journeys.
Hugs
Pamela
Hi Pamela, I appreciate your comment, a lot.
At a trans support group I was once treated with suspicion and a raised eyebrow (by the Leader, a trans woman) because I didn't have a story of realisation going back to my childhood. At the time, her attitude surprised me, as it felt very "old school".
~Dee.
I'm learning a lot from other people's experiences. Many have a lot in common but clearly our experiences can vary greatly, even more than I expected. Thanks to forums like those on Susan's Place, I am learning more about myself as a trans person, as other people's experiences make me question just what it is that makes me know I'm a woman even though I was AMAB.
Quote from: Kirsteneklund7 on December 15, 2018, 12:38:56 AM
The story always reminds me of a good friend of mine that never transitioned. As a child she often wore girls clothes- but not to school.
As a teenager she seamlessly lived full time as female - surgery and hormones fixed the minor detail. I think she must have transitioned as a baby(lol).
In her life she felt nothing shameful or unusual about dressing as a girl- even though her brothers and father disagreed. She simply expressed her natural self and knew no other way.
She and I have had some interesting discussions about how her experience of being trans is quite different to my experience.
She never fought herself over being male or female- she just was.
Kirsten, this sounds so much like how things were for me. Your first line about your friend having never transitioned really grabbed me because that's how I see my life and I sometimes think it's almost hard to grasp for some here what this was really like. I've kind of had to just pick out certain things or events to define the concept of transition so that others would understand it in a common way but it seems as seamless to me as it was moving in the world as a girl full time after I got out of high school. Things just happened as if some unseen force was organically driving them. Any sort of before and after is largely indiscernible beyond the obvious change of name and paperwork as I never had to learn how to be a girl or be feminine or change my behavior, personality or even my appearance that much and I never had to unlearn how to be a boy either having never acquired those attributes, whatever they are, in the first place. What came out was just me. As a boy, that was too much of a girl to be perceived as one. I've posted enough recently for many of you to be familiar with my story (if you've ever managed to wade through my lengthy posts) but another line from your comments about your friend;
"she simply expressed her natural self and knew no other way" describes me perfectly.
I've read through this thread and heard things like embarrassment, humiliation and punishment for getting caught and hiding your gender atypical behaviors and interests fearing repercussion from your parents, sibling, friends and peer group but this hiding simply wasn't an option for me nor was it something I ever tried to do. The whole concept of that escapes me but don't get the impression I don't know what you were hiding from.
I was a boy. I know the boy rules and I know the kind of familial and social pressures put on boys that don't follow those rules or don't fit into the club. I may even be more aware of these things than those that
were able to hide or fake it, save for your few close calls with getting caught and awkward moments because not following those rules and not fitting into the club was an inescapable part of my everyday life. This was not something internalized or hidden and very visible to others. I was a girl and wanted others to see me as one and to be one. That was my struggle.
I don't really like the term gender non-conforming because it insinuates that there are standards that need to be conformed to but if look at things from a 3rd party perspective and we want to fall back to some of those old Harry Benjamin concepts and terms, I was completely "pychosexually inverted" or cross-gender identified. In today's vernacular, I was an extremely gender dysphoric prepubescent child which in itself is a concept and mindset I have a hard time applying to myself. Then as now, I just understood myself to be a girl and I've lived my entire adult life in evidence of that and rather than hide, my challenges were to express that as clearly and as loudly as I could when I was a kid so that others
would share in my understanding. The things that most of you kept to yourself or tried to hide from your parents or whomever were the things I most wanted to them and the rest of the world to see in me. At least somehow my folks got it.
I knew no other way to be other than to just be myself and you might say I uninhibitedly and unconsciously wore my gender on my sleeve for the whole world to see but this just happened and wasn't something I did on purpose until I got older. I
wanted people to see me as a girl which to me wasn't something shameful or unusual because that's what I knew myself to be without any internal conflict or questioning about it.
Certainly my life was confusing but I wasn't stupid. I knew the parts I had made me a boy but I just couldn't understand why this had happened to me and how things could have ever mixed up so badly? How did me, a girl, end up in this predicament was the biggest question I had and much of my young life was all about making sure everyone else did understood me the way that I understood myself. I never debated if I was a boy or a girl, or even considered it as a question - I was just who I was and who I've always been my entire life.
