No More Closets

I was in the closet for a very long time.

Although my interests in feminine things go back to my earliest memories, I did not take up crossdressing until I was 12-years-old. But once I began, I crossdressed at every opportunity, typically whenever I found myself alone at home.

When I was 19, I reached my tipping point and had to let Stana out of the closet. So I dressed en femme on Halloween despite the fact that I had nowhere to go. Unlike today, where there is a Halloween event everywhere you turn, back in the late-1970s, there was not much Halloween-wise for a young adult. I had not been invited to any Halloween parties (I didn't even know of any Halloween parties) and I was too young to go to any bar that might be celebrating Halloween. So, Mom let her “daughter” borrow the car and I visited some friends and relatives to “trick or treat.” (How desperate is that?)

Post-Halloween, I was back in the closet honing my femulating skills while waiting for next year’s Halloween party invitations. I never went out en femme to trick or treat again, but I did get a few party invitations over the years. 

I always attended the parties dressed as a woman, not as a woman wearing a woman’s costume. Invariably, some party-goer would wonder why I wasn’t wearing a costume and I would explain to their astonishment that I was in costume. Post-Halloween, I would be back in the closet again, but at least I realized that all the practice in the closet was not for naught.

Online (via CompuServe’s Genderline), I discovered and joined a local support group in the early 1980s. Now, I was able to get out of the house en femme on days besides the last day of months beginning with the letter O. I attended meetings once or twice per month, always dressing at home and driving to the meeting hall 25 miles away. 

On occasion, the support group sponsored outings – usually dinners at local restaurants, which sheltered us in a private room so we would not to mix with the civilians. I always attended, but being a rebel, I made a point of using the public ladies’ restroom instead of the private restroom that had been assigned to us.

I wanted more and began attending trans conventions, which gave me the opportunity to have the run of a whole hotel for a long weekend en femme. But I realized that I was still in the closet. I just had more closet-space: in my home, in my support group’s meeting places and in trans convention hotels.

I still wanted more, so I became a little more adventurous. On my way to support group meetings, I would stop off to buy a refreshment at a convenience store or fast food joint. Amazingly, no one seemed to notice or care that I was en femme. I was passing or at least, I was accepted and that emboldened me to do more. 

It took 55 years, but I finally summoned up enough courage to go out in public en femme. I decided to make that leap by going to the mall. I dressed en femme, drove to the mall, arrived just as it opened and sat in my car for a half hour trying to muster the courage to exit the car and walk across the parking lot to the mall entrance.

I finally pushed myself and did it and spent the better part of day at the mall having the time of my life. Some people read me, but it was not the end of the world and once I got a taste of the world en femme, I wanted more. 

Subsequently, I picked my days and spent them en femme, shopping, dining, being entertained, enjoying the arts, etc., etc. and I loved it, doing what other women did when they were out.

It all felt so natural to me. I was always feminine. As I have written here before, I was not a female trapped in a male body, rather I was me trapped by society’s expectations of what a male was supposed to be. The “problem” was that I preferred to fulfill society’s expectations of what a woman was supposed to be. 

Finally, I realized I was a woman, who happened to have a male body, but I was not going to let that little handicap hinder me from being the best woman I could be.

And so it goes.

Cavet Emptor: Today’s post originally appeared here in 2011. I rewrote it and reposted it in 2015 and I rewrote it once again and reposted it today.

Wearing father and son outfits from Boston Proper

Mark McKinney femulating in The Kids in the Hall’s 1996 film Brain Candy.
You can view the film on YouTube.

Observed

While taking inventory earlier this week, I made the following observations.

Bad Sizes

Sizes are all over the map. Not only are dress sizes inconsistent between labels, the sizes of dresses from the same label are inconsistent, too. I knew this before, but doing inventory affirmed what I already knew.

I bought a black sequins cocktail dress from a consignment shop a few years ago. The label was Dress Barn; the size was 14. I was wearing a size 16 or 18 back then and I was surprised that the size 14 Dress Barn confection was actually a little big on me (go figure), but I purchased it anyway because it was only $5. Needless to say, I was swimming in the dress when I tried it on this week and it ended up in the discard pile.

And although I am usually a size 12 these days, some of my old size 14's and 16's fit fine and were keepers.

