My August

 Well August is done and dusted, and so is Summer in meteorological terms. And it suddenly feels very Autumnal too. Autumn is usually my most productive period for dressing, so bring it on. August saw the continuation of this Summer's drought, and it also saw a bit of a dressing drought for me. August was simply too hot and far too busy for dressing. It has been a productive month in many ways, but also frustrating at times. It has been exhausting too. 

My Wife has been struggling a little with her mobility. We have got a  hospital bed for her, which has improved things to some extent, but she is still having trouble getting into bed unassisted. We need to find a solution to this, to allow me to keep my independence and have time for myself, be it for dressing or other hobbies. I would like to be able to do my photography again. Hopefully we will get things sorted.  One area of success is finding the perfect bath chair that fits our small wet room, so getting my wife showered is a lot less stressful. But we did have a fall to contend with, although no injuries to my Wife resulted from it. I just wish we could settle into a safe and manageable routine that doesn't involve too much stress and moments of danger.              

We have been doing a makeover of our front garden. We got a company in to do the hard landscaping and lay a resin surface and then I added nearly half a ton of top soil and planted it up. It looks great, and much better than our messy old garden. And it's designed to be fairly maintenance free. It will look even better when I can put some containers of bedding plants out on it next year.

We had a visit from my Wife's sister and her husband, so I had to do a lot of extra housework to make our home spic and span. Hard work in the hot weather. It was nice for my Wife to see them, but her brother in law is awfully racist and homophobic, and at times I had to bite my tongue. If it was only for my Wife's sake I kept quiet. But despite his occasionally bigoted comments, it was good for my Wife. And we did get to go out for a lovely Sunday lunch at a nearby hotel and I had the best tiramisu I've ever tasted. That's the diet trashed, but it was so worth the calories. 

It's been difficult to maintain my fitness regime this month, and I ended up staying at the same weight for the whole month.  At least I didn’t put any weight on. I'm going to try harder next month. It was quite difficult with family here, because there was lots of eating out and takeaways  which don't help the waistline (including the aforementioned tiramisu).

One motivation I have to help get fit, is my new fitness/smart watch. The casing of my old Garmin Forerunner 35 running/smart watch broke when I was changing the strap, so I needed to get a new one. You know your transfemme when your main criteria is that the watch mustn't look to big or masculine. I have used Garmin watches since my marathon running days, and so I wanted to stay with them. A lot of running and fitness smart watches look very masculine and rugged, not to mention huge, but I found the Garmin Venu 3s fitted the bill, as far as features and looks. And especially the looks. I bought a white one with a white silicon strap, but I suffer from contact dermatitis if I wear silicon or rubber on my skin for too long, so I bought a white leather strap. The white colour is non binary/unisex, perhaps leaning towards femme. But the best thing is there are loads of pretty, feminine colours I can get extra straps in in. So I can buy a few straps and swap them to match my outfit. The watch has a changeable display too, and I went for a nice pink theme. I'm such a girl, and I love it.

My pretty new smart watch

I have had a light brown mark appear on the right side of my face just on the jawline. I thought I'd better get it checked out, so I asked the pharmacist about it. They said it's nothing to worry about. Just an age spot caused by exposure to the Sun, but definitely nothing cancerous. But I don't want to get my face covered in age spots or worse, so I'm going to start wearing a 30 SPF sunscreen every day from now on. I chosen to try Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen, which is good for everyday use and acts as a primer for make up.  I'm also using a new exfoliating cream. Hot Cloth Polish from Liz Earle, which exfoliates but very gently and also moisturises. 

I've also been making a concerted effort not to bite my fingernails. I bite them as a part of my anxiety and they are usually in a horrible state, and split and bleeding around the base. But I felt ashamed when Sue Richmond posted photos of her lovely well kept fingernails and I looked at my horrible chewed stumps. I'm pleased to report that they are improving quite nicely.  Far from perfect, but not too bad. I'd love to visit a beauty salon and get a nice finish put on them, but that might be a step too far for now. I'll add to List Of Things I'd Love To Do. 

My improving fingernails 

I have been enjoying writing my blog this month. It feels like it's been a big month, with my post on my neurodiversity, which I've never opened up about before and also two big autobiographical posts about my trans life. I hope that they have been interesting. I have one more autobiographical post to write to bring my story up to date and then I'm going to concentrate on shorter articles and stories. 

So there hasn't been any dressing this month. I'm slightly disappointed by that, but not too much. I did have a nice dressing session at the end of last month and got some nice photos. But I will to have some quality dressed time next month, to keep the dysphoria levels from rising too much.

Talking of dysphoria levels, they were rather high last weekend, when I was watching the rather wonderful Chappell Roan headlining the Reading Festival on BBC television. I've been aware of her for a couple of years, but never seriously checked her out. Surprising since she is a queer icon, an openly lesbian artist, who makes wonderful music that can be empowering and also heartbreakingly beautiful. Pop tinged with country, as is de-rigeur these days, but with a rock edge to it. The songs and the lyrics were wonderful. And she looked absolutely amazing. I would describe her outfit as being influenced by lolita goth, but sexed up. Her make up and gorgeous dark red hair was fabulous. She is beautiful. She sang a song called Pink Pony Club, which she introduced by saying it was a place where every girl and every boy can be a queen. Ooh I want some of that. Her fans call themselves members of the Pink Pony Club and wear pink cowboy hats with pink feather fringes on the rim, and carry pink fans (of the wafting variety) that say Pink Pony Club on them. Well I guess I've found a couple of new accessories I need for my pink dress outfit I'm hoping to wear next month. I'm ready to become a part of the Feminomenom.

Chappell Roan at Reading Festival 2025

Mention of my pink dress, brings me on to my hopes and dreams for the month of September. I'm going to do some prep work this week, in readiness for my vintage pink photo shoot. Starting with some deyetification to remove a layer of masculine fuzz and some girly self grooming.  Then ironing two vintage dresses ready to debut them in a photo shoot. 

I'm also planning a  photo shoot where I wear all of my wigs, for future content here and on Flickr.  

I'm also hoping to visit my friend Veronica, either later in September or early October, depending on how things go with my Wife. 

I always seem to have a good Autumn on the girl front, so now it's almost here, I say bring it on.

