best outreach ever

Please Myself

Yesterday, I blogged about what I was going to wear last night in the frigid weather when I went out en femme to do outreach. I also blogged about what Erin wrote at A Dress A Day about Michelle O and dressing to please yourself.

Dressing yesterday, I tried on a four or five outfits while wearing my high boots and black pantyhose. I was not pleased with anything. So, I resigned myself to Plan A, i.e., "my black tunic sweater, leggings or tights, and booties."

I slipped on my tunic sweater while still wearing my high boots and black pantyhose and I was very pleased with the way I looked, so that is the outfit I wore forgoing the warmer leggings or tights (see the accompanying photo; click on it to get a better view).

I know the hemline was short, but I think I have the legs for it, and the tunic sweater is so warm and the boots so high that I figured I would not suffer too much.

Regarding my comfort, I was correct. Instead of the predicted 14°F, it was a "balmy" 27°F when I arrived at the university. I found a parking space less than 200 feet from the building where I was outreaching, so I did not have to walk far in the cold and it did not bother me at all.

I did receive one catty comment about the length of my skirt, but I just smiled at the commenter knowing that I was very pleased in the outfit I selected and I did not care about the opinion of the catty commenter. I dressed to please myself and not her.

My Best

Last night was my best outreach experience ever!

This Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University had ten students: nine females and one manle. My fellow outreachers were people I have outreached with in the past: a no-op male-to-female transsexual, her wife, and a post-op female-to-male transsexual.

We each spoke for about five minutes giving a brief biography of our trans lives. I presented my bio last. While the others gave theirs, I thought about what I would say.

I have presented my bio so many times in the past that I did not have much to think about, but I did make a few changes to my normal presentation. The big change as far as I was concerned was that I identified myself as a "trans-person" rather than a "plain vanilla crossdresser."

Anyway, I felt very good about myself last night. I felt good, I felt comfortable, and in my opinion, I looked good. Feeling that way, I gave the best bio I have ever given. I was very loose, not nervous at all, and my talk was smooth with a lot of expression and some humor. The students laughed at my humor and were all smiling by the time I ended.

Last night, mine was a little less boring and less clinical than the usual trans bio. When I was done, I felt even better about myself.

Next came the question and answer period.

Usually, we divide the class in half and half the class goes to another room with half the outreachers to conduct the Q&A. When half the class period is over, the outreachers switch rooms, so that the whole class has an opportunity to question all the outreachers.

Typically, I am teamed with one or more of the transsexual outreachers and the Q&A results in a few, some, or many questions that are transsexual-specific and have nothing to do with me. While the transsexual answer those questions, I sit politely, smile, and check out my manicure.

Last night was different. We divided the class into three groups and each of us did the Q&A solo. Actually, the female-to-male transsexual and I did Q&A solo, while the male-to-female transsexual and her wife did Q&A as a team.

I could not be happier with that arrangement!

In the past, I have encountered most of the questions (or variations thereof) the students asked last night. (See "my questions and answers.")

Each group wondered about my nails. ("If you only go out en femme once or twice a month, don't people notice your long French manicured nails when you are in male mode?") Pre-glued, stick-on nails was my answer.

Each group also wondered if I would live as a female full-time if I had the opportunity to do so. In the past, I would say, "definitely, yes," but lately, I have been reconsidering that answer. My answer was "maybe," but that there is something to be said about being out all day en femme, then being able to go home at the end of the day, remove all the trappings of femininity, and crash as a male. On the other hand, at Fantasia Fair, I crashed en femme at the end of each day and that was pretty good, too!

One group (all women) dwelled on subject of female fashion. They were impressed on how well I was put together, but one women commented that she never wears makeup and that she has only worn a dress once since her wedding. Another women said that she never wears dresses and does not own a pair of heels; one reason was because she found walking in heels very difficult. The thought crossed my mind that if these women represent the future of female fashion, I am going to lose interest in femulating!

I did mention my blog to the groups and how I try to post something everyday. One observant woman suggested that writing everyday about femulating provides an outlet for those times (which is most of the time) that I cannot femulate. She was so right.

I received some nice compliments last night, which just added to my enjoyment. One woman complimented my makeup, especially the was I did my eyes. Another woman said I had such beautiful feminine hands (more feminine than her own, she admitted). Still another woman complimented me on how well I walked in high heels. And finally one woman gushed that I looked absolutely fabulous and the other women in that group agreed!

