Spring Snow ― Oh No!

Ready to go-go to the True Colors Conference

On Friday, I staffed the Information table at the True Colors Conference at UConn in Storrs, Connecticut.

I have regularly attended this conference during the past dozen years and I often regret my choice of clothing. It is usually colder and windier in Storrs than at home, so I end up underdressed for the weather.

This year, the forecast was for a cold, rainy and windy morning, so I dressed appropriately. Instead of a skirt or dress, I wore leggings and I am glad that I did. Not only was it cold and windy, but is snowed heavily for a few hours during my stay at Storrs.

Except for spilling a fresh cup of coffee, getting femulated proceeded in a timely manner and I arrived at the UConn Student Union at 9:45 AM, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Two old friends were already seated at the Information table and we three staffed the table throughout the day.

I met up with a few other friends and handled a lot of questions from strangers attending the conference. There were a lot of school-aged kids presenting in their true gender and that made me happy ― wish I could have presented in my true gender at their age instead of hiding in the closet.

I don't like driving in the snow especially since my car's tires are balding, so I decided to exit early (at 3 PM) when there was a break in the weather. Although there was snow on the ground, the roads were just wet, so I returned home in about an hour without incident.

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

Charles Hawtrey femulates in the 1969 British film Carry On Again, Doctor.

A Full Femme Friday - Część Druga

After my workshop at the True Colors Conference, one student came up to me to ask some questions that she did not want to ask in front of the other attendees. I happily answered all her questions and she went away a happy camper. (Check out tomorrow's post for the questions and answers.)

I returned to the Student Union to turn in my paperwork and meet up with Diana and Maryann to head out to the Adams Mills Restaurant for an early dinner. I gave Maryann the address of the restaurant so she could program it into her smart phone's GPS, then we went our separate ways to retrieve our vehicles and drive to the restaurant.

Thirty-five minutes later, I arrived at the restaurant. Diana's car was already there, but Maryann's car was not. I went inside, found Diana seated in the upper dining room, ordered a drink and we bided our time until Maryann showed up.

Forty-five minutes later, we gave up on Maryann and ordered our meals. Our male waiter referred to us as ladies and he could have not been nicer. I ordered baked stuffed shrimp with rice pilaf and grilled vegetables. The meal was delicious.

We left the restaurant around 5:30 PM and I headed in the general direction of home. Google Maps indicated that the route I normally take was a mess on the west side of Hartford, which is typical for a weekday evening. The alternate southern route was not so messy, so that's the route I took.

There were a couple of areas where the traffic slowed down, but in general, it was not bad and since I was in no hurry to go home and had gotten my second wind after eating, I decided to visit my favorite Roz & Ali (nee Dress Barn), which was located only a few exits further than I normally would exit to go home.

Entering the store, I did not see any of the sales reps I knew by name and vice versa. This did not surprise me because they usually work days, but I was hoping one of them would be working later so I could see and greet them, but it was not to be.

I had received a $10 Roz & Ali coupon in the mail for my birthday that I had to use by the end of the month and I had recently taken notice of a polka dot jumpsuit on their website, so it was a perfect shopping storm.

I found the rack containing the jumpsuits (see the photo above) and took a size 12 and size 14 to the dressing room. The size 12 fit perfectly, so I returned the 14 to the rack and took the 12 to the cash registers.

The sales rep asked for my phone number, typed it into the terminal, which I assume turned up separate accounts for my wife and myself.

"And you are... ?" she asked.

"Stanley," I replied.

As expected, she did not react negatively and rang up my purchase. And that's all I have to say about that.

During the 30-minute trip home, I reflected on my full femme Friday and felt that it had been very fulfilling and I look forward to more days like it.

Wearing ModCloth (Source: ModCloth)

Polish girl wearing polka dots

A Full Femme Friday

Friday was a full day out en femme. My primary objective for the day was to go to my alma mater, the University of Connecticut, to attend the True Colors Conference and conduct a workshop titled "Cross-Living: Out Among the Civilians." There were also other planned stops during the day.

Getting going was a problem. My 15-year-old blind dog started barking while I was doing my makeup, so I had to stop what I was doing, put her on a leash and take her outside in case she had to do business with the great outdoors. This occurred four times and as a result, I left the house about 30 minutes later than I intended. Once on the road, I encountered a five-mile backup on the Interstate due to a truck fire, so I lost another 30 minutes.

