A New American

Create, Adobe's online magazine, has an interesting article, The New Americans: A Photographic Exploration.

Inspired in part by legendary photographer Robert Frank, whose 1958 book The Americans presented portraits of everyday Americans and changed the way we saw our country, photographers Elle Wildhagen and Zachary Domes set out on a six-week road trip. Their goal was to present today’s Americans as they saw them: inspiring, hopeful, and “full of so much good.”

One of the new Americans they encountered was Jacob, who...

...made a strong impression on the pair: “It wasn’t just about Jacob and him expressing himself,” says Elle. “It was really about allowing anyone, however they want to express themselves, to feel comfortable and confident.”

Click on Jacob's photo in the article to view a video about Jacob. (You won't be disappointed.)

Wearing Rockins scarf, Equipment blouse and Theory skirt.

Tim Elliot on stage in Compleat Female Stage Beauty (2011)

Beth's First Time

I am guessing that my first dressing experience occurred early in my elementary school years, possibly first or second grade. I don’t think it was during my time in kindergarten, although it may have been.

Both of my parents worked, so I would get dropped off at my grandma’s house during school breaks including the summer vacation.

My grandma’s house was built in the '30s, and it was essentially a four square plan ― very traditional and classic. She lived in a traditional small lot neighborhood with a small front yard, slightly larger back yard. All the houses were lined up next to each other. Everyone had a front porch and a single car garage at the back of their property

.

There was a back bedroom, which I believe that grandma used as hers. In the bedroom there was a dresser filled with all sorts of slips and petticoats. All of them were white. Many of them were full-length slips. And this is what she wore on a daily basis under her dresses. This was circa 1962 lingerie; you get the idea of the type and quality it was.

To this day, I do not know if she encouraged me to try on her slips or if I did this of my own volition. However, my first clear memory of dressing is wearing one of her white full length slips. I still remember how strange and wonderful it felt. I remember her being pleased with how I looked. And I remember being disappointed that she would not let me go outside with the slip on to play with the other neighborhood kids.

Either during this first time I had her slip on or subsequent times, I distinctly remember being aroused. I will always wonder if my first arousal was due to wearing her lingerie. All I know is that this was the first time that I remember being aroused.

I really don’t know if my grandma allowed or encouraged me to dress on a regular basis. As I said, I was at her house all day for summer vacations. My guess is that my slip wearing at her house was infrequent.

I firmly believe that my path was established as a result of these positive and reinforcing dressing interactions with my grandma. I have a couple of full-length white slips and everytime I see them in my lingerie drawer, I have very warm feelings.

I invite all Femulate readers to share their first crossdressing experience. Try to recall that moment the first time you tried on a woman’s garment and began the process of unveiling and exploring your feminine self. To entice you to share your first time story, I will give away a free copy of my e-book Fantasia Fair Diaries to all whose stories I use in Femulate.

Wearing Ronny Kobo.

Winner of the Hancock (Mississippi) High School's 2016 womanless
beauty pageant Trevor Ladner, poses with brother, Trenton.

Tippi!

Sunday night, while I was switching back and forth between the Red Sox-Yankee game on ESPN and The Birds on Sundance, I recalled that growing up, Ted Williams was my idol. But a girl's got to know her limitations and I knew I would never grow up to be Ted Williams (who would?). But maybe I could grow up to be Tippi Hedren.

Was she gorgeous or what? The outfits she wore in her films were to die for. I wanted to dress up and be a woman just like her.

Ah, to be young and Tippi again!

Wearing Apiece Apart skirt.

A recent womanless beauty pageant contestant.

Alison's Weekend

By Alison, WA1YKL

This past weekend, I attended one of the largest Amateur Radio "hamfests" in the northeast. Its known currently as Nearfest, the New England Amateur Radio Festival, in Deerfield, New Hampshire It's a twice a year chance to paw over old and new radio and electronics equipment of all types, attend a seminar and meet many old friends.

Although I dressed primarily in "boy" mode, one ham who I met, also in "drab," must have taken notice of my long hair, pink nails, and long earrings. He carefully asked me if I was in transition. To which I replied,that I was only a "part timer." That was enough to break the ice and we had a very nice chat about the options for exploring gender identity and how this seems to becoming more common for those of us in the 50+ age bracket, including some hams!

I also had a prearranged meeting with another ham sister, Stephanie, who I had met recently online.  We chatted about our common interests in dressing and radio. I also invited her to attend a local Tri Ess meeting.

In addition to seeing all of the radio "stuff," I enjoy going to Nearfest as a way to reconnect with many old friends and colleagues, some who I have known for over 30 years.

On the second day, as the weather was much warmer, I wore a tee shirt with the First Event name and logo on it. While it didn't attract any mention from other sisters, it did not garner any rude comments from the mostly cisgender hams either.

