Easter Envy

Easter is not a big holiday in my family. We hardly notice it.

It was different when I was a kid. My family were practicing Catholics, so it was a big holiday for us back then.

Our usual Easter routine was Mass on Sunday morning, dinner with the whole family at my aunt’s house Sunday afternoon and an egg hunt for the kids after dinner.

In preparation for Easter, Mom would sew new Easter outfits for herself and my sister. My Dad and I wore whatever suit was the most recent addition to our wardrobes.

I was jealous of my sister. She usually wore a new dress, new shoes and a new hat for Easter. My female cousins got dolled up for Easter, too, meanwhile, I was stuck in a boring suit.

I wonder how many Femulate readers also experienced “Easter envy?”

Wearing Venus (a recent Stana purchase)

British femulators in the 1920's

TG TV Ads

By Paula Gaikowski

It’s been a long winter. Our CFO (Chief Femulating Officer) has not been feeling well, the pandemic, has many of us locked away at home and after that incident in the supply room during the Femulate holiday party, I’ve been assigned to the front desk at Femulate World Headquarters (by the way, if anyone finds a black Victoria Secret bra, please email me) . 

So, to get back in the good graces of senior management, I’ve decided to take some initiative and find some positive transgender television advertisements. Too often in the past, transgender persons are depicted as the butt of a joke or incorrectly as a drag queen.

The first two commercials I found very positive because they take a real issue that we all have dealt with and treats it respectfully. While out and about as Paula, I’ve often been treated as a woman until I hand over my male credit card and hear “Thank you, sir” or “Thank you Mr. Gaikowski.” In this commercial, Mastercard does a great job showing how it feels and how you can now have your true name put on your card. Citibank does the same.

The next commercial runs a bit deeper and takes a while to watch. It features a social experiment about people working together and one of those persons is transgender. It’s sponsored by Heineken and involves building a bar complete with beer so, of course, I loved it!

The next commercial was so relatable. If you remember the first time you were out in public, you will appreciate this commercial. It features a beautiful nervous transgender woman out in public for the first time. It’s an ad for Secret Deodorant and it touched my heart.

Every time I am addressed as Paula or Ma’am, I feel a pinch of joy. Starbucks' commercial does a great job showing that joy.  

The last commercial for Holiday Inn ran in the 90’s for the Super Bowl. Back then, it was pulled because some people objected to the topic. Today, some transgender persons don’t like it because of the unrealistic standard of beauty that it demands for transgender woman. I have to say I loved it. I thought it was funny, cute and saw myself in the starring role going to my class reunion.   

Interesting to note that back in the 90’s people complained to Holiday Inn that they were “offended” by a transgender person. Times have changed thank goodness. 

Wearing Rue La La

I'm not a drag queen

Transgender Day of Visibility (Today)

A reader sent me the news that Coca-Cola has a drag artist as a spokesperson for their products. 

“I’d call that a big step forward,” said the reader who sent me that news.

Yes – a big step forward for drag queens, but I'm not a drag queen! Doesn't do much for me or my trans sisters.

The new Coke queen is not the first. For the past year or so, drag queens have been appearing in television commercials here and there. The queens are all over-the-top and have no relation to femulators like me. 

The only transwomen I’ve seen on television are in ads for AIDS-related medicines. I applaud the pharmaceutical companies for that, but it would be nice to see a transwoman in an ad for a more generic product like Pepsi or Ford or Walmart where the crossdresser is just another consumer and not the butt of a joke.

Wearing Paige

Peter Outerbridge in the 1999 Canadian film Better Than Chocolate

Survey for Connecticut LGBTQ+

The Connecticut Legislative LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network is working with the Department of Public Health to survey the LGBTQ+ community in Connecticut to determine our needs and if they are being met. The results of this survey will be shared with the Connecticut legislature, LGBTQ+ organizations and funders to support initiatives for Connecticut's LGBTQ+ community. The Legislative LGBTQ+ Health and Human Services Network is the only LGBTQ+  committee in the nation that has been created to advisor the state legislature by law on our issues and needs of our community. As part of our charge under the law, we have created this needs assessment.

