For me the timeline is similar, I was about 12 when my grandmother dressed me up for a fancy dress competition in a local church hall, ripped jeans, flowery shirt and peace symbol pendant, I was a "hippy". She sad there was something missing, produced a long dark wig and stuck it on me "you make a pretty girl"! At the Fete I was talking to two young girls who did not realise I was a boy! After that I wondered what it was like to wear my mums clothing and so on! At 16 and 11 months I joined the RAF, serving 20 plus years and dressing in secret, terrified of being found out as it was a dismissal offence, but left with a pension and joined part of the civil service. Got married whilst still serving, bought a house and had kids. Like many I told myself marriage would "cure" me, but after a while I knew it was a lie. Continued dressing for many years and despite a few close shaves never got caught! That was until last week when the wife found some underwear in my wardrobe and I was forced to confess. I always thought she knew "something" but turned a bit of a blind eye (she had found things in the past and I had made excuses) but it turns out she was clueless! We went through all the usual things and for some reason she did not throw me out (she would have done 20 years ago when we were first married) and we are working on compromises. I am now trying to reign in my excitement, for the first time I might be able to hand clothes up instead of jamming them into a bag in the loft, and for the first time I can talk about clothes without holding back!

@LizT . Honestly, the one's I've used have been 'relatively' local to me and usually a room or two in a house. One you had to go through the house to an 'outside room' more akin to a portable building 😂😂. Yes there is usually a vast selection of clothes, underwear, wigs and shoes etc so you can try different things but it's not the "studio" experience that some would seem to suggest. Instead of a large and well lit space I'm squeezing between beds, wardrobes and hanging rails, tripping over shoes and handbags etc. Not glamorous in any way. I have not had any pics taken at any yet as I've never been fully made up. At the end of the day I still have to go home and traces of makeup might cause an issue, though it would probably be the wrong conclusion the SO jumped to initially. Not worth the hassle and upset. I have a new venue lined up for later this year which does have a proper studio area so I want to have some proper pics taken but will have to be careful. I actually de-stress at a dressing service tbh, I can't dress for long or for often at home so somewhere where I know I won't be disturbed is great for me. Far too stressful at home 😂. Costs seem to vary but London prices might be out of my acceptable range, it still seems expensive though so I probably try to go once a year so I can properly relax, choose a nice dress or two and a couple of different wigs to change it up - even with no make-up.

How did you enjoy dressing services Susanne? If you don’t mind my asking. I’ve visited five different places over the years and, of those, two experiences were enjoyable, the remainder uninspiring (and frankly I couldn’t wait to leave!). The best was a place I went to three times. Actually correction...I visited twice and paid for the third session, and an expensive wig, but before I could visit the husband and wife who ran it decided to disappear with my (and others’, I hear), money. Doubly annoying - I lost a wedge of cash, and it was a real pleasure going. The name was The Fourth Space. Photograph, make up, setting, vibe...all great. Bastards. No honour amongst tv’s??! Anyway, generally, I would say it’s nigh on impossible to relax in these scenarios, the main positive being the photos you hope to come away with. Maybe it’s just me.

Instill have no idea what drove me to start to dress. It's long past and not something that I think about or dwell on anymore. Like others, I started in my formative years, again, the only female member in the household being my mum so trying her things on. I'm sure that for many of us there is a sexual 'kick" , especially when trying in lingerie that you really aren't meant to be wearing. This probably carried on into my mid teens where the urges wained somewhat. I wouldn't say truly gone, just not really acted upon. Early 20's to early 39's and I'd got a job and moved out. Girlfriends were still about but I had more opportunity to dress so therefore more opportunity to actually buy some bits of my own. I've visited many a lingerie shop and often used an excuse of birthday, Valentine's or Christmas to buy bra", suspender belts and stockings. Early to late 30's I got married (she knew nothing and still doesn't), bought a house and had kids. I manage to keep a few bits of lingerie in the house in a bag in the loft. SO has a part time job and is never, I mean never, away so opportunities are few and far between. 40's onwards. Things don't change much. I start to use dressing services occasionally and develop my desire to dress other than in lingerie. Things haven't changed much really. NO opportunity to really dress at home. Work sometimes allows me time out in hotels so I make sure I take something with me. My dress collection has expanded, my lingerie collection has decrease to just black and white choices but I do have some heels, some corsets (why didn't I discover 'proper" corsets sooner😖) and some wigs. Much as I'd like to go further I don't have the opportunity. But a plan is forming to spend a few hours dressed in full make-up. Time will tell.

Thanks D. If I was to elaborate our timelines would coincide very much. My awakening was wanting to play the knight at infant school in the school play cos he got to wear tights. And then various inconsequential incidents of a similar nature before I found myself rummaging through my mum and sisters wardrobes, trying things on, getting strangely excited. I remember often going to sleep hoping I would wake up dressed as a girl. Then a lull. Then as 20’s progress so does my compulsion. 30’s and 40’s are the hairless decades : now needing to shave and be dressed completely as a woman. I often wonder if it’s a peculiarly 20th century thing? No doubt men through the ages have wanted to present as female, and we hear examples (to a much lesser extent) of females doing the same thing, but is it a function of the infinite clothing choices which women now have that crossdreamers like us get so hung up on shoes and cosmetics and couture? Or 250 years ago were there similar quotas of men longing to step into a bustle and woolly stockings? The gender dividing lines then were more blatant yet I guess less explicitly expressed. I’ll shut up. Good point for Leeds against dirty Chelsea...x

Something like: 0-5 : not really interested 6-mid 50’s : obsessed with hosiery and leather court shoes How’s that? x