This page offers a little support and advice to younger crossdressers. One of my responsibilities both as an older person, and as someone who has gone through a lot of this, is to try to offer some guidance. By Cathy L Anderson

First, here's a little of my history for you to compare your experience with.

I first crossdressed when I was 5 years old--I put on an old blouse and skirt and hid under the bed covers. My mother discovered me, and, looking a little confused, told me that I shouldn't do that.

I didn't dress again for several years, but the desire was always there. When I watched television I constantly hoped to see a crossdressing character or theme. Many cartoons had crossdressing scenes, which I loved.

I thought often about being a girl. My idea of heaven was a place where you could just look at a picture of a girl and you would wake up in that scene as her.

I had a fantasy of a machine that would turn me into a girl: I'd enter at one end onto a conveyer belt, and would go through various steps until I emerged as a girl at the other end.

I often prayed at night to wake up the next morning as a girl. I would sometimes dream I was a girl. In the dreams I would be wearing a dress or walking down the street with a cute pony-tail. I'd try to hold onto the feeling of these dreams for as long as possible. When I was aware that I was dreaming, I'd try to control the scene into one where I was a girl.

I never felt that I *was* a girl or a girl trapped in a man's body. I just strongly wanted to *become* a girl. As a boy I did reasonably well. Though shy and anxious, I was smart and got attention for that. The older boys scared me, but I was able to defend myself against the bullies my own age.

In high school I started to dress again,"borrowing" my sisters' clothes from the dirty-clothes bin or from her bedroom, and occasionally my mothers' lingerie.

Then there was no internet--if there had been, I don't know what would have happened.

In college I was too busy to crossdress, and dorm rooms offered no privacy anyway. But I did smoke marijuana, and, when I did, the fantasy emerged. Both during high school and college, I never dated girls (or anyone else).