dress successes

Mister Mailman delivered my dress order from Avenue.

After I discovered that the two dresses I ordered from Chadwicks last week were too small, I worried that the dresses from Avenue would be too small, too, because (1) I ordered the same sizes from both Chadwicks and Avenue and (2) the same company (Boston Apparel Group) owns Chadwicks and Avenue, as well as Jessica London, Metrostyle, Roaman's, Woman Within (what a perfect name for a transwomen shopping venue!) and more.

I am happy to report that both dresses fit fine and they look very nice.

outreach

Every May and December for the past four years, I have done "outreach" at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven.

What's "outreach?"

According to Wikipedia, outreach "is an effort by individuals in an organization or group to connect its ideas or practices to the efforts of other organizations, groups, specific audiences or the general public. Unlike marketing, outreach does not inherently revolve around a product or strategies to increase market share. Typically non-profits, civic groups, and churches engage in outreach.

"Outreach often takes on an educational component (i.e., the dissemination of ideas), but it is increasingly common for organizations to conceive of their outreach strategy as a two-way street in which outreach is framed as engagement rather than solely dissemination or education."

Personally, I do outreach to educate the civilian population about being trans and next week, I will be doing outreach at two Human Sexuality classes at SCSU along with other trans representatives from Stonewall Speakers.

We begin each class with each of us telling our trans life stories, then the students ask us questions for the remainder of the class.

Typically, there are four to six of us: two or three male-to-females, one or two female-to-males, and often the spouse of one of the male-to-females. As a result, the students hear variety the trans experiences.

Hopefully, the students go away with a better understanding of what it means to be trans and realize that we are not freaks, but are just like other people they may encounter on a daily basis.

new ephemera en femme

Just added another "mailing souvenir" from Finocchio's to my collection of female impersonator ephemera. This addition is one of the oldest, if not the oldest Finocchio's item in my collection. It probably dates from the late 1950s to early 1960s.

This item is different from the other Finocchio's mailing souvenirs and drink menus in my collection. The others only feature a group photo of the impersonators performing at the night club, whereas this one has eight solo photos of the impersonators along with the group photo. Very cool!

Of course, you can click on the image to enlarge it. You won't hurt it, although it is ticklish!

a new dress that fits

The two dresses I ordered from Chadwicks arrived and they are too small.

They are both the "same size," but one was much smaller than the other. Neither is available in a larger size, so they both go back for a refund.

My wife needed a new top, so we went to Fashion Bug. My wife found what she wanted and I found a dress that I wanted, but I was not sure it would fit. I did not want to try it on with my wife in tow (I did not want to embarrass her), so I bought it anyway after I eyed it more thoroughly and determined it would probably fit after all.

I tried it on when we arrived home and it fit perfectly. That's it pictured right.

excellence in femulation

Gordo High School in Gordo, Alabama recently held a womanless beauty pageant in which girls of the male variety vied for the title of "2010 Miss Priss." There are three videos from the event here and I invite you to watch them.

You have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there are some excellent femulations in this bunch. The girl pictured here opens the second video. She is my favorite. Her presentation was perfect and I believe she should have been one of the winners, but the judges overlooked her.

There were some other excellent presentations that the judges overlooked. In my opinion, only one of the winners really deserved a prize: the girl in the long scarlet gown. She looks like she practiced a lot, if you know what I mean.

Enjoy!

the letter

Some of my blog readers asked me to post the contents of my coming-out letter and as I promised, the letter is below.

I worked long and hard composing the letter. I put more effort into it than any letter I have written before. I modified it over and over again; in fact, I changed it every time I sent it to somebody new.

As I have written here before, the letter has been very successful so far; it has received nothing but positive and supportive responses.

So, without further ado, here is the current contents of the letter:

Hi -----,

I am a "transgender" person. Simply put, I identify as a woman.

I am not a woman trapped in a man's body, I am a woman. I think as a woman, I emote as a woman, and when I have the opportunity, I present as a woman.

