The Bewitching Hour?

As Halloween draws ever closer, transgender women and cross dressers everywhere are scrambling to put their final touches on what costume they are planning to wear this year and where they are going to wear it.

I know many of you regulars here in Cyrsti's Condo also follow Stana's Femulate blog and have seen a few of her outstanding efforts around Halloween.

This year for the first time in several years, I am faced with the opportunity of having to put together two costumes for two separate events. The first, The Witches Ball I have written about extensively about but the second I haven't. Liz and I are considering going to a bar where the community of crossdressers I know goes too. The Witches Ball is this weekend, the other event is on the 27th.

I am not enamored anymore about wedging ourselves into a jam packed room but it might be fun to see a bunch of cross dressers tottering around on their impossibly high heels, or just see who really has an original costume idea.

Like I said, it remains to be seen if we go at all.

This afternoon, I have to see if I have have taken enough weight off to fit into my witches ball themed costume. This years' theme is "Mobsters and Monsters". As I have written before, the costume is a three piece black pin striped female mobster outfit. So, I hope it fits!

Road Trip

Yesterday was my monthly LGBT Veterans support group meeting and my voice lesson at the Dayton, Ohio veterans hospital.

The trip north was fairly pleasurable under a bright cool fall day.

Since I have been working on my vocal homework after last month's embarrassing appointment, I think I moved my overall score up from a "F" to a "C". At least I earned the chance to move up again and work on phrases, breathing and overall vocal presentation. I still have to work on a daily basis to smooth out my voice, use my breath more to enunciate my words and still speak in a more sing song voice. I have been trying to temper my expectations on myself to keep them realistic. 

An hour later, it was time for my LGBT support group meeting. As I was waiting, an obvious butch lesbian showed up early for her appointment. As it turns out, she has the transgender VA Doc monitor her meds.

As we were talking she noticed my rainbow "VA Serves LGBT Veterans" bracelet. It was cute when she said "I'm the "L", so I replied I am the "T".

The waiting room was very quiet so ironically at one point when the trans doc came out, there were two transgender women and one lesbian in the room. Later, when more members of the group showed up, there were three lesbians and three transgender people. Including a trans guy who had just decided to come out of the closet. He was delightful too, so we enjoyed a nice meeting.

All in all, a successful road trip and it's nice to know I still haven't lost my touch with some of the lesbian community.

Plus, for once, the ride home in rush hour was almost livable.

How Much Effort?

How much effort are you/should you be putting into your feminine presentation?

I suppose it's like everything else you do in life, what you do, is what you are able to do, are motivated to do and how much work you can put into it.

Looking like a woman is very hard for the great majority of  cross dressers and/or transgender women. Let me use the example again of the transgender woman who comes to one of my support groups. Essentially, she throws on a pink dress and flip flops and says to the world, hey! I'm a girl.Sadly, as you can guess, it doesn't work in the world. I'm sure you have seen plenty of cis women who have no clothing or makeup skills either.

Before this post becomes a novel, let me add in what Connie sent in on the topic:

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEOctober 11, 2018 at 2:34 PM

"When I first ventured out of the house with a feminine presence (eleven years ago) it was to a monthly cross dresser meeting (it was the first time I'd gone out and interacted with another human, anyway, as my numerous previous drives "enfemme" don't really count). A quick survey of the room showed me that I was far more ready to be out than were many in that group. Because I have always been something of a perfectionist, I just couldn't understand how someone could expose themselves without, seemingly, trying to make the best presentation possible. As I continued to attend the monthly meetings and participating in other social events with this group, I learned a couple of things: I was not a cross dresser and there are people who may have the same seed of gender identity as mine, but that is our only similarity. From that, I discovered that some of those people were happy just to put on a dress, and I developed an admiration for them and their lack of dysphoria.

The person you refer to does not seem to be happy in her current situation. I would expect, though, that only she will ever know what would make her happy. I have seen people, after getting a professional "glam" makeover, find a whole new hope. I have also seen others who didn't really care for the new look and showed up next time looking just like their "before" pic. This goes for both trans and cis, by the way.

There were many reasons that led me to stop attending meetings and social events with that particular group. As I said, I had learned that I was not a cross dresser, and so I did not need to find acceptance and affirmation the way, it seemed, most of them did. The thing that really made me want to leave, though, was the way they treated one member in particular. This cross dresser did nothing more to make a change in appearance than to wear a fancy ball gown. Although being allowed to attend the closed-door meetings, this person had been banned by the officers from going out in public with the rest of the group. Efforts had been made to "help", but I believe they were made for the benefit of the group - not to her (or him). Even at the meetings, though, she/he was ostracized most of the time, not unlike the school kid who eats lunch alone in the cafeteria. I did sit down with her/him one time, and learned so much about myself in the process. We were both unhappy being in the group, but for entirely different reasons. I learned through the grapevine, later, that we both quit attending meetings after that encounter, and I've often wondered if she/he ended up being as happy as I have become with myself. I do have the feeling that many in that group would say they're happy that the weirdo is gone, and that bitch, Connie, too.

*I have referred to this person with both pronouns because she/he did not, at the time, know for sure which applied."

Thanks for the comment!

Finally, it needs to be said these days there are more and more avenues to find help with your feminine presentation at fairly reasonable prices, if you can get out of the closet to take advantage!