Someday Funnies: Nobody’s Perfect

Wearing Free People

Stanley Baxter femulating on British television Christmas show in 1986.

Crossdressing Sans Skirts

When I started crossdressing in the early 1960’s, women wore skirts and dresses much more often than they wore pants and trousers. As a result, I always wore skirts and dresses when I crossdressed. Pants and trousers were never a wardrobe option. After all, they didn’t call it crossdressing for nothing! If I wanted to wear pants and trousers, I could remain in boy mode and not get pretty.

Times change. As the 20th Century wound down, women wore pants and trousers as often as they wore skirts and dresses. And approaching the quarter century mark of the 21st Century, many women have abandoned skirts and dresses altogether and wear pants and trousers exclusively.

As fashion mores changed, I stuck to my guns and refused to wear pants and trousers and only wore skirts and dresses in girl mode. But I finally relented circa 2010 and began adding bifurcated bottoms to my wardrobe including shorts, jeans, slacks, suits, etc.  

I still like to wear skirted womenswear, but do not shun pants and trousers as I did in younger days. And I’d love to rock an outfit at work like the one featured in today’s Femulate Her slot below. Wouldn’t you?

 

Wearing Ann Taylor

Donald Dillaway femulating in the 1934 film The Circus Clown.

Someday Funnies: Family Resemblance

Wearing New York & Co.

Clay Adkins femulating in a 2002 episode of television’s The Guardian.

Someday Funnies: Ulterior Motive

 

Wearing Taller Marmo

Modern American Males

Items of Interest

Let’s Make a Deal Dept.

While recuperating from my surgery, I started watching Let’s Make A Deal. If you have never seen the program, audience members who participate in making a deal (winning prizes) dress in all sorts of costumes. After months of Deal costumes, I gave up waiting for a male audience member to show up en femme. Well, it finally happened – a guy showed up dressed as a drag queen. I don't know if he was the first drag queen to appear on the show, but it was a first for me. (RuPaul appeared on the show in the past, but not as a contestant.)

By the way, the host of the show, Wayne Brady, had a stint playing Lola, the lead drag queen in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots (photo right).

Update: Femulating John Ritter Dept.

February 22, 2022, the Femulator slot had John Ritter femulating in an episode of television’s Three’s Company. I mentioned in the caption that Ritter also femulated in an episode of his cop show, Hooperman, but I had only seen that episode when it was originally broadcast in 1988 and never saw it again on the tube, the Internet or anywhere else.

Well, I’m happy to announce that that episode of Hooperman is now on YouTube. (Thank-you, Anonymous for the heads-up.)

A Few Words From Tami Dept.

America is very much a live and let live country. If you doubt that consider how quickly the country accepted same sex marriage. There is reason for it and reasons why our population and peoples in other countries have difficulty with and push back on other changes having to do with trans.

The reason for acceptance is that same sex marriage was finally seen as not adversely affecting traditional marriages. Some may still take issue with it, but most polls show the large majority support live and let live.

Reasons for resistance to change are important, valid and need understanding. Societal changes that will affect and influence those who want to be left alone, are seen as force. And force is no way to win hearts and minds.

Anyone in the trans community should see themselves as an ambassador. That means carful and thoughtful conversation and actions with everyone, no exceptions. It is so much more enjoyable to have a pleasant conversation and answer questions sincerely. Conversely, it is repulsive to me to learn of trans people demanding unquestioned acceptance after their bad behavior or rude manner.

It also breaks my heart to know that some people may be reluctant to even acknowledge us for fear of being called out or called a name. Instead, it is a joy to be approached with those that are genuinely curious, kind, supportive and unafraid to interact. It is like having a wonderful conversation with a total stranger and both go away with a good feeling. We get more bees with honey than vinegar.

Wearing London Times

John Ritter femulating in a 1988 episode of television’s Hooperman.

Someday Funnies: Modern Menswear

Wearing Zac Posen

Christian De Sica femulating in the Italian film Amici Come Prima (Friends Like Before).

I Go

Following up on Paula’s post about where to go out en femme and my post about encountering men when out, here is a post about traveling hither and yon in a motor vehicle en femme. 

I have driven my Subaru thousands of miles cross-country cross-dressed and my experiences as a woman driver were revealing to me.

🚘 Warning: If you are concerned about outing yourself, driving your vehicle might give you away. 