Deeanna 

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The Girl Who Put The Lightning Back In The Bottle

 The story of my Trans Journey June 2009 to November 2016.

 Coming Out

So the story continues from the point where I had decided to try and embrace being transgendered in 2009. In the May I joined the UK Angels forum, and received a warm welcome from the members on there. I made many friends in my first few weeks, who are still friends now. Sadly some have vanished from my life. Such is the way with the transgender world. One of the first girls to befriend me on Angels, was Gayna Starr, a Tgirl from Nottingham. Gayna was a bit of a force of nature. Very outgoing and confident and full of energy. She was also very pretty. She had just joined Angels after a break from cross dressing. She sent me a private message and we became friends. I wasn’t sure why she chose me as a potential friend,because she seemed so vivacious and I was very shy and insecure. I must admit that I was completely in awe of her. 

After being friends for a few weeks, Gayna decided to organise a night out at Pink Punters LBGTQ+ nightclub in Milton Keynes, for as many of the Angels as she could muster. She invited me to attend and as I was very much in the closet, I felt I had to decline, which saddened me greatly. Was my new trans life going to be spent alone at home, while everyone else was out having fun?

I had nearly been caught out by my Wife whilst dressing when she was out, on a couple of occasions in June. Once she went to an aqua fit class at the local leisure centre and the class was cancelled due to a kiddie being sick in the pool, prior to the lesson. So she came home just as I was almost finished getting dressed as Davina. I had to run from our bedroom into the bathroom and hastily undress and jump in the shower. I had to sneak my clothes out, bundled in my towel. 

The other occasion she had felt ill at work and returned home early, just as I was enjoying an evening in lingerie. I hastily managed to change into boy mode. This and the previous near miss convinced me that my current place in the crossdressing closet was not sustainable in the long term. One day I would be caught out.

So these close shaves, combined with a growing desire to have some freedom as my femme self,  led to me thinking about coming out as a crossdresser to my Wife. I thought her LBGTQ + past would mean she would be fully accepting and embrace my femmeness. After all she had been involved in lesbian relationships in the past. Surely she would have the best of both worlds with me?

Wanting to attend my friend Gayna's night out in early October, did very much drive my decision to come out. In hindsight it was a little too soon, and I should have spent longer preparing the ground for a coming out.

On the Angels forum, I got a lot of good advice and I was told that coming out was not always a good thing. For every successful coming out, there were others that changed relationships for the worst or ended them completely. But I felt confident I would be ok. 

One piece of advice I was given from one of the Angels, was to think very carefully before coming out to my Wife or anyone else. She said, 

"Once the lightning is out of the bottle, you can't put it back".

I decided to press on with my decision to come out to my Wife, and so on a Friday evening in early August,  I told her about Davina. She was very quiet and asked for time to think. In the morning she said that she hated the idea of me dressing as a woman, but would tolerate it, if she never saw me dressed en-femme and I never went out dressed.  This last demand led to a heated discussion and for a while it looked like our marriage would be ending. I hadn't expected this reaction. If I'd known it would be like this, I wouldn't have come out. It took a few days for things to calm down, and my Wife accepted that I could dress as long as she never saw Davina. And I could go out, but I had to be very discreet about it.

 Thankfully with a bit of compromise and acceptance we survived as a couple. There have been awkward moments down the years, especially in the early days, but we managed to stay together. 

Eventually things settled down and I began to dress when my Wife was out of the house. There were plenty of bumps in the road. Once I ordered a  gorgeous gold dress and matching jacket and it was delivered in a packet that allowed my Wife to see it. She was very upset by it. She also got very upset when I left a make up brush in the bathroom one day. Events like this would trigger either the silent treatment or threats to leave.

In hindsight, I took it for granted that my Wife's past same sex relationships would mean that I would be accepted as a crossdresser with enthusiastic acceptance. And it certainly wasn't. It was a very grudging tolerance,with many hidden tears on both sides. 

However without that tolerance I don't think I'd have been able to stay in the marriage if I'd had to give up dressing,  and if I did, I don't think I'd even be alive today.  Removing my ability to become my femme self really does become an existential threat for me as a person, and not just for my femme persona, but for the whole me. This theory would be put to the test a few years later. 

Golden Years 

It took a few weeks for life to settle down after my coming out to my Wife about my crossdressing. I chose not to attend Gayna's night at Pink Punters, because I knew an overnight stay for my first night out, dressed  would be too much. 

I was now dressing at home when my Wife was out, and we had an arrangement where my Wife would phone me about 40 minutes before she got home, which gave me plenty of time to get changed from femme to drab,and put all my clothes away. She never asked if I had been dressing and I never told her if I had. 

There was a local monthly transgender event, just a few miles from home in Totton. The Totton Disco had been running once a month for many years. I spoke to my Wife about attending, and she agreed it would be a good place for me to go for my first night out. It was on from 7pm until 11pm, so no late nights or overnight stays required. So in November 2009 I went for my first night out en-femme. It was a wonderful experience for me. I met other crossdressers face to face for the first time, and felt welcomed by them. I became a regular at this event and another trans disco, the TGirlfriends Get-together which was held a few miles away in Lyndhurst.  From March 2010, I used to give a lift there and back home to her home in a nearby town, to my friend Chrissie, who I knew through the UK Angels. 

I also had some days out with friends for lunch and shopping in the nearby city of Salisbury.  And I used to drive into Southampton and go shopping there by myself. 

One red letter event for me came in January 2010. The UK Angels were having their 10th Birthday celebrations and they had organised an event at Pink Punters, the club where Gayna had hosted her get-together back in October. I expressed a desire to attend it, to my Wife, and said I would drive up to Milton Keynes during the day, and attend the party until 1pm before driving home again. This seemed like a workable compromise to me. To my surprise, my Wife said why not stay overnight and drive back on Saturday.  So that's what I did.

It was a wonderful night and I got to meet so many of my friends from the UK Angels, including Gayna, Emma, Louisa, Tiffany, Amber Jo, Saffy, Joanne, Sarah, Gillian and Angie. I also met a very special friend that night. Sue Richmond, who said that she had decided to attend when she heard that I was going, because she thought, "If she can do it, so can I ", given that we were both very inexperienced in going out. It was wonderful meeting her, and we have become close friends to this day.

