My Crossdressing Story: Part 2

I step forward in my life, and a lot had changed. Through secondary school things were a lot more different, and it was really the time in which I was able to shine. I gained an appreciation for theatre and dramatic arts, as well as arts in general and singing.
That all came during secondary school. I excelled in drama, music and dance, earning A grades for my final GCSE exams, and that train of education continued to college, again taking up drama, music and dance. I was told I had an exceptional singing voice, and to me, that was the ultimate boost for my self confidence. Many commented on the ability to sing with a falsetto which, when performing in musicals allowed me to perform as either a male or female character. I never admitted it to anyone, but I actually enjoyed playing the female parts more than a male. It wasn't just because of the chance I got to enjoy being dressed as a woman, but it was also down to the fact that I could fool people into believing I was a woman, and not a man in drag. Yes, at that time I still crossdressed. My idea that it was simply a phase was proved to be dead wrong, and during secondary school and college, my love for dressing up in drag was my dirty little secret. For six years of my life, only my sister knew about it, and that was before I came out to my college LGBT group. There was also the time I did it during school for three projects, all part of my GCSE practical exams.

I guess you are wondering what happened with my sister, and my parents in the past ten years, aren't you? Well, I'm going to tell you. I might have been called annoying and a pain in the ass by many, but I'm not a little shit bag like most of my generation.
Katie, as expected, passed through GCSE with flying colours earning straight A grades across the board. She excelled at everything she put her mind to. College came along, and then, it started to happen. My sister took a make-up course at College, much to my parents annoyance. I still remember it, shortly after she showed her choices, my parents focussed on the make-up course and moaned about it, considering Katie also took medical science, biology, chemistry and psychology like my parents were hoping for.

I should really point out what my parents do for a living; they are both doctors. Highly respected, and some of the top doctors in Southampton. They always had plans for me and Katie to get into the family business. I felt that they were grooming us, getting us ready for a medical profession of some sort. When school and college came along, I think I disappointed my parents in the respect that I wasn't going to get very far in the medical profession with the grades I had. During school I struggled with science, I'll admit it. I was lucky to scrape a passing grade at the end of secondary school. It was my saving grace, seeing as without the high grades in science, my parents accepted the fact that I was not going to be a doctor like they were. I think they accepted the idea of me going into drama.
I have to admit, with the idea that my parents would accept me as an actor in the theatre, then I would have come out about crossdressing sooner, but two things stayed my hand. The first were their comments on the comedian Eddie Izzard, saying he was a disgrace to comedians for prancing around in drag, and speaking openly about his transvestitism. My parents, are unfortunately very traditional (I might have said that earlier) and very vocal about what they believe in (my parents are also die hard Christians, but I won't go into too much detail. Long story short, my parents tried to raise Katie and I as Christian, but they failed. I won't go into my views of Christianity, as it would turn into one long rant). One of the things I can remember is that back in 2004, Katie and I were at home while my parents went to dinner. Apparently, they were sat next to a same sex couple and my mother, the bigot that she is, was incredibly rude towards the couple and asked to leave. When they arrived to pick Katie and I up from our aunt and uncle's house, they explained what happened. They thought I couldn't hear from outside the living room, but I heard it. I didn't fully understand it at the time, and I thought that my mother couldn't be that bad. Sure she had made comments about the LGBT community before. Now that I look back on it, I realise that she was capable of doing such a thing.

Readers, you'll have to forgive me, I went off topic. I'll finish up with talking about what happened to Katie, and then I'll get back on the original intended time line, as it were.

Again, even in her A levels, Katie excelled in whatever she set her mind to. The make up course was one of her favourite reasons for going to college. I had never seen her so excited. When she finished her two years at college, she went on to do another three years at the vocational college in the city centre of Southampton, specialising in hair and beauty. Again she excelled in that. Two years at the vocational college, and she passed with her certificates. I believe it was around that time that things went down hill in my family. Ever the traditionalists, my parents hated that Katie got through college doing what she wanted. My father once described Katie's education as "money being poured into the toilet, covered in animal crap and flushed into the sewer." They disowned Katie, struck her off. I never forgave my parents. I lost my one link to doing what I enjoyed. Katie moved up with a friend to London, and though she was upset, she got on with her life and was enjoying work.

