Wigging Out

 Recently I wrote a post which detailed a few of my trials and tribulations I experienced with wigs before I was able to grow my own hair to a feminine length. Ironically, one of the first things I noticed was all of the sudden I had to somehow see the back of my head to check out my hair. No more easy out by using a wig head and stand. 

I received plenty of responses by readers who commented on their own wig experiences. Including Monica who currently is up to owning five wigs. I am sure at my height of "wigging out" I owned many more than that, so I understand the attraction. After all, wigs are a natural extension of our makeup and seemingly (at least for me) there was always another wig which would take me to the promised land and I would become the attractive feminine person I always wanted to be. Plus, I feel I was attempting to overcome the days of financial challenges when I couldn't afford much at all when it came to a hairpiece. 

It turns out, I wasn't alone when it came to being a struggling novice transgender woman on the search for the best possible hair. As has happened many times over the span of our lives, Connie and I share quite a similar history:

"At the age of 34, I was married with two young daughters. We’d just bought a house, and I was anxious to fix up the unfinished basement to make an office for my part-time business, as well as shelving for storing all of those seldomly used things, such as holiday decorations. I’d already put a door with a lock on it for my office, and then, late one night, I started organizing things on the shelves. When I got to the Halloween box, I took a peek inside. There it was: that black wig, along with all sorts of makeup. Now, I had worn that wig a few times on Halloween before, but it had been part of a monster-type of costume when I had. On this night, though, it brought back every memory of my feminine-self. I took the whole box, along with an old mirror that was in the basement, into my new office and locked the door behind me. Doing the best I could with what was available, I put the wig on my head and made up my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I remember whispering, “You can do so much better than this.”

Photo Courtesy Connie Malone

Money was a little tight after just having had bought a house, but it was probably more on my mind to rebuild a feminine wardrobe and accessories as cheaply as possible out of my renewed guilt. My wife had a basket full of makeup that she’d given up on, so I could easily take what I needed from that. I ordered a dress, a pair of heels, and some undergarments from the Sears catalogue, which I could discreetly pick up at the store’s will call. A new wig, though, was more difficult to find without, I thought, outing myself. Somehow, I discovered that K-Mart sold wigs, so I got what I determined to be the best one that was available at the time. It was brown in color, just as my mother’s wigs were, and somewhat contemporary in style (as contemporary and stylish as one might expect to find at K-Mart, anyway). I remember shunning the blonde wig, at the time, as I thought it to be “overdoing it.” I bought that wig, along with a set of wrenches as an attempted cover, and thus began my return to the pursuit of womanhood."

Thanks for the comment! It's amazing to me how the slightest trigger object can lead us back into fond memories of our feminine pasts. Mine was a long blond wig I fell in love with and managed to buy for my then fiancé. She wouldn't wear it but of course I would. That hairpiece managed to stay with me for many years. Even surviving my time in the military and several ill fated "purges" I attempted when I resolved myself to never cross dress again. That really worked out! I haven't cross dressed as a man for nearly a decade. 

I can't make the point enough. I am so lucky to have been able to grow a full head of hair. Now I have to get back to a salon and let a hairdressing professional take care of it. Before it begins to appear as if I have been wigging out.