GenderBendy

Dressed as a Lesbian today

The gender line in fashion turns out to blur with almost infinitely fine gradations...I am in fact wearing all women's clothing today.  My outfit consists of:

• dark green cotton capri pants
• a Hanes Her Way cotton tee, light blue (the only difference I can see from a His Way is a subtlety of collar design)
• the purple clog-style Birkenstocks my sweetie gave me
• three silver bracelets (two from my sweetie and one from my daughter)
• dangly silver labrys earrings (from my sweetie too...she gives me presents, and it makes me happy...:-))

No makeup, hair loose and natural...I feel, stylistically, like an earthy-crunchy Lesbian approaching the gender midline as closely as she can.  I wonder if anyone will notice.

Working in femme mode tonight

It's getting to be routine...I'm going out tonight, going to work in fact, dressed.  It's the WMPG Fashion Show at Space Gallery in Portland, and I'm helping out.  It a great opportunity to take my evolving femme look out into a receptive place in the "normally" gendered world.

What little anxiety I'm feeling is around my outfit...I'm going to a fashion show, after all.  I want to look good, but still be a member of the audience, not trying to upstage the models.  So, jeans, a tight euro-style stripy top that Ardis gave me, funky low-platform shoes which, when we were shopping at Goodwill, Christina assured me were hip, hair tied back with the totemic pink crochet hair-tie, and then I think slightly outrageous eye-shadow, mascara, and lipstick to go with the necessary beard-concealing powder.  And fun jewelry...Deb gave me several nice pairs of earrings for my birthday, so one of those plus I don't know what else yet...scarf or not?  I'll know in the moment...zen and the art of cross-dressing...

The children are with me tonight, so they're going to see me before I go and when I get back...they seem blase about it.

Oh, and various co-workers will be there...I didn't even think of that at first.  Well, they'll just have to deal.

Maybe I'll see you there too...say hi!  :-)

Quite the gala evening

Last Saturday night on a freebie ticket from a friend of a friend I attended EqualityMaine's annual awards dinner at the Holiday Inn in Portland.  I wasn't sure how toney this event would be so my outfit combined formal and more casual elements:  the gorgeous green brocade top Sis Sus gave me, over my still-new-and-dark jeans, over those reliable old standbys my Walmart open-toed black pumps...plus the new pink pink scarf, my most dangly dangly earrings (and a few other pieces of jewelry), and full but (I hope) classily subdued makeup.  My hair is long enough now that I can just wear it loose to good effect.  I specifically wanted to look not dressed in drag.  I was going for straight elegant femme, and I believe I came close to pulling it off.  Yay!  :-)  As it turned out jeans were underdressy, but not too bad. 

Anyway...

The crowd was all ages but skewed 35 and older, prosperous-looking, and overwhelmingly white.  It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of money and power in the room.  (Someone gave me a tip on how to pick out the most influential people...they're the ones not wearing name tags.)  I did not realize until this party how formidable a voting bloc and fund-raising force the LGBT community has become.  There were a couple of dozen state legislators in the room, and a philanthropist or two as well. 

The gender balance was 50-50, and there were lots of touches of cross-dressing (Father Dawn looked particularly sharp in her shirt and tie)...but not many fully cross-dressed as I was.  Which brings up the main question I had going in:  how much T was there going to be really in this LGBT evening?

There was some.  Once or twice specifically trans causes or issues were mentioned.  The bulk of the evening, however, was given over to looking back at the ballot fight for marriage equality, and forward to the next round of that fight.  Now, I whole-heartedly support the rights of any two people to marry who want to...but I also feel compelled to point out that this is more purely an L and G issue than a T one.  To take myself as an example, one very possible outcome of my narrative is being a woman in a committed relationship with a man, all nice and mainstream.  True, there is a confusing variety of definitions from state to state of what constitutes a "man" and a "woman", and I might also end up hitched to another woman, so I definitely do still have a personal stake in this issue.  Just not quite so inevitably as a gay man or lesbian.

Meanwhile, "gender expression" still appears much less often than "sexual orientation" on the lists of reasons for which the nation's multitude of organizations, companies, municipalities, governments, etc. will not discriminate.  I was not legally protected, for example, from being fired for being trans when I worked recently for the U.S. Census.  In important areas trans rights lag behind those of gays and lesbians, and I didn't hear much about that.

That said, I found the evening inspiring.  I felt moved by the individual narratives of some of the award-winners, and marvellously buoyed by the intense sense of community and mutual support in the room.  So, in sum, while I didn't quite feel that I had arrived in the bosom of a new ready-made community, I certainly felt welcomed and included, and had a great time.

