Grandpa Dave has a saying he's fond of: Be careful of what you wish for, you might get it. It's the kind of stuff old people like to say to young people. Lord knows I've used it a time or two myself.

In the thirteen (almost fourteen) years of my life before that momentous week nothing all that earth shaking had happened. I had never done anything to get my name in the newspaper unless you count a caption under the picture when a bunch of us from the school cleaned up the roadside. This was years before the first Earth Day, so I guess it really was pretty unusual.

I'd done my first communion at church, but my name only got in the church bulletin. Besides, the whole thing was pretty much pro forma. The family wasn't quite Christmas-and-Easter Christians, but we weren't all that worried when we skipped a few Sundays in the pews. Considering what some of the religious nuts think of us trans folk, I suppose that was a pretty good thing.

Nope, until I tried on my first bra my life was pretty much steady and unexceptional.

On Tuesday I discovered I really wanted to wear girl's clothes. On Friday I discovered that as much as I was convinced I had hidden my desires so well, my parents knew all about it and my mother and grandmother had even bought me a bra and something to fill it with so I could see what it felt like. Far from freaking out, they were actually helping me.

How many shocks can a teenage boy, who wants to be a girl, take in less than one week? Apparently one more - they were taking Connie - that's me in a dress - out for dinner within hours of letting me know my secret wasn't so secret. I had on a dress and all the appropriate underwear for a girl in the early sixties, including those adorable shiny black shoes with the little bow on them, so I thought I was ready.

I had a lot to learn. There was jewelry, and Grandma Gladys had plenty for me to borrow. Since she had never had her ears pierced she had plenty of clip-on earrings to loan me. Naturally my mentors just turned me loose and let me pick something out. I suppose I was being tested for fashion sense.

I had picked out a cotton summer dress in pale blue with a high neckline, 3/4 sleeves, high waistline and a hemline that came well below the knee. I knew that the girls at school were constantly trying to see how short their skirts could be before they got that dreaded pink slip that sent them home to change into "something more appropriate to a young woman," but somehow I just knew that drawing too much attention to myself was a bad idea. Mom's warning about being careful was still fresh in my mind.

I had heard Mom talking about matching colors, so I had some idea of what I should do. It was hard to pick something out of all the earrings Grandma had, but I thought the plain silver discs were a good choice. Silver goes with any color, doesn't it? I got a thumbs up from Mom, so on to the next selection.

I needed a necklace, I tried a big gold thing but it didn't look right so I put it back. I could see both Mom and Grandma smiling so I knew I had made the right choice. I liked the beaded necklace in light blue and yellow and thought it was pretty good, so I looked at my panel of judges and they were smiling. Was I done?

Mom subtly wiggled her wrist and I notice she was wearing a bracelet, so I asked Grandma where she kept her bracelets and found three patterned silver rings that slipped over my hand if I squinched it up a bit. I thought the way they jangled when I moved was just about the most wonderful thing since I discovered wearing bras. I wondered if standing before a panel of judges if I ever got good enough at ice skating would be as nerve-wracking as waiting for approval of my jewelry. But I still wasn't done yet. The judges broke their silence.

"I'm impressed. You have very good taste for a someone who forgets to put their dirty socks in the wash for days at a time."

"Mom!"

"You do know you should rinse out your stockings in the sink and not throw them in the hamper?"

"Actually, I didn't."

"Well, now you do. Not that you'll be wearing stockings all that often. Tonight is rather special, but teen girls do not wear stockings to school as a regular thing."

"I've noticed. I see a lot of saddle shoes and socks with lace edges."

"Observant, aren't you."

"I thought a guy my age was supposed to be looking at girls."

"Not usually at their socks."

"I don't want to be like Jason and get clobbered for staring as Shelly Jo's boo… breasts."

"Good save. Be sure to think of them as breasts or bosoms now that you have them."

"Well, almost."

"You couldn't tell by looking. Ready to get your nails painted?"

"Wow!"

"Next test - what color will be good with that dress?" Grandma had quite a selection. I picked out a color. My first try was pretty rough, so Grandma took one hand and Mom the other and went to work. Time was passing and Dad would be here soon.

I wasn't allowed to pick which perfume I would be wearing, which was probably good as I hadn't a clue. Whatever they used it smelled pretty good.

"You're almost ready. Since this is a special occasion you get to use some makeup tonight."

"Cool!"

"Just wait until you can't stand your nose itching but can't touch it without messing up your makeup."

