Readers Welcome

Today's Femulator spot features Femulate reader, Lily Longlegs. I believe it is her first appearance here. I would love to feature other Femulate readers in the Femulator spot, too, especially readers who have not appeared here in the past.

Send me your photo and as long as it is suitable for family consumption, I will post it in the Femulator spot. If you would like to tell us about yourself, I will also include a brief bio with your photo (by "brief," I mean about one paragraph in length). Tell us where you are from, your age, what you do for a living, how long you have been femulating, how far out of the closet has your femulation gone, etcetera, etcetera .

I know that anonymity is important to many readers (been there, done that), so I understand if you don't want to reveal too much and that is OK, too, but consider coming out of the closet just a little. It can do wonders for you.

Wearing Eloquii.

Lily Longlegs

Femulator Wins Film Award

Actor Paolo Ballesteros won the Best Actor award at the 2016 Tokyo International Film Festival for his portrayal of a transgender woman named Trisha in the film Die Beautiful. Paolo, known for his makeup transformations, accepted the award in a gold sequin gown while femulating Hollywood actress Julia Roberts. Wow!

Read all about it here and here and see the award presentation here.

Wearing Ida No.

Paolo Ballesteros femulates Angelina Jolie at the 2016 Tokyo International Film Festival.

My Bio

Her Bio

Last week, Meg commented, "I (and perhaps others) would be interested in hearing your trans-bio as you present it to an average group of young civilians."

I am always happy to acquiesce to your requests, so here is the biography I wrote for my outreach presentations. You may recognize some of the words because they originally appeared in the blog, but you asked for it, so here it is.

⇓

My name is Stana.

I am a 65-year-old male-to-female transgender person. I am married and have one child. I have been crossdressing for over 55 years. 

My earliest memories of gender confusion was with regard to the wallpaper hanging on the walls of my childhood bedroom. The wallpaper had a nursery rhyme theme and depicted Little Boy Blue wearing Mary-Jane-style shoes – just like my sister wore. What's with that?

When I was about 10-years-old, I noticed a weekly ad in a New York City newspaper for a night club that featured female impersonators. The impersonators made glamorous women and I became fascinated that a guy could look so good as a gal. 

I tried to find out more about female impersonation, while I continued to enjoy boy things like playing sports, especially baseball (I could hit the ball a mile, but I threw like a girl).

I was not the "all-American boy." I excelled in school; always got excellent grades and was often the teacher's pet. I was also shy and soft spoken; guys called me "fairy," "faggot," etc. I did not know why. In retrospect, I guess some of my mannerisms were effeminate, but I did not think so. My speech and mannerisms were natural to me.

When I was about 12-years-old, I was home alone and I heard my mother's dresser call out to me, "Try on Mom's nylon stockings."

I did and then I heard my mother's closet call out to me, "Mom's high heel pumps will look nice with the nylons." 

So I tried on her heels, then I looked in the mirror and my legs were as shapely as a female - just like those female impersonators I admired. Soon I was wearing my mother's bra and girdle, her slips, her dresses, her hats, applying her makeup, etc. I got into my sister's stuff, too.

Whenever I was home alone, I practiced the art of female impersonation. I believed I was becoming an accomplished female impersonator, but I was frustrated and had to get out and show somebody. 

Next Halloween (when I was about 18-years-old), I borrowed some things from my mother and sister and dressed as a girl. I was not invited to a party or anything; I just dressed and drove around town surprising some of my friends and relatives.

Then I was back to practicing the art of female impersonation in seclusion except for a few Halloween parties I was invited to in my 20s. By then, I knew I was getting pretty good at dressing because on more than one occasion, I would overhear another party-goer ask "Who is the woman not in costume?" while referring to me. What a compliment!

In my late 20s, I met my future wife. We got married and I did not tell her about my hobby because I believed in the old wives’ tale that marriage would cure me. I had not crossdressed since I began dating her, so I believed the tale.

About a week before the wedding, I threw everything away. 

A month after the wedding was Halloween; we were invited to a party and I went shopping for a new women's wardrobe

Too many Halloweens in drag, my wife figured things out and asked me if I was a transvestite. I confessed. 

