All those Firsts ... the First Panties

I'm sure it was a panty that was the first first.

Yes - I’m just that bit different – yeah, THAT bit and I wear woman’s clothes - every day. And it can be wonderful. There are risks - but... I've got through the horrors. Overall, I love what I am and how I present as a confident woman.

Jottings from a Notebook / Diary – (not a daily diary anyway).

Yes - I’m just that bit different – yeah, THAT bit and I wear woman’s clothes - every day. And it can be wonderful. There are risks - but... I've got through the horrors. Overall, I love what I am and how I present as a confident woman.

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I'm sure it was a panty that was the first first - but I can't remember the colour or the style or ..., then a little later Shiela's best satin-style panties. Then a skirt, the bra, then pantyhose, those heels. Wow. It takes a bit of an effort to look back and remember exactly what order I learnt about dressing up and the inner-girl that was waiting, and hiding. What remains locked in my mind, whatever the item, was that wonderful sensation as I wore the right clothes for that first time.

I can't remember every detail of those initial gorgeousnesses. But with the forgetting of the lovely, there has been some forgetting of the horrible. The comments, the glares, the verbals, the physicals. the whole accumulation of nasties. As I've got older and been less bothered about 'them' ... some of it has become less noticeable. But abuse can go so so deep. I know that a tiny bit of it is actually me misinterpreting, misunderstanding and some is sometimes water off a duck's back. But not all of it. And some of it hurts so much.

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I’ve been Allison for years now, decades actually. I’m content, comfortable and pretty much satisfied with where I am in my life. But it’s drawing to a close – and some secrets should be hidden from those who deal with the aftermath. I don’t know if they’ll suddenly dislike me or if they’ll … fill the gap … I just don’t know. All I’ve learnt from the Allison part of my life is that hate can burst out from those who did appear to like you – but then sometimes friends arrive unexpectedly.

I've been married - not for very long. Cancer is a vile thing. But our two children were in their late teens and moving off to college. They're good kids. I had, I hope they'd say, a pretty good relationship. They've both moved some distance away with their jobs but we speak several times a week. They visit. I visit. Some years after Jennie died, I became more obvious with my dressing and they were very, amazingly, accepting. It probably helped that they had good friends since school days who were actively LGB. But they know me as a sort of 'mum' but they don't know all of it. They don't know I've dressed almost all my life. They don't know about the days of drag, the eventual avoidance of gay. I've not talked about the attempts to be extra-macho in the hope femme-me would fade away. What a stupid suggestion that was. They only know about the last 20 or so years of being a passable ageing woman.

The time is coming. I’ve got to tidy up a little. It’s not as if my children know well how my life has been and how complicated it’s been. Tidy it all up. Remove much of the evidence. If they don’t know they can’t complain, eh?

Clothes and all that – I’ve only worn dresses and the like, it feels like forever now. Nothing to throw away. Tim might wonder about the army beret and the medals. It would have been disrespectful to throw them. I've not talked at all about that time.

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Yes – that problem about real friends, ex-friends and new friends – such a big part of being T. Stories tell of Ts, young pretty instantly-passing T-girls who … those are NOT my favourite stories.

I’ve tried really hard not to be too upset at the ex-friends and to welcome the new. But it can be hard.

Like many T – I’ve lost friends, family, opportunities. Due to my circumstances, I can’t say I’ve lost jobs – though I suspect so. Most especially when I was less good at passing. When I didn’t have the confidence.

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Out in the real-T world – there’s rather too much knowledge about what conversely might be called the Reality (read it rather as RealitT) world. Passing well is rare. Those who do so – well some of them actually make a career in modelling, or films or media. Astonishing – and a huge encouragement to a very few Ts.

But most of us don’t pass well. Even though there’s NO statistics that have a feel of truth.

And if you don’t pass to your own satisfaction – by golly don’t ‘they’ make it very ugly obvious. Perhaps that’s when there’s the largest risk and the all-too-probable obliteration of reputation and respect from ‘them’.

To be blunt, in the daily world, there’s not a worthwhile reputation in being T.

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Exactly why the wearing of womanly costume should generate such virulence and loathing is not clear to any T.

There are phrases, much translated and revised to fit the then-current prejudices, that god ‘detests’ men wearing women’s clothes and women wearing men’s clothes. Not man’s choice – oh no – God’s wording. Ha. Nothing like that in any major religious text except the Jewish-Christian bible.

