Superficially Yours

In her post on Friday, Hannah McKnight wrote, “I would love to hear something you love about yourself, something that you love about who you are. I want to hear your shallowest, most superficial thoughts.”

Naturally, I could not resist such an invitation and I submitted the following as a comment to Hannah’s post.

I love carrying a designer handbag. Any thoughts about me being a guy are swept away by a bag hanging from my limp wrist.

Don’t know if I have Gynecomastia or not, but I do know that I have breasts that are large enough to fill a size 42B bra without inserts, pads or any other assistance. And when I slip on my bra, I love finding those two perky mounds on my chest (it never gets old).

Mom had shapely legs. When she worked in an office before she married, her nickname was “Legs.” Like mother, like daughter, I inherited my mother legs and a transman once dubbed me “Leggy.” I love being my mother’s daughter.

Of course, “Legs” loved high heels, always wore them when she went out and she owned a closet full. Again like mother, like daughter, I love high heels, always wear them when I go out and I own a closet full (over 100 pairs).

I love being a feminine man. When I am en homme, it can be a hindrance, but it works so well for me when I am en femme that I would not have it any other way.

Making up my face is something I always look forward to. I love the process, the tricks, the shortcuts and especially the results. After I do my makeup, slip on my wig and look in the mirror, it is always an aha moment! (Yes, I am a woman.)

Wearing Rene Ruiz

The always lovely Hannah McKnight

The Photoshop Challenge

In my Mothers and Sons post, I wished I had a photo of my mother with me en femme. Meg threw down the gauntlet, “You're pretty good at photoshop. You should be able to make that picture.”

I accepted her challenge.

I had plenty of photos of moi, but I had no idea how many photos I had of Mom. After going through the family photo albums, it turned out not many.

I chose two photos for the effort. One, which I believe was her high school graduation photo taken in a photo studio, was from around 1940. The second, taken atop the Empire State Building, was from 1949.

The challenge was trying to make my relatively current photos look like photos from the mid-20th Century.

Turned out that the 1940 photo was easier to match than the 1949 photo. It took about an hour to achieve the results that appear in the previous Femulator slot. The Empire State Building photo accompanying this post took over three times as

long and I am still not satisfied with the results, but the effort taught me some more about using Photoshop.

Wearing Venus

L is for this Lovely Lass from Lee High School in Columbus, Mississippi. Her perfect hairdo, makeup, figure and accessories gave her away as “Not a Civilian?”

Four of a Kind

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Mom would have been 100 years old today. 

She raised my sister and I in the 1950s, while my Dad worked two jobs to finance our raising. With my male role model out of the picture (or out of focus) most of the time, Mom became my role model and as a result, instead of raising a son and a daughter, she raised two daughters.

The older daughter (me) was her favorite and received more attention; I was babied, pampered and spoiled, whereas my sister often had to fend for herself. As a result, growing up under Mom's tutelage, I turned out to be very feminine and learned to act like the lady she was.

A lot of us femulate our mothers to some degree. I, for one, favor styles that my mother would wear. 
For example, Mom loved high heels, always wore them when she went out and she owned a closet full. Like mother, like daughter, I love high heels, always wear them when I go out and I own a closet full, too.

I resemble my Mom’s side of the family, too, and I look just like her. (My sister recently remarked how much I resemble Mom. Interestingly, my sister has never seen me in girl mode and she was looking at a boy mode photo when she made that comment.) 

And my resemblance to Mom went beyond facial features. She had shapely legs. When she worked in an office before she married, her nickname was "Legs." Again like mother, like daughter, I inherited Mom's legs and a transman once dubbed me "Leggy.” 

I love being my mother's daughter and I guess I have become my mother in many ways.

Wearing Max Mara coat, Nanushka dress and Zimmermann booties

Professional femulator Pavel Arambula

You should have been a girl

"You should have been a girl!" is a statement my mother made to me a number of times while I was growing up. Usually, she made it after complementing my shapely girlish legs. On other occasions, when she mentioned that I walked like a girl (on my tip toes).

To compound my gender confusion, whenever she took my sister and I out on her weekly shopping trips, she insisted that I use the ladies' room when nature called. I don't recall if I stood or sat to pee, but I used the ladies' room until I was 10 or 11 years old.

