Fly Me – I’m Tootsie

Man loses job. Frustrated trying to find another job, he disguises himself as a woman and lands a job. In this case, the job lost and found is that of an airline pilot. (I would have preferred airline steward-to-stewardess, but that's just my fantasy!) This is the plot of a 2012 Swedish film titled Cockpit, which flew under my radar until I came across the trailer for the film on YouTube. Actor Jonas Karlsson’s femulation is presentable, at least in the trailer and handful of still images I’ve seen.

 

 

 

Wearing Ann Taylor.

 

 

 

Actor Jonas Karlsson in the 2012 Swedish film, Cockpit.

Birdman and Femulating Her

Birdman

Saturday evening, I watched the film Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which won the Academy Award for best picture of 2014. The film has nothing to do with transgenders. There is not one reference to trans-anything in the film, but I highly recommend it to you all.

Birdman is about life. I found it very moving and thought-provoking. It is the best film I’ve seen in a very long time and I plan to watch it again as soon as possible.

Femulate Her

In case you missed it, last week Sally asked in a comment, “Stana, I have a question about your ‘Femulate Her’ section. How many of the girls in this section have actually been boys femulating? Any of them?”

My reply was “As far as I know, none of the girls in the Femulate Her section were femulating boys.”

I added, “The purpose of the Femulate Her section is to provide examples of cisgender women that boys can try to emulate/femulate.”

I am repeating this exchange here because not everybody reads the Comments especially since they may appear days or weeks after the original post. Also because if Sally asked, then there may be other readers who wondered the same thing.

I am adding now Femulate Her is intended to serve as an inspiration for emulators like you and me. We will probably never come close to matching the images posted in the Femulate Her section, but we can try.

Wearing Anthropologie.

Mickey Prescott.

Sarah Louise's Favorite Photos (of Sarah Louise!)

Hi Stana

Have been a T-girl all my life and in addition to the normal problems of coming out, etc., I am a very big girl and am 71 years young so these pics are a huge achievement for me.

Love your website which I visit every day.

With every best wish,

Sarah Louise in Sussex England

My open invitation to post your favorite photo along with the story behind it and the reason it is your favorite photo still stands, so don't be shy, send me your fave foto. ― Stana

Wearing 4 Collective.

Actor Jeremy Stockwell in the 1970 film Dinah East.

Charlotte’s Favorite Photo (of Charlotte!)

Here is my all-time best/favorite picture of my Femulate side as Charlotte.

I was born in 1944 so this picture from 1970 was a much younger version of myself. I made the hot pants. This was a few years before I met my wife of 40 years, who was introduced to Charlotte on our third date. She has been a true soul mate and fully supported my female side, but Charlotte has always been secondary in out life. We both admit to being bi-sexual.

I have to wonder how different my life would have been if Charlotte found a strong, mature, dominant male master, when she looked like that. I know I felt I could have become Charlotte full-time and become the submissive slave to such a master. Oh how different that life would have been! No complaints at all, however, to how this life has worked out.

 

 

 

Wearing ABS by Allen Schwartz.

 

 

 

Actor Matt Palazzolo in the 2010 film You Should See My Son.

Friday Means It’s Femulating Time!

How appropriate that Murphy's Law struck on St. Patrick's Day!

That's the day I noticed my allergies were worse than usual. Those "allergies" evolved into the worst head cold I've had in some time and as the week progressed, I felt worse and worse.

Thursday morning, I concluded that I would be in no condition to make my presentation at the True Color Conference today, so I contacted the folks running the Conference to let them know that I would be a no-show.

The same thing happened five years ago. The day before the Conference, I was downed with stomach virus and had to cancel.

C'est la vie

Aunty Marlena informed me about another film from France that deals with our kind.

Une Nouvelle Amie (The New Girlfriend) is according to Rotten Tomatoes, about a young woman named Claire, "whose closest friend since childhood, Lea, passes away leaving behind a husband, David and a newborn baby. One day she drops by David's house unexpectedly, and finds him dressed in his dead wife's clothes and feeding their baby with a bottle. He explains that Lea was well aware of his predilection, and eventually, so relieved that he has someone to share his secret with, David and Claire create a female persona for him named Virginia. As David begins to identify more strongly as Virginia, this leads to confusing and conflicting feelings in Claire, and causes a rift between Claire and her husband."

The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes were mixed. Nevertheless, I captured an image from the film and it appears in the Femulator slot below.

While I was nursing my cold, a blog comment about womanless events called to mind a memory that I had long forgotten.

In my pre-teen years, my father went Christmas shopping on "Men's Night," which was a night set aside by the stores downtown for the guys to go shopping for their gals. In order to make the guys feel more comfortable shopping for gal stuff, the stores were all staffed by guys. Any saleswomen who normally staffed those stores stayed home that night and guys (I assume the store managers)  took the saleswomen's place.

