Month: April 2023

Across the Third Dimension

by Hannah

After I finish writing anything I reread it before I post it to see if, well, if it makes sense. Sometimes I go back and rewrite something for clarity or whatever. Sometimes I realize I come off in a different way than I intended. This post talks a lot about internet fame and the like.

If there’s anything I want to avoid it’s being misunderstood. Which isn’t an easy or attainable goal. I don’t want to appear arrogant or ungrateful in any of my writings.

I’ve been blogging and… everything else I do for a while. When you do something for a while it’s not unusual for other people to notice. A photo gets retweeted, a blog article gets reposted on someone else’s blog, and things just grow from there.

Years and years of this have resulted in me being a little well-known in our beautiful gender non-conforming world. On one hand I’m grateful for people who spend a few minutes of their day reading something I wrote and I am truly touched by someone who takes the time to email me.

On the other hand, it feels a little strange to look back over the years and wondering if anyone would identify with the rambling thoughts I posted. It is also somewhat… I don’t even know the right word, when someone thinks of me as famous. Please know that I don’t feel that way about myself.

But I am aware that after years of blogging and everything else I have been fortunate and blessed to have others connect with my feelings and perspectives. Other people relating to what I think about encourages me to, well, keep going.

I guess this italicized text is my… clarification disclaimer. I might come off as “I AM SUPER FAMOUS LOL” in this but please know I don’t feel that way. This post is an honest reflection of what it’s like to have nontertiary doing something that I love, and doing something that I would still be doing even if no one noticed. This is me dancing as if no one is watching, I suppose.

Meeting someone in the real world is a little odd.

For example, I’ve been friends with Sybil for a few years. Within a few moments of a meeting her I learned so much about her. The sound of her voice, her energy, her sincerity… her whole VIBE, you know? Things that are next to impossible to experience through photos and emails.

Unless you are visiting my website for the first time, I probably don’t need to tell you that I post a lot of pictures. I also don’t need to point out that I only post what I feel are the best photos. Pictures that are at an angle or perspective that I think is less than flattering never see the light of the internet. I post pictures that minimize what I feel are my more masculine features. If my head is tilted in a certain way and my jawline is more prominent than what I would like, the picture is condemned into a folder on my desktop never to be opened again.

Sometimes I feel this is a little, well, dishonest? My pictures are not retouched in the sense that Shannonlee tweaks or edits my shoulders or what have you. She might remove a strand of hair or adjust the lighting but otherwise my pictures are of me. The feeling of dishonesty is probably a little misplaced but my thinking is that my body, my face, is a lot more… masculine in reality than a picture suggests.

And for the purpose of this post, “masculine” is meant to be the opposite, the anthesis of feminine.

A picture might show long, shapely legs with a cute strappy stiletto… but pan up a little and bam! Huge, broad, masculine shoulders.

It’s a contrast that I don’t always like.

And I do feel the need to point out that “masculine” and “feminine” are arbitrary at best and there are no rules or standards one must meet to be a boy or girl, but for the purpose of this post, I think you know what I mean.

What I choose to post allows me to have a little… control, so to speak, of what others might think of me. If I only post my most femme pictures, then it’s likely people will think of me as more physically femme than I really am. I mean, yes, I myself know that I have a zillion pictures banished to a file on my laptop that, well, look like me in male mode wearing a wig but if I only post certain pictures than highlight what I feel are feminine features then this shapes what others might think of me.

Does that make sense? I hope so because I am moving on.

All of this control, if you will, goes out the window when I meet people in real life. If I exchange emails for a few weeks (or longer) with someone who is joining the MN T-Girls they only know what I look like based on the pictures I choose to post. When I meet them in real life they see me in a new light. My broad shoulders, my square-ish jaw, my giant hands…

These masculine features which were de-emphasized or discarded or, well, hidden, in posted pictures are now on full display.

Yep, here’s the “real” Hannah McKnight.

In all her feminine flaws.

Despite what this post has suggested so far, I really don’t get tooooo hung up on this, however. In some ways I hope that other t-girls see that many of us have the same features as each other. That passing isn’t real. That we don’t have to be a certain height to present as femme. I mean, other t-girls remind ME of this. Other t-girls inspire me all the time to stop being concerned about how tall I am or whatever.

Anyway, pictures are one thing. Video is another.

Videos capture movement, voice, body language, facial expressions, and essentially one’s physical appearance.

These things are the reasons I’ve resisted video.

Obviously I got over it.

But after seeing the first “Help Me, Hannah!” video I was reminded why I resisted doing video.

Not that I have regrets. Please don’t misunderstand me.

What I mean is that for years my pictures and my writings represented me. They, well, spoke for me. I knew that a ten second video would reshape how people would think of me. Despite years of blogging and pictures, all impressions and thoughts about me could essentially replaced by a short video clip.

Put in a different way.

For years I admired a writer for their books and novels. Loved them. Read every word they wrote, every book they published. And then a few years ago I happened across a video of them being interviewed. They came off as whiny and entitled and cringy. All of a sudden my perspective of them changed. Decades of enjoying their work was put into doubt. Yes they wrote wonderful books but my God the person behind the words was very different than what I had anticipated. I couldn’t reread one of their novels without hearing them complain in that interview how poorly it sold and how he blamed the reception of it on readers not understanding it.

Of course, there is the discussion of art v artist but I don’t want to talk about that right now.

