My story,

[Judith]

When I was about 10 years old my parents would go oout drinking and socialising leaving my two older sisters to babysit me. They hated it, I mean they were both teenagers who wanted to be outside going to discos, youth clubs, etc. not stuck at home looking after their little brother.

After a few weeks they got sick of it and decided to have a bit of fun. After taking a bath I went to my bedroom, with only a towel to cover me, only to find my sisters waiting for me. Despite my protests I made to dress from head to toe as their little sister. Once made up had to act as a girl and play with dolls for their amusement.

My forced crossdressing became a regular thing, whilst threats that they would tell everyone at school ensured my silence. At first I hated it but after a while I become used to it, whilst my sisters started treating me as their little sister. My crossdressing became a secret between my sisters and myself.

It started to mess up my mind. I was a boy who liked dressing as a girl. I felt ashamed for feeling this way and guilty for wanting to do it. I feared what others would say if they found out, I feared I'd be branded a freak, a pervert or I'd end up in some mental institute. I felt as if I was the only one the world, I felt I had no one to turn so I'd silently cry myself to sleep.

But things changed when I was about 11. It became clear that my parents knew what had been going on, they weren't furious, they weren't angry. I know they loved me but my sisters had always been their favourites, so instead of freaking out they actually preferred me as a girl. So my parents not only encouraged my crossdressing, but they started treating as a daughter.

I went out the home as their son, but within the home I was their daughter. Since then things have changed. I have to work as a man, but at home and when I visit my parents or sisters I go a woman. My neices and nephews call me auntie and no matter what, my parents still call me their little girl and even play hell when I go braless.

[Latanya]

wow good story and thanks for posting

[Carol Ann]

Hi Judith,
Funny now things work out with parents, after my mom caught me all dressed up on a Saturday when she was supposed to be at work all day and came home all of a sudden.

Oh well I was forced after she made me change out of her good work dress and put a simple blue skirt and a plain white blouse to stay dress the entire day. So long story short at the supper table the big question and talk about WHY.

Like you she let me dress at home and after a while just got used to me as her daughter and things just when from there till today where I can dress everyday as I have a very very supporting wife.

So you see I can relate to your story.

[Judith]

Thanks for your kind comments. The path we walk today has been a long, difficult and sometimes painful path to follow.

[Anthony Simon]

I also had an enforced CDing experience to start me off and it also messed with my head. But the intent seemed to have been to mess with my head rather than, with you, something more to do with having fun. It looks like your sisters picked up something female in you and that's why they dressed you up - and then your parents and rest of the family picked up on that. I still don't much like it, honestly, that you give you strife for not wearing a bra.

I mean most of us have both a male side and a female side - and while it's good to be able to dress up, it's also good to be able to be a guy when we want to be. The choice element is so important. In your song post, you bring out the conflict that being a guy who likes to dress up brings - and that's here as well. But what can you do? Like you say, it can be a long difficult path...

[Judith]

They probably did see some female side which they helped bring out. I love my parents and my sisters, and I know they love me, but my sisters were always my parents favourites. Whilst my parents willingness to accept my crossdressing, to give me a female name,to provide support and encouragement really began around the time it became clear my sisters were going to leave home.

Maybe it's nature but it's nurture, but I know that I'm and always have been a substitute daughter.

[Paulette]

Amazing Stories! Astounding! (My first two magazines, as well.)

Outside of Native American Two-Spirits, I've never heard of a child being accepted that way. It sounds wonderful to someone who experienced almost the exact opposite.

[Judith]

You see my grand-father (on my father's side) died before I was born. From what I been told he was a right so and so, anyhow because of how my father was treated as a child he decided he wouldn't do that to his children.

Mind you the treatment I've received from outside the family leaves a lot to be desired. But that was years ago, times and attitudes were different, things are better now but you never really forget. At the start I wrote:

"I felt ashamed for feeling this way and guilty for wanting to do it. I feared what others would say if they found out, I feared I'd be branded a freak, a pervert or I'd end up in some mental institute. I felt as if I was the only one the world, I felt I had no one to turn so I'd silently cry myself to sleep."

If we had the internet and sites like this when we were young, it would have been a lot easier for each of us to deal with what we are.

[Paulette]

. . . "I felt ashamed for feeling this way and guilty for wanting to do it. I feared what others would say if they found out, I feared I'd be branded a freak, a pervert or I'd end up in some mental institute. I felt as if I was the only one the world, I felt I had no one to turn so I'd silently cry myself to sleep."

If we had the internet and sites like this when we were young, it would have been a lot easier for each of us to deal with what we are.

It's difficult for all of us, even the contrarians who embrace and shout about their sexuality. And pain is pain. And we all feel alone. It takes society, our culture and village as well as our immediate family, to feel that we're not alone.

I was inspired by your story (and the comments of those with similar stories) to write a short fantasy of having been accepted as a gender-shifting child and being loved and respected as myself: a boy who was a girl. It was exciting, and even better, it was freeing of my residual guilt and shame from that time. In writing that fantasy I had finally forgiven myself.

Unfortunately, a slip of the fingers made me lose it to the bit bucket. But now I know that story, and I'll write it again.

Thank you, all.

[Judith]

Paulette, the thing is fear over people's reactions meant to hide my secret I had to slowly distance myself from friends, so my teenage years were lonely. I guess in order to make me feel better my mother would often tell me who she liked me as a girl and how pretty I looked in a bra (even to this day my mother still tells me I look pretty in a bra). When I passible to go out as a girl I was always afraid of being noticed.