Gayna and I remained close friends until she suddenly disappeared from the scene in late 2012 which was sad. But I've found that's something you have to get used to as an online Tgirl. Friends suddenly leave the scene and you never hear from them again. Sometimes they enter transition and go into stealth mode. Sometimes they just scale back or give up dressing. Sadly some have health issues or even die, and you don't find out. Thankfully I did get some info that Gayna was ok, and just wanted to leave the scene to concentrate on family. 

I started a Flickr account in 2010, and I still post photos on a regular basis, 15 years later. I have made some very good friends on Flickr, and it's my favourite place to visit online. You can view my Flickr photostream here.

I also opened an account on TV Chix, but I have very mixed feelings about it and often leave it, and then return months later. It is a good place to search for local people, but it's very much orientated towards dating and sex. But there are some nice people on there. And one of these was my lovely friend, Natasha Scott. We swapped messages and photos for several years, and she was incredibly supportive during my difficult times. Sadly she ended her online presence as Natasha in 2019. I do miss her a lot. 

In July 2010, I booked a makeover at the MAC make up store in Oxford, for myself and my friend Chrissie. It was a wonderful day, and the first time I travelled on public transport whilst en-femme. The makeover was really good and I learned a lot from it.

2010 also saw another couple of visits to Pink Punters. One with my friends from the Angels and one visit on my own, when I was attending a training course in a location near to Milton Keynes. The night out with my friends was wonderful, but the night on my own, I found quite lonely and I didn't manage to make any new friends and had to keep knocking back men who thought a Tgirl out on her own is just looking for sex.  A lesson learnt there. 

I also visited Salisbury to meet up with a group of my friends and we had a really nice day out, although it was marred by some nasty transphobic abuse.

Early 2011 continued in much the same vein as 2010 with some more visits to the local TG disco events and plenty of days dressed at home alone. I also managed a few days out shopping in Southampton. 

My nights out did dwindle a little as I was training for the Brighton Marathon, which I completed in the April. I also ran in a lot of shorter races over the Summer. 

In July I had a lovely day at Kew Gardens with Sue Richmond, which I have written about here . 

I will be covering individual days and nights out in future posts, with much more detail, just as I did with my post about Kew with Sue.

The rest of the year was fairly quiet on the social front, partly because I was made redundant at work, when the company I worked for closed down.  I got a job working a long commute from home, in Salisbury, which meant I couldn't get home in time to get to any evening events. Also I had embarked on a Btec certificate in photography at evening college, which took up a lot of time. In the end, I ended up attending college for four years and got a Btec Diploma in Photography. 

One thing that was great was my Wife changed jobs, and spent nearly every Saturday catering at weddings, which meant she was out from late Saturday morning until the early hours of Sunday morning. I got to dress for hours and sometimes went out shopping in Southampton. It also gave me an opportunity to go to bed in a  nightie as Davina, as my Wife would always go into the spare bedroom when she got home,  so she didn't wake me. Not that I got much sleep in a sexy satin chemise. 

2012 proved to be a very difficult  year, but it started in much the same vein as 2011 had. But my long hours at work, with a long journey home, were badly affecting my life. I couldn't go to my running club, so stopped doing races. I had lost a lot of weight whilst running and I was just size 16, and under 13st, so I looked great. But I put a bit of weight on in 2012, which didn't help with my dressing. 

I was still dressing quite a lot at home, and enjoying my femme time, especially on Saturdays with my Wife still doing the wedding catering. 

And then in late July, my Wife came home early one Saturday, saying she couldn't walk properly.  She was fine by the next day, but a few days later it happened again. And it kept happening.  She was put on a waiting list for a neurological assessment.  This largely curtailed my dressing for the year. I managed one dressing session towards the end of the year, when I did a lingerie shoot, and it would be March 2013 before I got the chance to dress again. 

At the end of September 2012 we decided to go privately to get a neurological assessment for my Wife. The neurologist said he thought it might be Multiple Sclerosis causing her problems. She was sent for a scan. We managed to have a nice holiday in Croatia, despite my Wife's problems, but returned to face a double whammy of bad news. 

My Mother who was 86, had been taken to hospital with pneumonia. She was in hospital for three weeks and never fully recovered.  She would lose her fight in early 2013.

The other bad news was the confirmation that my Wife had Multiple Sclerosis. It was a difficult time, and of course being Davina went onto the backburner.

During 2013, my Wife's condition continued to get worse.  It was a very worrying time. I couldn't dress until March.

In  early March, I managed one short dressing session and later in the month, I was sent on a training course with work, which involved two nights in a hotel. I took Davina with me, and dressed both evenings. It felt wonderful to be dressed again. 

I managed one more dressing session at home in May. And then my Wife had to give up work.  Now she was at home 24/7. There was no way I could find any time or space to dress.

In the Autumn of that year, we were hit by two tragedies. In October, my Wife's brother died after a very short illness. And in November my Stepfather died suddenly in his sleep. We were devastated. 

My wife's condition slowly but surely worsened.

My Golden Years of crossdressing were over.

Hiatus

I dressed on in May  2013. I did a Rock Chick photo shoot for my friend, Natasha and I shared the photos on Flickr.  

The next time I dressed was August 2016.

So over three years with no dressing. I kept myself involved with the TG community through Flickr and TV Chix and my friends on there. I posted photos from my archive to keep my presence there.

In early 2014, I  gave up work to become a full time carer for my Wife. My inheritance from my parents allowed me to do this. But caring for my Wife full time, made it impossible to dress at all. 

I threw myself into my photography and my Btec studies which gave me something to focus on. I achieved a Diploma with a distinction in Photography after four years of studying. It was hard work, but I enjoyed it, and it is one of my biggest life achievements. However once I had finished my studies in 2015, I found myself with nothing to focus on.

Not being able to dress badly affected my mental health and by the middle of 2016, I was suffering from a severe depression. And it wasn't just myself. My Wife was having suicidal thoughts after four years of declining health and mobility with multiple sclerosis. It was a horrible time. 

My Wife had some bad falls during 2016,and an especially bad fall in August. Just prior to that, it all got to much for me  and I realised I had to dress or dissappear down a rabbit hole of depression that I might not get out of.  

