Maiden’s Journey

The term “female embodiment fantasies” is something I have learned fairly recently, thanks to the Internet and the access it gives me to papers on gender dysphoria and transgender issues.  What I am going to write about here is my inner world as a teenager. A time when I had never heard of gender dysphoria, female embodiment fantasies or even trans gender. I was aware of “gay”, and that everyone at school viewed that as a Bad Thing, but that was all I knew. I didn’t know anyone who identified differently, had never even heard of anyone changing their gender. This was the nineteen eighties and I knew nothing.  I knew nothing about gender identity but I did know how I felt.  Please forgive the indelecacy, but as a teenage boy (for so I was), I spent a fair bit of my time fantasising and pleasuring myself. That is normal I guess, but was the subject matter of my fantasies “normal”?  I am sure I stared at my female classmates just as much as the rest of the boys did. But...

 The first time I wore a dress was a special feeling.  At the time, I didn’t know that I was in any sense transgender or gender questioning. I was thirteen and didn’t even know such things existed. I was aware that when I looked at the girls in my class, part of my fantasy was to wonder what it felt like to wear their clothes, and especially their underwear and tights and skirts.  My first opportunity to find out was slightly unexpected and from the source of my German teacher who wanted her class to stage a pantomime for Christmas. In German obviously.  I was cast as one of the ugly sisters (oh how apt!) or to give me my German name, a hassliche schwester (apologies for the spelling, it’s been a while and there should probably be an umlaut in there somewhere.) Our teacher kindly provided the costumes, and I was issued with a dress. It was a long strapless gown of gold satin, which my mum surmised has come from the teacher’s kids dressing up box as it had some elasti...

I have written previously about my first attraction to a girl when I was eleven and how I was as fascinated by how it would feel to be her and wear her swimsuit as I was attracted to the girl herself.  At the time, I had no idea that this was not “normal” and that it was a sign of who I am inside. I had no external reference as to how you should fancy girls, except for other teenage boys’ conversation which was mainly as sophisticated as saying “phwoar” a lot. This does not provide the unknowingly gender questioning boy/girl with many clues.  School did provide most of my early attractions and fantasies though.  One of the new subjects we had to do now I was at senior school was “performing arts”, which was on rotation with art and music. It was sort of a combination of drama and dance and took place in what was officially called the “theatre” even though it had no stage or seating. It was more of a dance studio space I suppose but strangely had no windows or natural ligh...

Although I didn’t realise it at the time, my first attraction to a girl was also my first attraction to being a girl.  It is strange that I still remember after all this time, but maybe that’s the nature of significant moments in our lives.  It was 1986 and I was eleven. It was the summer between primary school and senior school and we were on our family holiday on the Isle of Wight.  I had sort of fancied girls who I thought were nice or pretty or whatever, but only in a childish innocent way. I guess playing at the idea of something without any real concept of what it really means. Up until this point, I had never properly fancied anyone in that way. I didn’t even know how! This holiday was just like our previous holidays. We had been to this place before, stayed at the same accommodation and played on the same beach.  The beach was brilliant there. A little stream trickled down from the cliffs and ran over the sand to the sea. All of the kids would take their buck...