[Alice]

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Suppose the medical world came forward and claimed that they had cracked the gender identification problem. They state that if you take a pill once a day for the rest of your life you will never feel the urge to dress or be feminine again…would you do it?

Nope. Wrong hypothetical pill.

I’d much rather have a few other hypothetical pills…

A pill that eliminates all body and facial hair but reverses male pattern balding completely, giving a completely feminine hairline, full strong feminine hair growth, long lashes and neat, tidy brows.

A pill that adjusts skin oiliness to “normal”, eliminates all skin flaws and ensures nails grow perfectly and rapidly.

A diet pill that really works, by adjusting the body’s desire for and ability to extract from food so that you always stay in the ideal body fat range.

Finally, a pill that would allow the user to metamorphose between male and female at will.

On second thoughts, I’d like all of them to be one-off inoculations.

Alice

[Alice]

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For now my top 3 are/
to Drop 25 KG 😳
To look darn sexy :
to have a very good time in 2009. 😈

Those all sound like new years resolutions to me!

I’d like to drop between 15 and 20kg.
Get better at makeup so that I look even sexier than I do now. :p
Get out shopping more and buy more clothes!
Be more open with people around me. (Why is it so hard to out myself to my inlaws?)
Get back into my belly dance and yoga classes.

Alice

[Alice]

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Hi Candi any idea where you can get the product you spoke about in that last post? :

I’ve been using a makeup primer for years. The one I’ve used most is a Shisedo “The Makeup” “pre-makeup base”, which I have bought from Myer. DJs also carry Shisedo but I couldn’t find the makeup stuff last time I was there. They only seemed to carry the Shisedo skincare range.

I also have a couple of others whose names I’ve forgotten.

So far, none have provided the ability to fill holes like my enlarged pores. They smooth the surface very slightly and help foundation stay on for longer. In my experience, they also help the foundation to go on more smoothly and if you tend to be heavy handed with foundation, primer seems to help to reduce the thickness of the foundation.

I’ve been thinking about experimenting by mixing a bit of demablend translucent powder with a silicon primer to try to make a fairly clear, thick primer and see if it fills the pores but I just never have the time when I’m doing makeup. It’s on my to-do list.

Alice

[Alice]

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Hi, I’m trying to pluck up the courage to have my ears

I know that I’m going off topic a bit here but the best advice that I can give to anyone who dreams of getting their ears pierced is to just go and get it done. The world will not explode, and most people won’t say a thing.

The only thing holding you back is your own fear.

If you’re in Newcastle, I’ll take you to get it done, and I’m sure that there are girls all over the country who would do likewise.

Solves the problem of getting clip-ons.

Alice

[Alice]

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i want to put some nice pics on my profile . show my hole face instead of side on ones. but im worried i will get recongized. last thing i want is to put my family in a embrasseing situation. am i being a bit paronoid? dose anyone feel the same. or is it just me.

I think that we all start off feeling like that.

It really depends how different your female appearance is to your male appearance. As you get more adept to makeup, you become more passable and less like your male appearance.

From personal experience, even people you’ve spoken to face to face several times will not recognise you when you change genders, even if they start off knowing you in female mode and know that you’re a CD! I often have difficulty believing this myself but it has happened to me time and again.

Alice

[Alice]

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it seems to me that many men in very male orientated occupations are crossdressers and Iv eread thta this may be a form of denial for them (and perhaps me ) . Perhaps men who secretly desire to cross dress become quite macho to suppress or compensate for this urge to dress ….
any on ehave similar views ?
Hugs and luv
Suzz

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that way. As an engineer (with an obscene number of letters after my name), I’ve never ever considered engineering to be a macho career.

If anything, I see it as a very gender neutral career. It is also a highly analytical career, and in some ways I suspect that that may be why so many engineers are CDs. The type of brain that attracts someone to engineering is also a type of brain that attracts them to CDing.

I had been CDing for many years before I made the career choice between computer science and engineering. Makes me wonder how many computer scientists are also CDs.

Alice

[Alice]

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I know it sounds a silly title, but as I live in a small suburb I get on very well my neighbours and my partner doesn’t know.

Seriously, if you are keeping the fact that you’re a CD from your partner and you’re actually going out dressed, then your relationship is either in big trouble or on borrowed time. At some point, you will have to come clean about your CDing to your partner, or abandon the relationship and look for a new one where you can be honest about it up front. The longer you hide it, the worse it will be when your partner finally finds out.

Neighbours are easy by comparison. Either they will not even notice, they’ll notice but refuse to say anything about it, or they’ll notice and tell you so. Doesn’t make much difference any way.