Wearing Polo.

Peter Sramek on Hungarian television's Sztarban Sztar.

Brides Wear White

Wearing Alexander Wang.

Héctor Medina in the 2015 Cuban-Irish film Viva.
(Thank you, Zoe, for the heads-up about Viva.)

Proud Daddy

Wearing Polo.

Zach Villa (right) in the 2015 US film Honeyglue.
(Thank you, Zoe, for the heads-up about this film.)

Jessica’s First Time

My experience is a bit scattered (as I imagine many stories are).

My absolute earliest memory of being intrigued by female attire (and why there was such a strict line between male and female clothing) was looking at my mom's heels in the closet when I was maybe 5 or 6 and looking at one blouse in particular. I think she mostly wore it during Halloween; it was a super shiny reflective silver top and I remember thinking how cool it looked reflecting so much light. All my shirts were dull fabric t-shirts.

Fast forward, oh maybe to age 14 or 15… My older brother had many girlfriends, and I remember trying on bras that were left behind; that didn't really thrill me much. Then this one time a girlfriend left behind an earring (couldn't wear it of course, just held it up to my ear and pretended) and a scrunchie (hair wasn't long, but I put it on my wrist as a bracelet which many girls at the time did when they let their hair down).

Then there was the holy grail of clothing, black nylons. I felt the fabric between my fingers. I wanted to try them on so badly, but I knew she was skinny and I was a somewhat plump kid. I didn't care, I had to know what they felt like. After putting them on I won't lie, I got excited. So much in fact that I "went" without even touching anything. I believe that ingrained my transgenderism, but more importantly my crossdreaming.

About a year later, my brother finally convinced my dad (parents divorced for a few years at this point) to let his girlfriend to move in. This was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I now had access to female clothing on a regular basis (a beautiful woman, in fact).

It was a curse because she too was smaller and I had to be very careful how I put things on. The worst sound in the world is stitching stretching until it makes that sound of cracking, which was the point where you take that article of clothing off, hang it back up and pray she doesn't notice. I remember a moment when she was arguing with my brother about how the washer and dryer was somehow ruining some of her clothes and stretching them out. I don't think I had felt more guilty up to that point in my life and to this day, I never confessed to it.

Of course, this only led to me wanting to acquire my own things. About age 17, I was entering local community college and had a part-time job while still living at home. I decided to acquire a PO box so things wouldn't be shipping directly to me at home. That way I could get female clothing catalogs like Lane Bryant and Fredericks of Hollywood delivered to a discreet mailbox and begin ordering clothing.

I could pick-up my order at the post office, walk into my room and hide them away. I had exciting moments in my life like anyone, nothing could possibly top placing an order for dresses and stockings, and then waiting the 5 to 7 days for those items to arrive. When it got closer to the time I thought it might arrive, I would stop by and check for a notice everyday (this was the days before tracking notifications to know when it was delivered).

I rented the smallest box I could get knowing if I had packages, they would store them in a bigger post office box for delivery. When my bag of clothes finally arrived, I rushed over to the box, opened it, grabbed the package and nervously put the key back in. I threw package on my front seat, not even opening it up to sneak a peek.

I arrived home, and my dad either wasn't home yet or he was sleeping on the couch like he often did since he worked third shift. I rushed into my bathroom, pulled that black dress out and excitedly tossed it over my head after I removed all my clothing. It was a cheap dress made mostly of nylon, but that shape hugging my body and giant flowing neckline in front was like nothing I had experienced before. It was probably on par with the first “oh.” It felt like a woman was wrapped around my whole body.

Since I had the typical bathroom with the giant mirror attached directly to the wall, I looked at myself and couldn't believe how just a dress could change my look so much. I remember getting weak-kneed and having to sit down on the toilet from excitement and just bending over with pleasure of how I finally got to enjoy this feeling for the first time in my life.

For years I collected all sorts of female clothing from bras, wigs, makeup, leggings, shoes, etc. I kept it all in a big cardboard box at the back of my closet buried under other miscellaneous boy things and my dad never found any of it.

To this day, neither of my parents know about my secret life. Only my wife knows my secret.

I invite all femulators to share their first crossdressing experience. Try to recall that moment the first time you tried on a woman’s garment and began the process of unveiling and exploring your feminine self. To entice you to share your first time story, I will give away a free copy of my e-book Fantasia Fair Diaries to all whose stories I use in Femulate.

Wearing Polo.

Actor Patrick Stewart

Plan C

The dress I bought to wear to the Hamvention awards dinner was not compatible with any of the bras I own. The problem was that the straps of the dress did not cover the straps of my bra and the visible bra straps ruined the look of the dress.

Plan A was to wear the dress without a bra.

Plan B was to take the dress to my local lingerie shop and buy a bra that would work with the dress.

Then I came up with Plan C.

