A Night at the Theatre

 This is yet another Halloween experience which helped me to break out of my gender closet and experience a possible life as a transgender woman. 

Image by Danie Franco
on UnSplash

Years ago Columbus, Ohio completely restored a very elegant classic vintage theatre downtown. With interest I learned the new venue would be hosting a late night Halloween horror show silent movie complete with accompanied music from the restored theatre house organ. Aside from being a total restoration geek, I immediately sensed an opportunity to extend my feminine Halloween adventures. From there the evening began to come together quite nicely. Little did I know how much fun I would have. 

The first thing I had to do was get four tickets. Two for my first wife and I and two for two other close friends I wanted to go with. Then I needed to put together a "costume" for the evening. Actually, back in those days, my options were as limited as my wardrobe. Following several unsuccessful trips to thrift stores, I settled on a mini dress which I had even worn on another Halloween adventure but with different people. Supposedly, changing up what I wore would keep people from guessing how serious I was concerning how I was perceived as a woman. The last thing I wanted to do was however was try to be an obvious jokester of a man in a dress. 

As it always happens, the time coming up to the Halloween evening seemed to go so slowly as this was the only time of the year I could escape my self imposed gender closet and explore. Before I could explore I had to decide if I was going to throw caution to the wind and go all out to appear as a sexy woman. Back in those days, shaving my legs was a rare and often wonderful experience and I decided to do it for the evening. Shaving of the legs is the one biggest giveaway I think between someone dressing as a woman as a joke and someone who is a serious cross dresser. In other words, going all the way for me was the only way to go. 

The afternoon of the party, when I left work, I was able to leisurely prepare for my night on the town in "C-Bus" which was only approximately a half hour away. I drew a hot bubble bath and made sure all of the hated hair was off my legs before I was able to slide into a new pair of panty hose without ruining them with a run. Then came the makeup, mini dress, long blond wig and heels which I would regret wearing later. After downing a couple of "road pops" for courage it was time to head out, pick up our friends and go to the theater. 

These friends in particular had seen me before dressed as a woman so I don't think there was much of a surprise to them when they saw me. My wife always knew I was a cross dresser so I know for sure she wasn't surprised. 

The unfortunate part of wearing the heels I did came when I learned how far I was going to have to walk in them as parking was at a premium. Needless to say my feet weren't used to walking that far in heels and were protesting. I had to hitch up my big girl panties and pay the price for fashion. It all was so worth it once we arrived and saw all the other beautiful and creative costumes. For better or worse no one seemed to notice the tall blond in heels and mini dress. The movie with the background organ was wonderful.

Not as wonderful as my big night out at the Ohio Theatre.  

Being a Woman is a lot of Work

 

Photo courtesy 
Jessie Hart

Recently I wrote a post about the cost involved with being a transgender woman. Now I am adding a companion post concerning the amount of work it takes to be a woman. 

On occasion I happen along a novice transgender woman who seemingly wants to look, act and/or be accepted in the feminine world immediately.. I usually try to tell her to be patient. The gender journey is not a race, it is a life long marathon. Once you think you have the process down it changes on you. 

Also the gender change process takes an immense amount of work. Lets start with clothes. Many, including me rush out and buy some frilly ultrafeminine outfits which naturally look wonderful on a beautiful  model. It takes time, energy and money to learn what looks good on an internet model may not flatter your testosterone infected body unless you are one of the rare few naturals who are able to transition into an attractive woman easily. 

In my own case I was able to take care of my skin long before I seriously started to gender transition. Which helped immeasurably when I was applying foundation following a close shave. Plus I did realize (like Stana says) shaving actually helped me because it got rid of old skin cells. After I began to become very serious about following the path to a feminine life, I decided I had to shed myself of most all of the extra weight I had gained over the years with pizza and beer. Amazingly I was able to lose nearly fifty pounds to get down to a much more manageable weight, Which meant a wider choice of fashions to wear. Also I became more adept at hiding my masculine broad shoulders and narrow hips by again wearing clothes which tried to not accentuate my shoulders. 

I mention all of this because it just scratched the surface of the work I put into becoming my authentic self and in my case the entire process took years to refine in the public's eye. I'm sure to a novice I am nothing more than an experienced confident transgender woman but they were not around when I was struggling to find my way in a new world. 

Along the way also I found out the hard way being the "pretty, pretty princess, as my wife called me was just not going to be enough to continue my path to living full time as a transgender woman. I found what I had always suspected deep down women were the more complex and often the stronger gender. To join them would require much more than just appearing as a woman in public. The process wouldn't take long because seemingly overnight I had to begin to interact more intensely with the public as my true self.

Were there mistakes? More than I care to count. The times I tried to wear ill fitting wigs to the wrong venue come  back to haunt me even more than my choice of wardrobe. 

My hope is that these days, in direct comparison with the past there are many ways a novice transgender woman can learn the feminine ropes. In many area's now there are strong LGBTQ organizations who offer social functions for all transgender women or men as well as cross dressers also. Plus the social media outreach can be a help if you can steer clear of the crazies. 

Bottom line, as any cis woman will tell you, it's takes a lot of work to be a woman. Be prepared.    

I Was Never a Crossdresser?

 

Image from Alexander Grey
On UnSplash

A couple days ago I read with interest a post from a person saying they were transgender but had never been a cross dresser. Further more, cross dressers were an embarrassment to all transgender women. I wish I could provide just a few of the many derogatory comments which followed. Nearly all of the comments were against the idea of the transgender woman claiming to never have been a cross dresser. The whole post to me sounded like a "I'm transer than thou" attitude. Perhaps even to the point of the poster having internal transphobia.

I freely admit to being what I call an increasingly serious cross dresser. Before I ever admitted to being transgender, I needed to research if such a big move was a fit  for me. Most certainly, the possibility of losing an entire life and beginning a new one from scratch was intimating. Plus, by definition, I was crossdressing from one binary gender to another. Much later on in life I finally realized I was doing my cross dressing as a guy, not a woman although all those years I thought I was attempting the opposite. Doing my best to feminize myself. 

Ironically, the person who posted the comment also came out against cross dressers who come out of their closets at Halloween. This comment went totally against everything I had ever felt and learned from my Halloween experiences. I believe my very short time out of the gender closet provided me so much experience and confidence to move forward in life. All in all, the only time I can think I ever found cross dressers to be distasteful was at the various Pride celebrations I went to when I saw several cross dressers (not drag queens, which is another subject) teetering around on high heels while squeezed into impossibly tight or short dresses. I thought to each their own and they were probably just out of the closet novices. The drag queens to me provided much more of a threat to the visibility of transgender women.

We all have to arrive at a point when we can accept ourselves as being transgender. If being a cross dresser through a portion of your life is needed to do it, then so be it. Over the years, I knew another transgender woman who said she was never a cross dresser and stuck her nose up in the air when she said it. Again I don't understand how a person who at first had to get dressed in her car before meetings could say such a thing. But she did I questioned her on it during one meeting and was soundly rejected for my comment so I just shut up for once. 

I view my life as a cross dresser as going through a series of closed doors. Once I had established myself behind one door, I just had to see what was behind the next door and open it. Finally I found my way to where I am today. Living life as a newly married full time transgender woman. I would guess more than a few "surgically corrected" trans women would pull the no surgery card on me (since I don't desire any) and say they are more transgender than I am. Which I think is truly a shame. 

I am not ashamed to say my decades as a cross dresser in a gender closet most of the time made me what I am today. I transitioned from being a cross dresser to a transgender woman at the age of sixty. So I was very much a cross dresser which helped me to find my way to where I have arrived today.