The incomplete history of Barbara from 1968 to present.

I have been unhappy as of late with the current level of sexualization of discussions at my favorite forum www.crossdressers.com and was looking about for other more gender-issue specific websites and came across www.crossdressers-forum.com and joined. I'll be back to my first online home for Barbara, but the new forum looks really good and has a lot of familiar faces. I got on one of my typically verbose typing spasms when I tried to introduce myself. It veered and meandered 1600 words, and eventually morphed from an introduction into a history, so I clipped that and deposited it here, because I loathe typing and can't bear to wast the fruits of two hours of typing. If I had voice recognition software, I'd bury Stephen King and all his many nom-de-plumes in text. In male mode I blather, as Barbara, well the chick wears me out, and I am she!

My history as I currently choose to remember it, by Barbara


My male and dominant persona was born in 1965. In approximately 1969, but more likely 1968 after church, my beloved older sister had taken off her pretty dress in favor of play clothes and placed it on her twin bed of the matching princess style bedroom set of hers that we shared in her room. I too, was later changing out of of my handsome church clothes and looked for play clothes. Seeing her dress I inexplicably and with an impish gleam in my eyes slipped it over my head.

Mocking each other verbally was something we did to the annoyance of our parents. I pictured the effect my new costume would have on the accuracy of my portrayal. I snatched up socks and her black Mary Janes and ruffled socks and examined my appearance in the mirror. Since we had the same brown hair, the same brown hair with the same single blond streak on our left temple, it was remarkable the transformation with just clothes. My next step puzzles me to this day. I reached into the bottom drawer of the bureau and got out a clean pair of plain white panties and substituted it for my jockey shorts.

Wobbling out into the living room to what I thought would be accolades, my mother, eyes wide with horror said, "WHAT ARE YOU WEARING???!!!!"

I said, "Look, I'm _____!" and sashayed a bit. Mom leaped up and lifted the hem of my dress, foam nearly forming at her corners of her mouth. "THAT"S WHAT I THOUGHT......WHERE IS YOUR UNDERWEAR??!!!!!! " and twisting my arm drug me back to my sister and my room. Yanking the dress over my head, and then stripping off the shoes socks and panties, I stood naked before her. Now I knew I was in trouble, IN our house, hyper modesty was the norm. I had had some pretty sever punishment previously over the Barbies, not because I had gotten into my sisters toys, but because I had stripped them naked.

Tossing my underwear to me, She with obvious disgust told me to put them back on. Some vague threats were made of how my father would view this activity when he got home from whatever meeting he was attending. (He BTW at the time had been asked my our church to serve as a volunteer layperson Chaplin for prisoners formerly of our faith who were doing time at Louisiana State Penitentiary.) Grounded to my room, I sat confused, on the bed awaiting my punishment, most certainly going to be corporal in nature. After a time she came back to further confuse me with a over sized load of guilt and shame to the accompaniment of Deuteronomy. A book which contains a lot of rules that my church teaches condescendingly that our Hebrew brethren of Moses day needed because they were not ready for the "Higher Law" and had to be "commanded in all things" at that time.

I learned of my "sin" and the absolute imperative necessity to never repeat such an abomination ever again. This despite the fact that my church scoffs at infant baptism because children specifically below the age 8 are innocent and pure in the eyes of their loving Heavenly Father and explicit incapable of sin as sin requires intent and knowledge. Apparently in my mom's mind the only exception to both Mosaic Law and to Sin by Innocents, is this particular heinous act that is all to close to the Sin that has No Name.

The over reaction not the actual act is what I have always thought of as the genesis of a lifetime of confusion, repression, and varied acting out behaviors in ways as varied as crossdressing, v0yeurism, exhibiti0nism, masturbati0n, objectification, and low self esteem. Of the list of behaviors I engaged in in various forms off and on for the next 38 years, the wearing of women's intimates seemed the most perverted, but oddly was never on the top of the list of things I viewed as compulsive behaviors. On the seemingly unconnected occasions when I would find a swim-suit or a pair of nylons hung up to dry and had the privacy to lock the door and wriggle into them, I would feel a bit silly afterward, but would not picture it likely that I would feel compelled to do so again.