-X-

That's the past of my family for now. Any more of that and I'll probably end up writing the complete opposite of what I set out to achieve.

As I said, with Katie gone and out of the house, it felt colder for me. I never touched ladies clothing again until I was sixteen, two years after Katie left, and I was studying for my GCSE in Drama. We were tasked with putting on a performance of a fairy tale for our GCSE performance. I was in a group of six, all boys It was dumb luck that the girls had been put into all the other groups. I didn't really care at that point as there were a mixture of plays and performances to act out. It was by rotten (or perfect) luck, that we had to draw Beauty and the Beast (It was the Disney version, much to my dismay, I was hoping for the original). We all knew what was coming, there would be a mad dash to avoid playing Belle. Now, I had never came out with the fact I enjoyed crossdressing. While I enjoyed drama during school, during my last months of school in doing my GCSE practical exam, I was stuck with five of the biggest douche bags you could ever meet. They were... well there are few words that could be uttered and that still wouldn't be enough to describe how much of a douche bag each and every one of them was. I guess the Americans would see them as a mixture between jock and prep.
They carried on bickering in trying to figure out who would play Belle, and down to the fact I secretly enjoyed girl's clothes, and the fact that I wanted to pass GCSE drama, I took one for the team and said I would play Belle. It helped me in two ways; first it got that problem sorted. Secondly, it shut them all up.
Some of you may consider my treatment of the group to be quite harsh. I have to admit, two of the group weren't so bad. Adam and James; they were still a mixture between jock and prep, but not as bad as the others. Unfortunately James, who played Gaston in our group, passed away during our second year of college after being knocked down by a car. While Adam who played the Beast (and who I shared my first kiss with on stage), now resides in Australia. He left after we finished college. I still email him from time to time.
When the first dress rehearsal came along, I remember stepping into the gown I was going to be wearing. It wasn't like the original costume I wore back when I was eleven. This was a proper, full length ball gown without the petticoat to go underneath the skirt. I found it a little strange. The dress didn't fit me like I thought it would have done. I was so used to the skirt being given more length going outwards instead of being close to my legs. Still, I managed to hold my composure, and I went through the performance with a wig given to me (shoulder length brown wig with a plastic tiara) and thankfully, we performed to such high standards that my group passed with flying colours.

