Vassar College womanless fashion show, 2010.
Wearing L’Wren Scott.
Trans is becoming such an integral part of our culture that it shows up everywhere these days. So much so that it even shows up in the in-box of my boy mode e-mail account. In fact, two trans-related e-mails arrived in my boy mode in-box within the last 12 hours.
New York magazine’s daily e-mail, “The Cut,” had a slideshow of the Fifty Most Iconic Gender Benders of All Time. It included all the usual suspects and a few “icons” that were new to me.
In my opinion, some of their choices were in error and did not belong in the slideshow. And I was disappointed that they missed some icons that I thought deserved to be there. For example, how did they miss me?
Amazon’s daily e-mail included an ad for a book of drag paper dolls titled Life’s a Drag! by Tom Tierney. I have had an interest in paper dolls ever since I was a young girly boy cutting out the paper dolls from Katy Keene comic books, so a drag paper doll book definitely is of interest.
Life’s a Drag! is not the first drag paper doll book, but I think it is the most recent of the genre. The dolls include Milton Berle, Tim Curry, Cary Grant, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Nathan Lane, Jude Law, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Murphy, Ru Paul, Tyler Perry, Peter Scolari, John Travolta, Robin Williams, as well as three female-to-male drag presentations: Julie Andrews, Katherine Hepburn, and Barbra Streisand.
Some of the presentations in Life’s a Drag! are very good, but perhaps it is time for a paper doll book of real femulators!
Five fellows femulating for a womanless wedding, circa 1930.
Wearing Aiyana (left) and Nala (right) boots.
Starla produced another batch of femulation images she discovered in online high school yearbooks and I uploaded the 73 images to flickr today.
David Guerra (photo above), a Miami Beach High School student circa 1995, gets my vote for HSFMLTSBFT, that is, High School Femulator Most Likely To Still Be Femulating Today. Doesn't Miss Guerra look amazing in that Halloween costume! WOW!
To view all the new additions to the Yearbook Femulations Collection:
Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z) and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)
Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.
By the way, the contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Hard Knox High School would be in the Yearbooks H set.
Recently, I received the following request: While looking at your Avon Christmas party pictures, I noticed cleavage. Could you do a post on how to achieve it? I've tried but it never works for me. Thank you so much.
Up front (pun intended), I want to be clear that your mileage may vary because breast-wise I am naturally well-endowed for a male. I won't go into the reasons why I have feminine breasts because I don't know for sure myself, but I assure you that my girls fill a B-cup (and as a trans-girl, I could not be happier about those circumstances).
In the past, I used surgical tape to tape my breasts together and added makeup to create cleavage. It was very effective, but removing the tape was very painful and usually resulted in skin abrasions and minor bleeding that took days or weeks to heal.
I now use a painless method to create cleavage, which is just as effective. The key to my painless method is my bra, a Victoria's Secret Bombshell push-up bra. Victoria claims it adds two cup sizes and it is heavily padded to accomplish that feat.
The bra alone does not provide me with the cleavage you see above. I add breast forms to the mix, as follows:
I insert a breast form into a bra cup with one hand, lift my breast with the other hand and place the form under my uplifted breast. The uplifted breasts create the cleavage and the heavy padding of the Bombshell bra holds everything in place just like the surgical tape had done so in the past.
I have gone whole evenings without my girls moving out of place, but if there ever is any slippage, I can quickly lift my breast(s) back in place when I have a private moment (like in a stall of the ladies' room).
After my girls are in place, I add makeup, applying two shades of bronzer or powder. A dark shade adds depth to the shadows of the cleavage and a light shade enhances the front of the breasts to make them look more outstanding.
I apply the darker shade in the space between my breasts and sweep the powder upward and outward, creating a V-shape along the natural curve of the breasts, then I blend the powder until it looks like a shadow and not a strip of powder.
A little goes a long way, so don’t overdue it. You can always add more dark powder if needed; removing it is more difficult.
I apply the lighter shade to the front of my breasts and blend it back towards, but not all the way to the dark shade.
By the way, I made my own breast forms using a female impersonator's recipe: birdseed in a sock. (I actually used dried green peas instead of birdseed.)
1. Use birdseed to fill a thin sock (not a thick heavy sock) to the cup size you desire.
2. Tie off the sock as close as possible to the ball of birdseed.
3. Trim off any access sock and fold the remainder over the knot. Under a bra, the knot does a good job of emulating a nipple.
If you have any questions, I will gladly try to answer them. In the meantime, practice, practice practice and your fine work will proceed you.
In March 2009, I won a drawing for one month of free life coaching.
To tell you the truth, when I entered the drawing, I had no idea what I was getting into. I kind of heard of life coaching in passing, but really did not know anything about it.
Since I had never had any counseling, I jumped at the opportunity to spill my guts to someone who would listen.
For one hour each week for one month, I met with my life coach on the telephone. One month turned into two months and two months turned into two years.
My life coach was wonderful. She listened as I talked through things and bounced ideas off of her. In the process, I drew myself out, discovered myself and began living as much as possible as the woman I am.
Life coaching may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it worked for me and I am forever indebted to the coach of my life.
THE FEMULATED:
Actor Jack Whitehall femulating in British television’s Hit the Road Jack, 2012.
FEMULATE HER:
Wearing Bluefly.
THE FEMULATED:
Elizabeth, Illinois, high school femulator, 1979.
FEMULATE HER:
Wearing Newport News.