I suppose my point is that a video can quickly, for good or for bad or, well, for neither, can instantly replace someone’s perception of that person.

I try to convey femme presentation. I try to convey poise and well thought out perspectives and such. But I know that all of that will go out the window when I meet someone and they see the real Hannah. The fidgety, the over-sharing, the restless, the twitchy, the distracted Hannah.

It’s no unlike a certain musician that I really like. Wonderful voice, wonderful music, confident performances. But when interviewed they stutter, they stammer, they get flustered. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. Obviously they are more comfortable performing and letting their work and their art represent them.

I really don’t know what people think of me when they meet me. And I really don’t want to. I might disappoint them, I suppose. Since I try to present myself on my website as confident, as femme, I worry anything less than that will not live up to someone’s expectations, if that makes sense.

Not that I think I am a perfect princess or a celebrity. Please understand that.

If it helps I have the same misgivings in my male life, too.

But I imagine that when others meet me they likely think that I am a little aloof, a little quiet, a little arrogant, a little… who knows what.

Thankfully people are generally too polite to let me know what they think of me to my face.

The internet is a different story.

If I post a picture it’s fair game. I’ve seen horrible and nasty comments which are humbling and upsetting and can really get to me. These comments are a reminder why I only post what I feel are my best pictures.

Again, there’s that element of control.

But video?

A video has voice. A video isn’t always going to limit showing me in what I feel is my best angle. A video shows movement and if that movement isn’t as femme as I would like it to be then I cringe a little. My face might look femme, but if I turn my head then that appearance changes. My head looks a lot more masculine in profile.

Essentially it’s as close as to seeing me in real life as can be. I am, in a way, a little more three-dimensional compared to just a picture of myself.

I saw a preview of the first “Help Me, Hannah!” video shortly before it went live. Annnnd I immediately noticed a few things.

Some of these things were what many viewers pointed out, such as the sound (we’re fixing that) and my constant hand movement. My hands were all over the place because I was nervous and jumpy as a cat. But I tend to gesture with my hands when I am en femme. Hannah is more animated than he is, I guess. Some said my hands were distracting, some said they helped my femme presentation as many women tend to speak and gesture with their hands and voice.

What I noticed is when I tilt my head up my head looked more squarish. My wig tends to frame my face in a more femme way and minimizes some of masculine features. My adam’s apple and jawline are more prominent as well.

I also noticed my biceps. There’s nothing wrong and nothing un-feminine about a nicely toned arm but I suppose I wasn’t used to seeing how… defined my upper arms are when I am en femme.

I also ramble a bit which was something I was prepared for. When I write for my website I can take as much time as I like (for example, I started writing this post two days ago) to get my point across (if I have a point). I can even edit a post for clarification after it goes live. Since I am not working with a teleprompter I am freewheeling a bit. Rambling, ums, ahs, are a given. I am likely not coming off as poised and as thought out as my writings might suggest.

And then there’s my shoulders…

The list goes on.

I do think that my overall femme presentation is good. I’m happy with how I look. How I carry myself and my body language and, well, my clothes and makeup, I feel helps me, ah, overcome my more masculine characteristics and attributes.

I think many of us are used to putting ourselves under the microscope, so to speak. We scrutinize small things, we beam when we look better than we expected to. If we take that step to post a picture we open ourselves up to what others might think of us. For good or for ill.

These videos are doing that but in different ways. People might (and have) commented on my voice, my movement, my body language, and so on. Things that a simple photo doesn’t have. These videos also have a wider reach than my website. Since En Femme is promoting and marketing these videos they are doing their thing to show them to a wider audience. They have a financial interest in getting these videos to people.

Which, of course, opens oneself up to a larger audience and any anonymous comments they might decide to make. Again, for good or for ill.

If I am being honest I am terrified of looking at the comments on YouTube. Tweets, emails, and comments on my own website have all been, for the most part, very nice and positive. But some rando watching these videos are likely a different story. I read the first dozen or so comments when the video first went up and they were all very nice and I decided that was enough. I didn’t want to stumble across a comment that was just flat out mean. I can take constructive criticism, I really can, but I think someone saying something just cruel would, well, I can’t really think of a reason I need to see that.

Besides, the video is there, it exists, it can’t be changed, it is what it is. I don’t own it, I can’t take it down. Overall I’m happy with it and I learned a lot.

And En Femme is happy with it too. That’s really important to me. I am representing their brand, their company. I want them to be happy. It’s an enormous honor and responsibility to be associated with them. I had a meeting with them a few days after the video was posted and the views and statistics and the like were very much inline with what they had hoped for.

Last night I wondered if this is what I want. For the last decade or so I’ve more or less controlled any notoriety I had. I watched web traffic slowly grow, I branched out into some social media, did some modeling… Although I was more “out there” it was all very much in my control. I could pull back on social media, I could quit blogging. If I ever got overwhelmed by my “celebrity status” I knew I could, well, disappear. That was comforting, if I am being honest. I could pull the plug, I could walk away.

I’ve decided to, well, ignore anything that scares me when it comes to these video statistics. If En Femme is happy and if you like them, that’s enough for me.

Love, Hannah

Never Ending Circles

by Hannah

Unless you intentionally resist it, you can’t help but learn things. This happens by accident and it happens by DOING. You learn to walk in heels BY walking in heels. You learn how to do makeup BY doing makeup. And so on.

