2022 Transgender Lives Conference

At the 2019 Trans Lives Conference
(when it was really “live”)

The 16th annual Transgender Lives Conference will be held virtually on Saturday, April 30, 2022 via the UConn Health Center’s WebEx from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM.

The conference is geared towards social service providers, medical and legal professionals, transgender and non-binary gender diverse and gender non-conforming community members, as well as allies and supporters interested in learning about healthcare and legal issues that affect our communities.

To register for the conference go to the conference’s registration webpage. Registration is free, but $10 donations via PayPal are welcome.

Yours truly will be presenting at the conference (time slot to be determined). The topic of my presentation is “Confidence: A Crossdresser’s Best Friend.” It’s a topic I covered at previous conferences and it has always been a crowd pleaser.

I hope to see you there!

Update:

This just in: I will be presenting at at 10 AM EDT on Saturday, April 30.

Wearing Guilty of Glam

Kyle De'Volle

Zooming and Squeeming

Ready to Zoom on Saturday

This past weekend was my ham radio group’s big weekend with a Zoomed board meeting on Thursday and our annual conference Zooming on Friday and Saturday. I missed most of Friday due to family commitments, but I was all in on Thursday and Saturday.

The board meeting was only three hours long, yet I dressed fully en femme even though I would only be seen from mid-torso and up. Saturday was an all-day event (10 AM to 5:30 PM) – the longest I have been fully dressed en femme in a long while.

I wore my Squeem “Perfect Waist” waist cincher both days and I was reminded how comfortable as well effective it is. I also wore my Nine West 4-inch high heel slingback pumps* both days and they were comfortable from beginning to end, so I believe the foot stretching exercises that I do every morning are having an effect.

On the non-wardrobe front, I was visible en femme via Zoom to my fellow board members during the board meeting on Thursday where I was reelected as the group’s secretary for a 19th consecutive term! The board members are used to seeing me en femme via Zoom and in person at Hamvention, so it was not a big deal.

A bigger deal was Zooming en femme to the hundred or so conference attendees, many of whom have never seen me as a woman. Some are probably familiar with my male byline writing for ham radio publications for over 30 years and some are probably familiar with the female byline that I have been using the past 10 years, but not so much my female visage. Either way they seemed very comfortable interacting with me always using the correct pronouns and my female name. So I was very happy with that!

Which reminds me the first time I made a presentation to the public en femme. It was in person at Hamvention in 2018. (Stop me if you heard this story before.) 

After the presentation, a fellow came over to talk to me. He is a member of our organization and I have probably seen him at every Hamvention I have attended during the past 10 to 15 years.

The gent asked me, “How are you related to Stan Horzepa?”

I sure did not see that coming. It was music to my ears.

* An Amazon Associate link

Wearing Jonathan Simkhai

Dick Shawn femulating in the 1984 film Angel.
You can view the film on YouTube.

I’m Back

There were no new posts here since Thursday because I was otherwise occupied.

My ham radio organization sponsors an annual conference that usually attracts 100 to 125 attendees. This year, Charlotte, North Carolina was the site for the conference, but we cancelled it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, we did the conference online using Zoom Webinar. The conference was on Friday and Saturday and was very successful attracting nearly 300 attendees and generating kudos galore. But it involved a lot of hard work.

When we do an in-person conference, we hire a hotel as the venue and they do a lot of the heavy-lifting. In our do-it-yourself online conference, “we” had to do all the heavy-lifting, “we” being the ten officers and directors of the organization.

I spent Thursday through Sunday creating email and webpage announcements concerning the conference and Saturday, I was a moderator for the conference presentations. Needless to say, I had little time to devote to this blog except to moderate any comments that you all posted.

By the way, I presented as a woman from head to toe throughout the conference despite the fact that I was only visible online from the chest and up.

It was a long weekend and after doing some post-conference work Sunday morning, I crashed in front of the television watching the Patriots and old movies! But I'm back today and so it goes.

Wearing Boston Proper

Alan Manson and fellow femulators in the 1943 film This is the Army
You can view the film in its entirety on YouTube.

Three Strikes and You’re Out

Last week, they postponed the True Colors Conference. Sunday evening, they cancelled Hamvention. Monday evening Tuesday morning, they postponed cancelled the Transgender Lives Conference. So all three conferences where I was presenting have been affected by the Coronavirus, also known as the “Trump Flu.”

Damn!

On a happier note, Peaches alerted me to an intriguing article about British cartoonist Steven Appleby, who crossdresses full-time.

Going to wash my hands now.

Wearing Price

Cartoonist Steven Appleby

Three Thoughts on Thursday

25,208 Days and Counting Dept.

Thank-you all for the birthday wishes!

Many of my regular correspondents and commenters sent birthday wishes and I was surprised by the “strangers,” readers who I do not know, who sent their birthday wishes, too!

