Blog Directory ID: 2501
Blog URL: http://kdcleve.blogspot.com/
Google Pagerank: 2
Blog Description: I tried for 40 years to be a man while longing to be a woman. With my wife’s support, I now live as male and female, without surgery or hormones. I work through the GLBT subcommittee of our church Social Justice Committee to help the public understand heterosexual femulators like myself. My blog contains no ads, nudity or links to porn sites. Just a sweet story of dreams coming true. - Kathryn Diane Cleve
Blog Category: Feminism / Gender Blogs
Blog Owner: Kathryn Cleve
Blog Added: May 06, 2008 10:54:01 PM
Audience Rating: General Audience
Blog Country: 
United States Number Hits: 15 |  Blog Rating: 0.00 |  Rate Blog: Submit rating |  Review Blog |
| Latest Blog Reviews | |||
| |||
| Add the Review Me Button to your Blog! | |||
 <a href="http://www.bloggingfusion.com//review-blog-2501.html"><img src="http://www.bloggingfusion.com//images/linkware/review-me-at-blogging-fusion.png" alt="Review Longing to be a Woman at Blogging Fusion Blog Directory" style="border:0px;" /></a> | |||
| Our Sponsors | |||
Explaining Ecstasy
I wish I could explain to the genetic women who read my blog what ecstasy I feel wearing the clothing that they most likely take for granted.
Since I am a teleworker and work from my home office, I dress in women's clothing every day. A few moments ago, as I stood in the kitchen, washing dishes, I looked down at my denim skirt and tasteful high heels and thought about how deliciously feminine I feel.
Now that I am 61, I no longer attempt to pass in public as I so successfully did in Los Angeles those two wonderful years at the beginning of the decade. However, I do wear a bra, panties, thigh high stockings, nice conservative three-inch high heels and - depending on my mood - either a dress or a skirt and blouse. While I do continue to shave my arms, legs and chest, I no longer have to devote time to make-up and hair since I am trying to convince no one but our three cats. (The shaving is just for me. I like feeling soft.)
As mentioned elsewhere, Joy and I have continued to attend Weight Watchers and I have lost more than 55 pounds already. My goal is to lose 45 more by summer and wear a size 12 dress to the Halloween party at our church next fall. Interestingly, the weight loss has engendered a number of changes in my life. I am no longer tired all the time. My blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure are getting better to the utter joy of my doctor. But, and this surprised me, I am finally feeling proud of my body. My entire life, I remained varying degrees of fat because, frankly, I didn't care. I was nothing but a man so why should I attempt to look good? That's really how I felt. I weighed 275 in 1964 (high school graduation), got down to 175 in 1968 when I fell in love for the first time, spent about 20 years at about 235, ballooned up to 313 pounds after a stay in the hospital from a hit and run and have been right around 275 ever since. Now, things are different. I was 229 this morning on my way to 185.
Had I weighed fifty pounds less back in L.A., I would have been a much prettier woman. But at least I was a woman for two years. I am grateful for that. Feeling good about myself is a new experience and it happened because I was able to achieve my dream for two wonderful years in Burbank. Having been a woman, I can accept being 91% female and 9% male for the balance of my life. Yeah. I'm cool with that.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
I WON!!!
I won! Earlier this year, we attended a church costume party and I won the prize for best costume!
When we arrived, Joy went in first. She was Elizabeth Taylor. About five minutes later, I came in. Margie, the lady who ran the party, did not recognize me the first three times she saw me.
Our music director, Nadya, spotted me and came rushing up and gave me "air kisses" and said, "Darling! How are you?"
Soon, word started spreading, "That's Frank Cleve." I got lots of compliments, mostly from women.
With the church vice-president, I discussed high heels and she raved at my eBay-won shoes.
The church secretary told me I was beautiful.
The minister said I looked lovely.
We had a nice dinner and then the prizes were announced. By the time they got to best costume, I figured I was out of the running. But it was me! I went up to accept the award and said, "I am so proud!"
So, my church friends just thought "Gee. Frank and Joy worked hard on his costume." Little did they know.
