good luck raising that gender-neutral child

In this interesting Salon article, Lise Eliot explains how slight biological differences in boys and girls can turn into a yawning divide in adults.

a dream come true

Yesterday, I wrote about my dream from the previous night.

As you may recall, I wrote that during my dream, "I noticed a large orange-colored stain in the lap area of my dress, but I was perplexed as to the source of the stain."

Today, I laundered five dresses. When I pulled the dresses out of the washing machine, two were ruined with large orange stains.

I assume that there was still some bleach in the washing machine from the previous load of clothing and that the bleach did the damage.

What a nightmare!

last night's dream

I seldom remember my dreams and when I do remember a dream, it is usually trans-related.

Overnight, I dreamed I was out en femme. I cannot recall where I went or what I did. However, I do recall wearing a black sheath dress.

At the end of my outing en femme, I noticed a large orange-colored stain in the lap area of my dress, but I was perplexed as to the source of the stain. I wondered if maybe I went out with the dress already stained.

And so it goes.

traveling exhibit focuses on transgender people

From today's edition of the San Luis Obispo Tribune:

"Arthur Robinson Williams wants his fellow medical students to know more about the unique challenges of patients who are lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual."

"So he has produced a traveling documentary exhibit, "My Right Self: Transgender Considerations." It's composed of 25 photos and personal stories. Each photo is accompanied by the subject's words. Each person and their partner tells their intimate story about their decision to change gender and how it affected their lives and relationships."

Read the rest of the story here and visit the My Right Self Web site here.

dressing Jude Law in drag

The headline reads:

"Jude Law in Drag! 'Rage' Costume Designer Talks About the Actor's Custom-Made Wedding Gown"

Read all about it here.

5'10" x 2

Lately, one of the cable movie channels has been playing the 1971 film Cold Turkey incessantly. The female lead in the film is Pippa Scott (above left) and in a few scenes of the film, I noticed that she was right up there height-wise with the male lead Dick Van Dyke. Upon further investigation, I discovered that Ms. Scott is 5'10" and deserves a spot on the Famous Females of Height List.

Just as I was dotting the I's and crossing the T's on the previous paragraph, a missive from Peaches came in over the DSL informing me that television actress Roma Maffia (above right) of Nip/Tuck and Boston Legal fame was also 5'10" and deserves a spot on "the List."

"new" adventures in femulation

I added two stories to my collection of adventures in femulation:

fantasia fair, a diary describing my experience attending that transworld-renowned week-long event for the first time in October 2008. (That's me in the photo all ready for a Fantasia Fair evening outing.)

womanhattan, a diary recounting my five-day stay en femme in New York City in June 2009.

dining and shopping

I am still tweaking the blog's Web pages.

In addition to fixing things I missed, I updated two of "My Adventures in Femulation," dining out en femme and shopping en femme.

Things have changed for the better since I originally wrote those pieces. I now go everywhere and anywhere to dine and shop en femme without thinking twice. The updates reflect this change for the better.

a half million

Overnight, the hit counter of this blog passed the half million mark!

I enjoy writing this blog and I am honored that so many of you come back to read what I write.

Thank you for your continued support!

a formal in my future

I will be attending a formal, black tie affair this fall.

One Big Event is a "benefit celebration" for the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective. The event will be held on November 14 at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Hartford.

Some of my trans friends are attending and asked me to join them. This is a big local event and besides the GLBT crowd, there usually are local politicians and celebrities in attendance.

Like I said, it is a formal affair and I have "nothing" to wear. That is not true; I just have to decide what to wear from the "Staci Collection." I have a couple of vintage items I have never worn out and I am seriously considering wearing them. Then again, something new and to-die-for may come along and catch my attention

I have a lot of time to make up my mind!

the color purple

For the last three weeks, I have been trying to chase down a cable sweater dress that I saw on the Dress Barn web site. None of the Dress Barns around here have the dress in stock yet.

With a 20% off coupon expiring today, I decided to visit Dress Barn again hoping that the cable sweater dress had arrived. No luck, but they had a purple cable sweater dress in stock. It has short sleeves, a turtleneck collar, falls just above my knees, and now is hanging in my closet.

Funny that just yesterday, I mentioned to my friend Patty that I was sick and tired of all the purples I've seen in the fall collections, then the next thing you know, I am adding another purple item to my wardrobe!

under construction

GeoCities, which hosts all of this blog's external pages, is going away next month. As a result, I am in the process of moving all my external pages to Google Sites. So, if an external page does not come up when you click on its link or if you discover a problem on an external page, please let me know so I can fix it.

