Wear a dress!

March 6, next Monday, is National Dress Day when we celebrate the most versatile and fun article of clothing there is — the dress! 

Fashion designer Ashley Lauren founded the day to help pay homage to dresses and the magical moments that happen when we wear them. “I remember the dresses I wore to my prom, first job interview, first date, competing in a pageant, my first red carpet event, the list goes on.”  (In our case, remembering the first dress we wore or the dress we wore the first time we were out among the civilians.)

“This is a fun day to cherish and celebrate those memories.”

The simplest way to celebrate National Dress Day is to wear a dress! Because the day falls during March, it may be cold where you live and maybe you’ve been wearing pants for months. Use the day as an excuse to get out your favorite dress — no matter how springy — put on some leggings or tights and make new memories in your favorite garment.

I hope you will wear a dress next Monday and if you do, take a selfie, send it to me and I will post it here to celebrate National Dress Day online.

By the way, next Wednesday is International Women’s Day, so if you can’t wear a dress on Monday, wear one on Wednesday (when I will be wearing my birthday dress). 

Even better, wear a dress on Monday and Wednesday!

I plan to wear a dress on those days. But it is too early to wear heels. Everything I’ve read says that you have to wait three months after knee replacement surgery before you can wear high heels. I guess I could pose for a few selfies in heels, but I won’t be hoofing anywhere in stilettos for awhile.

My recovery from surgery progresses. I no longer need a cane to get around, however, for my own sense of security, I use a cane when I am going down stairs (although I have navigated the stairs a few times when I forgot my cane).

I had my first rehab session on Friday and the therapist says I am recovering fast, so it won’t be long (yeah) before I will be able to go out en femme again.

Wearing Millie

Lilo Wanders, German professional femulator

Our Conundrum

By Paula Gaikowski

Conundrum: a problem or puzzle which is difficult or impossible to solve. 

Jan Morris

I cannot think of a better way to describe being transgender. And perhaps neither could the travel writer and historian Jan Morris, which is why she chose “conundrum” as the title to her autobiography chronicling her transition from James to Jan. 

What is most interesting about her transition is it occurred in 1972 when gender transition was still a rarity. While Renee Richards was making headlines, Jan Morris very quietly transitioned and continued writing and publishing highly acclaimed books. One of her best-known was the Pax Britannica Trilogy, a history of the British empire. I had heard about her transition back in 1972 and consumed anything I could find about her in newspapers and magazines. But I never got to read her autobiography.

Jump ahead to the 1990’s and I was working as a field engineer for Motorola in northern New Jersey. In between service calls, we needed to stay in our territory. Subsequently, I found local libraries a great place to do paperwork and read while waiting for the next service call. The Morris County library was a huge regional library that had many books on sexuality and topics like transgender, which was still very new. I would read anything I could find by transgender authors like Caroline Cossey, April Ashley, Paula Grossman, Lili Elbe, Coccinelle, Renee Richards, Christine Jorgensen and I finally came across Jan Morris’s book Conundrum.

I just want to add a bit of context here. I was reading and researching in a library (using the Internet was not an option then). When that happened, our world would open – we would be connected and able to share with each other as we do here in the Femulate community. However, in the 1990’s, we were isolated souls lost in the forest trying to find our way. 

It took me a few days to finish the book. I’d visit the library and grab the book and find my favorite chair off to the side and read for a while. Finally, as I neared the end of the book, I was feeling a bit melancholy and downhearted. As I turned the last page, in the back I noticed a folded piece of paper tucked away in the cover. A piece of lined notepad, ripped and heavily creased, I unfolded it with mild anticipation and there written in blue ink in a friendly cursive script were the words, Know, that you are not alone. 

My heart quickened, my mouth was opened in a gasp, I looked around fearful of what I’m not sure. Then I quickly came to the realization that I wasn’t the only one like this! Someone else cared. There were others like me right here, they came to this place and read the same books. Perhaps then, just maybe we could find our way out of the forest. Our conundrum.

Wearing Joie

Ross Adams femulating in British televisions Hollyoaks.

Eddie Izzard: She/Her

Eddie Izzard doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. In December, it was reported that the standup comic/actor/campaigner/ endurance runner had adopted the pronouns “she” and “her” and wanted to be “based in girl mode” from now on. Well, it hardly came out of the blue, she says today. Izzard had spent the past 35 years building up to it, and when she did finally make the announcement it happened by chance. 