I figured out that I could dress a little upstairs in the bedroom, when my Wife was downstairs.  And vice versa, when she was up in bed,I could dress downstairs. So that's what I did. I couldn't wear makeup, but after three years of no dressing it felt so good to be femme again.  My hiatus was over. 

What Was That About Lightning And A Bottle?

My Wife's fall in August was very bad, and she couldn't get upstairs to bed for a week. It was a difficult time.  It became obvious that we needed to move to single storey accommodation,  ideally a bungalow.  But the prices of bungalows in Hampshire was way out of our budget, and they were few and far between. I  was born in Cornwall and lived there until I was 14. My younger sister and her husband had recently moved back down to Cornwall. I knew that there were lots of bungalows in the county. Also with the price difference between Cornwall and Hampshire, we could sell our house, buy a bungalow in Cornwall and pay off the mortgage. It made perfect sense, so we put our house on the market and began bungalow hunting in West Cornwall. 

I was very mindful during the house hunting, that I needed to create a solution to the problem of dressing en-femme at home. I would need a space where I could be separate from my Wife. So I looked for properties with outbuildings such as garden office  studios or summerhouses or had potential to add one if there wasn't one already. And we found a bungalow in Cornwall. which had a nice outdoor wooden summerhouse with a sauna in it. With the removal of the sauna equipment, it could work as a wardrobe and dressing space for my girly alter ego. So we made an offer and bought it. Our home in Hampshire sold for the full asking price, so we found ourselves mortgage free and ready to move to a new life in Cornwall. 

I carefully packed my girl stuff into boxes and labelled them Summerhouse X, so I knew it was femme stuff inside. I was thinking about what life for Davina in Cornwall would be like. Back to where I first started dressing. 

And then one evening my Wife said "When we move to Cornwall, can we leave Davina behind?" I was very upset but didn't let it show. After three years of having to go without dressing and being in a bad place because of it,  I knew I needed to dress, and I wouldn't be able to go on living if I didn't dress. I gave the matter some careful thought. I knew that my Wife was mentally vulnerable and that she might flip over the edge and harm herself or worse if I carried on dressing. But equally I knew that I couldn't give it up, or I would have my own existential mental health issues. 

I decided that I would keep on dressing as I was going to be living somewhere with a space for me to dress in, that my Wife wouldn't be able to reach because of her disability. 

And so I returned to being a closet crossdresser. I grasped the lightning and forced it back into the bottle it had come out of, back in 2009.

I made a promise to my Wife to leave Davina behind in Hampshire. And I did. Davina was finished there and then. But she was reincarnated as Deeanna Williams. Or Dee to my friends. 

I had too many good friends and I had far too much love for dressing en-femme, for me to walk away from it.

My decision to return to the closet, is purely out of concern for my Wife's mental and physical health.  I was tempted to leave her and walk away,  but I knew that she would end up alone in a care home or dead by suicide if I did. 

I felt that I could exist in the closet and still exist as a crossdresser. And so Deeanna moved to Cornwall. 

I knew it would be a few months before I would be able to dress properly again, due to the disruption of moving, but I didn't mind because I knew I would be able to dress again when things were settled.  And so it has proved. 

The next part of the story will follow in a few days, and tell the story of how Deeanna slowly found her identity in Cornwall after a few years. But also how things are becoming difficult again in 2025.

Let's just say that the bottle of lightning is rattling on the shelf, as the cork struggles to contain the contents that are straining within it.

Photos From 2009 To 2016

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2016

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In Between Days

A brief history of my crossdressing years between my first sustained period of crossdressing which ended in 1986,, through until I made myself known to the trans community in 2009.

I first began crossdressing in 1978, when I was a teenager. I dressed a lot at home, when my parents were out of the house. When I entered my early 20s, I dressed very infrequently and this continued for the next decade. By 1986 I was really not that interested in crossdressing. There were the occasional dalliances in various girlfriends lingerie but really nothing more than that. 

In early 1995, I met my future wife, and we moved into a small rented house together, later that year. Very early on in our relationship my wife told me that she had been in a couple of lesbian relationships in the past, but now preferred men (Apart from an infatuation with Marilyn Monroe, which is entirely understandable and something we have in common). It didn't phase me at all as I'm fairly laissez-faire about sexuality. I chose not to mention my past crossdressing exploits. But I thought that if things changed in the future, I would probably get a reasonably positive or sympathetic reaction if I ever did come clean about my desire to dress as a woman. 

We lived in our rented accommodation for two years,  until we had saved enough deposit to buy a small house in a nearby town, which we moved to in 1997. By now my fiancé had got a job working shifts that meant that a couple of nights a week, she would get home from work a couple of hours later than myself. Also she would be at work for 12 hours on some Saturday and Sundays. 

Well suddenly I found myself alone in a house with a wardrobe full of my fiancé's clothes. And she had put on a little weight recently, so she was a size 18/20, which just happened to fit me perfectly. And as the song by The Smiths says, "Oh the Devil will find work for idle hands" . 

I hadn’t crossedressed once during our first two years together in the rented house. But now with a wardrobe of women's clothes that fitted me, I felt the desire returning. At first I just wore my future wife's lingerie and underwear. She had some nice full bras and big knickers (panties if your not from Britain or Ireland). I've always preferred big knickers to skimpy ones, so I loved them. She also had some lovely one piece corsellettes, which are my favourite type of women's underwear. That was a link back to my early crossdressing days, because my Mum had a wonderful collection of corsellettes and girdles that I had adored wearing. So I loved to wear her corsellettes. She also had some lovely satin chemise nighties which I loved, both on her and on me. She used to wear them for me when we had sex, because she knew how much i loved seeing her in them. What she didn't know was that I loved wearing them too, and when we made love with her wearing one of them, I would be looking to wear it myself at the earliest opportunity. 

Around this time, I discovered the 'World Of Transvestism' magazine and I would look at the photos of the transvestites, as we were called back then, and wish I was like them.

 There was definitely a very sexual and erotic motivation to my crossdressing for three years or so after we moved into our house. That was different from when I had dressed as a teenager in my Mum's clothes, which was more about being feminine and being a woman. Perhaps this change of focus was down to me now being a fully developed male in his 30s, and also because I had lost the natural and pretty  androgynous look of my teens and early 20s. So I felt very much like a man dressing in women's underwear rather than a feminine entity, as I had in my teens. It was enjoyable dressing like this on a sexual level, but my crossdressing had felt so much more satisfying before and didn't feel as good now. I even felt guilt about dressing, something I hadn't felt before. 

