Kids

In yesterday's post, I pondered how women react to our femulations. In general, spouses react negatively, while non-spouses react positively, but your mileage may vary.

What about the kids?

When my wife was pregnant, I worried about having a son. How would my son react to my crossdressing? Would it be better off if I hid my femulations from my son?

Then again, I am not the most masculine guy. In fact, I am so feminine that throughout my life, I was considered gay. What effect would a feminine male role model have on my son?

Thank, Goddess, we had a daughter. She turned out to be my greatest ally and once she even confided in me that if I decided to go all the way and have HRT and SRS, she would have my back.

Over the years, I have found that the daughters usually support their transgender Dads. I do know from second hand experience that is not always the case, but in more cases than not, I have seen daughters lovingly help their fathers transition into the women they really are.

What about kids who aren't your kids?

Twenty-five years ago, kids who aren't your kids would consider us freaks. They might laugh and insult us in public.

Today's kids are much more familiar with transgender folks. They see transgenders in the media every day and they may have friends or acquaintances who are questioning their gender, so being transgender is not a big deal.

In the past, I had to be careful femulating when my daughter had friends visiting her. I either had to sneak around the house or worse, use the cheap motel option. But even that has changed. My daughter's last boyfriend saw me crossdressed a couple of times and did not give a damn.

And so it goes.

Wearing Traffic People (Source: Simply Be!)

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle femulating in the 1917 film Coney Island.

Friday fotos

Here are two photos from my Friday out en femme (click on the photos to enlarge them).

Here I am staffing my support group's table at the True Colors Conference.








Hanging out in the UCONN Student Union just like I did when I attended the university back in the 1970s except now I am dressed very differently.

discovery

While surfing the net, I discovered an interesting and pertinent essay titled Discovery on Chrysalis, a web site "for transgender children, teens and their families."

To the crossdresser the words "discover" or "discovery" can have so many meanings, as well as tons of ramifications. For instance, it's a discovery when a CD first learns that he enjoys wearing women's clothes and carrying himself in a feminine way. And I know from experience, it's an even bigger discovery when he eventually realizes that this facet of his life earns him a lifetime membership in a club whose members are commonly called crossdressers. Once that discovery has been made, you can be sure he'll spend the next few years, or even the rest of his life, discovering just what his membership in this club means to him.

To read the rest of the essay, click here.

nature's call

the little rascal in a dress

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Our Gang/Little Rascals comedies. (Would you believe that I am so old that I saw my first Our Gang comedy in a movie theater as a short inserted between the newsreel, cartoon, coming attractions, and the main feature?)

Anyway, after my first taste of Spanky and his gang on the big screen, I sought out the series on television and over the years, I probably viewed every episode at least once including the early silent episodes.

One silent episode left a big impression on me. I only saw it two or three times, but I will never forget it. For years, I tried to track it down without much success. Even the Internet was not much help.

I was surfing the net last night, came upon a reference to the Our Gang series and it occurred to me that I had not had a go at looking for that episode in awhile. So, I googled the subject and found an excellent episode guide for the series.

Using that guide, I quickly found the episode I sought: One Terrible Day. It was the first episode listed and the first episode to be released (way back in 1922). Here is the brief description from the tv.com web site:

A wealthy society matron treats the underprivileged kids of the gang to an outing at her country estate. The gang turns both the journey and the visit at the farm into a chaotic adventure.

That sounds innocuous: just your typical Our Gang/Little Rascals plot, but there was a sub-plot that made an impact on my very impressionable pre-teen mind.

A little girl lived with the wealthy society matron (she was a niece, granddaughter, whatever, I don't remember). She was a well-behaved, little lady, however, when the gang arrived, she convinced one of the male gang members to switch places with her and they crossdressed in each other's clothes. After the girl and boy switched clothes, the girl became aggressive and dominated the boy in the dress.

I will always remember seeing the boy in the little girl's short dress and thinking that he looked just like a little girl. Also, I will always remember how the girl in drag pushed around the boy in drag.

As a kid, I was not aggressive and other kids bullied me and pushed me around. Maybe my subconscious mind decided that since I acted like that little rascal in drag that I should wear a dress, too. And a few years later, my subconscious mind won over my conscious mind and I donned my first (in a long line) of dresses.

Who knows?

conference dedicated to families raising trans-kids

Gender Odyssey Presents Conference Dedicated to Families Raising Gender-Variant Kids

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) June 7, 2007 -- Families with gender variant and transgender children will find a wealth of information and support at Gender Odyssey's first national conference focused specifically on them. The ground-breaking conference will be held Aug. 31 -- Sept. 2, 2007 at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in Seattle. At this event, families with kids who do not conform to society's traditional gender expectations can connect with each other, while having access to national experts in the field of gender variance.

Read the whole story here or download the press release here.