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In her Friday post, Rhonda (of Rhonda's Escape fame) cited an article that explains how the Femulation Nation’s national anthem, Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” was inspired by crossdressers.
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| Wearing Isabel Marant |
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| Tom Hanks and the late Peter Scolari femulating in the television comedy Bosom Buddies. |
In honor of our favorite holiday on October 31, I am reposting past Halloween posts on Fridays. The following repost is from October 2009.
My Halloween “costumes” in 1983 and 2017
When I attend a civilian Halloween event, I dress like a woman on the street (and I don’t mean a street-walker). For example, when there was a Halloween costume contest at work, I dressed in like an office girl trying to emulate how women typically dress for the office.
On the other hand, when I attend a trans Halloween event (like a support group Halloween party), I dress in a costume that a woman might wear on Halloween. For example, for my support group’s past Halloween parties, I dressed as a school girl, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, French maid, bat girl and Playboy bunny, among other things.
Why?
For trans Halloween events, the answer is easy.
I dress in a costume a woman might wear because in the trans world, I normally dress as a woman. As a result, a “woman on the street” costume would not be a costume (unless I dressed like a street-walker).
For civilian Halloween events, the answer is more complicated.
I could dress in a costume a woman might wear for civilian Halloween events, but I never have.
Like many of us, my first forays in public en femme were on Halloween. Just dressing as a woman among civilians was a major accomplishment and the thrill of a lifetime of anticipation.
Dressing like a woman on the street rather than say a Playboy bunny, I might get fewer of those knowing looks that imply that I crossdress more often than just October 31. But I always femulate too well, not like the average guy in drag on Halloween, so I get lots of those knowing looks anyway, but I’m not sensitive about it. If someone confronts me, I come right back with, “Normally, I only crossdress on weekends” and they don’t know what to say.
So dressing like a woman on the street for civilian Halloween events does not buy me much with regard to fooling anyone about my proclivity to crossdress. However, the comment, “who is the woman (referring to me) not wearing a costume” never gets old.
I guess that dressing like a woman on the street for civilian events has become my personal Halloween tradition. That’s my story and I'm sticking to it!
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| Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulating C.C. Catch on Polish television’s Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar). You can view this femulation on YouTube. |
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| Wearing Venus |
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| Sexo Frágil (Fragile Sex) is a television comedy from Brazil. I happened upon an episode on YouTube and I was fascinated with what I saw. All the roles, both male and female, are played by males. Their presentation as females is very good except that most of the girls speak in their boy voice. The four main characters (above) play both male and female roles. The other female roles are played by male actors who do not have a male counterpart like the four above. The program is in Portuguese, which I don’t comprehend, so I missed most of the humor. Despite the language barrier, I enjoyed all the excellent femulations. |
When teen boys began wearing earrings, our principal, Father B, announced that if any male student showed up wearing an earring, he would insist that that student begin attending school wearing a dress.
During our annual “Irish Minstrel,” the basketball team performed a tune on stage while dressed in Roaring Twenties drag. (They were all civilians in my opinion.) However, a couple of guys performed a tune while dressed as a bride and groom. The bride’s “my girdle is killing me” line did not dissuade me that the bride was one of us.
Fast forward 50 years and a high school in Burlington, Vermont, put on a drag show during its homecoming halftime show. Both students and faculty femulated and the ladies were very presentable. (See for yourself on YouTube.)
I could see Father B letting us do that at old Sacred Heart... NOT!
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| Wearing Delfi Collective Brooklyn |
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| Fantasia Fair, October 2008 |
I continued crossdressing as a 20-something throughout the 1970s. I was still closeted, but got up the nerve to Halloween crossdress on three occasions (and had the time of my life doing so).
Along came the November 1980 issue of Playboy containing an article about Fantasia Fair. The article was intended to be a humorous piece, often at the expense of the folks attending the Fair. Put that aside, I had never heard of Fantasia Fair and the article provided a trans public service by revealing the Fair to me (and to probably hundreds of other girls like me across the USA).
