To: "CD Forum Digest" [e-mail address removed]
Subject: [*******] or Pia? - a short introduction
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 97

Hello out there!

This is Pia speaking. If I am forced to categorize myself,
I describe myself as part-time woman, crossdresser, or as
'gender enhanced male' (I have found this expression on
Stephanie's homepage: /Athens/6011/ )

I am living in Linz, Austria, Europe
- this should also apologize my poor English ...

To the outside world I am known as [*******], a math student
of 26 years - but not everything is as it seems ...

... looking back to my childhood, I immediately have to
think of one episode: I must have been about 7 years, when
I once locked myself in the bathroom and put on the clothes
of my younger sister, a nice 'dirndl' (a dress in austrian
folkloristic(sp?) style), and white tights. My parents wanted
to get into the room as I could not explain what I did inside
and finally they opened the door with a screwdriver before
I could undress. The strange thing is that I cannot remember
how they reacted - maybe I will once talk to a psychologist
about this, since this seems to be an important point in my
personal development. (Or maybe I will once ask my parents
for their version of the story, since I know that they
remember it as well as I do ... but at the moment I do not
want to talk with my parents about my hobby - I do not want
them to feel 'guilty' in any way.)

... and I remember one of the most important dreams I had
very often during my teen years: In this dream I felt like
having a built-in switch changing from male to female and
back whenever I wanted - this is really what I would still
like to have now - but now I can use 'software' in my
brain and my outfit to emulate this hardware switch :)

During the last several years, my mother's drawers and
cabinets were my only resources - starting with pantyhose,
continuing to full outfit - only for half an hour when I was
at home alone and, well, quite 'sexually excited'.
Once, I was maybe 21 years, my mother surprised me by coming
home too early - all I could do was to throw the borrowed
pile of her clothes into a hidden corner and to put on my
jeans and shirt really fast. Some hours later, when I wanted
to clean up the pile and put everything back, my mother had
already done it - but she never lost a word about this.

Oh, girls, I always like to remember these wonderful times
when I had the same shoe size as my mother :) Luckily, her
pantyhose still fit me. By the way, in the last years, I also
took three or four of her ph and transformed them to
split-crotch to have them adapted to my anatomy. I had only
one pair after another, but I needed several ones because of
'purging' (it was like: "Ouch, they are tweaking when being
worn the whole day - I don't like them any more, I think I am
'healed'! ", but now I know that epilated legs give me the
real good ph feeling!)

Then the summer of 96 came, and everything started to change:
I started websurfing and spent days and weeks reading TV's
and TS's biographies. I started letting my hair grow (I
should have done this earlier!) I became sure that not me but
the patriarchic (sp?) society was behaving strange, and I
became even proud being such a 'bird of paradise'. My parents
were in Vienna several times during last november, and on
sunday, nov 9th, I used mascara, eye-shadow, and so on, to
create a really feminine face. I immediately fell in love with
my mirror image (I love beautiful girls, I think that I am
mostly heterosexual - or a bit lesbian?, and I am still in a
very narcisstic phase), and I decided to leave the closet for
the first time. I decided to wear androgyneous clothes -
sweater and black jeans, and my (men's) high heeled flamenco
boots (I am now into flamenco dancing for more than two years
and having these high shoes was a really nice side-effect ;)
I went to a little cinema to see Pedro Almodovar's "The Flower
of My Secret", and everything went smoothly - I only had to
speak to one person, the guy selling the tickets, and I showed
no fear and asked for ticket without even changing my
(noticably masculine) voice. I really enjoyed the film and I
did not worry about 'passing' or not.

This first experiment in the 'real world' also made me aware
that feeling like a woman and being a woman means really more
to me than sexual foreplay. And I really wanted to share my
experiences with others, so I went to the local transgender
group one week later - dressed in (what people think to be)
'normal' clothes, because I did not know anything about the
people I would meet there. First I thought I was wrong: A
lady in the 40's, a teen-age boy, and a nice girl, a little
bit younger than me, were sitting around the table. But I
learned soon that all of them had been born into the wrong
body, and that also the other people of the group are all
TS's, but they accepted me very cordially and I did not have
to feel as a 'minority in the minority'.
Since then, we meet every two weeks, and I have borrowed one
of my mother's tightest short skirts, and a bra (filled with
shoulder pads), to improve my outfit. And I cannot help
wearing only skirt and pantyhose, although we have very much
snow this winter :) We often go to a little pub that is known
to be homo- and transsexual frienly, and I have found friends
there (two lesbians - bad luck, I am still too male for
them, I will have to find a girlfriend elsewhere ...).
And I have been at a clubbing, which was quite an event, the
people were coming everywhere from Austria, even from Germany
and Italy. I have been there in men's clothes (Well, not
really, my V-neck T-shirt has the label 'girls casual wear'
in it ;), except of my new fishnet-pantyhose that I had
bought the same day (my first 'shopping for Pia'), and that
felt great on my newly shaved legs! Bad luck: They did not
accept being worn invisibly under the jeans and got a large
hole. Good luck: I had my makeup bag with me and noticed
that every crazy outfit is allowed at such a clubbing and
rave night. So I started to the next mirror ... :)

So far I, Pia, have only had contact with *scene* people,
people that are 'different' and can easily accept me as one
of them. But I have also made another experience, and I am
very happy about this: It was monday, dec 16th, when I was
sitting in front of my computer, thinking *not* about
[***my work***] but about
how to get nice shoes. I first wanted to wait for carneval
time in jan/feb, then I made a quick decision: I called [******],
who is a long time friend of our family, about 40 years old,
and I told her that I wanted to go to a carneval party
dressed as a woman and then I asked her for her shoe size -
and: Bingo! it was just my size, European 41 (this is about
the largest of the women's sizes in ordinary stores).
She agreed to let me try some of her shoes, and I went to her
two hours later - as nervous as one could be. She did not ask
me anything about the party, and she was very helpful, showed
me her shoes, then I told her the truth: 'You have to know,
[*****], that this is no normal party. It is the christmas
party of the local transgender group.' And she did not even
raise an eyebrow. Then I said: 'I will put on what I will
wear this evening, this will help us deciding which shoes
will match.' And I transformed myself, put on makeup, she
gave me hints and helped me with the black eye line. We
selected a pair of black shoes of medium height and very thin
leather, enclosing my ankles, and I felt perfect. Then I told
her about my development, although she said: 'You don't have
to tell me, if you don't want to.'
She gave me these shoes for several days, and when I had to
return them in the morning of dec 24th, I gave her a new
eye-liner as x-mas present. She laughed, because I had asked
her about which trademarks she used, and she had thought that
I was going to equip myself with the same, and then it was for
her (Well, in fact, I have bought one for me, too :)

ok, I have to stop now, although I would like tell you more
especially about the relation to my parents and sister.
But this will have to wait for another time.

Greetings from the 'Heart of Europe',

Pia