In my youth I engaged in the usual macho activities that I understand were common to other heterosexual cross-dressers: baseball, football, car racing, hunting. I no longer hunt, but I still have my antiques gun collection. I distinctly remember being involved in playing war with other boys using BB guns. I was also in sexual pursuit of every female that caught my eye and some that didn't.
I suspect this attempt to seduce every female that I could was driven by my desire to keep Linda as far back in the shadows of my mind as I could and out of the way.
My first wife dressed me in women's clothes from the skin out, panties, bra, the whole nine yards for a Halloween party in 1960.
We had discussed doing it about two weeks before the party. I remember that I objected very little. I wore her red plaid skirt and one of her larger girl friend's white nylon blouses. The garter belt and nylons came from another girl friend as did the white high heels. The wig was provided by one of the neighbors. My wife and the neighbor spent at least a half hour combing and styling it on my head after I had gotten dressed and applied the cosmetics.
I was always good at art and had a basic understanding of the purposes of shadow and color. I had fair skin and was light complected. My youth combined with being slim enabled me to appear passable. After dressing and making up and having the wig styled I finally got to look at myself in a full length mirror. I couldn't believe that was me. I actually got dizzy. It was if I had been drinking.
When my sister-in-law and her husband came to pick us up and drive us to the party, neither one recognized me immediately and after they did her sister wouldn't stop complimenting me on how great I looked and how well the clothes fit. Her husband appeared to be more embarrassed than anything else.
I had a fantastically good time. I was practically the center of attention. Some of the guys that didn't know were lighting my cigarettes, buying me drinks and asking me to dance. Of course after I spoke they knew I was not what I appeared to be. The women appeared fascinated and asked all kinds of questions about who made me up (I did), how long did it take ( 3 hours) and where did the clothes come from (my wife and her sisters and friends).
I remember from time to time seeing the red nailed fingers moving on the ends of my hands and looking down to see my nylon clad legs sticking out of a plaid skirt. I also remember the sensuous feeling of the nylons when I crossed my legs and the smooth silky feeling on my rear end when I moved in my seat and the panties moved across the fabric of the full slip I was wearing. The whole experience was erotic beyond belief. I really didn't want that night to end.
The transvestite tendency must have been there all along, I was just too engrossed with masculine pursuits to allow it to catch up with me. After that night I found myself unable to think about little in my spare time besides dressing in women's clothes. It became an obsession that I had to deal with every day.
For too many years I walked across the pit of hell bothered by guilt and confusion. I dressed in my wife's clothes when she was out of the house and I was terrified of being found out. The instances of deceit and the excuses for dressing were numerous. Halloween was always a time of tension. Eventually, in 1968, the marriage broke up.
I remember praying fervently to God to take this curse away. I would do anything, just cure me. In 1980 I found a copy of one of Virginia Prince's publications - 'Transvestia' - in a box with old Playboy magazines. That was 10 years into my second marriage.
Finding that copy of Transvestia was an event in my life which I can point to and say that was a definite break in my favor. It changed my life. I was quite excited about discovering there were other men that had the same problem that I had and was very interested in meeting and talking to them.
Of course I joined Carol Beecroft's 'Society for the Second Self' (Tri-Ess, an international organization for cross-dressers). That was when a name was given to the female creature that had become part of me. The membership application had a space for putting down a femme name. I didn't give it much thought. Since my first initial was 'L' I wrote down 'Linda' as the femme name. I also saw an ad in that magazine for Fantasia Fair 1980, and quickly wrote to the Outreach Institute asking for more information.
I did manage to attend the 1980 Fantasia Fair (the second weekend) and WOW! What an experience! It was all they said and more. I really don't have room to go into everything I learned that weekend but I can say I don't think any other experience in my life has as much of an impact on how I saw things and what I thought of myself and others.
When I had married the second time I was sure that I had been cured of wanting to dress in women's clothes, but, that was not to be the case.
It was like a slow remembering. After being married for about 5 years I can recall looking through a Sears catalog for something or other and coming upon the party dresses and cocktail dresses and having that strange thought that I would probably look great in that and wondering how the fabric felt on one's bare skin. I began to notice well dressed women on the street and making mental notes of how they coordinated the texture patterns and/or coloring in their clothes.
I somehow talked my second wife, who was very talented with a needle (made most of her own clothes), into making me a dress for a Fasching (German costume Party - 1976) and she kept asking why couldn't I use a mop or something rather than an expensive wig and why wasn't I going to try to be a caricature instead of looking so real.