We got married in 1999. I remember having very conflicted feelings on our wedding day. And I'm sure it's something that many crossdressers who get married to a woman feel. Joy at getting married to the woman you love. But jealousy because you want to be the bride in the beautiful dress. Well four days after our wedding, my new Wife went to work and I dressed fully in her bridal outfit. It felt wonderful and exciting. But also very sad, because when I looked in the mirror, I saw an overweight man in his mid 30s, wearing a wedding dress and looking ridiculous. It upset me and I decided to make another concerted effort to give up crossdressing for good. I gave it a good go. I didn't crossdress again until 2001. 

When I did begin to crossdress again, I made sure it was more full dressing and not just lingerie and underwear. It made me feel much happier than just being a man playing in his wife's knickers. But I still had a sense of dysphoria when I looked in the mirror and saw that man, now in his late 30s, staring back at me.

There was a problem looming with crossdressing in my Wife's clothes. Dress size. My wife was putting on weight and getting bigger. Which I didn't mind, because I find plump, curvy women very attractive. But it was a problem for me, with regards to wearing her clothes. I was now a size 20/22. My wife was a size 24 and soon grew to be a size 26/28. Which I must admit I loved. But it meant her underwear no longer fitted me. And her outerwear hung off me and didn't fit well. It did make it less fulfilling for me to wear my wife's clothes and so the crossdressing dwindled away to only being a very occasional thing by 2004.

I was deeply unhappy and unfulfilled in my life  by 2005. And it was a dissatisfaction with my femme life that was behind this. Late in 2004, I had bought some underwear and hosiery from Mark's & Spencer's and Evans, and I bought myself a cheap wig from Ebay. It was a shoulder length brunnete bob style. It looked ok for the money. It was nowhere near as good a quality as the ones my Mum used to own, which I borrowed. My own hair was now short and rapidly greying, and no longer conducive to achieving a femme presentation. I began to dress more fully and even returned to using make up again, which I hadn't done since I was 21 years old.  I looked quite pretty as a middle aged plump lady,  which I didn't mind at all, because I have always found women like that very attractive. 

With renewed confidence in my ability to dress and look attractively femme,  I was full of optimism. Some of the clothes in my Wife's wardrobe still fitted me, and I found myself so much happier looking in the mirror and seeing a woman looking back at me, rather than a middle aged man in women's clothes. I remember my Wife had a lovely black lace teddy top that was stretchy and looked amazing on both me and her, worn with a black bra, visible underneath. I used to wear it with a lovely red jacket and a long dark brown suede skirt and a pair of ankle boots, which were all my Wife's apart from the underwear and hosiery. I felt wonderful. I was in a very happy place . Unfortunately this was before I got my first digital camera, so there were no photographs from this happy time. 

With this renewed sense of optimism and enjoyment, I decided I wanted to reach out to the TG community. I now had a home computer and access to the internet and I spent time on the world wide web looking at photos of other crossdressers. I saw a letter on the problem pages in a woman's magazine about crossdressing and the reply mentioned a group who catered for crossdressers, and a phone number for their helpline. And so I had my rather unfortunate experience with the Beaumont Society, which I wrote about here. Basically the person representing the Beaumont Society called me a time waster because I got tongue tied when they asked me a question. It greatly upset me. I had recently been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and so I was prone to to taking setbacks quite hard, and it really did knock me back a long way. I purged my small collection of underwear and my wig, and I once again vowed to give up crossdressing. And for two years I succeeded. But I didn't feel happy in my life. This period also coincided with my Wife getting pregnant and having a miscarriage, which was hard for us both. I didn't look after myself during this period of my life and my weight soared to nearly 20st. 

The desire to dress was still in the back of my mind, but I managed to dismiss it for two years, until in 2007 I tried on my Wife's underwear again and it fitted. I was both delighted and upset. My Wife was now a size 28 and so was I. All of her clothes fitted me perfectly.  I bought myself another wig. Again a brunnete bob with lighter highlights, this time a little shorter than my old discarded wig. I bought it from Doreen's Fashions, the London based store specialising in clothes and accessories for crossdressers. It was a much quality than my old wig. Anyone who met me or viewed my Flickr page between 2009 and early 2011, will have seen me wearing this wig. When I was fully dressed in my Wife's clothes, I looked like a pretty but very fat middle aged woman. I wished I was a little smaller, but still liked what I saw in the mirror. As I said previously, I do find large women attractive, so I didn't mind being one. And I looked very convincing. 

Late in 2008, I became very ill with bronchitis and then pneumonia, and my GP advised that I really needed to lose weight.  I did lose nearly 2st, although I was a little loathe to lose more, because I wanted to stay able to wear my Wife's clothes. But then she also decided to lose weight. So I weighed myself on New Year's Day 2009 and I weighed exactly 18st. I was a size 28. I gave myself six months to drop two dress sizes to size 24. I also promised myself that I was going to buy my own clothes from now on. I would borrow items from my Wife but only if they looked good on me. And I wouldn't wear her underwear anymore.  I didn't dress until May when I weighed myself and I had lost a stone. I ordered a size 24 skirt and top from Doreen's Fashions and it fitted perfectly. I had achieved my goal a month early. I took a trip to M&S and bought myself several pieces of underwear, lingerie and hosiery.  I ordered a make up kit from The Boudoir Dressing Service in London. And then I dress fully in my own clothes, wig and make up for the first time in my life. I was 44 years old.

Now I needed a name for myself. When I was a teenager I called myself Wendy, but had stopped using it, and really hadn't chosen a replacement name. For a long time I was 'The Girl With No Name'.  I settled on Davina Anne Williams. Anne was chosen as a middle name because it fitted with Davina nicely. Of course you all know me as Deeanna Williams now, and the reason for the difference in name will feature in a future episode of the epic adventures from The Other Side Of Life. 

