Happy Birthday, Grayson Perry

Actor Dick Shawn femulating in the film Angel, 1984.

Wearing Brahmin.

Girl Yesterday

On Friday, I attended the True Colors Conference. It was a wonderful day and will write all about it soon, but it is late, I am tired and I am going to bed, but I leave you with this photo of yours truly before I drove to the conference.

Girl Friday

I will begin Friday by dressing as a female professional, then driving an hour to the campus of the University of Connecticut (my alma mater) to attend the True Colors Conference for sexual minority youth and their supporters.

I will staff my support group's table for about four hours and then make a presentation titled "Femulate: The Art of Becoming Womanly." I have made this presentation at True Colors before and it was well-received. Basically, it is an update of my 2007 blog post "top 30 things every crossdressing man needs in his wardrobe to emulate a woman" presented orally in a female voice.

Yes - I have been practicing for over a month fine-tuning my female voice and it will make its debut today.

I will have a full report on my day out as soon as possible... hopefully, with photos!

By the way, the photo above is from the 1940 film His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, who happens to hail from my hometown.

Happy Birthday, Leonard “Chico” Marx

Man en femme and woman en homme, circa 1930.

 

 

Wearing Spiegel.

Yet Another Ephemeral Femulating Memory

Marta Kirsten (right) as Peggy/Pig. Marta
later played Judy Robinson on Lost In Space.

Today, Paula Gaikowski brings back one of her esphemeral femulating memories.

If you’re a baby boomer, you'll remember watching My Three Sons.

I will never forget the impact of an episode titled “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.”  Robbie had a new friend named “Pig,” who was rough around the edges and the best mechanic in town. Robbie’s world is turned upside down when “Pig,” who is a really a tomboy, finds her feminine side and puts on a dress and perfume and now wants to be called "Peggy."

I was amazed by this and identified so well with Peggy. She was tired of all that masculine veneer and wanted to express the girl within.

What captivated me most was I thought Pig was really a boy and then became Peggy. I’m not sure if the writers clued the viewers in as to Pig’s true gender in the beginning. If they did it went undetected by me.

In the end, Peggy appears in the prettiest and most feminine dress. As Robbie takes her hand to escort her to the dance, he says, “Wow, you sure look pretty. I guess you being a girl ain’t all that bad.” 

Peggy smiled with feminine grace and movement answers, “Oh, why thank you Robbie." (sigh)

Keep those ephemeral femulating memories coming!

Happy Birthday, Jaye Davidson

Kyle Farmery, male model.

Wearing ABS by Allen Schwartz.

Another Ephemeral Femulation Memory

The People's Choice was an NBC television situation comedy starring Jackie Cooper and a basset hound named Cleo. The show ran from 1955 through 1958.

As a youngster, I saw many episodes in rerun during the daytime hours in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One episode, "The Male Ego," which aired originally on February 20, 1958, is my earliest ephemeral femulation memory.

Here is a brief summary of that episode from an online The People's Choice episode guide.

Sock, a realtor, played by Jackie Cooper, "loses the sale of a house because the prospective buyer's wife dislikes a minor detail. Convinced that women are beginning to take over the world, Sock goes to sleep and has nightmare on the subject."

The episode guide does not describe the nightmare, but I remember it. Note that I have not seen this episode in over 50 years and I only saw it once, so some of my memories may not be right on the money, but here is what I recall:

Sock's nightmare takes place in a world where the women are taking over and are in the process of acclimating men to their rule. All the women wear pants suits and they are shown forcing reluctant men to enter a transformation booth, which "refines" their personalities and their attire.

When they exit the booth, the men act effeminately and wear mini-skirted outfits. As Sock enters the booth, he seeks help from his loyal canine companion, Cleo, but she refuses to help him because Cleo is female and more loyal to the distaff side of civilization rather than her owner. The nightmare ends as Sock exits the booth as a girly-guy in a girly outfit.

That is all I remember, but it left an indelible impression on my impressionable mind back then, just another added twist to my gender identity that began when my mother put me in a dress for my christening at the age one month.

If anyone has any other details concerning this episode of The People's Choice, I would love to hear them. Or better, if anyone has a video recording of that episode, I'd love to borrow it. (I searched high and low and no recordings exist for sale or viewing anywhere I looked.)

