Black Friday

Thank you all for your comments and emails regarding our Black Thursday. I was overwhelmed by your support and it truly helped me get past that day.

Needless to say, we slept late Black Friday morning, which was no loss because we do almost all of our holiday shopping online and avoid the brick and mortars during the days leading up to December 25.

Leaving our troubles behind temporarily, I decided to do some online shopping for my wife and daughter at Macy's. One thing led to another, as it often does on the Internet and I found myself checking out the deals on Macy's shapewear webpage.

If you have been following along, you know that I am a big fan of Spanx clone shapewear. I own a about a dozen Spanx clones, but I don't own one genuine Spanx item. Now I do!

Perusing Macy's Black Friday sales, I found an excellent deal for a Spanx brand high-waisted brief and added it to my online shopping cart. Macy's has already shipped it and it will probably arrive shortly after this post appears. Then I will let you know how it compares with the clones.

Wearing Hanes (Source: Hanes)

Alan Cumming femulates in British television's The Runaway.

Someday Funnies

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company) 

Alex Veit, male womenswear model

Black Thursday

I spent most of Thanksgiving Day in the emergency room with my wife. 

A cat scan Wednesday morning showed something that concerned her doctor and he told me to take my wife to the ER Thursday morning. So we watched the parade, dog show and Godfather I and II from the "comfort" of a room in the ER, while the nurses and doctors needled my wife in various places trying to find out what was wrong.

Good news was that after nearly 8 hours in the ER, they did not find much. Bad news is that we go back next week for a biopsy to look some more.

After leaving the hospital, we had a late Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's, then called it a day around 8:30 PM. Arriving home, we discovered a huge mess involving urine and feces created by my old blind dog. After cleaning the mess and bathing my dog, I went to bed and tried to fall asleep while thinking about having to put down my dog real soon.

It was not a good day.

Wearing Veronica Beard blazer (Source: Intermix)

Dokzi Couture, male womenswear model

Thanks, But...

We celebrate Thanksgiving Day on Thursday.

"Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general," according to Wikipedia.

No harvest here, so I guess I express “gratitude in general.”

Mom and Pop are deceased, but I know that they are around in a spirit-in-the-sky kind of way, so I want to thank them for raising me and not interfering with my feminine ways when I was growing up.

Maybe they could have been a little more encouraging by buying me some dresses to wear around the house (so I wouldn’t have to borrow my sister’s) and buying me some dolls of my very own (so I wouldn’t have to borrow my sister’s). It probably would have made my sister happy, too; I wouldn’t be borrowing her stuff and she would have had a sister to play with.

On the other hand, it could have been a lot worse and they could have forced me to be masculine!

So, thank you Mom and Pop for letting me be me.

(Caveat Emptor: This is an update of a post I wrote for a previous Thanksgiving.)

Wearing Veronica Beard (Source: Veronica Beard)

I don't know much about this image except that it was posted on a crossdressing Pinterest page. My guess is that it is from the mid-20th Century and that the girl in front is a femulator, but I am not so sure about the girl in back. Is she another femulator or a female friend or relative of the femulator? Your guess may be better than mine.

Transitioning

In response to my standing offer to answer anything you ask me, Julie Shaw wrote the following.

I'm getting tired of coming up with answers to "well meaning" people asking me when I'm going to start transitioning. I don't WANT to transition. I'm a heterosexual male-to-female crossdresser and have NO desire to change that.

My question for you is "how would you communicate this to those sisters on social media who all but berate me for not being true to yourself." I have run out of words.

It seems to me (with emphasis on "to me") that the meaning of "transition" has changed over time.

In olden days when I still lived in a closet, transition meant that you took hormones, had surgery and did all that the law allowed to officially change your name and sex designation.

Today, the definition of "transition" is a lot looser. You don't have to take hormones and/or you don't have to have surgery and/or you don't have to legally change your name or sex designation. You don't even have to live full-time in your trans gender.

So I guess I transitioned some time ago and didn't even know it!

At Fantasia Fair in 2014, I attended Natasha Wilkie's presentation "Planning Your Transition." The most important thing I took out of the presentation was that you do it at your own pace... a pace that you are comfortable with.

As the presentation ended, Natasha left us with a metaphor... Transition is like riding a train. You can get off at any stop and you can get back on the train whenever you wish and in some cases, you can go back to a previous stop.

So when quizzed about when am I going to transition, I can honestly say I have transitioned already.

Wearing Boohoo (Source: Boohoo)

Homer Simpson in drag on the Werking Mom episode (11/18/18) of The Simpsons.

Barbie Fashions for Real Dolls

Remember playing with Barbie dolls when you were a young girl?

I did not own a Barbie doll, but my sister did and occasionally, I would spend some girl-time playing with my sister's dolls. As a budding transvestite, I once dressed her Ken doll in Barbie's clothes. But just like in the real world, Barbie's clothes did not quite fit right on Ken, so I abandoned crossdressing Ken and stuck to dressing Barbie while dreaming about dressing myself in her high fashions.

Turns out, I can now dress myself in Barbie's haute couture. According to Parade, "Barbie’s celebrating the big 6-0 next year with a collaboration available now: Barbie x Unique Vintage, a new apparel line turning iconic 1960s Barbie outfits into real women’s clothing."

Even better news: Unique Vintage's Barbie line is available in larger sizes for girls like us. Also, Unique Vintage offers other retro style clothing from the 1920's to the 1970's with many items available in plus sizes. And for you California gurls, you can sashay down to their brick and mortar store in Burbank.