I had a wonderful time last night and felt exhilarated at the end. "Good job," I though to myself.

please yourself

Erin at A Dress A Day wrote in her blog today about Michelle Obama's Inauguration Day outfits, "The thing is, you can't please everyone all of the time. You can't even please most of the people most of the time. Which is why, especially when it comes to clothes, you have to please yourself. You're the one wearing them; you're the one in the pictures; you're the only one whose happiness is even remotely under your own control: so do what feels right."

I agree and that is why I wear what I wear.

Of course, I do not have to worry about hoards of fashionistas critiquing everything I wear. However, over the years, a few people (including my trans sisters) have criticized my fashion choices. I just accepted their critiques with a thank-you and a smile and kept on wearing what I like.

what I am wearing to outreach tonight

I have no idea!

The weather forecast calls for a low temperature of 14°F tonight. So, instead of wearing something new and not necessarily warm, I think I will wear something old that I know is warm.

I will probably change my mind a few times (a femulator's prerogative) before I get dressed, but at this time I am thinking about my black tunic sweater, leggings or tights, and booties.

what I am wearing to the inaugural ball tonight

If I was attending one of the ten inaugural balls in Washington, D.C. tonight, I would wear something edgy, something out there, something that would be very inappropriate for my age. (That's just me; what can I say?)

So, here is what I would wear: a black sequin and leather cropped jacket and yellow silk chiffon dress from Kristian Aadnevik and yellow platform shoes from Gil Carvahlo.

(Wearing outfits like that and now you know why I don't get invited out much!)

good weather Wednesday

It looks like Wednesday will be cold, but without precipitation, so I will be going out en femme to do outreach for an evening human sexuality class at a local university.

This class will be a little different because it is a longer class (2 hours vs. 90 minutes) and it is supposed to be a smaller class (about 10 students vs. 30 to 40). So, either the class will run out of questions or their questions will be more in depth than the ones I get at the shorter time/larger size classes. I will let you know what happens.

what guy friends do

Last night, I watched Saturday Night Live hosted by the lovely Rosario Dawson.

One skit performed last night, titled "A Couple of Homies," depicted what a pair of guy friends do when they hang out together. They talked, looked at a magazine, then one (played by Andy Samberg) asks the other (played by Fred Armisen), "Hey, are you up for putting on yellow dresses, peeling bananas, and staring at each other."

Fred is up for it and that's what they do. You can see it for yourself here.

Later in the show, there was another parody of The View with Kenan Thompson again impersonating Whoopi Goldberg and Fred Armisen again impersonating Joy Behar.

crossdressed in the past

Milo was a German female impersonator (a professional femulator) depicted on this postcard postmarked in May 1919, almost 90 years ago.

T model steals the show in Fashion Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rio closed its main fashion event of the year with less attention to the clothes than the model — a transgendered actress... Patricia Araujo (see photo)

Read the rest of the story here.

what happens when men use the women's restroom

your new crowning glory

In response to blonde, brunette, or redhead, Claire Toms of IPC Media in the UK e-mailed me that "Instyle.co.uk has launched an innovative hair tool, which allows users to interact in a creative way to test out new hairstyles. The new tool is really easy to use and has even been endorsed by Yvonne Keating! I thought you might be interested in having a look at this?"

I was interested and I spent some time yesterday trying out their Hollywood Virtual Hair Makeover.

For starters, you can use a model or your own image to makeover. I chose to use my own image, but I soon found out that my image was inadequate for the makeover.

Ideally, you should use an image with all the hair pulled back so that as much face as possible is visible. My image had a hairstyle with bangs, so when I tried out a hairstyle without bangs, my original bangs were also visible, thus, ruining the effect of the makeover.

A few minutes with Photoshop and I removed most of the hair in my image and started over again with more satisfactory results.

You can try out 80 hairstyles (modeled by a variety of celebrities) in 25 colors and you can add highlights and lowlights to each hairstyle. You can adjust the size and position of each hairstyle on your head and you can also flip a hairstyle. I was amazed how big a difference flipping a hairstyle makes.

When you are done, you can save five makeovers online, as well as e-mail them and print them. You can also add the InStyle magazine cover to the image and become a cover girl!

I have tried other online makeovers and InStyle's Hollywood Virtual Hair Makeover is one of the best, if not the best, because it was easy to use, had a good selection of options, and was very quick. So quick that it seemed as if I was using software installed on my computer rather than using an application over the Internet. I highly recommend it.

On a personal note, I tried a lot of hairstyles and none of the long ones looked good on me; shorter hairstyles looked better. Also, lighter colors looked better than darker colors.

The accompanying images are what I consider the best of my makeovers (click on an image to magnify it). I am in love with one of the looks and I see a new wig in my future.

a visit with Daphne and Josephine

Just before I went to bed last night, I decided to see what QVC was selling. (I never purchase a thing from QVC, but I like to see what they are showing and if something interests me, I will look for it somewhere else at a less expensive price.)