And keep those ephemeral femulation memories coming.

Happy Birthday, Vaughn Meader

Actor Michael Andrews femulating in the film Malibu Express, 1985.

Wearing Eva Franco.

Got Ephemeral Femulating Memories?

Starla, the young lady who hunts down femulations in online high school yearbooks for your viewing pleasure, is today’s guest blogger.

With all the time I have spent scouring old yearbooks looking for incidences of “civilian” femulation, I have been thinking about other ephemeral items from the past relating to crossdressing and feminization. Specifically, I thought it might be an interesting feature in your blog to have readers submit memories of long-lost items they may have seen or heard in their younger years, whether print, photo, media or whatever, that made an impression long before our modern age of Internet saturation.

I have three examples from my youth that will provide an idea of the kinds of items I’m talking about. All three made quite an impression on me in my adolescence/teen years, and I would love to be able to see them again!

• An episode of the game show To Tell the Truth circa early 70’s, featured a young man as a guest contestant who, as a joke, had been dressed up by some female friends and entered in a local beauty contest. To their amused surprise, he actually won! The guy and the two “imposters” trying to fool the TTTT panel were all nicely femulated for their appearance on the show. (Note: The Game Show Network has shown some old TTTT episodes, but I do not get GSN,and have no idea whether this episode has ever been rebroadcast. If it does show up, somebody needs to put it on YouTube!)
• A filmed humorous “human interest” item used as filler on a circa mid-70’s newscast (whether network or local, I do not recall) concerning a beauty school hairstyling competition in which they recruited several long-haired males to act as models. There were brief clips of them getting rolled, dried and teased, as well as the quite elaborate finished feminine ‘dos. It appeared like both the stylists and their somewhat embarrassed subjects had a lot of fun!
• This last item appeared in a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement (similar to Parade) in the mid-70’s or thereabouts. Similar to the first item, but this involved a photo contest rather than an in-person pageant. In Britain, a local newspaper sponsored a mail-in beauty contest. Some fun-loving young birds took a male mate, did his hair and makeup like a woman (no clothing involved, as these were headshots only) and submitted his photo under the fake name of “Eileen Hussy.” I recall that his hair was not terribly long, but was sufficient to create a nice feminine teased “bubble” style. While he did not win, he was among the finalists, and the article featured a reprinted excerpt showing “Eileen’s” pic among all the female competitors.

So there you have some of my distant memories of “femulating ephemera.” I’d love to hear those of other readers!

I wanted to be Tuesday when I grew up

Actor Michael Andrews femulating in television’s Murder Me Murder You, 1983.

 

Wearing Sea.

Monday Musings

Spiegel had a 30% off sale this weekend and I bought two dresses I had been yearning for ever since they appeared in their spring collection. The list prices of the two dresses were already reduced by 12%, so the dresses were actually discounted 38% off list price. How could I resist?

The Zoe Mod Dress (orange multi-color) and the Deco Dress (in blue and white) are on the way. The Deco Dress runs small, so I hope they fit and I won't be disappointed.

I spent most of Sunday doing my income taxes (and that is why today's blog is a little late). To show you where my priorities are, according to my tax records, I spent $1460 on women's wear for myself last year and $97 on men's wear!

Saturday night, I watched Men in Black 3. I liked Men in Black, was disappointed with Men in Black 2, but was pleasantly surprised by Men in Black 3 and I enjoyed the film very much.

I did not expect it, but there is one trans moment in the film. Agent J (played by Will Smith) travels back in time to the year 1969 and visits Andy Warhol's Factory during a "happening." As he passes through the crowd in The Factory, a beautiful female greets him with a very deep masculine voice. According to IMDB, the "Transvestite at Happening" was played by Javier Rivera AKA Rebecca Glasscock, “who was one of the nine contestants cast for the first season or RuPaul's Drag Race.”

Have a good week. Mine ends with a trip to UCONN on Friday to present a workshop titled "Femulate: The Art of Becoming Womanly" at the True Color Conference.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

Stepan Maletta, male model.

 

Wearing DSW.

