Developing "who" you are.

[Mikaela]

As I continue on my journey, I guess I am just wondering out loud to all the great girls here...how did you develop who you are? Seeing photos here, there are all types...conservative, flashy, more flirty, some plain and cute....etc. How did that come about? Does that side just develop naturally? I find myself leaning more towards the sexy and sultry side of being a woman and I am drawn toward dressing that way, interacting that way, etc...but then there are times where just being with girlfriends is all I want....just so many thoughts...so much going on...I appreciate all the thoughts from all the amazing people here.

[KimberlyS]

The short answer is like any other trait, feature, or personality, they just develop over time as we grow as a person. Our lives affect the Cding like they affect everything else in our lives. CDing is just one part of who we are as a person. If you are TG/TS then there may a bit more affect but still just moving through life.

[April Rose]

I agree with Kimberly. Crossdressing is a part of our personalities, and as part of us, evolves over time. In my own experience, it was highly erotically charged, and super secret when I was very young, still very erotic, but more involved with risk taking and flouting social conventions in my twenties, and then as I aged became more about personal comfort and my own limitations as I moved through parenthood and family life. Now, as an empty nester, still engaged in work, but nearing retirement, it is my comfort zone, something I look forward to come home to. I'm still discreet about it, but unapologetic. Judging from the amount of time I spend in dresses now, while I'm still working, I imagine my retirement as being spent mostly as a quiet housewife.

Have fun being sexy and sultry while you're young. That's the best time for it. And if you can share it with somebody else, so much the better.

[Carol Ann]

I don't have much of a choise as when I was 14 and my mother understood me her words were, "if you are going to do this you will be a proper lady at all times". So in time and with doing and dressing as I was told I still to this day try and be proper women but at times it's fun to let your hair down and dress a little sexly at times.

[DonnaT]

Mostly based on what I wear, and my wife can accept, especially when posing pics online.

[Anthony Simon]

Well, one of the big things about my CDing has been that I don't know "who" this person I turn into when I dress up. That's been around since as long as it stopped being a sex thing and only that.

I suppose a key thing was when I started to look in the mirror for any signs of femininity in my face - like I was desperate to get a glimpse of some sort of woman there. I didn't really care who that woman was, just so long as it was a woman. I suppose you could say that was when I started developing this woman, in that that was when I started actively looking for something female in me.

That was when I went back to the CDing, maybe 3.5 years ago. At first it involved me staring the mirror while dressed up and wearing a wig, but not made up. I never used makeup until this iteration of CDing because I was always scared that I would turn into a woman and not be able to get out.

But after a while of staring in the mirror without makeup and just occasionally catching sight of something female, I decided I was never going to get very far until I applied makeup. So I started with that maybe 30 months ago. It wasn't until I got some help from people here and also from a saleswoman in Boots (a big chain store in the UK which sells cosmetics etc) that I started to get anything like a consistently recognisable feminine face in the mirror. So that would be 18 months or so ago.

At this point I started to get quite a admiration for the woman I was seeing in the mirror. I reckoned she knew what she was doing in a way that I never did - just from the looks of her. So then I thought I could do with a bit of that in my life - like give her more access to my decisions and stuff.

Basically that means allowing her to root herself more deeply in me - and, in the end, I've decided that I needed her kind of rooted in me at as deep a level as possible. So then I get basically get instant access to her input.

All of which may sound very bizarre and a long way from wearing the clothes, but still that's how I've gone about it. I'm pretty sure the result has been a gradual increase in the depth of characterisation of this woman. Like she looks and feels more "real" to me.

In fact, now, I feel there is something real and permanent there - which I was never quite sure of before. This hasn't translated into me being able to get a representation of her into a picture or giving her a name - I also don't know how passable what I'm seeing in the mirror really is, like if I could take her out. But I do feel I'm moving in those directions.

[Anita]

Hi Mikaela--
I started really dressing at 49, and some of what I did was teen-age sultry, whether it was appropriate or not. That's what I wanted to express, having never gotten a chance to do it before. Eventually it subsided some, and now I don't do it at all. So needs and expressions do come and go. It was surprising to me to see how much I instinctively knew about what clothes would work and what ones wouldn't work, though. That's part of "who you are," and I had a strong sense of 'her' taste in clothes.

[Davita]

I'm in sync with Kimberly. The woman I am evolved as life has evolved. Just the other day I was talking to one of my doctor's staff as they get into Halloween and I enjoy letting the inner drag queen out to play. So I was talking about my costume and that it was going to be an older style nurse. I was describing the whole thing and one asked why I didn't go "sexy". I smiled and said, look at the old lady you're talking to. No matter how sexy the outfit, it's still going on an old fat lady's body. I don't think so.

Clothes are only a reflection of who we are, or in a fair number of cases, a reflection of who we wish to be -- good choices or not.