But modern western (judeo-christian) women DO wear men’s clothes. Priests wear what I can only describe as a gown (dress).
But men can’t. Modern men, unlike their long ago counterparts cannot be colourful, flamboyant. They cannot wear other than grey, dull, drab, BORING. Real extroverts can have colourful ties, or socks or even garish holiday shirts. And women can wear anything they like including every piece of apparel that men claim.
One of the BIG puzzles.

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It’s so long since I stopped being Bill.

It was almost before Trans existed as a# well-known word – before Transgender, before Transexual, before LGB even. The words might have existed in some deep dark recess of Soho or San Francisco or similar – but not for the likes of me. No Tavistock, no Mermaids – nothing. Not a mention anywhere – except in the corners of some seedy bars in Soho and the nearby bookshops. Yes, there were books of porn in those days – Videos too later, and some films – old days indeed.
Once I had got the courage to visit some of these places, I did find copies of a booklet called Transvestia – from America. It had biographical stories, fiction, photographs and chit-chat about the ‘scene’. Driven by the trans-activist Virgina Prince, there were about 100 issues from 1960 to 1980. It did diverge in 2 key issues – it stated that the magazine was for Heterosexual Crossdresser and coined the word Femmiphile abbreviated as FP. Virginia was, (of course) disowned by her rich family.

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It’s actually quite hard to remember what it was like learning to be T back then. There were NO ways to learn or investigate until you already knew quite a lot. Logical Catch-22-type hiccup – how can you get that learning?

I didn’t know anything then. Some MIGHT have heard of April Ashley in the newspapers – born in Liverpool in 1935, one of nine children, she joined the merchant navy before going to Morocco for her operation at the age of 25. She earned the money performing a drag act at Le Carrousel in Paris. She worked as a model and in films but was exposed as trans which hugely affected her future life. She returned to Britain in 2005 and became a Grande Dame of the T-world.

There were others, there are now many more – some transitioning while young, others much later. The list of pre-2000 examples includes Jan Morris, Caroline Cossey (who was in a Bond film under her stagename Tula), Fay Presto the magic act, and others; the ‘Captain who changed Sex’ and similar. There was no mention or perhaps careful avoidance of any boy-man-girl-woman who underwent the surgery and chemicals to become as they wished. What did happen was grubby expose of private lives in the delivery of ‘what the public needed to know […so that we can publicise prurient and smutty stories for your benefit]’.

Even back then there were arguments about labelling. The influence of Virginia Prince in particular was against Ts who were homosexual or who underwent surgery or who, by whatever definition, fetishists. That was then. Perhaps things have changed. Ho ho.

Since I’m writing about it, I’ve done a little research recently and Wikipedia summarises the 3 key aims of Virginia and the magazine. It’s difficult to improve on what she said :- "To provide expression for those interested in the subjects of unusual dress and fashion... to provide information to those who, through ignorance, condemn that which they don't understand... [and] to provide education for those who see evil when none exists." These three objectives—education, entertainment, and expression—were promoted in order to "...help... readers achieve understanding, self-acceptance, [and] peace of mind"

Unacceptable then. Occasionally acceptable now (sometimes, maybe, depending).

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Back then I smirked at the Pythons in 1969 … ‘I want to be a lumberjack,’ and thought how silly then the change of emphasis to ‘I cut down trees. I wear high heels, Suspendies, and a bra. I wish I'd been a girlie, Just like my dear Papa.’ I can’t remember the reaction from my mum and dad. I think they hooted with laughter and probably completely forgot the whole sketch as soon as the next one began. Now – I wonder exactly how many of those uber-macho men are/were, psycho-jargon, overcompensating. Like I did. But then I wasn’t an adult. I was mid-teens – born in the early-1950s – 15th February 1954 to be precise. If born the day before, mum did say they thought of calling me Valentine. I think that would not have been good. Not for a boy who was never very macho.

The year after the Big Winter 62-63, I had only just begun to be, er, more than unusually interested in my mum’s and my sister’s clothes. Their panties, then their skirts and dresses. It was a while later when I wondered about their bras and how those complicated-looking things were supposed to adorn any human body. Puberty wasn’t happening for me at that age.

But I really enjoyed their panties. The ordinary cotton Shiela used for school – not so much. The pretty frilly ones for her dancing class – nice. The sleek satin ones – very nice. Mum had bigger ones, mostly kept for too many years and losing style and shape – less interesting.

