Conversion Therapy: Snake Oil

Have you had past experiences with efforts by a medical or mental health professional to try to change your sexual orientation or gender identity? You might have heard these practices alternatively referred to as conversion therapy, reparative therapy or gender identity/sexual orientation change efforts.

Connecticut Trans Advocacy Coalition is a member of ctEquality which is a coalition of likeminded organizations fighting for equality and justice for LGBTQ people in Connecticut and our goal for the coming legislative session is to pass legislation banning conversion therapy for children under the age of 18. We're looking to hear from you.

You can help us collect stories from anyone who has undergone this kind of treatment, been referred to a provider for this treatment, or been told as a parent to take their child for this kind of treatment. We are especially interested in hearing from people who have had these kinds of experiences before turning age 18 or any parents who have had related experiences.

If you're willing, you can share an overview of your story. Someone from ctEquality will follow-up with you to connect and learn more about your experience. Also please share this with your friends on social media.

Please visit this website to share your story.

Wearing Madeleine.

Akihiro Miwa

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Male Beauty Bloggers

Read all about InStyle's Top 5 Male Beauty Bloggers to Follow in 2017. 

Manny Mua

Wearing Veronica Beard.

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Transition of the Calendar

Wearing Eloquii.

Stan becomes a woman on television's American Dad (2015).

Still in the Cards

As a young child, I had many dreams that in retrospect, indicated to me that I had at least one previous life and that I was a woman in that life. 

Being a more scientific person and not so much a spiritual person, believing that I had past lives was  a leap of faith. But it all added up considering my gender issues in my current life as a “man.”

As I wrote yesterday, I never had an opportunity to take my relative up on her kind offers to read tarot cards for me gratis. Actually, I avoided the opportunities because I thought that a reading would reveal things that might be embarrassing, specifically transgender things even though my relative was well aware of my trans issues.

My reading on Tuesday affirmed my guess about what the reading would reveal, that I was a woman in my past lives and as a result, transgender in my present life!

My wife and sister were sitting beside me during the reading and they just shook their heads in agreement with what the cards revealed.

You may or may not believe in past lives, tarot cards, etc., but I have seen how accurate my relative’s readings of other people have been and now I have seen it first hand as it relates to me. I definitely think there is something to it.

And I just want to clarify something regarding yesterday’s post. The description of what the Male-Female card signified was not the reader's interpretation the card manipulated to fit what she already knew about me. Rather, as quoted in yesterday’s post, it was the printed word right out of the book that accompanied the tarot cards!

Freakin’ spooky!

Wearing 3.1 Phillip Lim blouse.

Professional femulator Vickie Lynn in the 1954 film Varietease.
(See Vickie perform here.)

In the Cards

One of my relatives reads tarot cards. She is very proficient and makes a very good living at it.

I have never had an opportunity to take her up on her kind offers to read my cards gratis… until yesterday. I have never had my cards read by anyone, so it was all new to me.

My relative was using a past lives deck of tarot cards, so her reading would be related to my past lives. She knows that I have trans issues, yet she was shocked that the first card I drew out of the tarot deck was the Male-Female card.

According to the book that accompanies the deck of cards she was using, the Male-Female card “signifies that you’ve lived most of your lives as a different gender, than the one you embody in this life. For example, you may now be living as a female, while in most of your previous lifetimes, you were a male.

“In such cases, gender confusion and even health issues are often related to this change of gender over lifetimes. Because for most of your lifetimes you lived as the other sex, you may not feel comfortable in your own skin. If this is your first lifetime as a woman, you may develop gynecological issues or even experience infertility. If this is your first lifetime as a man, you may not relate to traditional masculine roles.

“This card asks you to have compassion for yourself, and trust that our soul is doing the best it can. Remember that your soul is the result of all of your past experiences.”

Wow!

Wearing Intermix.

Walton Coggins femulates in television's Son of Anarchy.

Got T-Dar?

Do you have T-Dar?

I do and if you are reading this blog, you probably have T-Dar, too.

T-Dar, short for trans-radar, is the ability to detect a trans-person when they are presenting in their non-birth gender. For example, you see a tall woman walking through the mall. Suddenly, your T-Dar kicks in and you begin looking for clues that the woman is actually a natal male presenting as a female.

No matter how good you think your T-Dar may be, you seldom have an opportunity to determine whether your T-Dar works correctly or not.