Two more fun insights:  Femme mode turns out to be useful for avoiding people I've known as a man and don't want to talk to...one such looked right at me and didn't recognize me at all.  That was good for a secret smile.  And, I not only enjoyed, as I always do, going out dressed as a woman; I also enjoyed going out not dressed as a man.  What a revelation:  I may never have to wear a suit and tie again as long as I live.  Wow.  I can so live with that.  :-)

Steps

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, which I had made weeks ago because of the persistent redness on my neck from my first electrologist.  That was just to get me in the door, though...my real reason was to take her measure as a possible transition-ally.  When I broached the subject she told me she has had other trans patients, and was matter-of-factly open to working with me, if very brisk...she was running an hour late and wanted to try to catch up with her schedule, I think.  I asked if she was going to be around for a while...some of the doctors in that clinic are just passing through...and she said yes.

She asked if I was on hormones yet, and I said I wasn't, and she asked if I wanted a referral to an endocrinologist, and I opened my mouth and said "yes."  I had been thinking of waiting until summer to start hormones, but that's just an arbitrary plan from back when I told my children that I was planning to transition.  And even if I do go see this endo soon, it doesn't mean I have to immediately start taking the pills.  Still, I'm moving toward that first consult, and that is a step.

After the appointment I fetched my children, who were hanging out at the music store (they're on vacation this week) and took them home, and when we got here I really wanted to be dressed femme.  So far when they are here I've felt OK about going back into drab for them, but this time I asked them each separately if it would bother them if I put on slightly more feminine comfy-clothes than they were used to seeing, and they both made faces (twisted mouth, eyes averted) but said OK, so I went into my room and put on the soft white hip-hugger pants with the flare below the knee which Ardis gave me, and the black scoop-neck sweatshirt with red and white flowers crocheted on it.  Plus I still had the mini-aubergine earrings in I had already been wearing, and one of my new Rayon-disguised-as-natural-fiber Indian scarves, and I took off my stocking cap and let my hair fall forward...and we had an evening.  After the first few minutes there was normal conversation, joking...I think they were both a little uncomfortable, but it went all right. 

A big step actually.  I've been pondering for some time how to take it, and in the end, as with coming out at work a few weeks ago, I found myself in a moment which felt right, and acted. 

I have a new question I ask myself these days, not just around being trans, but in all my interactions with others:  What do they need?  Not, what do I want in order to feel I have been helpful, but how can I really help them?  Right now I think my children really need the opportunity to safely express what they are feeling.  I have offered them counseling in the past, and they've declined.  Last week I made an appointment with my counselor for this coming Friday and told my dear offspring that I want them to accompany me. I really want to get them talking, and I am, I hope, prepared for them to express hurt or fear or anger or sorrow...if these are feelings they are feeling.  If they do, I expect I will feel very bad, and it will no doubt slow me down...but I don't think it will stop me.  I can't think of anything non-catastrophic which could stop me now.

First party tonight!

My first party!  I'm so excited!!!

Actually, not three exclamation points' worth...I just wanted to see what that would look like...but I am looking forward to it.  :-)

The invitation is from a person I hardly know, to a Valentine's Day Ball, and it specifies "creative formal romantic" dress.  I e-mailed back to ask if that description would include full-on cross-dressing, and the reply was "Absolutely!", so that's how I'm going.

I plan to wear a dress which Ardis gave me.  It's a stretchy black form-fitting number with delicate white butterflies on it, a flippy hem below the knee, and a matching bolero-jacket with long sleeves which slim my arms nicely.  I will be wearing shapewear but not a wig...I'm getting good results with my own hair these days.  Plus a nice careful makeup job and all my favorite jewelry, black stockings, and the low black open-toed pumps...the invitation says to bring your dancing shoes.  To finish it off with a dash of color, I'll also add my flamboyant over-sized purple scarf with the exotic vaguely Turkish-looking pattern in the weave, worn loosely like a shawl, or perhaps draped between my elbows behind my back...and I think I'll wear perfume too.

I am surprised at how calm I'm feeling.  If there's anything I'm anxious about, it's that we're supposed to bring a love poem to read.  The audience is likely to be full of the cream of Maine literati (our hosts are big in that world), and I'm not feeling confident about my voice right now, so that will be a squirmy moment.  I'm also not sure what poem to read.  It's down to two choices from the "Sonnets From The Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  One would be cheeky in the context of the party, because it's written from the point of view of a humble unknown poet addressing a famous big-shot poet, and the other is just a pretty "love me for love's sake" poem which nicely expresses the emotional vulnerability of the trans heart.  I'm leaning toward the latter.

