Friends (and Acquaintances)

Last week, a reader asked, “Any advice on reaching out to find friends and acquaintances?”  

In my youth, my friends and acquaintances came from three sources: kids in my neighborhood, classmates in my schools and local ham radio operators. Since my crossdressing was closeted, I had no friends via crossdressing, although I am sure that one of my classmate friends was a crossdresser.

As a young adult, my friends and acquaintances also came from work. Since I was writing for an international ham radio magazine, I also had friends and acquaintances from the worldwide ham radio community. 

My crossdressing came out of the closet as an older adult when I started attending support group meetings and the group’s sponsored outings. As an active member of the support group, I had lots of support group friends and acquaintances including two who had been ham radio acquaintances before they became crossdresser acquaintances. (Small world!) Middle-aged, I began writing this blog and as it became popular, I had even more crossdresser friends and acquaintances.

That was my path for acquiring friends and acquaintances, but my path is not your path.

Joining a support group is still an option if there is a support group in your area. Similarly, you can make friends by attending a crossdresser convention.

The problem is that crossdresser support groups and conventions are becoming scarcer by the hour. Just as the Internet killed off our favorite brick and mortar dress shops and shoe stores, it is also killing off crossdresser support groups and conventions. So what’s a lonely girl to do? 

Turn the killer on its head and use Internet social media to find friends and acquaintances.

Google “crossdresser groups” and the Google comes back with over 83 million groups. Fine tune your search for locale, for example, Googling “crossdresser groups connecticut” returns over 741,000 results.

Some of the results will be dead ends, but there is enough active online action that may result in friendships with other crossdressers. Facebook, Meetup, Reddit are some of the online resources to check out. And they are just the tip of the Internet iceberg.

One more thing... There is always the possibility that friends from your boy life can be friends in your girl life. When I came out at work, my co-worker friends were still my friends. No one shunned me; they treated me as if nothing had changed and a few even seemed friendlier! You never know! 

Good luck!

And by the way, I want to thank everyone who wished me good luck regarding my surgery tomorrow.

Wearing Brooks Brothers

British “Soldiers in Skirts” (circa 1943) ready to entertain the troops

Why Would Anyone Want To Be A Woman?

When I came out to my ham radio friends and acquaintances, almost everyone was supportive. 

One friend, who I had known for over 35 years was pleased to see me once he recognized me en femme.

He listened attentively to my story. Then he asked some questions, which I answered.

Finally he said to me, “Why would anyone want to be a woman?”

My jaw dropped. I felt like everything I had said to him had gone in one ear and out the other.

It was not a choice. I didn’t decide one day that I needed a change of pace and would become a woman. I didn’t decide to become a woman to spice up my life.

Life would be so much easier if I was not a woman who found herself in a male body.

Like author Joy Ladin wrote, “There’s nothing so bad about being a man... as long as you’re a man.”

I'm certainly not a man. Never was. That explains why I feel uncomfortable when en homme, but at ease when en femme. 

Anyway, I did not unfriend my old friend for asking that question. I look forward to seeing him and we still interact with each other the same way we did before my coming out.  

And so it goes.

Wearing Guilty of Glam

Christian De Sica femulating in the 2018 Italian film Amici Come Prima (Friends Like Before). If you search YouTube for Amici Come Prima, you will find a number of film clips from the movie.

Friends

The friends and acquaintances I know fall into two categories (and four subcategories).

Category 1

There are the people who know me only as a woman. They never encountered the male me. Some of them may be aware that there was a male me and some of them are unaware and believe that I am a cisgender woman.

The latter subcategory is a small set of people. Most of them are people I encountered so briefly that they did not have the time to figure me out. For example, the female shopper who approached me one day in Macy's, complimented me on how fashionably I was dressed and asked me for my opinion on the clothing she was about to purchase.

Then there are people who do figure me out eventually like the two transwoman I befriended at Fantasia Fair. They initially thought I was the cisgender female spouse of another Fantasia Fair attendee.