A few months earlier, Izzard had been a guest on the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist Of the Year, and was asked, for the first time, which pronouns she preferred. She replied “she and her” and never gave it another thought. By the time the programme was broadcast, Izzard had forgotten about the conversation. And suddenly she was headline news.

The funny thing, Izzard says, is that she had first announced she was trans in 2017 in the Hollywood Reporter and nobody had taken a blind bit of notice. But this time it was different. Within hours of the show being broadcast everything had changed – her Wikipedia entry and IMDb history were revised, and every media organisation was running stories about how he had become a she. Actually, Izzard says, she had not intended to be so definitive about it. She had always talked about being in boy mode most of the time and girl mode part of the time, and she was still hoping to keep her options open. For her first half century, boy mode had dominated, and now it was time for girl mode to take centre stage, but on occasions she would still like the freedom to be a he. She soon discovered that wasn’t an option, though.

Take, for example, the new Netflix series she is currently working on in Manchester. In the adaptation of Harlan Coben’s thriller Stay Close, Izzard plays a small-town lawyer called Harry. “As I’m playing a male role, I suggested people should go back to calling me he and him for this, and what the world seems to have said to me is you can change your pronouns but you can’t use he and him as well. You’ve just got to be she and her from now on because we’ve only got so much time on our hands, thank you very much.” How does she feel about that? She beams. “Great. I’ve been promoted to she, and it’s a great honour.”

Click here to read the rest of this article from The Guardian by Simon Hattenstone.

Wearing Ann Taylor

Matt LeBlanc, David Birkin, James Cosmo and Eddie Izzard femulating in the 2002 film All the Queen's Men.

Stana on a Sunday

My Left Knee

Visited my surgeon on Monday and they removed the bandage. I was surprised that my leg looked better than I expected. They also gave me the green light to start driving again.

My Physical Therapist (PT) visited on Tuesday and said I am at a six-week level of recovery at only three weeks.

Walking outdoors two or three times each day with a one. Indoors, I only use a cane for going up and down stairs. I can do the stairs without a cane, but use it for security.

Last night was the first night since surgery that I was able to sleep through the night without taking Tylenol.

So we are making progress.

Raquel

I wanted to mention the passing of actress Raquel Welch. 

She had two connections with our community. In 1970, she played a transwoman in the film Myra Breckenridge. The film reviews were so bad (“the worst movie ever made”) that I never bothered seeing it, although I did read and enjoyed the book that was the basis of the film.

Raquel had a successful business selling wigs. I don’t have to tell you how important wigs are to our community (don’t leave home without it) and over the years, I purchased and wore a couple of Raquel Welch wigs. They were expensive, but you got what you paid for and they were quality products and more importantly, looked good on me, too.

God bless you, Raquel.

Who’s Next?

First they came for the transgenders, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not transgender.

Then they came for the drag queens, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a drag queen.

Then they came for gay marriages, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not in a gay marriage.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. 

The Republican/MAGA/Evangelical gang are hell-bent on cleansing the USA of all vestiges of LGBQT+. You do not have to look far to see they are passing laws and issuing rules and regulations against transgender kids, transgender adults and drag queens and they are counting on the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision that legalized gay marriage.

Who’s next?

Do you know that crossdressing was illegal in most jurisdictions of the USA in the past?

According to Wikipedia: 

...from 1840 forward, United States saw state and city laws forbidding people from appearing in public while dressed in clothes that do not associate with their assigned sex. The goal of this wave of policies was to create a tool that would enforce a normative gender narrative, targeting multiple gender identities across the gender spectrum. With the progression of time, styles, and societal trends, it became even more difficult to draw the line between what was cross-dressing or not. Only recently have these laws changed. As recently as 2011, it was still possible for a man to get arrested for “impersonating a woman” — a vestige of the 19th century laws. Even with this, legal issues surrounding cross-dressing perpetuated all throughout the mid 20th century. During this time period, police would often reference laws that did not exist or laws that have been repealed in order to target the LGBTQ+ community.

Although those laws have been repealed in many jurisdictions, they may still be on the books in other jurisdictions. In either case, in the current political/social climate, it would not be hard to reenact those laws or begin enforcing those laws that are still on the books. 

The bathroom laws that have been passed in some jurisdictions are just the tip of the bucket that is full of potential anti-crossdressing legislation that the Republican/MAGA/Evangelical gang have ready when they decide to go after us.

