On occasion I feel, people in the community place too much emphasis on looks. An example would be, equating how feminine you feel by how good you look. Having written that, I am the first to point out there is nothing better than feeling you are looking your best.
My point is an example from last night. I wore the outfit I described in the last Cyrsti's Condo post and felt just OK but nothing dramatic. Did I feel any less feminine? No, I didn't. Then again, I didn't feel any real spark from the outfit.
Perhaps I have crossed the transgender boundary into womanhood. I don't believe most cis-women live or die about their daily outfits. There simply isn't the time to do it.
If you are curious (as I was) the cross dresser who sets up the dinners, is now a "former" cross dresser. He said he was going back to the permanent male side because he can't find any women to hang out with. It was pointed out to him by another trans woman, he was perpetuating the fact that doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is the true sign of insanity. By spending time with us, there was no chance of finding a friend to share his life with.
At any rate, despite his constant advances on Liz, I didn't have a bad time and yes I did enjoy my transgender femininity, despite feeling I could have looked better.
Last night was the before mentioned cross dresser - transgender Christmas party. As I figured, everyone was wearing their holiday finest. I so love it when most of them towered over me in their heels...including Liz. Although, Liz was just slightly taller than I.
It seems that the binaries of male/female, man/woman, and masculine/feminine all are bookends for their respective spectra. They are not mutually exclusive, and the possible combinations are endless. I think that many trans women - especially those who are satisfied with being occasional cross dressers - are often more in search of that "feminine feeling" from the perspective of their male-selves. We may well be picturing what we see as the ideal of femininity, and then we proceed to try to mold ourselves to fit that ideal. For some, that act can lead to not only good feelings, but outright euphoria. Then, there are those of us who have come to a point where the thrill is gone. It's just not realistic or sustainable on a day-to-day basis.
I was never secure in my masculinity. For most of my life, I tried to feel good about myself by looking and acting in what I thought to be was an acceptable (if not ideal) masculine way. The results of my efforts were never satisfactory because the premise was wrong. Suppressing my innate femininity simply could not make me masculine. Now that I've shed any expectations of masculinity, however, I have become more secure with my femininity (even while doing things that may be considered to sit more toward the masculine end of the spectrum). I don't need to get all dolled-up to feel feminine, but doing so often makes my feminine-self feel good.
This past weekend afforded me that opportunity for three different events. I felt happy about my physical expressions of my femininity, but I don't really think I felt I was more feminine because of them. In fact, because we had quite a wind storm Friday afternoon, we arrived at the home of our hostess to find that she had been without electricity for three hours. Not only had she not been able to, as she called it, "swank herself out," the light from the fireplace and a few candles was not enough to reveal our efforts, either. Yet, I don't think anyone felt any less feminine. My wife and I laughed on the way home about how we'd gone to so much trouble for nothing. I joked that we had literally left our hostess in the dark, but there was little doubt about our femininity. "