skirtcafe.org

Hello,

I joined today, 3 May 2024 after lurking occasionally for years. I am 82 years old. I have several grown children and more grandchildren.

I wear kilts quite a lot, mostly one in black watch that my wife made about 20 years ago when she asked why I hardly ever wore a kilt like I used to, and I replied that the real Scottish tailor made kilt we got when I was in my 20s must have shrunk because the outermost hole of the straps were very tight, and anyway it was hot and heavy. She got some material and made a pigs ear of a kilt with velcro fastening which was light but just doesn't look right. She tried again and did a great job making a light and comfortable one, which I wear a lot especially in memory of her. She passed away 10 years ago.

I wore it yesterday and for a few days before, but it's beginning to feel a bit oily again and needs a dry clean. It was unexpectedly hot yesterday when I walked the dogs 3 kilometers to and from the dog park and even the lightweight kilt she made was a bit sweaty.

All day today I wore a hiking kilt by Sport Kilt, the one that's like a lighter and more comfortable Utilikilt.

From this you may gather that I have no problem wearing a kilt anywhere and any time. I think it helped that I had a Scottish mother and got my first kilt age 5 or 6 for a wedding and afterwards wore it pretty much whenever my mother took me places and for children's parties. Though we lived in England, not Scotland, and sometimes there was teasing, more for the girls knickers that just about every kiltie wore than for the kilt, which was something soldiers wore, so okay in boy world.

Anyway I started being reluctant to wear it, and when I was about 8, and it was getting too small it passed to a cousin. I was an only child.

When I was 12 I asked for another one and got it on condition I would wear it. I was at boarding school so I could only wear it in the holidays. I alternated the kilt with jeans until I was about 15 and once again grew out of it

I got a great job in media without going to university and had my eldest son in 1962. We got him his first kilt when he was 6 and that's when I got another one too. He wore his a lot and loved it.

So I have no problem wearing a kilt whenever I feel like it, but my courage evaporates every time I attempt to be more daring, like I have an Unaligned Skirt Craft skirt that each time takes a lot of courage to wear, say to the supermarket. My eldest daughter encourages me much like my late wife used to. They are very similar lovely people.

I wore a dress once when I was about 4. A girl cousin and I swapped clothes for an afternoon, with the encouragement of our mothers. The elastic of the puff sleeves cut into my arms. The cloth belt tied tight in a bow at the back constricted my chest, and I couldn't feel anything against my legs. It felt like there was nothing down below. So I was not an early convert to dresses and glad to take it off.

My son though did wear dresses quite a lot. He wasn't trans. He isn't gay. He just liked them when he was three to five or so. But they were boys dresses from the boys Department of a big department store. However, that was the 1960s and it's another story.

Welcome Damon, and thanks for the substantial introduction.

Grab a cup and join any conversation you'ld like

Uncle Al

Welcome Damon. You appear to have had quite a journey. Pleased that you have found us.

Welcome Damen. It's a good place.

Welcome aboard; we need a few more octogenarians to give Tom some more wind in his sails!

Since you've been lurking for while, you've no doubt seen the many posts of those who have let fear limit their pubic clothing options; and those who just say get out there and do it, you'll feel more of a man than ever before!

Strangely, I often find folks call my clearly non-kilt (skirt) garments kilts anyway -- they are afraid to even use the word skirt, so pity on them, go forth kilt, skirt, or whatever you bloody please -- raise their fear level, not yours!

Now, for a bit more full-disclosure: What "Ontario" of the dozen or more are you hiding in?

Welcome. It's great to have people who after lurking for a while decide It's time to share with us.

Hello and Damon!

That's a great introduction. I'm particularly impressed by you asking for a kilt when you were 12. Hopefully in that one you got to wear boy's underwear. I find the idea that a small boy should wear girl's knickers under his kilt very strange. What's wrong with his usual ones? In a kilt he's already likely to get a bit of flak; it's going to be twice as bad when the inevitable moment of exposure arrives and the undies are frilly.

As for your current choices, put the Skirtcraft Unaligned on for ordinary days at home. One day you may have to nip out for some reason, and you'll decide you can't be bothered changing. You know what will happen: nothing. Nobody will care, except for your daughter, who will congratulate you and encourage you to do it again. From there on it will get easier.

Back then, 75 years ago I think it was pretty standard for kilted little boys to wear girls knickers. Boys underwear was shapeless, saggy and invariably white. It was not made to be seen. Girls school knickers were better looking and closer fitting, also dark green or navy blue. I knew three other boys who wore kilts sometimes. One was a cousin we visited every two years in Scotland and the other two lived in England like me. All wore schoolgirls knickers. It just was. By the age of 12 I was at a German boarding school where boys underpants, called 'slippen' were dark, usually black, briefs. That's what I wore under my kilt at home in England. I never wore a Schottenrock (Scottish skirt) at school. Though, bizarrely, the boy next door in England was German and he went to Gordonstoun and wore a kilt almost constantly. That's what made me ask for one. I don't know what he wore underneath. 12 year olds don't have kilts flying up all the time like 6 year olds. To answer somebody else's question, I now live in Ontario Canada. Gordonstoun is the school in Scotland that King Charles III went to and described as "Colditz in Kilts." My school, aptly called Nussbaum, Nut Tree, was full of nuts but rather nice. Certainly no Colditz. And no corporal punishment or uniform. Germans just after the war seemed to have a bit of a phobia about children wearing uniforms. They'd had too much of that.

Well Damon, you had to go and pick a whole Province rather than just a town named Ontario-- so now I have ask what part of your Ontario?! We have friends there -- though none of the males wear skirts, or kilts as far as I know -- sad for them. Nor did I wear skirts much then (1970's) either, especially since much of my own travel was transiting to what was then Frobisher Bay or some such --not great for skirts or kilts. But these days you should be in good company. Good having another body from one of the saner regions of the globe.