Trigger?

Anonymous wrote the following comment to a recent post. I thought the comment deserved a post of its own, so here it is.

I’m curious how many of us girls got our start in femininity after getting recruited to dress up as a girl in a show or skit? 

I’ve always believed that my interest was sparked after playing a girl’s role in a little show that my parents were involved in at the community theater in my hometown. I was seven and they were putting on Showboat. For reasons I never understood, they needed one more girl to be in the background of several scenes.

It was presented to me as a “big adventure” by mom. I didn’t want to be a girl, but I didn’t know how to say no. I remember being shown how to put on my 1850’s styled little girl’s dresses, petticoats and I think almost everyone who saw the show had no idea that I was not a little girl. Still it felt embarrassing and once the show was finished, I didn’t like seeing photos of myself as a girl or talking about it.

As a young teen, I began to think about that experience more and more. I wondered what it would feel like to try on a dress with pantyhose.

One day when I was home alone, I saw one of mom’s dresses on a hanger in the laundry room and I couldn’t resist trying it on. Who’d know? I was young enough so that mom’s dress fit me fairly well. I walked around the house and decided that I needed to find pantyhose. Then I wanted to put on a slip under my dress.

Dressing up as a girl became a regular activity when I was home alone. I felt guilty for doing it and felt that something was wrong with me, but I didn’t want to know what it was nor did I want to stop wearing dresses and skirts.

Who knows if I’d have ever started crossdressing had I not played a little girl in a show. I’m sure there are opinions both ways. I love the feeling of wearing dresses, the swish of a chiffon hem against pantyhose, but I love being a man and having a wife and family. So I don’t share that aspect of myself with them.

However, from the couple of surviving photos of me from the play, I didn’t look too unhappy being all dolled up.

Wearing Hemant & Nandita

KISS femulating to celebrate Paul Stanley’s 1977 birthday.

Someday Funnies: Fashion Mincing Forward

Wearing Samantha Sung

Richard O’Brien

Someday Funnies: Not a Misster

Wearing A.L.C.

Femulating on stage in Casa Valentina

Friends in Dresses

Writing this blog for over 16 years, I have gotten to know a lot of femulators – most by email, but a good number in person. Some I consider friends, others acquaintances, but all of them are sisters.

One of my friends revealed that she went to work en femme on St. Patrick’s Day. It was the first time for her and she did it to support our community, which is being attacked on all fronts.  She wrote, “...me being visible here as an out trans person is I think something I need to do.” Even though it was a “complete non issue for everyone” she worked with, it still took a lot of guts to do so and I was so proud of her for doing it.

My friend is not alone. I am aware of others who work and/or live full-time as women. And I am sure that there are a lot more who I am not aware of. 

I like to think that if I was still employed, I would be in skirts and heels in my office by now. Since I am retired, I can’t go to work en femme, but I still dress pretty whenever I can. And now that I am back on my feet, I let the local LGBTQ outreach coordinator know that I am available to do outreach again.

And so it goes.

Wearing Ted Baxter

Richard Simmons

Someday Funnies

Wearing New York & Company

Ralph Kinkel femulating on German television’s The Drag and Us. 

Got Hips

By Paula Gaikowski

Adding hip pads to my outfits was one of biggest steps in my journey and really improved my look and gave me confidence. It took awhile for me to get there and I had to experiment to find just the right combination of hip versus bum padding.  

What hip pads do for girls like us is to minimize our broad shoulders and produce an hourglass figure. It’s interesting to note that a search on Amazon for hip pads brings up dozens of garments that are used by cisgender women. I thought the market was exclusively for transgender women, however, this seems to be common issue that cisgender women deal with especially when wearing that special dress.

Back in the dark ages of the 90’s, I started to notice the curves on some femulators I saw in magazines, so I started to evaluate different DIY methods. Remember back then there wasn’t any Amazon or Glamour Boutiques, so I was on my own. I started by using the foam packing material that we used at work to ship circuit boards. I had moderate success, but they appeared bulky and a bit too high or a bit too low.

I finally found Classic Curves when the Internet came along and saved up, sent a money order and had the Veronica 2 shipped to my office. A big improvement, I liked the change and silhouette they produced. It was with these hip pads that I gained the confidence to go out in public. All went well until the great purge of 2004 and I had to start building my wardrobe over again. 

Today there is a huge selection of garments and pads out there. At the high end there are silicone pads that can be attached to your body with Holister medical adhesive. These pads run in the hundred$ and look great, but are heavy. 

Next there are padded shapers. These come with soft foam pads that go down the hip and curve around the bum for added shape.  

Finally there are just the foam pads themselves, I have several pair of these and like them because they are light, easy to slip into different foundations and look just right. Some of the padded shapers produce huge hips so I use the foam pads.

I put my foam pads under a pair of control top pantyhose or under my Rago high-waist girdle. There is just enough control to shape and keep things in place. 

I hope this helps in your journey. Happy Femulating.

Wearing Gracia

Billy Crystal femulating on television’s The Comedians (2015)>

Someday Funnies: A Momma’s “Boy”

Wearing Missoni

Gene Hackman femulating in the 1996 film The Birdcage.

Items of Interest

Still Tall After All These Years Dept.

5'11" Kate Grigorieva

If you have been following this blog for awhile, you might recall my Famous Females of Height page, which I created to illustrate that girls like us are not the only tall women out there (so don’t let your height prevent you from going out).

Reader Sissyslave sent me a link to a Herald Weekly article, “The Tallest Women in Show Business,” which is an illustrated list of tall female celebrities. The list included a lot of women who I was unaware of being tall. And I learned that six-foot tall actress Famke Janssen has incredibly large feet and has to get special custom-made shoes for her size 11’s. (We can sympathize.)

Not So Tall After All These Years Dept.

All my adult life, I was 6 feet 2 inches tall, or so I thought. During my recent health issues, a nurse measured my height and informed me that I was a more petite 5 feet 11.

“People typically lose almost one-half inch every 10 years after age 40,” explains Andrea Singer, chief medical officer of the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Since I am 72 years old, that would account for over 1.5 inches of the 3 inches of height that I lost.

The other 1.5 inches could be due to osteoporosis, but except for the height loss, I don’t have any other osteoporosis symptoms. Inaccurate measurements may be the cause. My mother marked my height on a door frame every birthday. I measured the marks on the frame and I topped out at 6 feet 2 at age 16. So go figure.

I will mention the height loss to my doctor, but the good news is that at 5 feet 11, I am a less imposing woman than the Amazonian I was at 6 feet 2.

Quote of the Week Dept.

“Guys, these are the most comfortable bras you will ever wear.” – Kim Kardashian for Skims

Dick Knows Best Dept.

Wearing Boston Proper

Brendan W. Jordan

Someday Funnies

Wearing BCBGMAXAZRIA

Christer Lindarw, yet another Swedish professional femulator

Someday Funnies: Any Port in a Store

Wearing New York & Company

1982 Closet Ball Queen competitors