One more thing...I've given myself permission, should the occasion arise, to flirt.  With whom?  With whomever...

Tune back in tomorrow for a full report!!!  :-)

Fashion experiments at work and home

Thursday at work I wore the soft blue androgynous top and matching stocking cap and the mini-aubergine earrings...moderate dangle, no sparkle.  Catching my reflection in windows and such, I still looked like same the old Dave everyone's used to.

Yesterday I left the cap at home and let my hair fall loose and fluffy over my ears.  I also wore my favorite antiquey-chandelier earrings - significant dangle, moderate sparkle - and a short soft-and-fuzzy wool scarf in gender-neutral light tones, and when I caught my reflection, I was snapping more femme.  It's the hair, mostly...that's such a powerful gender-signifier...although it would look much more femme if I had neatly styled it rather than just roughly patting my bed-head into shape. 

Nobody said anything, except my dear friend Deb just before I left...she confirmed my impression that I was closer to the center line.  It doesn't take much, it turns out, to waltz right up to it.  A touch of lipstick would bump me across.

I wish my hair were thicker... :-(

Anyway, this morning when I woke up I lay in bed pondering the question I ponder every morning:  what to wear?  ...and with some trepidation I decided to go with the same hairdo and earrings, plus the super-fuzzy lamb's wool sweater with the big gold-and-white buttons which my children have already seen me in. 

Why trepidation?  Because my son is still uncomfortable with my femininity, so I have been keeping it under wraps at home, at least with regard to appearance.  I've never held back on how I hold my body and move, and I'm letting my voice wander as it wants across the gender divide, with sometimes curious results.  But out of respect for his ambiguous feelings, when he is around I have maintained consistent drab (man-clothes).

At the same time I'm agonizing all the time about how to talk to him.  We have a close and loving relationship, but we don't converse very well.

So, my dressing choice this morning was actually a parenting choice.  I have elected to wear what I want to wear - what I wore in public yesterday - and to let him deal with it as he sees fit.  He's up...I can see him at his computer from where I sit at my computer...and we've had some light chat, about coffee and so on.  His eyes were elusive...but then they often are.  I feel self-conscious, bashful, and vulnerable, but I'm going to play it out. 

Maybe he hasn't even really noticed.  And even if he has, maybe he doesn't care.  And even if he does, maybe small steps like this will impel conversation, and that would be good.  Anything's better than a Talk.

[Note added 5 minutes after original posting:  my son just noticed my earrings.  "Nice earrings," he remarked.  "Why thenk you," I replied, striking a pose.  "They're my favorites."  Then he started joking around about something else.  Yay!  :-)  Once again I re-learn what I have already learned so many times before, that the subtle setting of tone is at the very center of parenting...and that this can not be faked or forced.  Their moods resonate to mine like unstopped guitar-strings...]

P.O.I.G.

Now that I have come out at work, I find that I enjoy a new freedom to begin to publicly explore the space between the genders. 

Up until now I've been carefully maintaining my old male style, despite its beginning to feel wrong...men's jeans or khaki pants, brown leather men's shoes, and a selection of subdued shirts, usually a T under a long-sleeve button shirt, and when it's cold, a mannish brown wool sweater and brown canvas coat as outer layers.  Also, I've kept my hair pulled back behind my ears, and I have habitually been wearing a thickly-knitted dark green wool cap.  I do wear earrings every day, but so far it has either been the silver studs with the little green-glass gems, or the tiny silver rosebuds...very little flash or dangle.

Today, dressing, I made just three minor different choices.  I'm wearing a soft dark blue pullover top with a zipper neck which is more androgynous than my usual shirts; I've swapped the green cap for a dark blue one which is softer and thinner, and I've pulled it well back on my head so that my hair curls out from under it in back in a mildly feminine way; and I'm wearing my new favorite earrings, silver, with a small round mandala-shape at the ear itself, and then a little silver-embossed dark purple bead hanging down...they jiggle when I shake my head, and it makes me smile.  :-)

With just these three changes supplementing my plucked eyebrows, my smoother post-laser face, and my continued efforts to relax into more feminine ways of holding my body and moving, I can get a solid femme flash in the mirror, at least looking straight on.  In a side view the masculine structure of the bones of my face still tips the balance to the male side.  But still...I'm edging closer to the line.