One minute on a bicycle will teach you more about cycling than years of reading about it.

Crossdressing and femme presentation has taught me sooooo much about so many things. These skills can be practical such as taking off your bra without first removing your top. They can also be introspective such as learning how this side of us can make us feel more vulnerable and, well, happy.

Somewhere along the way we will probably learn that this side of us isn’t going away. Even if we don’t quite understand why we do what we do (and we likely never will so it’s not worth wrestling with this question), at one point we will resign ourselves to knowing this isn’t a phase and it’s not something we will grow out of.

And for me, I didn’t WANT to grow out of it. I loved this side of me. I know for many of us we wish we could, well, stop or wake up one day and all thoughts of femme presentation would be gone. I get it. I really do.

But as much as I loved this side of me, I really did, well, try to stop. I mean, isn’t that the reason we purge? If I throw away my lingerie and just not buy more lingerie than I won’t wear lingerie even though I want to wear lingerie. That was my thinking.

It was… not unlike when I tried to stop drinking in the past. But I always found my way back to the liquor store and Victoria’s Secret.

And to be clear I didn’t want to stop because of guilt or any anxiety I felt. I knew from experience that this part of me doesn’t make relationships easier and brought a lot of stress into my partners’ lives. So, I wanted to… hm, remove this element of myself because I didn’t want to burden my partner with who I was and who I am.

Buuuuut through therapy I learned that I am not, by default, a burden and that who I am is worthy of love. My childhood was difficult and I thought I had to be perfect to be loved. Through therapy I accepted that it’s okay and normal and expected to be flawed.

Wow. Um. Anyway.

At one point I realized the futility of purging. This was in my mid-twenties. There were times I would throw away a box of stilettos and panties in the trash as I left my apartment to go to work but then stop at the mall on my way home to buy stilettos and panties.

What a waste.

But I stopped this cycle, this never ending circle. No longer purging, I saw my wardrobe grew, unsurprisingly.

At the time purging wasn’t only meant for me to, well, stop wearing what I wanted, but it was also motivated by the fear of someone finding me out.

I mean, I couldn’t think of a single reason my roommate would look in a shoebox that was waaaay in the back of my closet but I was still terrified and paranoid they would. And guess what was in that shoebox? Good guess.

I didn’t hide this side of me because I was ashamed of it. I couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would care what someone else wore. I mean, I knew this wasn’t common but I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. No, I kept this to myself because even at a young age I knew how easily this side of me could be misunderstood.

I didn’t want my mom or roommate or whomever to find my clothes and think the wrong thing. I wasn’t a fetishist, this wasn’t a kink, I wasn’t feeling confused. This side of me just always brought great joy and happiness and was, well, pure.

At the time I didn’t have the right words to explain who I was or why I was who I am. So, my clothes remained a secret. Little has changed. I’ll likely never find the right words to adequately explain all of this.

But goodness that doesn’t mean I didn’t try.

It sounds so… funny now that I am approaching fifty but in my mid-twenties I started to realize I wouldn’t live forever. I was healthy and I still am, but I was beginning to worry and accept that an accident could happen and, well, I could die.

I am going out on a limb here but I think many of us have considered what would happen to that shoebox (or storage locker) after we have breathed our last.

Speaking for myself, I was concerned about what this revelation would do to my mom. I didn’t want her, or anyone, to misunderstand who I was, who I am. The last thing I wanted anyone to think was that their kid, their sibling, their friend was a fetishist. I mean, not there’s anything wrong with that. But for me, this side of me brought happiness and I didn’t want that joy to be misunderstood as something that aroused me.

So, I wrote a note.

I knew it was inadequate. I knew I had to break down something so… simply and so complex at the same time into relatable and clear explanations. I just wanted to be understood. I even included a few resources, such as websites, books, and support groups that I thought my family could turn to if this discovery really upset them.

The note went into one of the large boxes in my closet and there it sat.

I remember feeling a sigh of relief that I did what I could to help someone understand who I was or who I wasn’t. But I also had a feeling of… acceptance. This is who I was and the never ending circle was, well, ended. I could purge every single day but I would always replace what I lost.

Why should I deny myself something that makes me happy? Something that is so personal. Something that didn’t have to impact anyone else?

Today there is no note. I suppose if there is anything that someone would turn to it’s this website. This is my autobiography, if you will. Long, rambling, contradictory, boring, shallow, overthought, and maybe, occasionally insightful and reflective. When I leave this world and my secret gets out and a friend wants to know who I was, who Hannah was, they could come here. It would take a looooong time to read it all but if anyone was going to “get” this side of me, as best as one could, it’s in these words and pictures.

I just regret that a friend will likely see their buddy in lingerie. Um, sorry.

Love, Hannah

The World Premier of Help Me, Hannah!

by Hannah

Oh my goodness that sounds grandiose and arrogant.

But here it is, the first episode of a new webseries I am doing with En Femme!

Hannah McKnight on our YouTube channel! Hannah’s new series Help Me, Hannah! just launched and she’ll be a regular on our channel spreading joy, help and wisdom as she always does. Watch the first episode and subscribe to our channel!

I was terrified of how this would turn out and besides the trouble we had with the microphone and the resulting sound I think this turned out pretty well!

I hope you like it and I look forward to hearing what you think as well as suggestions for future topics!

