I'm up early this morning - it's around 5am - to get ready to go to First Event, a big annual conference for trans folk in Peabody, MA, north of Boston. It's an hour drive each way for me, so I plan to dress and drive today and tomorrow. (Gotta come out to my neighbors one of these days so I can stop fussing about how to get from the house to the car in a skirt...)
Last year's First Event was my first time ever dressed in public, less than two months after my initial trans-revelation. I drove down in man mode in a state of high trepidation, my painted nails hidden inside gloves, and changed in one of the complimentary changing rooms into my Goodwill polyester skirt and a plum-colored silk top, which I unknowingly put on backward. (Single buttons go in back...) I didn't have a wig or any shapewear, though I would acquire both before the day was done, in a pink fog in the shopping area. Until I bought the wig I did the best I could with a hair-tie obscuring my short man-cut, and while I no doubt looked rather patched together none of the gorgeously decked out crossdressers said a thing. I like that about the trans gatherings I've been to so far...everyone is very accepting.
I feel so much more confident this year, and I'm looking forward to wearing a different nice outfit each of the two days...but, I've made the decision to go once again without wig or shapewear. I've grown my hair out and gotten it colored, and when I blow-dry and style it right, it looks solidly femme; and with regard to body shape I've been practicing getting by on posture and mannerism. That's how it will be once I've fully transitioned. Even with hormones I'm going to be shaped much as I am now, so I figure it's time to go it with only the standard props: my own body, hair and voice, plus clothes, makeup, and attitude. Chin up, dear. Loosen those hips...stick that ass up a little higher...
Something I've learned: a little too much is just enough. I carry it best when I'm a touch flamboyant, which is a challenge for me. I'm the shy hide-in-a-corner (for forty years) type. I can't go back now, though...just gotta keep sashaying forward into the light.
Stay tuned for a report on day one!
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