Whenever I write a story about my past, it's always a true one. Told from my memory, which is quite good on things in my past. Less so on things in the short term, but long term I'm very good on. So here is another story from my distant crossdressing past.
This time my personal time travelling machine has landed back in December 1981. We now lived in a small village called Marchwood which sits on Southampton Water opposite the city of Southampton. I had finished my compulsory schooling six months before, and I was now attending Sixth Form College. I had been crossdressing regularly for almost four years by this time.
I usually crossdressed on Saturday afternoons. My sister was still being taken to athletics meetings by my parents, around the county of Hampshire and sometimes further afield for national events. However there was an opportunity coming up that offered a different crossdressing opportunity for me.
As well as being one of the UK's most promising middle/long distance runners, my little sister also played cello in the school orchestra. And she was going to be playing with them in the annual Christmas Carol concert which was attended by parents. I wasn't at all interested in attending. Partly because I hadn't had a good time at that school and returning to it so soon was somewhat triggering. And also because I had a much more exciting thing to do.
On the evening of the concert, I tried to hide my sense of excitement and anticipation from my family. But I was watching the clock, desperate for 6.00pm to come. The concert was due to begin at 7.30pm and participants needed to be at the school an hour before. The concert was due to finish at 9.00pm. My family would return home at 9.30pm. I had three hours to complete my mission with time to get things back in place.
At 6.00pm my family left for the concert as planned. I waited for fifteen minutes and then began my mission. The Walk.
I went into my parents bedroom and sat at the dressing table mirror and applied my make-up as I had done hundreds of times before. My light brown hair was now cut in a unisex style that was easy to style so it was like Princess Diana's hairstyle.
Once my hair and make-up was done, I got myself dressed. No need to sit and choose what to wear. I already knew exactly what I was going to wear. I put on a white long leg Playtex 18 Hour corselette. I always got such a thrill from feeling it tightly hugging my body and thighs. I filled the breast cups with white socks and smoothed them to give a good impression of having a pair of boots. Next I pulled on a pair of 20 denier tan tights (pantyhose to my friends across the pond). I had learned early on in my crossdressing journey that it was best to buy my own hosiery as it can so easily get damaged, which is not good especially when your clothes donor (My Mother) has an expensive taste in such garments. Something i have inherited from her. So the tights belonged to myself, and used to be hidden in a box of Subbuteo table soccer. I still have the Subbuteo set and often thing about what used to hide in it.
Once my underwear was on, I went to the wardrobe and selected a high necked cream blouse and pastel blue skirt suit, which came to just above my knee. When I first began wearing my mother's clothes back in 1978, as a 13 year old, her size 12 garments were a little too loose on me. Now nearly 4 years on and as a 16 year old, on the cusp of adulthood I was in the same situation, but with my Mother's now size 14 clothes. She still had some size 12 garments that I could squeeze into, but I was somewhere in between 12 and 14 in UK dress size. Thankfully the skirt fitted perfectly. I was still able to wear my Mum's size 6 shoes although within months I would have to buy some shoes of my own as my feet grew to their current size 9. I chose a pair of flat dark blue shoes. This was no time for heels.
I took a square headscarf from a draw, placed it over my hair and tied under my chin, and then put a knee length mid blue button up coat with a brown faux fur collar over the top of my suit. I also put on a pair of black leather gloves. Last but not least I took a black handbag from where my Mum kept them, on top of the wardrobe. I popped my house keys in the bag.
I looked in the full length mirror. As ever I felt that wonderful thrill that was always so familiar. And oh so wonderful. But no time to stand admiring my feminine beauty. Oh no I had a mission to complete.
The Walk
Well else is a teenage Tgirl going to do with an evening to kill, but go out and have fun? Well i certainly wasn't going to be painting the town red. But I was going to venture out beyond the front door. And not just for a walk around the block. But for a circular walk of over a mile around the village.
It was a dark chilly winter evening. The night sky was full of stars and a frost was already beginning to form on the grass. The time was 7.00. I figured I needed forty minutes to complete my planned mission.