I managed to come up with some evasive answer and we went with me dressed as a woman and her as a man. We did have a good time though. Two years later I managed to talk her into making another dress for another Fasching; this time one more fashionable and better tailored. I dieted for three months and when Linda got dressed that night the effect was unbelievable.
The party was a repeat of the first Halloween party 15 years before. I wasn't recognized. My spouse insisted that we go in separately. Some of the guys were lighting my cigarettes, buying me drinks and asking me to dance. Some of them even wanted to dance after they found out who I was. The more attention I got, the more upset my wife became.
When we got home. I insisted that we talk and I put a label on my behavior for her - transvestism. I tried to explain that I wasn't gay and had no interest in the male population, but she was too upset to listen. As Linda became more involved with the TV community I became more secure in myself and my relationships with others I began to lose my sense of confusion, shame, and guilt. Don't misunderstand me, there still are a lot of questions without answers (to this day) but they (the answers) don't seem as important as they once did.
I began to participate more in the activities and workings of the local group and took on responsibilities in regard to Fantasia Fair. I began writing and publishing the local cross-dresser's support group newsletter 'Our Sorority' in 1981. As the responsibilities became greater there came a bigger circle of friends for Linda, and a feeling of comfort and acceptability for her.
Linda began to develop as a person in her own right with her likes and dislikes as well as mannerisms and tastes. Larry's confidence coupled with Linda's, allowed me to face the developing marital problems with common sense and maturity.
As Linda became more involved with the paraculture and more outgoing, my spouse began to fear discovery and also to wonder about my heterosexuality and the transsexual possibilities. With the help of spouses and other CD's and some tapes of talks given by psychiatrists and psychologists my spouse gradually came to understand that this 'hobby' (for want of a better word) was not something that I chose to explore but that it was one of those things that one has forced upon them by the fates, or life if you will, and that we would have to deal with it together.
But, from my perspective now, knowing the things I know and having experienced some of the sexual discrimination that women confront daily (like being talked to by salespeople as if I was a moron). I feel that I am a more stable and balanced individual who, without having been so "blessed" with this "hobby" would never have met the people I've met, experienced the broadening of my emotions, and been privileged to be a front row observer of life and its many varied forms of expression and styles.
There are a few drawbacks.
From time to time I feel like my close friends should know about Linda, but then better sense prevails and the wish for them to know about the hidden side of me diminishes. I know I would feel more whole if they did know.
This is not to diminish the horror and misery that my spouse and I went through after I told her, but I know enough after almost 30 years of living with this compulsion to know that I cannot honestly promise anyone, for any reason, to give it up. Because we go to the shore in the summer I have to make sure I don't shave my legs or chest so close to the vacation that the hair will not have grown back in time.
My age and height prevent me from going out dressed in public in the daytime, but I have relatively little trouble at night. I have been out in public; restaurants, malls and theaters (both movies and live) enough times dressed to have sufficient to relax and enjoy it. My spouse does not have this advantage. Her fear of recognition or, worse yet, fear of ridicule prevents her from going out with me except in special cases like going to another CD's home.
My personal philosophy in regards to the paraculture is identical to the best philosophy for daily living -that the more you help others the greater your rewards will be. I also know that if there were a pill developed tomorrow to 'cure' this hobby I wouldn't consider taking it. My personal horizons were broadened far and beyond what they would have been had I not been "Blessed" with this "Hobby".
After all that's what drives the TV's urge to dress. I do know the results I get (what I see in the mirror) aren't worth all the time and effort any more to complete the change over. But truthfully, I know Linda keeps tapping me on the shoulder and saying "WHEN?". Anyhow, I used to feel sorry for people who are born in one place, grow up and die in that same place. I have expanded my sympathy to cover those who are born, grow up and die in the same gender.
I used to think of that urge to cross-dress as a curse. Actually it was a gift. I'm wondering if curiosity also had something to do with it. If I hadn't been peculiar "that way", I would have experienced only half of what life has to teach. I didn't and probably won't experience all that life can teach but I know I'm better of for what I have learned because I was different.
And I still believe that you get more out of life than you put into it when you do things for other people. I know that doing got Linda further out of the closet and over that embarrassed and ashamed guilty feeling than would have been possible staying in that little satin doll world.