Initially my wife was supportive and suggested that I find a support group. I found Connecticut Outreach Society (COS) and started attending their meetings crossdressed. Then I started attending COS roadtrips to public restaurants crossdressed. Then I went to a couple of trans conventions where I could be a woman for a long weekend.

I became better at crossdressing by getting makeovers, reading how-to books, viewing how-to videos, etc. I got so good that I found that I could occasionally pass as a woman in public.

The better I got, the less supportive my wife became. I attribute her waning support to her disease, multiple sclerosis. As my crossdressing became better, her MS became more debilitating. 

Today, I only go out once or twice a month crossdressed in deference to my wife, whereas if I had my way, I would live 24/7 as a woman.

For most of my life, I believed I was a plain vanilla crossdresser, but I came to the realization that I am more than a crossdresser. 

Simply put, I identify as a woman. I am not 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. To most of my acquaintances, I am the most feminine male they know and that's because I am 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 would be happier if I could live as a woman full-time, but I have commitments that make that impossible. Those commitments are my wife and daughter. 

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. 

Wearing Metisu.

Marcin Rogacewicz femulates on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo.

Reaching Out

I wrote about shopping and slogging through the rain in my previous two posts about my day out on Tuesday. Now I will regale you with part three of the story.

The drive to Southern Connecticut State University was uneventful. If anything, traffic was lighter than usual. I parked in the visitors' parking lot that was closest to the classroom where the outreach would take place and switched to flats for the half mile walk.

Once indoors, I switched to my nude high heel pumps and proceeded to the classroom, where I met up with Professor Schildroth and my outreach teammates, Mary Anne, Michelle and Quinton, who I have done outreach with countless times.

Once the class settled in, we kicked off by telling the class our trans biographies in a nutshell. Then we split up the teams with the post-ops going to another classroom with half the students and the no-ops (Mary Anne and me) handling Q&A with the other half of the students. At the half time, the teams switched off so that all the students had a chance to interrogate the post-ops and no-ops alike.

For the first time, there were religious and political questions. In light of the recent election, the political question did not surprise me, which was how secure we felt as transgender people after the election? (My answer: Very insecure.) The religious question was how religious were we? (My answer: Not very.)

Since we are no-ops, one student asked us if we considered becoming post-ops. My answer was that at my ripe old age, I would not consider it, but if I was young again, I would seriously consider it.

I don't recall the other questions probably because they were the same or similar to questions we have answered in past outreach sessions.

At the end of the class, the students thanked us and we moseyed over to the student center for a late lunch. I had a slice of veggie pizza, which was very tasty, but a few hours later, I experienced some of the worst indigestion I've had in quite awhile. Since I had eaten nothing else that day, I assume that the peppers on the pizza did not agree with me.

Other than that blip on the radar, it was a good day out among the civilians and I hope to do it again real soon now.

Wearing Boston Proper.

Coco Martin femulating in the 2015 Filipino television action drama Ang Probinsyano.

Cyber Dress

While I was at Macy's shopping for a hat on Tuesday, I saw a womanikin wearing a dress to die for. I perused a nearby rack and it came in my size, but I was reluctant to disrobe to try it on because I had on a white sweater dress that I had to pull over my head to take off and put on.

When I tried on the sweater dress at Dress Barn a month ago, I got some makeup on the dress. I pointed out the mess I made to the sales associate and somehow she cleaned off the makeup.

Next time I am at Dress Barn, I will have to ask her how she did it, but without that knowledge, I did not want to take a chance and mess my dress before my outreach session. And after I saw the price tag ($109.50), I did not feel too bad.

Online Christmas shopping the next day, I found myself on Macy's website checking out the dress and realized that cyber sales were still in affect at Macy's and I would not have to pay list price.

So I added the dress to my virtual shopping bag, proceeded to check-out and was shocked by the cyber sales price: $43.99 ― 60% off list! And free shipping!

What a deal!

Wearing White House Black Market.

Barry Scott (center right) and Ricky Renee (far right)
femulating in the 1970 British film Goodbye Gemini.

Pain of Rain

In her comments to my Monday post, Pat convinced me to forgo my plans to wear pants and stick to my original plans to wear a dress on my day out on Tuesday. I seriously considered the pants option in light of the weather forecast for rain in Noah's Ark proportions, but I really wanted to wear my new sweater dress and it did not take much arm-twisting to change my mind, which, of course, is a woman's prerogative.