Yet I did. Again and again and again. Interestingly even just masturbation caused me waves of guilt for which I sought professional help for my sex addiction. I did in the context of family and sexual history disclose fully as I saw it my crossdressing activities, but my level of denial was such that it was dismissed as not my primary issue by really good counselors trained personally by Patrick Carnes. I would have agreed with them given the level of information I was able to provide because of the disconnect between the incidents and the other presenting behaviors. They helped me to deal with my feelings of not being able to see the incident with my mom as simply about her and not me.

I spent time in various 12 step groups, compulsivity groups, individual counseling, even did a workbook along with actual indicted or even convicted sex offenders. Their genesis stories were not that different than my own. I often thought that there, but for the grace of God, go I.

I got clean, and stayed clean for a few years. The prominence of the Internet, the need to use it in my job, and the ever increasing amount of pornography on the Internet made it awfully easy to privately and steadily relapse time and time again into compulsive behaviors. My wife, who is pretty open minded and very healthy and secure in her sexuality would not in anyway add to my load of shame and guilt over simple indulgence in the vulgar and the base. My need for secrecy to do so, my voyeuristic obsession and its corrosive effects was always her concern. So I hid, I got caught, I reformed, I yearned, I backslid, I hid, I got caught....in an endless cycle.

4-5 months ago I was again skulking the darkened (in my mind) alleys of places where people expose their predilections and fantasies and even their bodies. I noted crossdressers posting pictures of themselves en femme, and was disinterested in the imagery but fascinated by the replies posted by GG's (genetic girls) who were in their individual cases finding such displays arousing.

My wife, having expressed that she has an unfulfilled bi-sexual orientation seemed as likely as any woman to find this sort of thing if not arousing, then certainly not overly repulsive.

I thought back to both my dressing (really only intimates since that first disastrous experiment) and to the teasing of childhood about feminine characteristics mostly tied to my small stature. I was 4' 11" and 72 lbs entering high school. In hindsight, man could I have passed then! I would have been a petite size zero, and who is going to think tranny when they see a tiny girl in cute clothes?

We interrupt for this:

My wife beside me says if I hadn't grown we never have married. Intrigued I just asked her, too short? She replied, no too thin, I never would have married someone lighter than me. I am currently heavier than my husband and it bugs the heck out of me." She is gaining (well losing actually) on me. She has lost 35 lbs in the last 2+ months to my 23. eventually she plans to lose enough to role reverse and 'borrow' my femme clothes and then lose her way down to put her clothes safely out of my reach. "Betch!"

Back to my regularly scheduled post:

So, I began buying outerwear nervously at thrift stores, and culling my wife's wardrobe, and practicing. I had this bright idea of 'surprising' her with a fully formed "Barbara" on our anniversary which we had already made plans to spend in Las Vegas, combining a family trip, out anniversary, and a visit to one of her online friends.

A couple of weeks prior, she found "the stash", thought I was having an affair with an unclothed woman with poor taste, and began a forensic analysis of my computer. Finding footprints of my male persona acting out she began drawing up divorce papers. At one point she found references to Barbara, even found an online profile with a really bad picture of me in a wig. She couldn't conceive of her fella in a dress, so she assumed the skank was your average home wrecker. A bit later still fuming she found my newly purchased make-up still unused. Doesn't this woman even have her own make-up? ..a few beats...then OHHHHHHHHH. Back to the computer back to the profile and mouth agape she realized Barbara is the dude she has been sleeping with for the last 15 years...


Google google read read, she was relieved to find that in many cases the CD is married, often closeted, often straight. Well, check, check,and check. Still righteously indignant about my secrecy, she fumed (I was camping with the boys at the time). By the time I returned she had prepared her composure to tell me that she was unhappy with the sneaking but wanted to tell me that my dressing is my business and she would not in any way stand in the way.

Emotionally needy, embarrassed, I heard it as she was indifferent and would allow it, but my grand plan for a lesbian weekend in Vegas seemed remote and silly. Feeling small I sulked and planned to put Barbara back in the closet. A couple of days of her gentle encouragement I was able to open up and hear her, and she took me by the hand to a store and bought me some shoes, some clothing, a matching bra and pantie set, and we haven't looked back. No idea where this will lead, but I am very happy and oddly complete at this time.