Kappa Beta Serving the transgendered community since 1988

One of my earliest memories as a young lad of eight was of a picture of a southern belle woman dressed in a beautiful Civil War era gown. That image stayed with me until this summer when I finally emailed a seamstress in NY about making a dress for me. She was delighted to do so and did a wonderful job for me. The next step was to find a place to wear this dress.

This was originally posted in SCCLounge following the 2006 Southern Comfort Conference.

Let me add my thanks to all those who made SCC 2006 a possibility. It had been five years since my last SCC, but I hear I picked a good one to come to. It was wonderful seeing some familiar faces and making some new friends.

I put magical night in the heading because Saturday was just that for me (yes, pun intended).

In August, I had the chance of visiting the home of performer, Robert Baxt, the Magic Castle in Hollywood, CA. I was visiting with my parents who do not know about Stephanie. The Magic Castle is a private club for magicians. You get in only if you're a member or an invited guest. There is also a dress code: coat and tie for men and dresses or nice pant suit for women. My parents and I had a great time as we rarely get a chance to live it up.

For several years, Kappa Beta has been a part of a sociology class at UNC-Charlotte taught by Dr. Lance. Several of our members speak before the class once each semester, and they take questions from the class afterwards. A big thanks goes out to Bobbie Long for starting and heading up the visits for several years. Pamela has recently taken over and has done a great job as well. I had always heard great stories from these classes, but I had never been able to attend. That changed on May 31.

We had a great group this time around. Along with Pam, we had Jennifer, Trish, Trish's wife Diane, and myself. Trish and Diane were also first timers, and it was one of the few classes where a wife had attended. We met Dr. Lance in his office at 12:30pm and went back down for the 1pm class. Dr. Lance was very kind, as he made sure he got to know each of us, particularly the three newcomers.

One of the questions frequently tossed around in transgendered circles is some variation of the following: if you could take away your female/crossdressing/transgendered desires, would you? The question is usually designed to provoke interesting debate and conversation. It’s also a great way to get to know people, as everyone’s answer is usually different.

My experiences in people’s answers to this question varies greatly even when taking into account age, experience, and level of transgendered tendencies. I even heard one friend in online chat say recently she would absolutely want all feminine desires taken away. Like many of the important questions in our lives, our answers usually change over time. It makes for an interesting dynamic as many of my friends over the years decide either to accept or not accept this part of them.

February's meeting was a wonderful time for all who attended. The Columbia ladies really know how to show the rest of us a good time, and we owe them a world of thanks. Another interesting thing occurred though for me as I had a near crossing of paths with a not so fortunate incident from Stephanie's past. Just two blocks away was a church seminar at the Columbia Convention Center. This was a church that I had been part of during my college years in Chapel Hill, NC. It was also the only time I had been caught dressed in women's clothing from someone outside the TG world.

For those that don't know the story, this occurred before Christmas 1992. I was just finishing college and was rooming with some men from the church in an apartment. We were all good friends and got along well. Little did they know that I had started exploring my cross-dressing tendencies. I had gone to yard sales and bought a couple of formal dresses. While everyone was away, I would dress up. I had no makeup, wig, shoes, panties, or a femme name... just two beautiful dresses. They even fit perfectly. I knew the church members would frown on this as it was a fundamentalist church. I always tried to be careful.