I will spend Tuesday en femme.
In the morning, I plan to go shopping. First, I have an appointment at my favorite wig store to get a new do. Afterwords, I plan to visit a local consignment shop that specializes in clothing for voluptuous girls.
In the afternoon, I will attend two Human Sexuality classes at Southern Connecticut State University to do outreach.
After outreach, I may get a bite to eat if the weather is cooperative. (Snow and rain showers are in the forecast for Tuesday.)
I asked MaryEllen Fillo at the Hartford Courant if she would send me the original electronic version of my photo that appeared in the print edition of the newspaper on Tuesday. She graciously e-mailed me the photo and here it is.
MaryEllen was the photographer of the photo and here you can read the online version of her article that the photo accompanied.
Out of the blue yesterday, I received an e-mail from Femulate reader Victoria asking if I had seen my photo from One Big Event in the print edition of the Hartford Courant.
I don't subscribe to the Courant, so I missed.
Victoria and my friend Robin kindly scanned the pertinent page of the newspaper (page D6 of the November 20 edition) and e-mailed their scans to me (see above).
Wow! I guess this is a milestone of some sort. And it is definitely so cool to have my en femme photo published in the oldest continuously-published newspaper in the USA!
By the way, the Courant published other photos of the event online.
You already know about Andrej Pejić and Stav Strashko, the pretty male models who model womenswear.
Well, I just learned about a female model, Casey Legler (above left), who models menswear.
And a 72-year-old Chinese grandfather, Liu Xianping (above right), who models womenswear for his granddaughter's boutique.
Yes, Ray Davies was correct: boys will be girls and girls will be boys.
She agreed wholeheartedly.
If you have been following along in my blog, I think you will agree with my conclusion, too.
My life is certainly not boring. I admit that those days when I have to be a boy are not as interesting as those days when I am a girl.
But even when I appear in boy mode, my heart and soul are in girl mode as I think about my latest adventures en femme or plot my next adventure en femme.
Would I wish things were different?
I tell everyone who asks that I would live as a girl 24/7 if I had not made commitments that prevent me from doing so. But I wonder if I did live as a girl 24/7, would my life be as interesting as it is now.
Who knows?
Maybe I will find out someday, maybe not, but in either case, thank God, I'm a transwoman!
China.org.cn presented their picks for the top 10 transsexual entertainers in Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand). Their number one pick, pictured above, was Regine Wu, a 50-year-old (!) television personality from China.
For what it's worth, the short biographies of nine of the top ten mention that the transwoman being described has undergone sex reassignment surgery.
The bio of Kayo Satoh is the only one that does not mention surgery. "According to Satoh, she began injecting herself with hormones from 15 years-old, something she continues, and besides her injections, she hasn't undergone any surgery." (source Kotaku.com)
I started getting ready at 2:30 PM on Saturday in order to show up at the event when it opened at 6 PM.
I wore false eyelashes. I rarely do and as a result, I am not adept at putting them on. The self-adhesive strips of the Revlon eyelashes I used were not adequate and I had to use eyelash glue to batten down my lashes. As a result, it took longer to do my makeup (about an hour compared to the usual 30 to 45 minutes).
I also wore stick-on toe nails (Kiss brand) for the first time. Turns out that they are just as easy to put on as the Kiss stick-on finger nails. It just took a little time to match the various sizes of fake nails to my real nails.
I dressed: undies, nude thigh highs, purple ruffle dress, silver jewelry, and silver strappy sandals.
My hair was up in the air. I grabbed a half dozen wigs from my wig drawer and tried them on individually to see which one looked best with my makeup and outfit. After messing around for about 15 minutes, I decided to go with my short dark auburn wig, which I have owned for about two years, but have only wore out once.
I examined myself in the mirror and thought I looked very nice!
Last step was to put on my stick-on finger nails. As I did, I noticed that the nail on my left thumb did not seem right, but I did not give it a second thought. I put on my fake lynx fur coat and began the 35-minute drive at about 5:15 PM.
Fifteen minutes into the drive, I glanced at my left hand and "Oh No!," the fake nail on my left thumb was missing! I rummaged around the car to find the errant nail, but it was a no-show.