Love, Hannah

Turning Point

by Hannah

I get quite a few emails from partners and spouses of people like me and likely people like you.

We are on our own journeys but we all experience many of the same things. One of the commonalities is that we know there is something different (and amazing and beautiful) about us AND it’s something we internalize and think about for quite a while before we come out to someone.

If we are able to choose the person we come out to, and if we choose when we come out to that person, it’s usually for a reason. Sometimes that reason is that we just can’t keep this side to ourselves anymore. We are tired of hiding, we are exhausted from being discrete.

Sometimes we come out to someone because we are at a point in a relationship where they have to know before the relationship progresses any further.

Regardless of why we come out, usually we are at a point when we CAN talk about it. We have more or less thought of the right-ish words to express and explain the whys and such. AND! when we come out it’s almost always because we ourselves have accepted and embraced this side of us. We are likely ready to acknowledge that this side of us isn’t a phase or going away or can be repressed any longer.

Another commonality is that when many of us come out it’s not unusual for us to be bursting at the seams with excitement. WE HAVE COME OUT TO SOMEONE! Yay! And maybe, just maybe, this person is, well, maybe not completely on board BUT they haven’t (completely and understandably) freaked out.

We might now have someone to talk to about this side of us. These discussions could be anything from sharing feelings of vulnerability or conversations about makeup. This, in my opinion, is when we are most susceptible to The Pink Fog. We are so enveloped by this side of us that it dominates EVERYTHING. Our thoughts, our conversations, our feelings… our bank accounts…

WE are ready to go a little nuts. Years or decades of ignoring these feelings are behind us and we are going a million miles an hour.

BUT the person we came out to? This is all very relatively new to them. Just as it took us years to process these thoughts and feelings, our partners also need time to absorb and reflect on what we just revealed.

WE might be ready for makeovers and girls nights and lingerie shopping with our wives… but my god our partners aren’t. We are leagues ahead of them in terms of processing this. We need to give them time with their feelings and, more or less, let them decide what (if anything) happens when.

It’s at this point in OUR journey that I get the most emails from spouses.

So, if this is where YOU are, if you are recently out to your partner, this post is for you, so listen up.

For the most part, these emails usually mention that our partners are overwhelmed and exhausted and trying to adapt to this revelation. Our partners know that this side of us isn’t going away and the work it will take to adapt to this new element of the relationship begins.

Most of us have asked our partners to, well, participate in this. This invitation often includes, but is not limited to:

-Our wives teaching us makeup

-Going dress shopping

-A girls’ night in

-A girls night out

-Sexy time while en femme

These requests and invitations are usually pretty consistent. I think these activities are fueled by a few things:

-Our femme presenting partners are gorgeous and who else would be better than they when it comes to a makeup lesson?

-This is an exciting but scary time for us and we tend to trust our partner more than anyone so we can usually count on them to help us keep our wardrobe a secret

-We hope that if they become “involved” that perhaps they will enjoy having not only a husband but also having a girlfriend to shop with

-We love our partners and we really, really want to share this secret, sacred, intimate, and personal side of ourselves with them

For the most part, we (as crossdressers ) tend to do a poor job of communicating these reasons to our partners when we invite them to participate in this side of us. I am just as guilty of this as anyone.

Many of our partners tell me that more than anything they are overwhelmed. They are processing this, they are doing everything they can to educate themselves on gender identity, on gender presentation… they are cramming for an exam they never even imagined they would need to take.

In addition to feeling overwhelmed, there is also the desire to be supportive. Which is amazing, if you think about it. We have thrown the biggest curveball EVER imaginable at our spouse and they are STILL trying to be supportive while feeling overwhelmed.

We tend to fail when it comes to recognizing this effort. WE (and again, I did this) think of our wives as only being supportive when it comes to going out together or shopping for lingerie for both ourselves and our partners.

But when it comes to a relationship, sometimes both people have different expectations what “being supportive” looks like. WE as crossdressers LIKELY look at supportive behavior as our wives teaching us how to apply lip liner. Our partners might look at being supportive as letting us wear panties under our boy clothes or wearing a nightgown to sleep.

Yes, we might want MORE, we almost always want more, BUT our partners MIGHT not be ready to do what we want/expect when it comes to showing support.

Support does not necessarily mean “participation”. My wife is incredibly supportive… but she has never gone out with Hannah. She doesn’t actively “participate”. The invitation is always there but I don’t need to ask her again and again.

I used to. I used to needle her over and over. This endless requesting drove her mad. She was/is supportive of me but me not listening to her telling me “I am not ready for __________” is what irked her more than anything.

This is an example of how sometimes it’s not the crossdressing itself that impacts our partners, it’s the behavior that often comes with it. I should have been listening. We ALWAYS need to be listening to our partners.

A crossdresser recently out to their partner is at a pretty significant moment of their own journey, their partner’s world, and the relationship itself.

Basically, it’s at this moment that has the greatest likelihood of us fucking everything up.

Many of the more intense discussions my wife and I had early on were not necessarily about wearing what I was wearing but me being enveloped in the Pink Fog. I was so enamored and focused on clothes and gender presentation that I disregarded my wife in a lot of ways. I wasn’t listening to her, I wasn’t considerate of her feelings, I took her for granted.

Again, it wasn’t wearing a dress that caused the tension, it was how selfish and oblivious I was.