You can confront a suspected trans-person, but that can be disastrous, especially if you are wrong. Recently, I read about a trans-woman who encountered two tall women while shopping. Her T-Dar told her that the two women were trans and she confronted them by introducing herself as trans and saying something to the effect, "You're trans, too, aren't you?"

The two women reacted as if the trans-woman had just gotten off a spaceship from Uranus. They had no idea what she was talking about and when it became apparent to the trans-woman that she had erred, she wished that she was on Uranus.

And even if your T-Dar is correct confronting a suspected trans-person can be a sensitive matter.

Last time I attended First Event, I arrived at the hotel in boy mode and took the elevator to the floor where I could register for the event. The elevator stopped before reaching my destination and a trans-woman got on. I was 101% positive that she was trans and without thinking, I asked her if she was enjoying First Event.

She was taken aback by my query and seemed very uncomfortable. I immediately realized the error of my ways and explained to her that I was trans too, but having just arrived at the hotel, had not changed into girl mode yet. She seemed a little relieved, but I learned a lesson and would think twice before doing that again.

So it is probably best that using your T-Dar be a solitary thing. Keep your T-Dar findings to yourself unless, of course, you write a trans-blog, then you can publicize your T-Dar results. ("Yesterday, I saw a trans-woman in ladies' shoes at Macy's.")

I believe that most trans-people have T-Dar. It almost comes naturally because trans-people look for affirmation that there are other trans-people out there. What better way to affirm that then to actually see another trans-person in person? Seeking that affirmation, trans-people check out potential suspects wherever they go.

Even when my T-Dar determines that the six-foot woman walking through the mall is, in fact, a genetic female, it provides a different kind of affirmation. It affirms that there are genuine tall women out there and as a six-foot-plus trans-woman, it gives me encouragement to go out en femme and join the other tall women out there because I am not alone.

(This is a re-gifted post!)

Wearing Fashion-to-Figure.

Jean-Paul Bongo Alexandre Remy femulating in the
1986 French Canadian film The Decline of the American Empire.

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Men

I have absolutely no fear about going out anywhere en femme. That was pretty much fait accompli in 2008, when I was able to overcome the one big fear I still had when I went out: encounters with males.

I had no trouble mixing it up with females, but I avoided males whenever possible. In general, I think females (except those who may be "family") are more accepting of transwoman than males.

When I encounter females when I am out en femme, some may not figure me out and as a result, they just treat me like another female. Those who do figure me out seem to respect my desire to be a member of their club and they also treat me like another female. I can count on one hand the negative encounters I have had with females when I am en femme.

Males are something else altogether. I worried how males would react if they figured me out when I was out en femme. I did not want to find out the hard way, so that is why I avoided males. On the other hand, it is impossible to avoid all encounters with males and I can truly say that I cannot recall any negative encounters with the males I could not avoid, but I still continued to avoid them whenever I could.

Visiting New York City for four days en femme in June 2009, I realized that it would be difficult to avoid the millions of males that populate Manhattan. I overcame the problem the very first evening I was in the Big Apple.

I had checked into my hotel and had changed into female mode for a night out with some local trans friends. While I was waiting to go out, I was adjusting the thermostat in my hotel room and managed to knock out the air conditioning. It was warm and I did not want to be without AC, so I called the front desk, and they said they would send up a repairmen.

In the past, I would have gotten back into boy mode as quickly as I could so I would not have to face the repairman en femme, but that evening, I decided that the repairman would not be the last male I would encounter during my NYC visit, so I remained en femme.

The repairman arrived, reset the AC, and was out the door in less than two minutes. He was pleasant and interacted with me as if nothing was amiss (other than the AC).

That interaction with the repairman set the tone for the rest of my stay in NYC as well as the rest of my stay on the planet Earth. I no longer fear encounters with males and I stopped avoiding them.

During my stay in NYC, I had no negative encounters with males. In fact, I had some positive encounters. Two males addressed me as "hon" (as in short for "honey"). And another male blew me a kiss while I was shopping in Sephora.

Those positive encounters convinced me that I was successfully passing as a female some of the time (and if you can make it as a female in New York City, you can make it as a female anywhere). My confidence was at an all-time high and has remained at that level ever since.

(Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! This post is a rerun!)

Wearing Marc Fisher.

Artur Chamski femulates on Polish television's Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo in 2014.

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Christmas in Women's Underwear, Part Seven

Christmas in Women’s Underwear, Part Six

Christmas decor in the lobby of City Place in Hartford.

As I wrote in the previous two posts, I went out with my girlfriends Wednesday night to celebrate the holidays. Our celebration included dinner and a show in Hartford.