If you live in Connecticut and are 18 or over, please take the 30 minute survey here… https://bit.ly/3siusqC

Wearing Bebe

Anthony Tyler Quinn femulating in television’s Ask Harriet

Décolletage

I received the following request: While looking at your photos, 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 to create cleavage. It was very effective, but removing the tape was very painful and always resulted in skin abrasions and occasionally 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 to use a padded push-up bra, like Victoria's Secret Bombshell push-up bra. Victoria claims it adds two cup sizes, but the bra alone does not provide me with cleavage. 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, place the form under my uplifted breast and repeat the procedure with the other breast. The uplifted breasts create the cleavage and the padding of the bra holds everything in place just like the surgical tape had done so in the past.

I have gone whole evenings without my breasts 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).

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/dried green peas 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/dried green peas.

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.

By the way, I made my breast forms about 40 years ago and they are still good to go today. 

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.

Need advice concerning femulating or other crossdressing-related matters, then e-mail me and I will happily give you my opinion on the matter. My e-mail address is stana-stana at sbcglobal.net.

Wearing Bella Dahl

Lynn of Yet Another T-Girl Blog fame. Lynn's blog predates Femulate by almost two years. Reading her en femme adventures inspired me to start writing my own blog. 

Someday Funnies

Wearing Self-Portrait

Georg Preuße and Reiner Kohler in the West German film
Mary & Gordy: Frau'n, Frau'n, Frau'n.

Nice shirt, by the way

Back in the spring of 2010, when I informed Human Resources that I was transgender, I actually informed the HR Director of the division of the company that employs me. The HR rep for our location was out on that day and the Director, who happens to have her office in our building, was sitting in for our local rep.

Let me tell you about the our local HR rep. She is a drop-dead gorgeous blond in her late 20's. She seemed to be friendly with some co-workers, but she was always aloof with me.

For example, whenever I encountered her and said, “Hello Amanda,” she rarely said, “Hello Stan.” Usually just a cold “Hello” and sometimes not even that.

Things changed dramatically after I came out to HR. The HR Director informed our local rep about my transness because I am our local rep's direct “problem,” not the HR Director's problem.

Anyway, after coming out to HR, our local HR rep became downright friendly and she never misses calling me by my name when we exchange Hello’s.

One day, I wore a shirt that has a blue floral print. I bought it in the men’s department of Walmart, so I know it is a men’s shirt. However, there is no doubting its floral design and some guys might shun such a shirt as being too feminine or at least, too diverse.

Anyway, I ran into our location HR rep today, said,  “Hello Amanda.”

She replied, “Hello Stan” and then she added, “Nice shirt, by the way.”

I was very surprised by her compliment and thanked her for it.

Go figure.

Maybe she feels that I am safe now. I am just one of the girls and no longer one of those guys who would like to bed her.

And so it went.

Wearing Nina top and Frame shorts

Paolo Ballesteros femulating in the 2016 Filipino film Die Beautiful.
You can view the film’s trailer on YouTube.

Making Scents

Does your femulation include smelling like a lady? It should.

For starters, I apply a lady’s deodorant to my shaved underarms. (Maybe I should ask, “Do you shave your underarms?”) Anyway, I use a feminine scent (Lady Speed Stick’s “Powder Fresh”) under my arms. 

After I am fully dressed, made up and coiffed, I apply perfume (Chanel No. 22) to my inner wrists, the base of my throat, behind my ear lobes, in my cleavage, behind my knees  and my inner elbows.

After all that, I assume I will smell lovely (and femininely) to all bystanders. Funny thing is that I have almost no sense of smell, so I cannot appreciate the scents I am wearing. And I have to be careful not to apply too much perfume and overwhelm the onlookers!

Delayed Comments Dept.

A reader e-mailed me, “I could not see my comment last night, but now I can see it!”

I responded, “After a comment is submitted, I have to approve it before it appears on the blog and sometimes there is a delay until I get online to approve it.”

Hitting It Out of the Park Dept.

Tuesday’s blog post garnered 9,187 hits! That is an all-time high as best as I can recall. Typically, Femulate pulls in 6,000 to 6,5000 hits per day, so that 9,187 represents approximately a 33% increase. I wonder if the topic (will men over 50 soon be wearing bras?) had anything to do with the increase.

Success Breeds Success Dept.

Those 9,187 hits has a ripple effect: an increase in the number of e-mails I receive, so if you e-mailed me recently, please be patient – I have a long queue to reply to.