Following in Her High-Heeled Footsteps

Happy Birthday, Pattie Boyd

Male model Andrej Pejic.

 

Wearing Kaelen.

It Runs in the Family

Happy Birthday, Lauren Graham

Kirill Sadovyy, male model.

Wearing Theia.

She’s tall!

I have not updated the Famous Females of Height List lately because no new tall female celebrities have appeared on my radar. However, I now have three additions:

5'8" - Marthe Keller - actress, film The Marathon Man

5'9" - Jennifer Hudson (photo right) - singer

5'9" - Jennifer Lawrence - actress, film Silver Linings Playbook

If you are new here, you may wonder why the list.

Since the average femulator is taller than the average female, tall femulators might worry that their height might give them away (if they were concerned about passing). The list demonstrates that there are tall females out there to assure the tall femulators that they are not alone.

I used to worry about being tall.

I held back going out in public en femme for a very long time because I assumed that my height would prevent me from passing. But after overhearing comments from passerbys that I was an "Amazon" and a "dyke" and having a tall saleswoman at Nordstrom ask me how I liked growing up tall when I was a girl, I don't worry about my height any longer.

Happy Birthday, Kate Bornstein

Femulators partying at El Dorado in Berlin, 1935 1933.

 

Wearing Terani Couture.

Southern Belle Boys

Starla continues to amaze me with more new femulation finds in the online high school yearbooks. She sent me 89 new ones* that are now in the Yearbook Femulations flickr archive.

What also amazes me is how many schools have held femulating events over the years. So I ran some numbers on the over 2600 images in the archive to find the epicenter of high school femulations.

With the popularity of womanless beauty pageants in the Southern United States, it was no surprise that the South had 10 states in the top 15 (based on the number of images in the archive).

Texas and California were number 1 and 2 respectively, again no surprise, but I was very surprised to see Oklahoma (ranked 28th in population) in the number 3 slot beating out the more populous Florida (ranked 8th in population).

Here is the ranking of the 50 states and the District of Columbia:     

1 Texas 338	14 Pennsylvania 72	27 Wisconsin 27	40 North Dakota 7
2 California 240	15 Tennessee 68	28 Massachusetts 26	41 Wyoming 7
3 Oklahoma 190	16 Indiana 62	29 Maryland 24	42 Utah 5
4 Florida 153	17 Oregon 52	30 Arizona 23	43 Alaska 4
5 Louisiana 122	18 South Carolina 49	31 Kansas 20	44 Montana 4
6 Michigan 101	19 Mississippi 47	32 Nevada 18	45 Delaware 3
7 Georgia 96	20 Missouri 42	33 West Virginia 12	46 Hawaii 3
8 Alabama 94	21 New York 41	34 Idaho 10	47 Maine 3
9 Arkansas 92	22 Kentucky 37	35 Connecticut 9	48 New Hampshire 2
10 Ohio 91	23 New Jersey 36	36 New Mexico 9	49 Vermont 2
11 Illinois 90	24 Washington 34	37 South Dakota 8	50 District of Columbia 1
12 Virginia 84	25 Minnesota 32	38 Colorado 7	51 Rhode Island 1
13 North Carolina 77	26 Iowa 28	39 Nebraska 7

*  To view the latest additions to the 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.

Happy Birthday, Diane Arbus and Hank Ketcham

Kim Christy, professional femulator, 1975.

 

Wearing Jason Wu.

How do I read?

If we had the resources that are available today when we were school-aged, I would be wearing a dress today and I might even have different plumbing.

That is what I wrote in response to an e-mail from Paula in which she commented on how common femulating has become among young people today. She referred me to a forum on Reddit as evidence.

Perusing the forum, I learned something new, i.e., the question "How do I read?" --- which is another way of asking, "How well do I pass?"

I visit deviantArt regularly. It "is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork," according to Wikipedia.

It seems to me that most of the deviantArt community is comprised of young people and that there is a strong femulating presence in that community. This is another indication that today's youth, especially art-oriented youth, in this case, are very open about femulating.

During my latest visit to deviantArt, I encountered photos of a young femulator from the UK who attended her senior prom in the manner that I wish I had attended mine 44 years ago.

How does she read? Beautifully!