I've lost nails before and survived, but I wanted to look perfect Saturday night, so I considered my options. If I took a 10-minute detour, I could get another set of nails at CVS or Walgreen, so that is what I did.
I was way overdressed for CVS, so when I walked into the store, I received a lot of attention from the other customers. But I did not pay much attention to their attention: I was a woman on a mission and I headed straight for the cosmetics aisle.
I found the nails and discovered that CVS was having a buy-one-and-buy-the-second-at-half-price sale, so I bought two sets of nails for $10 and change. (Every cloud has a silver lining.)
Back in my car, I slowly opened the box of nails because quickly opening the box usually results in nails flying all over the place. I applied a new nail to my left thumb, drove to the nearest entrance ramp to I-84 and headed northeast to Hartford. Despite the detour, I arrived at the Convention Center at 5:55.
I parked my car in the parking ramparage and walked to the entrance of the Convention Center. Inside, a woman was directing folks up the escalator. As I walked by, she asked how my feet were holding up in my “fabulous sandals.”
"So far, so good," I said and I was telling the truth.
Three escalators later, I was on the top level of the Convention Center where the event was happening. About a hundred people were already milling about drinking, schmoozing and looking at the items that were up for auction.
It was CVS all over again. I received a lot of attention, but now I was appropriately attired.
I checked in at the registration table to get a program and find out where I was sitting (lucky table #38). Then I bought a glass of wine and began milling about.
I quickly found some of my friends and schmoozed, took some photos, schmoozed some more, posed for photos (including one for the Hartford newspaper), looked at all the auction items, and looked at the all the beautiful dressed-to-kill women.
On my way up the escalators, a woman on the way down said she loved my fake fur coat. I ran into her again while I was milling about and turns out that she was a singer in the band. We chatted briefly and as we went our separate ways, she said, "See you on the dance floor, beautiful."
After an hour or so, my feet needed a rest, so when they opened the doors to the dining room, I headed to table #38 and sat down.
There were ten people at my table: seven transwomen (most I have known for years), the spouse of one transwoman, and a gay couple who were co-workers of another transwoman.
There were a few other transpeople in the room, but the majority were seated at my table. In all, there were about 500 people in attendance including U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra.
Dinner was excellent and a far cry from the rubber chicken they often serve at such massive events.
The only disappointment was the sound. The acoustics of the room and/or the sound system were poor. Everything sounded muddled. It was a strain trying to understand what each speaker was saying and it negatively affected the music, too.
As a result, the music sounded far away and did not move me to dance. I did dance to a couple of tunes, but I spent the majority of the time chatting with my friends and people watching.
My feet held up amazingly well as long as I did not stand for long periods of time as I did when I first arrived. Sitting for a spell revived my feet each time and I was able to walk around and dance. And even though I had a pair of flats in my car, I drove home wearing my heels.
One Big Event is a fund-raiser for the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective, so I found it odd that they had a sign in the hall indicating where the "Transgender Bathrooms" were located and where the non-transgender "Bathrooms" were located. I don't think any of the transwomen at my table used the "Transgender Bathroom." I know I did not; I made a point of using the "Women's" bathroom when needed.
During the evening, I caught a couple of women checking me out. In each case, when our eyes met, I smiled and they returned the smile. I also caught a few guys checking me out. Go figure!
As I exited the Convention Center, I passed a group of young women, who admired my fake fur coat. One of the women asked if she could feel the "fur" and I said, "Go ahead."
After she felt the fur, she said, "If I owned that coat, I would wear it every f***ing day."
I took that as a compliment and said, "Thank-you."
Then she added, "You look amazing!"
Getting ready to attend tonight's One Big Event, I decided to break in the new color block pumps I decided to wear.
Turns out they were more comfortable than the leopard print pumps I originally intended to wear, but not by much. Considering I will be wearing high heels seven to eight hours tonight, I decided to opt for Plan C, i.e., a more comfortable pair of heels.
I rummaged through my shoes and found a pair of strappy silver sandals that will go perfectly with my silver accessories.
This morning, I took the color block and leopard pumps to the Post Office and they are now on their way back to Shoe Dazzle.
I also stopped at Rite Aid to pick up a set of stick-on toe nails. The sandals expose all my toes, so I have to make them look pretty.