I remember my mother mentioning to me that in at least one of the stores, the salesmen dressed as women on Men's Night.

I was fascinated and asked my mother for details. She didn't have many because my father had relayed that information to her and he left out the details, only that the guys wore dresses and makeup.

So there's another womanless event to add to the growing list of womanless events!

 

 

 

Wearing Dareen Hakim.

 

 

 

Actor Romain Duris in the 2014 French film Une Nouvells Amie (The New Girlfriend).

A fish out of water

By Paula Gaikowski

Reading Stana recollections about the growing up transgender and being part of the Young Marines brought back some memories of my own childhood.

Oh yes, abusive coaches and youth leaders. As baby boomers growing up, we all experienced some pretty bizarre and offensive behavior from our teachers, coaches and youth leaders. Standards and expected norms were to say the least, different back then.

I was tall and in gym class, I was expected to be a good basketball player. Not being very comfortable in the competitive male environment, I didn’t excel.

One amongst many humiliating experiences was when the coach put me in front of the gym class and had me do a lay-up. I failed terribly and he then screamed out, “Look at the fish!” For the rest of middle school, he called me “fish. Another coach liked to call me “banana.”

Looking back, I just can’t comprehend the thought process in an adult teacher’s mind to pick one of the weakest and vulnerable children in your care and then torment and humiliate them? Even with times being different, I still say that’s one sick bastard! Even a few years later, when I went through military boot camp, the taunts and heckling were less vicious and done to encourage effort.

“Gee whiz, I wonder why I never liked sports?”

At the same time, I was struggling with gender identity issues. I started crossdressing at 8-years-old and by middle school, I was dressing secretly several days a week. In retrospect, I am startled by the harshness of the situation. Here I was a young, impressionable person trying to come of age and instead of support, I was being harassed.

I remember just feeling bad about myself. I thought, because I was such a bad athlete and didn’t fit in that I deserved to be called that name. I never thought to tell my parents or other school officials because I didn’t want my Dad to be disappointed in me and I thought the school officials had the same opinion of me. I was after all a “banana.” I was a banana who was also secretly a sissy and a fag. Talk about developing low self-esteem. I felt like a girl and was trying to fit in, and trying to fit in with the boys, but received nothing but mistreatment when I tried.

So would start the cycle of shame, guilt and anxiety that would propel the different stages of my life. Doing always what was expected of me at that point of my life and inside, feeling compromised.

In 2009, I was emerging from the darkness of yet another purge. But as any transgender person knows, purging doesn’t work. My need for feminine expression had returned with a vengeance. I had tried to solve the problem by myself for 50 years. I tried reading all the books and websites, wrote countless e-mails to peers and posted on all the forums.

Finding an objective and informed person to discuss, share and solve your issues with was a key ingredient in my journey. In my case this was a therapist. I’ve grown a lot over the last few years. I no longer see being transgender as a problem to be solved. I am not doing anything wrong. I’ve cast off society’s condemnation of being transgender and realize that I am a good person, and that part of my personality and character involves being transgender. Attributes I see missing in many men, such as nurturing, kindness, compassion and cooperation are parts of my personality that I believe come from my feminine side.

It dawned on me one day and I wrote this statement a manifesto of self-acceptance: I am 50-years-old. I am hard-working and have a successful career. I am financially successful. I am a dedicated spouse and parent. I give back to my community and I am active in my church. I strive to be caring, kind and thoughtful. I don’t drink or abuse drugs. I am honest and trustworthy. This is a part of my personality that has caused me shame and anxiety for years. There are medical and biological reasons for this. It doesn’t make me an awful person, it means I’m different. I won’t feel bad about myself anymore.

Oh yeah, one more thing.

“Coach, my self-worth is not determined by how well I play basketball nor is it determined by you.”

 

 

 

Wearing Le Redoute.

 

 

 

Fred Armisen in television’s Portlandia (2014).

Young Marines

"The Young Marines is a youth program in the United States and Japan open to children from the ages of 8 years old through the completion of high school, or their eighteenth birthday." (Source: Wikipedia)

The organization was founded in 1959 in my hometown. In fact, the founding organization had its meetings in my grammar school, a block from my home.

My Dad was in the Marine Corps during World War II and as a result, he knew some of the local Marines who were founders of the Young Marines. I don't recall if he approached his Marine buddies about me joining the Young Marines or if his Marine buddies recruited me.

In either case, I was a Young Marine for a year or two and it was a very bad fit. I never graduated through the ranks, was denied some of the group's privileges and suffered psychological abuse from some of the adults running the organization.

I never mentioned these issues to my parents because I assumed that I was at fault ― that I was a bad Young Marine and deserved the treatment I received. I eventually stopped going to meetings and my parents never reacted to my being AWOL.