Be scared, very scared! And don't just sit on your hands while they go after our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers. Speak up and vote that gang out of office.

Wearing Nanette Lepore

A ladies’ room selfie

We Are Tootsie

By Paula Gaikowski

Paula channeling her inner Tootsie
(1999)

Back in 1982, there was a scarcity of information on transgender persons and crossdressing. So when I saw the Life magazine article about the upcoming release of the movie Tootsie, I was thrilled. 

Although Tootsie is not a movie about transgender persons or even crossdressing, it’s a movie about a man walking in the shoes of a woman both literally and metaphorically. The man, Michael Dorsey, is a narcissist and arrogant actor who no one will hire. He unintentionally sheds this toxic behavior and finds what life is like from a woman’s point of view and learns a lot about himself and the world we live in.

The role of Dorothy Michaels (Michael’s femme name) was also life-changing for Dustin Hoffman. Here he’s speaking about the first time he saw Dorothy in the mirror.

“It was at that moment I had an epiphany and I went home and started crying, talking to my wife. I said I have to make this picture and she said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because I think I am an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen. And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn’t fulfill physically the demands that we’re brought up to think women have to have.”

Before Hoffman would even consider making the movie, he asked the studio to spend money on makeup and wardrobe to see if he could realistically look like a woman. He spent weeks in wardrobe working on a look and yes, I am jealous too! He wanted to look like an authentic woman in his words, “I wanted to walk down the streets of New York and not have anyone think ‘hey that’s a guy.’ 

In my opinion he was successful, the attention to detail was there, padded hips, breast forms, shaving and neutral makeup. Seeing all this, it spoke one thing to me as I sat there and read that Life magazine article, I could do this! I could make myself look like a woman and experience life as a woman. It would be years before I ventured out as Paula but make no mistake, Tootsie had a huge effect on me; for me too it was life changing. 

Dustin Hoffman sure looked fantastic as Dorothy. I understand he went out as Dorothy to restaurants, shops and businesses to see how people reacted. He seemed to have a zeal for this, much as we do. I wonder sometimes: civilian or non-civilian?

Wearing Joseph Ribkoff

San Francisco professional femulator D'Arcy Drollinger

Someday Funnies: Not a Funny Valentine

Wearing New York & Company

Ed Jones, David Cerda, Adrian Hadlock and Grant Drager femulating on stage in The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes.

Getting Serious

Years ago, I created a list of the top 30 things every femulator needs to emulate a woman. Some of the items in the list were essentials (like wigs, jewelry, etc.) and some of the items were less essential. The casual femulator could get away without the less essential items. However, the serious femulator, that is, girls who pass among the civilians, it’s the little things that count, so the less essential items become essential.

When I say “it’s the little things that count,” I am referring to all the little things that together comprise a femulator. Reminds me of a trip years ago to attend First Event in the Boston area. Elaine was driving and I was riding shotgun en femme. I thought I looked pretty good and while I was admiring the false nails on my fingers, I noticed that (horrors!), I forgot to shave my hands! Luckily my electric shaver was accessible in my luggage in the back seat and I was able to fix that little thing before we arrived at the First Event hotel.

Checking into a hotel or using a credit card is another little thing. Most credit card companies will issue additional cards under the same account for other family members. So get an additional card issued to yourself, but just use the initial of your first name with your last name. For example, John Smith would get an additional credit card issued for “J Smith” to use when en femme. But that only works if John Smith goes female as Joan, Jean, Jackie, or some other female name starting with the letter J. (Lucky me, my male and female first names both start with the letter S.)

If you wear eyeglasses, next time buy a pair with unisex frames or if you can afford it, buy a second pair with a feminine frame. With an eyeglass prescription in hand, you can order eyeglasses online at very reasonable prices. (I recently bought a pair of girly glasses online for about $50.) 

If you need eyeglasses for reading, you can buy inexpensive reading glasses with very feminine frames just about anywhere (the local pharmacy, Walmart, etc). Also, you can buy woman's sunglasses just about anywhere, too.

Voila!

Wearing Roller Rabbit

Raimu femulating in the 1933 French film Théodore et Cie.

What’s Going On?

Regarding my knee replacement surgery...

My Physical Therapist (PT) says I am well ahead of the curve regarding recovery. Pain is mild and infrequent and I am getting around without assistance except when I go up and down stairs when I use a crutch. 

