I see so many familiar people here, Kathy(SO), Kirsten Lee, CJ, Rikki, Beauty, and all the gang from CDDF, hello.
Well, let me see? Where do I begin? I'm 24 years old from Nevada where I am a University student.
I first felt the impulses to crossdress rather young, I play with boys toys, but I also loved girls toys. My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Barbie were favs of mine.
I had a great aunt who used to babysit me. One our favorite activities was for my to play make-up artist with her with her old make-up. I don't think she ever did make-up on me though
My parents divorce when I was 6. I lived with my mom. I grew closer to her and was fascinated growing by her bras, underware and shoes. I remember she had a pair of knee-high boots I used to klump around the house in, sometimes pretending to be a military officer, othertimes a woman.
I never acted on my impulses back then, as I had picked up on "the rules" and that a guy wearing women's clothes was a huge no-no.
I went through what seemed to be an impossibly slow sexual awakening from ages 13-15, during this time I was very actracted to girls and almost more to thier clothes.
I struggled with my urges......I don't even know if I could call them urges really since I simple did not know what I wanted. I rescued the catalogs from the garbage my mom threw out: Speigal, Fredricks of Hollywood, Chadwicks, JC Penny etc. and cut out the pictures of the outfits I liked and hid them in my room.
I don't really know how put this delicately....but I would look at the pictures while self-pleasuring myself.....telling myself I was doing it for the models wearing the clothes.....not for the clothes. It was a little troubling when I'd imagine myself wearing the clothes.
: What? I could not be gay!
I had heard about them from my friends, but had never encountered one in rural Nevada. But I knew they were bad news, it was not okay to be one.
After a little struggle, I came to the realization that I was bisexual at 15, the fantasizing and desire for other men could no longer be ignore either, I had to face the hard truth about myself.
I started to open up to new things. I reconsidered what I had long supressed: my desire to dress as a woman.
Luckily fate interviened. My mom and step-dad had two households in two seperate towns. In my 16th summer, I got a job in heavy industry in one of those towns and my parents stayed at the other house.
Freedom! I was wonderful summer, I had found a women's bodysuit (remember those in the early 1990's ppuurrrr
) in the rag bin at work and was able to get it home and try it on for the first time. Oh, what a feeling! 
This was right on the cusp of the internet coming into regular use, so I didn't have that resource, so I order bras, panties, and thigh-highs out of the catalog.
Over time, through high school and early college, the urges to dress came and went.
Sometimes I felt guilty, not for dressing per se, but for hiding it from my friends and family. I have been hiding an important part of myself for a long time now, and it hurts. I have only told my best friend about my dressing. He was very accepting!
But where am I now? Well, I've never really gone past the panties and bra/lingere, I want to go out in public and be passible. I'm going to work on getting some more clothes, learning how to use make-up and then finally getting a make-over for the first time.
I don't know really were I am gender-wise, I've considered full transformation, but have decided I like the body my Y Chromosone gave me.
I'm most comfortable, playing with gender, hopping the fance you could say whenever I felt like it. In a perfect world, I'd like to go out in jeans, t-shirt, motorcycle boots and jacket (my usual fair) one day as Terry, then go out the next as Tara in high heels, a wig, a good blouse and a skirt the next.
I bet we all wish that, but reality has another thing in store for us though :evil:
But oh well, I think no matter what our age is, all we can do is try in our lifetimes to try and see if we can make such a world possible.
*hugs*
Tara
It's really great to have you join us...
I do believe you will enjoy it as I have. 
. Thank you all. I've been going through the threads in different sections and there are some great conversations going on here. 
