Wednesday, May 18, 2022

The Spark

I have always had feminine inclinations and made no effort to hide them. Ask my family, friends, acquaintances and enemies and they will tell you that I am one of the most feminine guys they know. And I’m not even trying! 

Natured or nurtured? Any feminine characteristics I have are natural and not put-on. As long as I can remember, I have always been feminine. That’s not to say that my parents had nothing to do with it – being a Momma’s boy/girl certainly had an influence.

Crossdressing was a perfect match for me. But who knew squat about crossdressing back in my formative years?

So it was kismet that my Dad bought the Daily News for handicapping horses, where I noticed an ad for 82 Club among the horse race results in the back of the paper. 82 Club (AKA Club 82) was a nightclub in New York City that featured female impersonators and their ads depicted a beautiful showgirl (or so I initially thought), who was actually an impersonator from the club.

I was amazed that a male could look so female! And I began clipping the weekly 82 Club ads from the newspaper saving them behind the Washington Senators in the box containing my baseball card collection.

Soon I was investigating my mother’s wardrobe. I will never forget when I finally got up the courage to try on a pair of her nylons and high heel pumps. Then looking in the mirror and seeing the the legs of a woman reflected back at me. And that woman was me!

Whenever I was home alone, I dressed in my mother’s and sister’s clothing and makeup. I often concentrated on experimenting with their bras and girdles trying to find the right combination that was best for me. Makeup was a challenge, but I studied the art and got better at it. My sister even bought a wiglet to complete my femulation! 

Practice, practice, practice, but to what end? I finally could not contain myself any longer and on Halloween 1970, I crossdressed and went out visiting (and shocking) some relatives. 

That was the beginning and there seems to be no end!


Source: Elisabetta Franchi
Wearing Elisabetta Franchi




Fontasia L'Amour
Fontasia L'Amour femulating on television’s Sparks in 1997.
You can view this femulation on YouTube.
Thank you Zoe for the femulation alert!

9 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 18, 2022

    Natured or nurtured?
    I am convinced it is natured because Tgirls stories from across the world and different eras have many similarities
    It Is the way we are born
    Lucy

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  2. AnonymousMay 18, 2022

    Here is the full episode

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Z6OEQxWvs&t=0s

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  3. I don't remember the Club 82 ads in the NY Daily News How did I miss them I never know. But in 1973 my parents returned from a trip to New Orleans with a tourism brochure for Bourbon Street in there was a an ad for the Gunga Den, a female impersonator club, I too cut out the ad and could not stop looking at it!

    By this time I was an avid cross-dresser starting at 8-9 years old, by the first year of high school I was dressing several afternoons a week practicing make-up and such because I was a latch key kid.

    Gosh I would have been prime for puberty blocker and transition in today's world. I wanted to be a girl so bad and still do......

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    Replies
    1. The ads appeared in the Daily News in the mid-1960s, when you were very young, so that's probably why you missed them.

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    2. I dug up some info about the 82 Club. It continued as a popular drag club until Stonewall changed everything. Once that dust settled, drag came out of the many closets around NYC and all of a sudden it was no longer unique, or "chic". The life of the 82 Club didn't last much longer, into the early 1970s. Rather than close, the club was "reinvented" as a glam/punk rock club and lasted for several more years. They featured such acts as The New York Dolls and Wayne (later Jayne) County. So, the drag roots continued to have some influence, didn't they? Fortunately, my work weekends in NYC were from 1967-1968, and did I ever see some good drag!

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  4. AnonymousMay 18, 2022

    Funny enough, in the clip you shared from "Sparks" the actor presenting as the male lawyer would later go on to play "Juwanna Man" about a cross dresser kicked out of the NBA who goes to play in the WNBA.

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  5. What a treat to see such a beautiful crossdresser maintain character through an entire sitcom episode! She never broke character and there was no "reveal", which was usually embarrassing for the crossdresser. The Terrence Howard character never caught on and his brother "protected" him from the potential embarrassment.

    I'll do a little confessional here. I've noted that I knew some TG/CD women who could pass so well they were undetectable. I went out with a couple of them to straight restaurants, events and nobody was ever the wiser. That's why I related to and appreciated this YouTube video so well. Honestly, I never gave it a second thought about my companion being "clocked". I just thought that any attention coming our way would be because my friend was so attractive.

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  6. Rachel McNeillMay 25, 2022

    You collected Washington Senators Baseball cards? Oh my. DC Native here. I grew up watching the expansion Senators, and I'm told that I saw the original team at Griffith Stadium, although I was too young to remember it. The Nationals are as bad as the expansion Senators or the Nationals from 2005-2010. Alas.

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    Replies
    1. Diehard Red Sox fan, but I did collect all teams and sorted them into a shoebox. The Senators were not only last in the American League, but last in my shoebox alphabetically.

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