I was so convinced that one of my next-door neighbours had seen me coming and going (every Tuesday night for several months and the occasional day at weekends) that I invited her as a friend on Yahoo360. She was genuinely shocked as she had absolutely no idea. The next door neighbours on the other side turn off one of their lights when I turn into the driveway so that they can watch me while I put the car away and walk into the house but haven’t said a word about it to me. In both cases, it doesn’t matter. The neighbours still talk to me, regardless.

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I can get all dressed up ready to go, but it’s the walk out to the car that causes me all the trouble. Late at night around midnight that is, not so hard jump into my car and drive around the town.
But if I was to go out to one of the dinners in Concord or Newtown it would still be daylight outside. I guess I could get all dressed up no makeup, then put male cloths over the top and do a change in the car.

The simplest solution is to get yourself completely ready, walk out to your car, get in and leave. These days, that’s the easiest way. I work from home and have the risk that customers may show up any time during the day, any day of the week but even that doesn’t stop me.

Alice

[Alice]

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first is the VENUE – this would be more central an around oxford street somewhere, we could hire out a club or something??? something with a VIEW!!! high rise?? any ideas?

While I agree with the other parts of your suggestion, I’d much rather see a venue completely out of the city. Somewhere more laid back with plenty of accommodation on site.

Alice

[Alice]

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Hi all, It really dis-heartens me to read a lot of the profiles and threads and realise that we all love what we do but are too afraid to go out in public, presumably worried about ridicule.

From personal experience, I can assure you that that fear is entirely unfounded if you present yourself appropriately for the circumstances. I have got it all wrong in the past and experienced abuse because of it, and it did put me back into the closet for a while.

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I myself love to dress up in fine clothing and feel really special, but when it comes to actually stepping out it all becomes too much and I back out.

Been there, done that. Even if you start getting out, if you stop for too long it can become difficult to start again.

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So, how do you do it? Does it help to go with a friend or are we better off on our own, or perhaps several friends going to a coffee shop for a cuppa. It is difficult in a small town where nearly everybody knows you. Do I just slowly add more fem clothing to what I wear under my male clothes until one day I find myself out there in full dress? Does the wig and makeup help, do you think, in hiding an identity? Whats the trick?

There are two fundamental things that are necessary to be able to go out. Confidence and presentation.

After hiding for several years after a bad experience, I simply worked on my presentation until I was confident that it was non-descript but passable enough to go out. The first few outings were simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating!

As I’ve been getting out more often and my confidence has improved, I’ve started expressing my personality more and more. That means that I’m dressing appropriately for where I’m going but I’ve moved from a mousy “don’t want to be noticed” look towards a more stylish “woman about town” look that means that I’m wearing things that I want to wear instead of things that I think will minimse the attention that I’ll get. I’m still yet to wear 4″ stilettos to the shopping centre but that’s probably going to happen within the next few months. My wife thought that I was going to wear a pair yesterday and I should have because the flats that I did wear hurt my feet!

A few suggestions:
➡ If there is a regular cafe night in your area, go along. It’s okay to go as a boy if you’re not ready to go out as a girl, and you’ll get to see other girls who are comfortable being out in public. Just being with them can give you confidence. I’d really like to see more regular cafe nights around the country, and it’s the local experienced girls who can make it happen. It also gives girls an opportunity to meet others when they travel, or go out a long way from home.

➡ Try to find a mentor. Of course, members who are out would need to be prepared to mentor others to help them get out. Mentoring can be anything from a one-off meeting where someone helps you to improve your presentation through to an ongoing exercise that goes on for years. There is no limit on the number of mentors that a person can have, or the number of people a mentor can help. Personally, I’m prepared to mentor others as long as I can fit it in my busy schedule.

➡ Go along to a group like seahorse. From experience, I describe these groups that have private, closed meetings crossdressing with training wheels. Going to the meetings and knowing that you are not going to be exposed to the public can help you to improve your confidence so that it’s easier to go out in public later.

➡ Join toastmasters or a theatrical group. Toastmasters may seem like an odd suggestion, but public speaking is primarily about confidence. The same sort of confidence that you need to have to go out in public crossdressed.

➡ Accept that if you do a good job of presenting yourself, very few people who know you will ever recognise you. Almost everybody who is hiding in the closet desperate to get out is absolutely convinced that everybody will recognise them. Get it right and most really won’t. I had a photo of myself out at a cafe night and asked my 13yo niece who she thought it was. She guessed my sister and my aunt, and commented that she could see a family resemblance. She only guessed that it was me because her sister and I were laughing hysterically about it.

Alice

[Alice]

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What is it that gives you the confidence to go out

Simple. There is so much difference between my male and female appearances that people simply don’t recognise me as the same person.

Part of it is the simple fact of presenting as the opposite gender. Most people have a mental block that divides people by gender. They don’t or cannot equate a male and female as being the same person, even if the difference in appearance is not that big.