Anyway, back to this story. As I mentioned, I enjoyed looking at other crossdressers, transvestites,Tgirls, drag queens, queer folk and trans women on the internet. One crossdresser who I particularly admired, was a mature girl called Gillyanne Charlotte Blake, who had a website called Gilly's Corner Of The Web. I felt moved to writing to her, and we became good friends for a couple of years. She mentioned a very supportive and fun forum that she liked to visit.  It was the UK Angels forum. This forum was run by a trans girl called Jo Angel, who also hosted Gilly's website. My timing wasn't great with contacting Gilly, as she had decided to give up crossdressing (or as she referred to it, "Hanging her tits up") and so she had sold most of her clothes and given notice to Jo, to close her website down at the end of the month. I stayed friends with Gilly's male alter ego, George for a couple of years, but eventually we drifted apart without the shared crossdressing. But I did sign up to the UK Angels forum on May 24th 2009, which is the date I consider as the starting date for my current crossdressing life as Davina and then Deeanna. 

I will write more about my time on the UK Angels and other aspects of my trans journey on a future post. 

So 2009, and now engaging with the trans community for the first time, I took my first photos of myself.  Not very good ones, but I used them to show myself to the TG world for the first time. 

The next episode of this story will follow in a week or two, entitled 'The Girl Who Put The Lightning Back In The Bottle', so if you enjoyed this story, then look out for that.

I hope you enjoyed this story from my crossdressing past. Here are my first photos that I posted on to the UK Angels forum in 2009. Sadly the UK Angels forum closed earlier this year due to the complications caused by the Online Safety legislation and the liability surrounding it. But it will always have a special place in my heart as the first place I felt at home as a trans-femme girl.

💋💋💋

Neurodiverse Me

 

Just like the dahlia flower in the photo above, I'm a little bit different to the normal ones. This flower has a splash of pink on one of it's petals. It's an anomaly in comparison with the other all yellow with red centre flowers.

My own anomaly is that I'm neurodiverse. I have a number of neurodiverse conditions and also a brain condition,along with a neurological condition, which can be challenging, but I manage to stay on top of them, to a greater or lesser extent. 

My neurodiverse conditions are Autism (or Aspergers Syndrome in old money), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), Dyslexia (Word blindness), Dyscalculia (Number blindness) and Dyspraxia (Poor coordination).

I also have the slightest touch of Cerebral Palsy. My left leg is affected by this and is noticeably smaller than my right, which is unaffected. I also have slight balance issues. As I said, it's the slightest touch of the condition. 

And finally I have been suffering from Fibromyalgia for the last few years, which causes me a lot of pain in my muscles and joints, fatigue and brain fog. 

I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia at school, when I was 14. I haven't formally been diagnosed with dyspraxia, but it often goes hand in hand with the other conditions I've just mentioned and it explains my poor hand/eye coordination and general clumsiness. 

I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when I was 39. I had a problem with my left knee, which was beginning to suffer from osteoarthritis. I was sent to a podiatrist who noticed that my left leg was smaller than my right. I was given exercises to correct the imbalance and they didn't work. Then it was discovered that I didn't have the full connection of motor neurons to those muscles in my brain due to brain damage caused at birth.

My autism and ADHD were diagnosed when I was 50 and suffering from anxiety and stress which was caused by these conditions. 

I have suffered from Fibromyalgia since I was ill with Covid and flu in 2023. It was triggered by those viruses. 

So how does all of this affect me? Well it's quite considerable but I manage to cope with all of these conditions, despite them being incredibly frustrating at times. 

My autism surfaces if I am confronted by any sudden changes of plan, any change of routine and anything going wrong. Then I feel agitated and threatened and anxious. I often find myself pacing up and down incessantly. When I was a young child, I would flap my hands if I was excited or stressed, which is a feature of autism. I also need things to be exactly how I want them to be, or how they should be, and I can be very insistent that they are. I can be easily overwhelmed by things. I also have a problem integrating myself into social settings and prefer to stay on the edge of things. Sometimes that can be seen as being stand offish or weird. One thing I'm not affected by, which is a common trait of the condition is a lack of empathy or emotional connection with people. I work hard to try and challenge my condition and I have coping strategies to avoid any meltdowns  although occasionally they happen. Sometimes I can get quite overwhelmed by things. 

My dyslexia did affect my schooling, as did my autism in retrospect.  But I learnt to overcome the dyslexia. I tend to misread some words and I also put the wrong version of a word in a sentence. To,too and two, or there, instead of their are common mistakes. As soon as i read it back, I spot my mistakes and I can correct them. It does throw up some amusing moments. I remember when I moved to Romsey, I was wondering what on earth they did in Alma Road Sugary. Was it a sweet factory? Or a sugar processing plant? It really didn't look like that kind of place. It turned out to be the local Doctors practice. Surgery not sugary. One thing that dyslexia does cause me problems with is reading a list of instructions. And it's because written instructions tend to be very matter of fact. "Insert A into B"  rather than " Please take the part listed as A and insert it into the part listed as B". It's silly but I need a properly structured sentence in order to read it properly. I was very lucky with my ability to read, because my cousin, who was a few years older than me, suffered from severe dyslexia and my Mum taught him how to read and write, so she spotted my problems way before I went to school, and she knew how to overcome them. I struggled to be able to write, but I was reading the Sherlock Holmes books and Charles Dickens by the time I was 8. She constantly pushed to get me diagnosed but it wasn't until I was in secondary education that a teacher spotted that my ability to read to myself was way above my ability to read out loud or write. Then I was formally assessed and diagnosed. Pretty quickly it was found that I had more problems with numbers than letters and words, often mixing them up, and reading them the wrong way around. I also struggle with reading digital watches and prefer analogue watch faces.

The dyspraxia hasn't been diagnosed, but I have always had poor hand/eye coordination and spatial awareness, and given it is very often present with dyslexia, I know that I have it. It hasn't really hindered me much. I found that with practice I could make it better, so I played sports and became a fairly decent goalkeeper and played rugby at college too. I tried my hand at cricket, but it requires more hand/eye finesse than I could manage, because of the small ball. I gave it up after several injuries.  I just accept that I am clumsy at times. And I struggle putting fiddly necklaces on, but usually manage it in the end. 

 

ADHD is a big problem for me. I have always struggled to concentrate and my brain skips tracks in a heartbeat. I have an incredibly detailed long term memory, but I have always had a very poor short term memory. And I often start a task and get sidetracked on to another task leaving the first task unfinished. I also forget to do things. I rely on lists and reminders to help me. I'm not especially Hyperactive. But I have always found my mind wandering in bouts of daydreaming. 

