Quote from: Genevieve Swann on March 13, 2009, 04:46:56 AMG.I. Joe and Barbie kept crossdressing.

I'm pretty sure that waaaaaay more Barbies and G.I. Joes have crossdressed than Mattel would like to let on. Then there are all the Barbies with buzzcuts like a marine. 

When I was around ten years old, 1955 on  into my mid teens I use to dress up when I didn't think anyone would know and I enjoyed playing with my sisters dolls and other toys just as much as I did the boy toys I had. No one seemed to pay attention although my dad did wonder at times at my odd behaviour but it never went any further then that. In my early teens I met this girl she was a outcast just as I was and this was in the hippie era, I had long hair and we both wore unisex clothes, I passed well as a girl to alot of folks in town.

I don't only suspect my mom knew, I am quite certain she did. She caught me on occasion dressing u but never breathed a word to anyone about it. Back in the fifties and sixties, who would she go to talk about it to. I believe my mom would have accepted me, bless her soul. But uncertain as to how the folks around there would have reacted.

Cindy

I think that both of my parents would have worked to find ways to be sure I was the boy they had, not the genderflux person I am in reality.

Theirs is a very binary world, and only the birth or genetic binaries are valid. MtF or FtM would not have been acceptable, gender-fluid even less acceptable.

Age 9 they found me sleeping with my mom's nighties .Mom went berserk and did so every time  they caught me lounging in the house in her clothes.Dad couldnt understand why i wanted this . Took me to a psychiatrist who asked me all the wrong questions to which i gave no answer whatsoever . I thing they would never understand back then , the same way that my mom , i think, wont understand now . Still, i could be wrong and my life could have been a lot easier and a whole lot less hellish. 

Ive given up asking my Mum. She knows I was different but her stock standard answer is "Little boys experiment". Mum is living in denial and I dont think she will ever change. Dad is a lot more accepting

Quote from: Genevieve Swann on March 13, 2009, 04:46:56 AMMaybe my mother did know and just ignored it. Father was hardly ever sober long enough to notice. Someone must have seen there was something different when G.I. Joe and Barbie kept crossdressing.

Quote from: Alyssa M. on March 13, 2009, 02:18:03 PM
I'm pretty sure that waaaaaay more Barbies and G.I. Joes have crossdressed than Mattel would like to let on. Then there are all the Barbies with buzzcuts like a marine. 

Oooh, have you seen my new Buzzcut Barbie?!?! I got the one with the camouflage make-up kit and the M15 assault rifle!!!

Not to mention that G.I.Joe and He-Man got to attend an awful lot of tea-parties. 

Mina.

Hi Cindi, hon I knew you had a bum deal when you came out to family and I empathise with you on that. It appears that we are both orphans when it comes to family. I didn't know about the physical abuse though that is so sad. there is no need for such treatment. I didn't get it from my parents but I got my share of it after I left to live on my own.

Here is a little scenario about transitioning from back in the, or what would likely have been the result in transitioning back in the 50's
I must warn there is a lot of humor in it, but it is the truth.

That's about it, when the biological clock starts to wind down and you know that time is running out and GID is nipping at your heels you get more desperate to do something. Thinking gets irrational and thoughts of suicide creep into the back of your mind and you get more desperate and you sweat a lot and feel panic creeping in, until you either do something or.......

Well so it was with me. Now according to statistics if you are truly transsexual and you continue trying to repress and deny the symptoms of GID few will make it past the age of 30. This is due to the fact that testosterone levels will start dropping steadily starting from your thirties and continuously up into your forties increasing the intensity of GID.

Fortunately with the abundance of information on TS'sm and the support and resources at our disposal we have out there now a days does greatly facilitates the process of treating TS individuals seeking to transition, *much* sooner then in my day.

Remarkably It appears that some of us old times from the 50's generation have gone beyond the thirty year mark, well into fifties and sixties was simply the luck of the draw...hmm four leaf clovers? Na, it was because the the knowledge of this dysphoria was unavailable for the most part, actually nearly unknown back then. We just survived not knowing why we felt like we did and there was no where to go to find out, "heaven forbid!" who knows what the reaction would have been if one did tell anyone.

So for my generation to tell anyone, especially a shrink or a therapist it would have been admitting insanity and a trip to the bug house. Heck maybe they still used Oglan's swamp to dispose of bodies back then, or tar and feathers, or most possibly in the same rubber room as the alien abducties and those who proclaimed to be Jesus Christ waving a sign over their heads, "The end is here!".

Certainly wasn't much of a choice unless you joined the French foreign legion, or train to be Kamikaze pilot. "Gee!" I did fly bush planes, raced hot rods and drove in the demolition derbies and stock care races. Think I might of been looking for the Pearly Gates? But in the end I chose to continue to be the town mouse with my bottle of hooch under my arm instead. Anyway It is by the grace of what ever higher power of your understanding that I survived until 53 years old before I learned what transsexualism and it's unrelenting runner upper friend GID meant.

I finally went storming the doors to transition, flailing my little fists against the doors as hard as I could. It was like being released from a dungeon, of course complete with the thumb screws and the skeletons hanging in chains on the stone walls opposite the body stretching rack.

Cindy

Quote
I finally went storming the doors to transition, flailing my little fists against the doors as hard as I could. It was like being released from a dungeon, of course complete with the thumb screws and the skeletons hanging in chains on the stone walls opposite the body stretching rack.

I apologise if this comes across as an English literature analysis , but I love your use of imagery, Cindy. So amazingly vivid, it's wonderful.


