More Discombobulated Thoughts on SCC

I realize the convention ended two weeks ago, but I’m still digesting all the observations, thoughts, tangents and whatnot from the biggest TG convention in the US. There are at least two more blogs brewing inside my cranium, simply because there is so much to see and experience at a big convention.
Firstly, let me offer a couple of product placements, both of which have been endorsed already in this publication. Gillette’s M3 powered razor. It’s the one with the battery. It vibrates as you shave, not unlike a standard electric razor, but it can be used in the shower.

Love it! Southern Comfort was my first experience with this product, and that’s quite the testing ground. I used the M3 twice a day: when I first got up, and before the evening’s activities, though honestly, I could have probably skipped the second shaving. The M3 gave a close enough shave that my 5 o’clock shadow was pushed back to about 10:45 p.m. I got a full 9 shaves out of my razor over the course of a week before it was shot. But more on that in a future blog.

Also getting high marks are pre-glued fake nails from Kiss. After SCC, I went down to Florida for a week to catch up on sleep, (More on that story in a future column.), and wore the same pair for four days. Despite spending hours in the pool, a morning in the Gulf of Mexico, and days in the sunlight, I didn’t lose a single nail. They’re available at most CVS and Walgreen’s stores.

♦♦♦

“I’m just a crossdresser.”

I blanched even as I said it. I was talking to a beautiful blonde at dinner, and she had asked about my status. She chided me for the “just” part, as well she should. I was putting myself, and every other temporary girl down.

You’ve probably heard someone else use that phrase — “just a crossdresser” — as though there’s a quantifiable pecking order within the transgender world. When someone says that they typically mean crossdressers aren’t worth as much as someone else.

I didn’t really mean it that way, but that’s how my dinner mate took it, and she let me have it too. She chewed me out, gently, but thoroughly. She wasn’t having any of that “just” crap. Crossdressers were just as valuable, and worthy as anyone else. Her lecture just made her more beautiful in my eyes.

Let me describe her to you: long, flowing blond hair with a hint of dark brown roots showing, a perfect feminine face, and curves that completed her red off-the-shoulder dress precisely. Professionally? She was a flight attendant. I felt rather inadequate next to her, physically, and now intellectually, as well.

That was a mood I was becoming well acquainted with at SCC. Everywhere I looked, I saw gorgeous, confident, successful transsexuals; their birth identities given away only by their attendance at a gender event. Each had overcome the challenge of growing up in a body they didn’t identify with, and were living life to the fullest.

Full-time gals aside, I walked through the bar at night, feeling like Fezzik from the Princess Bride. I felt massive among many of the other crossdressers: too tall and too bulky.

At lunch, I’d heard Cat Turner, Donna Rose and Mara Keisling all speak about reaching out to those hidden in the darkness. They talked about being strong, and becoming guiding lights and role models to sisters and brothers who needed heroes. They spoke about standing up for who you were, and finding that the world would fall in line.

As I listened, I realized I’d ditched my own outreach efforts years before. I remembered my own time in isolation, how lonely it felt, and realized there was much more I could have been doing for others now in similar situations. And I felt disappointed in myself.

So, to take my mind off of that failure, I visited the pool party. Again, I was surrounded by beautiful MtFs in bikinis and handsome FtMs, proudly going shirtless in the sunlight. There were also a few girls who, quite frankly, shouldn’t have been in bikinis. But there they were, and I felt angry at myself for my short-sighted criticism of them, and ashamed. I looked at one gal, beer gut hanging over her bikini bottom, having the time of her life. She had confidence. She had overcome self-doubt enough to not worry about what other people thought. I wasn’t there, and was jealous.

So it was with this trace of self-pity that I used the “j” word at dinner. “I’m just a crossdresser.” I’m not petite or pretty. I don’t have confidence in myself. I don’t help others. I hide my true nature from family, friends and co-workers. I don’t face the struggles those who go full-time do. I don’t challenge injustice in court, or lobby lawmakers. I just put on my makeup, wig and dresses, and take too many pictures of myself. Then, come Monday morning, I put it all away and go back to my male life.

I wasn’t attempting to speak for others. I wasn’t trying to put anyone on the bottom of an imaginary totem pole. I was only trying to say that while the world is waiting to be taken, I shy away. Fear of what others might think immobilizes me.

My new friend from dinner left with another lesson before the night was over. A handsome young man, with close-cropped dark hair approached me later that evening. “How do you like this look on me?” he asked. It was her, in full guy-mode. I’d only assumed that the lovely gal at dinner was full-time.

One should never assume anything. Whether it’s the status of other people, or one’s own abilities.

Category: Transgender Opinion