What a dream! And the Fair was on Cape Cod – an easy four-hour drive, so maybe I could attend and live as a woman for a week. But...
👩 It was expensive and I was only making $10,000 per year.
👩 I was still mostly dressing out of my mother’s closet, so I didn’t have anything close to having a wardrobe for a week (and Mom was not likely to let me borrow hers).
👩 I was scared. Except for a handful of Halloween crossdressings, I had never been out among the civilians and I was ill-prepared to spend a week en femme among the population of Provincetown.
So I did not go.
Attending Fantasia Fair remained a dream for over a quarter of a century until I finally attended in 2008 (and again in 2010, 2012 and 2014). During the ensuing 25 years, I joined a support group, attended long weekend trans conventions and went out solo en femme among the civilians, so the population of Cape Cod was no longer something to fear.
I had a fabulous time each time I attended Fantasia Fair. Living 24/7 as a woman was initially thrilling and then became routine, but in a good way. I attended informative workshops, dined on fabulous food, enjoyed beautiful Provincetown and made a lot of friends.
The Fair is this week and I will not be attending, but I have my memories and they are all good.
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| Wearing Madeleine |
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| Bryce Anderson, model |
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| Wearing Elisabetta Franchi |
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| Mickey Rooney femulating in the 1933 film Mickey's Tent Show. |
In honor of our favorite holiday later this month, I will repost past Halloween posts on Fridays. The following repost is from October 2009.
Beforehand, I stopped at a local grocery store to buy a dessert for the party. The store was busy with after-work shoppers. One female customer checked me out closely (I figure she was trying to figure out my birth gender), another female customers said “hello” (I figure she thought I was a genetic female), and the high school-aged cashiers seemed bemused and/or amused (they knew).
The costume came together nicely and I received a lot of compliments. The gold sequins tunic was an Avon clearance item that I purchased last year for $20, the fishnets were from Hue*, and the shoes came from eBay. The accessories (beads, headpiece, boa and garter) were from one of those Halloween stores that open up in abandoned storefronts in the strip malls every year.
The shoes were a pair I obtained for a Marilyn Monroe Halloween costume I put together back in 2001. Despite their 3-inch heels and pointy toes, they were very comfortable and I could have worn them forever.
Just a word about the Hue fishnets. I am a big fan of Hue tights, so I decided to try their fishnets. They get my seal of approval because they are the first pair of fishnets that I ever wore that did not tear during their first wearing. It is not that I was more careful than usual; no, I was just as clumsy as usual, but the fishnets held up very nicely.
Anyway Happy Halloween to all of you out there in the blogosphere. And don't eat too much candy!
* An Amazon Associate link
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| Wearing Venus |
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| Harry S. Franklyn, 1920’s professional femulator |
Yesterday, an article came across the mojo wire via Atlas Obscura, “The Weekly Cross-Dressing Balls of 18th-Century Russian Royalty” by Sarah Durn, which goes into much greater detail than the Vogue article.
The men would be required to wear the stockings, corsets, petticoats (up to five was customary), ruffled lace sleeves, hoop skirts, and elaborate sack back gowns that, on any other occasion, the women of court would’ve worn. The women, on the other hand, had to wear men’s embroidered waistcoats, full-skirted coats, breeches, white silk stockings, shoes with ostentatious buckles, a powdered wig, and an unwieldy sword.
In the metamorphosis balls, in which both men and women dressed as the opposite gender, there are two power shifts going on. First, Cole says, “there’s the power of somebody making you dress outside your gender.” Second, there’s the power play that “by doing it yourself, you are critiquing the power dynamics of gender and gendered dress.” By forcing their male courtiers to dress as women, Elizabeth and Catherine were reminding everyone who was boss. They made the rules. And even men had to follow them.
It is a fascinating read and I recommend it to all Femulate readers.
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| Wearing Madeleine. |
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| Femulating Russian nobility in the 2019 Russian television series Ekaterina (Catherine). You can view the femulation scene from Ekaterina on YouTube. |
