In 1960 I was a freshman in high school. I had been cross-dressing for 5 years at that point. I remember those times like it was yesterday. I remember hearing about Christine Jorgensen as a preteen. I was fascinated but couldn't ask for more information about her. (From other accounts, I understand that she spent some time at Casa Susanna as did some other pioneers in the transgender scene.) It was the first inkling that I had that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't alone in my love of women's (girl's at that time) clothes.

It was in those years, I honed my skills as a thespian. I played a convincing role without ever having trod the boards. I played the part of an average American boy. Cowboys and Indians, baseball, football and boy scouts, were all part of getting into character.

All the while deep inside there was a little girl that only I knew about trying desperately to get out. I wasn't until I'd been married five years, more than two decades after I first put on a pair of panties, that she actually saw the light of day.

Like so many others who had no one to guide their journey, I thought it would be over when I got married; that my wife would satisfy all my needs of feminine things in my life, only to discover for the first time since my sister left the house there was a full woman's wardrobe right there in the closet... and a surprising amount of it fit me.

The inevitable happened. My wife caught me. It boiled down to her saying, "Do it if you must. Just don't let me see it." Thank God she softened that stance over the years. Some where in the early to mid 70s, I discovered the first transgender community I'd ever heard of.

For example, we learn that this was a place for “cross-dressing men who were exclusively heterosexual”, hence the wives being there. They wanted to distinguish themselves from gay people, as they couldn’t accept what they saw as being two marks against their names.

The community I found was founded on that principle and I felt it was necessary for my wife's sake that I make that known. I felt just like that. As a transgender individual (cross-dresser in those days) I had a lot of baggage to tote around. I didn't need to pick up the baggage of gays.

Even today, I still cringe at the fact that there is a T added to LGB where I feel we really don't belong. I've matured enough to understand why the grouping is what it is. But still I wish it had been transgenders leading the movement and all the rest tagging along. Remember it transgenders who were the targets of Stonewall.

'Nuff said, I'm rambling.

Thanks for that blast from the past.