I have read probably hundreds of stories of "girls" like me here on the internet. Many have gone into great detail about their lives and the emotions they feel. Others include only a glimpse into their past and present. I'm going to try to do something that's kind of in between. I don't want to bore you with details that you have probably read about over and over, because there is a lot of commonality between all of us, and many have poured their hearts out. I could do that but I'd rather tell about significant events that I can remember which have made me the person I am.
If there is any difference between me and others, something that makes me unique, I think it is this: While I am outwardly a male, I also am a 13 year old girl, regardless of what I may look like or how society, family, friends and the general public may regard me.
If I were a young boy now and had access to all of the information currently available about my feelings, maybe I would have the guts to tell my parents about it and hope they would at least get me the help I would need. But when I was a young boy, in the 50s and 60s, I had no idea what I was, why I felt the way I did, what made me want to act out my feminine thoughts and desires. All I knew was that I was very excited, confused and, much of the time, extremely embarrassed. I thought I was the only person in the whole world who had these feelings. There was nothing in print, on TV or even at the library that I ever remember giving me a clue as to what I was. Nobody forced me into dressing as a girl. There was just something inside of me that was controlling my actions at times to where I had to let these desires come out to play. I didn't understand any of it. I'm not sure what I thought. All I could do was hide these feelings except at times when I was alone. And I liked what I was feeling, liked what I was doing at those times even though later I would feel guilty.
When I was an infant, my hair was very curly and blonde in color. There are many photos of me at that stage of life, and to look at them you would think you were gazing upon a pretty little girl. Well, all good things must come to an end and at about the age of 3 it was decided I should have my first hair cut. Although my hair has remained fairly curly even to this day, starting with that first haircut my hair has been kept short. It also turned from a light blonde to a dark brown color.
Although I don't remember this, my mother has many times told the story of how, when I was about 4 or 5 years old, I would often tell people, as they would look at one of those photos, "that's me when I used to be a little girl". It seems I was well aware of my 'dual' gender even at such a tender age. It's kind of sad to realize that in my innocence of saying those words so much truth was spoken.
That was the only time in my life I was totally honest with people, although I didn't realize it at the time. Too bad that those "proud" feelings soon turned to confusion, guilt and having to hide that beautiful little girl.
My very best friend from the time I was about 2 years old was a girl who lived next door. Her name was Christy and she was my age. We were together constantly whether it was at her house, my house, playing in the yard or going to school. We grew up together and to me it was like having a sister, which I didn't ever have until I was 16.
I remember when we were about 8 or 9 years old, Christy had this beautiful cowgirl outfit that was a dark brown buckskin with lots of fringe. There was a skirt and vest and she wore some kind of fancy blouse with it. She also had boots. Oh how I loved that outfit and I wanted so bad to wear it.
Finally one day I got up the courage to tell her how much I wanted to wear it. She thought it was kind of silly but did let me put it on. Of course I just wore my own underwear, it would have been too much to ask to wear some of her panties. I was lucky to have gotten the nerve to do what I did without asking for more. Well, it fit me pretty well and I just looked at myself in the mirror for the longest time. It felt so right to be wearing that wonderful stuff.
The next thing I knew, a friend of Christy's mom came to their house along with her son, who was a year older than me. I knew I had to hide so I went into the bathroom and shut the door. Well he knew I was there and that there was something going on he had to find out about. When he finally found me I still had on the cowgirl outfit and he started laughing and calling me a sissy and just went on and on. I don't remember if any of the adults knew what had happened but I changed back into my own clothes and went home feeling very guilty, hurt and upset. It also convinced me that I could not do that anymore.
It seems like Christy never mentioned it to me so it was like it had never happened. But it left a lasting impression on my young, developing psyche. It was the start of reinforcing to myself that what I was feeling and doing was wrong and that I had to hide it from people. What a tragedy that such a wonderful experience had to end so bad. Who knows, Christy might have played a role in helping me to express my feminine feelings if things had turned out just a little differently. I'll never know because I didn't allow it to happen again. Our friendship continued as though that never happened.
