Trans in the 90s, Part Two.
I first wore women's clothes in Spring 1997. My brother went with my dad to a gig, mom went bowling and I went to the basement to put on an old, green bridesmaids dress (with shoulder pads!). At that point, I knew I was a girl. I tried to convince myself that I was a fetishist at first, but that didn't last long. Turns out that denial can fuck a person up. Who knew?
My mom figured something was up pretty quickly, mainly because I was right shit at covering my tracks. Her makeup was askew. Panties went missing. And there was the time I tried to simulate boobs by filling hosiery with unpopped popcorn, ruining her good bra.* Hey... I said I was stealth. I didn't say I was any good at it.
She thought I was gay. The media had her panicked that I would start dating my best friend or something. (My best friend was a giant charismatic teddy bear named Rob. We didn't date, but were VERY much in love. So... Um...) She breathed a sigh of relief when I brought my now-ex, a cis woman, home.
Aside from the diaries and Usenet, the main way I expressed myself was chat rooms. Login to a kink room as a cis woman and go until they clock you. Yahoo, of course. But my absolute favorite was Microsoft Netmeeting, a proto-IM that allowed photos. The intended business crowd didn't care. But us weirdos loved it.
I will save high school for a different post.
*An FAQ said I could make fake breasts with panty hose and bird seed. I didn't have bird seed, so I went for the backup, popcorn. They obviously meant old school kernels in a bag. But it was the late 90s. We (and almost everyone else) only had microwave bags. So I used that. The problem was that dumbass me forgot to wash off the butter first. Huge mess.
