the challenge continues

Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I mentioned how I lost ten pounds since mid-September and I wanted to keep it off, so Thanksgiving would be a challenge for me.

Well, I made it through Thanksgiving and the food- and drink-filled weeks that followed without gaining a pound. I didn't lose anything, but considering all the temptations before me, I think I have been a very good girl maintaining my weight.

The challenge continues through New Year's Day and two weeks from today, I hope to report that the ten pounds I lost are still lost!

another Kodak moment

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tall Bond ladies

A few days ago, I read an article about James Bond films on the Internet and I realized that some of the actresses in the 007 flicks qualify for the Famous Females of Height List. In fact, two tall 007 actresses (Diana Rigg and Famke Janssen) have been on the list for awhile now.

Here are all the tall actresses and the 007 film they appeared in.

5’8” – Carole Bouquet – For Your Eyes Only

5’8” – Claudine Auger – Thunderball

5’8” – Lois Chiles – Moonraker

5’8” – Lois Maxwell – Miss Moneypenny in numerous James Bond films

5’8’ – Shirley Eaton – Goldfinger

5’9” – Diana Rigg (see photo) – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

5’9” – Maud Adams – Octopussy

6’0” – Famke Janssen – Goldeneye

femulation par excellence

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what's good for the gander is good for the gosling

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Christmas shopping success

The two dresses I bought for myself as a Christmas present arrived yesterday and they both fit perfectly!

I can recall the days that dresses from Vickie's were never big enough for me. A little downsizing on my part and a little upsizing by Vicky seems to have made a difference.

last night’s dream

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

Overnight, I dreamed I was packing to attend a transgender convention. My mother was helping me pack and offered to lend me anything I needed.

Throughout the dream, I kept refusing whatever items she offered because I already had those items in my wardrobe.

Finally, she said with a knowing smile, “I bet you don’t have any of these.”

And with that, she revealed a storage area in the back of her closet that was full of girdles from the 1950s and 1960s.

That got my attention and as I began perusing the girdles to decide what to borrow, I awoke from my dream.

The dream interests me because I never confided in my mother about my crossdressing. I am sure that she knew, but she never brought up the subject.

Almost to her dying day, she often asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell her. At those times, I thought she was just trying to make conversation, but in retrospect, I think she was offering to lend a friendly ear.

I so regret not confiding in my mother. I believe my life would have been different if I knew my mother supported her “daughter.”

make mine Chanel, too

In The Huffington Post, Morane Barkai, suggests unleashing the lady in the corporate suit.

She writes, “The problem arises when women dress like men would dress if they were women. When that happens, even a breathtaking babe can turn into an asexual android on a mission to kill. Somehow, as she zips her skirt, the ovaries take leave, and in the process of buttoning her shirt, a figurative Adam's apple bulges in her throat.”

Read the rest of the story here.

By the way, being a fanatical film fan, I could not help noting Ms. Barkai’s erroneous statement that Meg Ryan appeared in the film Working Girl. Methinks Ms. Barkai confused Ms. Ryan for Melanie Griffith.

'tis the season...

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don’t raise your boy to be macho

In The Huffington Post, Philip Slater’s writes in his piece titled The Cowardice of Machismo, “We live in a world today… in which women are outnumbering men not only in colleges, but in all the professions, because they aren't mentally crippled by the overwhelming irrelevancy of traditional male gender training -- a training that robs those imbued with it of the mental flexibility necessary to deal with the complex world we actually inhabit. Making boys macho today is condemning them to irrelevance.”

Read the rest of the story here.

fitting in

Three years ago, my company was bought out by another company. A reorganization followed, which resulted in my boss (a male) reporting directly to a female about 20 years his junior.

It was no big surprise since my old company was "old school" with very few females in charge, whereas the new company was a relatively new company with many females in charge in various departments.

One month ago, we had a lay-off. My boss was let go. A male and a female co-worker in my department were also let go. A reorganization followed and my new boss is now a female about 20 years my junior. Also they hired back the female co-worker who was let go, but none of the males that were let go.

