My recent post CROSSDRESSER CLASSIFICATIONS was a real eye opener and got me thinking about my own situation. I long ago accepted the fact that I was a Crossdresser, made a place to embrace it and never looked back. Having an accepting Crossdersser wife helped a great deal for which I am eternally grateful. My Crossdresser self-acceptance didn’t come right away and took decades to put it all together. Being a member of a Crossdresser social club where I met husbands who Crossdressed and the wives that supported them made a huge difference.
I learned a great deal from them about not only how to look better but also how to manage the Jeanie in the bottle as we called it. Those that scheduled a regular time for Crossdressing seemed happier and club meetings worked well because they had a regular schedule. In the beginning of my CHIC membership the meetings were in private homes of members and were well attended by both Crossdressers and wives. At any given meeting wives made up from 30 to 50 percent of the attendees because they very much liked being out of the public eye. Especially in the 1990’s when acceptance of men in dresses was almost nonexistent. Crossdressers liked it also because the fear of being caught was much less and some even came in DRAB and changed at the party.
Part of my Crossdresser self-acceptance came as result of conversations I listened to and, in some cases, participated in. Most of the time they were not about Crossdressing but other areas of interest. The ages ranged from 30’s to 80’s and the topics like flying, skiing, scuba diving, hunting, car racing, fishing, sailing, and golf. Not what you would expect from men in dresses but them sharing experiences from the other side gave me an appreciation of them as a person. As I gained respect for them, they became good friends and I looked forward to seeing them each month. I learned there was a lot more to them than Crossdressing and that in and of itself made them seem normal. They like me just had that one area, that one secret that we all shared that made us a little different.
The occupations were also pretty normal for the most part but impressive also from construction workers to doctors and everything in between. We had career military officers, SWAT police officers, company CEO’s attorneys, radio, television, and movie people. All had interesting stories to share, and all seemed pretty normal other than that thing will all had in common. It’s possible that during that period seeing the commonality between us that the respect I had for them rubbed off on me. Maybe that is when my Crossdresser self-acceptance began.
What made the experience interesting was that in some cases our paths would have never crossed because without Crossdressing we had little in common. It took some time to know personal details about members and was not done without a high comfort on their part. Having similar interests outside of Crossdressing was an ice breaker because it was usually divulged without specific details so pretty safe. There were several CHIC members who played golf and some of us got together once a month and played on the Sunday following the meeting. Others shared in the conversation at a meeting but had no interest in joining us on Sunday which was perfectly fine. Some members had a strict policy of not revealing anything about their life outside of Crossdressing.
The Sunday golf experience played a role in my own Crossdresser self-acceptance, and I am sure it did for the others also to varying degrees. Lifelong friendships resulted from the CHIC club membership and Sunday golf experiences and have continued even though we now live in different states in some cases. A side benefit for me personally was learning from these friends whose business experience was at a different level than mine. The learning went beyond business though as their everyday life had valuable lessons in it also. During a casual conversation during a club or golf meeting you might learn from a bad experience somebody else had.I think that younger Crossdressers not affiliated with a club where older members belong are missing out on an opportunity. The internet groups are fine, but do you really know who it is that you are dealing with, but can you really trust the information that you get there?
In my case knowing respectable high caliber people enjoy Crossdressing also made it easier to see myself for who I am a NORMAL heterosexual Transvestite / Crossdresser. Fast forward to my recent post CROSSDRESSER CLASSICATION which validates that conclusion gives me further freedom and acceptance. I enjoy my mature Crossdresser experiences much more now.
In reading today’s post, it occurred to me that crossdressing groups, such as CHIC, afforded a unique opportunity for networking, building connections across] a much broader spectrum of occupations as well as people.