I must admit that I hadn't thought about any of the potential dangers or problems I might have undertaking such an adventure. I was just so caught up in the excitement of it. However I suddenly felt very nervous as I stepped out of the front door and heard it close behind me. Had I remembered my keys? I felt a sense of panic rising at that thought. I looked in the handbag. There they were. My panic subsided.
I walked a couple of yards to the side gate which led onto a footpath that ran alongside the house and down towards the church and the main road through the village. I felt a real thrill as I walked down the footpath, past St John's Church and out onto Main Road.
Suddenly I wss on the main drag through the village. I crossed over to to the other side of the road and walked up towards the railway line a couple of hundred metres around the corner. A couple of cars drove past. I felt ok. Nervous but ok.
I was going to cross the road about 30m past the railway level crossing into Long Lane. Just after I crossed the railway line, a teenage boy aged about 14 rode past me on a bicycle. He slowed, turned around and looked over his shoulder at me. I didn't recognise him. But my heart was in my mouth. Would he stop or turn back towards me? He looked ahead and turned up Long Lane and peddled away around the corner. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I crossed over the road and headed onto Long Lane. A car came around the corner and illuminated me in it's headlights. I concentrated on looking ahead, trying not to look suspicious in anyway. With each of these incidents, my heart was racing, but as the danger of being caught subsided, I felt a massive sense exhilaration.
Just as I turned the sharp bend about 50m along Long Lane I heard a very familiar sound. A small motorbike was riding along Main Road behind me. I felt a sense of panic. What if it turned onto the road i was walking along. My reason for feeling worried was that the motorbike was the mount of the local village policeman. And this policeman knew me very well, because his wife was close friends with my Mum. Would he stop and challenge me if he saw me? Would he think I was my Mum and stop to say hello? Not such a flight of fancy, given I was dressed in her clothes. The sense of relief as I heard his bike carry on along Main Road was immense. He was obviously heading home to the Police House further along Main Road and not doing a patrol of the village.
It was at this point it really dawned on me, how risky this walk was. I must be mad. I was now walking along Long Lane, parallel to The Crescent, which was a rather rough council estate. I hoped no one from the council estate would see me,especially the younger residents. Thankfully the cold weather was keeping them in.
The next challenge that I hadn't thought about was just after I crossed the entrance to The Crescent. The house on the corner of the road was where a friend of mine lived. His bedroom actually looked down over Long Lane. What if he looked out of his window and saw me? Or came out of his house? He didn't. But this wasn't the last of these moments for me.
But I now felt that I was definitely going to get away with my evening walk without any problems. It was getting colder by the minute. I was glad of a warm coat and my gloves. And such was my excitement I didn't feel any chill. The cold was putting people off from being out and about. Perfect for my first trip out.
Some 30m on from my first friends house on The Crescent, I walked past some large semi detached houses, in one of which, another friend lived. But by now I was not worried about it. I knew I would pass by his house without incident and I did.
Another 15m and I reached a crossroads. Staplewood Lane to my left and Tavells Lane to my right. I needed to turn right to continue my circular route.
The walk along Tavells Lane was for the most part uneventful and I was now really enjoying being out as a woman. I loved feeling the cold night air drifting up under my skirt. One small problem was my Mum's shoes were just a little tight and now beginning to feel uncomfortable. I hadn't walked more than 20m in women's shoes and now I was wearing them for over a mile in distance.
I came to another level crossing over the same railway line I had crossed earlier in my walk. Right next to the line was a house where another friend lived. Again I paid it no heed and just traipsed past, caught up in my femme feelings.
As I crossed over the railway line I could now see the entrance to my road about 250m away. I felt myself beginning to congratulate myself on making it around the whole walk undetected. And then a man walked around the corner of my road and down Tavells Lane. Heading directly towards me. There was no way to avoid this. We were going to pass, face to face within a few feet of each other.
I instinctively knew that I had to keep looking ahead and not at my feet. My heart was trying to leap out of my chest, but I concentrated on keeping my head up and looking confident. I certainly didn't feel confident.
