URNotAlone

RE-EMERGENCE

September 5th, 2011 10:27 pm MDT

1

 

I can’t say my early exploration of the Web had anything to do with thoughts of dressing, much less becoming more public again as Robyn. At first I used it mainly as a research tool, then as a means of contacting others involved in similar investigations. In addition my publishers were delighted to see me go that route, since it meant they could now edit and process my writing from an e-mailed text instead of a snail-mailed computer disc – remember the five-inch floppies? – or (horrors!) regular hard copy.

 

Even then, it was some time after acquiring a home computer and going online before I ventured into TG Land. And, when I did, I could not believe a lot of what I found.

 

First the quantity, which was staggering. If we had ever thought we were the only people like us in the world, there was no way to think that anymore. Then the quality. Some of these girls were incredible, and their websites often made the dark old days I was used to look like just that – the dark ages. Sure, there was a fair amount of sleaze and, in many cases, outright pornography. But as in the world of TG fiction – another amazing corner of cyberspace – a sizable number exuded real class and intelligence. What would it be like, I wondered, to know some of these people?

 

I never even contemplated putting up a site of my own. After all, I didn’t even have pictures anymore, though I did check to see if anything on me or my transitioned cousin might be out there somewhere. (It wasn’t.) I also e-mailed a handful of people, mostly writers, under yet another femme name, but apart from some brief exchanges that never really went anywhere either.

 

Then came MySpace. I may have misunderstood but, from what I could see, places like Yahoo and URNotAlone – a brilliant name – required not only a profile photo but more information than I was willing to supply. MySpace, however, was different. Following a spate of horror stories in the media, I began looking into it and discovered, among other things, that you could set up an account without a photo and with what seemed to me fairly minimal personal data. And even that didn’t need to be wholly accurate. (I assume at this point everybody’s figured out that I’m a good deal older than the age on some of my profile pages.) So, holding my breath, I took the plunge, tentatively at first, with very little in my profile. But there I was, on a page of my own for the first time as Robyn.

 

I wouldn’t say the results were overwhelming, at least not initially. With no picture, there weren’t many who were drawn to that page. Nor were there many willing to write back, much less accept me as a friend, when I began messaging them in hopes of becoming better acquainted. The first exception, however, was a girl whose story and pictures had really impressed me and who not only messaged me back that same morning but believed what I had to say about myself and became my very first MySpace friend. (I don’t count the ubiquitous “Tom.”) And she has remained my No. 1 friend there ever since. (Thanks again, Karen!)

 

Still, after a couple of months it was becoming increasingly clear that a photo, even an older one, might make a real difference. So I began searching the Net again and was surprised to find for sale online some old issues of Transvestia, including one that I knew one of my pictures had appeared in on its own. (No. 58, if you’re curious.) So I got that, had the photo scanned and with great trepidation uploaded it to my profile page. And to my amazement within a few days’ time there were people who recognized it and remembered me.

 

2

 

The first was a girl who had absolutely bowled me over when I came across her pictures online several years earlier. (See how superficial we can be!) When I found her again on MySpace, she became one of the first two people I wrote to now that I finally had a profile photo. This time both responded, but she surprised me by saying she thought she knew this photograph and the girl in it. It took some doing, but once I had satisfied her that I was indeed that girl, she confided to me that after all these years she still had that original issue with my story and photos. And that it was the only issue of that magazine she had kept. Not only that, but she was sweet enough to scan the pages and e-mail me the original images (which is where most of the other photos in my gallery come from).

 

That proved to be one of the most memorable, and emotional, weekends of my life. You can’t know how it felt, after all that time, to be able to read that story and see those photos again. Much of it even I hadn’t remembered, and now to have it all flooding back ….

 

Later two more girls accepted me, each a respected TG Internet icon, and we also began to exchange e-mails. At last I was finding what they were like firsthand and, I’m pleased to say, with this group there were no disappointments. They were as kind as they were beautiful and I value their friendship to this day. At the same time I was beginning to realize that, like dressing itself, this was more than just a lark and that before much longer I was going to have to let my wife know what was going on.