QuoteLisa_K I would love to be upset by one of your posts!
You may be one of the few with the patience to even read my novels. For some reason, this thread kicked off me writing a response over the course of several days that I only posted about a quarter of because it was painfully long even by my standards.
Yes, we do all have different experiences and ways we deal with our situation, no doubt.
Lisa_K, I've actually enjoyed reading your novels. I've never known anyone to just be themselves at such a young age. Let alone someone who had parents willing to go along with it to some degree. Your experience is quite interesting to me.
Lisa
Was never caught but I bet my mother knew. There was one time when I was about 16... and I have no idea how I was so reckless, but she found the butt plug I was using and tidied up my mess and put it on the bed with my folded clothes. Wow, that was a heart in the mouth moment. I didn't say a word, and neither did she. But I purged all the clothes I had managed to collect and all my trans clippings from newspapers and magazines. I was collecting them again a couple of months later. I went back to where I had ditched them in the hope of getting them back but someone must've found them and moved them... which made me paranoid as hell because I had left them in a difficult place to find and well off the beaten track.
I always wanted to wear girls clothes since I was 2 years old but never had the courage to do so in case I got caught. Getting caught for me would've been a belting if I was lucky... probably a lot worse. I didn't pluck up the courage to dress until I was 14... although I started wearing my mother's shoes as soon as I was size 5 (UK), until I grew out of them.
I can't remember how I discovered it but, I found that bits of my mother's clothing would fall behind the drawers and collect underneath the bottom drawer. So I will see if she discovered it for a couple of weeks and if she didn't, then I took out the bottom drawer and claimed whatever was there for myself.
I purged everything when I was about 22 after a bad experience of being made to look like a drag queen and I stopped wearing women's clothing until my early 30s. And then I only mixed male and female clothing now and again. It was never really about the clothes for me, that was just a means of expressing my identity, it was always more about wanting my genitals changed.
QuoteI purged everything when I was about 22 after a bad experience of being made to look like a drag queen and I stopped wearing women's clothing until my early 30s. And then I only mixed male and female clothing now and again. It was never really about the clothes for me, that was just a means of expressing my identity, it was always more about wanting my genitals changed.
Same for me. I really wanted my genitals changed. I got to the point of trying to castrate myself like they do bulls. At 16/17 I had it in my mind either I want a vagina or just a slit to pee.
I used to clip pictures out of the store ads that came in the news papers. I had picked out several outfits I wanted as a teen but eventually threw them all away once mom started discovering my stash of her pantyhose.
Lisa
Quote from: Lisa89125 on December 18, 2018, 06:54:40 PM
Lisa_K, I've actually enjoyed reading your novels. I've never known anyone to just be themselves at such a young age. Let alone someone who had parents willing to go along with it to some degree. Your experience is quite interesting to me.
Lisa
From one Lisa to another, thanks. Actually, my name is Elisabeth but I only used part of it for the forum and I didn't want to use Beth, Betty. Lisbeth or Elise and I really can't stand being called Liz so Lisa it was. Spelling it this way with an s was my mom's brilliant idea and what my birth name would have been so how could I not cooperate with all they'd done for me? Sometimes I've thought she did it as a joke knowing I would have to spell it for people the rest of my life!
There's really not that much interesting about me and things really weren't that much different from trans kids we see today with the exception of how dang long ago it was I dealt with this and how my parents were several decades ahead of the times in their acceptance but I really didn't give them much choice.
A lot of people think that trans children are a new phenomenon happening only in the last 20 years or so but I am proof that's simply not the case even though the further you go back the fewer of us there seems to be? What is relatively new is allowing kids to socially transition which was simply unheard of and impossible in the 1960's and early 70's and why I could look like a girl and do all the girl stuff and have girl things I wanted but still had to be known as a boy to stay in school. Because I couldn't actually transition and be known as a girl, without the balance of the freedoms and understanding from my folks I wouldn't have made it out of my teens.