I can't believe how hard some people's lives have been. I am really so amazingly lucky in my parents and friends, I've never had to face any of that (and sincerely hope I never will ). If my parents had known earlier, I think they would have done everything to help me. They were both high school teachers, and they both have multiple degrees (and are therefore very well-educated), and because their own parents were (generally) fairly close-minded and didn't get on well (both sides of the family had marital issues), I think they were aware of what it was like to live in such a household and so went in the opposite direction. (And it worked - they're not like their own self-centred, uncaring parents at all ). I don't know that they would have necessarily understood at the beginning, but I think they would have been supportive and tried to do their best and learn as much as possible anyway. So yes, I think, had they known, they would have been wonderful about it, and done everything necessary for me to be happy.



Will xox

Quote from: Julie Marie on February 27, 2009, 10:53:13 AM
What would you have expected them to do if they knew you had transsexual tendencies, that you wanted to live in the gender opposite what your birth certificate stated?
Julie

I asked my Mom this a few weeks ago. They are both really supportive of me. She said that she honestly didn't know, that they probably would have taken me to a psychiatrist or something. She went through this whole self-blame thing for a while, but I think my parents see me in a much better place now and they know I'm much happier now. I don't think it would have been so much of a surprise to them if I was 5 - 10, but once I got to be like 21+, I think they would have been REALLY surprised about TS. When I was younger, I was definitely more feminine, more emotional, etc. and my Mom especially wouldn't have been surprised that something was going on in that little, confused head of mine. Good question Julie

My parents knew and chose to be in denial about it.

My parents are outwardly supportive, but mainly because they have to be (for risk of losing their grandchild). When I was a kid, my dad wasn't around a lot because of shift work...

...but he's one of the most decent, kind people I know. He truly does not understand me or what I'm going through, and I don't think he wants to. I don't want to pressure him, either. He does, however, side with me that the way my marriage ended was not my fault at all -- something I can't get out of my mother who sympathizes far more with my ex for giving up her daughter than she does with me for trying to be a decent single parent and still transition.

Way back when I was a kid, I was sick constantly. Basically, everything revolved around me -- from where we could live, to when we'd go out of town, to what foods we could eat, and so on and so forth. It was absolutely maddening, like being raised in a cage. I couldn't fathom making myself further the center of attention by declaring that I'm a girl. Seriously, though, I didn't figure it mattered anyway -- I kept being told that I wouldn't live another 10 years, and when that came, another 5, and when that came, doctors were scratching their heads in disbelief. I could see, though, how unhappy it would have made everybody, and it isn't in me to cause familial strife for selfish purposes, like having an unusual personal identity. They now know who I am, though, and I can't change my past decisions. I can only imagine how they would have reacted back then, and I guarantee whatever I can come up with would be different than anything they would have actually done, anyhow.

Quote from: Leslie Ann on February 27, 2009, 07:40:17 PM
My dad would have tried to beat the girl out of me probably.

I told my dad I was really a girl when I was 7, I did get a beating.....

^ I was a fast little twerp back then.

He would have been out of breath trying to catch.

When I was like, six, I used to try peeing standing up. Can't remember what gave me the idea. my mum caught me, and told me to pee like a girl. She scolded me, so, being the momma's baby that I am, lol, I never tried again. But I was always bouncing between being girly and being boyish. I was more boyish though. But my mum never cought on. Dad was never home to know, lol. Truck driver.

anyways, they never found out, but, whenever I did anything really boyish, (like trying to pee standing up) I'd be scolded.

I think my mom did know, to some extent. When I was 6 and 7, I told her I was a boy... though what I remember is that I'd pretend I had a twin brother, and would pretend to be him. My mom thought it was a phase, and pretty well glossed over it, despite my tendencies toward male-oriented activities throughout childhood. Guess she figured it was normal that I preferred playing with cars and insects to dolls (though I did play with Barbie dolls... probably a little messed up, though, that I always made them have sex).

Honestly, when I look back on my childhood, it seems that while my mom was pretty tolerant of what she saw to be tomboyish behavior in me, she was constantly trying to reinforce in my mind that I was a girl. She never even brought up seeking psychiatric help for me, but she wasn't the person she is now.

I think, back then, if she'd known what a transsexual was, she might have encouraged me to just be androgynous. If she had been the way she is now (overly religious and set in her binary-promoting ways), she would have had me in an institution in seconds. Guess it's a good thing she waited to get into all that... though it doesn't help me now.

SD

Interesting topic. I had to really stop and think about it.

My first response was "yeah, they'd beat the crap out of me" because of what happened when they caught me at age 14. But I thought about it while reading other post and Honestly I think if I had been upfront and just told them they would never have even raised their voices at me. My parents loved me but the shock of catching me walking the streets wearing girls clothes and a wig at 3:00 o'clock in the morning made them snap.

I can't say they would have supported me and I know they would have very forcefully tried to change me but they would have never hurt me.

They are coming around more lately and I think they are looking back and feeling just a bit guilty for how it all went down.

Quote from: Cami on March 28, 2009, 08:35:29 PM
My parents loved me but the shock of catching me walking the streets wearing girls clothes and a wig at 3:00 o'clock in the morning made them snap.

That is completely normal.

You could have been beaten up, or kidnapped. It's pretty odd if someone's child is out at 3 in the morning with the opposite genders' clothing.

My father would had screamed in my face: I did raise you as a man.

or actually wait, he already did that.

My parents knew, routinely called me sissy and ->-bleeped-<-got, my mom secretly painted my nails and let me do her hair, this was in the 90s, maybe things are different now. whatever.

My mom was the first person to dress me in drag. She never did again but I liked it so much I made a habit out of it.