Two to Pass

I present two more passing success stories!

Marie

Last February, I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Florida – a very unusual opportunity, since I normally have short periods of five or six hours when I can dress as Marie.

I made reservations in a Hilton Hotel in Sarasota and after a bit of preparation, a mani-pedi, etc., I began my adventure. My goal was to dress 24/7 for the whole vacation. 

As we all experience, the more opportunity we have to present as a woman, the more we get into the role. After a couple of days, I was very comfortable and generally followed a daily routine. First, I got up early and went to morning Mass and Communion at a nearby Catholic church.

Returning to the hotel, I would have breakfast and the go back to my room and freshen up. Next, I would stop in a nearby library and spend an hour scanning the Wall Street Journal. Then back to the hotel to change into my black bathing suit and drive to Lido Beach. I’d park, grab my beach chair and bag with lunch and find a place near the water. After a couple of hours, I’d head to a near by curbside restaurant for a cocktail, then back to my. hotel.

After a shower and dressing to the nines, I’d drive to the downtown Sarasota Regis Carlton Hotel for a couple of glasses of wine and a salad. This was the best part of the day. I’d drive up to valet parking, the boys knew me and after passing them my keys and a few very respectful “Yes, Ma'am’s,” I’d walk through the crowded lobby to the cocktail bar. 

I was almost a regular and one of the young bartenders would bring me a glass of my favorite wine and the night would begin. Always some well-dressed folks to talk with, either a couple or a single guy or gal – everyone cordial and friendly. Making sure I didn’t drink too much, I’d say my goodbyes and then out to the valet station to get my car and drive back to my hotel.

Joey

When I crossdress, I wear dresses, etc. and present male. I am tall and manly-shaped and I have short hair. Passing is never a thing for me. I go out in public occasionally and I am accepted. People realize that I am a man dressed in women’s clothes and they treat me with respect. 

One time, however, a man at a doughnut shop thought I was dressed in men’s clothes. I was wearing a long black skirt, black pantyhose ad black strappy flat shoes. On my upper half, I was wearing a purple top covered by a black outer layer of the same material as the skirt.

I walked into the doughnut shop and got in line behind a woman. A man came out of the restroom and joined her in line. Then he turned around to face me and asked, “Is that a uniform?” 

That was a first! I replied, “No, it is not a uniform.” 

He asked me to excuse him and he turned around. I looked at his female companion’s reaction. She did not say or do anything, but she had a look on her face. It was the look that my wife makes when she is thinking, “You are a moron.”

Then he turned around again. He had to clear up his confusion. He said, “I was wondering if you were a priest.” 

I was quite entertained at that! I said, “No. I am not a priest. A priest would have a white collar, I suppose.” 

I smiled. He turned back around. His female companion was clearly wanting to tell him to shut-up and not to turn around again. If he had tried, she might have physically stopped him. I was so entertained! I assumed that when they got into the car that she had a talk with him that started with, “What on Earth is wrong with you?!?”

So that’s the time I passed as a priest while crossdressed in public.

 

Wearing Chicwish

Femulator, circa 1900 1890

The Invisible Woman

By Sally Stone, Femulate Guest Blogger

I turn heads. People talk about me. My presence garners lots of attention. I love it, so why would I want to be invisible? When I was a fledgling T-Girl though, I absolutely hated attention, because it meant I was being clocked, that I wasn't invisible, that I didn't pass.

I have come a long way since those early days, however, and thankfully I no longer cling to the troublesome notion of having to pass. Okay, I am not naive. I do realize that many transwomen need to pass because if they don't it might affect a relationship or their ability to find work and in some cases, it might even cause them physical harm. It is so sad that in today's society transwomen are actual murdered because they failed to live up to someone else's standard of what a woman needs to look like. Yes, the bar is often unreasonably high for transwomen, where beauty standards are concerned, so I don't discount anyone's need to pass, but for me, it is no longer a concept I'm going to let hold me back.

In fact, it wasn't until I let go of the need to pass that I found true freedom of expression, freedom to be myself without being concerned about what others were thinking. And something else happened, something quite surprising. I discovered that without carrying the burden of needing to pass, that my feminine personality flowed more freely and more easily. By not trying so hard to blend in, I was actually blending in better than ever.