I live on a dead end off another dead end and having owned the same car for a long time, my neighbors know what I drive and on occasion, while exiting the neighborhood en femme, I have crossed paths with neighbors working in their yard or driving their vehicles in the opposite direction. I don’t know if they realized who was driving my car – no one ever mentioned seeing me en femme in my car. And even if they did, I am so out, it would not bother me, but if you are not so out, exiting your neighborhood en femme is something to consider.

Beyond your neighborhood, you might think that you are safe, but I always remember driving on I-90 in Boston, 125 miles from home, when a car passed me by blowing its horn and seeing my cousin waving as he passed by. (I was en homme at the time.) 

To add to the potential of being recognized, I have my ham radio call sign on my license plate. So if you have vanity license plates, that may be a giveaway as to who’s that girl driving your car. 

🚘 If I wear shorts or a short skirt or dress when I drive, tractor trailer drivers will occasionally honk in appreciation of the view. Even though I am an old lady, I have had this experience more than once.

🚘 No surprise here, but male drivers will take advantage of woman drivers. Men drive more aggressively when they cross paths with me. They assume that I will back off and give them the right of way, which I usually do, not because I am meek and mild, but because I am crossdressed. I do not want to get into an accident, then have to deal with civilians and police as an outed crossdresser, which showing my driver’s license will clearly reveal.

🚘 Following up on the previous point, I drive legal as a woman driver. I closely follow all the rules of the road because I don’t want to deal with police as a crossdresser. In my neck of the woods, dealing with the police is not an issue because they have been trained to deal respectfully with our kind. Beyond my neck of the woods, who knows? In any case, who wants to deal with the police respectfully or not?

🚘 Car trouble as a woman driver is a piece of cake. You won’t break a nail or get a smudge of car grease on your skirt fixing the problem. Being an AAA member is one solution, but instead of waiting for AAA to show up, just look helpless and soon a gentleman will stop by and do the dirty work. 

Once while shopping at a strip mall, I returned to my car with my purchases and my car would not start, so I opened the hood to see if that would help. It did! Within minutes, two gents in a pickup truck pulled up, assessed the situation and determined that my battery was dead. They carefully explained to me how to start the car by popping the clutch and I was quickly on my way.

🚘 Passing is easy as a woman driver. Just use your turn signal to indicate what you are doing and when the passing lane is clear, speed up to enter the passing lane. After you passed, use your turn signal again and return to the travel lane. 

Seriously, passing as a woman is easier sitting inside your car. Tinted glass and reflections off the glass camouflage your appearance so you are less likely to be read sitting in your vehicle. Waiting at a traffic light one night, a guy in the lane next to me rolled down the window on the passenger side of his car and tried earnestly to engage me in conversation. I ignored him, but I assumed that I passed especially since it was dark.

🚘 Roadtrips require stops for gas, food and overnight stays. Dealing with civilians who sell gas, food and overnight accommodations is no worse than dealing with the sales rep at your favorite boutique; they want your money, so they will treat you nicely in order to collect it. I have never had a problem – even those times when I checked into a hotel en homme and checked out en femme (or vice versa). No one batted an eye.

🚘 During long roadtrips, you are likely to need to use a restroom. I have no fear about using the ladies’ room in Connecticut because the state laws protect me, but I feel less comfortable using the ladies’ rooms in other states because their state laws may not protect me. However, I will feel even more uncomfortable if I don’t use the ladies’ room, so I do what I have to do and have never had a problem. 

For what it’s worth, I have successfully relieved myself in ladies’ rooms in the following states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island and West Virginia.

And so I go.

Wearing Louisa Ballou

Scott Townsend femulating in the television movie Thirsty.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Alexa Admr

Drew Carey femulating on television’s The Drew Carey Show.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Bebe

Diedrich Bader femulating in the 1993 film The Beverly Hillbillies.

Men

On Wednesday, Paula wrote about the options that exist for going places en femme. 

Been there, done that so often that I have absolutely no fear about going out anywhere en femme once I overcame the one big fear I had when I went out: encounters with men.

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 on their team 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 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 acquaintances. 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. And you know you’re onto something when a squad car full on NYC policemen check you out as you cross Sixth Avenue in Times Square wearing a dress and heels!

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.

Wearing Chicwish

Bruno Sanches and Alex Lutz femulating on French television’s La revue et presse de Catherine et Liliane.