By the way, I wore a houndstooth sheath dress from Dress Barn, black opaque tights from Hue, black bag and black patent high heel pumps from Payless, a black scarf and white and gold watch from Avon and silver hoop earrings from Napier. I also wore a white fake fur jacket from Fashion Bug.

My first stop was the Christmas Tree Shop to exchange a purchase that was broken out of the box. It was actually my sister's purchase and she planned to make the 80-mile roundtrip to exchange her broken purchase. Since the store was on my way to UConn, I offered to make the exchange for her and so I did.

It was uneventful. I had to deal with a woman staffing the customer service desk and a man who fetched the replacement from the stockroom. No one reacted negatively to me and other customers paid me no mind. The only concern I had was loading and unloading a 20-pound box between my car and a shopping carriage without breaking a nail!

I arrived at UConn, parked my car and walked two blocks to the Student Union, which was the epicenter of the conference. The weather was similar to the past few True Colors Conferences — temperature hovering around the freezing point with a steady brisk wind that made it feel a lot colder and caused me worry that my wig might take flight!

After checking in to obtain my workshop paperwork and ID badge, I immediately began encountering old friends and acquaintances (Arlene, Diana, Holly, Lee Ann, Maryann, Robin and another Robin).

I also ran into Bob, who is someone I see at most ham radio conventions I attend. Even though he is openly gay, I did not expect to see him at True Colors Conference and he was just as surprised to see me. He was staffing the booth for a church that supports LGBTQ folks. We talked about his church and my involvement with the conference. As we parted ways, I said, "See you at Hamvention in two months!"

My workshop was at 1:15 PM in another building. Since it was lunch time, my assigned room would be empty, so I decided to go there to get my act together in peace and quiet. I had requested a room with a computer and large display to view photos of me out among the civilians. Turned out that the room had a huge display — approximately 6 x 8 feet, but I forgot my USB flash drive of photos. However, I was able to use the computer to access the Internet and use my blog and flickr account for the visual portion of my workshop.

I had a small, but attentive audience. No one walked out on me and there were pertinent questions and comments.

I emphasized that whether you think you pass or not, just get out there and experience the real world as a woman because in this day and age (especially in our neck of the woods), most civilians won't notice you and even if they do, they probably won't care.

Then I went on to tell them about my positive experiences out among the civilians, especially those times that I seemed to be accepted as a woman by other women. That triggered a comment from one of the students, who said that initially she thought I was a cisgender female! Her comment made my day, but it kind of blew the premise of my workshop out of the water.

And so it goes.

Wearing Madeleine (Source: Madeleine)

Helmut Zierl (center) femulating in the 1997 German television series Ein Mann steht seine Frau (A Man Stands His Wife).

True Colors Conference

Today, I am at the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs to attend the True Colors Conference, "the largest and most comprehensive conference in the country focused on LGBTQ youth issues."

At the conference, I will conduct a workshop titled "Cross-Living: Out Among the Civilians," which is intended to teach and encourage male-to-female crossdressers to escape from fantasy-land and experience the real world as females.

The Conference is usually a reunion for me where I run into LGBTQ people I don't usually encounter out among the civilians. So in addition to taking in all that the Conference has to offer, I also look forward to getting reacquainted with folks I may only see once a year.

In the next post or two, I will recount my Friday at the Conference and elsewhere, so stay tuned.

A scholastic womanless beauty pageant photo that Starla recently discovered on Facebook.

Jorgensen at the Jorgensen

I am a graduate of the University of Connecticut, UConn, class of 1973 (yes, I am old!). When I attended UConn, I was an aspiring writer and considered journalism as an outlet for my writing talent. So, I took a journalism class (and soon discovered that I did not want to be a journalist).

Our professor randomly assigned stories to us budding reporters. One assignment was to report on a lecture by Christine Jorgensen that the famous transwoman was presenting at UConn's Jorgensen Auditorium (no, the auditorium was not named after her).

As a closeted crossdressing 21-year-old, I was thrilled with the assignment (Ms. Jorgensen was one of my heroines), but I had to feign disinterest so as not to give anything away! In fact, I was so closeted that I feared that if anyone found out that I attended the lecture, I would become a marked man/transwoman.

