GenderBendy

Pretty much done with man-clothes

One morning a few weeks back, getting dressed, I looked at the thick waistband of my jockey shorts and thought, I don't wear these any more.  So I put on one of the few pairs of cotton panties I had acquired up to that point, then stopped on the way to work and bought a couple six-packs more of basic knickers, and it's been girl-underwear ever since.

A few days later, I more or less retired most of the rest of my male wardrobe.  I haven't taken big bags to Goodwill yet, but I have been dressed as a woman for the last couple of weeks, and it is my plan to go on dressing as a woman for the rest of my life, from here on out.  The only time I am still wearing man-clothes is when I go running...and I'll fix that too at some point.

The thing I didn't figure out looking forward to this moment was that I could wear shorts and tops and shoes which, while definitely from the women's clothing half of the store, would appear as basically gender-neutral out in the world.  I thought it was going to be man-jeans and man-shirts until one day it was skirts and blouses.  Androgyny-play, yay!  :-)

Turns out many of my women friends shop routinely on the man-side of the store, and hardly any of my acquaintance of either gender dress very femme at all.  A few weeks ago I went to a play in a dress and heels and was the only woman in the audience wearing a dress or heels.  Getting into dressing femme begins to feel like rediscovering some arcane lost art...Japanese Tea Ceremony...

An advantage emerges of having come out as trans early in the process.  Now everyone around me knows about my gender work, and basically gets along fine with however I am presenting.  On Friday I did push over the line, with the frankly femme white top, big earrings, and hair soft and full with an elastic headband, and saw my friends and coworkers' eyes flicker as they figured out how to deal...but it was OK.   I was still wearing it all when I got home, and waved at a couple of neighbors who stared back, so I'm coming out now in my neighborhood...I used to fear, now I just don't care...people deal.

That's the most important thing I'm learning.  People deal.  Meaning, they just don't care that much.  I mean, think about the big things I've learned about some of my friends lately:  life-threatening disease, sexual orientation, matrimony...and none of these pieces of news has moved me to more than easy condolence or congratulation...I'm as self-centered as the next person...and I take comfort in knowing that you're the same.  So thanks for bothering to read all the way to the end.... :-)

One top over the line

Today at work I am wearing the exact same outfit as listed in my last post except for more overt dangly earrings and a different top (white simply-tailored cotton with a demurely scooped neck and silver bead applique around the collar), but those two changes seem to have bumped me over the line...I'm popping femme.  One of our volunteer hosts had occasion to give me a pronoun on air and picked "she."  A fellow employee just greeted me and one other male person as "ladies and gentlemen."

I'm being a woman in the world.  Turns out to be not such a big deal...and huge.  I'll see if I can get someone to take a pic and post it later.

OK, back to work...

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.  :-)

Full femme debut at work today (just for a minute)

There's a transgender conference happening on the USM Portland campus today, where I work, and I have agreed to be on an "ask a trans person" panel.  It's from 1:30 to 3pm.  Originally I was going to take the whole day off to do this, but why?  I don't need all day to change any more...I don't even need an hour.  And I'm totally out at work.  So yesterday I asked my boss if he minded if I changed here at the station before walking over, and he said that would be fine...

...so later today I'll be taking half an hour in the bathroom to shave, do my makeup, put on my skirt and top and pantyhose and heels and jewelry and scarf (not necessarily in that order), and then I'll step out into the hall and get my coat and purse and walk out the front door and across campus. 

Yeah, I have butterflies, but not too bad.

My one unanswered question...should I prep my coworkers, or just appear on the scene?  To prep might be to make too much of it; to just appear might make someone more uncomfortable.  I am pleased to feel that I can trust myself to make the best choice in the moment.

Butching up for the tire guys

Yesterday I had an appointment to get my tires balanced and rotated at a little garage in Portland.  Of all the places I go regularly in my life, this is the one I would be most nervous about visiting in femme mode, because the place is so completely male.  There are signed pictures of race-car drivers on the wall, a lamp made of an oil-funnel, and in the waiting area (don't as me why) a gas grill tricked up to look like a hotrod engine.  The guys wear work blues, boots, and battery-company caps.  They have old pre-trendy tattoos and grease-blackened hands, smoke as they work, and never seem to smile.  Can you see me going into such a place looking the way I do in my picture?

