Life Changes

There are times in our lifetime when something happens that changes your life for ever even though we may not realise it at the time. Fifty two years ago the weekly magazine Titbits produced an article entitled 'She Men'. The front cover of the magazine had a photo of a young woman with the headline "This Is A Man" 'Read the incredible facts inside'. The only thing incredible was that, looking from todays perspective, there was very little fact at all. This was a typical bit of sensationalist reporting which even by the standards of some of todays tabloids was pretty poor. So why was it so important? 

This was long before the invention of the internet, if you wanted to find out something you had to read a book, if you could find one on the subject you were interested in. For a young person confused as to why he wanted to dress in women's clothes finding an article which shed some light on the subject was like manor from heaven. Up until this point the only time I had seen a male in women clothes was when Dany La Rue was on the telly. Dany was a very popular entertainer at the time, then referred to as a 'Female Impersonator' or drag queen in todays parlance. I knew I was not an entertainer, but was I the only boy who liked to dress as a female? Well of course we all know I certainly was not, but without any information on the subject at the time it was my big secret and remained so for decades to come. 

The article affected me in different ways, firstly it was positive, in that it demonstrated to me I was not the only one, but it also frightened me by saying most transvestites were gay first and then turned to crossdressing, to a confused young lad this was not good news. But the article stayed in my mind for years as it was really the only information I managed to get hold of until the advent of the internet. A youngster today can find out so much more just by the click of a button, which is possibly why crossdressing is more accepted amongst the younger generations.

Looking back from todays point of view, we can see just how much the world has moved on, yes there are still some problems with homophobia but in general the world is a much kinder and accepting place, at least here in the UK. Some of the methods used to transform a man into a woman were suspect to say the least, for example injecting silicon into the chest to form breasts was an extremely dangerous practice. Then there was the treatment, back then the use of electric shock treatment to "cure" transvestism was not only barbaric but also did not work in the long term so amounted to torture just because the person did not conform to society's norms......