crossdressed in the past

Last week, Mutt of Mutt and Jeff fame appeared en femme. This week, it's Jeff's turn.

(Thank you to Meg Winters for e-mailing me about this.)

womanless beauties

Womanless beauty pageants have been around for awhile. They are beauty pageants in which males dress as females and compete to be crowned Miss Whatever. Sometimes females participate, too, dressing as males to escort the pageant contestants to and fro.

Womanless pageants are usually held as fund raisers for schools, civic organizations, charities, etc. They are purely amateur events. Unlike the professional drag queen and female impersonator contests held throughout the world, the participants are just your average man on the street, who dons a wig, makeup, heels, and evening gown in order to vie for a crown.

There is a great range in the level of femulation employed by the contestants in womanless pageants. In my opinion, the average womanless pageant contestant is your proverbial "man in a dress." Cheap wigs, flip flops, hairy legs, arms, and chests, sometimes even beards and/or mustaches are what you will see at such events.

But, once in awhile, some contestants take the femulation more seriously and the results can be breathtaking. (Besides admiring their femulation, it also kicks in my T-Dar and I begin wondering if some of the best femulators are trans.)

Mind you, I have never attended or participated in a womanless beauty pageant (not that I do not want to, but I have never had the opportunity). However, I have viewed lots of stories, photos, and videos of these womanless events on the Internet (Google "womanless" and you will find them) and have enjoyed them virtually.

short takes

male model alert!

Yesterday's Femulate This: model (right) earned my first Male Model Alert! In the future, I will issue such alerts whenever I suspect that the Femulate This: model is a male modeling as a female.

The fashion industry is employing more and more males to model as females and their images are beginning to show up in the places I explore for my Femulate This: models. In fact, I just turned up another suspect last night and I am sure I will find more in the future.

(I know my findings are purely subjective on my part and you should take them with a grain of salt.)

fading fiction sites

I noticed that two of my favorite trans fiction sites are in limbo. fictiomania is no where to be found and Crystal's Story Site has not been updated in awhile.

Anyone have a clue as to what is up with these Web sites?

a rose by any other name

Call me Staci Lana.

It's official; I've changed my name from Staci Hunter to Staci Lana.

It's a femulator's prerogative to change her name and there you have it.

why don't more animals change their sex?

What remains a puzzle, according to Yale scientists, is why the phenomenon is so rare, since their analysis shows the biological "costs" of changing sexes rarely outweigh the advantages.

Read all about it here.

Jude Law plays trans supermodel in new film

Updated Below

Jude Law plays a trans "supermodel called Minx in the edgy film" (titled Rage), "which also stars Dame Judi Dench and Lily Cole as a starlet called Lettuce Leaf. The film, scheduled for release later this year, is a murder-mystery set in the fashion houses of New York."

Read all about it here and here.

(That is the actor in character in the photo above right.)

UPDATE: Just a thought: In this photo, she reminds me of actress Courteney Cox of Friends fame.

Cheryl and Darlene

Caveat Emptor: This posting relates to my transness tangentally, i.e., it recalls that as long as I can remember, I loved females.

I recalled how long while reading an article in Reminisce magazine, in which readers reminisced about the original run of The Mickey Mouse Club.

Readers recalled how Mousketeers Annette and Karen were the fan favorites on the distaff side of the club. Contrarian that I am, my favorites were Cheryl and Darlene.

As I recall, I liked Cheryl because I thought she was the prettiest Mousketeer and I liked Darlene because she appeared to be the tallest female Mousketeer (yes, my affinity for tall women goes back a long way).

The Mickey Mouse Club aired from 1955 to 1959; I was 4 to 8 years old during its run, so my love of females goes back at least that far.

Curious, I wondered what became of Cheryl and Darlene, so I looked them up on the Internet.

Cheryl had parts in a lot of television shows until she married in 1964. (I recall that she was Wally Cleaver's girlfriend on Leave It To Beaver, but I do not recall her other television appearances.) Sadly, she died in January from lung cancer.

Darlene had a less auspicious acting career and did not do much after The Mickey Mouse Club. Sadly, she served time in prison after being convicted of a check-kiting scheme and in 2005 she was indicted for fraud.

And so it goes.

six feet two

11 stories about crossdressing

I found these 11 short stories about crossdressing awhile ago.

I read them, enjoyed them, and forgot about them until I found them again.

I read them again, enjoyed them again, and instead of forgetting about them again, I am passing them along to you to read and enjoy.

So, enjoy!

female employees must wear makeup and heels

According to New York magazine, the Bank of England held "Dress for Success" day last week and sent out a memo to female employees detailing just how they should dress for success.

Read all about it here.

crossdressed in the past

According to Wikipedia, "Mutt and Jeff is an American newspaper comic strip created by Bud Fisher in 1907. It is commonly believed to be the first daily comic strip."

I occasionally read the strip when it appeared in the local newspapers when I was a kid. It was OK, but not one of my favorites and I did not even know who was Mutt and who was Jeff. (Mutt was the tall guy, while Jeff was the short guy.)

Yesterday, Meg Winters sent an e-mail informing me that yesterday's online reprint of the strip featured Mutt en femme. See it for yourself here.

the drag queen is dead, long live the drag queen!

Where have all the drag queens gone? Can RuPaul's new reality show bring them back?