Again, I realize that my view on the subject of passing may not sit well with everyone, but as a part-time woman, it has been quite effective for me. Thinking back on it, I find myself surprised by how negatively passing was impacting my self-esteem. I, like so many other transwomen, and cis women for that matter, had become a slave to our society's beauty myth. I bought into the idea that to truly become the woman I wanted to be, I needed to ascribe to the social standards of feminine beauty.

When I looked in the mirror and didn't see a fashion model staring back at me, it kept making me think there may not have been a woman inside of me after all. What a sad thought, that my self-worth would be based on some artificial concept of feminine beauty. I can only believe that other women struggle with self-esteem for the same reason.

When I finally recognized that I was trying to live up to someone else's beauty standard instead of my own, it was an important distinction that contributed to my liberation. After all, passing is really all about measuring up to someone else's standard. If you just refuse to accept that arbitrary standard, then you free yourself of that need to pass Ultimately, the only person you must satisfy anyway, is yourself.

Today, when I go out into the world as a woman, I'm self-confident and I'm fulfilled, and it's all because I've stopped trying to measure myself against an aesthetic appearance standard that is not achievable for all but a few. Instead, I focus on the attributes I've been given. Those, coupled with my internal beauty make me all the woman I need to be. And not so surprisingly, when I feel beautiful and confident those around me recognize it. Oh, why would I ever want to be invisible?

Wearing Bebe.

Leslie Marlowe gets femulated in the 1967 film She-Man.

Passing

By Starla, Femulate Contributing Editor

Passing. One of the first "jargon" terms a novice crossdresser learns.

No matter one's nature, "passing" is relevant to all of us. Some strive to perfect their appearance to the nth degree, wishing nothing more than the ability to safely mingle with the public and avoid attention and scrutiny. Others don't mind being read, regarding each such incident as a "teaching moment." Still others hate the term with a passion. ("The opposite of  'pass' is 'fail,' a friend once told me. "I don't regard getting read as a failure.") But, really, we don't understand the whole phenomenon, and conventional wisdom is usually wrong, or at least misguided.

One thing that many misunderstand is that "passing" does not necessarily equal "pretty." Old chestnut proverbs like "Pretty is as pretty does" and "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" are more than just trite aphorisms. There's some truth there, yes, but it ain't quite that simple. (Nothing ever is.)

This is a tale of two friends from my support group days.

Gurl #1 was an older, not very educated soul from what some would call "the wrong side of the tracks." She lived in perpetual poverty and want, scraping by on her wits and the kindness of others. Not too bright, she was nonetheless a very kind person. And she was, in her own homespun words, "as ugly as a mud fence." Her assessment, not mine, though admittedly by society's standards, she wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants anytime soon.

But... she was believable. Let's face it, many genetic women don't exactly have that "Cover Girl" look either. And my friend, even when attired in grubbies with minimal (or non-existent) makeup passed in public. She went anywhere, did anything, with nary an askance glance. Her femininity, rough and homespun as it was, along with her confidence, carried the day for her.

There's an object lesson there. One which was integral to a M*A*S*H rerun I recently saw. In it, Radar orders some "elevator shoes," tired of being made fun of for his short stature. He finds to his chagrin that it doesn't really help, and turns to his ersatz "Big Brother" Hawkeye for advice. "You know, there's height that many never see," Hawkeye tells him. "Some guys are six feet tall inside, and their body just never caught up with it."

Likewise, when it comes to "passing," what's inside can trump the package it comes wrapped in.

In my active femulating years, there were times (not often, but often enough) when I was not sartorially en femme, and felt that I looked nothing like a female, yet would get "ma'amed" without a trace of irony. I'd look in the mirror and see this creature who was wearing baggy, unisex sweats, no makeup, nothing to prop up my gynecomastic man boobs into Wonderbra glory, natural hair unkempt with a severe case of "hairline retreat," and, if one looked closely enough, needed a shave. And still, I got the occasional "ma'am." I can only assume that some inner essence of femininity was overpowering the thrift store threads and George Costanza hairdo.

It's just not always about the details of appearance. I always think of my female boss at one of the jobs I worked en femme back in the day. This woman was taller than me, had even smaller boobs than me, and a decidedly deeper voice than me. But no one looked at her and thought, "That's a guy!!"

Gurl #2 was a cop who lived and worked in the Florida Keys. As a man, this dude was 6'5" and built like a middle linebacker. And, by his/her own admission, "wouldn't pass as a woman at 3 AM on a moonless night with a blind man."