Personally, I think the Unique Vintage line of Barbie apparel looks nicer than the original Barbie clothing. And I hope to find out for myself as soon as I can make up my mind which Barbie outfit to purchase.

Wearing Boston Proper (Source: Boston Proper)

The always lovely Hannah McKnight

Someday Funnies

Wearing Bebe (Source: Bebe)

A womanless beauty pageant's "Best Smile"

Awareness, indeed!

This is Transgender Awareness Week.

The Week concludes with Transgender Day of Remembrance  (TDOR) on Tuesday, November 20, when we remember our trans brothers and sisters who died because they were trans and did not pretend they were something else.

I discovered that TDOR events are scheduled all over the calendar because TDOR falls during Thanksgiving week this year and some of the people who might normally attend, will not be available. For example, some colleges and universities are on vacation next week, so they have either scheduled a TDOR event this week or simply cancelled their TDOR event this year.

Getting back to Transgender Awareness Week, the GLAAD Trans Week webpage states that the Week is intended "to help raise the visibility of transgender and gender non-conforming people, and address the issues the community faces."

Over the years, I think I have done my share of making civilians aware of transgender people. It was actually kind of easy once I overcame my fear of mixing it up with civilians. Once I found out that I had nothing to fear except fear itself, I loved going out and finding new venues in which to strut my stuff as a woman, trans or otherwise.

It was "easy" because almost all of my friends and acquaintances, who knew the male me accepted the female me.

My former co-workers knew the male me long before they were introduced to the female me and things did not change when they were made aware that I was trans; I was the same old Stan, but with an improved fashion sense.

Strangers were almost as easy. I assume that I passed some of the time because no one pays much attention to old women like me, so old transwomen can fly under the radar and not be closely scrutinized.

On the other hand, I also assume that some civilians suspected that I was a trans, but they did not make an issue of it. The worst experience was the use of wrong pronouns, but I can live with that especially in the cases when the person using the wrong pronoun corrected himself/herself.

Doing outreach at colleges and universities was different because going in, the students knew we were trans, so there was no fooling them. On the other hand, I think we probably enlightened some of the students. How many of them expected over-the-top drag queens to show up and were surprised when we appeared just like other civilians? Awareness, indeed!

Wearing Madeleine (Source: Madeleine)

I found this before and after photos to be fascinating. (Source: Pinterest)

199

I planned to finish a post I started yesterday and post it today, but something surprising happened that trumps that unfinished post.

I got on the bathroom scale this morning and for the first time in my adult life, I did not weigh 200 or more pounds! When I saw "199" displayed on the scale, it looked so odd that I thought the scale had erred, so I got off and back on the scale again fully expecting it to read 200-something, but it displayed 199 again!

I have been trying to get under 200 like forever and I came close a few times, but breads and sweets always got in the way. I think breads more than sweets was the deal breaker because I don't really eat a lot of sweets and as soon as I cut out my daily dosage of bread three weeks ago, I started dropping weight... not dramatically, but slowly and at a steady pace.

Wow! I am a happy girl!

Wearing SheIn (Source: SheIn)

Actor William Phipps' test shots for his femulation in the 1951 film No Questions Asked

Out of the Wardrobe

Most of you are probably familiar with the song "Lola" by The Kinks. It is one of the most famous songs about femulating. But did you know that The Kinks also sung another song about femulating. Titled "Out of the Wardrobe," it was released on The Kinks 1978 album Misfits, eight years after Lola was released as a single. Here are the lyrics to "Out of the Wardrobe."

Has anybody here seen a chick called Dick
He looks real burly but, he's really hip
He's six feet tall and his arms are all brown and hairy

Well, he married Betty Lou back in '65
When you had to be butch to survive
But lately he's been looking at his wife with mixed emotions
You see, he's not a common place closet queen
He shouldn't be hidden, he should be seen
Cause when he puts on that dress
He looks like a princess

The day he came out of the wardrobe
Betty Lou got quite a surprise
She didn't know whether she should get angry or not bat an eye
She really couldn't call up her mother
Mama would positively die
Should she go or stay or should she try to get a trial separation

You see, he's not a faggot as you might suppose
He just feels restricted in conventional clothes
Cause when he puts on that dress
He feels like a princess

He's not a dandy, he's only living out a fantasy
He's not a pansy, he's only being what he wants to be
Now his life is rearranged and he's grateful for the change
He's out of the wardrobe and he's got no regrets

Betty Lou didn't know what to do at first
But she's learning how to cope at last
She's got the best of both worlds
And she's really in a state of elation
She says it helps their relationship
She says a change is as good as a rest
And their friends finally coming 'round to their way of thinking
She wears the trousers and smokes the pipe
And he washes up
She helps him wipe
Cause when he puts on that dress
He looks like a princess

He's out of the wardrobe and he's feeling alright
He's out of the wardrobe and he's feeling satisfied
Now it's farewell to the past
The secret's out at last
He's out of the wardrobe and now he's got no regrets

Out of the Wardrobe lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company)

Femulate reader and ham radio sister Peggy Sue

All Dressed Up, But...

Shopping this time of year, I often encounter a dress for sale that would be perfect to wear to a holiday party. And I often buy what I find with the hope that I will have the occasion to wear it.

Want to know how many sparkly dresses are hanging in my closet that I have never worn? They are to-die-for dresses and I am dying to wear them if only I get invited to a holiday party.

I did get invited to my former employer's Christmas luncheon/party last year where I did dress pretty, but now that I left the building over a year and a half ago, I doubt I will get invited back this year.

And so it goes!

Wearing Boston Proper (Source: Boston Proper)

My 2017 holiday luncheon outfit.