Dead Brands

I own many nice dresses from labels that no longer exist: Newport News, Spiegel, Fashion Bug.

Back when I did all my womenswear shopping online, Newport News and Spiegel were my best friends. When I finally started shopping in person (in girl and boy mode), Fashion Bug became my new friend.

I miss my old friends.

Wearing Unique Vintage (Source: Unique Vintage)

Enrie Scielzo, male womenswear model

Taking Inventory

I just did something that I have been meaning to do for a long time: try on everything in my closet to see what fits and what doesn't.

Why? Two reasons:

1.  I have so much clothing hanging in my closet that everything is very tightly packed. Removing or adding anything is difficult. The clothing has no room to breathe (!) and whatever hanging there is becoming permanently pressed in whatever configuration it was hung.

2.  Having lost 25 pounds and keeping that weight off during the holidays has assured me that I will be able to maintain that weight. So I can free up closet space by removing the size 14's, 16's and 18's that are too big for me now.

Mid-morning Monday, I slipped into my bra, girdle and Spanx and began trying on the contents of my closet. I underestimated how long the process would take and after two hours, I was not even half way through, but I did have a pile of discards, so that was progress.

I broke for lunch and returned to the task in the evening, put in another two hours and clocked out at 8 PM. Another two hours Tuesday afternoon finished the the job.

While I was trying on clothing, I became ruthless on what I discarded. Initially, I only discarded clothing that was too big. And then I encountered some dresses that were too small in the bust — they did fit me at one time, but evidently my breasts have gotten a little larger as I have gotten older, so those dresses had to go, too.

Then there were those dresses that fit perfectly, but I did not like the way they looked on me. I wondered why I had purchased those items in the first place! They ended up in the discard pile, too.

On the flipside, there were dresses that I had not worn in a long time that now look amazing on my thinner body. It's as if I had just acquired new wardrobe to wear!

What am I going to do with the discards?

I will donate most of the dresses to the donation center in town that distributes clothing and household items to the needy in our area. The cocktail dresses and evening gowns are not donation center-worthy and may be eBay-bound.

Now my closet is so empty, I think it's time to go shopping!

Wearing Balmain (Source: Intermix)

Dad or Mom and sons dressed for Halloween. (Source: Pinterest)

One Regret

I have one regret ― that I did not come out of the closet sooner.

For over 50 years, I have explored the other side of the gender divide, but I have only been out of the closet for about 10 years.

During the first 40 years, my female presentation was limited to home, support group meetings and transgender conventions, which were all closets in one way or another. In my mind, I stepped out of the closet when I began doing outreach and flying solo in public as a woman. 

Once I was out of the closet, I realized that I should have gotten out sooner... much sooner. It was so wonderful to live as a woman and it was so much easier than I ever imagined. 

That's what kept me in the closet ― I thought it would be too hard, if not impossible to navigate society as a woman because I was too tall and that would give me away. But I was so wrong. Either I passed successfully as a woman or our society has become so nonchalant about dudes who dress like ladies, that no one minded me being their presence. Ether way, it was a win-win situation.

So I urge anyone who is on the fence to get off the fence. Sitting on the fence is not very comfortable, whereas living as a woman is the most comfortable place in the world to be.

Wearing Brahmin.

Mark Gatiss femulates Joan Crawford in UK television's Psychobitches (2013).

Throwback Thursday: No More Closets

I originally posted this on October 10, 2011. It was an important post for me and I am repeating it because there are readers here today who were not reading the blog four years ago and I thought that maybe they would enjoy reading it.  

October 2011

I was in the closet for a very long time.

Although my interests in feminine things go back to my earliest memories, I did not take up crossdressing until I was 12-years-old. But once I began, I crossdressed at every opportunity, typically whenever I found myself alone at home.

When I was 19, I reached my tipping point and had to let Stana out of the closet. So I dressed en femme on Halloween despite the fact that I had nowhere to go.

Unlike today, where there is a Halloween event everywhere you turn, back in the late-1970s, there was not much Halloween-wise for a young adult. I had not been invited to any Halloween parties (I didn't even know of any Halloween parties) and I was too young to go to any bar that might be celebrating Halloween. So, Mom let her "daughter" borrow the car and I visited some friends and relatives to "trick 'n' treat." (How desperate is that?)

