Crossdresser Memories

| Jul 11, 2016
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1930s-bra-advertMy journey along the CD path began in northern New York at the Mt. Marcy Hotel close to where the 1932 Winter Olympics were being held in Lake Placid. I was seven at the time. Evidently I was staying in one hotel room with my mother, brother and dad in another. I vividly recall staring at the white glare of snow reflecting off the frozen surface of Mirror Lake when my mother went down to the lobby. Her brassiere was laying on one of the beds. I took it into the bathroom and tried it on ? nothing more. I must have watched mother wear it or I wouldn’t have known how to put it on. Was it mere curiosity or did this garment make me feel closer to her? I can only guess.

In recent years I have read countless similar stories usually involving a mother’s garments though sometimes a sister’s. In some instances they were encouraged to CD by a relative but for most I seldom heard anyone venture a reason for their initial actions other than curiosity. Obviously, I had no inkling at that time that within five years my attraction for my mother’s clothes would continue to grow; but my instinct suggests that this was the “trigger” event that launched me along the way. I do believe that a vast number of male youngsters have, during the early stages of their lives, either have been given a feminine article to wear or helped themselves on the spur of the moment, but only a very few of those males become “hooked” — hence a trigger was switched for some of us. Why only a select few are receptive elicits many theories.

As an aside, I returned to this area twice more. Five years later I visited my mother, stricken with tuberculosis, while she lay in a bed  at the Saranac Lake Will Roger’s Sanatorium. A year later Dad rented the summer home of the late composer, Victor Herbert, on Lake Placid in order to facilitate my mother’s recuperation.

Perhaps a clue could be found in a picture of both my brother and me at age three (Mort was six.) and, also, a photo of me at two. In both I seem to be wearing a dress but at that age the attire may have been what babies wore. Maybe. I did hear more than once from aunts that mother had hoped her second child would be a girl. Possible influence?

Julie GuamAfter mother’s health had improved sufficiently Dad bought what could have been called a mansion, in Larchmont, New York — one of the wealthy suburbs in Westchester County, some sixty miles north of the City. It was here that my attraction for female clothes burst out of hiding in smaller and then larger incidents about the time of puberty (Sounds familiar?). Though I do believe the trigger mechanism had already been activated some years before, this Larchmont home became the petri dish that allowed it to blossom.

I must have been fifteen at the time: My folks usually went to visit friends in Scarsdale or New Rochelle once a week to play bridge, while I, peering from a window, listened for any unwelcome sound signaling their return for something they may have forgotten. Then, heart pounding and hands trembling ? there were no thoughts other than just this act — I stripped and  carefully laid my pants and shirt on the closest chair like a fireman so that I could, if need be, don them in a hurry. Rushing to my mother’s bedroom. . . .

Continued next month.

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Category: Transgender Body & Soul

Julie Gaum

About the Author ()

Born to successful parents – both amassed fortunes during Great Depression with little time for their two sons. Flew with Air Force in England during WWII and with N. Y. Air National Guard for twelve more years; Graduated University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School; then motion picture production in Mexico, Hollywood and New York; climbed retail corporate ladder from coast to coast; bred and showed Boxers for thirty-five years and became a scratch golfer. Encountered many world-famous personages along the way. Awards-winning memoir includes a chapter -- Myths, Fallacies and Most Therapists Without a Clue that addresses all aspects of the CD spectrum. Now at 91 -- when health permits --able to be en femme most of time as family and friends have all passed. (Note: We last heard from Julie in erly 2019.)

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  1. says:

    ‘Fear of their return’, I knew that so well. My sister was my catalyst. I still remember the morning I went into her room and tried her skirt on. For the rest of my life living at with my family I took every opportunity to try things on. My mother must have been very suspicious because one day she did return. Luckily I had changed earlier.