One of the great pleasures of not trying to "pass" as a woman is that I could stand around like the woman I am, walk like the woman I am and simply relax and be the woman I am and no one was the wiser. It was a great night. It was the first time since Los Angeles that I had been out in public as a woman and I loved my red nails and my pretty dress. Even though my friends knew I was just a man in a dress, I was a very HAPPY man in a dress.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
Soft, sweet, gentle
Here, I look like who I am inside. I have always been a sweet, soft, gentle, sensitive, emotional person on the inside. While some consider those stereotypical assets of a female, I consider them real assets of a female and have always been proud that I was like that.Sadly, in the Sixties and Seventies, society was not ready to see a boy, and later, a man behave like a woman unless he was a homosexual. I sometimes wished I was gay just so I could be myself.
Instead, I spent my life learning how to behave like a man and remembering to hide my natural instincts, thoughts and - of course - movement. I was playing a part. Every day. For 43 years.Joy was surprised at how quickly I adapted to high heels, skirts, dresses, and moving like a woman. When she remarked about how feminine I seemed in public and in private, I explained that - for the first time in my life - I was permitted to be myself; the female I had always been, deep inside. The female I had to hide so that I would not get beaten up or laughed at.But it was difficult. In fact, I was discharged from the navy when I was discovered by the Kingsville (TX) Police wearing women's clothing late one night coming out of the post office. Naturally, in a small Texas town like Kingsville, it took three squad cars to arrest me. And then, they refused to allow me to change clothes. So I sat for hours with a couple of drunks in a cell, until the Navy sent the Shore Patrol so they could laugh at me, too.
I had several meetings with a shrink, who wanted to know if I was gay. I was not. Then, he wanted to know if it was merely a prank. I said no. Finally, they gave me an "Honorable under general conditions" discharge which basically meant, "We don't care how brave you were in Vietnam, we think you're a fag so don't come back."
Of course, they ignored the fact that I did not like, let alone love, men.
To this day, if unobserved, I walk like a woman, move like a woman and think like a woman. For me, maleness was an act that I had to maintain all my life, at great cost to my emotions.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
Choose cake.
(This is something I have wanted to share for quite some time, so bear with me, friends.)I seriously considered suicide one evening in the summer of 1968 on Knox Avenue in Mt. Pocono, PA. I had been living with my mother and step-father for about a year after nearly 20 years of being bounced around like a basketball among various family members. I was trying to fit in. The Poconos were an exciting, cool place to be back then and my stepfather got me a job as a bartender at Pocono Manor, where I worked very hard and hung out with a bunch of other college kids working their way through school.
However, I had some secrets that were eating away at me. I was a virgin. I had been (and would be again, as it turned out) a fat man and was trying to cope with suddenly weighing 195 pounds for the first time since I was 15. (A year later, Uncle Sam congratulated me on the weight loss and invited me to visit Vietnam.)
Worst of all, I wanted to be a woman, which I was sure would send me straight to hell. And, of course, I could not possibly share that with anyone. So, I removed the .45 automatic from my stepfather's bedside table and walked out into the wooded area next to our house and tried to decide whether it was best to put it IN my mouth or to my temple.
Obviously, I failed.
For a remarkably wussy reason: I had "stolen" the gun from my stepfather and that was a sin. (Back then, I still bought into the God thing.)
My next suicide attempt wasn't until 1992 when I stood on the median of a busy highway in Sarasota, Florida and seriously considered stepping out in front of a semi. Although sin was no longer an issue with me, I thought of the tragedy the truck driver would have to live with and decided suicide, while painless, according to the M*A*S*H theme song, was extremely selfish.
I ran through all this crap today for the frightened, lonely men out there who steal away an hour here and there to wear the clothes they love while listening for car doors, voices and keys turning in locks with the feverish fear of a cat burglar. Wearing a dress is not a sin. Trying to look like a woman is not going to bring the planet screeching to a halt. Even losing a wife because of your compulsion is not necessarily an ending. Often, it is a wonderful beginning. Remember, that - when all is said and done and we return to whence we came - we are all alone. If we're lucky, we get to share some of our life with someone we love, or like or have learned to live with. But, bottom line, it is OUR life.
I wasted 40 years trying to conform to what society expects, trying to overcome my "sinful" behavior in the eyes of an invisible man in the sky who, I finally discovered, wasn't even there.