Then there was my introduction to makeup.

I was probably between the ages of 6 and 9 and for a day or two, I got the notion that I wanted to be a circus clown when I grew up. I remember I was home alone with my mother and I covered my face with my mother's cold cream to simulate a clown's white face. What a mess!

I showed my handiwork to my mother and she volunteered to do a better job. She removed the cold cream and started anew applying various cosmetics to my face.

When she was done, I looked in the mirror and was shocked. Instead of looking like a clown, I looked like a girl. I still remember the bright red lipstick on my lips.

In retrospect, I am not sure if she realized what I was trying to do. I do not recall if I was clear about trying to be a clown. She may have thought I was trying to be a girl and acted accordingly.

I suspect that later, when I began exploring femininity, she would have been very willing to assist me, but I never asked for her help or revealed my desires even when she prompted me with, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

In retrospect, I realize she knew (mothers always know) after finding my hidden stash of girly things and learning about my Halloween excursions en femme, but I was too closeted to tell her the truth that I really was a girl.

Wearing OPM Boutique

Steve Coogan femulates on British television in Pauline Calf's Wedding Video.

Happy Mother's Day

"Everyone thinks we're sisters, but actually, we're mother and son." (from New Yorker)

(I have told this story here on past Mother's Days, so you may have read it before and I apologize for the rerun. But just like some of the reruns on television, some are worth repeating.)

Mom was the most influential person in my life and influenced my penchant for crossdressing in a number of ways.

She was beautiful and did not need makeup. Lipstick, powder, and rouge were all she ever used. I know because I enjoyed watching her put on her minimal makeup.

She always dressed like a fashionable lady and that was difficult to accomplish because money was tight when I was a kid. As a result, Mom sewed her own clothes, as well as clothes for my sister. 

I guess I was jealous of my sister and wished that Mom would sew something for me, but there were few sewing patterns for boys' clothing. However, I would have been perfectly happy if she sewed a pretty dress for me like she did for my sister.

My Dad was a great guy, but he was not around much when I was growing up. He worked all the overtime he could get to make ends meet. For a few years, he also had a second job. 

I can remember way back to my earliest memories when I actually thought that my father was a visitor because his appearances at home during my waking hours were so rare. So, during my formative years, Dad was at work, while my Mom was at home raising my sister and me.

Since I was raised in an environment where the father figure was absent most of the time, it is no wonder that I tended to follow in the footsteps of the only parental figure available to me, my Mom. As a result, I admired her and wanted to do the things she did. I did not know it at the time, but she was my role model.

I was a creative kid and Mom encouraged my creative side. I loved sports, especially baseball, but I was not very good at it (I could hit the ball a mile, but I threw "like a girl"). So early on, I knew what my strengths were. 

I spent a lot of time writing and drawing and my mother supported and encouraged me. Eventually, I became a successful professional writer with a lot of thanks going to Mom.

I looked like my Mom's side of the family and inherited many of her features like her long legs and her facial features. When I do my makeup just so, I look a lot like her; people would mistake us for mother and daughter, i.e., if she were alive and I dressed en femme in her presence.

Besides influencing my creative side, she also influenced my penchant for being feminine.

Mom often commented that because I had such nice legs, I should have been a girl. If she had made that comment once, I probably would have forgotten about it, but it seemed to me that she made that comment whenever she saw my legs bare. Don't you think that may have influenced me?

She also made comments about the way I walked. She said I "tippy-toed," i.e., I walked on my toes. I assumed from her comments that tippy-toeing was not the correct way for a male to walk, but I did not know how to walk any other way. She never showed me how I was supposed to walk, so I just kept on tippy-toeing.

I don't tippy-toe any longer. As I grew older, I must have figured out how to walk like a male. However, all my early years tippy-toeing may have facilitated my walking in high heels because ever since I slipped on my first pair of pumps, I never had a problem walking in heels.

I did not think that Mom knew about my crossdressing, because she never broached the subject despite the fact that I often got into her stuff and even ruined some items that I found out the hard way, were too small for me. I was very much in the closet then and I was just as happy that she did not know. But, she knew.

As newlyweds, my wife and I crossdressed for a Halloween party and when I mentioned our party plans to Mom over the phone, she asked if I had taken my box of "stuff" with me when I moved out.