Post-Halloween, I was back in the closet honing my femulating skills while waiting for next year's Halloween party invitations. I never went out en femme to trick 'n' treat again, but I did get a few party invitations over the years.

I always attended the parties dressed as a woman, not as a woman wearing a woman's costume. Invariably, some party-goer would wonder why I wasn't wearing a costume and I would explain to their astonishment that I was in costume. Post-Halloween, I would be back in the closet again, but at least I realized that all the practice in the closet was not for naught.

Online (via Compuserve's Genderline), I discovered and joined a local support group in the early 1980s. Now, I was able to get out of the house en femme on days besides the last day of months beginning with the letter O. I attended meetings once or twice per month, always dressing at home and driving to the meeting place 25 miles away.

On occasion, the support group sponsored outings --- usually dinners at local restaurants, which sheltered us in a private room so we would not to mix with their "normal" clientele. I always attended, but being a rebel, I made a point of using the public ladies' restroom instead of the private restroom that had been assigned to us.

I wanted more and began attending trans conventions, which gave me the opportunity to have the run of a whole hotel for a long weekend en femme.

But I realized that I was still in the closet. I just had more closet-space: in my home, in my support group's meeting places, and in trans convention hotels.

I still wanted more, so I became a little more adventurous. On my way to support group meetings, I would stop off to buy a refreshment at a convenience store or fast food joint. Amazingly, no one seemed to notice or care that I was en femme. I was passing or at least, I was accepted and that emboldened me to do more.

It took 55 years, but I finally summoned up enough courage to go out in public en femme. I decided to make that leap by going to the mall. I dressed en femme, drove to the mall, arrived just as it opened, and sat in my car for a half-hour trying to muster the courage to exit the car and walk across the parking lot to the mall entrance.

I finally pushed myself and did it and I spent the better part of day at the mall having the time of my life. Some people read me, but it was not the end of the world, and once I got a taste of the world en femme, I wanted more.

Subsequently, I picked my days and spent them en femme, shopping, dining, being entertained, enjoying the arts, etc., etc., and I loved it, doing what other women did when they were out.

It all felt so natural to me. I was always feminine. As I have written here before, I was not a female trapped in a male body, rather I was me trapped by society's expectations of what a male was supposed to be. The "problem" was that I preferred to fulfill society's expectations of what a woman was supposed to be.

Finally, I realized I was a woman, who happened to have a male body, but I was not going to let that little handicap hinder me from being the best woman I could be.

Wearing EDUN.

Julie Shaw's all-time fave Halloween costume

The Other Side of My Closet

Janie's blog post today inspired me to write the following.

One side of my closet is fresh and vibrant, the other side, not so much.

On one side of my closet, new items appear regularly and old worn-out items are replaced.

On the other side of my closet, there is dust on some items; old worn-out items are not thrown out unless absolutely necessary and are seldom replaced.

Guess which side of the closet is which?

The girl side of my closet is growing, while the boy side remains the same. It has gotten so crowded on the girl side that I moved all my special occasion dresses to an unused corner of my wife's closet.

My collection of shoes and bags is getting out of hand, too, and I am storing some of those items in my wife's closet.

I have not bought anything new from the men's aisles since late last winter and that was on the occasion of my regular undies purge in which I throw out all of my boy panties and camies and replace them with a fresh set.

Although the boy side of my closet is old and neglected, I buy new items for the girl side all the time.

It's like I'm getting ready to live as a woman full-time.

Putting Your Closet on a Diet

Do you have items in your wardrobe that you are “saving” because they have sentimental value, are “too pretty to wear,” are timeless, or cost a lot of money? 

I don't know about you, but that pretty much describes moi to a T. As a result, my closets are overflowing and I can use help.

To the rescue, Ginger Burr wrote an excellent post on her blog that proffers three reasons to stop saving your clothes. You can read it here.

No More Closets

I was in the closet for a very long time.

Although my interests in feminine things go back to my earliest memories, I did not take up crossdressing until I was 12-years-old. But once I began, I crossdressed at every opportunity, typically whenever I found myself alone at home.

When I was 19, I reached my tipping point and had to let Stana out of the closet. So I dressed en femme on Halloween despite the fact that I had nowhere to go.