Yeah, me neither.

If/when I start living full time as a woman, it'll be a challenge to get my car worked on...but in the meantime it's still easy to get most of the way back to MAN when I need to, or at least as far back as I have ever been - a professor-type in a Honda. 

So, I butched up for the tire guys.

I was already not shaving because of an upcoming electrolysis appointment, so with what's left of my beard after the laser I was as scruffy as I am still capable of looking.  I left my earrings and scarf behind, and went to the appointment right after a workout at the gym, so I was able to slick my hair back behind my ears.  At the garage I kept my shoulders squared and my hands in my pockets, and used a deep strong voice.  The only thing I couldn't change was my eyebrows, aggressively plucked a week ago for a party, and my hair color and length - but hey, one of the guys had longer hair than me. 

I passed.  :-)

Yesterday (coincidentally) was also the first day in weeks in which I felt at least somewhat masculine again, because on Thursday I have my first appointment with an endocrinologist, and I'm feeling cautious as I approach the possibility of starting hormones.   It's the first step with real risks (heart attack, for instance) and real consequences if I change my mind...once you've grown the breasts, you can't ungrow them.

It is important to remind myself that until I actually do it I can always change my mind about transition...always find creative ways to settle in the middle and play indefinitely here.  I'd prefer that, actually, if I can manage it...but oh, the drive is so strong.  Even feeling ambiguous as I did yesterday, as soon as I got home from work I still put on my femme comfy clothes.  

Well, what will happen will happen.  So far it has worked to neither force any action nor suppress any healthy-seeming impulse.  So, that's what I'm going to keep doing.

The chocolate-covered mandarin orange segments were divine

Happy Valentine's Day to me.  I love me.  Thanks me, I'm truly touched.  :-)

I feel giddy.  The party was really fun, and I did in fact do some flirting and also some networking...social and professional.  I feel so young and new, still, when I am inhabiting my femininity, I tend to forget that I'm a smart competent grownup with a lot of good life experience, and that people will respect that.  I have little sense of my own worth, I think...a "what, little 'ol me?" kind of thing.  Which is stupid.  Why should I not be accepted and liked and respected by people?  I'm an interesting person, to say the least.

Fun crowd...a mix of academics, neighbors, and parenting-friends.  Not quite the high-powered literary gathering I was expecting, but that's probably just as well.  Nobody batted an eye at me, even though my shapewear and dress pushed me well past "normal woman" into tranny-caricature.  I was by far the most voluptuous individual there... :-)  It was valuable to be able to  look at other women playing dress-up and to see how close I actually already am without enhancements of any kind, just in my own skin, to being shaped like a woman.

The poem-reading didn't end up happening...I gather our hosts thought it would interrupt the energy of the party, which seemed right.  We all just taped our poems up on a door.  Mine was a little damp...I had been carrying it, folded up, in my decolletage...  ;>

Early in the evening I danced a little in a loose group of dancers, enjoying feeling slinky and sexy, but still really dancing alone.  Then, later, I really felt like I wanted to dance with someone, a man, and a self-confident handsome middle-aged gent with whom I had had a short conversation earlier in the evening was standing there, so without thinking about it I stepped up to him and said "Are you secure enough in your masculinity to dance with me?"  "It would be my pleasure," he said, and we danced.  Not touching...the kind of face-each-other-and-wiggle I remember from college.  He made small talk.

A little later, in the standing around saying goodbye but actually having more conversations phase, I do believe he chatted me up.  He was solicitous, bordering on gallant...he told me if I ever needed an ally, to call on him...and he said he wanted to give me a hug, so we hugged.  And I liked it.  Oh, I did.  This was a social interaction I grasped intuitively (or at least so it felt):  the beginning of a negotiation.  And behold, I become aroused as I type.  I really really might be a heterosexual woman.  I want to flirt with men, excite men's interest, toy and play with and tease men, and in the end succumb to their strength...oh, my, it's getting warm in here...

I did some emerging from the cocoon last night, is what I did.  Not all the way.  Big parts poking out now, though...legs and feelers... hints of wings.  I pause now and respirate, extremities trembling a bit...soon I will be all the way out, drying my wings in the sun...then that first tentative spread and flex, and a launch into whimsical serendipitous flight... :-)

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!!!  :-)

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.