On my way to QVC, I passed TCM, which was showing Some Like It Hot. I have not seen this classic femulator film in many years, so I decided to watch it for a few minutes before turning in.

I came in just after the boys had decided to become girls and I watched it to the end of the scene in which Marilyn Monroe joins Jack Lemmon for some girl talk in his upper berth.

Basically, I watched the film to see how well Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis femulated. Here is my critique:

I loved their 1920's flapper era outfits.

I always thought that Jack Lemmon's wig was awful and I still think it was a poor choice.

In some scenes, the boys passed and in other scenes, they looked like guys in dresses.

Tony Curtis made a better-looking woman than Jack Lemmon, although with a better wig, Daphne might have given Josephine a run for her money.

I was very impressed with Tony Curtis' femme voice. It was right on the money. I wish I could speak en femme like he did in that film.

(End of my critique)

Amazingly, I do not have this film in my DVD collection and I must add it as soon as I can.

By the way, one of the better femulations I have ever seen on television was pulled off by Jack Lemmon's son, Chris. He was a regular on a late 1980's situation comedy called Open House, which chronicled the hilarity of a real estate office!

In one episode, Lemmon and the woman who played his wife on the show disguised themselves as showgirls to avoid someone somewhere about something. He looked fabulous in showgirl drag. In fact, he looked so hot that his wife got very excited about his appearance, started making out with him/her, and suggested that he dress as a woman more often!

blonde, brunette, or redhead

Over the years, I have been a blonde, brunette, redhead, and many shades in between. These days en femme, I am usually blonde, but occasionally I still make forays into other corners of the color spectrum.

I think blonde is my best hair color, but sometimes I have doubts about that. After my last makeover at Sephora, the cosmetician said I would look fabulous in a short black hair style. (Who would have thought?)

This week's e-mail from Marie Claire magazine had a short article, "Find Your Best Hair Color," and that got me thinking about my hair color again.

So I searched the net and found these Web pages that will help selecting a hair color: Hair Color 101: Choosing the Correct Hair Color, How To Choose a Hair Color That Suits You, and Choosing Your Skin Tone and Enhancing Your Hair Color.

After you settle on a hair color, then you can pick a hair style. Whereas skin tone is the key to selecting a hair color, the shape of your face is important in selecting a hair style. Choosing a Hair Style does a good job addressing the matter.

So, how do you think I would look in a black Zeta-Jones Chicago wig?

The Joker does drag

I am probably one of the last people on the planet to see The Dark Knight, so mentioning the film's crossdressing scene is probably old news to most people. But being a completist, I feel it is my duty to mention it anyway, so here goes.

I watched The Dark Knight Saturday night. It was very good, but it was so long that during the last hour or so, I was looking forward to its end.

Anyway, the crossdressing scenes occur sort of near the end of the film when The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, disguises himself as a nurse. Nice wig, classic white nurse uniform, but lousy femme makeup, so not very passable.

This all dredges up my memory of an old Batman story that I read in a Batman Annual (maybe an "80-page Giant," maybe not) back in the early 1960s. I do not remember much of the story except that one of the bad guys is a professional femulator. He only appears in two or three panels of the story, but he definitely passed and his ability to do so was etched in my young femulator mind forever.

Top 100 Gender Studies Blogs

Updated Below

Bachelors Degree Online has just published a list of the Top 100 Gender Studies Blogs.

"Whether you’re pursuing a degree from a top-tier college in women’s studies or taking a few online courses to slowly work towards a degree focused on gender, you can find a number of great blogs online that can supplement your learning experience. Here are a few that we’ve put together that deal with a large range of gender related issues. Here you’ll find blogs that range from defining what it means to be feminine or masculine to understanding your rights under law concerning gender and sexual orientation."

Femulate is number 42 on the list and I am honored to be included.

UPDATE: Elaine Armen pointed out to me that Femulate is actually number 11 in the Gender Identity and Sexuality blog sub-list of the Top 100 list. So, now I am even more honored!

"tranny" outs herself on live television

The Golden Globe Awards were on NBC last night and I watched it for the usual reason: to see beautiful women wearing beautiful outfits.

I also watched E!'s "Live From the Red Carpet" show that preceded the actual awards show.

