The Ham Radio Funny

Wearing Kay Unger

Maeghii: Brother and sister (in one person)

Close Encounters of the Male Kind

I don't come out anymore. I just show up en femme, take it or leave it.

I didn't always have such a laissez faire attitude about coming out. Revisiting a post I wrote 14 years ago, reminded me that it was very scary way back when. Yet, FDR’s “only thing we have to fear is fear itself” proved true again and the following episode probably was a big turning point for my attitude regarding coming out. So crank the wayback machine 14 years back and enjoy the following story. 

One of my friends, who I have known for over 15 years, lives 2500 miles away. Except for one or two face-to-face encounters at conferences each year, all our communications are by e-mail. The next conference I attend will be en femme and I wanted to alert him beforehand.

In anticipation of coming out, I had composed a 500-word letter of explanation weeks ago. Yesterday at high noon, I copied the words into a blank e-mail, made a few changes, then I stared at the Send button for a few hours. I did not actually stare at the Send button all that time, but I did consider whether or not to send the e-mail for three hours.

It was a tough decision. In the past, I have come out to friends and acquaintances who have known me for a long or short time, but all of them were women. I find it very easy to come out to women. I guess because I am telling them that I am on their team.

Men are not so easy. Just encountering men when I am en femme gives me pause; coming out to a man is unthinkable. My friend would be the first male friend or acquaintance I would be coming out to.

I finally realized that I had to tell him, so I hit the Send button and girded myself for his reply.

I was so worried about his response that I did not check my e-mails the rest of the afternoon. Finally, after dinner, I looked for his reply, found it, and opened it. He wrote, “Thank you for the e-mail. I am sure it was hard to send. But rest assured, you have my respect and support. I think it is best that a person be true to themselves, and you are doing just that. You go girl!”

He floored me with “You go girl!”

Now, that’s a real friend!

Wearing StyleWe

Maxwell Jameson and his mother

Follow the Leader

Wearing Ann Taylor

Tad Hilgenbrink femulating in the 2006 film The Curiosity of Chance.
Click here to view the film on YouTube.

Gloria Mardi Gras, Blackpool

Gloria, in blue

By Gloria

Before I proceed, I would like to proclaim that I deem myself a transvestite or TV, for short, the classic, original epithet being more to my liking than crossdresser or CD, for short. More modern terminology would describe my very early leanings as nuclear. I simply think of my undoubted feminine side as nature’s trick.

Resident in Blackpool, in what is described, rightly or wrongly, as the Gay Capital Of The North, my TV life hitherto had always been confined either to my own four walls or a safe, controlled environment and Gloria’s very existence known only to a handful of people. However, I had long strained at the leash for a public stage of some sort and it came to pass in late middle age, that I finally procured the position of resident TV at Mardi Gras Hotel on Lord Street in the heart of the Gay Village. 

Up to that stage, I had never been on the gay scene, nor am I on it now, the wheel having turned full circle. However, for the tenure of my role at the hotel, the said scene became de rigeur.

And so it came to pass that from the summer of 2009 until the summer of 2018, when the place was put on the market, Gloria was an integral and regular member of staff. She brought business in and she brought it back. 

Mardi Gras was a double-fronted, gay-owned, but straight-friendly establishment. The mix of gays and straights was probably 50/50. Nothing untoward of a sexual nature took place while I was there – mainly Saturday afternoon into the early evening and the occasional Friday and/or Sunday. It wasn’t that sort of a business. It was simply good, clean fun all the way. 

The owners took me on initially as meeter and greeter and the adrenalin of going to the front door never left me, especially to welcome first-time visitors, to whom I was a novelty. Much to the delight of both myself and the owners, Gloria’s popularity took off and meet and greet soon blossomed into social hostess.

There was a good-sized and well-stocked bar, lounge and small dance-floor, complete with disco equipment and flashing lights. The owners wanted me to keep the punters in the bar and though I say it myself, I reckon I was pretty good at it or I wouldn’t have lasted so long! 

A year or so in, the lads were offered another, smaller hotel a hundred yards or so along the street on a five-year lease. Formerly known as Northern Star, it became Mardi Gras 2. Business was certainly booming and though Mardi Gras 1 was to remain favorite for me, I operated at No. 2 when required. So there was some tripping about to do, involving crossing a busy junction. I stopped the traffic on more than one occasion to mince across!

I was primarily in situ for the straight people. While there are exceptions to every rule, the gays male and female took little notice of me. Besides this genre, we took in as guests parties of women, whether hens or those just out for a fun time, and mature couples, but no stags or minors. In my everyday life, I was expected to look professional and smart and for Gloria, it was exactly the same, fulfilling as she was a PR role for the hotel. I invariably wore a dress, brightly-colored or floral, never leggings and very occasionally, a pink leather skirt and top. My outfits and wigs were rotated, but my makeup style and routine never altered.

