10 Years Ago Today

Before COVID-19, I actually dressed en femme and went out among the civilians. The following recounts such an outing that occurred 10 years ago today. 

Tuesday, I spent the day en femme.

I wore my argyle tunic, black ribbed tights and black mid-calf boots. After I looked in the mirror, I wondered if I was showing too much leg.

Lisa and Nancy at work wore similar outfits on Monday. Lisa wore leggings instead of tights, but they were form-fitting and could be mistaken for tights. So I figured that my tights could be mistaken for leggings, unless the viewer got real close.

Who was I trying to kid? 

You had to be myopic not to see that I was wearing tights. The ribbing gave them away. If the tights were a solid color, then mistaking them for form-fitting leggings was in the realm of possibility, but the ribbing was very apparent and to my knowledge, there is no such thing as ribbed leggings.

So why did I go out showing so much leg? Because after I looked in the mirror, I liked the way that I looked! 

I was out the door at 9:30 AM.

First, I wanted to see the man with all the toys, so I drove to the mall. I entered through JCPenney and spent about 20 minutes browsing through items in the woman’s clothing department. I saw a few items of interest and tried on a couple of jackets, but I discarded each one for different reasons. 

While I was in JCPenney, I was very self-conscious about my leggy outfit and I kept looking to see if I was attracting any attention. I noticed none, so I felt more comfortable with my appearance, and walked out into the mall.

At the center of the mall, I found Santa; he was ready for action and I was his first customer. I gave him a break and instead of sitting on his lap, I sat next to him.

While his elves snapped a couple of photos, I told Santa what I wanted for Christmas and he said that if I had been a good girl this year, he would see what he could do.

I chose which photo I thought was the best and the elves printed two copies of my pick to take home with me.

I exited the mall and drove to a strip of strip malls about ten minutes from the university where I would be doing outreach after noon. I intended to visit Dress Barn, Payless Shoes, Marshalls and Kohls, but by the time I finished visiting Dress Barn, it was time to drive to the university.

By the way, I tried on five dresses at “the Barn,” but bought none. Three were too small and the two that fit looked too big on me.

I arrived at the university and pulled up to the guard house that guarded the parking lot. After I explained why I was visiting the university, the guard said, “Park anywhere that is not reserved, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I parked the car, walked to class and on the way, a group of guys ogled me as I walked by.

“Thank you, guys.”

At the classroom, I met up with three other transgenders and the spouse of one. I had done outreach with all of them on many other occasions.

The two Human Sexuality classes had approximately 30 students each with females outnumbering males by about a 4-to-1.

The routine is that each of us spends about five minutes each telling our life stories in a nutshell. Then the students ask questions.

We hear many of the questions (like “How did you choose your female name?”) over and over again at each outreach, but there are always a few unique questions that require some thought to answer.

Yesterday, the students were very enthusiastic, had a lot good questions – so many so that we ran out of time before they had a chance to ask them all.

After the class, we read the students’ reactions to our presentations. I lost count of the number of reactions that admitted that before our presentations, the students thought that all transgenders were gay and now they learned that that urban legend is not true. Another common thread was that some of the students were apprehensive about our appearance, but afterwords, they felt very comfortable with us.

After the classes, I called it a day. I had not slept well the night before and I was exhausted, so I drove home and went to bed early. But before I fell asleep, I reflected on another fun and productive day out en femme and began looking forward to the next opportunity to be me.

Wearing J.Ing

Ving Rhames and fellow femulators in the 2000 film Holiday Heart