Acknowledged

Fantasia Fair: Friday, October 24, 2014

 Melissa, Luna Maria and I say, “Cheese” during lunch at the Crown & Anchor.

Out the door and to the Crown & Anchor to attend the Authors' Roundtable at 10 AM, I wore black leggings, the multi-color top that I wore with my shorts on Monday and my wedges. I wore a scarf and my trench coat over that — it was such a raw day that I often kept my coat and scarf on indoors.

As a transgender blogger, I was very interested in attending the Authors' Roundtable. (Natalie suggested that I deserved to be on the Author's Roundtable panel as I probably have more readers than all the panelists combined.)

According to the Fantasia Fair program, "Fantasia Fair has an astonishing number of authors. Come meet some of them, view their works, listen to brief readings, and get your books signed. Panelists include Miqqi Gilbert and Dallas Denny from the Fair planning committee, keynoters Mariette Pathy Allen, Jamison Green, and Julia Serano, and Leslie Fabian."

I lost count, but there were other authors on the panel, too, including Darryl Hill, Christine Howey, and Moonhawk River Stone. Each spent 5 to 15 minutes discussing their work and afterwords, the plan was to mingle with the audience.

Just as the mingling was about to begin, I raised my hand and Miqqi recognized me.

"While I have you all here together, I would like to ask a question of you all.

"I am a professional writer and blogger. I blog Femulate.org, which is kind of popular (with a minimum of 5,000 hits per day.) Professionally, I have freelanced a half dozen books. Five of them sold 4,000 to 6,000 copies each, while one of them sold 60,000 copies."

That got the attention of everyone in the room. One of the authors asked me to repeat the name of my blog.

"I mention my success because I think it indicates that I am doing something right, that is, I write well. And I was wondering if it would be worthwhile to do something I have thought about doing for a long time — write a transgender book."

Some of the panelists encouraged me to write a book. Moonhawk River Stone was very encouraging; he said I needed to tell my story, whether it is a best seller or not. After the roundtable, other people encouraged me to write that book.

I was psyched!

The idea of writing a book was on my mind the rest of the day. I even mentioned that if I write it ASAP, I could introduce the book at the next Fantasia Fair.

Lunch followed the Roundtable at the Crown & Anchor. It was one of best meals I have eaten at that venue: New England clam chowder, cole slaw, beer-battered fish and chips, etc.

Following lunch was the keynote address: "Waging a Culture War on Two Fronts" by Marci Bowers, the transsexual surgeon who performed transsexual surgery in Trinidad, Colorado aka the "Sex Change Capital of the World." Her address was interesting, but I was anxious for it to end because the weather had finally improved and I wanted to get in some shopping because I was returning home Saturday morning.

I had two shopping goals: to buy an oriental-style dress at Global Gifts, where Natasha has bought her dress and to buy vintage clip-on earrings at Yesterday Treasures, where I scored some very nice earrings last time I was in P-Town.

Blue was the color of the dress I wanted and I was in luck; the saleswoman showed me two dresses in different shades of blue in the largest size she had for sale.

There was no dressing room, so the saleswoman had me try the dress on over my leggings and top while standing in the middle of the sales room floor. I stepped into the dress and it fit fine below my bust, but it would not fit over my bust. Perhaps it would have fitted if I was braless, but I could not remove my bra in the middle of the sales room, so I gave up.

I had better success at Yesterday Treasures, where I bought two pairs of vintage clip-on earrings. (I am wearing one pair in the photo posted here last week.)

The girls did not want another $45 dinner, so we opted for pizza and I volunteered to organize dinner again. Clueless again, I again asked Chris, my B&B host, for his advice and he recommended George's, a hole in a wall that made great pizza and had a bar.

I contacted all the girls to meet at George's at 6 PM. Meanwhile, I changed into my new blue dress — the killer dress I wore on Monday during my photo session with Bandy. Since it was a short walk to George's, I wore my favorite black pumps and carried my wedges. I also wore my white faux fur to keep the chill off.

We all met at George's at 6, ordered two pizzas and libations.  

While eating pizza, the subject of passing came up and someone (maybe Natalie?) mentioned how naturally feminine I was and almost everyone agreed enthusiastically that I easily pass as a cisgender woman.

That made my week! 

The always excellent Fantasia Fair Follies and late night dancing at Club Purgatory that followed pizza did not matter. Acknowledgement by my peers means more to me than anything else I took from my week in Provincetown and I still felt the glow as I wound my way down Route 6 Saturday morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Male model Luiss San Murguia

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