Another interesting effect is that of stereotyping. If someone reads you as a CD, they’re likely to remember that they saw a CD but they won’t remember details of the person’s appearance. This effect is quite common in all sorts of situations. For example,seeing a person in uniform will remember the uniform more clearly than the person in it.

Once you accept that the difference in appearance really is so great that people won’t recognise you, going out dressed becomes easier than shopping for female stuff as a boy.

Alice.

[Alice]

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Hi Alice

Please I do not wish disrespect but I dont understand one point.

A male who has a relationship with a female is not classed as gay, but when that male puts on a dress and then looks and acts like a female, but still goes out with a female,

I do understand your confusion. You’re making an assumption that that happens. In my case, I’m sexually disinterested when presenting myself as female, and always have been. For me, crossdressing is a social activity that allows me to express the feminine side of my personality. There is nothing sexual or erotic about it, and hasn’t been since I passed through the transvestic fetishism phase that many CDs go through when they first begin to crossdress.

On the rare occasions that I go out with my partner while presenting as female, we go out as friends. Whether the casual observer perceives me as a man in a dress or as a woman, they won’t see me as being with a partner.

Alice

[Alice]

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we are dealing with two issues here.

Yes, that is certainly the case. I think that part of the problem that seems to be recurring in this thread is that some transsexuals seems unable to grasp the fact that one of the two issues in not applicable to all of us.

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1. Trans issue as in our safety, rights and just allowed to be accepted and a lot of other issues that relate directly Trans.

This is common to all of us. We need to be seen to be united in seeking rights and acceptance.

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2. We are all either Gay or Les in our own ways. As pointed out we are either gay before we become female (in the legal sense) or les after we become female (in the legal sense) and then the problem is in reverse if we are female to male trans.

This is where I’m concerned about attitudes expressed by some girls, to the effect that every TG person is really a TS but some haven’t realised it yet. This is simply wrong. Unfortunately, this attitude leads to consequential errors such as equating “transgender sexuality” with “transsexual sexuality”, which is one of the mistakes that has been made in this thread.

The first step in moving forward is to acknowledge that trans issues are not inexorably connected to sexuailty. We are not all either Gay or Les.

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It should not matter if we think or feel that we are CD/TS/TG as we all need the same basic life requirements.
. – Safety (been allowed to dress and live with out fear of our lives)
. – Respect (not becoming an outcaste for who we fell we are)
. – Rights (The same writes as everone else as it our fredom)
. – Understanding (Education of non trans people to are are still who we have always been)

Agreed.

Alice

[Alice]

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*chuckles*

Thank you for your agreement with what Jenni wrote, it is so gratifying to see that what she wrote and referred to is in fact applicable to our community.

If we dont use a concept such as this to promote self identification of our kind we will always inevitably come to be considered gay men and run all the risks associated with the wrong label.

You wouldnt want to take a medicine that was labelled wrong, would you?

I’ve read this at least two dozen times over several days and I still can’t figure out why you’re claiming that I agreed with Jenni when I was actually pointing out that her theory is not universally applicable to all transgendered people, and is therefore wrong for some.

I’m not the only crossdresser who maintains a clear separation between their strictly social female life and their male life that includes sexuality.

To laugh at such people and tell them that their reality is wrong is extremely divisive. We need to present a united transgender front to the world, not spend our time trying to drive a wedge between crossdressers and transexuals.

Alice

[Alice]

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Splitting T from GLB isnt really going to work and is not the ideal but the problem is that we have not claimed or defined T for ourselves. We instead prefer to be thought of by everybody – gays included – as some kind of gay – whether post op or closet cd our gender is not acknowledged by anybody because we dont seem to take ourselves seriously enough to claim and defend being Transgender and having a Transgender Sexuality.

Transgender Sexuality is about seeing yourself as transgender in your sexuality instead of gay or straight – regardless of your partners headspace and what they see you as…

I’m not so sure about that. I’m transgendered but it has completely and utterly nothing to do with sex or sexuality for me. I guess I’d describe myself as socially transgendered. For me, it’s about being a woman within society, not in the bedroom.

I think that making an assumption about a connection between transgender and sexuality is similar to making an assumption about transgender and homosexuality. It may be the case for some, but it is not the case for all.

Alice

[Alice]

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You are hoping to take your son to a Cafe night? That seems a very cool thing to me.

At least you are in a better position to support your son through his gender enquiry.

:OT :OT :OT :OT

LOL. My son is 5yo and has known about my crossdressing pretty much since birth. It doesn’t bother him much, but he obviously knows that it’s unusual because, even though he likes the restaurant that we go to, he won’t go with me as Alice and without his mother. All in good time.

Looking at his behaviour and general disposition, I doubt that he has any gender confusion.

Alice