PT believes that when I see my doctor/surgeon on Monday, he will probably give me the green light to start driving again (just two weeks after surgery). My fear that I would have difficulty depressing my Subaru’s clutch with my new knee proved to be just fear – my therapist insisted that we test it yesterday and there was no pain using the clutch.

I am a just little anxious about what my leg will look like when the bandages are removed on Monday.

And so it goes.

Changing Interests

Over the years, the more I femulated, the more I paid attention to feminine things. Since there are only so many hours in a day, my new attention to feminine things resulted in less time for other things that previously received my attention. 

My radio hobby definitely took a hit and I certainly did not follow my favorite sports teams as closely as I did in the past. I did not drop my interest in those things completely, but given a choice to attend a radio convention or a crossdresser convention, I would choose the latter over the former. 

One solution I found is to mix femulating with your old interests. For example, I have attended radio conventions en femme numerous times. I have not gone to Fenway Park en femme yet, but if the opportunity arises...

And so it goes.

Wearing Boston Proper

Barry Scott femulating in the 1970 British film Goodbye Gemini.

J. Harrison Ghee: A New Normal?

J. Harrison Ghee

Tuesday morning, I was watching Morning Joe and they interviewed Amber Ruffin and J. Harrison Ghee. Ruffin wrote the book for the musical version of Some Like It Hot that is now playing on Broadway. Ghee plays the role of Jerry/Daphne in the musical (the role played by Jack Lemmon in the film version).

I could not help noticing that Ghee was dressed as a boy more or less (a tunic over some kind of bifurcated bottom), had a boy haircut, but was wearing makeup including lipstick and full eye makeup. I was intrigued.

My first thought was that Ghee was wearing the makeup to promote the musical. But that did not make sense; if he was promoting the musical, why not go all the way and wear a wig, dress, heels, etc.

Then it occurred to me that maybe Ghee was trans. 

I was not familiar with Ghee, so I did some research and discovered that according to Wikipedia, Ghee “is non-binary and uses he/they pronouns.” And Ghee has been doing drag for quite awhile playing Lola in Kinky Boots and Velma Kelly in Chicago.

So is Ghee representing a new normal? Has crossdressing become so normal and accepted that one can go out and about like Ghee – full “feminine” makeup while otherwise dressed as a male (more or less)? I like to think so, but I have my doubts. It may work in Manhattan and Hollywood, but how will it go over in Podunk?

Wearing Bebe

J. Harrison Ghee femulating in a stage production of Kinky Boots.

Femulating on Stage

By Jeanette Johnson

Jeanette Johnson (center)

Greater Tuna is a comedy in which two actors play 20 roles. Tuna, Texas is described as the third smallest town in Texas and we were to portray most of the town’s residents. The show had toured the world for more than 20 years before the two actors that had conceived and written this comedy retired and allowed community theaters to buy the rights to perform it. It is a funny show with the actors changing characters in breakneck speed (one of my character changes took seven seconds).

My partner (Joey) in Greater Tuna played three women and seven men. I played two women, seven men and Yippie the dog. Each character needed to be distinct from the other characters so we had 6 ladies back stage helping us with costumes and wigs. All the characters had their own voice and demeanor.

Half of my stage time was performing as Pearl Burris (an octogenarian chicken farmer who poisoned any dog getting in her yard that might kill her “babies”) and Bertha Buemiller (the only high C member of the First Baptist choir, mother of three and a community activist as a member of the Tuna Helpers).

I am giving you this background to get to the main reason I am writing this. I want to show that allowing others to know about your feminine side can turn out wonderfully.

Three years before Greater Tuna, I conceived and performed in a show we called Pridescape at Creative Life Center in Spring, Texas. The shows proceeds would benefit a college fund for transgender youth as part of Gay Pride month. The members knew nothing about my feminine side (though I am sure some suspected). They would meet my other half big time as I planned to do the first act of the show as Jeanette and the second act as John. I was outing myself and was concerned about how I would be received. I decided to let the chips fall as they may and just concentrated on creating a strong show.

I had confided to my singing coach. I am so glad I did. She became one of my dearest friends. She joined with me in the Pridescapes show. She is so incredibly talented and perhaps the best example of a real Christian I have ever known. She had quit acting because of some “couch casting” proposals when she was trying to make it on Broadway. I got her to join me in auditioning for a show later that year where she dazzled the audiences.

