Younger Crossdressers
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).
I graduate school I was again very busy, but I did have girlfriends. When they were gone I would sometimes wear their clothes, which felt really nice.
So that’s my history during my young years. There’s no need here to talk about later stuff here, except to say that now I basically crossdress once a week or every couple of weeks to go out. The rest of the time I spend as a guy.
This is just to let you know where I’m coming from. Anyway, the important topic is you, not me.
If you are a young crossdresser–especially if you are experiencing a lot of confusion or unhappiness about it, then here are some things to consider. You have friends You are not alone in this! It might seem like Life has singled you out for abuse. But there’s a lot of other people out there feeling the same thing. And all those who have had a difficult time share a special bond. They recognize, and feel an instinctive responsibility to help each other. The best way to express this is the lines from a song:
I made it through the rain, I kept my world protected.
I made it through the rain, and kept my point of view.
I made it through the rain, and found myself respected by the others who, got rained on too.
and made it through.
This too will pass The teens and early twenties are perhaps the most stressful, anxious times in life. It’s amazing how many problems go away by themselves within a few years.
If you’re being harassed, don’t worry about it. By the time you’re in college or the workplace, it stops. Other people eventually mature and have other things on their minds–they’re really not much interested in picking on other people.
In general, things get better as you get older. Even if all the problems don’t go away, they feel much less overwhelming. You develop patience and even a sense of humor. You can say, “Is life absurd? Very well, life is absurd–maybe it’s supposed to be that way.” And then you can deal with it on those terms.
The real problem is that we like to believe life runs smoothely. Then, if something goes wrong, we get upset. In other words, it isn’t life’s difficulties that upset us so much–it’s that our world view of “everything is supposed to be fine” get’s shaken, and that’s what upsets us.
About this the Buddha said “Life is very difficult. Once you understand that, life becomes easier.” Accept uncertainty Maybe you don’t know if you are a boy or a girl–or which path to take. And this makes you anxious.
Okay. Who says that you’re supposed to know? The anxiety comes not from the confusion, but because you think you’re supposed to have an answer. Accept that you don’t have an answer. Maybe you won’t have one for a while. That’s okay. Suicide A statistical law of the universe is that things move toward the average. That means if things are really bad, they will tend to get better by themselves.
There’s no point doing something desperate like suicide. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Think about that. You are important You were put on this earth for some very important reason. You probably don’t know now what that reason is–in fact, you might never know. But you can be sure that there is a reason. Other people need you–they need your concern; they need your support; they need your help.
Understanding that is a big key to life. As long as we dwell on our own problems, we’re never happy. The reason is because as a social species, human beings are designed to help each other.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy’s words, “Ask not what others can do for you; ask what you can do for others.” Once you realize that, a huge and impossible burden is lifted from you– that of worrying about yourself!
Nobody can see their own life objectively. However, we’re really pretty good at sensing another person’s problems; and can truly help them, because we’re objective about their problems. Don’t believe everything other people say Black-and-white thinking is a big problem. These days it seems like there are two extreme views about transgenderism. Religious fundamentalists say ‘queer’ is completely bad, whereas most transsexuals and crossdressers say it’s completely good.
Most people have the sense to dismiss the first view, but, unfortunately, few see the shallowness of the second view. The view that “if it feels good, do it” has itself become a religion.
The truth is that “moderation in all things” and “finding the middle path” are still good ways to go. There’s no need to be all one thing–all male or all female; all hetero or all gay. It’s a mistake to think like that. Taking the harder path
Short-term pleasure is seldom the sign of a right choice.
So, for example, taking hormones, and plunging into a femme lifestyle might seem very attractive. In fact, it is attractive, in the sense that it offers sensual pleasure. But that doesn’t not make it the right or smart choice. For one thing, as noted above, part of life is to learn that you don’t just exist for your own sake. You’re here for a reason, and a big part of that reason is to help other people. So in making decisions, you have to consider not just what makes “me” feel good now, but what will make me feel good in the long term, and what choice will benefit other people.