Unlike today, where there is a Halloween event everywhere you turn, back in the late-1970s, there was not much Halloween-wise for a young adult. I had not been invited to any Halloween parties (I didn't even know of any Halloween parties) and I was too young to go to any bar that might be celebrating Halloween. So, Mom let her "daughter" borrow the car and I visited some friends and relatives to "trick 'n' treat." (How desperate is that?)

Post-Halloween, I was back in the closet honing my femulating skills while waiting for next year's Halloween party invitations. I never went out en femme to trick 'n' treat again, but I did get a few party invitations over the years.

I always attended the parties dressed as a woman, not as a woman wearing a woman's costume. Invariably, some party-goer would wonder why I wasn't wearing a costume and I would explain to their astonishment that I was in costume. Post-Halloween, I would be back in the closet again, but at least I realized that all the practice in the closet was not for naught.

Online (via Compuserve's Genderline), I discovered and joined a local support group in the early 1980s. Now, I was able to get out of the house en femme on days besides the last day of months beginning with the letter O. I attended meetings once or twice per month, always dressing at home and driving to the meeting place 25 miles away.

On occasion, the support group sponsored outings --- usually dinners at local restaurants, which sheltered us in a private room so we would not to mix with their "normal" clientele. I always attended, but being a rebel, I made a point of using the public ladies' restroom instead of the private restroom that had been assigned to us.

I wanted more and began attending trans conventions, which gave me the opportunity to have the run of a whole hotel for a long weekend en femme. 

But I realized that I was still in the closet. I just had more closet-space: in my home, in my support group's meeting places, and in trans convention hotels.

I still wanted more, so I became a little more adventurous. On my way to support group meetings, I would stop off to buy a refreshment at a convenience store or fast food joint. Amazingly, no one seemed to notice or care that I was en femme. I was passing or at least, I was accepted and that emboldened me to do more.

It took 55 years, but I finally summoned up enough courage to go out in public en femme. I decided to make that leap by going to the mall. I dressed en femme, drove to the mall, arrived just as it opened, and sat in my car for a half-hour trying to muster the courage to exit the car and walk across the parking lot to the mall entrance.

I finally pushed myself and did it and I spent the better part of day at the mall having the time of my life. Some people read me, but it was not the end of the world, and once I got a taste of the world en femme, I wanted more.

Subsequently, I picked my days and spent them en femme, shopping, dining, being entertained, enjoying the arts, etc., etc., and I loved it, doing what other women did when they were out.

It all felt so natural to me. I was always feminine. As I have written here before, I was not a female trapped in a male body, rather I was me trapped by society's expectations of what a male was supposed to be. The "problem" was that I preferred to fulfill society's expectations of what a woman was supposed to be.

Finally, I realized I was a woman, who happened to have a male body, but I was not going to let that little handicap hinder me from being the best woman I could be.

And so it goes.

Revisiting Stana's Closet

On Monday, I wrote about my closet. That writing included a photo of my closet with my female clothing hanging on the closet rods and my high heels in shoe boxes stacked on the floor.

Did you notice what was not in my closet?

Me.

I was in the closet for a very long time. From my early teens until I joined a support group in the late 1980s, all my femulations were in the confines of my home (except for a handful of Halloween femulations).

My girl was cooped up in that home closet for almost 20 years, so when I finally attended a support group meeting, it was a breath of fresh air in comparison.

By attending support group meetings, I was out in "public" for the first time. I dressed at home and drove 30 minutes to the support group meeting place. During the drive, I was really out in the public albeit within the enclosure of my automobile.

At the meetings, I will argue that I was also out in "public" because at first, all the other attendees were strangers to me. They were as "public" to me as anyone I might encounter on a city street. Also, the faces of the attendees changed constantly with new folks showing up, while others dropped out, so there was almost always a new public to face at the meetings.

The support group occasionally sponsored outings to local restaurants. The group planned those outings in advance; the restaurants prepared for our outings and usually stuck us in a private room so that the other clientele, the "public," would not disturb us!

I regularly attended support group meetings for about years and was very active in the group editing their newsletter, as well as organizing the group's annual banquet.

After attending support group meetings for five years or so, I realized that the support group meeting hall was just a bigger closet located 30 miles up the Interstate from my home closet, so my girl was itching to get out in public a little farther.

So, I attended my first transgender convention. Now, the closet was huge and encompassed a whole hotel. I had such a wonderful time in the expanded closet that I attended a different trangender convention every year for about five or six years. Then I crashed into a closet wall again and realized that although the trans convention closet was very big, it was still a closet and I was stuck in it.

