Get Out!

| Dec 3, 2012
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Mixing the music at one of my parties.

Since 2005 I have been hosting parties for transgender people, their friends and admirers. When I first started the parties they were held in Philadelphia at a restaurant called L2. That led me to call the party TG@L2. After investing in a TG@L2 domain name and holding a few month’s worth of parties lack of parking near L2 kept too many people from coming out so I moved the parties to the suburbs — where the parking was free — and the name was changed to Angela’s Laptop Lounge. “Laptop” because I was DJing music from my laptop computer.

Since I started the Lounge I have seen the crowds grow from 20-some people attending in the city to over 70 people attending at my current party location. The crowd is always made up of people from everywhere on the TG spectrum, crossdressers to transsexuals and everywhere in between, plus their admirers.

Over the years I have seen many emails from people who want to attend the parties but tell me they are afraid to come out dressed. I tell them to come to the party in male clothes just to check it out. They tell me they’re afraid to come dressed in male clothes because someone might recognize them. To that I reply, “Then you’ll recognize them and can ask them why they’re at a TG party.”

The fear is real and it can freeze you at the door. You want to go but that first step into the outside world can seem impossible to take.

I recall how I was so scared that I actually shook when I ventured out of the safety of my home and down the street to my car for the first time while wearing a dress. The world was changed. Things didn’t feel like they always did. Air was wafting around my legs and up my skirt. My senses were tuned to a fight-or-flight level. Sounds were louder than they should be and the click of my high heels on the pavement — sounding like gunshots to my amped up ears —  was both exciting and scary. What if someone heard me walking and decided to check me out? Surely my heel noises would wake the neighbors!

Posing for a picture with Sharon Stones while others enter the party.

Over the years I’ve come to say, “So what?” What if they do check me out? What if that click clack wakes ’em up? I’m minding my own business and if they’re not rude butt heads they will mind theirs. You do have to be cautious if you’re walking at night on dark streets because you will be perceived as a woman alone and that can be provocative to butt heads. So be careful out there — but go ahead and get out there!

My Laptop Lounge parties and other parties or club nights around the country that welcome transgendered people, in fact cater to transgendered people, are the safest places for TGs to go (besides TG support groups) when they are just testing their feminine wings. Everyone at The Laptop Lounge is there because they are either TG, like to meet TGs or are the friend of a TG. You can wear the fantasy outfits you’d never be able to wear anyplace else and if you look like a girl but sound like a pirate no one will look at you funny. TG parties are there for us to enjoy ourselves, not to worry about what the people at the party think. You know what they think before you arrive — here comes another girl who wants to have fun in a dress!

Playing dress up in your closet is satisfying to a point. After a few years though it can get dull. Going out and meeting people in your femme persona will make you feel good. And it helps you refine your femme side. You can network at TG parties and share as much contact information as you like with your new pals. Soon you may be having fun with a whole group of TG pals who, like you, thought they were all alone in their feminine desires.

I mentioned the emails I get from people who are afraid to come out. I also get emails and comments on my Facebook page, as well as people coming up after the party and saying “I’m so glad I came out. I wish I had done this years ago.”

So just do it! Get out of the house and go to a TG party or TG night at a gay club in your area. The other girls are waiting to meet you.

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Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion

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About the Author ()

Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.

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