So, I've made up a new acronym.  At least for today, while it still strikes me as whimsical, I'm a POIG:  A Person Of Indeterminate Gender.

Things which have to go soon:  the man-shoes and the briefcase.  Next week I think I will shop for women's sneakers, and then try them with my women's cut jeans for a day, see if anyone notices.  And my dear friend Sue gave me a big funky clunky brown leather handbag which I'll try as a replacement for the briefcase. 

Being a POIG can be fun, I tell myself...and I do really need to try to just play for a while, if I can.  I am grateful, these days, for any insight which helps me feel like I can slow down.  The drive toward womanhood has felt so unrelentingly powerful since the First Event Conference a few weeks back...I'm aching constantly.  It's not a comfortable time.

The end of a whirlwind week

I've had a couple of kind inquiries about how I'm doing since coming out at work on Wednesday, and I'm doing fine, thanks.  A lot has happened in a short time, all of it good.

Thursday:  I had many more e-mails waiting for me when I got to work, expressing congrats and support.  No stink bombs.  Several people said they thought what I had done took real balls, which is funny when you think about it.  There was one e-mail from a volunteer friend who read my blog from top to bottom with real attention and said some really nice things about it.  I am totally susceptible to compliments of my writing (take note if you ever want to try to get something out of me), and enjoyed a warm buzz for the rest of the day.  Otherwise, a more or less ordinary busy day at work. 

Friday:  e-mails trickling off...some people saving saying something nice for a face-to-face encounter.  Still no stink bombs.  Sharing news this personal invites return confidences...I've had more than one conversation which was mostly listening on my part.  And, otherwise, another regular busy day.  Then home to prepare for a trip to western MA for the second laser treatment on my beard.

The Weekend:  The second treatment was not nearly as traumatic as the first.  (See Zap! for an account of that.)  I knew what to expect this time, and also I'm extremely pleased with how well the first one worked.  Afterward Ardis and I started talking clothes (she's an old family friend...we played together as toddlers) and next thing I know, we're at her house and she's hauling outfits out of multiple closets for me to try, and it turns out we wear the same size shoe, and an hour and a half later I'm driving on to Sue's house (Sue is Ardis's mother and a kind of surrogate mom to me too) with two big bags in the back ...some really nice stuff.  Thanks Ardis!  Total pink fog orgy!  :-)

Sue had invited me to a night of comedy improv at a local VFW hall, and I had asked if she minded if I went in femme mode, and she said she was expecting it, so I got dressed, wolfed some stew, and out we went, stopping back at Ardis's house to pick her up too.  This was pretty much my first time out as a woman in a completely ordinary everyday social setting...non-shopping (where they have to be polite), non-LGBT friendly.  Nobody looked at me twice.  Sue and Ardis were great...just treating me like their old girlfriend in town for the weekend.  I got to experience what life will be like when I'm transitioned... and it was a bit of a letdown.  I was tired and feeling a little shook up, and the fact that I was dressed the way I wanted didn't make that go away.  I know this is a lesson I need to learn, that even if my transition goes perfectly I'm still going to have plenty of sucky times, and that was perhaps the beginning of learning it.  I still savored every moment, though.

Before I left Sue's house this morning I had added a third big bag of clothes to the back of my car...thanks Sue...clothes-swapping like this may happen all the time in girl world, but not in boy world, so it feels special, and it's a thrill to have so many more wardrobe options...  :-)

One last event of note:  I stopped for the weekly grocery shop on my way home, and an employee of the store who pointedly declined to serve me several months back was once again behind the seafood counter. (Original account here.)  He saw me coming and moved into a little alcove with his face hidden, pretending to be busy.  I felt the adrenaline begin to bubble up, and without giving myself a chance to really think about it I stepped up to the counter and waited a moment to see if he would acknowledge my presence.  He did not, so I said clearly and loudly, "Could I buy some fish please?" 

Reluctantly, with hostile eyes, he served me.  When he handed me the bag of salmon fillet, I met his eye for just a second and said warmly "Thank you kindly," and then stayed a moment more to cross things off my list before rolling out of sight.  It was a sweet ending to a fine weekend.

I've made an enormous amount of progress in a very short time.  My children are due to arrive any time now for their week with me, and I think I need to slow down now, breathe, rest...show myself I can still take a step back, bide my time...work, write, parent.

Can't unclick that!

I did it.  At around 2pm this afternoon I transfered my oh-so-carefully worded coming-out memo from its text file to an e-mail and clicked "send," and out it flew to a mailing list of, oh, I don't know exactly, 300 people?  Everyone, in any case, I work with in my people-intensive job.  I don't think I've experienced a moment that heightened since my last child was born.