It usually feels like I'm going on all to much about me sometimes but my story is kind of unique for the era and I think people should know about it if nothing else than for historical reasons and to see another side of things. In this particular forum, trans youth (or former trans youth) are by far a tiny minority especially ones that are now grown adults as are even those that went through surgery in the 70's so blabbing about my stuff is just a way of adding more pieces to the overall picture of the trans experience.
The trans experience? Shouldn't that be a theme park ride somewhere? :)
I was never caught CDing, though once or twice I borrowed one of my sister's skirts and put it on. It felt really good.
About the only time I got "caught" doing it was when Mom realized I'd shaven my arms. She said she preferred her guys have some hair on their arms, but later on, Mom ultimately relented, realizing she should respect my bodily autonomy. Though she'd said this as recently as, oh, five to seven years ago, when I was well into my forties and still, albeit subconsciously, exploring my gender identity. I never really got caught shaving my legs, though one of my girlfriends was a little cool on my liking my legs devoid of hair. Even more so about touching my arms equally devoid of hair.
All said, those activities played very key roles in allowing me to come to terms I may be transgender, with the full commitment to actually do it coming this year culminating with my transition starting last month (11/01/2018). Here I am, nearly seven weeks in (as of this writing), and I have no regrets starting it.
--Holly.
Quote from: pamelatransuk on December 15, 2018, 08:37:46 AM
Hello Lisa
Three points from childhood I recall:
1. I was regularly trying on mum's lipstick and perfume - she didn't like it but I do not remember any major argument.
2. I first crossdressed at 7 while playing with girls of my age in their Wendy House (Play House).
3. I had told my grandmother at 4 I wished to be a girl; by age 10 she allowed me to dress in her dresses, cardigans and nightdresses. She must have told my mum who was her daughter. There was no argument. I assume Mum thought I would grow out of it. I didn't and I have been crossdressing for 56 years as I am now 63 and publicly transitioning at 64!
Hugs
Pamela
Hello again Everyone
I hope you don't mind me raising this point about childhood experiences as I have never seen anyone else refer to it and I find it hard to believe I am the only trans person to have thought it. Although number 4, it is serious and very relevant to me.
4. I was able to count before starting school at age 5 of course, and certainly by age 7 I was aware of halves and quarters. Therefore by age 7 I really believed there must be 4 equal gender groups:
a) Girls who wished to be girls
b) Boys who wished to be boys
c) Girls who wished to be boys
d) Boys who wished to girls I was obviously a member of group d)
I was correct to assume that as we all now know but I also thought that each group would probably have an equal proportion meaning around 25% in each group! How naïve and how pessimistic could I have been!
Anyone else recall thinking this as part of the wonderful fantasy of childhood please?
Thanking you and wishing you all a Happy Christmas.
Hugs
Pamela
Of course! Who hasn't?! ;) It wasn't getting caught cross dressing that was so embarrassing. I hated what was between my legs, so I often tucked and posed in front of my mirror or lied in bed and just fantasized about the body I wished for. My dad walked in on me once, I was probably around 9 or 10, and that was the worst, though he didn't say much. Gosh, I hadn't thought of that for years, until the subject of "getting caught" as a kid came up. So, it's still happy tucking until GCS in July. Cheers!
QuoteThe trans experience? Shouldn't that be a theme park ride somewhere?
Nah, It should be a documentary on PBS Nova or the BBC. ;D
Lisa
Quote from: pamelatransuk on December 19, 2018, 07:12:13 AM
Hello again Everyone
I hope you don't mind me raising this point about childhood experiences as I have never seen anyone else refer to it and I find it hard to believe I am the only trans person to have thought it. Although number 4, it is serious and very relevant to me.
4. I was able to count before starting school at age 5 of course, and certainly by age 7 I was aware of halves and quarters. Therefore by age 7 I really believed there must be 4 equal gender groups:
a) Girls who wished to be girls
b) Boys who wished to be boys
c) Girls who wished to be boys
d) Boys who wished to girls I was obviously a member of group d)
I was correct to assume that as we all now know but I also thought that each group would probably have an equal proportion meaning around 25% in each group! How naïve and how pessimistic could I have been!
Anyone else recall thinking this as part of the wonderful fantasy of childhood please?
Thanking you and wishing you all a Happy Christmas.