I drove to Diana’s house to carpool to Hartford. Since my Subaru’s clutch is not functioning properly after only 140,000 miles, Diana drove to Hartford.

Our reservation for dinner at Max Downtown was 5:30 PM. We arrived five minutes later and found Arlene, Maryann and Robin already seated.

The food was excellent as was the conversations with my friends. The restaurant staff treated us as we deserved to be treated, pleasantly acknowledging our womanhood and referring to us as “ladies” throughout the evening.

Although Max Downtown is one of Hartford’s “classiest” restaurants, I noticed that its female clientele preferred to wear trousered outfits. The only skirts I saw were those worn by the women seated at my table. That fashion trend continued when we went to the show after dinner. The temperature was hovering around 32℉/0℃, so that probably had a lot to do with the lack of skirts, but the lack of holiday glam was a little disappointing nonetheless.

As we retrieved our outerwear at the entrance to the restaurant, a group of middle-aged guys entered the restaurant. While I struggled with the zipper of my coat, one of the guys began conversing with me. I smiled and acknowledged what he was saying, but I did not file it away in my memory because we were anxious to get out of Dodge and move on to TheaterWorks before the show started.

We were going to see the same show we saw last year, Christmas on the Rocks... Christmas Eve in a rundown local bar where the bartender finds himself mixing drinks for a parade of surprising guests - children from your favorite Christmas specials and movies - now all grown up! Tiny Tim, Susan Walker, Charlie Brown, Ralphie Parker and a ballerina from The Nutcracker Suite pour out their Christmas woes in this delightful parody.

The theater is small and the seats were narrow. Last year, I was very uncomfortable the whole time and it took away from my enjoyment of the show, but this year, I was more comfortable and thoroughly enjoyed the show. Shedding 14 pounds made a difference.

After the show, we exchanged hugs and season's greeting outside the theater and went our separate ways. At home, I turned back into a pumpkin at 10:30 PM with memories of an excellent girls' night out.

Wearing Eloquii.

Detroit area gurls femulate the Jingle Bells Rock scene from the film Mean Girls.

Christmas in Women's Underwear, Part Five

Dinner with Stana

As I wrote briefly in yesterday’s post, I went out with my girlfriends Wednesday evening to celebrate the holidays with dinner and a show in Hartford.

I started getting ready at 2 PM in order to leave at 4 PM. All was going well until I applied my eyeliner.

For years, I had been using a black eyeshadow applied with an eyeliner brush to line my eyes, but I recently switched to a gel eyeliner (Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil). One eye finished, I attempted to sharpen the pencil to a point before doing the other eye.

Sharpening a gel eyeliner pencil is easy when the gel is cold, but after being in my hot hands for a few minutes, the gel was now warm. Instead of coming to a point, the tip of the pencil turned to mush when I tried to sharpen it. Running the pencil under cold water to try and cool things off did not work. I now had wet mush!

As an Avon lady, all my makeup is backed up with a big collection of Avon produce. So I dug into my tackle box and found a black Glimmersticks eyeliner pencil and did the other eye trying to approximate the gel eyeliner application on the other eye. Close up in the makeup mirror, it was not a perfect match, but standing back about six feet, I could not see a difference and was good to go.

On paper, that does not sound like a big deal time-wise, but that ate about 15 minutes off the clock and I began to worry about getting out later than planned.

With makeup done and wig in place, I got dressed.

I lost another ten minutes putting on my watch. It is impossible to explain in a thousand words or less, so I will just state that the clasp of the watch did not clasp properly (it was jammed instead of clasped) and it took ten minutes to unjam it and then clasp it properly.

Now I was really worried about hitting the pavement on time.

And I almost left the house without my wallet, but remembered it when I noticed the void in my pocketbook.

I was on my way at 4:15 PM… a little late, but not a lotta late!

Stana’s Makeup Tip of the Day!

Put your wig on as soon as possible during your makeup application in order to get a better idea of what the results will look like on a woman with a hairdo, rather than a guy with a haircut. But be careful when you apply mascara. More than once, I have applied mascara to stray hairs of my wig.

Charles Demetri

World War I prisoners of war femulating in the 1937 French film La Grande Illusion.

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Christmas in Women's Underwear, Part Four

I went out Wednesday evening for a Christmas girls' night out and I was wearing women's underwear among other things.

Wearing Bebe.

Paolo Ballesteros femulating in the 2016 Filipino film Die Beautiful.

a