No More ‘Fallout Shelter’ For Some

Have you ever seen the movie Blast from the Past? It’s described as “A romantic comedy about a naive man who comes out into the world after being in a nuclear fallout shelter for 35 years.” The lead character Adam, played by Brendan Fraser, has been raised in the shelter by parents who believe that the earth and its atmosphere are unsafe for habitation due to fallout from a nuclear holocaust that they thought happened sometime in the 1960’s. Eventually Adam finds his way out of the shelter, finds marvelous new things and love and happiness on the street.

Many crossdressers are like Adam’s parents, often keeping themselves in their own personal and symbolic fallout shelter. It is usually referred to as our “closet.”  Our closet may be our home when we are alone or a motel when we are out of town. Those who are “in the closet” do not expose their feminine character to the rest of the world fearing the “fallout damage” that would occur with exposure. Presumably fallout damage could be as catastrophic as being publicly exposed to family, friends and co-workers or as minimal as being snickered at by strangers, being mocked by a group of teens in a mall or being treated with disrespect by a restaurant or store clerk.

However do we need to be in these personal fallout shelters? Recently I came across three Adam-like adventures described in the Yahoo group of Phi Epsilon Mu (FEM), the Tri-Ess support group for central Florida. These adventures illustrate how many of us are breaking the seal on our fallout shelters and finding a fresh, friendly new world out there.

First, Darlene posted to the group a message she called Being Out:

“This afternoon as Darlene, I drove up to Palm Bay to meet new members Amber and Lynn for lunch and an afternoon of shopping. We met at a Kohl’s store and I chose two blouses at 50% off. A sign said I could get up to another 30% off with a Kohl’s card, so I decided to sign up for one. The customer service lady was new and had to call a supervisor for assistance, I completed my information and the supervisor asked for my driver’s license, which I gave her. Up to this time the two Kohl ladies had called me ‘ma’am’ and referred to me as ‘her.’ The supervisor handed me the driver’s license back and said ‘you have gave me your husbands, ma’am’ I told her that that was me. She said ‘Oh. . . sorry’ and kept saying she was sorry, I told her she needn’t be, that it was okay. As she hadn’t given the DL back I said ‘I’m prettier in real life’ and she smiled. Both ladies continued to call me ‘ma’am’ and refer to me as ‘her.’

“Moral of the story — Yes I had ‘passed’ and that was pleasing to me. However, in ‘passing’ I was ‘invisible.’ Those two ladies met and interacted with a CD/TS in a positive way, and hopefully with a positive attitude for any future interactions. Possibly this positivity stemmed from my being confident, friendly, dressed and behaved appropriately and respectfully for the gender I was portraying. Change comes one person at a time — so with seven billion people on this earth I’m going to be pretty busy for a while (lol). Anyone else have any interactive stories to share? Good or bad? Preferably good — we all need positive reinforcement. Hugs Darlene.”

Next came Wendae, a Vietnam War veteran, senior in years but newly breaking out of her shelter:

Wendae out and about.

“Since joining FEM my self-confidence has risen immensely. While I can only attend the Saturday meeting that in itself gave me quite a boost.?? This past meeting I decided to drive from Tampa in Fem. I arrived at the hotel around 2 p.m. and checked in with a male clerk. I had to show my driver’s license which has my male photo on it. There was no reaction except my room wasn’t ready even though I had asked for an early check in. He said check back in an hour. When I had walked in there were two teenage girls scoping me out and I had to stand in line before being waited on. Any way, I wandered around and came back at 3:00 passing four young Hispanic males and a busy check-in. Still no room. I sat in the waiting room for another half hour before approaching the desk again. This time a woman came out from the back and got things straightened out for me so I could get my room keys. At no time did I feel panic at being so out in public. I checked out again en fem and this time the clerk was a cute young lady. At no time was I made to feel uncomfortable by the staff. On the way home I stopped at a CVS drug store to get the Sunday paper and had to stand in line behind three folks and with four more behind me: again no problems. For me this was the most wonderful weekend. I now have the confidence to appear in public and be in close proximity with others without the fear of having a bad experience. It will only get easier.”