Other common ways we fuck everything up is not being honest and telling lies about how much we spent on new stilettos and crossing boundaries.

I know that setting boundaries is kind of a polarizing discussion but we’re not going to talk about whether or not that is fair or not. What I do what to discuss is IF a boundary is set AND we choose to ignore it.

Many partners tell me that they have set a few “ground rules”, if you will. Some of the most common ones are:

-Not posting pictures online

-Not going out en femme

-Not “be the girl” during sexy time

We fuck up by willingly violate these agreed upon boundaries. Whether or not it’s fair that this boundary is set is irrelevant. We agreed to something but we did it anyway.

Again, it’s not the crossdressing… it was the behavior that is associated with it. Lying to our partner or trying to get away with something is generally a pretty bad decision.

If we as crossdressers want this side of us to stop being a secret in a relationship then we as crossdressers have to put in the work. Too many of us are running off lost in the fog while our partners are struggling to keep their shit together while they have another glass of wine and googling “crossdressing husband”.

We can’t drop this revelation and let our partners figure out alone how to make THIS work.

So… how can it work?

Before I go any further I want to remind ya’ll that I am not a marriage counselor. I am simply a person with a laptop that taps away my overthought thoughts while I drink coffee.

Every person is different, every marriage is different. I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I can’t offer my perspective on any relationship besides my own.

So… how did we make this work?

Honest and difficult conversations, for one. BUT none of that matter until I actually started LISTENING and ADAPTING.

For example, if my wife said “no lingerie during sexy time” I need to LISTEN and, well, not wear lingerie during sexy time.

Our partners need only tell us once. Of their feelings and of their requests.

Kind of like when I constantly asked her to go out en femme with me. She told me the first time I invited her that she wasn’t ready and she would let me know if she ever was ready.

And really, that should have been that.

Buuuuut it wasn’t. I kept asking. And I don’t know why. It’s not like her mind was going to change in a couple of hours or in a few days. I mean, she told me she would let me know. Why didn’t I listen?

Well, I know why. The Pink Fog.

When I started to dress fully en femme I noticed how different things were. The challenge of drinking without smudging my lipstick. The proper way to sit down in a short skirt. But some of the differences were more… introspective. I could now understand how it felt to have “an ugly day” when my makeup just wouldn’t cooperate. I learned how a cute outfit could make me feel.

This led to a desire to experience the world outside of my living room. I wanted to go out en femme… so I did.

When I finally stopped asking my wife to join me on these adventures, I realized that if I wanted to hit the mall with someone Hannah needed to make friends.

I wanted to interact with the world, with others… as Hannah.

I started attending local PFLAG support meetings. I started to attend a transgender support group. I met others like myself. I started to make friends.

Looking back, I realize that much of this kind of satisfied the part of me that I needed. I needed friends, I needed to know others like me.

This side of us can be a lonely one. This side of us can be a lonely one for our partners, too.

Long (rambling) story short, once I started to go to LGBTQ+ support groups and make friends who were also t-girls, I was able to, well scratch that itch of having someone to hit the mall with or have a coffee with. We need to know girls like us.

It was at this turning point where I stopped driving my wife up the wall.

For the most part.

It shouldn’t have taken her telling me more than once that she wasn’t ready to go out with Hannah and that she would let me know if and when she was ready. But again, I was lost in the fog. It’s not an excuse but it is the reason.

Love, Hannah

Related reading

Her Journey

The Pink Fog

#girlslikeus

I Wanted to be Wrong

by Hannah

I have to admit, even at my most cynical, I am surprised at how quickly and frightening things have escalated for anyone who identifies as something other than cisgender.

Obviously the war, if you will, against the transgender community has been happening for a while, and much of it was said to be done as a way to protect kids. Banning drag queen story time or prohibiting hormone therapy is/was done to eliminate “confusing” children. Some lawmakers think that children are too young to make decisions about their bodies and identity.

…But at the same time some states don’t have minimal age laws when it comes to marriage. I think a lifelong commitment to someone is a pretty serious decision. Hypocrisy is alive and well.

But I digress.

This post isn’t about kids, necessarily. I don’t think a drag queen confuses anyone and a teenager wanting to discuss HRT is likely mature enough to know what feels right and what feels, well, not right. And besides, anyone taking hormones and/or transitioning doesn’t make that decision alone and it doesn’t happen quickly. Even before we were put into this spotlight anyone who wanted to transition likely went through years of therapy and medical treatment before a single prescription was written.

Besides, kids are smarter than they are usually given credit for. I knew who I was at a young age. I knew none of this was a phase and I realized pretty early I wasn’t going to grow out of this. I also knew what wasn’t right for me. I liked who I was and who I am and I wasn’t uncomfortable being a boy. I knew transitioning wouldn’t be right for me. And decades later it still isn’t. Never was.

Many states have made “progress” in banning therapy and medical care when it comes to transgender youth. Again, all under the guise of “protecting kids”. Whether these laws are truly under the belief that this legislation is protecting the kids or that the lawmakers are just incredibly ill-informed or if these laws are motivated by cruelty is irrelevant. At the end of the day, the laws are passed and kids are denied what is often life-saving medical care.

This post is about where things are going next.