I considered my situation. I was not getting any younger and if I did not make a real effort to get out of the closet, I would never get out. The only thing preventing me from getting out of the closet was me.

I had a great fear of being recognized by the public as a natal male and being ridiculed (or worse) as a result. And despite a lot of evidence to the contrary that I could pass on occasion, I was sure that as soon as I stuck my high-heeled foot out in public, every civilian who encountered me would know the "truth." But my girl so wanted to go public and finally I made up my mind to do something about it.

On a cool November day four years ago, I shaved, showered, did my makeup, dressed, and drove to the mall. I dressed appropriately to fit in (and not stand out) by wearing a long black tunic sweater, "heather-gray" leggings, and the pant boots, but I sat in my car trying to get up the courage to go inside. After 20 minutes, I made up mind that "it was now or never" and I got out of my car and went into the mall.

My day out had its ups and downs (you can read about it in detail here. Some people read me and reacted in such a way that I knew that they read me, but most of the time, people paid little or no attention to me. So I assumed that (1) most people who read me were polite and did not react or (2) most people who read me did not care and did not react or (3) I passed.

In any case, I was out of the closet and it felt wonderful. That alone would have made my day, but my visit to Sephora was icing on the cake.

I sought some makeup advice, so I went to Sephora for a consultation. The consultant could not have been nicer. While she was experimenting with my face, I mentioned that I had beard cover under my foundation and that the reason I was wearing beard cover was because I was crossdressing.

I probably did not have to tell her I was crossdressing because up close and personal, she probably detected that fact. No matter, she said to me, "You only have one life to live and you should live it like you want. If someone has a problem, then it is their problem, not yours."

Wow! That was an epiphany!

Throughout my life, I always worried about what other people would think of me and if someone had a problem with me, I thought it was my fault, that is, I had done something wrong. The Sephora consultant turned that philosophy on its head and I realized that as long as I am not hurting anyone, I should live my life as I want to live it.

I felt so free!

After that, whenever the opportunity arose, I went out in public en femme. Shopping, shows, dining, outreach, seminars, a four-day stay in Manhattan, etc., over the past four years, I have embraced every opportunity to go out en femme and in the process, I discovered some important things.

The more I went out in public en femme, the more I passed. I was no longer nervous about going out en femme. Instead, I was relaxed and acted more naturally and people who might have read me, ignored me because I was not drawing attention to myself.

The more I went out en femme, I realized that being en femme was the real me. I no longer had to concentrate on femulating. Just acting as myself was more than enough because there was no longer a need to act as a woman because I really was a woman all along, but it took a long time to realize it.

Closets are for clothing, not people, so I urge you all to get out of the closet and be the woman you want to be. Maybe you will discover that you are a plain vanilla crossdresser or maybe you will discover that you have really been a woman all along.

By the way, the photo above shows me standing outside of my closet.

Stana's Closet

My wife and I "share" a walk-in closet off our bedroom. I write "share" because she uses four racks for her wardrobe and I use one rack! To make matters worse, my one rack contains both my male and female wardrobes.

Pictured above is the east half of my one rack. Two thirds of that half (or one-third of the whole rack) now contains my female stuff, which is slowly, but surely taking up more space and forcing me to thin out my male stuff.

The shoe boxes on the floor contain my high heels. The 12 visible boxes are just the tip of the iceberg; there are two more rows of shoe boxes storing heels behind the visible boxes.

The tackle box to the right of the shoe boxes contains my makeup.

To the right of the tackle box (out of the view of this photo) are five cardboard boxes. One box houses clear storage boxes that contain my bangles and beads. The other four boxes contain my unmentionables, hosiery, purses, wallets, scarves, etc.

Two additional boxes sit on a shelf in the closet. One contains my wigs; the other contains sundry of other items that make my femulation possible, as well as passable.

The belt rack on the wall to the left contains mostly female belts, after all, how many belts does a guy need?

My winter outerwear hangs in a closet in the spare bedroom. When the cold weather moves in, I move my winter coats du jour from the spare bedroom closet to our walk-in closet. To accomplish that this year, I will have to move the warm weather female stuff to the spare bedroom closet.

Such is the closet of an active femulator!