My music GCSE practical exam consisted of performing three songs. One was my choice, another was part of a group, and the third was a performance piece that I had to perform in front of an audience at the annual school concert during Christmas. Those days were nerve wrecking, even more so than my drama practical. I knew that I could become someone else with drama, but with music I had to sing, to be myself.
My choice of song came from Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden. It was a particularly challenging song that pushed me to the limits of what I could accomplish. Seven minutes of pulse pounding, nerve wrecking singing that, if I do say so myself, Bruce Dickinson would have been proud of if he was listening to it himself. I remember the time after that I drank three bottles of water that day, and that evening I was paying the price for it. Still, it was part of my final grade in the end so why am I complaining?
My group piece was a choir song that we recorded during school. I can't remember the song exactly, though truth be told I don't really want to remember the song. My head and heart weren't really in the performance, if that makes sense, and I remember the hours spent rehearsing it with my class, and then the day recording it. I think at the end of the recording the one thought that was going through my mind was 'thank fuck its over' and that was a first for me. I had never said that about a day in music before. It was strange.
Now, I bet by this point, your wondering what my music GCSE has to do with crossdressing, well now it's time for the big reveal. I managed to talk my music teacher into letting me do a duet during the Christmas Concert. A friend of mine, Sarah (red headed girl, slightly overweight but still fun to be around, and smart to boot), she was a real tomboy, and I remember hearing her sing a Fairytale of New York (best Christmas song of all time) through out December, even before the concert was being planned. Sarah and I decided that we would sing the song, as a duet, but with the roles reversed. Sarah would take the role of Shane MacGowan, and I would take the role of Kirsty MacColl. I couldn't believe that we were actually going to go through with it, and then Sarah came up with the wonderful idea of actually dressing up. I was stunned, and I almost jumped at the chance of saying yes. Of course I didn't, just to keep up appearances. I had enough hardship being myself. If it emerged that I was a boy who liked crossdressing then the humiliation would come out at greater levels.
Word spread of the performance idea, and people talked. People laughed. People actually congratulated Sarah and I for doing something so bold and daring. I was half expecting ridicule and scorn, but it was the complete opposite. Both teachers and students welcomed the difference in performances.
The concert was going to be attended by the members of the school board, and the Southampton city council, as well as parents. This would have made me forget the idea, to tell Sarah that I wasn't going to do a crossdressing performance on account that my parents wouldn't like it. They were going to be out of the country. They were leaving me with my grandparents at the time. I confided in them of the plan for the Christmas concert, and they both supported me, but regretted the fact they were unable to attend due to being at the hospital. At that point I was expecting to be going through the performance on my own. That was when a shining star appeared in the form of Katie. I explained to her what was happening, and like the perfect sister she was, Katie promised to help with everything I would need. She stayed with me and our grandparents for a few nights. The parents might have turned their back on Katie, but they were the only two. Everyone else accepted Katie's decision.
My sister arrived three days before the concert, and a day after my parents left for wherever it was they were going. We spent the time at my grandparents house, going through everything that we would need to consider. Hair style, make-up, what I was going to wear. Some of the time we had Sarah with us, in which the three of us bounced ideas off one another and prepared outfits. I couldn't help but think that both Katie and Sarah enjoyed dressing me up. Katie had brought a number of clothes down for me to try on. We were trying to get a look of an English girl in New York city during the eighties. Sarah had already decided on a pair of trousers, a white long sleeve shirt, brown waistcoat with the buttons undone and her school shoes. Katie even suggested a cap.
As for me, after a day spent deciding on what clothes I would wear and what wouldn't look good, we decided on a red dress with a bolero. Knee high stockings and a pair of red pumps. Katie had provided me with a brown wig that reached down to my chest along with fake nails and eye lashes. On the day of the concert, I had talked the organisers to allow my sister into the school and help prepare me, and they did which was a bonus. We had a dressing room set up behind the stage. Katie and Sarah helped me into everything. Sarah had even provided a bra and stuffed it with socks to give me a modest pair of B-cups just to add to the illusion of being a woman. On the build up to the concert that evening, I was so close to crapping my pants I regularly visited the toilet and felt like throwing up. This was the first time I had performed in front of a large audience, and it would be the first time that I was dressed as a girl. I got a bit of a ripping from the other performers of that night, but none of it was too harsh that I had to worry. It was all in good spirits.
I was stunned to find that when we started our performance, I just sang. My nerves instantly melted and I just sang my heart out. Alongside Sarah, we were incredibly relaxed and just did what came naturally to the both of us, singing. The crowd loved it, they didn't even laugh at the two of us walking out on stage. We walked out, dressed as we were, our names were called out and we sang our song. When we finished, we were applauded. (They probably thought Sarah was I, and I was Sarah.)
After the concert, we returned to my grandparent's house. All three of us. My grandparents were still out of the house, and I can remember the chat we had in the evening. There was nothing special about what we talked about in all honesty. Movies, music, computer games. Same old same old really. I was going to get changed out of my dress, but both Katie and Sarah insisted I kept it on. Apparently, I looked cute in it. Those were Sarah's words, as Katie knew I looked cute in dresses. I was expecting her to actually reveal it wouldn't have been my first time in a dress. Though I think Sarah wouldn't have cared. She would have probably wanted to dress me up all over again. We had both just been crossdressing in front of an audience that consisted of council members, board members, students and the parents of those students. At that point I wouldn't have really cared.