Before I go any further I want to talk about potential comments on this post. As I’ve expressed before, I don’t like deleting comments. However I do want comments to be constructive and not filled with inaccurate “facts” or harmful perspectives. Comments about how drag performances are “sex shows” are not likely to be approved. I’ve seen countless drag performance and none of them would be considered in that way. If you see a penis at a performance, more than likely you are at a strip club, not a drag show. I have little patience these days for off the rails comments and I feel less conflicted these days about deleting a comment that is completely unhinged. If you are frustrated that your comment isn’t approved then perhaps this isn’t the right website for you. Criticism is fine but let’s keep it constructive, civil, and factual.

As states “accomplish” their goal of making it almost impossible for young people to be who they are, it’s obvious what their next mission is. For so long it was under the guise of “protecting children” and the idea that they are too young to make such a decision. Some were passed to make competition in sports “fair”. But many states are now turning to banning treatment to adults, too. Many of these laws are intentionally vague and open to interpretation and I think that is exactly the point.

I’ve written about states banning gender affirming care for adults and I received so many emails telling me I was being paranoid and pessimistic. I wish that was the case.

Lawmakers didn’t stop at our youth, they won’t stop at preventing medical treatment for adults, and it’s not outside the scope of possibility that they next turn towards people like myself. People who were AMAB but present en femme. People who are legally men who buy and wear panties.

How can that be enforced? Easy. A “concerned citizen” can call the police to report a transgender person is at the mall. The cops show up, ask for my ID, and then confirm that I am legally male. Is it illegal to wear a dress or makeup? No. But could a law pass that says that people who are legally/medically male are prohibited from wearing dresses/skirts/makeup/etc.? Absolutely.

We live in a country that only a few decades ago, forcibly put Asian Americans into “resettlement camps”. Could that happen? Whether it’s likely or not it’s not impossible to suppose.

Besides voting I really don’t know what can be done to slow this or to stop this. Even if you aren’t transitioning or have any plans to, this impacts everyone that has or has had a penis and wears “girl clothes”.

I expect I’ll get emails or comments again about how paranoid or pessimistic I am. I hope I am.

Love, Hannah

Culture Shocks

by Hannah

Oh hi!

I did a little interview with Bored Panda about culture shocks that trans people experience after they transitioned.

I did make it clear that I have not and will not transition but I do experience the world in different gender presentations and have different perspectives when I am en femme or in boring mode.

There’s a few different categories, if you will, of questions along with comments of other trans people throughout the article so you might have to jump around a bit for my thoughts.

As I tend to ramble and I sometimes overshare or overthink a question it wasn’t easy to restrain myself to shorter and more concise responses but I think I did okay here, lol.

Love, Hannah

Prom Queens

by Hannah

I didn’t get to go to prom but daydreams of it came flooding back to me this weekend. The MN T-Girls were invited to a performance of the musical “The Prom” at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre and we had the time of our lives.

We dressed to the nines and had a delicious meal and watched a very topical story play out by fabulously talented actors. The music was fun and the dresses were gorgeous.

This was my second visit to the Chanhassen and I can’t wait to go again. Thank you to the Chanhassen for the invitation and the incredibly welcoming experience.

Love, Hannah

An Email Inbox is Like a Box of Chocolates

by Hannah

I tend to stop looking at my phone at around 8pm each night. When I wake in the morning I start checking my email and go through a combination of work related messages, spam, notifications, and emails to Hannah that have piled up overnight. Messages can be everything from my boss freaking out about something that he thought of at one in the morning or a notification that someone “liked” my photo on Flickr. My email is a weird merging of all of my worlds and lives and gender identities.

Sometimes Hannah gets an email and I get… a feel for what the sender was possibly experiencing when they wrote it.

What I mean is that when I get an email from a very overwhelmed and lonely spouse reaching out to me about their crossdressing husband, their message is sometimes very personal. You can FEEL the emotion, the sadness, the frustration, the confusion, the desire to understand their husband.

On the flip side, sometimes it takes a few tries for me to follow an email as it’s filled with typos and grammatical errors which leads me to think that this person was emboldened by alcohol when it came to plucking up the courage to write the message.

No judgement.

When I drank I was often… hm, more comfortable doing certain things. So, I get it. I can relate.

Sometimes an email can be confessional, like they just HAVE to tell someone something. Like they have this desire, this need to come out. Again, I get it. I’ve been there and sometimes I am back there again. Sometimes an email is someone just telling me, telling SOMEONE about their fantasies or gender identity or the panties they have tucked away in their sock drawer.

And to be clear, not every fantasy is a sexual one (but I get plenty of those as well). Sometimes the fantasy is one of the many that I have… shopping for a beautiful gown or being a bridesmaid.

Sometimes the fantasy is my reality and I am reminded that wearing panties every day is a dream for others and I am probably taking my underdressing for granted.

Sometimes an email is someone confessing their… love, their infatuation with me. Annnnnnd I am not, hm, bragging about this kind of email. It doesn’t take much for me to feel that someone has crossed a line in their language to me. I am easily unnerved when someone says they are obsessed with me.

“Obsessed” catches my attention in a very particular way. It can be used in a few different ways and context is everything. If someone emails me and says they are obsessed with lingerie, girl, I can totes relate.

But if you’re obsessed with me? Um. Don’t.

For starters, your obsession is going to be very unfulfilled and it’s best you try to move on. Secondly, obsession can lead to… ah, scary stuff.

Again, I am not bragging in a veiled way. The O word puts the sender on my radar. It’s different than someone saying they have a crush on me. That feels pretty harmless. But an obsessed person is potentially dangerous.