As you may or may not know, I am an Avon lady and while perusing the recent Avon catalog, I found something that might solve my problem: Body Illusions Seamless Smoothing Cami, which claims to smooth the midsection and back bulge and slim the entire waistline. It also had a roll-resistant hem and adjustable straps.

Its thin adjustable straps and $12.99 price tag sold me, so I ordered it on Sunday and it arrived yesterday.

Right after dinner, I tried it on. It looked too small out of the box, but stretched easily to fit and mold my full figure. That was all good and well, but would it work with the dress?

I slipped on the dress, zipped it up and examined the results in the mirror. After a slight adjustment to the cami straps, it was perfect!

I was so happy with the cami that I plan to buy another, as well as purchase a Body Illusions Bodysuit.

Wearing Cushnie Et Ochs dress, Sophia Webster sandal and Edie Parker clutch.

Celebrity makeup artist Andrew Sotomayor

Pondering and Wondering

In anticipation of my upcoming five-day stint as a woman, a faithful reader asked how my female voice practice is working out.

I think my voice is good to go, so I am practicing less than I did a few weeks ago. My main concern now is what I am going to say when I accept my award, not so much how I am going to say it.

***

If you have shopped online for womenswear, you probably get womenswear catalogs in the mail. I often wonder if my mail person wonders why I get all the womenswear catalogs, while my wife gets none.

Anyway, one catalog I receive regularly (like every two weeks) is the Woman Within catalog. I seldom buy anything from Woman Within, but I love their name. Since they sell sizes 12W and up, I am sure that the name is very appropriate for a significant number of their customers.

***

On WhoWhatWear, Bobby Schuessler suggested the following trick for walking in high heels without pain: run your feet under cold water (even if it's a sink in the bathroom), put a little hand lotion on your feet while they're a little damp, then put your stilettos back on. Just make sure you put your feet back in your shoes damp, not completely wet.

Bobby claims that you can get another four hours out of a pair of heels doing this mid-event.

And it works because the lotion seals in the moisture of the cold water and lubricates against any sore spots.

I' love wearing my heels, so I'll try this trick and let you know how it works for me.

Wearing A.L.C. Rhodes top, Intermix shorts, Star Mela Pelli bag and Joie Tonni sandals.

Male modeling the Denis Gagnon Fall 2012 Collection in Montreal.

Christina Marie’s First Time

Ah, the wonderful and fun 80’s!

It was in 1985 when I first thought about trying on ladies’ clothing. My oldest sister was getting married and I couldn’t be happier! I couldn’t decide if it was one less sibling in the house or the wedding gowns that were worn.

Come to think of it, I always loved going to weddings and seeing all the beautiful gowns the ladies wore. Lifting their dresses to reveal the most beautiful of shoes was always a treat for me as well.

With all the people staying at our house with us, my sisters and I had to sleep in other rooms. I got the pleasure of sleeping in a room my father and I built; it was then they started to shove all the wedding stuff into the room with me. I started to hate life until I started to rummage through stuff. And what did I come across? Shoes, beautiful high-heeled shoes!

I was curious if I could fit them, so one by one I tried them on. It sucked having big feet and not being able to fit in any of them, but then, success. I was able to fit my feet into a pair of 5-inch heels. I stumbled around a little at first, but then I caught on rather fast.

It was still a couple days before the wedding and I continued to put the heels on and walk around. At one point everyone left and I even got up enough nerve to walk around outside and into the rest of the house. Everything was fine until my dad came home. I slipped them off right before he saw me and he never found out.

The night before the wedding, my dad moved the wedding gowns into the room with me. I wondered what it was like to wear a dress. I had already tried the shoes, so what the heck. I remember it was really late at night when everyone was sleeping. I picked the largest dress and slipped it on along with the shoes. OMG it was such a rush. I just wanted to put on panties, bra, long hair and even more. Alas, I had to take off the dress and the shoes.

The next day was the wedding and I helped move everything to the church. My sister’s friend, who was to wear the dress I had on, asked why it was a wrinkled. I told her it fell on the floor and I forgot to pick it up. Well it did, after I took it off. LOL That started me off on my newfound femulating path.

In the following years to come, I tried different things like nylons, panties, bras, nightgowns and even a neighbor’s dress (another story to tell sometime). Nothing ever felt as good or as right as when I was in the wedding gown.

Finally, years later I got to be the bride with a wrinkled gown no less, and put on my favorite red holiday gown, too.

I invite all femulators to share their first crossdressing experience. Try to recall that moment the first time you tried on a woman’s garment and began the process of unveiling and exploring your feminine self. To entice you to share your first time story, I will give away a free copy of my e-book Fantasia Fair Diaries to all whose stories I use in Femulate.

Wearing Blank Itinerary.

Actors femulating in the 1972 Australian film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.