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

My Lucky Day

I was supposed to do outreach on Thursday for a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University.

I wore a new "cut-out" top that I just got from Avon, relatively new dressy wedges from Payless and a very old, but seldom-worn ankle-length skirt from Newport News (remember them?). I took along my blue trench coat because light rain was in the forecast, then I grabbed my black purse and was out the door at 11:15 AM for a 45-minute drive to the campus.

Half way to New Haven, the rear passenger-side tire went flat. Luckily, I was on a two-lane state road and not an Interstate, so I was able to pull over to the side of the road without dodging traffic at Interstate speeds.

I have changed many tires in the past, but I have never changed one as a woman, so I was about to have a new real life experience. I knew my hands would get dirty, but I wondered if my stick-on nails would survive. I had the option of calling AAA, but from past experience, I knew I could change the tire before they would arrive on the scene and if I wanted to get to outreach on time, I had better do it myself.

So I switched to a pair of flats that I carry along just in case, got out of the car, opened the hatchback, got out the spare tire, car jack and wrench and it began to rain. Nuts!

I struggled loosening the lug nuts and just as I was about to jack up the car, it began to rain harder. I decided to wait until the rain slowed down, so I sat in my car, looking at my filthy hands and wondering how I would remove all the grime since all I had in the car were paper towels and no soap.

The clock was running. I was about 20 minutes away from campus and it was 20 minutes before the class started, so I knew at best I would be late getting to class. And the rain kept falling.

About five minutes later, the rain let up a little, so I decided to tackle the tire again. As I began jacking up the car, a car pulled up and parked behind me. A 20-something guy got out and said, "Let me do that. You go sit in the car" and proceeded to change the tire for me.

About five minutes later, he tapped on my window. "Ma'am, I have some bad news. Your spare is flat."

I suspected that the spare was good, just flat after sitting in my car unused for 10 years. Luckily (yes, it was my "lucky" day), I carry a tire pump that is powered through the cigarette lighter. It is slow, but it works. We got it going, inflated the spare and "Mike" finished changing the tire.

I thanked my knight in shining armor profusely and as he drove off, I looked at my watch. The class had already started and I figured that by the time I showed up, it would be almost over, so instead of driving to New Haven, I drove home to wash my hands.

Wearing Monse dress and Helmut Lang shoes (Source: ShopBop).

Reaching Out

I wrote about shopping and slogging through the rain in my previous two posts about my day out on Tuesday. Now I will regale you with part three of the story.

The drive to Southern Connecticut State University was uneventful. If anything, traffic was lighter than usual. I parked in the visitors' parking lot that was closest to the classroom where the outreach would take place and switched to flats for the half mile walk.

Once indoors, I switched to my nude high heel pumps and proceeded to the classroom, where I met up with Professor Schildroth and my outreach teammates, Mary Anne, Michelle and Quinton, who I have done outreach with countless times.

Once the class settled in, we kicked off by telling the class our trans biographies in a nutshell. Then we split up the teams with the post-ops going to another classroom with half the students and the no-ops (Mary Anne and me) handling Q&A with the other half of the students. At the half time, the teams switched off so that all the students had a chance to interrogate the post-ops and no-ops alike.

For the first time, there were religious and political questions. In light of the recent election, the political question did not surprise me, which was how secure we felt as transgender people after the election? (My answer: Very insecure.) The religious question was how religious were we? (My answer: Not very.)

Since we are no-ops, one student asked us if we considered becoming post-ops. My answer was that at my ripe old age, I would not consider it, but if I was young again, I would seriously consider it.

I don't recall the other questions probably because they were the same or similar to questions we have answered in past outreach sessions.

At the end of the class, the students thanked us and we moseyed over to the student center for a late lunch. I had a slice of veggie pizza, which was very tasty, but a few hours later, I experienced some of the worst indigestion I've had in quite awhile. Since I had eaten nothing else that day, I assume that the peppers on the pizza did not agree with me.

Other than that blip on the radar, it was a good day out among the civilians and I hope to do it again real soon now.

Wearing Boston Proper.

Coco Martin femulating in the 2015 Filipino television action drama Ang Probinsyano.

Pain of Rain

In her comments to my Monday post, Pat convinced me to forgo my plans to wear pants and stick to my original plans to wear a dress on my day out on Tuesday. I seriously considered the pants option in light of the weather forecast for rain in Noah's Ark proportions, but I really wanted to wear my new sweater dress and it did not take much arm-twisting to change my mind, which, of course, is a woman's prerogative.

Also, I recalled that I had a mid-calf length trench coat in the back of my closet. Peaches gave me the coat, but I had never worn it because I avoid going out during a deluge. But I was committed to doing outreach, so it saved the day and kept most of me dry while I slogged through the rain across the campus.

My feet were not so lucky. I switched to flats when I did my slogging, but I might have been better off sticking to my pumps, which would have elevated my heels above some of the puddles I could not avoid. Bottom line is that I should have worn boots!