Either way, I appreciated all your kind words! Thank-you!


Postponing the Inevitable Dept.

Monday, I mentioned that next week’s True Colors Conference was the conference that I would be attending that was most likely to be cancelled due to the coronavirus. I was wrong – rather than being cancelled, it was postponed to Wednesday to May 22 and 23.

Coincidentally, there was a ham radio conference on the same dates as the True Colors Conference that I would have attended if I had not committed to present at True Colors. Turns out that conference was cancelled on Wednesday!

Too Close for Comfort Dept.

“I never feel comfortable in the women’s department. I feel like I’m just a little too close to trying on a dress.”

So said Jerry in “The Red Dot” episode of Seinfeld.

On Seinfeld, Jerry did not play a trans character. In real life, I am not aware that Jerry is a trans person.

Larry David wrote “The Red Dot” episode and as far as I know, Larry is not a trans person either.

My point is that the “too close to trying on a dress” line came from a non-trans person. Admittedly, it was intended to be humorous, but I wonder if there is a grain of truth buried in that line.

Do non-trans men feel uncomfortable in women's department because they feel like they are a little too close to trying on a dress?

I don’t know because I am trans. Whenever I am in the women’s department, I always feel close to trying on a dress. In fact, I would love to try on a dress if I see one I like and I have actually done so on more than one occasion in boy mode.

But do non-trans men have thoughts about wearing dresses?

I am sure that the average guy would not admit it except in jest because he would not want to muddle up his masculine image. But, it does make me wonder how close the average guy is to joining our team.

Wearing Michelle Mason

Dave Foley femulating on television’s Kids in the Hall

Going Viral

I planned to attend three events this spring, but my plans may be scuttled by the Coronavirus.

Coming up next Friday is the True Colors Conference – a conference for LGBT school-aged kids and young adults. Schools throughout the Northeast bus kids to this conference and already, one school as cancelled the trip and others may follow.

Of the three events I had planned to attend, True Colors is the one that is most likely to be cancelled because of bad timing and because school-aged kids are the main participants. The Conference website declares that “the conference will go on rain or shine, virus or no, with plenty of hand sanitizer.” We’ll see.

Next month is the Transgender Lives Conference. And in May is Hamvention. Whether those conferences go on depends on what happens with the virus. IMPOTUS claims that things will improve when the weather gets warmer, but considering the source, I am not counting on his hunch.

I am presenting at all three events and hope I have the opportunity to do so. But I am also a senior citizen – and they say that the Coronavirus appears most dangerous to seniors, so I am loathe to put my life on the line just to present at a conference.

We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Wearing Boston Proper

Alex Mathias, Vadim Oleynik and Artem Meh femulating on Ukranian television’s version of Your Face Sounds Familiar

Living Lives

Saturday, I spent the day at the UConn Health Center attending the Transgender Lives Conference. (That's me in the photo above at the conclusion of the conference hanging out to catch friends for final goodbyes.)

Fashionista Atención 👉 The weather was unseasonably cold and the rooms at the Health Center run hot and cold, so I wore a long-sleeved shift dress (JB by Julie Brown) and topped it off with a shrug (Avon). Accessories were silver earrings (Napier), scarf, white watch and charm bracelet (Avon), nude high heel pumps (Payless) and a Coach bag. (I received a whole bunch of positive comments about my outfit at the conference.)

I was up at 6 AM to get ready to arrive at the Health Center between 8 and 9 AM. I was out the door at 8:15 and arrived at the conference 20 minutes later.

I checked in, got my presentation packet and walked one flight up where coffee was available. Problem was that the conference opened in the auditorium on the first floor, so I had to walk downstairs in heels with a cup of coffee in one hand (there were no tops for the cups) and my bag and presentation packet in the other hand with no hands left to hold onto the railing on the staircase. I climbed downstairs as gingerly as possible, but I still spilled some coffee on myself along the way!

There were four time slots for workshops. My presentation was in the third slot (at 1 PM) and I attended workshops in other three slots.

"Meet the Publisher and Contributors to Connecticut Voice" was a pitch to contribute articles to Voice, a new slick magazine for the Connecticut LGBT community.

"Title Withheld to Protect the Clueless" — I was clueless going into this workshop and I exited this workshop just as clueless. The folks conducting this workshop seemed to know what they were talking about, but I didn't get it. Afterwords, I asked a friend who also attended this workshop and she exited just as clueless as I was.

"The History of Transgender History" was presented by Dallas Denny, famed author and editor of transgender writings and someone I consider a friend. Dallas talked about how transgender history was basically forgotten in earlier days and how it has grown in importance with various people and organizations archiving everything they can get their hands on today.

Lunch was served at the halfway point. While in the lunch line, I met up with Dana, a Femulate reader who drove up from Philadelphia Saturday morning (216 miles) to attend the conference and in particular, see my presentation. We ate lunch together, where we discussed a variety of transgender topics and previewed my presentation.