Hugs
Pamela
I didn't see myself even as part of group d until I was eight. Until then, I thought that I was part of another group, i.e. girls whose parents force them to dress as boys. When I was about four, while explaining why I couldn't be called Mary, my mother told me that she knew that I was a boy because boys have different teeth from girls. I never quite believed her and although I spent a lot of time looking at teeth, I thought that the only differences between boys and girls were that girls had different names, wore dresses, had longer hair and played the games that I liked. Clearly, I never discussed male and female anatomy with boys or girls but why would I, when the differences between boys and girls seemed so obvious? Also, I was alone a lot as I didn't like playing with boys and teachers and parents didn't approve of me playing with girls. As I thought that it was just hair and clothes that defined gender, when my parents saw my early cross-dressing (although I didn't see it as such), I was often naked (cross-undressing?) except for my mother's headscarf.
I understand that not all trans children are, or were, embarrassed at being seen while expressing their true selves. It is a good thing when such innocence (I don't mean it as an insult and I don't mean naivety) survives into adulthood. I am not yet convinced that it is because of the innate qualities of the child, though. I wasn't embarrassed or ashamed in those early days when for me, cross-dressing (for want of a better word) meant going naked except for a woman's headscarf. Fear, shame and embarrassment have to be instilled in us by other people.
When I was eight, I made a plasticine model of a nude woman and showed it to my mother. I think that I was trying to shock her. I never really noticed breasts (my having been bottle fed may have been the reason) and the model was basically of an anatomically correct boy with long hair. It was me that got the shock and I have never recovered, as my mother explained that women and girls did not have willies. A few months later, a Playboy magazine appeared in the spare room where my toys were kept. For many years, I presumed that it was left there by mistake and it is only since the deaths of my parents that I realised that it was probably their idea of sex education. Although I found the centrefold fascinating, I didn't learn much from a 1964 Playboy. My mother had told me what girls didn't have but it was several more years before I learned what they did have.
Having eventually realised that treating me as a boy was not simply my parents' lifestyle choice, I really did try to be a boy. I loved my parents and wanted to please them. I adored my father and it made him visibly happy when I did boy things. I couldn't help myself, though, and when my parents found me wearing my mother's clothes, my father's quiet disappointment hurt even more than my mother's scathing insults.
Yes, like most trans people who feel that there is no future in which they can stop pretending to be other than what they are, I contemplated suicide. I never threatened anyone with it, though and I'm sure that if I had it would have resulted in my institutionalisation, not in SRS. Institutionalisation was certainly on the cards at one time and I was left with a fear and distrust of psychiatrists. Yes, the alternative to being oneself is soul destroying and to be truthful, I feel that I am not a trans woman but the ghost of a trans woman. Not that there were never joys in life. I especially loved exploring nature and viewing wildlife. Having interests outside of oneself does help. Even so, I'm sure that I would go insane if I didn't have the ghost of my mother's dog to talk to (yes, I know what you are thinking). Being one's true self is necessary for mental health.
It must be remembered that my parents did not really have a choice in how they reacted to my expressing myself as a girl. It was not just their personal feelings or upbringing. In the country where I lived, gatherings of more than two cross-dressers were arrested for constituting an illegal "homosexual party". My mother was among those who believed that "impersonating a woman" was a criminal offence and I believed her at the time. My parents' attitudes must have at least in part have been down to concern for my welfare. Even in my teens, I could see their point. At least by my mid twenties, I had only read of one AMAB person living in that country as a full-time woman, and she worked in sheltered employment for people regarded as mentally deficient. She made the news because she had been chosen for experimental sex change surgery.
As a more extreme example of why I believe that trans children in some environments MUST quickly learn to fear the consequences of being seen expressing their true nature, I only have to draw attention to existing members of Susan's Place (and those whom I hope are still existing):
Finally escaping Saudi Arabia to Safety (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,232931.msg2074201.html#msg2074201)
For some people, being "caught" cross-dressing means just that, and it can be the difference between life and death.
Quote"Rider on the storm"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv8GW1GaoIc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv8GW1GaoIc)
Thank you Mary for a very interesting summary of your childhood thoughts and experiences.
I think we are both about the same age - I am 63 being born in 1955.
