be my valentine!

I posted this vintage Valentine's Day greeting card here last year, but since my blog's readership has more than tripled since that time, at least two-thirds of you never saw it, so I am posting it again for everyone to enjoy. (Click on the image to magnify it and see it in its full glory.)

back to the barn

We are going back to Dress Barn to party.

The spring fashions are in and my support group has their annual banquet next month, so I arranged another Very Indulgent Party (VIP) at the local Dress Barn where the girls can find something to wear to the banquet.

We had a great turn-out in December and the guest list is almost full for our next party on the 22nd.

Instead of a fashion show like we had the last time, the store manager will conduct a mini-seminar on what to wear for your body shape. We will also have a Mary Kay representative doing makeovers and offering makeup advice.

The party is scheduled for after hours so that our shy members will feel less inhibited, i.e., they will not have to shop elbow-to-elbow with genetic girls.

The store has Woman's sizes, as well as Misses sizes, so that all our members are covered. (For what it's worth, Dress Barn sizes run big because their Misses size 16 fit me perfectly, which is not normally the case at many other stores.)

To add frosting to the cake (yes, there will be cake), everyone gets a 15% discount.

It should be a great night out and some of us plan to dine out after the party to extend our evening out en femme.

get back

my morning

My alarm clock sounds off at 5:45 AM.

I slowly get out of bed and remove my pajamas as I walk to the bathroom.

I shave in the shower with a gel shaving cream and a five blade razor to get a close shave. Then I lather up my hair and body with a bar of good old Palmolive, rinse, and step out of the shower to dry off. I touch up my face with the razor to remove some strays I missed, then I apply eye cream around my eyes and a moisturizer on my face and neck.

While I wait for my skin to absorb the moisturizer, I deodorize, then slip into my underwear (waist cincher, girdle, and long line bra).

Next I quickly do my makeup: a dab of concealer under my eyes, foundation, eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, eyeshadow, mascara, blush, lip liner, lipstick, lip gloss, etc. I am done in 15 minutes without any mistakes.

I remember when it took an hour to do my makeup, but practice makes perfect. Now that I wear makeup more often, I am quicker applying it and make few mistakes.

After making up and no wig, I look like a punk rocker!

I shake out my short blond wig and put it on my head. It does not need much work; just some finger combing and it looks great.

I put on a pair of expresso-colored tights, my cute black cap-sleeve babydoll dress decorated with black buttons, which accent its scoop neckline and pockets. It is lightly pleated below the collar and its hem is above the knee. Actually, the hem is well above the knee!

I slip on my black faux suede platform pumps with a 3½” heel. The only jewelry I wear is a watch with a silver bracelet band, a pair of silver hoop clip-on earrings, and my wedding band.

I put on my French-style stick-on nails, spritz myself with Chanel No. 5, and grab my purse.

My wife is still asleep in bed. I give her a light peck on the cheek so I don't smudge my lipstick.

I get in my Subaru Outback and drive to work. The 35-minute commute is uneventful and I park in my usual spot in the company parking lot.

I love the sound of my heels clicking on the pavement; it puts me into a feminine frame of mind.

Our receptionist, Sue, looks up from her work and smiles when she sees me. She buzzes me in so I don't have to fumble through my purse looking for my security card.

"Hi, Sue," I say.

"Hi, Andy. You look pretty today. I love your dress."

"Thank-you."

I walk to my cubicle and the only person I encounter is Brian. He is wearing a navy blue pin-striped suit with a cropped jacket and a knee-length pencil skirt, a cream colored blouse, nude hose, and patent high heel pumps. His makeup is perfect and he is wearing his chin-length brunette hair in a new pageboy style.

"Hi Brian. I love your new do."

"Thank-you, Andy. My hairdresser suggested it and I love it, too! "

Who would have guessed Brain was trans, but I guess people said the same thing about me.

When the state finally passed the trans anti-discrimination bill, it was surprising how many people showed up at work presenting as the opposite gender. So far, seven guys and four gals out of the 75 people employed here at my company are crossdressing regularly, and when I go out during lunch hour, I constantly run into other trans-people, who now present in the gender they identify as.

The trans anti-discrimination law liberated us so that we can live the way we always dreamed we could live. Isn't it wonderful!

Yes, sadly this is still a dream, but some states (including my own) are now considering trans anti-discrimination legislation and maybe soon, our dream will become our reality.

campaign puts the "T" back in "LGBT" in Connecticut

Now that they’ve brought same-sex marriage to Connecticut, advocates took on a new mission: protecting transgender civil rights.

Read all about it here.

Note: Since I am trans in Connecticut, I am very, very interested in this topic, so I hope my blog readers outside Connecticut will abide my geocentric posting.

tall women and chickipedia

During the weekend, I discovered Chickipedia, which bills itself as "world's largest web-based, women-based, wiki-based database of hot chicks on the planet."

Poking around the Web site, I noticed that it lists the heights of the women in its database, so I poked around some more to see if there were any women who were not on my Famous Females of Height list.

I found the following tall women, who I added to my list:

Kate Beckinsale, 5'8"
Dorothy Stratten, 5'9"
Jayne Kennedy, 5'10"
Kate Middleton, 5'10"
Paulina Porizkova, 5'11"

I was surprised I missed Ms. Beckinsale because she is one of my favorite actresses!

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