I don't recall my response, but at that moment, I knew she knew. She never mentioned it again and neither did I.

However, once in awhile right up to her death, she would ask me, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

I always thought she was referring to my crossdressing when she asked and I always said, "No."

In retrospect, I wish I had confided in Mom about me becoming a woman. She was so loving and so supportive that I think she would have helped me. (She was a great seamstress by the way and I can only dream about the outfits she might have sewn for her male daughter.) But, I did not confide in her and I regret it now.

But, if there is a heaven, I am sure Mom smiles down on me when she sees her firstborn dressed en femme enjoying her time as a woman.

So, Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Your Loving Daughter,

Stana

Wearing BB Dakota (source: ShopBop).

Mother and her son, a womanless beauty pageant contestant

My Future

I found this photo of a fashionably-dressed woman on the Internet. My guess is that she is in her early to mid-70's. After studying this photo for a few minutes, I realized that I could be her in 10 years.

Her style, both hair and clothing are out of the Stana Playbook.

Her face and body resembles my mother's face and body at that age. (Did I ever mention that I look just like my mother?)

So it is entirely possible that I will look like this woman in the future.

Not bad! It's almost something to look forward to.

Wearing Bebe.

Michal Grobelny femulates Jennifer Rush on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzm Znajom.

Both Mother and Father

A single Dad celebrates Mother's Day.

Wearing Madeleine.

Diego Ramos and Nico Scarpino on the Buenos Aires stage in Casa Valentina (2016).

Femulating Mom

Fortunato Castro femulating his mother

A lot of us femulate our mothers to some degree. I, for one, wear styles that my mother would wear. And growing up under her tutelage, I act like the lady she was.

A 27-year-old artist named Fortunato Castro femulated his mother for his senior thesis at Cooper Union. He "turned his lens on himself, for a series of powerful self-portraits. But, unlike most self-portraits, he posed in an unusual way: as his mother.”

You can read all about it and see a slideshow at The Cut.

Anti-Aging

On Tuesday, Daily Makeover had some excellent advice about makeup mistakes that make you look older. I don't know about you, but at my age, I want to look younger, not older, so I am taking their advice to heart.

Daily Makeover is a good source for good advice on hair and makeup. I subscribe to their daily e-mails and I recommend a free subscription to any girl who wants to improve her femulating skills.

Nailing It

I am a big fan of the Kiss brand of pre-glued press-on nails. They go on quick, stray on forever and are large enough to cover my Amazonian finger nails. But lately, they have been scarce.

I usually purchase my Kiss pre-glued press-on nails at CVS, Rite Aid or Walgreen, but for the past month or so, they have been missing from the racks of those stores. They have other Kiss brand nail products on their racks, but not the pre-glued press-ons that I know and love.

The Kiss website stills show them, so either my stores are no longer carrying them or there was a big run on them during the holidays.

My personal stock of nails is running low, so I wanted to find out what was going on. I went online to check the stores' websites and bingo! I struck paydirt at the first website I visited. Walgreen has them in stock and they are on sale: $3.17 per set.

I cannot recall them ever being that cheap, so I ordered enough sets to qualify for free shipping ($25 minimum) and await their delivery in 3 to 5 days.

Stop Me If You Heard This One Before

Meanwhile, here is a story about me buying Kiss nails at Rite Aid last year. (This is a rerun, but some of you might have missed it.)

The cashier was a middle-aged woman like myself and as she rang up my purchase, she joked,

"Doing your nails?"

Although I knew she was joking, I responded, "Yes, they're for me. I do drag."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. I wish I had a photo to show you."

I don't know if she believed me or not, but since then i made sure that I have a photo of me en femme handy on my iPhone.

Professional femulator Billy Bigwood in 1921.

Wearing Nha Khanh.

Got Hats

(This post was inspired by Peter Lappin's "Requiem for Ladies Hat" post on his Male Pattern Boldness blog.)

Peter wrote, "...during the first half of the Twentieth Century (and a bit beyond), women wore hats outside -- and sometimes in -- as a matter of course.  A fashionable woman would no sooner be seen outside without a hat than she would without stockings or gloves..."

My mother wore hats for fashion through the mid 1960s, that is, during my formative fashionista years. As a result, I would don one of her hats when I femulated during that era especially if I was wearing one of the outfits she had put together that included a hat (like mother, like son).

