Separate Yourself from Other Men

Outreach – 12 years ago

This post is another rerun. It is from 2007, when I was still gainfully employed.

I am at work.

I just took a break from writing a software user manual and checked my e-mail. For the umpteenth time, I received another e-mail advertisement reminding me to "separate yourself from other men."

Believe me, I try to separate myself from other men in ways that the average man never dreams of. Rather than using a penis enlargement patch, I separate myself from other men by applying makeup, squeezing into a bra and girdle, slipping into a sexy dress, high heels and blond wig.

Yes, I am at work writing another user manual for software that monitors and controls high tech equipment that only an electrical engineer would find interesting.

Boring!

I would much prefer writing womanly words, i.e., words about feminine finery, en femme outings, flirting encounters of the passing kind... you know, those girly things that separate me from other men.

Wearing Aldo high heels (Source: Pinterest)

Kazik Mazur femulates Halina Frąckowiak on Polish television's version of Your Face Sounds Familiar.

Another Book in Me

I made my living as a technical writer for over 50 years and I had a some success doing it. Two of my books were best sellers and a few years ago, I received one of the most prestigious awards in my field in honor of my writing career.

Writing this blog has been a success, too. It usually gets 5,000 hits per day and is approaching 15 million hits over its 12-year run.

The success of this blog inspired me to write a book on the subject, which I did four years ago. But unlike my technical books, the sales of my trans book were poor despite its good reviews. Sales were so poor that I swore I would never write a trans book again.

Sunday, I received the following e-mail from a woman I met at a workshop we both attended 10 years ago.

I just read your book, Fantasia Fair Diaries, and I want to congratulate you and say thanks for sharing your experiences at Fan Fair. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Your writing seemed as if you were just talking to me as you did when we met at the [workshop] several years ago in New York.

As I was reading, I kept thinking how wonderful it would be if you would write a book about your life. And then, near the end of Diaries, you mentioned you were contemplating doing so.  Have you done so by now? I want to purchase a copy ASAP if you have. Your story is fascinating and I have highest regards for your kindness and friendship.

Wow! Her e-mail made my day and since receiving it, I have been mulling over writing another book.

I am certain I have another book in me, but do I want to put in the effort of writing another book just to be disappointed again?

Wearing Hemant and Nandita (Source: Rue La La)

Filippo Timi femulates in Italian television's Favola.

a modicum of decency

Maybe I’m just “old school,” maybe it’s my upbringing, maybe it has something to do with being born and raised in old Puritanical New England, maybe I’m a “prude;” whatever the reason, there are certain words that are not part of my vocabulary. Whether I am en femme or en homme, I just try not to use them

I admit that on occasion, those words have slipped out of my mouth, but they are “slips” and I always regret saying them.

On the other hand, when I write, I have time to reflect on what I am doing and correct any “slips,” so I never use those words in my writings. Moreover, I don’t want those words used in association with my writings; by that, I am referring to reader comments in this blog.

I just rejected a reader’s comment because he/she used one of those words and I will continue to reject any future comments that use those words.

By the way, the words are the seven that George Carlin referred to in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine back in 1972. Believe it or not, you still cannot say those seven words on American television today (and I won’t use them here).

writing trans-fiction

I write for a living. All of it is non-fiction, eight hours a day, five days a week.

When I was a young girly-boy, I wrote a lot of fiction. My favorite topic was nuclear war apocalypses. My grammar school teachers must have worried about me!

As I progressed through grammar school, high school, college, and beyond, I abandoned fiction for non-fiction because that was what my studies required.

The last piece of fiction I completed was a short story about a young couple and their experiences attending the original Woodstock rock festival. It was based on my experience attending that festival and my story won first prize in a writing competition at my college.

Out of school, my first real job was writing about radio technology. You can't get much more technical than that. I made a name for myself in that field and became a big frog in a small pond. To sustain myself, I just kept on writing non-fiction.

Since I was immersed in technology on a daily basis, I joined the online world early on dialing up bulletin boards, CompuServe, and later, the Internet.

The online world gave me an education about the transgendered world. Going in, I knew I was not the only girly-boy in the world, but I had no idea that I had so many sisters. One thing led to another and by means of the online world, I found a local support group, which nudged me out of my closet and out into the real world en femme.

Exploring the online transgendered world, I also discovered transgendered fiction. Over the years, I have read a lot of it and I still frequent Storysite and Fictionmania.

Some transgendered fiction is good and there are some real gems out there, too, but a lot of it is junk... poorly written, poorly structured, unrealistic, etc. I thought to myself that I could do better than that. And I've tried.

Over the years, I have started a truckload of stories, but have never finished one! (I almost completed one, but I lost it in the great hard disk crash of '29.)

Anyway, my goal is to finish one this month and post for your reading pleasure on National Crossdresser's Day.

Wish me luck.