The cerebral palsy is not much of a problem apart from some balance issues sometimes and my leg sometimes gets tired. But I have run a marathon, so it's not a big thing.

And then there is the new kid on the block. Fibromyalgia.  It is a big problem.  It causes me pain all over my body sometimes. It causes me fatigue which needs to be managed. If I have a physically busy day and I am very active, then I need to be prepared for a reaction and the need to rest up on the following day. Otherwise I will have a lot of fatigue and pain. One of the most difficult parts of this condition is brain fog. When I can't put my thoughts together or articulate them properly. It's a frustrating condition, but it comes and goes, with periods when it's barely there.

So how does all of this affect me? Well I generally do quite well controlling my moods and emotions, but there are still times when I get overwhelmed and I can be very anxious and frightened during these times. I don't deal with stress or setbacks very well. But I have learned to control and minimise my conditions, so it is very rarely noticeable to anyone else who doesn't know me well. 

Sometimes I can be a bit of a drama queen, and make a big thing out of something that is fairly insignificant or unimportant. 

One big thing that I've noticed is that, usually, if I'm dressed en-femme, and enjoying being Deeanna, then I am much more in control of all of my conditions. I'm not sure why that is. I have much more confidence when I'm Deeanna and I'm much more outgoing when I'm dressed as a woman. 

There has been some suggestion that there is a link between autism and being transgendered or crossdressing. If so that would beg the question,  Am I transgendered because of my neurodiversity or is it just something that happens to exist alongside it?

I know quite a few neurodiverse transgendered people as well as myself. But I also know a lot more who aren't.

 I was aware of feminine feelings and desires, from a very early age. Certainly just out of my toddling stage, so it's unlikely that any outside factors influenced my strong desire to be femme.  I'm pretty sure that I am a product of nature, not nurture and I was born this way.  However, given there are far more non- neurodiverse than neurodiverse transgendered people then I think that the actual neurodiversity numbers among the trans community is probably in line with the general population.  And if it is a little higher, then that probably reflects the fact that transgendered people are more likely to seek counselling and psychiatric help for their gender issues, which would probably mean those who are neurodiverse, but undiagnosed, are likely to be identified as being neurodiverse during their counselling. So I don't think my trans femme gender is connected to my neurodiversity. 

In general I am a perfectly normal functioning person who just happens to be a little different from what is defined as normal, both in neuro and gender. And I'm ok with that. It can be difficult. But I think life is difficult in general. 

There is a perception that there is a neurodiversity epidemic occurring in the world. So many more people are being affected by neuro conditions. The fact is that there isn’t? Robert F Kennedy Jr might think there is a massive upsurge in autism, and declare he will get to the bottom of what autism is, and begin actions to eradicate it, but he's completely wrong.  There is no neurodiverse epidemic. What there is, is a much better understanding of neurodiversity and therefore much more diagnosis of the conditions taking place. Hence you get people like me being diagnosed late in life 

And when a diagnosis is made, suddenly everything seems to fit. All the feeling of being different. Of not quite fitting into certain situations. All of the anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed, suddenly make sense. And when you realise that it's all because of neurodiversity, you feel a sense of relief. Because now you know there's a reason that you behave in a certain way. And it's ok to be that way. And you can work to minimise the negative impact that neurodiversity brings and also to embrace the positives it brings. And there are positives. I am very creative, and I have a thirst for knowledge that I'm sure comes from my being autistic. 

So like that unusual dahlia flower, I'm a little different to the others. But very beautiful. 

A Trip To Kew (With Sue)

 In mid Summer 2011,  I had made plans to travel up to London by train, to meet up with my good friend and fellow blogger, Sue Richmond who writes 'Sue's News And Views'. We had arranged to meet up and spend the day at Kew Gardens in the West of the capital.  Sue was living in West London back then, within walking distance of Kew and we were both Friends Of Kew, so it was ideal for us both.

I had planned a busy week on the T front. I intended to dress on the preceeding Saturday at home, and then attend the T Girlfriends Get Together meeting with my trans woman friend Chrissie Goulden on the Wednesday evening and then meet up with Sue at Kew on the Friday.  However, the best laid plans and all that! On the Saturday I had woken up feeling under the weather, so didn't feel like dressing at all. And by Sunday I was suffering from a nasty Summer cold. I was still feeling poorly on Wednesday morning, so I informed Chrissie that I wouldn't be going out that night. I really didn't expect to be able to meet Sue on Friday,  so I gave her the heads up that I might not be able to make it, and would decide on Thursday evening. As Wednesday wore on, I began to feel much better and by Thursday morning I felt fine. So Friday was definitely on.

Friday was a beautiful sunny morning. The perfect day for a picnic in a beautiful garden. I had bought a lovely summery dress for my trips out that week and I was glad that I would get the chance to wear it on one of the planned days. I wore it with Wolford Neon 40 glossy tights, which were perhaps a little heavy for the weather, but I wanted to hide the psoriasis on my left shiny, which I was rather self conscious about. I wore a pair of comfortable black clogs. 

My Wife knew I was going out, which was fine with her because she was working a late shift. We had a rule that she never saw me dressed, so she stayed in bed while I got myself washed  dressed and made up. Then I left the house to walk to Romsey railway station which was half a mile away.  By the time I expected to get home, at around 7pm my Wife would still be at work, so I would have plenty of time to change back to drab before she got home at 9pm.

I hadn't told any of my neighbours about my dressing. I tend to keep it private. If someone finds out, then fine, but I'm not going to tell anyone who doesn't need to now. I left the house and walked up the road,  just as I turned the corner, my next door neighbours, Pete and Daphne, were driving past in their car. I almost forgot myself and waved, but then remembered, just keep looking ahead. Thinking back, I'm sure they knew about Deeanna. I never told them, and I never actually had a face to face encounter with them, but I had been out and about a few times, and also dressed in the back garden, and all it would take was for them to glance out of a bedroom window and see me. So it was a slightly nervous moment, but not too bad.