Hats died out in the late 1960s. Just as my mother stopped wearing hats circa 1967, I stopped wearing hats when I femulated.

My mother passed on years ago and when we emptied her apartment, we discovered some of her hats. She kept some of her favorites. I don't know why; maybe she thought hats would make a comeback or maybe she just could not part with them. Whatever the reason, I could not throw them all away, so I kept my favorites of her favorites and have them stored in various nooks and crannies in the house.

Now that Peter has reminded me about hats, I plan to peruse my mother's hat collection and see if there are any that will go with the outfits I plan to wear out in the near future.

 

 

 

Actor Geoffrey Rush femulating on stage in
The Importance of Being Earnest, Australia 2011.

 

 

 

Wearing Boston Proper.

Happy Mother's Day

(I have told this story here on past Mother's Days, so you may have read it before and I apologize for the rerun. But just like the reruns on television, some are worth repeating.)

Mom was the most influential person in my life and influenced my penchant for crossdressing in a number of ways.

She was beautiful and did not need makeup. Lipstick, powder, and rouge were all she ever used. I know because I enjoyed watching her put on her minimal makeup.

She always dressed like a fashionable lady and that was difficult to accomplish because money was tight when I was a kid. As a result, Mom sewed her own clothes, as well as clothes for my sister.

I guess I was jealous of my sister and wished that Mom would sew something for me, but there were few sewing patterns for boys' clothing. However, I would have been perfectly happy if she sewed a pretty dress for me like she did for my sister.

My Dad was a great guy, but he was not around much when I was growing up. He worked all the overtime he could get to make ends meet. For a few years, he also had a second job.

I can remember way back to my earliest memories when I actually thought that my father was a visitor because his appearances at home during my waking hours were so rare. So, during my formative years, Dad was at work, while my Mom was at home raising my sister and me.

Since I was raised in an environment where the father figure was absent most of the time, it is no wonder that I tended to follow in the footsteps of the only parental figure available to me, my Mom. As a result, I admired her and wanted to do the things she did. I did not know it at the time, but she was my role model.

I was a creative kid and Mom encouraged my creative side. I loved sports, especially baseball, but I was not very good at it (I could hit the ball a mile, but I threw "like a girl"). So early on, I knew where my strengths laid.

I spent a lot of time writing and drawing and my mother supported and encouraged me. Eventually, I became a successful professional writer with a lot of thanks going to Mom.

I looked like my Mom's side of the family and inherited many of her features like her long legs and her facial features. When I do my makeup just so, I look a lot like her; people would mistake us for mother and daughter, i.e., if she were alive and I dressed en femme in her presence.

Besides influencing my creative side, she also influenced my penchant for being feminine.

Mom often commented that because I had such nice legs, I should have been a girl. If she had made that comment once, I probably would have forgotten about it, but it seemed to me that she made that comment whenever she saw my legs bare. Don't you think that may have influenced me?

She also made comments about the way I walked. She said I "tippy-toed," i.e., I walked on my toes. I assumed from her comments that tippy-toeing was not the correct way for a male to walk, but I did not know how to walk any other way. She never showed me how I was supposed to walk, so I just kept on tippy-toeing.

I don't tippy-toe any longer. As I grew older, I must have figured out how to walk like a male. However, all my early years tippy-toeing may have facilitated my walking in high heels because ever since I slipped on my first pair of pumps, I never had a problem walking in heels.

I did not think that Mom knew about my crossdressing, because she never broached the subject despite the fact that I often got into her stuff and even ruined some items that I found out the hard way, were too small for me. I was very much in the closet then and I was just as happy that she did not know. But, she knew.

As newlyweds, my wife and I crossdressed for a Halloween party and when I mentioned our party plans to Mom over the phone, she asked if I had taken my box of "stuff" with me when I moved out.

I don't recall my response, but at that moment, I knew she knew. She never mentioned it again and neither did I.

However, once in awhile right up to her death, she would ask me, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

I always thought she was referring to my crossdressing when she asked and I always said, "No."

In retrospect, I wish I had confided in Mom about me becoming a woman. She was so loving and so supportive that I think she would have helped me. (She was a great seamstress by the way and I can only dream about the outfits she might have sewn for her male daughter.) But, I did not confide in her and I regret it now.