I don’t mean being a martyr or making yourself miserable by helping other people all the time. No, I’m definitely saying being happy yourself. I’m just suggesting that part of true happiness is going to involve helping other people. Keep your options open
However old people are, they feel like they know everything. Everybody is like that.
If you look back to yourself 5 years earlier, it’s clear you know more now. The same will be true 5 years from now: you’ll know more, and, looking back to now, you might smile to think how confident you were and how much you didn’t know.
That is one reason to be cautious about making limiting decisions. A few transsexuals report being *completely* certain they are a girl from early childhood; but more often, transgenders merely have the intense desire to be a girl. Or some look at their female fantasies, and from these they infer “apparently I am a female and not a male.”
In the first case–utter certainty–then perhaps it makes sense to pursue Hormone Replacement Therapy and Sexual Reassignment Surgery. But in the other cases that must be strongly questioned.
It used to be that only the first group were considered candidates for a sex change. But gradually the standards have become increasingly lax, thanks mainly to a social climate of laxness. Now some people embark on a change of sex just on a whim.
That just doesn’t make sense. Human nature is such that each person has many conflicting desires. One has to balance these desires. When you feel you want to be a girl, that may seem like it’s coming from your very core. However, in a week or two, the wish may be weaker, and other aspects of your personality may be dominating. The fact that a wish might seem very strong does not mean that is who you really are. It’s just one wish among many parts of your personality.
Young crossdressers may feel pressured to use feminizing hormones, knowing that the earlier they use them, the more complete the feminization will be.
A big problem is that these hormones can and do cause infertility. You may not have an interest in “fathering” children. But as you get older that feeling might develop.
Further, you might be mainly attracted to girls. If you adopt a female gender, possibly you could find a compatible woman somewhere. But in truth, your odds of finding someone are much better if you have a male gender.
Think of it this way. What attracts you to a girl? Most likely you like a pretty, feminine girl, not an unattractive, very “butch” type. The same works for girls. Most are attracted to male-looking guys, and not attracted to guys who look like and dress like girls.
One of the advantages with being a guy, in fact, is that you can meet this need of girls. You can be her “man”, her protector and provider. Self-destructive behavior Many aspects of the TG and gay scene are plainly self-destructive. Consider clubs, for instance. People to go nightclubs where everybody’s smoking and drinking. The drag shows don’t even start until midnight, and people don’t get home until 3:00 or 4:00 am. It takes days to recover. And some people do this more than once a week!
This kind of stuff is really dumb. Morality is not obsolete So regardless of what you choose–to be male, female or both; to be hetero-, gay, or both– you need to chose in a sincere way and with an aim to do the right thing. These days people are brainwashed to believe “it’s all relative; there is no ultimate right or wrong.” That’s a self-serving view, used by people to justify their own choices.
Morality is not obeying a set of rules. It’s making a concerted effort to find out what is the right thing and to do it. The bigger part of that is recognizing and avoiding self-deception. Counseling Counseling can help. Yeah, I know what you’re saying–counseling is crock! Well, it certainly can be that. But there are a few good counselors.
But counselling really works when the energy is coming from you. You have to genuinely want to understand yourself. It takes effort. The counselor is just a tool for you to use to help understand yourself.
There are many bad counsellors, but there are good ones, too. You have to be prepared to screen several counsellors to find a good one. If one treats you like an object and not a person, find another.
One thing you can always do is to read a lot. There’s almost no limit to how much you can learn about yourself just by reading–though few people take advantage of this.
Reading can bring you to the gate of understanding, which a counsellor can help you pass through. But without reading, you don’t get to the gate, and counselling can’t do much except give you emotional support (although sometimes that alone is needed).
In fact, reading is probably more important than counseling, but doing both is better still. Enjoy life Well, just so I don’t seem like a wet blanket, I want to emphasize that’s it good and important to enjoy life. It’s true, I limit my crossdressing to part time. But I make a point to enjoy myself while I’m doing it.
There’s lot’s of other things to enjoy too–fresh air and exercise, a beautiful day, friends, music, etc.
Sometimes we blow our problems out of proportion. Enjoying the good things in life helps us get them back into perspective.
