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| First Girl's Night Out. I am on the bottom left. From the Jessie Hart Collection. |
Every so often I reflect back on my first girl's nights outs. Naturally before each event I was terrified. Here I was having the chance to enter a feminine only space I had previously only dreamed of. I was petrified of thinking what I would say to attempt to add in my input to all the conversations. What do women talk about when men are not invited to be around.
It turned out over the years I was fortunate to be invited to four girl's nights out. It turned out they were all unique in their own way.
During the first one I learned women (as I suspected) were more apt to discuss, family and friends topics. No more relying on work and sports to get me by. I was lucky I had a supportive daughter I could talk about. Other than that, I had to sit back and be more of the observer rather than a real active participant. I didn't know several of the other women not shown in the picture and one didn't seem to care I was transgender while the other one did. I was a little surprised no one gently probed my reason of being there. It was probably because I was there with good friends such as my future wife Liz, Min and Kathy.
Most likely the most exciting and scary girl's night out I was ever invited to came at the request of a couple servers at one of the venues I was a regular. One afternoon I was there and the servers came up to me and said they were planning a night out with a couple of other women and another nearby venue. As frightened as I was, how could I possibly turn such an invitation down. Since they were all young an attractive, I really had to try to step up my fashion game to fit in. I decided on wearing my favorite all black outfit. Wide legged pants and short sleeved top along with my long black wig. It turned out not to matter because all the other women, for the most part, were occupied by guys trying to pick them up and I was ignored. All in all, it worked out for the better.
Another girl's night out I was invited to was a Halloween party years ago. I had a fun time wearing my black tight legged leggings with boots and my big frizzy red wig. There was plenty of beer to be consumed and one woman even came up to me ad asked how I ever took care of all of that hair. It didn't hurt that Kathy was there also and she was every bit as tall as me so I didn't have to feel self confident about being the tallest woman there.
The one night out I missed through no fault of my own was a bachelorette party I was invited to, then it was cancelled. I knew the bride and her friends were a wild bunch so I was disappointed when it was cancelled.
All of my "women only" events taught me I did have the confidence as a transgender woman to interact one on one with other women. I was correct in assuming when I subtracted sports and work from my conversation with others and added softer topics such as family and clothes I would be all right and I would be accepted into a new and exciting circle. Girl talk I discovered was fun.