My mother increasingly treated me more as a daughter and expected me to act as a daughter, so much so that I was expected to wear items of a more intimate female nature down there. Whilst when we as a family went to visit relatives I went as a girl. Naturally, my cousins made jokes and remarks at my expence, some females cousins would hug me to eel my bra or get a grope.
I've forgotten how many times in these early years my mother said "he likes dressing as a girl", or the times female cousins made jokes about whether I'd started my period yet.

When you're dressed as a girl; people keep encouraging you to do and act as such; they refer to treat as a girl; when you buying lingerie or a dress with your mum and the sales assistant realises your a boy in a dress, it messes with your head.
My parents and relatives stopped referring to me as son or use my male name years ago. They insist I go as their daughter when I visit, I crossdress but I don't know if it's really for me or them, but the manner it was done has left me feeling mentally and pshychologically emasculated.

[Phil]

Judith
Your story is incredible. It sounds like fiction from a fetish site! Certainly I found it disturbing yet exciting in equal measure.
I am sorry that you experienced (and still do) emotional bullying from your family. You should be free to make your own choices. The trouble is that now you don't know yourself.
I have fantasised about a similar experience (I have two sisters) but your story personalises it and brings a new emotional and heartbreaking perspective.
I hope that you can find strong support here and elsewhere and a route through to the future with YOUR choices.
Take care and be happy
Phil

[Anthony Simon]

Well, this is pretty close to being unbearably poignant. I do know what you're talking about with "mentally and psychologically emasculated". I've had something that looks like that from my family, only not as intense as yours - and also not concentrated on the physical dressing. It's much more to do with sideways assertions about how I am "really" unmasculine rather than feminine.

The thing is you're not that mentally emasculated if you can come here and talk about this stuff in this open way. And you also accept that your family loves you, for all that they are, and have been, forcing you into a female box. That combination of being loved and being pushed relentlessly into a non-manly space is something I've had from my family too.

You know, you've got to keep talking about this stuff. It does appear that your family is totally locked into you being a girl and won't give up on it. But you have your own life and your own stuff - and for all that, no doubt, there's a high "girl quotient" in you, there's also a male side that needs to know itself.

[Judith]

Thanks for all you kind comments. But the thing is, I only protested at the start, but before my parents found out I was already hooked, everything that happened afterwards occured without complaint from me.

When I got a place of my own I tried purging and living 24/7 as a man. But I couldn't so the compromise was to work as a man, but live as a woman. People know what I am and ceasing to crossdress, won't change their views or actions as they are as set in their ways as I am.

When we were all children we all had dreams of what we wanted to grow up to be. Some of us wanted to be a cowboy, a soldier, a rockstar, an astronaunt, etc., but did any of us want to grow to be a crossdresser? None of us wanted to grow up fearing the opinions of others, to suffer verbal abuse from others, to feel guilty and hide in shame, because something happened which switched on something inside us. My family may have locked me into a female box, but it's one that I was happy to help build and live in. But in a sense aren't we all locked in a our own female box which we didn't really want, which others may have helped construct but which is ultimately something of our own making?

[Anthony Simon]

When I got a place of my own I tried purging and living 24/7 as a man. But I couldn't so the compromise was to work as a man, but live as a woman. People know what I am and ceasing to crossdress, won't change their views or actions as they are as set in their ways as I am.

My dad used to say something like that - that he was too old to change. I remember him saying it from (say) his late 50s on (now he's 92 and I'm in my late 50s). I always thought it was a bit of line with him (but then he's full of lines).

When we were all children we all had dreams of what we wanted to grow up to be. Some of us wanted to be a cowboy, a soldier, a rockstar, an astronaunt, etc., but did any of us want to grow to be a crossdresser?

Yeah, I wanted to be a cowboy..or a soldier..but I also had fantasies about being a saloon girl from the Wild West. None of these came true. But a crossdresser is maybe what you get to be if you want to be both a boy and a girl.

None of us wanted to grow up fearing the opinions of others, to suffer verbal abuse from others, to feel guilty and hide in shame, because something happened which switched on something inside us.

I actually had that stuff from my mother as a child. When I played Titania in a school play when I was 9, I lost the two friends I had. But I haven't had it as an adult because I've hidden my CDing.

The other thing is you sound bitter and resentful, not just about the people switching on the drive, but about having it in the first place. I know that blaming yourself place and it amounts to internalizing other people's negative impressions of you.

My family may have locked me into a female box, but it's one that I was happy to help build and live in. But in a sense aren't we all locked in a our own female box which we didn't really want, which others may have helped construct but which is ultimately something of our own making?

You know this is about "need" not "want". To be sure, if I had the choice, I really wouldn't go through all the negative stuff that's associated with the CDing. But somewhere, once the drive was on and I was on that path, I don't think I had a choice. I was going to be a CD and that was that. You talk about only objecting at the beginning. That is the only time you have a chance to change anything (anyway from the sense I have of my experience). For me, I guess I had a girl side and it was going to come out some way - This is the one it's turned out to be. The fact is both my parents have significant elements of the "wrong" gender in them, but they don't CD.

I have a lot of rage and bitterness. If there is one thing more effective than the CDing itself in keeping me in a box, it is that bitterness (some of it CD-related, some of it not). I kind of sit there going “I’m bitter and till I get this, that and the other I’m not going to move”. If you want to talk about boxes of our own making, that is…

[Sarah-Jane]

Judith's story may sound incredible and as Phil suggest "sounds like fiction from a fetish site!" but years ago I’ve heard similar from a woman who, along with her four sisters, did similar to their brother.

But I couldn’t help but notice that there's no mention or indication of Judith having either friends or a partner to provide comfort, support and healing. I apologise beforehand to Judith for any offence I my cause if I'm wrong on this, but if the net result of Judith’s upbringing is to be locked into being a girl, alone and lonely; whilst others of her age group are married, have children and even grand-children, wouldn’t this explain her sounding a bit bitter and resentful?