Stochastic Musings — Fitting rooms, hats, and inspiration

Stochastic Musings

Kalina talks about getting “ma’am”‘ed, wigs and hats, inspirational messages, rays of sunshine, and using women’s fitting rooms. There are plenty of lessons to be learned here.

I’m working on two books right now, one called How to do Glamour Makeup and another called Passable. How to do Glamour Makeup is meant to augment and even replace Secrets to an Awesome Makeover, my best-selling glamour makeup guide. In it, I will delve into more makeup techniques than most makeup guides will give you and you will learn how to conquer the male face and make it look female through the power of makeup. Passable is an ambitious work meant to help transgender girls learn about and develop one of the keys to their success in their transgender lives. I will draw from many, many examples in my life and others, go into various do’s and don’t’s, citing specific examples, and help girls understand that passability requires more than just having confidence.

Some of you who’ve been called “ma’am” in certain places probably want to go back to those places in the hopes that you’ll be called ma’am again. I, however, have a different outlook on being called ma’am when I’m not even trying to look like a woman, and that is I am scared shitless of going back to those places because I say to myself, “What the hell did I do to look so convincing today that he or she would think I’m a woman?” and then the anxiety of always hoping that I look like a woman every time I walk into the place when I’m not even trying to look like a woman unnerves me, especially if I want to start building a rapport with the place.

I attend several office parties each year and in the last few I had to smile and downplay or explain to some of my colleagues what just happened if I was called “ma’am” or “miss” by a server who didn’t know me, since some of my colleagues have known me for years as a man while others know I’m trans. This is what I have to deal with every day as an androgyne and I know that life would be much easier if I chose one of the bipolar genders, but I’m not about to fool myself into thinking I’m totally female like many transsexuals. Some of them don’t even have the tools to be considered good, but continue boasting about how great they are.

Remember that most of my successes in the past couple of years involve wearing my own hair, not wearing wigs or a hat covering my head. It would look really strange if I went to Le Bec Fin or Vetri wearing a hat on my head the entire time. It’s so ironic that I’ve run into so many saucy, boastful transsexuals who’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars to have the chance to be considered ladies and here I am doing it with what God gave me.

A lovely transwoman sent me a letter apologizing for not introducing herself to me sooner, saying “I am shy and felt you are a league above where I am.” I wrote her back saying, “We as transwomen are all equals in that we’re all on a gender journey. We may be on different paths and experience different obstacles along the way, but together our paths all meet the same goal, which is self-happiness with who we are, whether we choose to go all the way with SRS or some part of the way with it. As far as I’m concerned, you and I are in this same group, or league, as are most of our sisters. The only ones whom I would say are “beneath us” would be the boastful transgendered women who, out of insecurity, inexperience, or foolish pride, measure their success as transwomen solely based on attractiveness without looking at the many factors that comprise a total person.”

I seem to be getting a lot of bad news from friends lately and it just saddens me. I know everyone has problems, but it would be nice to throw in a ray of sunshine along with the bad news just to balance the bad with the good. Not everyone lives a terrible life filled with grief and despair and it would please me if people tried to be more positive because life really isn’t that bad.

I wanted to learn what the hubbub was about transsexuals experiencing problems using women’s fitting rooms, so today I went to the downtown Macy’s juniors department to buy a number of awesome tops, all size small or medium. Other women were there shopping, but it really wasn’t that crowded over lunchtime. I had doubts about one particular tank top with a built-in bra that looked great on the rack, so I decided to use the women’s fitting rooms to see if it would look good on me.

I walked in, tried to find an empty room among the many rooms, but all of the rooms were locked, so I walked back out and found a saleslady to open a room for me. The saleslady, a young Latina woman, led me into the fitting room area again and unlocked a room for me. She didn’t give off any strange vibes. I heard a mother and daughter talking while they were trying on their clothes, so the fitting rooms weren’t all empty. I looked around my fitting room. Gee, this looks exactly like a men’s fitting room except it’s painted a brighter, more cheery color, I thought. I tried on my top. I took my time viewing it in the full-length three-section mirror. It looked damn good.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I wasn’t nervous at the fact that someone might call security on me. After all, a genetic male using a fitting room for genetic females usually causes an uproar. I certainly had a relaxed time shopping and, quite honestly, I’ve used the ladies’ room at over 100 of the finest restaurants in Philadelphia. You name it, I’ve been there, so I had experience on my side. I think how I dressed helped.

Similar to my look on Saturday, I wore an Ed Hardy-esque tank top with a rayon/nylon hoodie over it, jeans, and sneakers. The headband was probably overkill, but I wanted a bit of a youthful look to pair with my small rhinestone studs and shimmery Chapstick. I wore my unisex-style glasses. Just call me a chic geek! Nobody asked for identification or proof of my gender. It was all pretty boring actually. My guess is if you walk into an area with respect for the establishment and for others, you won’t encounter many or any problems. If you look like a nervous wreck, like you don’t belong, or you look like someone who is too quick to prove what you are, you’ll run into resistance.

A friendI told my fitting room adventure to said, “Bear in mind that you’ve gone to great lengths to look the way you do and a lot of girls don’t look like you, so many of them might get in trouble trying to do what you do.” Alas, yes, you do have to work your way up to this. Don’t throw yourself into the fire so quickly. If you’d like to learn real secrets that will help you look like a woman, and I mean really look like a woman, you can find them in my books and videos. Many crossdressers and transsexuals tell me I was their inspiration.

Are you ready to learn the secrets to becoming super glamorous and super passable? Just order copies of my videos, Secrets to an Awesome Makeover, Natural Makeup Techniques, and Totally Natural available here.

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion