Not The Only One

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  • When did you realize you weren't the only TG person in the world?

    When I was dressing up in my mom's clothes well before puberty, I believed I was the only person on earth like me. As I grew older, I found ads in the back of my dad's secret collection (hidden in his private office behind the garage) of men's magazines for a company called Michael Salem Enterprises who sold products for transvestites (I first heard the term "cross dresser" maybe a decade later and at first had no idea of what it meant...). I ordered the catalogue and it contained lingerie items, books and some padding items. It was printed on bright red paper. (I wish I had kept it.) I never ordered anything from it but it gave me the confidence that I wasn't the only one who wanted to be feminine despite being born a boy. For years this catalogue was the only contact I had other than Johnny Carson's jokes about Christine Jorgensen on the Tonight Show.

    Nearly twenty years later, I met another TG, a post op transsexual named Cyndi (maybe I knew others, but they weren't anymore out than I was...)

    It's so different today, when I Googled "Transvestite", I got more than a million hits, including Trannyweb.

    Best,
    Melody



    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      December 26, 2009 10:23 PM GMT
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    Hi Melody
    Like you I was dressing at a very young age. My sister had a closet full of clothes half of which didn't fit her anymore. But fit me perfect. So I would stay home from school to be able to dress for a whole day. I think the only times I saw others dressed was on TV as a joke. I didn't realy start to hear about others like me untill I was older & my frends would say such nasty things about them that I never let on about myself.
    I never talked about myself untill I found TW. Making those first few post was very scary for me. I just knew I was going to get found out if I put something on the net.
    It was when Meredith came for a visit in 2006 for New Years. For the first time in my life I sat in a room with someone like myself & let them see the real me.
    It wasn't untill later that it accured to me that I started dressing at the age of 8 & didn't realy let anyone know untill I was 48.
    40yrs in a very lonely closet.

    That's what I think is so great about TW & the net. Others don't have to wait like I did to find someone to talk to about this.
    <p>Karen Brad</p>
      December 26, 2009 11:08 PM GMT
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  • Melody

    I was 17 (1971) when I first figured out I wasn't the only one like me. I saw stories in Penthouse that let me know that I wasn't the only one that may have bought the magazine to dream of looking like the women in it. Back then it was hard to find much information about transvestites and what I did find wasn't very supportive. Since then I read quite a bit but didn't get much opportunity to do much since I was in the military and they frown on crossdressing. It wasn't until 12 years ago that I got the internet and found out the true extent and diversity of transgender people.

    Jeri
    Jeri Elaine “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” - Irina Dunn, 1970 Indecision is the key to flexibility. - unknown
      December 27, 2009 12:18 AM GMT
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  • I dressed in secret as a little kid and just kind of wondered if anyone else did, never assuming I was the only one, however what stands out more is just how many of us there actually are. It wasn't until the internet that I came to realize there are lots of us. I did not actually knowingly meet another TG until after I had been on hormones for over two years and that meeting was thanks to a friend here at TW giving me the contact information for a gal who use to live in my town, who then gave me the name of another TS, resulting in a meeting. Our best guess is there are possibly 8 TS gals in Savannah of which I personally know four others here. We have a gay club where drag shows go on and I've heard it is a popular place for CD/TV's, however I have never been there and have little interest in going.

    Growing up I learned the terms crossdresser and drag queen from hearing others talk about them in very derogatory ways. And people wonder why we hid these feelings for so long, give me a break. I knew I wasn't a bad person like the stereotypes conveyed and no way could you let anyone know. Young people now just don't realize how good they have it.

    Hugs,
    Marsha


      December 27, 2009 12:26 AM GMT
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  • I really dont know may be 8, 10I can't say for sure
      December 30, 2009 7:37 AM GMT
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  • When I was about 14 I was given a book of trivia for Christmas and this included an item on 10 renowned transsexuals, and it immediatly clicked with me - So thats why I've been feeling like this. Nevertheless I didn't *really believe* this could be me (actually I'm still not sure) because there seemed to be so few of them. Only when i found the Internet in my early 30's did I understand that these feelings affected quite a few.
      December 30, 2009 10:39 AM GMT
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  • Up until the age of eight I honestly thought I was the only boy in the world who wanted to dress as a girl all the time. I didn't identify at all with the boy heroes of fiction who sometimes donned a dress as a disguise to get out of some scrape. I wanted to be Alice, or Heidi, or Velvet Brown. Then I saw a woman being interviewed on some Saturday night show who turned out to be a man who called himself a "transvestite". I looked up the article on transvestism in the Encyclopedia Britannica and was very pleasantly surprised to find out I was not the only boy who preferred wearing dresses and skirts.
      January 3, 2010 4:46 AM GMT
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  • I suspect that it was in my early teens or a bit before. I can recall researching transvestite in libraries and only finding short, vague, medical/psychiatric references that only convinced me more that I must be some kind of "sick pervert". I did not feel either "sick" or "perverted" because the experience of dressing was so "nice" and "right". However, I knew I had better keep it Top Secret unless I wanted my, already socially miserable, life to become far, far worse. I had no idea what they would do to me if they found out, but I knew it could not be good, like the experience.