 

I don’t care what anyone says – every marriage has its share of secrets. But early in ours we determined there would be no BIG secrets that either of us kept from the other. And however much I may have wanted to play it down, there wasn’t much question in my mind that my having a MySpace account, especially as Robyn, was more than your average-sized secret. So I carefully printed out a copy of my profile page, along with those of my top friends, together with pictures and a few comments and personal histories, and placed them in a presentation binder my wife could leaf through and see for herself exactly what was and wasn’t happening with me and my newfound friends. And when I felt the moment was right, I explained to her what I had been doing – during which I could see her nervousness mount – then showed her the book. And together we leafed through it as I explained who these people were and what they did and didn’t know about us.

 

I think that, together with her faith in me, proved reassuring, as did the pictures. Obviously there was nothing sleazy or underhanded about this group of people. She was also astonished at how good a lot of them looked. (I still have vivid memories of the first FPE meeting I took her to before we were married, where at one point one of the members dragged us into a bedroom and began showing us pictures of himself/herself in panties and a bra!)

 

I also explained to her that, if she wished, I would give her my MySpace password and she could check up on me and my friends anytime she cared to – i.e., I wouldn’t try to hide anything from her, even in this. She said she didn’t think that would be necessary. Nevertheless, we did agree on a number of restrictions, including no face-to-face meetings and no disclosure of our real identities, even to people I normally would trust with that information. Because of that I have done my best to honor that agreement even when it has put a strain on some of my online relationships. And, I’m sorry to say, there have been times when it has.

 

3

 

All of this happened last summer, and I have to say it was fun picking and choosing friends, even if they didn’t always pick and choose me. (Several accused me of being a fake.)

 

Then last September one of my friends alerted me to a feature story in the New York Times about the era in which I came of age girl-wise. “Casa Susanna” was the name given to a TG resort in the Catskills run by a Transvestia columnist, Susanna Valenti. I never met Susanna (though she wrote about me in one of her columns), nor did I ever go there. But I knew some of the people who did, including one who was quoted at length in the story.

 

“Fiona” and I had become pen pals during my most active period as Robyn, exchanging photos and lengthy letters at irregular intervals. Thus I was pleased to find her, with a change of name and sex, on the Net when I first began exploring some years before my re-emergence. For some reason I did not e-mail her then but, when I read what she had to say in the “Casa Susanna” story, decided to do so.

 

I wasn’t sure she’d remember me, much less welcome my inquiry. I couldn’t have been more wrong. She responded with a lengthy e-mail, recalling things, and other people, I had forgotten. Were that not enough, as a research librarian – one of the few things in her life that had not changed over the years – she still had files on many of the girls from the old TVia days, including yours truly. And that meant not only some of our correspondence (I had forgotten I used to use flowered stationery!) but, glory be, one of the pictures I had sent her as well. And that’s why the main photo on my profile page(s) is so much sharper and more detailed than the others – it’s the only one NOT to come from a magazine, being a computer scan of the original copy I had mailed to my friend more than three decades before. (Thank you, Kate!)

 

Nor was that the only “blast from the past” to emerge during that time. A few weeks earlier, at the urging of some of my online friends, I had finally extended my story beyond the time frame covered in my TVia profile. For security reasons I was careful about whom I shared this with, but one of those people was KC Tyler, the super-supportive proprietress of “KC’s Top Ten,” whose galleries and celebrations of other girls had been among my happier finds when I began looking for TG websites. (Recently revived, they’re still worth checking out.) She was convinced this story belonged online. I wasn’t so sure.

 

For reasons already gone into, security has been a concern from Day 1. I know these pages are looked at by all kinds of people and was particularly worried that the wrong ones might come across mine. But as time went on I had to admit that what might be called untoward contact had been minimal. In fact one of my more admiring messages came from a fellow who wondered if I were “into pantyhose.” Which wouldn’t have been so remarkable except it was clear from his pages that he’s a motorcycle cop – scarcely the kind of encounter with law enforcement I was afraid my profile might generate!

 

So gradually my resistance wore down and I decided that, if anyone were going to put my story online, it probably should be me. (With, of course, some judicious editing.) And since most of the impetus came from people who thought I also ought to be at Yahoo, I finally took that leap as well. (The once-dreaded URNA came later.) And that, dear readers, is how and why you happen to be seeing this today, expanded beyond even what I had originally planned on doing.

 

If you have found it interesting, I’m glad. If not, blame KC!