I had seen photos, but had never encountered a trans-person in person, at least, not to my knowledge. Seeing Christine up on the stage giving her talk was my first trans-encounter and it was a very positive experience. There was no doubt in my mind that Christine was really a woman and it gave me pause that maybe I was one, too.

Wearing Nine West (source: Nine West).

Adam Mišík and Petr Rychlý as Petr Janů and Petr Janda on Czech Republic's version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.

"Girls'" Day Out

Friday, I attended the True Colors Conference and presented “Makeup Basics for Trans Females.”

The site of the conference is the UConn campus in Storrs, Connecticut — one of my life’s happy places — and it is always wonderful to return to my alma mater.

My presentation was at 1:15, so I did not have to get up early and rush to Storrs. Instead, I even had time for breakfast, dressed and left home at 9:30 arriving on campus an hour later.

I wore a dress rather than pants as I originally intended and I don't think it made much of a difference during the five-minute walk between the parking garage and the Student Union. What I really needed was a hat. The wind was so blustery that I thought my wig was going to go airborne, but I made it indoors in one piece.

(Fashion Note: I wore my black laser cut dress from Avon, nude pumps from Payless, fake white fur jacket from Fashion Bug, nude thigh high hosiery from Berskshire, big beige bag from Avon, jewelry from Napier and Avon and a variety of unmentionables.)

Indoors, I checked in and received my presenter’s package. The first round of presentations were underway, so there were not many students moving through the building. I took advantage of the low level of activity to camp out in one of the Student Union lounges to go over the presenter’s package and review my presentation. I found a window seat with a nice view of the quadrangle between the Student Union and the Benton Art Museum.

It is one of the few open spaces remaining from my days as a student on campus in the early 1970's. Most of the other open spaces have been taken over by classrooms, dorms and sports facilities (when I was going to UConn, we launched model rockets and played touch football in the space now occupied by the garage where I parked my car). That’s progress!

After doing some paperwork and going over my presentation, I thought I was in an excellent spot for a photo, but I did not see anyone I knew to designate as the photographer. A woman seating nearby was reading texts or e-mails with her iPhone, so I figured she would be a good candidate to take some photos with my iPhone. So I asked and she was very happy to shoot me.

Just as she began, one of my long time trans girlfriends, Angie, came into the lounge, called me “Beautiful” like she always does and that put a big smile on my face that is evident in the photos I posted from the conference. (It is amazing the difference between a posed smile and a natural smile.)

As the time for my presentation approached, I found my assigned room and settled in. Thirty-two people showed up. They were all school-aged (middle school through college) and I thought that some of them were already gorgeous and did not need any help from me; they could probably teach me something. It turned out that one of the “gorgeous” girls works part-time at Sephora. I asked her a question about lip gloss that she was happy to answer, so "they" did teach me something!

The presentation went well. There were questions, answers and a lot of give and take, but I don’t know. I wonder how valuable it is to teach teens and twenty-somethings makeup basics and tricks that a 66-year-old transwoman uses? Some of what I do is applicable, but I will have to make some adjustments to my presentation for any future young audiences.

After my presentation, I attended my friend Diana’s presentation on post World War II trans history. One goal of her talk was to counter the popular notion that there was no trans advocacy until recently. Her presentation showed that there was a lot of trans advocacy throughout the post-war era including Stonewall, where trans peeps have been written out of some histories of that uprising.

Diana and I planned to dine after her presentation, so we left UConn and rendezvoused a half hour later at a restaurant in Manchester, where we have dined after the previous two True Color Conferences. The big difference this year was that the conference was on St. Patrick’s Day, so the restaurant was busier than after past conferences.

Our waitress was the same as in previous years and she was as affable as before, but this time, instead of referring to us as “ladies,” she called us “girls.” That was different in a good way and made me smile.

After dinner, we went our separate ways and I arrived home at 7 PM, a little tired, but very happy after a productive day out.

Wearing Tumi luggage.

David Walliams (right) femulating in an advertisement for television's Britain's Got Talent.

SaveSave

A Thousand Words

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a photo from my Friday visit to UConn to attend the True Colors Conference. I will compose 967 more words about yesterday later.