Near the end of the red carpet show, actress Megan Fox passed through the red carpet gauntlet and an E! talking head interviewed her. After the talking head told that she looked lovely, Fox replied, “No, no. I’m a doppelganger for Alan Alda. I’m a tranny. I’m a man.”

outed in the worst way

Updated Below

This morning's local newspaper outed a local man as a "crossdresser." Here is the story as it appeared in the newspaper with the names and locations removed to avoid any further outing.

Around 7:30 Friday night, a man standing in the parking lot of [location] Apartments saw what he thought was a half-naked woman being forced into a white van

But there was no abduction — and no woman. It was [name], [age], of [address], dressed as a woman, trying to remove his transvestite attire in the gated lot of the [location] apartment complex.

The witness, whom police will not name, believed some­thing was wrong, so he moved his vehicle to block the van from leaving the driveway. [name] was so determined to escape that he plowed over a snow bank and onto [location] Road.

Police said [name] didn’t want to stop because he was driving with a suspended license and was embarrassed about being caught dressed as a woman.

The witness entered his vehicle and chased the van, heading north on [location] Road toward [location]. He called 911 and reported an abduction to police.

[location] Officer [name] swerved behind the van — and in front of the complainant, who was following.

[name] turned on his lights as the van made a right onto [location] Road. [name] didn’t stop, leading eight police departments on a high-speed chase from [location] to [location].

[location] police called for help from [location] police as the van sped down [location] Road, [location] Street and onto Interstate [location]

[name] got on and off the highway several times in [location], trying to evade police. Eventually he got back on [location], reaching speeds of 90 mph.

After running over spike strips set up by state police and blowing out a tire, [name] got off at Exit [location]. He continued to [location], where he finally stopped.

[name], wearing a dress, nylons and high heels, got out of the van and kicked off his heels and ran into the woods. With the help of a K9 unit, police found him hiding in a patch of thorns with cuts all over his body.

[name] was transported to [location] Hospital for treatment and released into police custody at 4:30 a.m. Saturday.

Police charged him with interfering with police, engaging police in pursuit and driving with a suspended license. [location] police department is handling the case because the 911 call originated there.

[name] hit at least one car in [location] and may face additional charges. As of Saturday night, he was being held on $15,000 bond.

What a nightmare!

The poor guy made a lot of mistakes, but I know a number of local transwomen who have had to deal with the state and local police while en femme and none of them have been outed in this manner.

UPDATE: This story also was on the news of some of the local TV stations. An online comment to the story at one of the TV station's Web site indicates that the crossdressing was the result of losing a bet. According to the commenter, "i was there when he got dressed my girlfriend and i helped him get ready... bad choice of a bet...if we knew about his license or that this would of happened we never would of made such a bet... too late now"

transgender & personal identity project

I met Miqqi Alicia Gilbert at Fantasia Fair in October. She is one of the movers and shakers of the Fair, as well as in the transgender world.

A professor at York University in Toronto, she kicked off a new project called "Transgender & Personal Identity." All the particulars about the project follow.

I am please to announce the opening of a new project aimed at investigating the relationship between gender change and personal identity. The project is known as, Transgender & Personal Identity, or TPI, and is funded by the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

TPI involves in-depth interviews with a limited number of trans persons belonging to one of two groups. The first includes transsexuals who have undergone gender identity change at some point post-puberty. The second are crossdressers who notice marked personality and phenomenological changes when moving into and out of their non-natal gender identity.

Interviews will be held at various conferences and events. Details, goals, and a preliminary questionnaire can be found at www.yorku.ca/tpi. Please visit the web site and have a look. Anyone who would like to stay informed about the project can subscribe to the project listserve at the web site.

I will be at First Event this month, and IFGE in February. If you are interested in being interviewed please fill out the form at the web site, and we'll try and set up a time. You can use the form if you are not attending an event, and we can make other arrangements.

Miqqi Alicia Gilbert
Principal Investigator
Department of Philosophy
York University
Toronto, ON

transgenders need advocacy at work

Two University of Oregon doctoral students dove into issues of transgender identities — in the workplace and professional counselling — and surfaced with a call for psychologists and vocational counsellors to not only treat but to act as advocates for their clients — and to help end discrimination in the workplace.

Read the rest of the story here.

fame

Love Makes a Family (LMF) is a statewide non-profit advocacy organization working for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in Connecticut. They carry out their mission through community education, grassroots organizing and legislative advocacy and lobbying.

Last week, LMF contacted me to ask if they could use my image in the banner on their Web site.

I gave them my permission.

This evening, I visited their Web site and the new banner is in place with yours truly appearing in the banner just left of center, which is very appropriate.

guys and dolls redefining male gender

Can boys playing with dolls redefine the male gender?

Stephanie Fairyington addresses this question in her article appearing on Huffington Post.