KAREN MARIE ANDREWS

THE EARLY YEARS

My earliest recollection of wanting to dress in women's clothes was around the age of 8. I would try on my mother's clothes while in the bathroom. The door had a lock and the hamper was located in the bathroom. I would take the clothes out of the hamper and try them on. Fortunately, I was never caught.

This went on for several years. During that time I would stay at my grandmother's house and I would ask her if I could wear her robe and slippers. She thought nothing of it. I enjoyed the softness of the robe and the feeling of the slippers on my feet.

As I approached puberty I started playing with my mother's rollers. My mother was a hairdresser and I watched her put rollers in hair. Since my hair was cut short I decided to put rollers in my hair so I would look more like a girl. I would connect the rollers together with pins because my hair would not hold them in place. I then put a net over them and I thought it was very effective.

While in school I would daydream about being able to play with the girls in my class and wear their clothes. For a period of time I wished I could fall asleep and wake up being a girl.

At the age of 13 I had my first sexual experience. No, it was not with anyone. I was wearing my mother's bra under my school uniform. A sensation overcame me in the genital area. Not knowing what it was I began to rub. Then, IT happened. So maybe this was a case of imprinting. I really don't know.

Once during these years while my voice was changing and my hair was longer than usual I was out in my front yard playing tetherball when a young girl came by and started talking to me. She finally asked if I was a boy or girl. I told her the truth but I wished I could have said a girl.

Things began to subside for a while during my high school years. I had a girlfriend and everything seemed normal, although I did enjoy being near my girlfriend's things. When she had her hair in rollers I seemed to identify with her. Our relationship lasted three years until I entered the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

While in the service I neither had the opportunity to dress or the time to even think about it. So during those four years I served in the U.S. Army (yes, I did make it to South Vietnam) the feelings lied somewhat dormant. This apparently is not an unusual occurrence with crossdressers.

After I left military service, I returned home and began going to college. This period of my life is a little sketchy regarding my crossdressing. I don't remember any particular instances of crossdressing during that time. I was regularly dating and within months met a wonderful girl who eventually became my wife. I like many other crossdressers thought that getting married would resolve the problem (or so we called it).

MARRIAGE AND BEYOND

During the first few months of marriage everything seemed fine. Then the urge to dress returned. At first I would try on my wife's nightgown and pantyhose. Being bigger than she they were the things that would fit. Much of this was a sexual stimulant. Therefore I thought I was a fetish crossdresser only.

Several times during our marriage I gave hints to my wife about my desire to crossdress. One time I asked her if I could wear a pair of her pantyhose. She said go ahead. Wow, I thought this is easy. WRONG! As soon as she saw them on me she immediately said, "Take them off." Bad news.

A short time later, I put on one of her nightgowns and wore it to bed. When she reached over to hug me, feeling the material in the dark, she asked, "What's this?" When she realized it was her nightgown she responded, "Take it off." More bad news.

Shortly after this episode, my wife became pregnant, and she gave birth to our only child, a boy. The doctors originally said we couldn't have children because we both had medical problems. But within months of being told this, it happened. Our son's birth is one of the greatest moments of my life.

We now travel a few years down the road; I have changed jobs a couple of times. I am away from home on a training seminar for a new job. I have in a small travel bag some clothing. When I return home my wife finds them. It contained a bra and a nightgown (hers), and foam breast forms I had made. She doesn't remember this but she says, "If you're going to do this, I don't want to know about it." She throws everything away. More and more bad news.

During this period of time in these jobs I would frequently wear pantyhose to work. There is one incident I want to tell you about. One day while at work I had some skin problems with my hands. So I called and made an appointment with Kaiser and got in to see the doctor. Everything was fine until he wanted to take a look at my feet. "Oh no, I'm wearing pantyhose today." I thought quick and told him I had foot odor and wanted to wash my feet. Luckily he obliged. That was the closest I came to having anyone find out besides my wife, but in reality, she still didn't know the extent of my crossdressing.

Many years passed, and I concealed my desires to crossdress from my wife and son. I was now able to wear some on my wife's dresses and other garments. I enjoyed these times, especially when she was sent on business trips for her job. Still, I never accomplished the look of a woman because I never had shoes or a wig. I also never tried using makeup. So the image was rather disheartening. For many of us, this all developed slowly.

Even when perms for men were in vogue, my wife suggested I get one, I did and I still looked like a man in a dress. It was depressing. Yet, I stuck with my marriage and family. There were hard times but it all was worth the effort to stay together. We had a love even we sometimes didn't understand.

In the past few years my desires to crossdress became very strong and I began doing it more and more. Two years ago we celebrated our 25^th Wedding Anniversary, and around that time I started to allow Karen to make her presence known. This was done through her personality traits that were not part of my normal male behavior. Because of this change in me our relationship grew stronger. To tell you the truth, I didn't understand why at that time.

The following year my company offered me a job in another city near my wife's relatives. I accepted. We moved but our son, who was then 19, stayed behind. This gave our relationship a chance to grow. I moved first and my wife joined me later. All our things were moved with me so I had many of my wife's things to try on whenever I wanted. And I did.

Things were beginning to change rapidly. My appetite for crossdressing was becoming insatiable. Thinking there was something seriously wrong with me I started searching the Internet for information about crossdressing or transvestism. I wanted to know how to solve my problem. What I learned was absolutely startling. There were many others just like me; thousands, millions, almost all with similar circumstances and stories of growing up. I was not alone. I also learned that it was almost impossible to eliminate these desires. The best thing to do would be to accept who I am and to consider myself a special kind of person. The general population may not be accommodating but I am now comfortable with myself and I am no longer living in shame and despair.

The next chapter, "How My Wife Learned About Karen"