Wednesday Wanderings

Actresses Portraying Transwomen: Counterpoint

My post yesterday suggested that male actors should portray transwomen in films and on television. My friend Diana suggested something different and you can read here post on this topic here.

Second Planet from the Sun

Monday, I wrote about my discovery of clothing from online seller Venus. It's not like I just discovered Venus a week ago; I have been aware of Venus for years, but I thought that in general, their clothing was too sexy and I held off buying their clothing... because I didn't want to look too sexy???

I Love the Smell of Ohio in the Morning

Did I mention that I will be living as a woman 24/7 for 5 days the weekend after Mother's Day? I'm so looking forward to my annual trip to Ohio for Hamvention! I hope to see some ham radio sisters there.

Wearing Etienne Aigner (Source: Etienne Aigner)

Bill Kaulitz

Actresses Portraying Transwomen

I have a pet peeve: actresses portraying transwomen.

Here are two portrayals that come to mind that are so unrealistic: Rebecca Romijn on Ugly Betty and Famke Jannsen on Nip/Tuck.

Both are television portrayals, but the film industry is just as guilty using actresses to portray trans-woman, for example, Raquel Welch in Myra Breckenridge and Felicity Huffman in Transamerica.

Male actors should portray transwoman. Such portrayals would be more realistic if men filled the T-girl roles. Few actresses are the right size to realistically portray a male-to-female transperson. Their voices are not convincing and in boy mode, their mannerisms are not convincing.



When male actors do portray transwoman, the portrayals are very realistic. Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto, Lee Pace in Soldier's Girl and Johnny Depp in Ed Wood are examples of successful portrayals of actors portraying transwomen.

Can you imagine someone like Drew Barrymore portraying Ed Wood? I think not.

Wearing Venus (Source: Venus)

Ed Wood femulating in the 1953 film 📺 Glen or Glenda.

Transwomen are from Venus

Venus "Neck Detail" jumpsuit

I have been shopping for a new outfit to wear when I make my presentation at Hamvention next week. As a presenter, I thought something "business casual" would be appropriate (like the jumpsuit I wore last year).

Not finding anything I liked in the brick and mortar stores around here, I began looking at the usual suspects online. Nothing caught my eye, so I began exploring online stores that I have never purchased from before. Doing so is a little unpredictable because I have no purchase history and don't know if a store's clothing runs small, large or true-to-size. I also don't know anything about the quality of the clothing.

Despite those reservations, I visited Venus and among their large selection of jumpsuits, I found one that screamed "business casual;" I thought it would be perfect for making my presentation. They had my size and I put it in my shopping cart ($49).

I also was on the lookout for a second new outfit to wear during my roadtrip. So I poked around the Venus website and found a romper – an item of clothing that I have considered purchasing in the past, but never did because I thought the styles were too young for me.

The romper I found is unlike most romper styles I have seen in the past. It is called a "tailored romper" and looks so business-like that some women might not think twice about wearing one to work. It certainly would be appropriate to wear on my trip, so I added it to my shopping cart ($29) and checked out.

I placed my order on Sunday and began worrying if the clothing fit? Was it cheaply made? I soon received an email that Venus shipped my order and tracking it indicated it would arrive on Friday.

It arrived on time and I opened the package soon after the mailman dropped it off on the front porch. My first impression was that the quality of the clothing was very good, but my second impression was that the jumpsuit looked too small for me and I was disappointed.

Looks can be deceiving and in the past, clothing that I think looks too small fits fine when I try it on, so I slipped into my shapewear, tried on the jumpsuit and discovered it was a perfect fit as was the romper.

I was so impressed with my purchase from Venus that I plan to revisit their website real soon now.

Venus "Tailored Romper"

Bert Errol, early 20th Century professional femulator (Source: Queer Music Heritage)

Someday Funnies

Wearing Veronica Beard (Source: Intermix)

Andreo Ermel femulates Amanda Lear on Spain's Your Face Sounds Familiar.

15 or 18, Give or Take 3 Million

Working on the blog!

I am well into Year 12 of writing Femulate and this weekend, the Statcounter near the bottom of the left column will increment past 15,000,000 hits!

15 freaking million!

On the other hand, Blogger, which hosts this blog claims that the "Pageviews all time history" for Femulate is over 18 million! '

18 freaking million!

Either way, I am proud of those figures and want to thank you readers for your loyalty. I couldn't have done it without you!

To keep you coming back, I am constantly tweaking the blog, trying to improve the your blog experience. For example, I recently started using the video screen icon 📺 to indicate that there is an internet video associated with whatever I happen to be writing about. Just click the icon 📺 and you will be transported to that video.