And to be fair not everyone who uses this word is a threat. They probably aren’t. I tend to use words in the right context but very much an exaggeration at times. Again, I am obsessed with lingerie but it’s not like I am consumed by thoughts of stockings and corsets. It’s not like I can’t function in my every day life because I am too busy thinking about bras and matching garter belts.

Guys obsessed with me is one thing. A guy wanting to WORSHIP me is another. And yes, it happens. And no, it’s not flattering.

It’s not a word I see pop up very often in an email and when it does I tend to think that the sender, ah, means it. I am not really comfortable with being a “celebrity”, let alone being someone that a person wants to “worship”.

Annnnnd let’s break that second braggadocios sentence down. I don’t want to be misunderstood.

I am aware, often awkwardly, that I am fairly well known in our little world. As of this writing my website is the third result that Google provides when “crossdressing” is searched. I have been doing what I have been doing for a while and my writings and reviews for En Femme and other designers have elevated my profile.

I have come to terms with this and I am comfortable with my… ah, status. It’s mostly harmless and rarely do I feel that my… hm, career isn’t within my control.

It’s not a stretch if I am considered a celebrity our little world but please understand that I don’t think of myself in that way. Lord knows I am humbled often in my day to day life. But like a lot of words, such as obsession, ‘celebrity’ can cover a lot of ground whether it’s Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga or Harry Styles or RuPaul. I am not in that pantheon. Not by any stretch.

I’m just an over-thinking t-girl with a laptop and a fabulous wardrobe.

Regardless of whether or not I am prolific or a celebrity (God, no matter how much I cringe from that word… it still always sounds like I am bragging), I don’t want to be treated like one. I know as a six foot tall t-girl I am going to stand out, so I dress how I wish and blending in be damned. But when it comes to everything else, I just want to interact with everyone, online or in real life, as just a girl. I have always been uncomfortable with compliments and praise, even if it’s my boss in a rare moment telling me I did a good job on whatever project.

But getting back to the email situation that I referenced a zillion sentences ago, I received a message from someone who suggested I become a domme so they can worship me.

So, that is not going to happen. I am not going to be a domme. Do you have any idea how expensive that would be? I would need a “dungeon” and the equipment and the furniture and all of that. And let’s be realistic, many people who see a domme do so for a sexual/fetish/kink reason. I do not want to do anything or engage with anyone where that person is getting aroused by it.

I have no interest in doing anything that is kinky or intimate or sexual (even just emotionally or verbally) with anyone.

And I am soooo uncomfortable with the idea of being worshipped. I can just imagine it. Sitting on a chair while some dude lays at my feet? My god, I can’t imagine a more boring scenario.

I suppose my point is that none of who I am is a fetish/kink or a sexual thing. I know that going outside of gender norms is very erotic to some and I know that some people find girls like us very sexy but I don’t want to be a willing participant in someone else’s fantasy.

Love, Hannah

St. Cloud Pride

by Hannah

Hi!

Community has always been essential for anyone that identifies as LGBTQ+. It’s somewhat frustrating to acknowledge that support and friendship and solidarity is just as crucial now as it was fifty years ago. One would hope that acceptance of us would be more widespread than it was decades ago.

A few years ago I had great ambitions to post different resources across the United States for support/social groups on my website. I backed off from this as I realized just how much time this would take but also because there were other sites that were doing this better than I was.

But since I live in Minnesota I want to at least highlight what my state has to offer.

A reader pointed me towards St. Cloud Pride. Saint Cloud is one of the larger cities here and is about an hour from the Twin Cities. Depending how fast you drive, I suppose.

There are regular events, such as community picnics and a lot of resources for our cute little community.

Love, Hannah

Spirit

by Hannah

Oh boy.

When I started to type this post there was no intention to upset anyone. But upon rereading it I am realizing that this might come off as… offensive to people of certain faiths and religions. That’s the last thing I am intending to do here. People have deeply held beliefs and I don’t mean to trivialize or minimize anyone’s faith here. My point in this long and rambling post is that I don’t know anything for sure when it comes to God or the afterlife… and that I love the mystery.

I love interpretations of creation.

I love stories.

I was raised Catholic and spent every Sunday in church and every school day being taught Bible stories. Even at a young age I didn’t really believe them. When I was six I was obsessed with dinosaurs like a lot of kids were. Learning that they lived like a millions years ago taught me that the Earth was a lot older than what the Bible said.

But I rolled with it. I felt that these stories were metaphors, allegories, fables, and, well, a type of myth.

Again, please understand that I mean no disrespect to any faith or to any believer.

My point is that I didn’t take these stories as literal fact. But I loved these stories all the same. I didn’t really think God caused the Earth to experiences rain for forty days… but I loved that there was a story, a meaning, behind the rainbow. I loved that the story of Adam and Eve was a metaphor for original sin.

I loved the creation story… but I didn’t think that the Earth was created in six days.

Not believing these stories didn’t make me think that Catholicism wasn’t important. I became detached from organized religion in my teen years and was more drawn to faith and having a private relationship and communication with God.

And to be clear, I don’t know who or what God is. I am agnostic and I don’t think that the creator is anything that our hearts and minds can even come close to comprehending. I don’t think that any religion is right and definitive. Christianity is different than Judaism which is different from Shintoism and so on.