And yet...and yet, when en femme, she was beautiful. Impeccable hair, perfect makeup, designer outfits ― she was stunning, and heads would immediately turn when she entered a room. Followed a microsecond later by the inescapable realization that this person had an "outie" and not an "innie." But her carriage, personality, confidence and self-deprecating humor won over the majority of those she encountered.

"When all else is said and done," she would tell them, "I'm just a guy in a dress. What's the big deal? There's plenty of more important things to worry about in this world." And she would talk up the football season, crack dirty jokes, and in a straight bar, people would buy her drinks and compliment her on her fashion taste.

Homely, yet passing. Beautiful, yet non-passing. And every spot on the scales. In every case, it's the girl inside that will carry the day.

One other aspect of the whole preoccupation with passing or being read...

Conventional wisdom about cultural context is often faulty. Many feel that things have never been better for us. But there are some who have the experience, and not just theory, to assert that passing (or not) knows no season.

When I first started to venture into the TG world, I spent a lot of time on the Tri-Ess BBS. (If you had to look up "BBS," you're obviously a young whippersnapper. Go back to your i-whatever gadgets...and get off my lawn!) Despite the name, this board was not an "official" Tri-Ess service (though they gave it their approval), and trans folk of all stripes (not just married non-op, non-TS crossdressers) hung there.

One older member had been publicly femulating since the early 1960's. Wow, we exclaimed, that must have been difficult and nerve-wracking! Not at all, she responded ― in fact, I think it was easier to pass back then than it is now.

What!?! Chaos ensued. You would have thought she had just told us that she had two heads. Are you insane, we demanded?  We have bulletin boards, magazines, support groups. We have conferences and public outings. We're on Donahue, Sally, Geraldo ― all the talk shows. How can you say it was easier to pass back in the dark ages of the early 60's?

"Simple," she wrote. "We didn't have all the things you mentioned then, but they are a two-edged sword. You see, back then, if you were even remotely feminine, as long as your overall appearance was halfway womanly, even if you had big hands, or a deep voice, or were 6-foot-2 , the default assumption was that you must be a woman, because no man would be caught dead dressed like that. They had no awareness, no concept, no understanding of our existence."

"But now," she went on, "we're everywhere. And more and more, the general public has learned we exist. And when they see CD'ers on talk shows and such, and then see that tall, broad-shouldered woman walking a bit awkwardly in her high heels, it's a different light bulb that goes off. I mean, take our monthly meetings [in Atlanta]. You know that big mall right next to the hotel? The one that is a 'standard attraction' for us gurls exercising our God-given right to shop 'til we drop? Well, on weekends, there are countless local high school kids that frequent that mall. And they know we meet next door, and many of them play 'Spot the Crossdressers' as they hang with their friends. Oh, they don't mean anything by it, and it's just a game to them ― I've had several delightful conversations with these kids."

"So, don't think for a minute that you are necessarily passing. You probably aren't, at least with the younger set. They're savvy, and reading us like a cheap novel. Twenty years ago, I could have probably walked through that mall and attracted hardly a glance. But now... well, we're as out as can be, and people know it. Fortunately, most people just don't care, and take it in stride, because all the publicity has somewhat educated them. But don't think for a second that just because hell doesn't break loose at your presence that you're passing. You're probably not, and that can be a good thing if you have the confidence to accept it."

(And all this was back in the 80's and early 90's. Now, everyone knows about us. Maybe there are a few remote Amazon tribes that are unaware of us, but that's about it. And we have even begun to encounter some negative backlash. Hey, when wackadoo politicians spend time trying to pass laws to make us check our bladders at the restroom door, you know we've really arrived. [sigh] Back in the day, I used ladies' rooms all the time with no hassle. If I were still publicly femulating ― illness and disability keep me homebound, not lack of desire ― I would seriously consider holding it until I got home. Or wear Depends. 'Cause now, they're watching for us. Dammit, maybe it was easier to pass way back when.)

Anyway, that 30-year old BBS posting is one woman's experience ― your mileage may vary. But certainly food for thought.

So, if you think you know everything there is to know about passing, you don't. Neither do I. But there are more important things to worry about. Whether you pass or get read, enjoy the experience of having the freedom and confidence to be yourself, and look others in the eye with a smile.

Wearing Eloquii.

Daniel Diges and Jose Luis imitate Natalia and Melocos 
on Spanish television's Tu Cara Me Suena.