Category 2

There are people who knew the male me first and the female me later. They fall into two subcategories: people who are ok with the female me and people who are not. Luckily, those who are not ok with the female me are a very tiny minority. (There may be people in the first subcategory who pretend to be ok with the female me face-to-face, but behind my back, may not be ok with the female me.)

The board members and officers of my ham radio group comes to mind. When I came out as transgender to the board and officers, it was composed of people who had known the male me in person for 15 to 20 years and even longer if they were familiar with the hundreds of articles I had written about ham radio as far back as the late 1970s.

No one was as surprised as I was on how well they accepted the female me. There was some tripping over pronouns initially, but they got over that hurdle quickly and I have never detected any inclination that they were only ok with the female me face-to-face.

Then there are board members and officers who came along later. Some of them might have been familiar with my writing, but none of them had ever met the male me and only know me in person as a female. They accept me as a woman because that is the only option I afford them. Whether they like me or not is another matter, but that is there reaction to me as a person, not me as a woman. In that regard, the folks who knew the male me probably are ok with the female me because they are ok with me as a person no matter my gender.

Put the Shoe on the Other Foot

By the way, I try to put the shoe on the other foot and think about how I would react if a longtime friend or acquaintance suddenly came out as trans and presented as a woman. My first thought is that I would be perfectly fine with it, but that is not fair because I am trans and presupposed to being very sympathetic to other trans folks. (In fact, a ham radio acquaintance of about 10 years came out as trans to me last year and of course, I had no problem with it even though I was very surprised.)

And so it goes.

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

Bill Bain femulates Carmen Miranda in a 1950 Kiwi Concert Party production.

Old Friends

Out of the blue, I received an e-mail asking me if I used to be the "Staci" who frequented meetings of the Connecticut Outreach Society 15 to 20 years ago. I acknowledged that fact and it turned out that the e-mail was from a girl who also attended those meetings way back when.

She stopped attending the meetings because life got in the way, but now she was trying to get out and about again and wondered if we could get together. After a few false starts, we finally managed to make a date for dinner and shopping. So this evening, I will meet up with my old friend and I am looking forward to getting reacquainted.

I was very active in Connecticut Outreach Society for about 20 years and it is amazing how many people I saw come and go through the doors of the society. They number in the hundreds... probably in the five hundreds... maybe more. 

Most were strangers, but would you believe that I knew two of the girls in boy mode long before they showed up in girl mode at our meetings. I knew both through ham radio. All three of us belonged to the same radio club, but none of us had an inkling about our transgenders.

It's a small world after all!

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

Kate

A Transwoman’s Best Friend is a Woman

 

 

Gary Jarman of the rock group The Cribs femulates
for the cover art of their Housewife recording in 2010.

 

 

 

Wearing Bebe.

Very Comfortable in High Heels

Part 4 of My Hamvention Story

In the past, I have recounted my adventures en femme in sequential order, telling you what happened each day and night as it occurred. This time, I will try something different and describe a variety of vignettes in random order.

I continued coming out to ham radio friends at Hamvention who I have not had an opportunity to come out to in the past. Their numbers are dwindling, but there are still a few stragglers out there in ham radio land.

As in the past, the people I came out to this year were fine with it. One fellow, who I have known for over 15 years (and who had no clue who I was until I pointed to my name on my badge) said, "As long as you are happy, that's all that counts."

The ham friends and acquaintances I came out to in past years are used to me. All refer to me as "Stana" and they all use the proper pronouns (she, her). One fellow slips up occasionally, but he is getting better all the time.

Two ham friends, who I have known for over 25 years are super-supportive. Whenever they see me, they are very enthusiastic and often complimentary. At our banquet Friday night, one of them said I looked "beautiful" and after he said that, I felt beautiful.

Some newer ham friends only know me as "Stana" and they are very cool with it. And my new female ham friends consider me part of their club and I am very cool with that.