We closed on each other in just over a minute and as we got closer I saw it was a man in his fifties or so. No one I recognised, or who would recognise me, thankfully. As we got with a couple of metres I instinctively made eye contact and smiled slightly. Then he spoke, "Evening ". "Good evening " I replied. I was absolutely terrified, and could feel myself trembling. "Parky tonight isn't it?" He said. "It sure is" I replied. And that was it. He kept walking and so did I.
As I reached the junction with Sandpiper Close, my road, I had to stop for a moment and regain my composure. And as my adrenaline slowly subsided, I felt a massive rush of excitement. I had just had my first short interaction with another person as a woman. And it felt amazing. I walked along my road and intended to walk the whole length of the road to the cul de sac at the end, where I lived. But then I had a feeling that I had already pushed my luck. Why risk getting caught by a neighbour? So I turned onto Woodpecker Drive and after 30m I came to the start of the footpath that ran past my house.
As I walked up the footpath I felt almost giddy with excitement. I could see the large oak tree up ahead that stood next to my house. And then I was stood in front of a very familiar gate. The same one that I had walked through to begin my walk just over half an hour ago.
I opened the gate, and took my keys from the handbag and went in through the front door. As I closed the door behind me, I felt a massive wave of emotion hit me. I had done it. I had walked outside around the village dressed as a woman. And not encountered any real problems. There had been a few heart in mouth moments but these now seemed quite insignificant as I reflected back on my achievement.
The clock said 7.53 as I got home. So I had plenty of time before my family would be home. I stayed dressed en-femme until 8.30 and just enjoyed the feeling and thrill of being the girl who went out in the world. Just like any woman would.
As I have progressed through my life as a crossdresser, I have come across stories similar to mine hundreds of times. That surreptitious late night jaunt around the block or a walk to post a letter at the post box at the end of the road. All done whilst wearing feminine finery. All telling tales of the exhilaration of getting away with it. It's almost a Tgirl right of passage.
Thinking back on my adventure, it seems almost an act of folly. My only consideration was what if I got caught out, dressed en-femme? And I must admit that there was a large element of thrill in the moments when that was a risk. Not in the moments themselves, but immediately afterwards. As that adrenaline rush surged through my body.
And one thing that I never considered for a moment was the danger of being out at night as a woman. When my Mum went to her Women's Institute meetings, up at the village hall, my Dad would either take her in the car or walk with her, to make sure she got there safely. It's a sad fact of life that in the later decades of the 20th century, it became dangerous for women to be outside alone at night. And it continues to be so today.
As a 16 year old boy dressed in women's clothes I was actually as much, if not more at risk, walking along dark lanes like Long Lane and Tavells Lane. But as a 16 year old boy dressed in my everyday clothes, that risk wasn't a consideration. My parents didn't worry when I left the house the following night and walked to and from the youth club at the village hall. But my Dad wouldn't let my Mum do that walk alone in the dark. But it never crossed my mind that I should worry about that risk. Because I saw the world from the point of view of being a boy, despite my feminine desires and nature.
When I began going out dressed en-femme properly, I was in my mid forties and I had years of life experience behind me. I was not a niave kid. So I knew the dangers of being as a woman in certain circumstances. The dangers that real women face in their lives applied to me as much as them. And I took the same actions to mitigate that danger as any sensible woman does.
I think it's awful that women have to deal with the dangers caused by the toxic masculinity of men. And it's still just as bad.Back then you could trust a police man. Now a policeman could potentially be a sex attacker.
But going back to that night and walk, I felt so much exhilaration and excitement from doing that walk. It seemed such a huge thing to do as an emerging Tgirl. And yet here I sit, now 60 years old and I can think back on all of my experiences out in the real world.
I have travelled on my own on public transport, hailed and ridden in taxis, driven many hundreds of miles. Walked around many towns, and cities, including travelling around London. I've done a lot. And all while wearing the clothes I prefer and presenting as a woman.
I'm very proud of what i have achieved as a transgender person. And it all started in December 1981 with a walk.