In retrospect, I believe that I assumed correctly, that is, I was at fault ― not because I was a bad Young Marine, but because I was a feminine Young Marine. The adults running the organization probably thought I was gay, so they did their best to make me feel so uncomfortable that I would quit. And they succeeded.

The Girl Scouts would have probably been a better fit for me, but back then, they didn’t want me either.

 

 

 

Wearing Tibi top, Piamita trousers, Dannijo earrings,
Jennifer Behr headband and Giuseppe Zanotti pumps.

 

 

 

Paolo Ballesteros, femulating and masculating.

Weather or Not

This winter has been unusually cold and snowy in my neck of the woods. The radio weather man mentioned that the average temperature for March so far is 4 degrees below normal. Meanwhile, my yard is still completely covered with snow ranging from 1 to 5 feet in depth.

The National Weather Service forecast for Friday, the first day of spring is "A chance of rain and snow. Partly sunny, with a high near 42. Chance of precipitation is 30%."

I am so accustomed to the lousy weather this winter that I am resigned to Friday's forecast. I would just sigh and shrug my shoulders except that on Friday I will be attending the True Colors Conference on the UCONN campus.

Despite my all-wheel-drive Subaru, I don't like driving in the snow and avoid it if at all possible. The 47-mile drive to Storrs is about an hour long. Most of it is via Interstate 84 except for the last 7 miles, which is up and down hill and dale on a two-lane state road. I am not looking forward to that drive if the snowy side of the forecast pans out.

Last year, "The forecast was for a pleasant day… sunny and temperatures around 50 degrees. I figured my new trench coat would be adequate, however, when we arrived at UCONN, it was more like Yukon. The wind was blowing hard and I can’t recall ever feeling so cold walking the quarter-mile from the parking lot to the Student Union. My guess is that the wind chill was well below freezing."

This year, I am taking no chances and will wear either my short fake fur jacket or long fake fur coat.

And maybe the forecast will be wrong as it was last year, but in a positive way. I hope so.

 

 

 

Wearing Brahmin.

 

 

 

Terri Fox, professional femulator.

Joanna's Favorite Photo (of Joanna!)

Dear Stana,

I do enjoy reading your blog and have been working up the courage to share a photo as it has been so affirming seeing others do the same! 

The photo I have attached was taken aaages ago in 2006, during the summer. A friend of mine had made a 'bet' publicly that she could get me to dress up in a dress. This was from a conversation with her where I came out as a crossdresser. This friend, married, was wonderfully supportive and even made the offer that I could borrow her dresses at any point in the future. We shall call my friend "Catherine."

She was the one who took the photo and said that I looked better than she ever had in the dress. When I introduced my future wife to Catherine, Catherine showed her this photo and took my future wife aside to explain how lucky she was that I liked to crossdress. It was also when she sent the photo to me. Unfortunately my wife did not respond positively and denies to this day that she was ever shown the photograph, having blocked the above conversation from her memory.

So it is that this photo stands as testament to a time when there was much more hope about my crossdressing, than something that I did not exactly embrace and had been struggling with since being a teenager and at least since University. 

It also represents the opportunity that could have been seized to live differently. But, for all of that, it is not a melancholy photo, it is a happy one. And it's perhaps the only photograph of my face that I can actually stand to look at ― in male or female garb. As for the experience at the time, it was wonderful and all too short-lived, as these things often are.

In sharing it I hope that I can offer even a small fraction of the inspiration and power that others have shown in sharing theirs. Thank you for the opportunity to share and keeping it going long enough for me to actually muster the courage to join in!

God bless,

Joanna

Wearing BB Dakota.

Hansi Sturm, German professional emulator, circa 1930

Pining for Real World Pins

At least once a day, I check Pinterest to see what's new on the boards I am following. Most of the boards that I follow are transgender-related; the others are fashion-related.

Some of the images on the transgender boards are too good to be true, that is, they purport to represent femulators, but the femulations are so perfect that it makes me wonder. Tiny waists and/or huge cleavage usually alerts my not-trans radar.

My favorite transgender boards are those that show femulators out and about in the real world amongst civilians. Diane Demoiselle's Real World Gurls board is my favorite in this category. Although most of the images on Diane's board show femulators posing at home or in a hotel room, there are images peppered throughout her board like the one accompanying this post showing transwomen really out of the shadow of the closet and being female in our society.

If you are Pinteresting, are you aware of any other boards that concentrate on femulators who are out and about?

And while we’re at it, what are your favorite transgender-related boards?

Please share and share alike.

 

 

 

Wearing Light in the Box.

 

 

 

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips in 2003 film Hollywood Homocide (see her in motion here).
(Thank you, Cheryl)