More than one reader has remarked that they are surprised how well I have been accepted in the ham radio community, which tends to be more conservative rather than liberal. In addition, Dayton is about an hour from the Kentucky state line and as a result, Hamvention attracts a lot of attendees from the South, which also tends to be more conservative. So I had two strikes against me coming out to the Dayton crowd.

My first time at Hamvention 24/7 en femme in 2010, I felt a little uncomfortable going in, but my comfort level increased as I realized there was nothing to fear.

Now, I don't think about the fact I am en femme when I attend Hamvention because I am no longer en femme. My comfort level is such that I am complete as a person when I am en femme --- so complete that I am no longer en femme, rather I am a woman.

I love checking in and out of hotels as a woman. I love driving my car and pumping gas as a woman. I love dining and socializing with friends as a woman. I love doing everything as a woman because being a woman is my nature.

 

Students femulating on stage at Indiana’s Tr-State College, 1911.

 

Wearing Tahari Arthur S. Levine.

Fantasia Fair Friends

One of the attractions of Fantasia Fair is reuniting with old friends and making new friends. This year I made a point of getting photographs of my friends at the Fair.
Previously, I posted photos of Miqqi Gilbert, the executive director of Fantasia Fair, and Dru Levasseur, the transgender rights attorney at Lamda Legal. Here are photos of my other friends at Fantasia Fair (by the way, I asked and received permission to post these photos).
Alison Liang --- My next door neighbor at my B&B, Alison has been active in the Fantasia Fair organization since way way back when.
Angela Stevens - A UK girl, who now makes her home in Geneva, I met Angela at the Tuesday night banquet at Fantasia Fair.
Barbara Curry - One of my long-time friends in the trans world, Barb is a Connecticut girl and serves as treasurer and evening event director for Fantasia Fair.
Dianne - An international businesswoman, I met Dianne at Fantasia Fair in 2010 and reunited with her this year.
Jamie Dailey - A Connecticut girl, who I have known for many years, Jamie is also the media maven of Fantasia Fair.
Jan Brown - A New York girl, Jan is program director for Fantasia Fair. This photo captured Jan immediately after her makeover by Scarlett Thompson last week.
Marian - A regular Femulate reader and frequent commenter, I met this New York City gal for the first time at Fantasia Fair this year.
Melissa Cross - Hailing from Connecticut, Melissa is a ham radio sister, who I had the pleasure of hanging with during Fantasia Fair.
Cossette - This link will display a photo of me with my friend Cossette, who I met at Fantasia Fair in 2010.

Miss S

Affirmation is a wonderful thing!

Earlier today, I e-mailed a friend of mine. In the e-mail, I called her "Miss K."

In her responding e-mail, she called me "Miss S."

It was just a little gesture, but it made my day!

I've known this friend, a genetic female, for nearly ten years. For most of that time, she knew me only in male mode.

I came out to her about a year ago and she has been very supportive.

We have plans to go out to dinner soon (both of us en femme). Dinner is on me.

the lost Lucy episode

Here is the script of a lost episode of I Love Lucy that never aired because Desi Arnaz thought it would ruin his manly Latin image. Reportedly, Lucille Ball had the only kinescope of that show and used it as blackmail whenever she thought Desi was philandering.

Click here to view the script.

To view the script, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can obtain for free from http://www.abode.com/.

where's Billy?

After I wrote the previous blog entry, "fiddling around," I searched the Internet to find an appropriate image to complement what I wrote and I came up with a photo of a beautiful woman playing a violin.

The woman in the photo reminded me of someone from my youth, my best friend in grammar school, Billy. I think Billy resembles the woman in the photo and vice versa.

I have not seen Billy in over 40 years, so I have no idea what he looks like today, but take the Billy I knew in the early 1960s, put him in drag, and he would be a dead ringer for the woman playing the violin.

I never saw Billy in drag, but I know he dressed as a girl for Halloween at least once and I suspect he is trans.

