Hello everyone! My name is Roxana (Roxy) and this is a small contribution from me to this lovely site and its creators, Violett and Laura. I am a 38 year old transgender woman (at the time of writing this post) who started transitioning about 2 years ago (I only started HRT 8 months ago).
Today I want to share a bit of my story, specifically how crossdressing helped me in my journey of self-acceptance and defining my identity. I want to clarify before I continue, that I know that not all experiences are the same; we all have our journey in this life and we should all enjoy it and do what makes us happy, as long as we are not hurting anyone.
I remember that from a young age I always had a fascination with women's clothes. I didn't know exactly why, but I did know that I had to keep this fascination a secret (maybe it was because of my father's way of being or maybe it was a religious thing, who knows). I was an only child for the first 8 years of my life; my parents used to leave me alone at home after school, as that was the norm in my country. We lived with my parents and an aunt and her husband in the same house. I spent most evenings watching cartoons and most of the time I went out with a group of friends from my neighbourhood. I can't say for sure what went through my head the first time I decided to rummage through my aunt's drawers looking for something to wear, I really don't remember. The adrenaline that ran through my body for fear of being caught didn't let me enjoy the moment too much, I just remember that I felt like I wanted to carry them with me all the time.
After my brother was born, I had to spend more time at home taking care of him, so that gave me more time to try on more clothes. It became a love-hate relationship. I loved feeling the clothes on me, but I felt really bad, like I was stealing clothes from my aunt. I didn't know why I was doing it, I just felt the urge to do it whenever I could. When I went to school, I was always envious of the girls and their school uniforms, "why can't I be the one wearing that uniform" I would say to myself knowing I could never say it out loud.
I think the only part of my body I really liked was my legs, and so I always wanted to be able to wear a skirt to show them off. And so I grew up carrying this 'secret' with me, something I was always afraid someone would find out, something that made me feel guilty and ashamed...". Today I want to share a bit of my story, specifically how crossdressing helped me in my journey of self-acceptance and defining my identity. I want to clarify before I continue, that I know that not all experiences are the same; we all have our journey in this life and we should all enjoy it and do what makes us happy, as long as we are not hurting anyone.
It wasn't something I did every day, but it was always on my mind. I would always look at random girls or my friends and wonder what I would look like in those clothes. As a teenager, when my body starts to show more changes in my physical appearance, the feeling was a bit different.
I still tried on clothes that I could take from anywhere (I am ashamed to admit that I stole some clothes from some of my female relatives), but now I didn't like what I saw in the mirror when I tried on clothes; now there were parts of my body that didn't match those of the female body and so I began to resent more the fact that I wasn't born a girl.
This feeling stayed with me well into adulthood, and although it didn't stop me from buying clothes and shoes once I started working, I just enjoyed the experience of getting new clothes, but once I tried them on, the feeling of failure returned, of not looking good in the clothes I had just bought. Sometimes I would keep the clothes for a long time in the hope that one day I would feel different in my body, but I always ended up throwing them away. Angry because I couldn't enjoy the feeling of wearing those clothes anymore, angry because my body didn't fit well in the clothes, angry because I had this secret about myself that no one else could know, just angry.
I don't think I knew the word "trans" back then, but I knew the word "crossdressing", with all the bad connotations it has. So I considered myself crossdressing for some time, you can call my acceptance of that period of my life. Once I saw that clothes weren't going to be enough for me to enjoy myself in front of the mirror, I started looking into getting a wig and putting on makeup and trying to apply it. I grew up in the 90s, but my first adulthood and the period when I had enough money to buy my own stuff was the 2000s, so I had access to the internet and online shops were becoming more and more common, so I was able to order some stuff online and that's how I got my first wig; it was a very cheap wig for costumes, but for me it was better than nothing. But then again, I tried it on and I didn't like it.
I also bought a lipstick because I thought it was the only make-up that was easy to apply, but how wrong I was! Try after try, I kept failing to get the look I wanted, but I never really stopped (I will stop for a while, but I will always come back to the same thing).
I mentioned before, that I had access to the internet and you might wonder if I tried to talk to other people like me, and the answer is no, I didn't. I didn't know how to start sharing my secret with other people. I didn't know how to start sharing my secret with other people, I was always afraid, even though I knew that the web would give me anonymity, I still wasn't ready to share it. So life happened, and I had to leave my country and come to live in Spain.
My first year here was for me to get used to it and find a job, etc. So I didn't focus too much on my other "hobby" that I had, even though I wasn't very good at it, but I knew that in Madrid there was a big LGBTQ+ community, so I thought there must be people like me or places where we could meet or do something. I started looking on the internet and found a place where, for a fee, they would do your make-up. I decided to go and it was the first time I could really see myself in the mirror, it was the first time since I was a kid that my clothes fit me really well and I didn't want to take them off. From there, I started to meet other crossdressings and, to my surprise, they were really nice people! I became friends with some of them and shared my experience (or a bit of it) with them and they shared their experiences with me.
I was finally able to fully enjoy the crossdressing. This is when my journey took a different path to many other people who cross-dress. As I put on my make-up, wore my favourite skirts and dresses, went out, people treated me like a girl, I realised that what I felt and what I needed was different. I always denied my own identity because I felt that my body wasn't right, and so I always thought that the only way to really be a girl was to die and be reborn. But I was wrong, and thanks to crossdressing I realised that I could feel and live as the woman I was supposed to be all along. Thanks to crossdressing, I had the courage to go out in public and show myself to other people on the Internet. Thanks to crossdressing, I was able to feel an acceptance of myself that I had never felt in my entire life. Thanks to crossdressing, I felt that I no longer needed to die to make my dream come true.
crossdressing helped me fight the dysphoria I have felt for so long, it made me smile instead of cry when I looked in the mirror. It made me meet beautiful people I wouldn't have met if I hadn't tried it. There is a debate about what makes a woman a woman, and I know it's not just clothes and make-up, but they sure go a long way to making us feel beautiful and good about ourselves. They help us express our beauty in ways that we can't express in any other way.
If you've made it to the end, I just want to say that although when I was younger I didn't want to search the internet for other people who might feel the same as me, I wish I had thought differently because I have met some really beautiful people in the community, so please don't ever feel alone in your journey and although I also said that at times I didn't feel good about how I looked, we all have to feel good how we want to feel! My experience doesn't have to be exactly the same as yours. Don't be afraid to buy that dress, that pair of shoes or that sexy lingerie. I'm sure you'll enjoy it, enjoy crossdressing as much as you want as you're not doing anything wrong!
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