But, if there is a heaven, I am sure Mom smiles down on me when she sees her firstborn dressed en femme enjoying her time as a woman.

So, Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Your Loving Daughter,

Stana

Thought for the Day

In my next life, I want to come back as Blake Lively’s only child.

Mother’s Bond With Her Trans Teen

"Posing arm in arm, teenager Hannah Whetton and her mum Carol look like any loving mother and daughter.

"They enjoy going clothes shopping together and share make-up tips.

"But for the first 16 years of her life Hannah was Arron, Carol's son."

Read all about it in The Sun.

Happy Mother's Day

"Everyone thinks we're sisters, but actually, we're mother and son." (from New Yorker)

Mom was the most influential person in my life and influenced my penchant for crossdressing in a number of ways.

She was beautiful and did not need makeup. Lipstick, powder, and rouge were all she ever used. I know because I enjoyed watching her put on her minimal makeup.

She always dressed like a fashionable lady and that was difficult to accomplish because money was tight when I was a kid. As a result, Mom sewed her own clothes, as well as clothes for my sister.

I guess I was jealous of my sister and wished that Mom would sew something for me, but there were few sewing patterns for boys' clothing. However, I would have been perfectly happy if she sewed a pretty dress for me like she did for my sister.

My Dad was a great guy, but he was not around much when I was growing up. He worked all the overtime he could get to make ends meet. For a few years, he also had a second job.

I can remember way back to my earliest memories when I actually thought that my father was a visitor because his appearances at home during my waking hours were so rare. So, during my formative years, Dad was at work, while my Mom was at home raising my sister and me.

Since I was raised in an environment where the father figure was absent most of the time, it is no wonder that I tended to follow in the footsteps of the only parental figure available to me, my Mom. As a result, I admired her and wanted to do the things she did. I did not know it at the time, but she was my role model.

I was a creative kid and Mom encouraged my creative side. I loved sports, especially baseball, but I was not very good at it (I could hit the ball a mile, but I threw "like a girl"). So early on, I knew where my strengths laid.

I spent a lot of time writing and drawing and my mother supported and encouraged me. Eventually, I became a successful professional writer with a lot of thanks going to Mom.

I looked like my Mom's side of the family and inherited many of her features like her long legs and her facial features. When I do my makeup just so, I look a lot like her; people would mistake us for mother and daughter, i.e., if she were alive and I dressed en femme in her presence.

Besides influencing my creative side, she also influenced my penchant for being feminine.

Mom often commented that because I had such nice legs, I should have been a girl. If she had made that comment once, I probably would have forgotten about it, but it seemed to me that she made that comment whenever she saw my legs bare. Don't you think that may have influenced me?

She also made comments about the way I walked. She said I "tippy-toed," i.e., I walked on my toes. I assumed from her comments that tippy-toeing was not the correct way for a male to walk, but I did not know how to walk any other way. She never showed me how I was supposed to walk, so I just kept on tippy-toeing.

I don't tippy-toe any longer. As I grew older, I must have figured out how to walk like a male. However, all my early years tippy-toeing may have facilitated my walking in high heels because ever since I slipped on my first pair of pumps, I never had a problem walking in heels.

I did not think that Mom knew about my crossdressing, because she never broached the subject despite the fact that I often got into her stuff and even ruined some items that I found out the hard way, were too small for me. I was very much in the closet then and I was just as happy that she did not know. But, she knew.

As newlyweds, my wife and I crossdressed for a Halloween party and when I mentioned our party plans to Mom over the phone, she asked if I had taken my box of "stuff" with me when I moved out.

I don't recall my response, but at that moment, I knew she knew. She never mentioned it again and neither did I.

However, once in awhile right up to her death, she would ask me, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

I always thought she was referring to my crossdressing when she asked and I always said, "No."

In retrospect, I wish I had confided in Mom about me becoming a woman. She was so loving and so supportive that I think she would have helped me. (She was a great seamstress by the way and I can only dream about the outfits she might have sewn for her male daughter.) But, I did not confide in her and I regret it now.

But, if there is a heaven, I am sure Mom smiles down on me when she sees her firstborn dressed en femme enjoying her time as a woman.

So, Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Your Loving Daughter,

Stana