Paddy
Aldridge's Biography
"What we have done for ourselves dies with us;
what we have done for others, and for the world,
remains and is immortal." ~ Albert Pike ~
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I am not transgendered - I have always admired people who are soul searching. Once they find out who they really are, they are brave enough to become that person through change. I live an inspired life and in turn inspire others by my acceptance and encouragement.
I have owned and operated a crossdresser transformation service in
downtown Toronto since 1987. A transformation service is a relatively
new type of business designed to assist men who want to look like
women. As the visibility of crossdressing has spread through the medium
of television, radio and the Internet, there are now transformation
services in virtually every average and large city in North America.
But as the popularity of the legitimate crossdressing services has
grown, other businesses such as the mistress and the dominatrix now
include the transformation service. Indeed, there are numerous services
throughout the world run by these women who not only offer their regular
services of domination, S&M, B&D and sex, but also crossdressing,
fantasy role playing and even adult baby services as well. Since forced
crossdressing is a popular theme in crossdressing fiction, going to
a dominant woman and being "forced" to crossdress helps to fulfil
some men's fantasies. As these types of services have proliferated,
their operation has expanded to meet competition and to make more
money.
In the beginning I thought the only help and assistance these men
needed was external. I helped them with their looks unaware of the
internal problems that raged within some of them. For the first two
months I was in business, I didn't know the difference between the
transvestite, a male who wants to dress like the opposite sex, and
a transsexual (genetic male or female), who wants to become the opposite
sex through hormone therapy and surgery.
I met Veronica Brown on a trip to Massachusetts. She was a post operative
transsexual woman. We fell in love and she moved to Canada. We found
out that we could legally marry here (The loophole was that my xx chromosomes and Veronica's xy chrom0somes made the marriage legal
) so we did and became the first
legal marriage between two women in Canada - each physically a woman.
With my first partner, Veronica, we opened a boutique that specialized
in large clothing sizes, corsets, lingerie, breast forms, wigs, shoes
to size fourteen. Then we started the Canadian Crossdresser's Club. A downsized version is running on the third floor above Wildside to this very day. At first the
club format included parties twice a week, a safe, comfortable place
for members to dress, store their clothes, meet others like themselves,
and to have an all around good time with their peers.
We published a newsletter for members, which grew into a forty-eight
page magazine called The Canadian CrossDresser Magazine (ISSN 1192-9642). Also included
in the new Wildside were overnight guestrooms for club members and
travellers, since folks from all over the world were coming to visit
us. Wildside has received guests from all across Canada, the US, South
America, Europe, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, Belgium, Sweden,
Germany, Russia, Yugoslavia, Holland, France, Hong Kong, and South
Africa.
At the end of three years, we ceased publication of CCDM to turn
our attention to educational video production and publishing books. Queens of '93 ISBN 0-9697191-0-8, Why Do I Crossdress? ISBN 0-9697191-2-4, S.T.U.D. ISBN 0-9697191-3-2, The Illustrated Crossdresser and Drag Queen Makeup Guide ISBN 0-9697191-1-6.
We also began to publish colour magazines; Drag Queens International,
Fetish Night and Mondo Bondo. These were printed in New York City
and distributed worldwide. I did the layouts, the interviews and the
photos. I owe this opportunity to my friend JoAnn Roberts, publisher
of Ladylike Magazine, and owner of Creative Design Services.
One Halloween in 1995 a wonderful man came for a transformation.
He used the name Dee. Once he was transformed I christened him Roxy
and we fell madly in love. Veronica moved out on the same day Roxy
moved in, a year later we were married in a double bride ceremony
at Buddies In Bad Times Theater in Toronto.
To make a long story short, Roxy and I spent a delightful 5 years
together and decided to call it quits. We remained good friends until the end. Roxy passed on April 27 2011. I held his hand when he passed, both of us sharing our gift of sobriety. I miss him terribly.
In 1999, I met Sheryl Knight and we fell in love. We were together
for 3 years. The main reason for our break up and the problems with my previous marriage was my addiction to alcohol.
I have been sober since August 9 2002 and Roxy had been sober since June 1 2003 - it did wonders for our friendship.
I was caught in a workaholic web of activity during the first fifteen
years I owned and operated Wildside. Basically, I was doing too much working 24-7.
I left for a year of R&R and returned with a new attitude. I had new staff and in particular, Julie and Devika helped prevent me from getting into
the same rut I was in when I tried to do everything myself. Alas, Julie has passed - Dear Julie, I will always remember her.
Folks
may notice I don't have as much time available as I did before, but
this is only attributed to living a sober lifestyle. They should not take my reluctance to party the way I used to personally.