Anyway, I did my face, got dressed and was on the road by 9:30 AM. It was the debut of my new dress, new hairdo and newly-reduced (by 12 pounds) body. I have not weighed this little since I was a sophomore in college, so I was pretty jazzed with the new me!

I made a couple of shopping stops on the way to the site of my outreach, Southern Connecticut State University. First stop was Macy's where I shopped for a hat. I tried on almost every hat that Macy's had in their display and I only liked one, but I did not like it enough to pay $50. I proceeded to Dress Barn, where I found a similarly-styled hat for only $17, which I bought on the spot.

Starting out at 9:30, there was hardly any rain, but as I proceeded to New Haven, the light shower had developed into a heavy rainstorm. When I arrived at the university, I sat in my Subaru for awhile waiting for the rain to let up. But it did not, so girded my loins and prepared to test the rain aversion capabilities of my trench coat and umbrella.

Wearing A.L.C.

A femulating West Point cadet.

Tuesday's Photo Op

I did outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University yesterday. Above is a photo of the class, Professor Schildroth and me after outreach. As you can see, I wore a dress rather than pants despite the miserable weather (thanks to Pat's comments for motivating me to do so). Also, thanks to Mary Anne for taking the photo. I will have more to say about my day out in upcoming posts. 

Wearing StyleWe.

Femulating at a World War I POW camp in the 1937 French film Le Grande Illusion. 

Dress Like A Woman

Tomorrow, I will be doing outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State College. I planned to wear my new Dress Barn acquisition: a white cable knit sweater dress, but the weather forecast says a hard rain’s gonna fall.

Since I will have to slog through the rain for a half mile across the campus from a parking lot to a classroom, I will dress like a woman would for inclement weather: I will wear pants… woman’s pants, of course, but definitely a bifurcated garment.

⇳

Doing outreach is a crapshoot. There are usually four or five of us and we each spend about 5 minutes giving a brief trans bio. And then there is a question and answer session with the students.

About half the time, the students look like deer in the headlights and getting them to ask questions is frustrating. The other half of the time, the students who are ready to hit us with a variety of thoughtful and stimulating questions.

Some of the questions are memorable. I think my favorite was when a female student asked me, “Are you married?”

After I said, “Yes,” her follow-up question was “To a woman?”

Wearing Bloomingdale's.

Hansi Sturm, professional femulator, Berlin circa 1930

Happy Thanksgiving!

Faith tosses the Unisphere and her cares away.

I was blown away this morning reading Faith DaBrooke's post about her first day at work as a woman. It brought tears of joy to my eyes. I was so happy for her.

It is a big step and it is one I dream of taking someday. Congratulations, Faith!

↕

I never had allergies as a kid, but as I approached middle age, I started having allergy attacks. Nothing horrible; not worth going to a doctor to find out the cause (I think I am allergic to being a man).

The thing about allergies is that when they start, I am not sure if I am getting a head cold or is it just an allergy attack that will go away soon enough.

Tuesday evening, I felt the signs, so I popped an allergy tablet and a zinc cough drop. I felt a little better when I went to bed, but I had a lousy night's sleep and awoke feeling worse, so I guessed that I was getting a cold and not being attacked by an allergy.

Of course, the timing could not be worse for a head cold with a long holiday weekend ahead of me, followed by an outreach session on Tuesday.

Our supply of cold medicines was depleted, so I popped another allergy tablet and a zinc cough drop and drove to work. An hour in and I feel pretty good, so I am crossing my fingers that it is not the start of a head cold.

↕

Tuesday, I will be out most of the day presenting as my true gender. Doing a little shopping and an outreach session at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University. I am so looking forward to a day out as a woman!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Wearing Metisu.

Pretty Private Allan Murray femulates Marie of The Dumbells.

More Outreach Words

Professor Schildroth has only one human sexuality class this semester rather than two, so  I only had one class for outreach. I was joined by four other transwomen --- MaryAnn, another no-op, no-hormone woman like me and three post-op women, Amanda, Kailey and Michelle. I've done outreach with MaryAnn and Michelle many times; Amanda and Kailey were new to me.

As usual, there were a lot more women than men in the class... about 25 women and exactly three men.

Our "outreach" starts off with each of us telling our biographies in a nutshell --- about five minutes each. Then the class is divided between the no-ops and the post-ops so that the students can ask questions. Half way through the class time, the no-ops and post-ops switch sides so that each half of the class gets to question all of us.

I am not sure how effective this is as "outreach" because if the students don't ask the right questions or if we don't touch upon a particular point in our bios, then there will be holes in the students' understanding of what it means to be a transgender person.

However, reading the students' written comments after each session, I think we are making some progress. We usually are able to leave them with the knowledge that we are not freaks. Rather that we are just like they are, that is, human beings just trying to get along in the world.

Most of the students' questions asked of me were typical.

• How did you choose your female name?
• Do you present as a woman all the time?
• Does your spouse support you? Etcetera.

Then there were a couple of atypical questions.

• What was your favorite time growing up? (The late 1960s.)
• What was the weirdest question you were ever asked at outreach? (You just asked it.