When I was in the 4th or 5th grade a family moved in to the house next door, on the opposite side from where Christy's family lived. They had a daughter named Mary who was my age and I knew her from school. She was kind of overweight and wasn't very popular and although she and I never did get to be really good friends I kind of felt sorry for her and did hang out with her sometimes. Besides, I liked their house. It was this huge mansion-type place that was so different from any house I had ever seen.
One day we were playing in Mary's room, we were probably 10 or 11 years old, and I think we were playing hide and seek so I was in her closet. It was a huge walk-in closet that even had a window in it. I was in there hiding and, of course, was admiring all her dresses and stuff that was in there. I'm not sure what came over me, well yes I do but wouldn't normally have wanted to do it with her, but I asked her if she wanted to play dress-up. She thought that was cool and said yes.
Unlike when I wore the cowgirl outfit at Christy's, Mary got some of her panties, slips, shoes and even anklet socks for me to wear as well as her dresses. You can imagine what I was thinking and how fast my heart was beating as I put these pretty clothes on my body. It was the first time I had ever been dressed completely as a girl. I felt like I was in heaven, actually like I belonged in those clothes. It just felt so right. We must have played like this for an hour and I'll bet I tried on all of her dresses. It was so much fun......at least until Mary decided she wanted to start getting "friendly" wih me. Well, I really didn't like her that much anyway, even if she was letting me wear her clothes, and when she started touching me and kissing me I just freaked out. I got out of her clothes and back into mine as fast as I could. She was crying when I left but I could have cared less.
The sad thing about this is that if I had been with the right girl it might have been the experience that could have completely changed my life. But again it turned out very bad and it reinforced even more to me that I couldn't do these things with anyone. Instead of helping me to deal with my feelings in a healthy way, it pushed me further into hiding.
The summer before my sophomore year in high school my family stayed in a farm house near town that was owned by my dad's boss. They were going to Europe for the summer and wanted someone to take care of the place. It worked out well because my dad was remodeling the inside of our house and it was much easier without us living there. So I had a whole summer of not working, living in a big beautiful house and having lots of farm land to explore. Also, my parents spent a lot of time at our house doing the remodeling, so with dad working during the day and doing the remodeling at night and on week-ends I was alone a lot of the time.
Soon after we moved out there, I found that there was a neat attic in the house. It was sort of finished and had a couple of beds as well as providing a lot of storage space. One day I was snooping around in some of the boxes that were there and I found a lot of old clothes. These people had 2 daughters who were grown and away from home, and the clothes were all stuff that had been theirs. They must have saved everything because there was little girls clothes as well as teenage girl clothes. There was even lots of lingerie, bras, panties, girdles, garter belts, slips, socks, nylons and shoes of all kinds. You can imagine what kinds of thoughts went running through my feminine adolescent mind.
I spent that entire summer wearing those clothes. At times I would even wear them down in the house when there wasn't anyone there. I was able to live my dream of being whatever I wanted to be. One day a little girl in a party dress with frilly socks and mary jane shoes. The next day a teenybopper girl in a skirt and blouse or sweater wearing nylons and flats, loafers or even high heels. It truly was one of the best times of my life.
Of course as soon as school started again we had moved back to town into our house and the girl who had such a wonderful summer was, once again, back in the closet. At least I had some wonderful memories of feeling sort of what it would be like to be a girl.
I have a cousin, Joan....'Joannie' was what I called her when we were younger....she and I are the same age and when we were growing up we lived only 100 miles from each other so we saw each other quite often. Joannie was the 'epitome' of femininity, at a time when girls were much more feminine than they are today, but she was, at least in my eyes, the most feminine example of a girl, from the way she acted to the way she dressed....and she was a very pretty girl too! She wore the cutest dresses, skirts, blouses, dainty little socks and heavenly shoes. And she was poised and proper, as well as smart and intelligent and she was fun and exciting to be around.