GeoCities was the place where many trans people (like me) built their first personal Web sites and I feel sad about its upcoming demise.

In addition to moving all of my blog's external Web pages to Google Sites, I made some other changes.

I changed the caption of the FEMULATE THIS: image to FEMULATE HER:

I changed the caption of the THE FEMULATED: image to HE FEMULATED:

I deleted the link to my photos and images and I deleted my flickr account.

I deleted my flickr account because I was sick and tired of flickr users who wanted to be my "contact," who had no images to share or worse, had images to share that displayed private parts. When I logged onto flickr today, I had four contact requests and all four had their private parts on display. Yuck!!! I had it and pulled the plug on flickr.

To replace the flickr account deletion, I plan to add a gallery of my photos and images to my blog's external pages real soon now.

feminizing menswear for real

This is Fashion Week in New York City.

Again, the catwalks are rife with menswear that borrows heavily on clothing from milady's closet.

Some designers are determined to feminize male fashions, so we see high-heeled male models wearing makeup and carrying their manbags down the runway with lace, ruffles, and bows accenting their pantalettes, kilts, and caftan outfits.

As a femulator and fashionista who loves female clothing and accoutrements, I feel that the designers responsible for feminizing menswear are not going far enough.

Stop pussyfooting around! If you want males wearing feminized clothing, go all the way.

Instead of separating menswear and womenswear, have both male and female models walking down the runways wearing next season's womenswear. Then you'd have something of interest to both fashion-conscious males and femulators.

As a femulator, I would not be caught dead in the current version of feminized menswear, but if they were showing womenswear for males, then I'd open my pocketbook to spend some money.

girl talk

I do not have a lot of male friends, partly because I do not participate in many male pursuits and partly because I do not interact well with many males. Both reasons have a lot to do with my preference for the female side of life.

I do not participate in many female pursuits either, but I do interact well with females.

Over the years, I have had more female friends than male friends. I always felt very comfortable conversing and confiding with my female friends and acquaintances, but seldom felt that comfortable with other males.

But being a male, my female friends and acquaintances usually seemed guarded to some degree when dealing with me because I was male.

Reflecting on my June NYC adventure en femme and on attending a wedding for the first time en femme on Saturday, I realized that the females I encountered while I was en femme acted differently with me than the females I encountered when in boy mode. In a nutshell, they dropped their guard and interacted with me as if I was one of the girls.*

I so enjoyed participating in "girl talk" in NYC and at the wedding. I discovered that I can be a little chatterbox and that the women I conversed with seemed to enjoy chatting with me.

Girl talk brings a whole new area of enjoyment into femulating for me. It is something that I never expected, but now I relish the opportunity to talk with the girls again.

* Yes, I know in my heart that I really am "one of the girls," but it always surprises me when other people think I am one of the girls, too.

images of New England Trans Pride

On Friday, I wrote about the upcoming New England Trans United Pride March and Rally on October 3 in Northampton, MA.

Again, I urge every trans person who lives in the upper right corner of the USA to attend the event if they can.

If you never attended such an event in the past, I list some links below where you can view photos and videos from the first New England Trans Pride event of June 2008. If you are on the fence about attending, I hope that viewing these images will push you over the edge.

• Diana's photos and videos
• Donna Rose's photos
• GLAD's photos
• Glen Koetzner's photos
• Lynn's photos
  

"she"

Now that I am well-rested and able to reflect with a clearer head about attending my first wedding en femme, I recalled something that I did not mention in yesterday's blog posting.

During the evening, I participated in a number of conversations with two or more people and during those conversations, it was such a pleasure to hear someone refer to me as "she."

I know it is such a little thing, a simple three-lettered word, but whenever I hear that word when it refers to me, it makes me so very happy.

Although "She" can mean different things, they are all good things.

"She" can mean that people have respect for the way I have chosen to present myself, that is, as a female, or

"She" can mean that people have accepted my female presentation, or

"She" can mean that people believe that I am female.

a lovely time

I attended the garden wedding of two of my friends at their home on Saturday evening. It was a beautiful and unique affair and it will always stand out from all the other weddings I have attended throughout my life.