Billy and I were best friends throughout grammar school. I can't remember how we became friends, but we had a lot in common and that is what probably drew us together. We were both Polish, which was a rare commodity in our neighborhood, we both went to the same church (a Polish parish, needless to say), we were both artists, which put us on the outs with the school's "in crowd," and we both were fascinated in the opposite sex. We had crushes on certain girls, but we both were also scared of them and never did anything about our crushes, at least not in grammar school.

Around puberty, maybe in the 7th or 8th grade, I remember Billy hinting that we dress as girls for Halloween. At that time, I knew something was up with me gender-wise, but I didn't know what and the idea of dressing as a girl for Halloween was very attractive, but I was also in public denial about my gender issues and told Billy that I had no interest in his Halloween costume plans.

I don't remember what I wore for a costume that Halloween, but I do recall that I went out with my usual Halloween trick and treat partner in crime, my other best friend, who lived across the street.

In school the next day, Billy mentioned that he did dress as a girl, he trick and treated at my house and was disappointed that I was not home to see him in his costume. Note that Billy never before trick and treated my house, so he made a special effort that night to show me his girl costume.

Around this same time, I remember that one of us decided that we should adopt girl names (why - I don't know) and for days, he addressed me by my girl name, which was "Susan" and I addressed him by his girl name, which I cannot recall now.

As I mentioned above, we were both artists. He was very good at painting and I was a very good at sketching. As an outlet for my budding trans psyche, I spent a lot of my free time back then sketching males wearing female clothing. I must have killed a forest doing it. One day, Billy mentioned that he had been doing something similar and another day, he showed me some of his sketches. My reaction was to show disinterest.

But my real reaction was fear. I was in uncharted waters; I did not know what was going on with him (or me). I had enough trouble sorting out what was going on with me without having to deal with what was going on with my best friend, so I basically ignored him and I think that was the begiining of the end of a beautiful friendship. We hung out less during our last days in grammar school and ended up going to different high schools and after a few years, we were both out of each others' lives.

I think Billy was reaching out to me. He probably was just as confused as I was and maybe he thought he and his best friend would be better able to work things out as a team rather than solo. If that was the case, he was probably correct and I very much regret not reaching out to him and trying to work out together what the heck was going on. And so it goes.

Over the years, I learned through a mutual friend that Billy got married and lives two towns away, but our mutual friend said nothing about anything trans and I certainly did not ask.

But I often think about Billy and wonder if he really was trans (or was it just my 'magination) and if he ever did anything about it. I often hoped that one day he would show up at my support group and we could become best friends again except that this time we would be girlfriends.

my friend Robyn

Pic1
Originally uploaded by Robyn1967

Out of the blue, I received a flickr e-mail informing me that someone on flickr named "Robyn1967" had dubbed me as one of their Contacts. The e-mail asked if I would like to dub Robyn1967 as one of my Contacts, too.

I get these new Contact e-mails about four or five times per week and when I do, I check out the person's flickr profile to decide whether to make them my Contact, too.

When I arrived at Robyn1967's flickr profile, I was surprised. Most of my Contacts are other crossdressers; very few are genetic woman. It was obvious from her photos that Robyn1967 was a genetic woman; so I thought, until I started reading her photo captions.

I was "Wow'd." Her photos were wonderful and her story was fascinating. Among other things, Robyn lived and worked as a woman, which is one of my unfulfilled dreams.

I quickly added Robyn as a Contact and made plans to read her blog bio later.

Out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Robyn. She thanked me for reciprocating Contact-wise, then complimented my flickr photos. "You look REAL, sis, which from me is the ultimate compliment in that area." Boy, I'll say!

I dropped everything and read Robyn's bio. I found that we had a lot in common, not only the usual crossdresser life experience stuff, but other things crossdressing and non-crossdressing related.

We exchanged more e-mails and upgraded each other's status from Contact to Friend. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I highly recommend viewing her photos and reading her story.