True, my container is male, but its contents are 100% female. I am very adverse to fooling around with my container. Many things can go wrong and so far, my container has held up pretty well, so why mess with it. As a result, I have no interest in taking hormones or having surgery to modify my container so that it matches its contents. I have no plans to have a “sex change” operation.

I might be happier if I could live as a woman full-time, but that is impossible at this time. So I live part-time as a male and part-time as a female, but no matter how I live, I am a woman all the time.

Over the last few years, I have tried to live more authentically, that is, I try to live more of the time as a woman. I am out as a woman in many segments of the world with the exception of the ----- world. Now, I am attempting to introduce my true self into the ----- world.

With that in mind, I plan to attend the ----- conference as a woman. My plan is to travel to the conference as a woman and spend my whole stay in ----- as a woman including staffing the ----- booth, attending the ----- dinner, attending forums that interest me, etc.

I am not a novice at living as a woman. In fact, I have lived as a woman as long as a week on one occasion and many three, four, and five day stints on other occasions. Last summer, I visited NYC as a woman 24/7 for four days and as they say, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.

And I assure you that I am not an embarrassment. I am successful passing as a woman (see the attached photos).

This e-mail is a heads-up concerning my intentions. I will gladly field all your questions concerning this matter.

Best Wishes,

making progress

Click on the image to enlarge it.

spurning a swap

Click on the image to make it appear larger.

'nuff said

...especially with those shoes!

(A vintage postcard, circa 1940)

not my hobby

"A hobby is an activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure or relaxation, often in one's spare time," according to Wikipedia.

Using that definition, you can call crossdressing "a hobby" because some crossdressers do it for pleasure, others for relaxation, some do it for both reasons, and most do it in their spare time.

Ham radio is my hobby, crossdressing is not.

I do not crossdress. I femulate, that is, I emulate a female.

Emulate means "to strive to equal or excel," according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary.

I do not femulate in my spare time; I femulate all the time. Whether I am dressed in male or female garb, my heart, mind and soul are femulating.

And so it goes

conferencewear

As I have written here on more than one occasion during the past two weeks, I plan to attend a conference en femme next month and made my intentions known to friends and acquaintances, who will also be attending.

Over the last 32 years or so, I have attended this same conference about 20 times all en homme. My earliest attendance was as a civilian and I dressed like most of the other male civilians in attendance, i.e., very casually, typically, jeans, sneakers, and depending on the weather, a T-shirt or sweatshirt.

My more recent forays at this conference was as a forum moderator, forum speaker, and representative of one or two organizations present at the conference. "Business casual" was my usual attire, which was typical for the non-civilian males at the conference.

Non--civilian females at the conference turn it up a notch higher than the males. "Business" or "office" attire is the norm and that is how I plan to dress.

But I have nothing to wear!

Actually, I have nothing I want to wear. After perusing my closet for suitable business attire, I concluded that I need some new clothes for the conference.

My trip to Dress Barn last week was fruitless and my plans to visit Kohl's this weekend were a wash-out.

Saturday, I received a catalog from Chadwicks trying to entice me to buy something, otherwise, they threatened to stop sending catalogs. The enticement was if I bought one item, I could get a second item of equal or lesser value for free!

I also received an e-mail from Avenue offering free shipping if I spent $50 or more.

Both offers enticed me, so I browsed their "Career Dresses" offerings to be further enticed.

Many items interested me, but I narrowed them down to the four dresses in the photo above.

The first and third are from Chadwicks; the second and fourth from Avenue. The fourth does not include the jacket, however, I already own a jacket identical to the one in the photo.

All, except the second, are in the colors I ordered. The color I ordered for the second dress is "poppy/vanilla," not the black/vanilla shown in the photo.

With all the special deals, the four cost me only $110 delivered.

Keep your fingers crossed that everything fits.

Cillian Murphy femulates again

Do you recall actor Cillian Murphy playing the beautiful Kitten in the 2005 film Breakfast on Pluto? Well, Mr. Murphy plays another trans character in a 2010 film called Peacock (photo right).