Wearing Boston Proper

Girl and Boy at Tuntenball 2019

Effeminacy

Angela shopping

By Angela Booth

Angela wrote the following in response to my recent posts about being effeminate.

I wonder if you carry a hammer around as you keep hitting the nail on the head. 

As a child, I was innocent to the ways of the world and knew that I liked women for what clothes they wore and I enjoyed wearing them, too. Society at that time did not respect any deviations like that. You were considered gay, which was illegal back then, or a sissy boy. Oddly, drag queens were revered and camp characters were seen as fun. Express a desire to crossdress and you were down in the pit of hell.

Like you, I was not good at sports and was bullied because I wasn’t manly and seemed to prefer the company of girls. I was never a manly man as I had these feminine traits. Being of small stature with blond curly hair didn’t help either. It did help with crossdressing though. I did what I had to do to gain acceptance.

Whatever I did, I couldn’t shake those feminine traits or desire to be feminine in appearance. I began to like women in a sexual way, but still wanted to dress like them. 

I still retained those feminine aspects, this effeminacy as you rightly say. This was endearing to women and they appreciated you for listening, understanding or being empathetic, but put some off because I wasn’t the ‘man’ they wanted. Such was this empathy I was once told that I should have been born a girl! I wondered if I was.

Embracing crossdressing has been the answer for me, too. It compliments my nature and is quite natural. I got over any guilt and, like you, live a happier life. 

UPDATE: I updated the link for the Femulator video below.

Wearing ModCloth

Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulating C.C. Catch on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo. You can view this amazing femulation on Facebook.

Will Men Over 50 Soon Be Wearing Bras?

In 2007, Mike deHavilland Parker wrote an article for UK Apologetics that I just discovered a few days ago.

Parker wrote, “the primary sex hormones are oestrogen and testosterone. Men and women have both of them. But the main masculine hormone is testosterone (called such because in men it is produced in the testicles); most younger men have it in abundance! But as men and women age, a strange thing happens. Women start to lose their dominant oestrogen hormone, but they also lose their testosterone and progesterone. So women start to lose all of these hormones. With men it is different, but nobody can explain why. As men age, they lose their more masculine testosterone, sometimes quite quickly, but their oestrogen levels start rising! So, it would not be entirely wrong to say that as men get older, they tend to become more feminine, or womanly, and this is because they start producing more oestrogen - which is the primary female sex hormone.”

The author explains that men are also under attack from xenoestrogens, natural and synthetic hormones that imitate oestrogen. Synthetic xenoestrogens include some industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA, and phthalates and can affect younger men as well as older men.

Parker suggests that the increase of female sex hormones in men may account for the increase in male-to-female transsexuality.

The author also wonders, “Will many men over about 50 be wearing a bra by 2107 (that is, a hundred years from now)? And will we eventually simply come to accept this as just another difference between younger and older men? Or will breast-removal surgery become highly common for older men? (Make no mistake that if normal rising oestrogen levels in middle aged/older men continue to be increasingly joined by xeno-oestrogens - which are almost everywhere - more and more men will certainly develop female-type breasts with advancing years).

And “Will society eventually have to accept such older men as ‘fe-men,’ or by some other descriptive name?”

Wearing Venus

Blogger Rhonda of Rhonda's Escape fame

Still Feminine after All These Years

I want to visit my effeminacy one more time because I received comments from a few readers who believe that I can turn my effeminacy on and off at will.

I assure you that is not the case. I am and always was a feminine being (according to society’s standards). It is not an act.

I am not a flamboyant feminine male. I don't walk around with a limp wrist while carrying a purse in boy mode. But I am feminine enough that some people have noticed and thought I was gay. 

As a result, I attracted gay men and turned off women who I wanted to date in my youth. Which was very frustrating because I was unaware of my effeminacy. I was just acting naturally – being myself, but that “self ” was feminine. Only after I saw myself in that video did I realize how feminine I really was. 

Thank Goddess I discovered crossdressing. It was a good fit and perfect outlet for this feminine being. And once I got over the guilt, presenting as a woman were some of the happiest times in my life.  

Wearing ModCloth

Blogger Marian, who dots her I’s and crosses her T’s online