At the True Colors Conference, UConn, Storrs, CT, March 17, 2017

Please standby

I am presenting at the True Colors Conference today. If I have time and energy, I will tell you about it later today, but more likely, I will tell you about it tomorrow.

Source: Harper's Bazaar

Romain Duris femulating in the French film The New Girlfriend.

Outfitting Friday

Too chilly for these pants?

Twenty inches of snow piled up in my yard yesterday and it isn’t going anywhere fast as the temperature hovers in the mid-20’s today.

Conditions will not improve much for the next few days according to the National Weather Service and as a result, when I go to UConn on Friday to attend the True Colors Conference, I might be forced to do something I almost never do: wear pants . (The “high” temperature forecasted for Storrs on Friday is 34 degrees!)

I do own dress pants, leggings, jeans and even a pair of skinny jeans. I could pair a pull-over sweater or a long tunic sweater with my pants. Or I might tough it out and wear a green sweater dress in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

Storrs is notoriously windy this time of year, so I definitely will wear my long fake fur coat over whatever outfit I put together.

And so it goes!

Wearing Theory blouse and pants and Zero+Maria Cornejo pumps.

Adam Fidusiewicz femulates Samantha Fox on Polish television's version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.

UConn Show in the Snow

These boots aren't made for slogging!

After a mild January and February, winter has decided to go out with a bang a few days before the first day of spring. Weather people are predicting 16 to 26 inches of snow to fall here by Wednesday!

I hope they are wrong because Friday, I will be at UConn and I don't look forward to dealing with snowy and icy sidewalks. I do own a half dozen pairs of women's boots, but they are more fashionable than practical, so I may have to resort to wearing boy boots to slog around campus.

The reason I will be at UConn is to attend the True Colors Conference where I will be presenting a workshop titled "Makeup Basics for Trans Females." The Conference guide describes my workshop thusly, "Putting on your face can be a cosmetic calamity if you don't have a roadmap. This workshop provides guidance and tips for the transgender female on how to successfully navigate the world of cosmetics so that she can start looking like the female she really is."

Last year, I had over 40 people in attendance for that workshop, so I am looking forward to the Conference, but not the weather.

Wearing Otte bag and Sacai earrings.

Vitalij S, male womenswear model

Still At True Colors Conference

After my workshop, I hobnobbed with my peeps, ate a cup of yogurt (banking my calories for dinner) and people-watched.

Things change.

The first time I attended True Colors nine years ago, I did not notice any youths in attendance crossdressing. I wrote "notice" because maybe some passed so well that I did not detect them crossdressing.

This year, I saw countless youths crossdressing, both male-to-female and female-to-male, and they were not shy about it. They were living the dream and enjoying the authenticity of it. I was so happy for them and wished that I could have been there with them in my youth.

Mid-afternoon, I attended Diana's workshop about the history of transgender activism after World War II. It was SRO and very interesting. I knew a some of the history already, but Diana revealed some things that I did not know. You can access an Adobe Acrobat version of her Powerpoint presentation here.

After her workshop, we called it quits and I agreed to meet Diana at a restaurant to break bread.
As I exited the classroom building, one of my earrings fell to the ground and I stepped on it breaking the clasp in the process. Examining the earring, I don't see any way to repair it. The earrings were a pair of vintage retro clip-ons that I bought in an antique store in Stonington; they were my favorites and I will miss wearing them.

Everyone was getting out of Dodge at the same time and I figured that the two-lane to the Interstate would be slow-going. So I decided to use the back door route like I did when I attended UCONN back in the early 1970s. Since I had not used the back door route in over 40 years, I relied on my iPhone Maps app to assist me where my memory failed me.

It worked. Traffic was light and I arrived at the restaurant in 30 minutes. When Diana arrived, we went inside the restaurant and had an excellent dinner.

Diana knows that I need to feed the blog, so she asked me if I wanted her to take my photo. I accepted her offer and the result accompanies this post.

After dinner, we went our separate ways and I was home 35 minutes later.

It was a long and full day and my girdle was killing me by the time I arrived home, but  as usual, I had a wonderful day as a woman.

Wearing Marchesa Notte.

Berenice Strada