For 40 years, I could not even tell a priest or a minister about what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. Now, I am married to the completely supportive, completely beautiful Joy Cleve and we belong to a church that cares not if I am a femulator because it is a TRULY accepting church. (For more on that, click on Femulator Church on the link bar up top.)
Sorry I went on and on, folks, but I wrote from the heart. One draft. No fixes. Just my heart full of love for my fellow femulators. I want them to know we are not just okay, we are often the best men can be. And wives of femulator, don't be afraid. Your men are expressing the best of what they see in you and maybe, just maybe, that'll make them better humans.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
Susan, Iowa and me
Susan Stanton, a rather famous male to female transsexual is a friend of mine and my church has been behind her 100% ever since she came out a year ago. Susan Stanton (formerly Steve Stanton) used to work as the city manager of Largo, Florida before she was fired for planning to have a gender reassignment. It was heart wrenching to read her story of transition, of how friends, coworkers and her employer abandoned her, but heartening to hear of those who rallied around her. While the media attention on Susan dwarfs her experience being a woman (as some have noted), I think it's wonderful that she is finding doors open for her. Even though she may not be the "perfect" representative for the transgender community, her success, as high profile as it is, will help many people realize that there is more to them than the clothes they wear and the pills they take.
I applaud Iowa for looking at Susan's "skills, knowledge, ability, education and work history", and are basing their decision "solely on her resume and qualifications." I'm especially impressed that some in Iowa have noted Susan's sex change as a positive that may give her the ability to empathize with people from many walks of life.
Susan, you are one of the brave people who knew you were female and hung in there to set things right. And I applaud and admire you. I, on the other hand, feel a little sheepish about my situation because it pales by comparison to yours.
However, for four decades, I WANTED to be a woman. It has only been in the last ten years that I realized that I wanted to be my own personal fantasy of a woman. In other words, I wanted to wear women's clothes, look pretty, and feel like I deserve to be here. You were a woman trapped in a man's body for some time.
I was a man trapped in a man's body and I have hated it my whole life. I love women to excess, to my detriment and faithfully. Which is why my femulation is true, honest and - to the best of my ability - honorable to the gender I adore.
Although I am not a transsexual, I know how you feel about the hatred and confusion within the TG ranks. I have respect for all of the transgendered, no matter their attitude or beliefs, but my personal mission is to help my fellow heterosexual femulators, the "male lesbians" of TG land.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
Good woman
From the moment I decided to be a woman, I decided that I wanted to be a good woman.While drag queens are terrific entertainers, they are often an exaggeration of a woman.
While regular transvestites need to dress in women's clothes, they sometimes - through no fault of their own - look like a man in a dress.
Since transsexuals have a lot more on their minds than simply wearing the clothes of their real gender, they are often less concerned with the clothing than they are with their gender reassignment.
I was a unique case in that I was a man who merely wanted to be a woman, so surgery was not in the picture. I wanted to be a real woman, so entertaining was not on the agenda. I am lucky to be 5'9" at a time when taller women are becoming more prevalent, to have long hair that could be styled like a woman's, and a job where I had no co-workers to whom I would have to "come out." (Self-employed, at first) In addition, I had only been in Burbank for a couple of years so very people knew me as Frank Cleve.
So, I followed through on my desire to be "a good woman." I wanted to be a tasteful, attractive representative of the gender I worship.
A good woman is content with herself. She respects herself and others. She is aware of who she is and is quite capable of articulating her needs. A good woman is hopeful and strong enough to work toward making her dreams come true. She gives love without thought of it being reciprocated. A good woman is inspired and inspiring. A good woman knows her past, understands her present and moves toward the future. A good woman does not live in fear of the future because of her past. Instead, she understands that her life experiences are merely lessons, meant to bring her wisdom and love.
I'd love to hear from you! Email me!
My Yahoo! Google NewsGator Stumbleupon PluckIT Rojo Bloglines My AOL Blogrolling ENewsblog NewsIsFree NetVibes del.icio.us Technorati Digg This FeedMailerOr if you prefer use one of our linkware images? Click here
Report Blog Listing - 
Refer Blog Listinghttp://www.bloggingfusion.com/longing-to-be-a-woman-blog-directory-2501.html