"Really?"

"Being a woman isn't as easy as it seems, daughter of mine."

"It looks so easy when you do it."

"Years of practice. If you really want to keep on with this then you'll have to do some learning. And you'll have to learn about the less glamorous parts of being a girl. You can start learning how to cook and help with the housework over the weekend. I wouldn't want you to think being a girl is all eating out and dressing up."

"I thought reading Seventeen or Vogue was all I needed."

"You'd better stop thinking like a boy if you want to be a girl. Get real!"

"Really, I do want to learn. I've figured out that what you see on TV or read in the magazines isn't exactly the whole story."

"That's for sure. But right now we need to give you a makeup lesson. Sit down in front of the mirror."

I sat.

"Not like that!" came from both Mom and Grandma. You have to brush your skirt under you so you don't let people see your panties. Especially your panties."

And thus began my deportment lessons. My high gradually got lowered as I received advice and instruction about a whole lot of little fiddly details. I know now that a woman born learns these things over a lifetime, I was trying to absorb in all in time to go to dinner.

I didn't need too much in the makeup department, with the wig my resemblance to my mother made me distinctly feminine. Some mascara, a bit of blush and some lipstick was all it amounted to, but I was once again floating in a feminine cloud. That is until my Dad came in and I noticed he was watching.

I know Mom had told me he as OK with all this, but I still jumped.

"You almost lost an eye there, lady. Hold still while I try and remove that black streak."

"Looks like you're finding out how much work it takes a woman to be ready to go out on the town, eh?"

I nodded. Wrong move!

"Hold still!" came the command.

"I'll just watch and won't ask any questions. Once you're beautiful we can talk on the way to town. I want to get to know my new daughter."

"I'm just getting to know her myself," I replied.

"I have to say that it's hard to see my son right now. I hadn't expected that."

"I hadn't expected all of this, either. I kind of expected to be grounded until I was going off to college."

"Something like that had crossed my mind, but I got overruled. Since I seem to be the only representative of the male sex here at the moment, I will tactfully agree to be guided by the women in my life."

"Remember that, Mom," my Mom told her Mom. "I want witnesses when he forgets his promise."

"Who's promising what up there?" came a voice from the stairway. Grandpa was home.

"Dave's promising to be guided by the obviously superior sex tonight," Grandma chortled.

"It ain't obvious to me which sex is superior, Gladys."

"Just like a man. Come and meet your latest granddaughter."

"Well I'll be hornswaggled! I spent the whole day drowning worms when I could have caught a mermaid if I stayed at home. Don't that beat all. You clean up pretty nice, Conrad."

"Connie, please, Grandpa."

"I suppose so. What these young whippersnappers won't think of to confuse us old far…"

"David!" warned Grandma.

"Fuddy-duddys, Gladys. What did you think I was going to say?"

"Old fart, you old fart."

"Now don't that stink? She can say it but I can't."

"You could always borrow a dress from the attic and then you might get away with saying it if women are permitted to use the term."

"I may be an old fart but I have no desire to be an old woman. I already got one of those in the place."

"Go and get cleaned up so we can go out to dinner. You smell like a fish."

"I'm not the only thing that's fishy around here."

"Go, David!"

Grandma had spoken.

Pretty picture I've drawn, isn't it? Understanding grandparents, understanding and even helpful parents, son who cleans up to look like his mother, access to lots of clothes, well-off family who can afford to indulge their child, instant transformation to beautiful (well, reasonably good looking, anyway) girl, a night on the town as soon as the beautiful girl is brought to life. Every transgendered person's ultimate fantasy, right? And all this in 1963, for heaven's sake.

I swear to you that's just how it happened. Really. When I left off the story I was, in a phrase that wouldn't be used until a few more years in the future, blissed out. My fantasies had come true.

As real life tends to be, the fantasy that had existed when I was sitting before the vanity mirror came crashing down when I got up and strode to the bedroom door.

"Connie!" came my mother's anguished cry.

"Oh dear!" my grandmother echoed.

"What?" I was confused.

"You do realize there's more to being a girl than just putting on some clothes?"

There was?

"What do you mean? You said I looked just like you did."

"Looked, my dear. Looks aren't everything, your attitude makes a big difference."

Oh boy. At thirteen 'attitude' was a loaded word. One I usually heard when I was pissed off - that's when I got accused of having an attitude. What did that have to do with me looking like a girl?

"Huh?"

"Connie, have you ever really looked at how the girls at school move, and I don't mean just watching their breasts bounce."