Not a big deal, but I think it is "neat" to quote Annie Hall.

Over the years, some of the blog's improvements were the results of suggestions from readers, so if you have an idea to improve the blog, please e-mail me with your suggestion.

And so it goes.

UPDATE: Statcounter hit 15,000,000 on Sunday at 10:24 EDT.

Wearing Unique Vintage (Source: Unique Vintage)

📺 Dan Quagmire en femme in a 2010 episode of Family Guy.

A Moot Point

Almost nobody gives a damn about your life but you and there's a good chance you don't give as much of a damn as you think. If you did, you'd already have done the hard work necessary to change yourself to match your idealized image. Most people aren't capable of that. It's too hard, we're too lazy as a species, and life is just too long and too filled with problems that need immediate solving. And then, at some point, you're not in the picture anymore, and it's all a moot point, for you anyway. — Matt Zoller Seitz & Alan Sepinwall, The Sopranos Sessions

Wearing Michelle Maso top, Ganni skirt and Alexandre Birman sandals (Source: Intermix)

Femulator, circa 1930

Never Gets Old

Staffing our booth at Hamvention 2018

Velma wrote, "Your comments on having two days out en femme in one week brought a recollection from one of our recent support group meetings. Several of us had concluded that they feel satisfied, grounded, calmed and focused after about two days out femulating per week. More time out than that did nothing to increase the changed feelings, but additional femulation almost became burdensome.

Burdensome?

Hardly.

Sure, it feels good to kick off my heels and take off my girdle after a day out as a woman, but I am always ready to do it over again the next day and the day after that.

Why?

Despite my body parts, I am a feminine being and femulating fulfills the need to express that femininity that I had hidden in a closet for most of my life.

And I disagree with the statement that "More time out than that [2 days] did nothing to increase the changed feelings."

Quite the contrary, every additional minute that I am out en femme just confirms my being as feminine. My feminine reaction to every little thing that occurs when I am out just adds to the pile of confirmations that indicate that I am indeed a woman.

Velma also wrote, "I am aware you have mentioned that you would dress full time if possible. Did you always feel this way or did this desire grow and evolve through time? How many days have you gone dressed en femme on a continuous basis?"

Once I discovered that it was possible to live full time as a woman, I had a strong desire to do so. My commitment to my wife is the only thing holding me back, so I try to fulfill that desire as best as I can  by living full time as much as possible in those chunks of time that do not involve my wife.

My longest continuous chunk of time en femme was seven days the four times I attended Fantasia Fair for the full week. But in my opinion, that does not count because it is not a real life experience. Most of the civilians you encounter in Provincetown are aware that the Fair is in progress and assume every tall woman is a femulator.

So I feel that my longest real life experiences en femme were my five days attending a workshop in New York City and my annual five-day trips to Ohio to attend Hamvention. There most of the civilians are unaware of my origins and I can genuinely experience life as a woman.

Wearing Unique Vintage (Source: Unique Vintage)

British soldier P.R. Morgan femulating in the Timbertown Follies during World War I.

Living Lives

Saturday, I spent the day at the UConn Health Center attending the Transgender Lives Conference. (That's me in the photo above at the conclusion of the conference hanging out to catch friends for final goodbyes.)

Fashionista Atención 👉 The weather was unseasonably cold and the rooms at the Health Center run hot and cold, so I wore a long-sleeved shift dress (JB by Julie Brown) and topped it off with a shrug (Avon). Accessories were silver earrings (Napier), scarf, white watch and charm bracelet (Avon), nude high heel pumps (Payless) and a Coach bag. (I received a whole bunch of positive comments about my outfit at the conference.)

I was up at 6 AM to get ready to arrive at the Health Center between 8 and 9 AM. I was out the door at 8:15 and arrived at the conference 20 minutes later.

I checked in, got my presentation packet and walked one flight up where coffee was available. Problem was that the conference opened in the auditorium on the first floor, so I had to walk downstairs in heels with a cup of coffee in one hand (there were no tops for the cups) and my bag and presentation packet in the other hand with no hands left to hold onto the railing on the staircase. I climbed downstairs as gingerly as possible, but I still spilled some coffee on myself along the way!

There were four time slots for workshops. My presentation was in the third slot (at 1 PM) and I attended workshops in other three slots.

"Meet the Publisher and Contributors to Connecticut Voice" was a pitch to contribute articles to Voice, a new slick magazine for the Connecticut LGBT community.

"Title Withheld to Protect the Clueless" — I was clueless going into this workshop and I exited this workshop just as clueless. The folks conducting this workshop seemed to know what they were talking about, but I didn't get it. Afterwords, I asked a friend who also attended this workshop and she exited just as clueless as I was.