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I think, in fact looking back, I am sure enough that I hid my, erm, proclivities well enough. I never asked. I never remember any snarky comment that might have been heard as ‘panty-wearing boy’. And I did keep my ears ready for any such.

I did learn. Of course I did. And I can’t remember anything of real note. I could semi-invent a story about getting (stealing) my first bra and the wonder of putting on one that fitted (approximately. I certainly remember going to M&S as a young student and asking for assistance ‘so that I buy a bra that fits properly’. The girl stopped for a moment, shocked maybe, then clearly moved into sales-mode and dealt with me as a slightly unusual customer.

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Oh, those ‘Firsts’. I remember the first long skirt, pale blue multi-layered cotton; the first short skirt, pink jersey with white trim; the first falsies that felt ‘real enough’. The first trip out in a complete outfit. The first trip to the salon for a boy-girl androgynous cut. So many firsts – and I can’t be bothered to tell you about each or any of them. Maybe another time.

Eventually I went to college, lived on my own with a landlady. The first one threw me out when my panties were found in the wash. The third, I think, muttered ‘it takes all sorts’ and washed and ironed them for me. Later, she said that it was not really what she wanted from a tenant, but her friend Josie Matthews was actually willing to take me on.

I was simultaneously appalled and excited – and probably several other emotions. But I moved about a fortnight later. Josie had a bigger house with bigger rooms. Four students lived there – and I was the only boy. I was certain of that.

I was soon corrected. Even then, there were friends and more encouragingly, in communist jargon, ‘fellow travellers’. Jossie was a pretty-boy drag artiste at several clubs in Soho. Darla was a very femmy, petite, barely 5 foot, blonde ultra-brainy pharmacy student. Angela was Josie’s niece, a 21 year old ex-boy with lovely long brown hair and a necklet of blue and silver tattooed stars. I felt lumpy and out-of-place for the first week.

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It all changed at the College’s first ever Pride Weekend.

And the week after when my mum and sis visited.

I toned it down – toned it a LONG way down. No makeup obviously. No nail polish. No bra. No skirt or dress, no wig. It didn’t make me feel comfortable. But it felt wrong not to wear panties. That was the least I could cope with.

I supposed I’d grown away from home. In both senses – I had grown up while being away from home and I had spiritually separated from home at the same time.

What did they know about new-me?

Old-Bill was, I guessed they would think and remember me as ‘quite ordinary’. Just under 5 foot 6, played some sport, sat in the middle of the class academically, did some extra-curricular hobbies like car maintenance and theatre lighting. He rarely came to the attention of the administration – middle, middle, middle was a fair label. That was Bill. Did they know that, like so many, Bill was a bit different. He had passions and foibles carefully kept out of sight even from his family. He’d spent time enough on the web to know that ‘different is targeted’.

As far as anyone knew, he was / his family was as average and normal and ordinary as possible. He’d never had any particular desire to rebel, to SHOUT, to jump around doing something silly. He’d never really thought about ‘how could I be different if I wanted’. Some time later, looking back, he told me ‘I was a bit of a zero really’.

That was me. Back then. Before. Before I dressed most of the time as Allison. Before I found Allison. Before I uncovered ME – Allison.

Allison was tall for a girl, almost always with 2 inch heels so 5 foot 8, some curve, and hair below the neck usually in a short braid or ponytail. So – as well as the minimal clothing, as androgynous as possible. I’d had my hair re-styled to long-andro-semi-male or as near as the girls could arrange. They’d painted in my eyebrows too. The four holes in my ear … perhaps they wouldn’t be noticed.

And tomorrow might be different?

What I did NOT expect was that I would be welcomed.

What they noticed was that underneath the depression-of-the-day in not being en femme. I was happy. And THAT was different.

Shiela broke the ice. “I should have guessed. You’ve had your ears pierced – and twice each side not the way that guys do it.” She giggled and nudged mum. “And if you look, his eyebrows have been plucked, and there’s the way he sits. Mum, Bill’s a girl. Like you thought.”

EEeeeeekkkk.

What could I do. I burst into tears. And they BOTH hugged me.

“What’s your name, honey? ‘Cos you’re not really very much of a Bill…”

“Allison.”

“Oh, sweetie. Is that ‘cos my name’s Alice. But maybe not the '-son' tag. Perhaps you could have tried Alicia. But, whatever, we love Alison. Hello, darling."