Transvestism Time

I'm writing this as a bit of a displacement activity from doing some "proper" writing. I've been asked to write an account of my first time out "dressed", for a friend who's researching a magazine article, and it's turning out to be harder work than I expected. Although my first time out was a scant 3 years ago, it's already getting hard to remember what life was like before trannying became a big part of my life.

The researcher wants to know about what led up to my first time out, and my thoughts and feelings at the time. I'm wracking my brains trying to remember what the series of events were that led up to me booking that night out with the Boudoir. It's impossible to think of a chain of causality. I can't say that this happened that caused me to think like this, which made me do this.

As children we're taught history as nice causal links of events: "this man got assassinated... which pissed off this country... which made them write a snotty letter to this country ... and then there was a great big war".

We all know that real life isn't like that, either in the scale of international history or at the granular, human, level. Every event is triggered by a whole bunch of other events, you can't draw simple lines of causality.

There's a concept called Steam Engine Time, invented by Charles Fort, who said "in steam engine time, people make steam engines".

The steam engine was invented two thousand years ago, but it was seen at the time as little more than a toy. Over the centuries the idea was developed but never really took off. There were several attempts to make steam do work, some more successful than others, but no-one really took steam power seriously. Then in the late 18th century James Watt invented the Watt Steam Engine and steam energy "took off", fuelling the industrial revolution.

The point is, that Watt didn't invent steam power. It had been discovered over and over again throughout history, it's just that the world wasn't ready for it. There wasn't a pressing need for machines that could do the work of horses or men, it was an idea "before it's time". When Watt invented his engine it was in a cultural and economic environment that was ready and waiting for the steam engine. It was "steam engine time".

Steam engine time is the most famous example of this phenomena, but I can think of hundreds of others. Modern technology is full of ideas that have been around for ages but suddenly and seemingly inexplicably become popular. And also there are lots of ideas that try to take off but are woefully before their time. Anyone remember the clunky and underpowered "virtual reality" headsets from the early 90s? The idea of VR was good, but environment (in this case the limited available technology) wasn't ready to make it happen.

Bringing this down to a personal level, I've been a transvestite all my life. Throughout my teens and twenties I'd experimented, on-and-off, with dressing up with bits and pieces of women's clothing, but it was always a side-line activity which never lead to anything. There were always other things to do.

Then, a few weeks after my thirtieth birthday, I got chatting online with a tranny called "Jade". I was a horrendously closeted tranny, she was a regular dresser who was getting bored of the whole tranny scene (she actually used the chat nickname "Jaded"). I was saying that I'd love to go shopping for girly clothes sometime (yes I really was that closeted) and she said "why don't you?"

It wasn't a trick question. And I didn't have a good answer. Why don't I just do it?

Within weeks I'd been out for my first ever "proper" shopping trip as a tranny, and bought my first false boobs! Shortly after that I got involved with the Angels, and through them decided that I wanted a makeover from the Boudoir. A week after my makeover I decided to go out on an escorted night out, also with the Boudoir. Within about 6 months I'd gone from a hopeless closet case who'd never even been fully dressed en-femme to an "out" transvestite with a wardrobe of clothes.

Jade didn't make me do it. It wasn't the shopping trip. It wasn't the Angels. It wasn't the Boudoir. It wasn't the passing of my thirtieth birthday. It wasn't because I'd had a pay rise and lots of spending money. It was all these things, and many more. My life and environment had reached a point where it was time to let Becky out of the closet. I'd reached my own, personal, Transvestism Time.

Oh, and it doesn't show any sign of ending.