    In my late teens I was outside Provincetown, Mass when a friend said the people there were (wierd, strange, whatever but it was ominous...not judgemental but ominous) and did not want to go in. Had I known then what kind of people they were I would have run, not walked, into town and changed my life.

    My first face-to-face meeting with another TG was after Xmas of 2008 and we spent the week, while at home, en femme. We went out and shopped together for makeup, jewelry, etc.....about 50 yrs from my first experience en femme. A sad situation and my vote for the best parts of the internet. Connecting and sharing knowledge.
    "A live lived in fear is a life half-lived." - Native American proverb. "Inside every man is a woman who was drowned in testosterone before birth". - Wendy Jeanette Larsen "It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you're not." - Andre Gide (French writer)
      January 5, 2010 5:18 PM GMT
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  • This would have been mid to late teens for me. I read a story about a transsexual in the newspaper and a light went on! That was the first time I not only realised why I felt like I did, but also that there was actually something you could do about it.

    Nikki
    Every woman is beautiful, some show it with their faces, others show it with their hearts.
      January 6, 2010 12:09 PM GMT
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  • I realized it quite late that there are others also who want to be feminine and dress up in woman's clothes.I use to think that i am the only person who has this habit until 1997.I could not understand that why i cant live without the woman's clothes.Then i heard the word transvestite and decided to look into it's meaning.Then i got the shock there are many transvestites and i am one of them.But then i accepted the truth and really began to feel good that not many people can enjoy the feeling of dressing up.I could be feminine as well as a man in one life.
      January 6, 2010 9:21 PM GMT
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  • Hi Miss Sudha,

    Lately Western media have often included segments about the "hijra" when doing programs on TG people. I have to confess I know far too little about your country.
    I'm curious about how both the greater Indian society and other TGs in India see them. Are they considered something very different or are they thought of as part of a larger TG community?

    Best,
    Melody
    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      January 6, 2010 9:51 PM GMT
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  • I started to say that my first clue was as old as the internet. But I go beyond that. I recall being aware of Virginia Charles Prince on the radio in 1969 way back when I Iived in Ohio. She was on a talk show promoting a new organization which would eventually become Tri-Ess. I was 25 at the time (you can do the math) and was so lost that I don't recall even being surprised at the time.

    It was not until I had internet that I really became aware and that was around 1990. Prior to that I learned to look in university libraries for information but thatstuff was pretty academic and dry.

    And, here we are!

    Please visit my blog at http://crossdressershopping.com
      January 6, 2010 11:22 PM GMT
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  • M









    Most of the eunuchs or hijra are poor people who cant afford the sex change operation.Secondly those transgendered people who dont find any support even from their family have no other choice apart from joining this community.It is very important to get castrated to become a hijra or eunuch..They dont get any respect and earn money by dancing in marriages and other festive occassions.But i must say that few of them are very beautiful and even more feminine that many genetic women.Unfortunately people including men and women ridicule them.Some of the men are forced to become eunuchs.Recently a man an army personal in india was castrated forcefully and to make his life worse his evil wife left him along with his child.However many social organizations are helping us out that is -both transgendered as well as eunuchs.This month a beauty competition is being held in india for both the eunuchs and tg women.This competition is being organized on a large scale and even many international groups are attending it.As i have said that these are very encouraging signs for us.
      January 7, 2010 10:55 AM GMT
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  • Hi Miss Sudha,

    Thank you for the information. The last show I saw showed them pretty much as you explain, but it placed an emphasis on hijra extorting money by refusing to dance at a wedding which would bring bad luck to the couple. I suspect it was exaggerated to make a better story.

    Again, thanks
    Melody
    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      January 7, 2010 1:49 PM GMT
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  • Hi Melody,
    There are good or bad people in every community ,country or groups.Same is the case with the hijras.There are some bad people as well who dont leave the place where they perform dancing until they get the desired amount of money.But honestly speaking all the people want to earn more and more money.
      January 7, 2010 3:50 PM GMT
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  • For new and returning members


    A repost:


     


    When did you realize you weren't the only TG person in the world?



    When I was dressing up in my mom's clothes well before puberty, I believed I was the only person on earth like me. As I grew older, I found ads in the back of my dad's secret collection (hidden in his private office behind the garage) of men's magazines for a company called Michael Salem Enterprises who sold products for transvestites (I first heard the term "cross dresser" maybe a decade later and at first had no idea of what it meant...). I ordered the catalogue and it contained lingerie items, books and some padding items. It was printed on bright red paper. (I wish I had kept it.) I never ordered anything from it but it gave me the confidence that I wasn't the only one who wanted to be feminine despite being born a boy. For years this catalogue was the only contact I had other than Johnny Carson's jokes about Christine Jorgensen on the Tonight Show.



    Nearly twenty years later, I met another TG, a post op transsexual named Cyndi (maybe I knew others, but they weren't anymore out than I was...)



    It's so different today, when I Googled "Transvestite", I got more than a million hits, including Trannyweb.



    Best,

    Melody

    <p><span style="color: #800080;">Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola Lo-lo-lo-lo Lola</span> - Ray Davies, The Kinks</p> <p><span style="color: #3366ff;">(S)he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction</span> - Kris Kristofferson</p>
      July 30, 2011 7:32 PM BST
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