Even if I hadn't had these feelings I would have loved being around Joannie because she and I were such good friends and always had fun and good times, but the fact that I had a love for all things feminine made it even better, and as she matured into a teenager and started wearing nylons and exciting lingerie it continued to get better and better. You can't imagine how much I wanted to tell her about myself, how I longed to ask her to dress me in her soft, frilly and exciting clothes and play 'dress-up' with me....make me her little playmate make-believe girl. But, of course, I never did.
At around the age of 10 or 11, Joannie and I started 'experimenting' more with each other....a fairly common desire of kids that age to start acting on 'feelings' and 'impulses' from our approaching adolescence.....plus the fact that she and I truly did like each other a lot!! She was the first girl I ever kissed and to this day I think she was the best kisser I can ever remember. For the next several years we would spend as much time as we could in private, doing 'our thing', which was mostly very innocent but coming very close, at times, to possibly being more if the circumstances would have played out in some different way. We were in love....no other way to say it and we both felt it and we even talked about how difficult it was going to be to continue our relationship, being first cousins, knowing how 'taboo' it really was that we were feeling the way we did.
Sometime during high school we drifted apart and no longer did the 'things' we did together and I have no explanation as to why it happened. I suppose we naturally started dating other people and maybe didn't need the relationship we had enjoyed for so many years anymore. And as much as it hurts me to write this now, after we both graduated from high school....we completely lost touch with each other....no letters....no phone calls....no nothing. She went on with her life as I did mine with no more contact.
So why am I telling you about my wonderful, beautiful and exciting cousin Joannie?? I wish I could say it's because of a 'happy ending'....that she and I did finally make contact and I did finally have the courage to tell her about my feelings and that she did understand and accepted it all....but that is not what happened. I'm telling you this because I have, years later, somehow come to the conclusion that if there is one person in the world who I truly believe would have not only listened to me but would have accepted me....it would have been Joannie. She and I talked about everything....things that we would have never talked about with anyone else....shared secrets, and shared each other in a very innocent and intimate way....yet I was too ashamed and scared to tell my most secret feelings and desires to even her. Maybe if I had told her it could have been the bond that would have kept us 'kissin' cousins' together in a very special way.
Obviously a lot has happened over the years, but I don't want to share most of it with you. I've told you some of the good stuff. A lot of the rest would be too difficult to write about. I have made so many mistakes, been foolish and sometimes downright stupid in my constant search for answers. Just recently I have realized that there will never be any right answers for me, and I have finally accepted that. Before, I always thought the answer was to search and experiment, but nothing good came of it.
All along the answer has been that inside me is a 13
year old girl. Period. It took me years to figure that out.
Since I have accepted that about myself I can enjoy, as best I
can, bringing her to life. Of course she can't physically come
to life, but she can enjoy the feelings she has
inside that are real to her, even if others can't understand her.
Of course, most people don't even know she exists. Most
wouldn't want to know.
I always thought, more like hoped, that these feelings would dwindle as I got older, wondering how I could keep this up as I become an older man. But, if anything, they have gotten stronger. One thing that gives me comfort is that even if I live to be 100.........the important part of me will always be that funny, sweet, fashion-conscious and very feminine little 13 year old girl. How can I not be happy when I have found the fountain of youth!!!!
I'm not looking for sympathy or for anyone to feel sorry for me. Please be happy for me that at least I now have answers that for so long escaped me. If you were to meet me, not knowing any of this, you would think I was a very happy man. I do enjoy life and I AM happy. But every step of the way, there is a little girl guiding me to find the "fun" in everything and to always take time to "play". She reminds me not to take myself too seriously.
Thanks for reading my story.
Hope you are as happy with the "girl" inside of you.
:o)
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