Finally, the effervescent Alysson chimed in. She seems to blow away the notion that one has to “dress to fit in” to be accepted.

“Great trip Wendae! Next time I go to Publix to go grocery shopping, I’ll call you and see if you want to come along! I was in a somewhat local Publix (Hunt Club and SR436) just before Memorial Day. I had come from our Saturday breakfast at Banana’s and I didn’t have time to go home change, then shop, then change again and get ready for the 6 p.m. Saturday evening meeting in Kissimmee.

Clam bag as a glove?

“I decided to do the grocery shopping while dressed. I was very nicely dressed, meaning my skirt covered my too-too with at least two inches to spare! I had to get the makings for the family Memorial Day clam steam. Now ‘stuff’ for a clam steam is not the typical shopping list. Basically, I know where they make the subs and where the cold beer is. That’s about it. But, for a clam steam one has to buy the little cheese cloth bags to hold the individual steams. I didn’t know that I didn’t know where they keep those stupid things. But, how hard could they be to find in a 10,000 square foot grocery store? Then there’s the crab-boil seasoning. Again, no idea.

“Finding all the ingredients was like going on a low budget treasure hunt! So there I was clip-clopping around the store in high heels, traversing the isles, trying to find all this ‘stuff.’ I finally had to ask the meat manager (yeah . . . there’s a joke there, but I’m gonna let that one go) where the stupid cheese cloth bags were for clam steams? He knew, told me, and never batted an eye. I was only ‘stared at’ one time and that was by a thirty-something gal, there with her husband, who kind of did an obvious ‘investigative stare’ as I was aimlessly roving the produce section looking for melons (yeah, another good joke there, but I’ll press on). When I saw her peer over at me I realized I had started to slump forward into a ‘guy walk’ (felt my knuckles dragging along the cold linoleum floor) and from 30 or 40 feet away, she could sense the mismatch between my posture and my dress.

“Also, with a hemline that was just two inches below my personal produce section, any lean forward quickly brought the hemline that had been two inches safely below my too-too right to the tangent scribing the lower edges of my traveling trochoids. Had I bent forward any more there would have been two more melons available for squeezing in the produce department. My ankles had become worn out from traversing the store twenty odd times, and I was getting sloppy controlling the high heels. I quickly straightened up and walked straight toward her. Either she was going to confront me, or disengage. She quickly turned away and went back to what she was doing. I have no idea to what conclusion she had come.

“I went to the check out; cute young girl there, no comments and very pleasant. I was so blown away when I went into the parking lot,

“I put all the stuff in my Jeep and noticed a nicely dressed woman standing next to the car parked head to head with my Jeep. Her car had a big plastic sign on it identifying her as a real estate agent. I figured, OK. Here’s a real estate agent. They’re pretty plucky so if I was going to get a straight answer, this might be a good person to ask? I walked closer to her and asked if I could ask her a question? Now my voice is obviously a man’s voice, so there wasn’t much suspense in the question that followed. I asked her, gesturing to myself and my outfit, okay. ‘Tell me what you think: Man in a dress, or a woman?’ She looked at me, paused two seconds and said, ‘Well, you’re a man, but you’re really very nicely dressed’ and with that gave me a huge smile of approval.

“The moral of the story? Grill steaks. Never offer to do a clam steam for anyone.”

That’s Alysson’s moral of the story. Mine is that in facing our fears to go out in public en femme we probably could take a lesson from FDR, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” So many girls are finding a new level of satisfaction by taking their feminine personae out among the general public. They are discovering that the holocaust of intolerance towards TG’s has largely abated. No longer does the fear of public disapproval keep them in their “shelter.” How about you? Shouldn’t you be re-thinking your personal limits? Everyone should do that from time to time.

Tags: closeted, featured, passing

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender How To