My art course was next, and I had the idea of doing a project on the human body. It involved looking at all the layers of the body. The bones, the muscle, the skin, everything. I found that Leonardo Da Vinci's works certainly helped as reference points considering the work he did during his time on the human body.
I want to go out on a deviation of my story here, and comment on my fascination with Da Vinci. It moved far beyond the work I did during my art GCSE. The man was an intellectual genius. The world was better off with him. This was a man of many talents, and numerous mysteries surrounded his life.
My first point of call for my research was The Vitruvian Man, and then the Codex Atlanticus. The Vitruvian, by Da Vinci that focused on the human body.  Unfortunately the Codex Atlanticus wasn't as helpful but still proved to be quite an interesting bit of reading material. My next piece for the art project was the human body in movies and literature. In movies, I focused on the German film Metropolis, the anime movie Ghost in the Shell (along with the sequel, and the Stand Alone Complex series) as well as both the original 1953 and the 2005 remake of House of Wax. I looked at how the human body was created through robots, the transfer of a human brain into a cyber body, and what was known as "Cyberisation" in the Ghost in the Shell series. For the House of Wax movies, I looked at how the bodies were used as the frames for their work.
(Author's note: I really wished I didn't watch the remake of House of Wax. The only decent part was seeing Paris Hilton have her brains skewered. Admittedly the original one was flawed. Vincent Price was a disfigured man wearing a mask, how was it that his lips were moving? Still, Vincent Price was a master of his art. It's a shame he's dead. Also, not many people know this, but there was a previous movie that the 1953 movie was spawned from called Mystery of the Wax museum. Another movie I need to get my hands on and watch.)
In the literature study of the human body, my only source was in fact Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Now I realise that Frankenstein's work was to cheat death and create life, but what I found helpful for my art project was how Frankenstein created this life using body parts. How the doctor took parts from dead bodies and forged them into one complete body, and while he marvelled at his creation, he was horrified at what had been created (I still found that bit confusing, even to this day).
The final part to my art project was how people portray the human body in the real world, and this is really where crossdressing came into play. Thanks to the advice I gained from Katie, she suggested that I look at how people look in different forms. For this, I took a trip up to London, and I met Katie and a few of her friends. Since her time in London, she had met a number of different people: transgenders, transsexuals, crossdressers, drag artists, my sister had spread her mind far and wide and I was proud of that. Despite our parents still trying to make Katie see sense in their eyes, she still carried on and worked towards what she wanted. We had a lot of photo shoots set up thanks to Katie's girlfriend (she came out of the closet shortly after Christmas) who worked in a shop for the transgender, transsexual and crossdressing community. They were a huge help for me, and all came up with ideas that went into the final project. (I remember one Sunday when I was visiting, we used the store and there were about sixteen people all coming up with ideas. The best one was a spot the difference; a crossdresser fully made up to look like a randomly chosen girl who also went through the same make up procedure both wore the same outfit. A picture was taken, and the caption beneath both pictures in my project said "One is a male in girl's clothing, the other is female. Which is which?" and no one ever got it right.) I even remember I got to indulge in my habit of crossdressing for a few days.
Thankfully, all the hard work and preparation through art paid off. I received top passing grades and I went on to college happy and ready for the world. Of course I could have hoped my sister was closer to home, but beggars can't be choosers.

-X-

I'm afraid I can't really say College was all that eventful. In all honesty it was basically a copy of my GCSEs during school only this time they were replaced with A levels. I didn't do as much crossdressing as I had originally hoped. Seeing as I was at a college in which our drama groups consisted with enough boys and girls to fill the spaces required for each performance. I was a little stumped at that point, but it was bound to happen, to me it was just a dry point of my crossdressing life.
I did manage to visit my sister a lot more though. I started working at the local football stadium in catering during match days and any evening events that they held, and with the money from that, and a young person's rail card, I managed to visit her more and more during my free time. We visited the shop Katie's girlfriend works at, and while I wasn't able to fully dress up all the time, I was given a free make-over and I did wear a wig when I went up. A few days I was treated to half price make-over and dressing up sessions which was always a bonus to me.

-X-

I guess my biggest fulfilment of exploring who I am came during secondary school with my GCSE's and the fact I was able to explore the open world. I got to meet a lot of new people, some of which I still keep in touch. Some have gone on to lead amazing lives and push the boundaries for the LGBT community. Admittedly some of the time I wonder if the work done to help those who want to come out without fear of prejudice has been for nothing, but I then ignore that. The road to civil liberties for all and a fair and free country will always have bumps and cracks, but with perseverance we can carry on and achieve what's best for everyone. (Personally I believe the best way to start is through the abolishment of all religions, but that's just me.)

So that is the second part of my life chronicled, and put to paper. Now all that leaves is to chronicle the final part of my story, leading up to the current day.