Also, I recalled that I had a mid-calf length trench coat in the back of my closet. Peaches gave me the coat, but I had never worn it because I avoid going out during a deluge. But I was committed to doing outreach, so it saved the day and kept most of me dry while I slogged through the rain across the campus.

My feet were not so lucky. I switched to flats when I did my slogging, but I might have been better off sticking to my pumps, which would have elevated my heels above some of the puddles I could not avoid. Bottom line is that I should have worn boots!

Anyway, I did my face, got dressed and was on the road by 9:30 AM. It was the debut of my new dress, new hairdo and newly-reduced (by 12 pounds) body. I have not weighed this little since I was a sophomore in college, so I was pretty jazzed with the new me!

I made a couple of shopping stops on the way to the site of my outreach, Southern Connecticut State University. First stop was Macy's where I shopped for a hat. I tried on almost every hat that Macy's had in their display and I only liked one, but I did not like it enough to pay $50. I proceeded to Dress Barn, where I found a similarly-styled hat for only $17, which I bought on the spot.

Starting out at 9:30, there was hardly any rain, but as I proceeded to New Haven, the light shower had developed into a heavy rainstorm. When I arrived at the university, I sat in my Subaru for awhile waiting for the rain to let up. But it did not, so girded my loins and prepared to test the rain aversion capabilities of my trench coat and umbrella.

Wearing A.L.C.

A femulating West Point cadet.

Tuesday's Photo Op

I did outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State University yesterday. Above is a photo of the class, Professor Schildroth and me after outreach. As you can see, I wore a dress rather than pants despite the miserable weather (thanks to Pat's comments for motivating me to do so). Also, thanks to Mary Anne for taking the photo. I will have more to say about my day out in upcoming posts. 

Wearing StyleWe.

Femulating at a World War I POW camp in the 1937 French film Le Grande Illusion. 

Back to School

Femulating in the Yale School of Drag Show (left) and at Belleville Township (Illinois) East High School (right).

I am back at school today, so I offer you two batches of school femulations.

৹   Starla’s latest online school yearbook discoveries

৹   Aunty June’s images from the Annual Yale School of Drag Show

Flickr is home for both collections, but they are located in different neighborhoods.

Aunty’s Yale images are in her Guys to Gurls on Stage and Screen Group.

Starla’s school gurl images are on my flickr page. You may view Starla’ new photos in two ways:

Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z) and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)

Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.

The contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Sacred Heart High School would be in the Yearbooks S set.

Wearing Bebe.

Harry S. Franklyn, femulating professionally in 1929.

Dress Like A Woman

Tomorrow, I will be doing outreach at a Human Sexuality class at Southern Connecticut State College. I planned to wear my new Dress Barn acquisition: a white cable knit sweater dress, but the weather forecast says a hard rain’s gonna fall.

Since I will have to slog through the rain for a half mile across the campus from a parking lot to a classroom, I will dress like a woman would for inclement weather: I will wear pants… woman’s pants, of course, but definitely a bifurcated garment.

⇳

Doing outreach is a crapshoot. There are usually four or five of us and we each spend about 5 minutes giving a brief trans bio. And then there is a question and answer session with the students.

About half the time, the students look like deer in the headlights and getting them to ask questions is frustrating. The other half of the time, the students who are ready to hit us with a variety of thoughtful and stimulating questions.

Some of the questions are memorable. I think my favorite was when a female student asked me, “Are you married?”

After I said, “Yes,” her follow-up question was “To a woman?”

Wearing Bloomingdale's.

Hansi Sturm, professional femulator, Berlin circa 1930

Weekend Wonderings

"Oh please it's 2016"

When I read a post like Joanna's yesterday, it gives me hope.

Black Friday

I seldom leave the house on Black Friday... certainly not to go shopping. Why deal with the traffic and the crowds when I can shop 'til I drop online and get comparable deals without all the hassle!

Allergy

After fearing an impending head cold for the long weekend, it turned out it was only an allergy attack. Lucky me!

Weighty Issues

Despite the Thanksgiving feast, I maintained my weight. My goal now is to lose more by year's end. 

There is a downside to losing weight... I have dresses that I have never worn that will be huge on me after I drop two or three dress sizes.

And so it goes.

Wearing ModCloth.

Femulating in the Fifties