The owners installed me on Facebook as Gloria Mardi Gras and when photos were taken, I exhorted the guests to post them thereon. Countless images were indeed produced and though the site is now deleted as of no further use, I downloaded most of the better ones to take me back to the days when the going was good. 

As with many TVs, my everyday life as a man was largely kept separate, only the long-established regulars were allowed into my inner sanctum to observe the other half of my body. One such couple, man and wife, remarked tentatively one day that they were of the opinion that I looked better in a frock than I did as a fella and asked, was I insulted? Certainly not, I regarded this as a compliment. To me it meant I was doing my job to the best of my ability. There were times, privately, when I thought this myself.

When I began at Mardi Gras, the owners were three years into a ten-year plan, after which they intended to open a bar of the same name in Gran Canaria and this they have done. I shall be eternally grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to both exercise, and exorcise, this part of my personality. I have been there and done it, a little late in life perhaps, and have got, if not the T-shirt, but the frock! 

The new owners did not invite me back and indeed are running the establishment in a different way, so I do not consider that I am missing anything. I often walk past the place now with a complete air of detachment, incognito and unrecognized by the punters on the terrace.

Happy days, I look back on it with pride and the satisfaction of a job well done for the benefit of all concerned. Though the years may disappear, now going on six, the memories certainly do not. And I still have the photos to remind me of who I once was: Gloria Mardi Gras, Blackpool! 

Wearing RE/DONE

Jim Bailey femulating on a 1985 episode of television’s Night Court.

Who Wouldn't!

Wearing Ann Taylor

Deja Brooks, in white pumps, was selected Queen of the 2022 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Lawrence, Kansas. You can read all about it by clicking here.

What Is?

 

Wearing Bebe

Markus Kelle (right) femulating in a 2014 episode of television's The Mysteries of Laura.

My Annual Ides of March Post

Wednesday, I met my lady friends at Westbrook Lobster for “lunch” at 1 PM. 

The weather was crazy warm for March in this neck of the woods, so I did not require outerwear and got away wearing just a black Venus sweater dress, black Nine West pumps, black Berkshire thigh highs and assorted unmentionables. 

I did something that I haven’t done in a very long time: nicked myself shaving. So I had to deal with that before applying my makeup.

Liquid eyeliner is hit or miss with me. Sometimes it goes on perfectly; other times (Wednesday) it’s not so perfect. I imagine if I used eyeliner everyday, I would get consistently better results, but I don’t wear eyeliner everyday and so it goes.

Left home at 12:20 PM. Traffic was light and I arrived at the restaurant 31 minutes/17 miles later. Entering the restaurant, a woman escorted me to our table where Lee Anne and sister blogger Diana were already seated. My escort turned out to be our waitress and she could not have been kinder constantly referring to us as “ladies” with and without the “pretty” adjective.

My lunch, swordfish and asparagus over a bed of rice, was excellent and my waist cincher informed me that I nearly cleaned my plate!

Family, health and trans stuff were the topics of discussion and before we knew it, it was time to depart and return to our respective domiciles.

Looking forward to doing it again real soon now.

Wearing Paige

"The Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band in the World"

This image of the femulating Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and the seated Bill Wyman appeared on the back of the sleeve for 45 RPM recording of "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows?" The song blew me away and is still one of my favorite Stones' recordings, but being 1966, the boys appearing crossdressed was absolutely amazing to this young femulator in training (FIT). Bits of the boys en femme appear in a promotional video for the song; click here to view it on YouTube.

The Million Dollar Question

Wearing Boston Proper

 

An amazing femulator on Chinese television's Amazing My Star.
This is must-see TV. Click here to see this amazing femulator.
You won't be disappointed!

Exóticos!

Exótico Pimpinela Escarlata

Maybe I need to get out more, but here is something I never heard of until Michelle alerted me about it: professional wrestling in drag! Evidently, exóticos are a thing in Mexico.

According to Wikipedia, Exóticos are male wrestlers who appropriate feminine aspects in their wrestling personas or “gimmicks” – through feminine costumes, for example, “contesting the dramatic representation of machismo” and successfully unmanning their opponents in the ring while also “rejecting the outward signs of manhood.” Though exoticos may not necessarily be gay, they often are, and their sexual ambiguity is undeniable. Attired with feather boas, headdresses, sequins or stockings, they defy a religious Latin culture that is ardently macho.”

Reminds me of Gorgeous George, a mid-20th Century American professional wrestler who used feminine gimmicks. For some reason, my mother enjoyed George’s antics. She also liked Liberace. Did her fondness for the effeminate have anything to do with my effeminate nature? 

Wearing Sherri Hill

Exótico Pasión Kristal

Girl Time!

Wearing Boston Proper

65-years-young, Nina, long-time Femulate reader