Read all about it here.

Peter Ackroyd

While perusing a news magazine last night, I read a review of a new book: a biography of Edgar Allen Poe. The book, titled Poe: A Life Cut Short, was written by Peter Ackroyd.

I recognized the author's name. One of the first books I ever read about femulation was written by an author of the same name. His name stuck in my head because he shared his last name with one of my favorite Saturday Night Live Not Ready For Prime-Time Players.

I wondered if he and the author of the Poe book were one and the same. So, I looked him up on Wikipedia and indeed, he was the author of Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession published in 1979.

I lost that book in the Great Purge of 1983, however, I liked the book a lot (it had lots of pictures), so I reacquired it a few years ago on eBay.

And so it goes.

Catherine Bell

Long time Femulate reader, Peaches e-mailed me yesterday that beautiful film and television actress Catherine Bell is 5'10" tall and deserves a spot on my Famous Females of Height list.

So be it.

evolution

I wish I was a girl

Last night, I watched My Name Is Earl on NBC. It was a rerun episode from 2008 titled "Joy in a Bubble."

I will not describe the plot because I was not paying much attention to the show. (I was reading with the television on in the background waiting for The Office and 30 Rock to come on.)

The show did get my attention when Earl's sons attended a young boy's birthday party. When it was time to blow out the candles on the birthday cake, the birthday boy wished aloud, "I wish I was a girl!"

It was the birthday boy's only appearance in the episode (he is not a continuing character in the series) and there was no trans theme in this episode. So, my guess it was a throwaway line intended to get a laugh from the audience, but I am sure it was not a joke to any trans-woman watching the show.

I don't believe I ever made a wish to be a girl when blowing out the candles of my birthday cake, but I do recall on more than one occasion going to bed and hoping I'd wake up female.

Illinois doesn't recognize off-shore SRS

According to Broadsheet, "For more than four decades, the state's [Illinois - ed.] Department of Vital Records allowed for sex changes on birth certificates, but five years ago a policy change limited recognition to sex reassignments performed by a surgeon licensed in the United States."

Read all about it here.

cross gender superheroes

Imagine if some of your favorite superheroes were women.

Gunaxin has collected the works of various artists, who depicted male superheroes in female form.

As a femulator and an old comic book fan, I found the images very interesting!

Sienna Miller's Head Photoshopped Onto Different Body

I didn't know that Sienna Miller is trans!

'Nuff said, but if you must, read all about it here.

got T-Dar?

Do you have T-Dar?

I do and if you are reading this blog, you probably have T-Dar, too.

T-Dar, short for trans-radar, is the ability to detect a trans-person when they are presenting in their non-birth gender. For example, you see a tall woman walking through the mall. Suddenly, your T-Dar kicks in and you begin looking for clues that the woman is actually a natal male presenting as a female.

No matter how good you think your T-Dar may be, you seldom have an opportunity to determine whether your T-Dar works correctly or not.

You can confront a suspected trans-person, but that can be disastrous, especially if you are wrong. Recently, I read about a trans-woman who encountered two tall women while shopping. Her T-Dar told her that the two women were trans and she confronted them by introducing herself as trans and saying something to the effect, "You're trans, too, aren't you?"

The two women reacted as if the trans-woman had just gotten off a spaceship from Uranus. They had no idea what she was talking about and when it became apparent to the trans-woman that she had erred, she wished that she was on Uranus.

And even if your T-Dar is correct confronting a suspected trans-person can be a sensitive matter.

Last time I attended First Event, I arrived at the hotel in boy mode and took the elevator to the floor where I could register for the event. The elevator stopped before reaching my destination and a trans-woman got on. I was 101% positive that she was trans and without thinking, I asked her if she was enjoying First Event.

She was taken aback by my query and seemed very uncomfortable. I immediately realized the error of my ways and explained to her that I was trans too, but having just arrived at the hotel, had not changed into girl mode yet. She seemed a little relieved, but I learned a lesson and would think twice before doing that again.

So it is probably best that using your T-Dar be a solitary thing. Keep your T-Dar findings to yourself unless, of course, you write a trans-blog, then you can publicize your T-Dar results. ("Yesterday, I saw a trans-woman in ladies' shoes at Macy's.")

I believe that most trans-people have T-Dar. It almost comes naturally because trans-people look for affirmation that there are other trans-people out there. What better way to affirm that then to actually see another trans-person in person? Seeking that affirmation, trans-people check out potential suspects wherever they go.

Even when my T-Dar determines that the six-foot woman walking through the mall is, in fact, a genetic female, it provides a different kind of affirmation. It affirms that there are genuine tall women out there and as a six-foot-plus trans-woman, it gives me encouragement to go out en femme and join the other tall women out there because I am not alone.

what it feels like for a girl

Driving home this evening, my iPod shuffled up Madonna's What It Feels Like For A Girl .

I have never heard some of the 8,700 songs stored on my iPod including this Madonna number, which I uploaded from my copy of Madonna's Greatest Hits Volume 2.

It was difficult to hear the first verse of the song because the loud instrumental accompanying Madonna drowned out her voice, but I thought I heard something trans-related. So, I restarted the song and listened more closely.

Here is the first verse:

Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl

The rest of the song goes on in a similar vein. Wow!

(This may be old news to those familiar with Madonna's work, but it was news to me.)