CrossDressing Thru the Ages?

I have not been a crossdresser for that many years. I note that for a lot of girls on here and other sites/clubs dressing en femme is a life long thing. Some seem to have very early memories of dressing in sister's clothes at 6 years of age. I hardly remember much earlier than say age 7. That is all fine and dandy. It certainly doesn't matter to anyone whether you started at age 8 or much, much later in life as I did. But it is interesting. I wonder what causes the difference. For me, I wish I had started earlier and enjoyed those years when I looked younger and could probably have readily passed as female (probably? possibly?). Yes, we all have regrets in life, don't we. 

To put things in perspective, I'd like to wistfully consider some crossdressing history. I've been reading a book by Peter Ackroyd on the history of gay London (England not Ontario) going back to Roman times. I won't be-labour the fact that Roman Army soldiers were encouraged to take a male "friend" to obtain some satisfaction. The City of London was cosmopolitan very early in life (yes, between the four disastrous fires). Ackroyd paints a picture of a wide open metropolis with many brothels and in the 1500s well into the 1800s many males dressed in female clothes. And vice versa. Some women wanting to have a better income from jobs not open to their sex merely dressed as men and applied, some even became soldiers (of course, one would expect they might be a bit manly with smallish breasts anyway). In London, some well known individuals were coincidentally well know to dress as women. And some were well known to desire the affections of men while they were en femme. I suppose for some that might be the case even today. 

The difference between then and now is in how the developing law saw activities like these. Sodomy was celebrated until it wasn't in*******Appallingly, even young men were dispatched on the gallows for it. In fact, the last hanging for it occurred in******and the law was overturned in*******Other sex crimes, even ones appallingly egregious might receive a sentence of a year or two at Newgate Gaol. Sumptuary Laws made crossdressing illegal. Enforcement seems to have been very uneven and your chances of getting off were better if you were not poor. However, even some high ranking clergy ended up fleeing and lived out the rest of their lives in Paris. 

The book is interesting history, sad in places and quite funny in others. My point in reciting all this is that the times we live in now are very different and dare I say enlightened. Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher, wrote (I'm paraphrasing here) that 'those practises mentioned above hurt no-one and cause no misery to anyone' (assuming consensuality). Thus it is amazing to me that New York (and other) police forces were still arresting men dressed as women as late as the 1960s. I have passed around at our club pictures of police loading the "damsels in disguise" dressed to the 9s (some quite ravashing really) into paddy wagons for a trip to the station house. Then the Stonewall Riots occurred.

Things are not perfect. They rarely are but we do have it pretty good these days. Let's hope it stays that way.