I realized I was in over my head trying to sing 14 songs and also getting the staging correct, setting the lights and adjusting the sound. There is a wonderful lady (Carole) who had directed me in a play and in two concerts. I sent her a long email with pictures explaining the Pridescape show and asked her if she would be willing to help me with staging. She couldn’t have been nicer. Her husband added that he looked better in a dress than me. He is an incredible actor and later became my partner in Greater Tuna. I still think I am prettier than him, but I digress.

Community theatre is always working with a tight budget. Some shows have elaborate sets and costumes. Others come with a full orchestra (the only people receiving money in a show). The set for Greater Tuna was very simple. Joey and I built and painted it over the course of two weekends. Our biggest expense was going to be clothes and wigs.

The director and costumer took Joey and me to a couple of resale shops in Conroe, Texas. The two ladies would grab women’s clothing off the racks and bring them to us try on. The lady running the store was very confused until we explained what we were doing. She became very enthusiastic and actually was sitting on the front row on opening night.

As a side note, I went to another women’s resale shop on my own. I explained my needs to the two employees and they started pulling items for me to try on. One customer also got into the act. I bought two dresses. My favorite of the two was vetoed by the director because she said the color would get lost in our set colors. The other she loved and I wore it as Bertha in the show.

I went back to this shop later to thank them for their help and to ask if I could put a poster advertising the show in their window. The owner was there and asked “Is that the show where men dress as women?” I affirmed that it was. She told me she would not put a poster in the window and that I was not welcomed in her store. As I was leaving, one of the ladies that had helped me a couple of weeks earlier quietly informed me that she already had tickets. I suppose you can’t win ‘em all.

Our wardrobes were coming together, but we still did not have everything. It turns out that Joey and I have the same petite shoe size. It is all but impossible to find used women’s shoes in a size 11 at the resale shops. I knew I had more than enough styles for both of us in my Imelda Marcus closet but showing my supply would involve telling the costumer about Jeanette.

The costumer is a lovely woman. She is also the person who plays piano every Sunday in the church her father pastors. Her denomination is not known for being liberal when it comes to transgender people. She is also a wonderful singer and actress. She and I had shared a stage in my very first performance a few years earlier (Sanders Family Christmas). I should add in that first show, my hair was well past my shoulders. We tried having me wear a man’s wig over my long hair, but the director said it looked like I was wearing a huge hair helmet.

So I had my reservations about letting her in on the secret that was already known by the director and the other actor. However, I could not see spending a lot of money on shoes when they could be had for free. I told her and her reply was “I suspected.”

We then had a great time going through my closets picking out shoes, some more clothes and several wigs I owned (my long hair had been cut back a bunch so I would be more appealing to more directors during auditions). We still had to buy several wigs, but we still were way under budget.
She and I already had a good relationship, but it became much more substantial after confiding in her. She asked me to play guitar and sing as Conway Twitty to her Loretta Lynn over the next couple of years in charity shows. We always share a hug whenever we meet.

Greater Tuna turned out to be a tremendous success. Two different theatre critics praised my acting noting how naturally I moved about the stage wearing heels and how authentic my female voices were (thanks to a couple of years of voice feminization lessons years ago). The show set records for revenue for the theatre and was chosen the Show of the Year at the end of the season’s Award Show.
Theatre patrons still kid me when they see me. I have been told that I have the best pair of legs they have ever seen on the Conroe, Texas Owen Theatre stage. Others tease that I should have auditioned for some leading lady role in a show. It is always in good fun.

Greater Tuna was so well received by the audiences that we did another version of the good people of Tuna and their lives during the Fourth of July celebrations (Red, White, and Tuna) a couple of years later.

So there you have it. I asked a talented director to help me stage a show and it resulted in me getting cast in Greater Tuna and she and her husband becoming two of my closest friends. Despite my fear, I performed in front of 200 people at the Pridescape Show and received nothing but love from the members attending. I told a costumer about Jeanette and our cordial relationship became a true friendship.

Many folks do not have the freedom I possess. My family knows and I owned a business where I had employment security. All I can say is I have made the best friends by being honest. I don’t tell everyone, but I suppose I am a good judge of character or very, very lucky so far.

I began thinking as I was writing this story that seven of my closest friends would not even be in my life had I not been honest about who I am. And these are all people outside of the large LGBTQ umbrella. Not a week goes by that I don’t speak to at least a couple of them. It made me realize just how lucky I am.

Wearing DressBarn

Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell femulating in the 1997 film Good Burger.