By 4:30 or so when I left I had answered a couple of dozen kind, warm, generous e-mails from volunteer-friends.  They said some truly blush-inducing things.  I'm expecting dozens more e-mails in my inbox when I get to work tomorrow.  The attention is nice, of course it is...and I'll be glad when it all dies down again. 

No negative responses so far...maybe a puzzled or uncomfortable look or two.  But I know, the down side could come at any point in the future.  I'll be living with that potential from now on.

Every big step so far has felt like a test...do I really mean it?  Any remorse?  Do I wish I could take it back?  The answers this time are:  yes, no, no.  I do mean it.  No remorse...I feel incredible, free.  And it wouldn't matter if I did want to take it back, because I can't.

No going back in through THAT door!  I'm out, baby, out for ever more!

On the way home I rewarded myself for my chutzpah by stopping for a quick shopping spree in a chi-chi boutique in Kennebunk.  Very different from my usual Goodwill jaunts!  I picked up a truly gorgeous hand-knitted grey sweater top, light and feminizing with pretty flared sleeves, and two pairs of lovely dangly earrings...I have a serious weakness for dangly earrings, especially silver ones with a funky antique look.  :-)  All on sale, all on credit...and right back to spending as little as possible...

I'm still high.  What a rush.  What a life-affirming moment.  Hey world!  THIS IS ME!! 

It's miraculous.  I get to be.

First Event day one

So I dressed and did my makeup and headed south, in a tizzy again.  I may have been working hard on this for a year, but I'm still a noob.  I forgot my lunch and my planner book, but decided not to go back for them.  Trans conference here I come.

I wore my red skirt with the spangles and the new embroidered white top which my sister gave my daughter for Christmas, and which she didn't like...quelle domage! :-).  Plus, low heels, makeup including this new outrageous purple-with-sparkles eyeshadow I picked up on a whim the other day, and jewelry including my favorite cheapo but elegant-looking dangly earrings.  And I had blowdried my hair with the curling brush the way Sue at Clip and Snip showed me...I'm getting the hang of that.

Today for sure I'll ask someone to take my picture and post it.  I was feeling too diffident yesterday.  [note added 15 hours later...new profile pic at right taken today :-)]

I spent a lot of time in sessions which were essentially pitches by plastic surgeons, complete with before-and-after slides of genital and facial surgeries.  Yes, I am comparison shopping.  There is some amazing work being done.  There was one guy who was really aggressive and loud, and I thought, I like his work, but he would intimidate me in consults...I couldn't work with him.  Being bold about being shy...

There were a couple of other transitioned women there who really had the voice thing down...I want to seek them out again today and ask them about their voice work.

Some encounters...I had a nice conversation with effervescent 70-something Billie Bliss and her new girlfriend.  Billie talked about the hugger-mugger of crossdressing in the 60's.  And Hope very kindly asked to join my at my solo table at lunch, when I was sitting there feeling lonely and exposed, and I listened to her story of crossdressing within marriage.  She didn't come out to her wife for almost a decade of marriage, but they are still together post-revelation.  The wife is accepting but doesn't want to see her dressed.

There were a few big-hair spangly-dress women there, but they were not the majority which my dazzled memory of last year conjured up.  Most everyone there was a lot like me...trying to fit their long jaws and big shoulders into some kind of femme look.  Most people seemed to be feeling as I felt...tentative and a little stiff, but so happy to be out in the world.  For the first time in my life I have a group which I, the real I, can really join, and I struggle to understand how to do that.  Feeling slightly apart has been the habit of a lifetime.  It's hard to just stop.

My last session of the day was a little gathering of politically active trans folks led by Denise LeClair, a Washington-based activist.  I sat quietly and listened and began to realize that some of the real movers and shakers of trans USA were in that room.  I felt too bashful to participate much, but now there are some important folks who someday, if I ever need to, I can approach with "You won't remember me, but we met at..."  I did chat with Denise after (we have a curious personal connection - her brother is the partner of my former spouse), and did a pronoun-slip with her...I hate it when I do that!  *SQUIRM*!  I corrected and apologized immediately, and she said it was all right, obviously completely not upset.  I continue to learn about letting things like that roll off...

OK, gotta get going for my visit today.  I'm going to try to network more, and I have a free consult with one of the premier surgeons in the late afternoon...dangerous to be doing that, with regard to setting the transition-ache going again, but I have to seize the chance.