Biographies on sites like these seem to be obligatory…
In the Beginning
My earliest recollections of experimenting with clothes of the opposite sex occurred around the age of 5 or 6. Memory can play tricks with time lines, but I’m fairly confident I didn’t start dabbling before then.
These matters took their usual course – checking out underwear drawers and trying on my Mum’s shoes. Some sort of instinct told me I shouldn’t be doing this, but I had to satisfy my curiosity and I got a tremendous sense of well-being from it. But there was definitely a feeling that these activities would have to remain as clandestine affairs.
Sometime later I noticed my older sister starting to use makeup, and would surreptiously watch her making up in the bathroom mirror. And this is what led to my discovery. I can vividly recall getting the opportunity to “borrow” her lipstick and nip into the bathroom, door locked, to try it out. Unfortunately, I left it on the window sill, and my 17 year old sister came into my bedroom later to inform me if I wanted to try on her skirts and blouses I could do so. However, the heavily sarcastic-laden comment indicated it wouldn’t be wise to take her up on her offer.
After that I became even more cautious. I can honestly say that I didn’t feel guilty about what I was getting up to, but there was a definite sense that it wouldn’t meet with approval. In fact, some years later a member of the family (can’t remember who) told me my parents were worried that I’d turn into a “sissy” – think of the old-fashioned term, not what it means today.
The Wilderness Years
Despite continuing to be very careful where my dressing up was concerned the odd awkward moment would arise. There was the time I thought my mother was busy down stairs, and so one of many raids to my sisters’ make-up bags was in progress when she walked in. I leapt onto the bed and stared out of the window, with my back to her.
Obviously sensing something wasn’t normal she came towards me and tried to turn me round to face her.
Tell me, do you know where you get the strength as an eight year old to resist a grown woman? Well, I do! I was terrified of being caught, and eventually she let go and I ran to the bathroom, locked myself in and removed all traces of bright orange lipstick.
Looking back, my mother was a strong willed individual and so could have interrogated me to the point where I confessed what I’d been up to, but she didn’t pursue it further and didn’t mention the incident to my father, as far as I’m aware. It has to be said that there have been times when I thought she might raise the subject, but she has always ‘backed off’. In part, because she had an instinct for not pushing too far when it came to her children’s personal feelings, and that I am very grateful for.
She’s dead now, and neither of my parents ever knew from me that I cross-dressed, nor my two sisters (until quite recently). And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My father would have been devastated, although my mother could have coped with it, but there were very strong victorian values handed down to them by their parents, so it would have been a burden.
So, I continued to be careful, but now the feelings of guilt started to encroach on the pleasure, and even more careful strategies were put into place to avoid being caught; this was the start of learning ‘the art of deception’ in its true sense. Being secretive and withdrawing into myself to avoid being caught started to lead to a sense of isolation.
At about the age of 14 the family moved up North and my parents went into business. They did alright for themselves – they deserved it, working very hard to achieve what they did.
Girls were becoming much more interesting, and as a result my dressing desires were being curbed with a degree of success – I even thought these juvenile feelings I’d been having were a development stage I had been going through, and with my growing sexual awareness I could see the sense in not pursuing my crossdressing habits. A couple of girlfriends tried to put makeup on me, but I was too scared to let them in case they realised I was enjoying it too much!
A levels took over my life for a while for all the good it did me, and I ended up going to Catering College, because I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do. This started in September 1975 and on New Year’s Eve I had a party and invited most of the ex-sixth form and a few of my old friends from down South. Having parents who ran a hotel meant we had the run of the place and even if I do say so myself it was bloody good party if only because I met my future wife, who gate crashed and promptly registered her disgust with my new haircut.
Catering wasn’t my thing and with my new found girlfriend away at college I found myself with spare time and thoughts of sexy underwear and other feminine accoutrements appeared on the horizon. But now I was living away from home. Thoughts about crossdressing became more difficult to control again. And although money was tight I bought a lovely pale blue basque with suspenders.
As the college years went by I dressed occasionally, guiltily and with a half-promise to myself that I would have to give up these activities once my girlfriend and I got married. But that was a while away yet so I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind.
During my time at catering college I worked part time in Nottingham at ‘The Old English Restaurant’ on Mansfield Road, usually evenings at the weekend. Two girls who were sharing a room in the same old house as me were doing another catering course and so put me in touch with the owners and was interviewed and given a job.
To be honest it wasn’t far short of Fawlty Towers standards, what with dinners ending up on the floor and frozen melon balls cracking the jaws of diners it was a fun place to work.
After the restaurant closed the staff would get taken out for a meal on the Saturday night to about the only place that served decent food at that late hour – it was a Gay Club. And it was here, for the first time, I saw a Transvestite out in public.
She was wearing a cream coloured evening dress, blonde wig, superb makeup and faultlessly manicured and polished nails. Perhaps the only giveaway was her height and those oh so long false eyelashes. She was sitting on her own and looking a bit lonely, but for all that she was a vision – I just wanted to go over and talk to her, but that would have given the game away.
However, my interest didn’t go unnoticed by my crowd, but diversion arrived in the form of an invitation by the nightclub owner to take me to India for two weeks on an all expenses paid holiday – now did I mention it was a Gay Club?