Sometimes, I am a little nervous when I do outreach and come across as "sad" and/or "up tight," but on Tuesday, I was very comfortable and as a result, I was humorous and very effusive.

One student commented that I was "cute" in the way I told my story. Another commented about my prowess for walking in heels --- something she has yet to conquer. Still another came up to me after the class, gave me a big hug and said I was "very pretty."

So I guess I did good.

 

 

 

Wearing DailyLook.

 

 

 

Contestants femulating in the 2014 Mr. CC-E womanless beauty pageant in Spencer, Iowa.

Outreach Words

I have no problem driving my standard/manual transmission Subaru wearing high heels. But lately, I have been switching to flats when I drive unless it is a short ride to here or there.

The reason being that I discovered that driving scuffs up and scratches my heels more than when I drive wearing flats or shoes with a small heel. And unless I am trying to show off how fashionable I am, I don't necessarily switch to heels when I reach my destination.

For example, Wednesday, I drove the 30 miles to New Haven wearing my short wedges. When I stopped at CVS to buy a package of makeup wipes and other sundry items, I did not switch to my heels. (By the way, here is a tip for the frugal femulator: use baby wipes in place of makeup wipes. Baby wipes are cheaper, but just as effective as makeup wipes.)

After CVS, I continued on to the University and after parking my car, only then did I switch to heels.

There is a big construction project at the University that is eating away at the parking lot that is next to the classroom buildings where I do outreach. As a result, there was no room for my car in that lot, so I had to park at the next nearest parking facility --- a half-mile away from the classrooms.

So when I switched to heels, I considered carrying my short wedges (just in case) because I had a long walk on pavement ahead of me and my feet. But I decided against it because I was wearing my comfortable Karmen pumps from Payless.

It was a good test for my Karmens and they passed with flying colors. My feet were painless after the half-mile trek, as well as after the return half-mile.

By the way, in addition to my Karmens, I wore my black/dark gray/light gray color-block cowlneck belted sweater dress (from DressBarn), black opaque tights and for outerwear, my white fake fur jacket and a green fun fur scarf that my wife knitted for me.

Tomorrow, I will post more outreach words.

 

 

 

Wearing Kallia (footwear).

 

 

 

Actors Vic Ford  and Chris Sheen femulating in the 1949 British film Skimpy In The Navy.

Outreach Photo

The photo above shows me with the students of the Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University where I did outreach yesterday. I will post my words about yesterday shortly.

(Thank you MaryAnn for the photography!)

 

 

 

Wearing Jay Godfrey.

 

 

 

Actors Bradley Whitford and Jeffrey Tambor femulating in television’s Transparent (2014).

I Enjoy Doing Outreach

The second part of my woman's day involved doing outreach at two Human Sexuality classes at Southern Connecticut State University. Professor Schildroth has been inviting me to her classes in New Haven for the past eight years and I always try to accept her invitations schedule permitting.

Lately, there have been four of us doing outreach for Professor Schildroth's classes: Michelle, a post-op male-to-female transsexual, Quinton, a post-op female-to-male transsexual, Mary-Ann, a no-op no-HRT male-to-female transgender, and myself.

We start each class by giving a brief biography, then the class gets split in two with the post-op folks doing Q&A with one half of the class and the no-op folks doing Q&A with the other half. Half way through the class, we switch groups so that all the students have an opportunity to quiz the post-ops and no-ops alike.

Sometimes the students are very hesitant about asking questions, but that was not the case on Tuesday. Each of the four groups of students we outreached had at least one member who was anxious to ask us questions and once the ball gets rolling, it seems to loosen things up and other students chime in with questions.

Many of the questions we have heard before. For example, on Tuesday, we were asked how we chose our female names. (That is probably the most common question we get.) On the other hand, the students often surprise us with questions we have never heard before. One question that we don't get too often, but was asked twice on Tuesday is how do we identify sexually. ("Lesbian" was my reply.)

One question from Tuesday that I never heard before was what is the one thing we want to get across to the students?

My reply was that we are not freaks like you may have seen on the Jerry Springer show. Rather, we are just like everybody else, average people you encounter anywhere --- and then I added --- we just dress better (that got a big laugh).

In between classes, we went to the student center to eat a snack and chat. I had a wardrobe malfunction while walking to the student center. The high heel of my shoe got stuck in a crack in the sidewalk and I lost my balance. Luckily, Professor Schildroth was at my side and caught me before I fell and hit the concrete. That was a close call!

In the past, I have received compliments from the ladies who work in the food court and Tuesday was no exception. As I perused the menus of the food court restaurants, a woman behind one of the counters caught my eye and mouthed the words, "I love your dress." I mouthed back a thank-you and with that, I decided to buy something to eat from her establishment.

Tuesday's outreach was one of the more enjoyable ones I have participated in. The students seemed to enjoy it, too, and most of them wanted to participate in the group photos, which I posted here on Wednesday.

And when we posed for the photo in the late afternoon class, instead of saying “cheese” to put smiles on everyone’s faces, we said “femulate.”

How cool is that!

 

 

Professional femulator Sarah Mitch.

 

 

 

Wearing Madeleine.