My profession was a male bastion for ages. Now my department is run by a female and most of my co-workers are female.

When my profession was a male stronghold, the females in my profession tried to fit into the “old boy’s club.” They wore little or no makeup, their hair was in a short style, and they wore tops and slacks – never a skirt or dress. Their only feminine accoutrements were a purse and maybe some stud earrings.

As my profession becomes a female stronghold, maybe I should try to fit in.

Christmas shopping

Christmas time is here again.

I expect to receive gifts from my family, but none of those gifts will be intended for Staci Lana.

I was very good this year and I think I deserve a gift or two with a frill or two. So as I have done in the past, I purchased a couple of gifts for myself today.

There is a dress sale at Vicky's; what more could a boy like me ask for?

I purchased two sweater dresses (pictured here in the colors I ordered) and now I await their delivery.

Merry Christmas to me!

turn off gene and change your sex

Simple technique changes sex of a mouse – and reveals the gender war that rages in all of us

One of the great dogmas of biology is that gender is fixed from birth, determined by the inheritance of certain genes on the X and Y sex chromosomes. But this simplistic idea has been exploded by the latest study, which demonstrated that fully-developed adult females can undergo a partial sex change following a genetic modification to a single gene.

Read the rest of the story today's edition of The Independent.

(Thank you, Gwen, for alerting me to this article.)

eschew boxes

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G.I. Joe en femme

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transgender regret

Joanne Herman, transgender advocate, transwoman, and author of Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not, wrote an interesting piece about transgender regret on The Huffington Post.

"Many will have regrets about the consequences of their transition, but few will regret the transition itself. In the unusual case where the consequences were overwhelming enough to prompt a de-transition, the return to the old gender is seldom satisfactory either."

Read the rest of the article here.

a picture is worth a thousand words

At 5' 11", Lily Cole is already on my Famous Females of Height list, but after seeing her photo (right) in today's The Huffington Post standing next to Terry Gilliam at a film premiere, I feel she deserves another mention in Femulate today.

Venezuelan womanless pageant breaks machismo mold

The Huffington Post had this story about the Miss Fat Gay competition in Venezuela.

"There are a lot of macho types who don't like seeing men in women's clothing," added Alberto Maia, 27, Miss Aragua. "It's not easy for us. Machismo is a disease."

Read the rest of the story and view a video here and here.

“the femulated” and my heroes/heroines

Don’t know if you noticed, but I recently changed the title of the femulated images (in the left frame of this blog) from “He Femulated” to “The Femulated.” That change was in response to a reader who pointed out that some of the femulated people I featured there might not cotton to the pronoun “he.” Thus, I made the change to a more gender neutral title.

Actually, “The Femulated” was the original title of the femulated images, but when I changed the title of the upper image from “Femulate This” to “Femulate Her,” I changed the title of the lower image to “He Femulated” in order to complement the upper title.

Also, if I have a good online reference for the femulated individual, I will include a link to that reference in the individual’s name in the image caption. For example, if you click on the name of today’s “The Femulated” femulator, Grayson Perry, it brings up Wikipedia’s entry for the artist.

my heroes/heroines

Grayson Perry/Claire is one of my heroes/heroines, as is Paul Whitehead/Trisha Van Cleef, who I featured over the weekend in “The Femulated” spot. They are people who femulate and make no bones about it. Although they use femme names when they femulate and have dual identities, they do not have secret identities that they hide behind like I do.

Some days, I seriously consider chucking my secret identity and revealing my dual identity. Then, I come to my senses and reconsider taking that step.

The thing is that lately, the days I consider chucking my secret identity are far outnumbering the days I come to my senses.

I am the kind of person that thinks about doing something, then wakes up one day and just does it letting the pieces fall where they may. Some of those pieces turn out to be insignificant and become non-issues, while those fallen pieces that turn out to be more significant work themselves out eventually.

So, maybe 2010 will be the year that I feature myself in “The Femulated” spot with the caption “<my male name>/Staci Lana Hunter, writer.”

his old hobby was drag racing

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