Eventually, I gave up catering as a bad job and ended up in London working for a law firm for five years (litigation, insolvency). I loved it, the buzz, dealing with household names and being privy to what was going on ‘behind the scenes’ in high profile legal cases, often 6 months before they hit the news headlines.
Married Life
August 1979 heard Wedding Bells. My girlfriend and I got married in 1979 in a small country church, and after the reception headed off for the Lake District for a few days spent walking the Southern Fells round Langdale, Sargeant Man and Wasdale.
We had a good start. We did up an old house which we’d picked up for a song – in fact it was so dilapidated we couldn’t get a lender, so my parents loaned us the money until we got it into a fit condition enabling us to get a mortgage.
For the first year I was battling with my two personnas or rather my feminine one. It had proved more difficult to kill off what I came to call Rachel and finally Alex. She’d surface every now and then when I raided my wife’s makeup draw and pulled out that pale blue basque I’d hung onto to which I’d added some knickers and stockings. Opportunities didn’t arise very often for my dressing so the lid remained fairly tight.
However, when you live with someone, and share your most intimate thoughts and feelings I found it harder and harder to keep my secret from my wife.
In the end I told her – no preamble, just straight in.
At first she didn’t believe me (she had no idea). Then she asked if I was just saying it because I wanted a divorce.
Slowly it dawned on her that I was in fact telling her the truth. And all the questions came up. Was I Gay? Did I want to change sex? Would I want to go round the house all day in women’s clothes?
She knew I didn’t borrow her clothes because of our size difference, but she no longer wanted me to use her makeup.
After a few days it became apparent without much discussion that this revelation wasn’t going to end in divorce, but neither was Rachel welcomed with open arms. The ground rules were that I kept my activities to myself, and preferably didn’t mention them. If I did mention the subject it was discussed and put to one side as quickly as possible. In short, there was a toleration policy, but that was as far as it went.
After a few more years we started a family and decided to move back up North, same destination as before.
That was 1991. Things carried on pretty much the same way as before except that I was doing a lot more travelling around the country. This gave me the opportunity to visit lots of Tranny shops, and so bits and pieces were added to my collection, but they all still fitted into one suitcase.
The Internet
In April 1996 I went online for the first time and it wasn’t long before I started researching the subject of transvestism. What I found was a wealth of information and like-minded people. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how many people were doing what I’d been doing, but more importantly at ease with it and enjoying every minute of it.
Obviously there were the sad stories of broken marriages, upset and despair, but the vast majority were dealing with this part of their lives in a very positive way.
Now, I was emailing and chatting to people all over the UK – it was great!
You cannot imagine (unless you’re another transgendered person) just how liberating the feeling was to discover you’re not alone in this world – you have literally thousands of potential friends, and that’s just in the UK.
One of the major influences of the Net for me was the unofficial ‘Northern Concord’ website based on the TV/TS self-help group based in Manchester. This site had literally hundreds of links to tranny sites where I learnt about the well-worn path most of us tread: discovery, guilt, denial, purging. But now with the help of the Internet hopefully the self-acceptance and peace and joy that comes with it.
In October 1997 I had the opportunity to go to Scotland, so I made arrangements to stop by at a Northern Concord Wednesday evening social gathering at ‘The Rembrandt Hotel’.
Well, as I walked into the bar the atmosphere of pure relaxation hit me like a wave, soothing away the stresses and strains of life. I sat and chatted with Trannies who looked so relaxed and comfortable that by the end of the evening I made a promise to myself I would be back in girly mode at the next available opportunity.
I got home that night and immediately told my wife I would be going to Manchester to the Northern Concord meetings whenever I felt the need.
She could tell by my attitude that she could take it or leave it – my mind was made up.
At this point I had never been out dressed and had no intention of doing so – only nutters do that!
Anyway, the next trip to Manchester saw me sport my togs and hit the Rembrandt for what I thought would be an entertaining evening in with the ‘girls’.
Well, Tim, Danny and Steve had other ideas. Now, I dare say you’re familiar with the concept of a bloke dressed up as a woman giving himself a girl’s name – not to these guys in dresses. Tim, Danny and Steve looked very presentable in their outfits but conforming to such niceties as femme names obviously wasn’t part of their game plan.
Anyway, they took pity on a new ‘girl’ and I was quickly feeling comfortable, until that is, Tim said, “Where shall we go now?”
Are we referring to a trip to the ‘ladies’, I thought.
No. We went to ‘Via Fossa’, then onto ‘Metz’ followed by ‘Napoleans’.
As we left the Rembrandt I was shaking, but not from the cold. To cut a long story short, that was the first of the occasional trips to ‘The Village’ in Manchester, about three a year, and you can pick up on my other trips out with my diary which picks up the story from 1999.
It’s been a roller-coaster ride at times, but I can honestly say I haven’t regretted spreading my wings and deliberately setting out to become more comfortable with my dual gender talents. For my part I’ve learnt to live with both facets of my gender identity and I like it.
If you’re reading this and you’re transgendered I hope my story will have contributed in some way to a better understanding of your own unique situation.