I caught the train to Southampton and had a light breakfast in a cafe on the platform, before boarding a train to London. The journey to Clapham Common was fairly uneventful. The train wasn't too busy, and I got a seat by myself. I just enjoyed looking out of the window at the scenery. And I got a little thrill each time we went under a bridge and I caught my reflection in the window.  It was always such a thrill to just be out doing feminine things in public. 

When I got to Clapham Common, I found a toilet, to powder my nose and then caught the train to Richmond, where I transferred to the District Line and rode one stop to Kew Gardens. From there it was just a short walk to the main entrance of the gardens, where I'd arranged to meet Sue. 

I enjoyed the short walk to the garden. It's so lovely to just be out in the world dressed and acting as I prefer to be. I looked in some of the shop windows near the station as I slowly made my way towards Kew, savouring every moment of my femininity. 

As I neared the entrance to the gardens I could see Sue waiting for me. She was carrying a bag containing a picnic, which she had kindly put together for us to enjoy. 

We warmly embraced and made our way through the entrance. There were no issues with either of us presenting as femme, but using membership cards in our male names. 

Kew Gardens is a beautiful peaceful place. A botanical garden with beautiful trees and flower borders. And some fabulous glasshouses containing some wonderful tropical plants. The only thing that disturbs the peace is the low flying airliners heading into Heathrow Airport which is just a few miles away. And after a while you just don't seem to notice them.

One thing I had noticed in recent visits was the large numbers of green parakeets which now made the gardens their home. They are quite noisy and there seems to be more of them each time I visit the gardens.

Given that we were both en femme and wearing full make up, and it was a warm day, we decided not to go into the glasshouses which are incredibly warm and humid, and we just enjoyed walking around the gardens, chatting to each other. 

Sue is great company and so easy to talk to, so the conversation flowed nicely.  We just ambled down various paths enjoying being out and enjoying being girls. It's just the most wonderful feeling in the world. 

As we walked along a path through the trees, Sue stopped to show me the 'Tranny Tree'. It's a Maiden Hair tree. These trees are single sexed,  with male and female trees. Years ago, this tree suffered some disease and to save it's health and appearance, it had a new section from another Maiden Hair, grafted on. But they made a mistake and grafted parts from a female tree onto the male original. So this was the only example in the world of a Maiden Hair tree with both male and female flowers on it.

A T girl posing next to a T tree

We found a nice bench with a lovely view, to sit and eat our picnic, which Sue had brought with her. It was a wonderful spread that we both enjoyed. I felt incredibly relaxed and so happy   and I'm sure Sue felt the same. 

For me, the only times that I feel totally calm and relaxed are when I'm dressed en femme as Deeanna, when I'm listening to music or when I'm fishing, and so a day spent as Deeanna out in such a beautiful place was so good for my soul.

I have always loved the Marianne North Gallery which sits in the grounds of Kew Gardens, so we headed there after our picnic. Marianne was a botanical artist in the 19th century, who painted some wonderful pictures of plants, most of which are displayed on the walls of this wonderful gallery.  They are so beautiful and vibrant and to see them covering the walls is just beautiful. I find it to be a very calm and quiet space. I've visited it many times, and I've always had it to myself when I'm in there. And apart from Sue, yet again there was no one else in there. It's definitely one of my happy spaces. 

The Marianne North Gallery *

After the gallery, we headed back out into the sun, and walked to the Chinese Pagoda which towers above the southern end of the garden. It's a wonderful building that looks like it's come straight from China. These days, you can go in and climb to the top, but back then you couldn't. And I'm not sure we would have wanted to, given we were in our feminine finery and the hot weather. 

The Chinese Pagoda *

It's just a short walk from the Pagoda, to the Japanese Landscape Garden. I love Japanese gardens and I always enjoy visiting this one at Kew. We didn't have a tripod with us, so we took an opportunity to place my camera on the fence and took the only photo of myself with Sue on the day. 

Myself and Sue at the Japanese Landscape Garden 

The Japanese Landscape Garden *

Next we took a leisurely stroll back through the gardens, towards the Palm House. This is the most well known and iconic building at Kew Gardens. It contains a large number of large exotic and tropical plants. It was too warm to contemplate going in, so we settled for photos outside. 

In Front Of The Palm House

By now it was getting to late afternoon and it would soon be time for me to start my journey home. We walked a little more, and then we hugged at the exit gate, and I headed back to the station. I was elated after a wonderful day out, en femme with a dear friend. 

I was a little tired after a day walking around the gardens and I was looking forward to getting home. But unfortunately I had a journey home that can only be described as arduous. 

The tube journey from Kew to Richmond was fine, but the journey from Richmond to Clapham was awful.  A car hit the level crossing at Barnes and we were stuck for an hour while it was sorted. It was hot, sweaty and horrible on the train. The only upside was I had a very nice and positive conversation with a woman who was very supportive of trans folk. 

Things didn't get better when I got on the train to Southampton. It was very crowded and I was forced to stand in the space by the doors at the end of the carriage, near the toilet. By now my feet and legs were aching. It didn't help when someone used the toilet for a poo, and the flush wouldn't work. Soon the whole space smelt disgusting. 

I couldn't face being on the train for longer than I had to, and I really didn't want to have to transfer to another train before I got home. Also I had a dilemma. I wasn't going to get home before my Wife returned from work. So that would cause a huge row if I turned up as Deeanna. Then I had an idea. At work I had a sports holdall containing a set of running gear, ready for when I went straight from work to my running club. 

I decided to get off the train a couple of stops early at Eastleigh and take a taxi across to Romsey, where I both lived and worked. I was so relieved to be off the hot, smelly train. The taxi ride was only 20 minutes. I got dropped off at work. Thankfully I had a key and alarm for work on me, so I could go in, change into my running kit and remove my make-up and then walk home, with Deeanna packed safely away in my holdall. 

My Wife had been worrying that I was going to return home dressed as a woman, so she was relieved when I came through the door in my sports kit as a guy. Of course I told her it was a carefully prepared contingency plan.

I was relieved to have got back home ok. And although the homeward journey was horrendous. But it definitely didn't take the gloss of what had been a wonderful day, spent dressed with a good friend. 

It's a day I look back with very happy memories. I haven't been able to meet up with Sue in person, since then, but we are still close friends and I am sure we will be able to meet again one day.

*Photographs copyright ©️ RBG Kew