"The History of Transgender History" was presented by Dallas Denny, famed author and editor of transgender writings and someone I consider a friend. Dallas talked about how transgender history was basically forgotten in earlier days and how it has grown in importance with various people and organizations archiving everything they can get their hands on today.

Lunch was served at the halfway point. While in the lunch line, I met up with Dana, a Femulate reader who drove up from Philadelphia Saturday morning (216 miles) to attend the conference and in particular, see my presentation. We ate lunch together, where we discussed a variety of transgender topics and previewed my presentation.

My presentation, "Crossdressing Successfully in the Real World," was lightly attended, but the folks in attendance got an earful. We only ended the presentation when the folks attending the next presentation kicked us out of the room!

I met up with other friends, acquaintances and celebrities, most notably, Ariadne Kane, a transgender pioneer who is most famous for being one of the founders of Fantasia Fair*. Ari attended my presentation and we exchanged phone numbers so that we can continue our discussion in the near future.

Attendance seemed down from previous Transgender Lives Conferences I have attended, but those in attendance yesterday were very interested and enthusiastic, which made up for the lower attendance numbers.

It was a very eclectic crowd and all ages were in attendance. In particular, I noticed more people who appeared older than me than I had noticed in the past. Don't know what that means, but there you have it!

It was a great conference and I am already planning my presentation for next year.

* I just noticed that my book, Fantasia Fair Diaries, is referenced in Wikipedia's entry for "Fantasia Fair."

Wearing BCBGMAXAZRIA (Source: Rue La La)

📺 Eugeniusz Bodo femulates Mae West in the 1937 Polish film Piętro Wyżej.

Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

My grocery shopping outfit!

Two days out as a woman in the same week was a rare and wonderful experience. And it will take more than one blog posting to tell you all about it, so bear with me.

Before I get into the details, I want to mention how supportive my wife has become. She does not bat an eye when I tell her I have plans as a woman. Although she still can't get over the time and effort I put into my femulation, she heaps praise on me when I show her how I look for each outing. And so it goes.

Thursday's plans were to have lunch with four trans girls I have known like forever and then do some shopping.

The weather was on the cool side, so I wore the same sweater dress I wore in January when I attended the Prudential Financial dinner.

Lunch was at an old Victorian house that had been converted into a restaurant. I had never dined there, but the other girls have and found that the staff was accepting. The staff treated us respectfully, but I noticed that the other diners noticed us.

You could not help noticing us. All of us are tall and some of us have voices that are decidedly manly.   So any civilian that looked twice could figure us out and many reacted that they did figure us out. Nothing untoward — just a lot of stares and amused looks, but it shook my confidence and I thought about abandoning the rest of my plans and return home.

I reconsidered when I realized that I was so close to the store I had to go to that it would be silly to drive back in boy mode on Friday. So I drove to Shop Rite to buy dog food and a gift card.

Although I was overdressed for grocery shopping, no one paid any attention to me. Perusing the pet aisle, I came out empty-handed because they did not have the brand of dog food I wanted, so I sashayed over to the customer service desk to buy the gift card.

I waited in line while a guy cashed in his winning lottery ticket and then it was my turn. The woman at the customer service desk was friendly and handled my request in an efficient manner without giving any indication that she knew that I was femulating. So I returned to my car with renewed confidence and proceeded to the nearby Stop & Shop to continue my quest for dog food.

No luck at Stop & Shop and no indication that anyone knew I was femulating... I was just an old woman who lived for shoes. Which just goes to show you that passing/blending when out in a group is much more difficult than being out solo.

This Stop & Shop was next door to the roz&Ali (nee Dressbarn) that I frequented when I was employed, so I decided to visit the store, say hello to the sales reps who knew me well and maybe find something that fits.

I walked in, began perusing the racks and the store manager, who I have known like forever, approached me and we got caught up since it was almost a year since I had last seen her. As she asked me if there was anything in particular I was looking for, I saw a dress on display to die for and said, "I love that dress."

She said that she was almost sold out and did not think I had any in my size, but she took that back when I told her I'm a size 14 and sometimes a 12 now. She found a 12 and a 14 and escorted me to the dressing room.

The 12 was a little tight, but the 14 was just right, so I opened my purse and bought the dress that I intend to wear to my high school reunion, if I decide to go as a woman.

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company)

📺 Bert Wheeler femulating in the 1931 film Peach-O-Reno.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Ann Taylor (Source: Ann Taylor)

Paolo Ballestero

Femulating Film Alert!

Friday, April 26, 3:30 PM EDT on TCM: Peach O'Reno also known as Peach-O-Reno, a 1931 pre-code film in which actor Bert Wheeler femulates rather convincingly.