In this "thriller," Murphy's character has a split personality; sometimes he is John and sometimes he is Emma. In the film's trailer, his femulation of Emma looks as convincing as his femulation of Kitten in Breakfast.

Peacock went straight to DVD. I added the DVD to my Blockbuster rental queue and I will have a fuller review real soon now.

dragkeppni

Aunty Marlena, always on the lookout for something new on the Internet related to femulating, discovered "dragkeppni," Iceland's version of the womanless beauty pageant.

Aunty passed along the following related links:

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4

I did a quick Google search on "dragkeppni" and found others.

tying the knot (again)

Click on the image to enlarge it.

still coming out

I am learning that once you begin coming out, there is no end to it!

Yesterday, the woman to whom I came out to last week suggested two guys I should come out. She was absolutely right and they both received my coming out e-mail this morning.

It went as well as could be expected! Both were supportive and one even said I looked "very attractive" in the photos that accompanied my letter! (The photo on the right is one of the photos that I sent with my e-mail.)

I am really amazed at the success I am having: not one discouraging word so far. Who would have thought?

I hope that I am finished coming out for awhile. Despite my success, it is also very stressful and I am very tired.

back seat driver

Click on the image to enlarge it.

girl talk

Wow!

I went to the kitchen at work to replenish my cup of coffee and found the woman I came out to last month doing the same.

We talked a few minutes about coffee, tea, caffeine, and their negative affects with regards to sleep.

When I thought the conversation was over, I said, "See you later."

She said, "Before you go, I want to pass along some shopping advice."

"What advice?" I replied.

"Don't buy knee-highs at Wal-Mart."

She complained that they were not very sheer, they looked like support hosiery, and they stretched too much. She then hiked her long skirt up a bit to show me their lack of sheerness. She added that she preferred to buy her knee-highs at Target.

I tried to keep up my end of the conversation, but I was a little surprised about having such a girly conversation... not so much that she engaged me in such a girly topic and treated me like another woman --- that was actually very nice, very affirming.

What surprised me was that our girly conversation was taking place in a very public location at work within earshot of a few cubicles.

Anyhow, wow!

no new dress

During the lunch hour, I drove to the big box pet store to buy food for the menagerie, but on the way, I took a short detour to my favorite Dress Barn.

My last visit was in September and that was en femme. Today I was en homme, but as I entered the store, the staff greeted me like I was a "regular" and the store manager came over to talk with me. She knew me by name and mentioned a dress I had been looking for last fall that was on their web site, but not in their store. Back then, I asked her to phone me if it ever came in; she just wanted to let me know that she never phoned because it never came in.

She also told me that starting this fall, you will be able to buy some of their items online via their web site. Right now, their web site only displays items on sale in their stores.

After our conversation, I began browsing the racks looking for something new and spring-like to wear to the conference next month. A lot of items caught my eye, but they were not in my size.

The only thing in my size that interested me was a two-piece outfit consisting of a yellow short-sleeved jacket with puffy sleeves, big black buttons, and a black fabric belt. Its mate was a black A-line skirt with a pattern consisting of outlines of light gray ovals. It was very cute and I took two sizes of the outfit to the dressing room. (I have lost weight and was not sure I needed the larger of the two sizes.)

The smaller skirt fit fine, but the jacket was too small. It was also missing a button.

The larger skirt fit fine, too, but the zipper was broken. The jacket fit, too, but it was missing two buttons!

All I could figure was that King Kong must have tried on the outfits ahead of me!

So, I left without making a purchase.

What's the Key to the Transgender Rights Movement? Straight Liberation.

An excellent article by Grace Chu appeared in today's The Huffington Post. The original title of the article is "What's the Key to the Gay Rights Movement? Straight Liberation," but it is just as applicable to the transgender rights movement, in my humble opinion.

So, read it here.

one run, no hits, one error

Click on the image to enlarge it.