While growing up, I was the family's least favorite of 2 children (My younger sister and myself). My sister was their little princess. Basically, she could get away with murder, do whatever she wanted, and get her way on a regular basis.
I on the other hand, faced severe consequences and punishments if I expressed as much as an unfavorable opinion, displayed a non-positive emotion or irked my sister in any way. I also was explicitly not allowed to cry ("I'll give you something to cry about"). Needless to say I learned to keep to myself and became extremely quiet and withdrawn.
And I slowly realized that I didn't have anyone to confide in. I couldn't even trust talking to my own parents. My Mom said she wasn't allowed to keep a secret from my Dad, so anything I would tell her would be told to him (obviously resulting in my being yelled at later). And I was afraid of my Dad since he had a short and very explosive temper. To be honest I'm surprised I didn't kill myself back then.
"But that could be anyone's childhood! What does that have to do with crossdressing," I hear some say! There's more to the story... Let's travel back in time again!
When looking at earlier photos of myself, my parents told me that people mistook me for a girl since I had very curly blonde hair, resulting in a permed look. Later on in life though, my hair would straighten itself naturally.
And even throughout my later childhood, people would walk by me, saying things like "What a pretty girl!". Hearing it didn't offend me at all.
When I was 13, I unknowingly started letting my hair grow out, and it wasn't until a couple of years later that I noticed its long length, and loved how it looked. I thought about how I could gain access to clothes to let me see how it would look, but quickly rejected that idea due to the aforementioned situations. It wasn't worth the risk at the time. Also, my Dad hated my long hair, even though he himself had long hair (He used to be in the Hell's Angels motorcycle club).
Looking back to my teen years, I noticed that puberty didn't affect me very much, and didn't seem to start until I was almost done growing up. My voice never 'broke' or lowered very much (That probably contributed to my Adam's Apple never becoming visible), I never had a problem with acne, and my muscles never grew any bigger (I think my Dad was secretly disappointed with that one though).
After I graduated from high school, I got a job for a couple of years and saved up some money, then left the house and moved to Hawai'i. The rest of the family left for here too, but they would later leave the island and travel to other places, leaving me here by myself.
Around this time we received news that my sister was killed in a car crash en route to New York City (She was bored and wanted to travel). I have never seen my Dad cry like that before. They finally told me "It's okay to cry". Also it was then that my parents started appreciating me a little more.
When I began living in my own place, the CD'ing urges started to re-surface. At first I shopped online and also went to stores starting with buying only 1 feminine thing along with other things hoping not to raise suspicions. Since I was living by myself and never had visitors, I felt safe enough that I left my new clothes hanging up in plain view whenever anyone looked in the closet.
But a few months later, the moment of truth..
My Dad's job was preparing to transfer him to a new location across the Pacific, so he and my Mom decided to stay with me until the position opened up a few weeks later. It was a surprise visit, as I wasn't informed of it. But the surprise was on them when they looked in my closet (Curiosity kills cats. Please think of the cats).
Very surprisingly, my Dad was okay with it, but cautioned me, saying "Try not to do it around your Mom". But my Mom not as much since she was still battling depression at the time. Later still though, my Mom came up to me one day and said "Did you know that wearing other genders' clothing is called Crossdressing?". I pretended to not know about it, and we had a small talk about it. My Mom also said that my Dad did prefer my sister over me, and apologized for that.
To make a long story finished, I've finally been accepted by my family for who I am, and I couldn't be happier
(That's quite the epic novel I wrote! Apologies for it being too long.)
can't hurt either. 