I also do not blame my parents for their disapproval of my crossdressing and bodyshaving and being trans either. People of our parents' generation (and indeed many of our generation and the generation younger than us) were/are not educated and/or did/do not understand the transgender issue.
Thankfully people are now gradually becoming more understanding and accepting of us.
Hugs
Pamela
I wasn't caught in the act, but the evidence of my crossdressing was found. When I was 11 or 12 I was spending the summer at my mothers and she found one of her slips and a pair of stockings between the mattress and box spring. I got an extremely stern talking to over it and had to go through random room checks the rest of the summer.
I got caught by my brother wearing my sisters princess dress when I was 6 or 7. He drug me out into the living room to show everyone. I kinda wish my parents had the information about TG people that parents have today. I can't really wish that though because I wouldn't have my kids if I was able to live how I wanted.
In my early teens my mom cleaned my room multiple times and found women's clothing items and scolded me big time for it, taking them away. Then, one time she somehow caught me wearing panties - the one thing I thought I could get away with because it wouldn't be noticed - and she scolded me again, after that doing an "underwear check" regularly to make sure I was wearing men's underwear. This was back in high school, maybe even around when I joined these forums and it really got to me. Her excuse was always "If people see this, you'll get made fun of at school".
When a couple of years later I got braver and began (a very long, gradual process for me) to subtly wear women's clothing in public, I was always super cautious to not be wearing them when my parents would see me. This was tricky as I couldn't drive and they were the ones that took me to classes. I would end up having to go into a bathroom (which they were all men's restrooms, no private unisex option available, much to my dismay) and change into them after I got taken to classes and then repeat it before being taken home.
Years later in 2013 I was going to a university in another county and commuting back and forth, and also working. I was so burnt out from it all that my room at home was a big mess. I was in the university's symphony orchestra and we went on a trip many states away for several days. While I was gone my mom cleaned my room. I was mortified, because I had not prepared for that at all. Even my dressers were cleaned, it was such a violation of my privacy (I was in my mid-20s by this point). My room was a big mess and that was bad, but, come on! Back then my collection of women's clothing was very limited, though. But there was still some that she found. The weird thing about it this time, is that when I came home nothing was ever said and all that happened was that I found it all washed and hanging up. Granted, it was all subtle stuff (no dresses, bras, panties, etc.), but there's no way she took a look at my flared junior's LEI jeans and didn't notice they were women's.
So maybe something changed then and I haven't caught onto it until now.
Quote from: ErinAscending on December 14, 2018, 06:53:06 PM
Then something happened. And I will leave that to another post perchance. Short answer to the OP... Yes. I got caught. :-(
<3
I love your story and my heart goes out to you. I hope you were finally able to be your true self or that one day you will be able to.
Lots of hugs,
Fleur
I never got caught by adults, but as a teenager I was caught by a very small child who noticed I was wearing a pair of pantyhose under my pants. The young child tried to tell the adults in the room a few minutes later, but everyone laughed it off.
OMG...that could have been a total disaster. There were a few other times I came close to getting caught but never as close as that.
Yep, my GF at the time caught me when I was about 22 or 23. If she only knew...
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I am sure that I responded before, I guess that deleting most of your posts has a drawback. :) Not likely to change, sorry.
I think that the weirdest thing here is that I was so sure that finally there were people like me but as time has gone by, years actually, almost six to be more precise, I find myself admitting what I couldn't before, I am not so very similar after all. It could be natural to want someplace to belong and I do, only on the fringes again.
Please, I am not judging here and don't read too much into it, but I have never understood the need to crossdress. Maybe then I would be more normal. I don't remember ever doing it even though I know that I have, I was so young. I have had a lot of arguments about it and it used to make me sooo mad when my family would freak out about me wearing girls clothes. I didn't remember what they were talking about and I did not care. I had incredibly long rides every day to school with my grandma and we argued about everything, I remember screaming at her one time that I didn't care, that I would dress however they want, just let me be a girl. I hate this about myself and for the longest time, even after I started to transition I thought that I couldn't be trans because of it, I have never cared. I never cared what I wore, yes I had a preference but that was vetoed so long ago that I learned to never fight it after, all that I wanted was to live as a girl and be seen as a girl.