My presentation, "Crossdressing Successfully in the Real World," was lightly attended, but the folks in attendance got an earful. We only ended the presentation when the folks attending the next presentation kicked us out of the room!

I met up with other friends, acquaintances and celebrities, most notably, Ariadne Kane, a transgender pioneer who is most famous for being one of the founders of Fantasia Fair*. Ari attended my presentation and we exchanged phone numbers so that we can continue our discussion in the near future.

Attendance seemed down from previous Transgender Lives Conferences I have attended, but those in attendance yesterday were very interested and enthusiastic, which made up for the lower attendance numbers.

It was a very eclectic crowd and all ages were in attendance. In particular, I noticed more people who appeared older than me than I had noticed in the past. Don't know what that means, but there you have it!

It was a great conference and I am already planning my presentation for next year.

* I just noticed that my book, Fantasia Fair Diaries, is referenced in Wikipedia's entry for "Fantasia Fair."

Wearing BCBGMAXAZRIA (Source: Rue La La)

📺 Eugeniusz Bodo femulates Mae West in the 1937 Polish film Piętro Wyżej.

Don't Forget!

The Transgender Lives Conference is on the Saturday. It is the biggest trans conference in the Northeast and I will be there presenting "Out Among the Civilians" between 1 and 2 PM.!

This link 🔗 provides all you need to know about the conference which runs all day Saturday at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut.

I hope I will see you there!

(Source: Pinterest)

Grzegorz Wilk femulates Amanda Lear on Polish television's Your Face Sounds Familiar.

T Lives Conference Almost Here

Next weekend is a big holiday weekend, so the weekend following it might get lost in the shuffle. The Transgender Lives Conference is on the Saturday after the Easter/Passover weekend, so I wanted to remind anyone considering attending that the Conference is fast approaching.

The Conference attracts attendees from all over the Northeast and is the biggest conference of its kind in this neck of the woods. If you can make it to the Conference, you will be rewarded with a very fulfilling day.

This link 🔗 provides all you need to know about the conference which runs all day Saturday at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut. My presentation "Out Among the Civilians" runs for an hour between 1 and 2 PM.

I hope I will see you there!

Wearing Unique Vintage (Source: Unique Vintage)

Jack Haley (right) femulated in a lost scene from the 1945 film George White Scandals.

Transgender Lives is Live

Attending the Transgender Lives Conference, April 2017

Everything you wanted to know about the upcoming Transgender Lives Conference is now online.

"The Thirteenth Annual Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law Conference being held on Saturday, April 27th at the UConn Health Center from 8:00 AM till 5 PM. This all day conference is geared towards Service Providers, Medical and Legal Professionals, Trans and Gender non-conforming community, allies and all those interested in the Health and Law issues facing the Trans and gender non-conforming communities.

"General Registration price is $25 per person (including lunch), $50 for anyone seeking CEC credits from the National Association of Social Workers of CT (NASW/CT). Can't afford it? We will have scholarships available the day of the event. The first 25 walk-ins will receive a free lunch."

👠 Online registration is available here.

👠 General information about the conference is available here.

👠 A list of workshops and presentations is available here and the workshop/presentation schedule is here.

👠 And the bios of each presenter is available here.

I will be presenting "Crossdressing Successfully in the Real World" to encourage male-to-female crossdressers to escape from fantasyland and experience the real world as females.

The Conference is strategically located at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut, halfway between Boston and New York City — an easy 2-hour/120-mile ride from either city. As a result, it is well-attended, but there is always room for you and I hope to see you there!

Wearing Rachel Zoe (Source: Rachel Zoe)

Alex Wetter, male womenswear model

Just Another Day in Pair of Wedges

Shoes

Saturday, I slipped on my wedge heels (Payless' Mink Wedge from Fioni) at 7 AM and took them off at 5 PM. By my calculations, that's ten hours in 3-1/2-inch heels and my feet never complained.

My experience is that wedge heels are very comfortable even wearing them over long periods of time. During one of my recent stints at Hamvention, I wore a pair both days that I attended the event ― most of the time standing while staffing a booth on a concrete floor and I had happy feet at the end of each day. So I swear by wedges and need to add more to my shoe collection.

RIP

After a wonderful Saturday at the Transgender Lives Conference, I saw an obituary in Sunday's newspaper that broke my heart. A 20-something transperson died. Her name was listed with a male first name, followed by a female first name in parenthesis and then her surname, e.g., Michael (Michelle) Smith.

I assumed she was a transwoman because female pronouns were used throughout the obit and her photo presented a female visage.

Her cause of death was not mentioned, so I assumed the worst.

Thought for the Day

Living as a man is highly overrated.

Wearing ML Monique Lhuillier (Source: Rent the Runway)

Professional femulator Paolo Ballesteros and family.