"Mom!"

"Seriously. Now you know that girls have different hip structure than boys so we move a bit differently when we walk, but I mean just how a girl holds her body and how she places her feet when she walks. What does she do with her hands? Where are her elbows when she moves? How does she rise from a chair? How does she settle into a chair?

"I don't…"

"Obviously! Honey, there's more to being a girl than just wearing the clothes. I have to think if you went and spent your own money to mail order clothes then you are serious about this whole thing, but if you want to do it you have to think about more than just the clothes."

"I suppose you're right, Mom."

"Of course she is, Connie," Grandmother said. "It took me years to teach your mother how to be a lady. I have to wonder just how successful she could be in teaching a boy how to be a girl. It isn't something you can go down to the library and check out a book to learn."

"I know. I've looked" I revealed.

"You did?" came the anguished response from my mother.

"Isn't that what you and dad taught me to do when we needed to know something?"

"She's got you there, Bev." Grandma was amused.

"The big library in the city had a reference to some German, but that's all. Besides, if he wrote in German it wouldn't do me much good."

"I can't imagine what the county commissioners would do if the library did have something about boys dressing as girls. They practically lost their minds when one of the magazines there had an article about 'The Pill.' They're all men, of course - wouldn't want a woman to have any choice about having babies. Good thing I can't get pregnant any more or I'd… I'd better not get started about that."

That was something I hadn't known. Now I knew why I was an only child. I didn't think this was the time to ask for details, though.

"Is that why you warned me I'd better not get a girl pregnant the other night."

"Or any other night. Not that you'd be getting anyone pregnant dressed like that."

"See - there's a good side to everything."

"Daughter, you're getting sidetracked," admonished Grandma.

I knew I got that tendency from somewhere.

"I suppose so. Think about walking down the hall with a girl at school."

"Like that would happen!"

"OK, a bunch of kids with some girls among them. Who walks faster and why?"

"The guys do. Maybe because they're bigger and take bigger steps?"

"That's one reason. So if you want to look like a girl, start by slowing down and taking smaller steps. We have wider hips so our balance is a bit different. We use our hands more than men when talking. There are lots of things, subtle things, that will make someone wonder when what you do isn't quite right."

"But how do I learn all that?" I wailed.

"Darn good question," replied Grandma. "The army had boot camp to teach men how to be manly, maybe we can find a high-heel camp to teach you how to be womanly."

"You're insane, Mother!" cried my mother.

"And you're not trying to teach your son to be a daughter?"

"I wonder if they take group reservations for the loony bin?"

"I don't know, but we do have reservations for dinner, so let's just try to give Connie some quiet hints about how to act properly and get going. The shower shut off a while back so David should about ready. I'm sure that Lawrence will be relieved now that we've had time to talk to Connie about things men are uncomfortable with.

So now you know how it all started, how a kid in the sixties was actually able to successfully crossdress without too much problem. I spent many weekends as Connie, as well as several notable summer vacations as Connie for a month at a time. I was fortunate to grow up in a time where long hair on men again became fashionable. By then I had let my hair grow and I no longer needed Grandma's wigs.

Mom did teach Connie to skate, as well as to cook, do laundry and housework. That sort of thing was truly enjoyable and made me feel that I was destined to be a girl. Unfortunately, the rest of the world didn't agree. Stonewall didn't happen until 1969, Renee Richards wasn't known until 1976 and the Harry Benjamin Standards weren't introduced until 1980. Crossdressing and transgenderism were thoroughly in the closet, especially in the small town where I came from.

Puberty finally hit me when I was almost sixteen, but it was pretty much a glancing blow. I finally got some pubic hair so I wasn't so obvious in gym class, but my voice barely changed and I stalled out at 5'7". In public I moaned about it, but privately I was happy that Connie didn't have to worry about standing above the crowd.

I barely had to shave, either. Much later in life, when the possibility of gender conforming surgery became a reality, I found out I had a testosterone level barely within the normal range. I've always been thankful for that, not only did it help me to be Connie, but I still had a full head of dark hair when I celebrated my 70th birthday. OK, I do have this cute white widow's peak that Isaac just loves.
 

Things changed radically when I went to college. The school I chose was far enough from home to make casual visiting a chore, and there was no room for Connie in a shared dorm room in a residence hall. I did my best to convince myself that Conrad was destined to be who I was, that Connie was an interesting phase in the life of a teenager. Nothing more than a phase…