I ah, yes I wore girls clothes, I don't think anyone considered it cross dressing but there was a time when they said that I could not anymore. The thing is, I stopped wearing the clothes apparently their message sank in, they did not stop with the threats, the torture, the shrinks, the mental hospitals and the endless churches and prayers that I would be a normal boy. Not even when I told them that I could not be a boy anymore did I wear the clothes. I don't care. I don't know what that must sound like to so many but I don't care about the clothes, just let me be a girl, let me be me and I will wear whatever you want. I don't care.
Caught, no I don't think that anyone ever thought that, one day they told me what I had to wear and I did it ever after. They never changed how they treated me even though I dressed like a boy, I was still a sissy, still Michelle. I think it must have been amazing to cross dress but I never have, it never mattered if I had been caught, they always treated me as if I had even though I did not.
It could make me less trans, I have no way of knowing and seriously I will never go back now, it just has never been about the clothes to me.
Lisa;
I knew by the time I was 5 years old that I was really a girl, because I used to have play time with the girl who lived next door and she was about 7 years old and she used to let me wear her clothes , all the while whilst her Mum was downstairs and my Mum was away. I didn't have any boys to play with (we lived on an Army base) as my Dad as an officer, but there were lots of girls in the 5-7 years age bracket. The girls Mum didn't seem to mind, although My Mum was ambivalent about it and didn't tell my Dad. He was very brusque Alpha Male type and Scorpio star sign. By the time I was 11, although I didn't understand it, I was getting severe gender dysphoria. About that time my mother got very sick with Cancer of the Ovaries and was admitted to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey where she was one of the first women to be treated with Radiation Therapy (by the way she survived and lived to the grand old age of 93). By that time I had been sent off Aged 8 to a Boarding School and during my holidays would stay with my grandparents or my parents. Being a very timid shy (and of course now I realise quite effeminate boy), I was bullied something really rotten. Anyway soon after my 11th birthday, I was sent off to stay with an Aunt and Uncle for the summer holidays and they had a 17 year old daughter. During the day I was basically left on my own and soon ended up dressing in my cousins clothes. Any one day I must fallen asleep in my bedroom still dressed in her panties, a bra and garter belt and stockings, only to be discovered first by my cousin who called me a queer, then my aunt. Anyway what happened was they rang my father who arranged to fly back from overseas and I got a beating from him. Anyway he consulted an Army doctor who basically told him and me that probably I had "homosexual tendencies" and the best way to get me out of this as I hit puberty was ECT treatment. My father was recommended to take me to the specialist in Harley Street who saw me over about 3 weeks where he basically lectured to me that boys go out with girls, that it was completely unnatural for boys to dress as girls, that I would make a really ugly girl (not true now) and I was then given the ECT treatment. Basically i was strapped to a gurney and when pictures came up of naked men I got the shock treatment, but when their were pictures of naked girls I got soothing music and loving messages from a nurse, about how it was natural for boys to love girls.. This continued for the next three weeks. The one thing that this did for me, was I knew then if I was to survive I had to bury deep down in my psyche my desperate need to be female, otherwise I would not survive puberty and growing up. Also if I really needed to be out as a female, it had to be hidden completely from my parents. I then spent an awfully long tome trying to be an Alpha Male for them. I was a soldier, a policeman, did Outward bound rock climbing, parachuting, all sorts of masculine activities to demonstrate to them and my family I was a normal heterosexual male.
The result was a long string of failed female relationships and a marriage all to really beautiful women who eventually discovered they were living with a Transgender woman. Funnily enough I have never been attracted to Men and remain a Card carrying Lipstick Femme Lesbian. I have also been blessed with No Adams Apple, very small hands and feet and now I know very low Testosterone. So I supposed I fulfilled my Fathers and the Specialist wishes that I would only have sexual relations with a woman when I grew up.
Best Judith Lynn
I was really careful about it as a kid. I didn't have any sisters, and my mother was a larger woman, so there was no way her clothes would fit me. My dorky cross dressing usually consisted of running around in a towel and making duck lips at the mirror in one of mom's wigs at 2am. But I did sneak dollar store lipstick occasionally. And my mom did figure out that I was using her razors. I told her it was because I was growing a beard (I wasn't, not at 12), I was shaving my legs.