It was a small affair in that the guest list was composed of of only 50 or so family and friends, but it was really a big affair because it was a very family-and-friend-oriented and vibrant event. Vibrant because it was a wedding where the kids were invited and included (most weddings I have attended in the past has excluded kids. Who said "youth is wasted on the young?")

I was very honored that my friends invited me to attend. They did not give me permission to attend en femme and I did not have to ask for their permission to attend en femme. They know me as Staci and expected Staci to attend. Friends like these must be cherished and I will always hold a special place in my heart for them.

Like my friends, their family and friends accepted me into their circle, treated me like an old friend of the family, and I could not have felt more comfortable. Except for the wedded couple and two other friends who were guests, I did not know a soul going in and in such circumstances, I become shy, but the other guests made me feel as comfortable as possible and I had a wonderful time socializing, dining, drinking, and dancing the night away!

I wore a new dress and a new hairdo to the wedding. I received some compliments on how I looked, which just added to the wonder of the evening.

Being a garden affair, I quickly had to learn how to walk in spike heels without sinking into the lawn. The trick is to walk on your toes and not put much weight on your heels.

I had a lovely time attending my friend's wedding en femme and I will remember it all my life.

get back hair

This morning, I shaved those body parts that should hairless when I am dressed en femme. This was my annual full-body depilation that I perform every September in anticipation of my first time out en femme. (I am going to my first wedding en femme this evening.)

This year, the task was quicker than in the past because it was the first time I used my Mangroomer back hair shaver to remove my back, chest, shoulder, and upper arm hair. The main attraction of the Mangroomer is that it has a extendable and adjustable handle that allows you to reach all areas of your back. I am 5'14" tall and had no problem shaving the far reaches of my back.

The Mangroomer costs $39.99 and is well-worth the price.

three weeks 'til Trans Pride

In three weeks, Saturday, October 3, the New England Trans United Pride March will kick off at noon from Lampron Park in Northampton, MA. The march will proceed down Main Street to the Armory Street lot where an afternoon-long rally will begin at 1 PM. The rally will include a variety of political speakers, transgender activists, and performers.

For more information, visit the New England Trans United Web site.

This will be New England's second trans pride march and rally. The first occurred in June 2008, also in Northampton.

I attended that first event and it was an exciting day for me and the other participants as we ran the trans flag up the flagpole to see who would salute it. The October 3 event promises to be just as exciting and I hope I can attend.

If you have never attended a pride march and rally, but are considering attending this Trans Pride event, have no fear. Northampton is a very diverse community (think of it as a landlocked Provincetown). Nobody will hassle you because you are trans and you will not be alone because there will be hundreds of your trans brothers and sisters in attendance.

Northampton is strategically located smack dab in the the center of Southern New England right off I-91, so it is only a two- or three-hour drive for most of the trans population of the six New England States.

If you can get there, I hope you will make an effort to get there. You will go away with a sense of pride and will help advance the civil rights of the trans folk throughout the USA.

the girly ways of The Fab Four

I am a huge Beatles fan and this has been a huge week for us fans with the release of their remastered CDs and their new video game. I don't play video games, so I have no interest in the new game, but I will likely purchase all the remastered CDs sooner or later.

In the midst of this new surge of Beatlemania, I recalled my first impressions of the group back in the winter of 1963-1964 before their first US television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. My first encounter with The Beatles back then was not with their music, but with their appearance in a photo in a local newspaper.

My first impression was that The Beatles wore their hair like girls!!!

At that time, I was just beginning my first experiments in femulation. I knew I liked femulating, but I was very confused as to why I liked it, why I was doing it, and if I would go to hell for doing it.

The Beatles added to my confusion. Was their long hair the wave of the future? Would all boys start wearing their hair like girls? When I discovered that The Beatles also wore high-heeled boots, I wondered if skirts and dresses would soon be in the offing, too.

Part of me hoped and prayed that boys would dress like girls real soon now, but part of me was scared silly about the prospect of actually dressing like a girl in public. It might ruin my image as an all-American boy, although, I was not what anyone would consider an "all-American boy."

Nevertheless, I was so concerned that showing any interest in The Beatles would ruin my image (whatever that may have been) that I pretended to dislike The Beatles, their music, and their girly ways.

Eventually, I overcame my fears, embraced their music, and journeyed far beyond the "girly ways" of The Fab Four.

P.S. Being a huge Beatles fan, I almost took "Loretta Martin" as my name when I was selecting a femme nome de plume.