Old memories

[Adora Jade]

So I was sitting there today, reading posts when I remembered over hearing a conversation between my mom and grandmother at my grandparent's house. I was reminded of this because I just noticed one of my fellow members is from the same town as them, heh.

Anyway, I remember when I was still in early to mid elementary school, the two were talking about one of my grandparent's neighbors. It just so happens this neighbor was a very open CD. She was possibly more of a TS but I don't remember. I never saw the person but I heard alot about them.

I guess that is when I first heard the term but it never fully clicked that that is what I was, a CD. They both talked about it and I don't believe either objected at all. This seems true because my mom found it quite funny acctually when she found my old stash. She didn't really care and gave me the "riiiight..." look when I denied it.

Anyway, I guess this seemed like the appropriate place to put this cause it was my first real encounter with who I would later find out who I was.

[Virginia]

I can speak from experience as well, my own. This forum caused me to bring up things from my past that I had "buried" not out of guilt, but just things that did not seem the least bit connected over my life time. That is until this forum and I began a very indepth review of my life and things began to surface that, well, once you remember the "first time" then a lot of your activities later began to make sense!
As I have said before, I love it and I would not change a thing!
Think back, girls, a lot of you may have a supressed history that will make you ?!
Love ya,
Virginia

[Carol Ann]

To tell the truth I never heard the word crossdresser from my mother as she was the one who took me under her wing to protect me. She never said a word one way or the other all I really knew is that as a boy I was very unhappy with myself and dressing as a girl made me feel very different and my mother excepted that. She never tryed to change me or fuss at me just helped me along life's path and was as kind as a mother could be.

[Anita]

Hi Adora Jade--
Now that you bring it up...it is so strange to go back through my memories concerning any kind of transgender folk. I didn't identify as a girl at all, when I crossdressed as a teen. I knew enough to know it wasn't something you ever talked about to ANYONE, and I never did.

What I remember is reading about transsexual women who were in the news in the 70s--Renee Richards and Jan Morris. That was my only exposure to anything about gender crossing. Crossdressers were invisible. I might have read an Ann Landers column about, "I caught my husband in my clothes!", but that was it.

I never read or heard about heterosexual crossdressers going out in public dressed as women. So when I discovered that the woman inside of me wanted OUT, I had no middle ground to look at. I was in a panic, because all I knew about were transsexual women. Was that what I was going to do? It seemed extreme, but I was in new territory--I didn't know what to think, and it wasn't something I could bring up with friends!

At least I knew enough to go to a local support group, and there I met real post-op women for the first time in my life. Almost immediately I could see that I wasn't at that stage, and I began to calm down. There is nothing like talking to those who are going through the same things, to find out where you are on the spectrum. I used the local drag queen community for my initial support, which worked OK for a half year or so. Very quickly I saw that I was coming from a different place than they were, but we got along. And eventually I came to see what I had in common with the women in the support group.

I would hope that no one now has to grow up in total isolation about this.
I have been on some computers where the word 'crossdress' is blocked, so I imagine that all parental control programs do this. I'm not sure how the average teen gets around this, but I'm rooting for them to find a way.
We all need to know we're not alone.

[DonnaT]

On the bus going to high school my senior year 1972 was the first time anyone mentioned knowing where a tranny lived and was openly out.