For every religion and for every faith there are different stories relating to the creation of the universe, deities, and the afterlife. And I love learning these stories. I love how we as humans have put something so… big and incomprehensible into a context that we can understand.

I think there is too much effort and too much importance on debating which religion is “right”. People try to prove or disprove different faiths and I think that is missing the point. Some people believe the planet and the cosmos was created in six days but geological testing and carbon dating tell us that’s not true.

Faith and science can absolutely coexist. The belief in the Garden of Eden can still be held even if there’s no proof it existed.

Beginnings and endings are fascinating. I was told how the Earth was created in school… at least according to the Bible. When I was older I was taught about different religions and different creation stories. I loved them all and in my fashion I believed in them all.

But I never believed in them in the literal sense. I loved the allegory. When we are children we are taught thunder is the sound of angels bowling. Of course I knew even when I was young this wasn’t true but I loved this idea and I loved myths and folktales and storytelling. I still do.

After creation there is the afterlife. Again, different religions have different perspectives of this. Will I drink with the warriors that reside in Valhalla? Will I go to Fiddler’s Green? Will I spend the rest of eternity in heaven? I don’t know. No one knows. But countless people have their beliefs.

Faith over fact, baby. It can also be faith AND fact, baby.

I am restless and easily bored. I finish something and I am onto the next thing. Even when I was young the concept of being in heaven forever and ever seemed… um, really dull. And yes, that sounds absolutely blasphemous.

Somewhere along the way I learned about different religions believing in reincarnation. And it was like YES. That’s what I hope happens.

Of course any concept of the afterlife is difficult to comprehend but I liked the idea of continuing… albeit as a new person. I don’t want to be… hm, aware of who I was previously but I would like to continue to be ME but with a different life, a different reflection in the mirror.

If reincarnation is, more or less, an endless cycle of rebirth then it goes without saying “I” have lived before.

And before anyone starts to worry about me, no, I don’t seriously think reincarnation actually happens. I just like the idea. It’s comforting in a way. Again, I don’t think anyone is capable of comprehending the afterlife or God or similar concepts and beliefs.

I have a friend who, well, dabbles in channeling one’s past lives. This is fascinating to me. Not that I believe it, but like many hobbies and interests and careers that are out there, it’s fun to get a peek into a world I am not familiar with.

Anyway, a year or so ago she “did” me. Part of this spiritual discovery, according to her, is going into a trance-like state and then writing in an almost unconscious way.

And yes, I know I am almost trivializing this. And I don’t mean to… just like I don’t mean to trivialize anyone’s faith or religious beliefs. There are some things that are very important to others and are very significant to them that I simply am not familiar with. I don’t understand the appeal of golf but I won’t criticize someone’s passion for it. I don’t put much stock in a palm reading but I will not mock someone going to one.

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand, you know?

Anyway it would be hypocritical if I did. I mean, I would hate it if I was made fun of because of my “hobby”.

At any rate, she tapped into my previous lives with such conviction and sincerity and detail that one would think it was factual. If anything, she would be a fantastic fiction or history textbook writer. I don’t recall much of what she wrote but in one of my past lives I was a girl.

I mean, that’s not surprising to hear.

And not because of, well, who I am now. But if you are going to speculate on someone’s past lives and if you look at gender in the binary sense, it’s not a stretch by any means to suppose that person was a gender that is different than the one you present as today. The odds are 50/50, after all.

She wrote what she “saw” and she wrote it in such detail that it was almost… unsettling to read. Not that the content itself was uncomfortable but more like… if this was “the real thing” and maybe, just maybe there was something to this…

I have the several pages of notebook paper tucked away somewhere and besides a cursory glance through it I have never read it.

I want to interject something here that we will circle back on in a moment. And goodness isn’t that the most professional sentence ever??

It’s easy for us to overanalyze ourselves and when we come out to someone it’s natural for that person to want to know the WHY of who we are. Was there something that happened in our childhood that impacted our gender identity? Is this side of us born from trauma or created due to neglect from a parent?

I suppose since many of us realize this side of us at a young age it’s tempting to think that something from our childhood was what influenced who we are today.

And, well, that makes sense to suppose that, but it’s not necessarily true. My dad was… awful. And of course that impacted how I grew up and it took (and still takes) a lot of time and therapy to, well, undo how this shaped me as I grew into an adult.

But my gender/genders were not born from trauma. I love who I am. It’s a gift as far as I am concerned. I’m sure there are some therapists out there who would link my gender identity to wanting to be someone else since my dad hated me. And I suppose that’s… plausible but in my case it’s not true.

If you believe in reincarnation it’s not abnormal to think that who you were in a previous life has shaped who you are today. I mean, that’s part of reincarnation in a few religions. Who you are TODAY, in THIS life will impact who you are in the next one.

This aspect of reincarnation and our development in our adolescence are not dissimilar. We are a result of what happened to us before… whether in another life or when we were ten years old. My therapist suggested my overthinking is stemmed from having a wildly impulsive and furious parent when I was growing up. And it makes sense. But my gender identity was born from a deep love, a place of beauty, a gift I let myself have. Something that made me so happy and still does. The joy I had trying on a dress when I was little comes flooding back to me even now when I go shopping.

Goodness this post is going in a million different directions, isn’t it?

Circling (lol) back to reincarnation…because reincarnation is a cycle. Get it? Um. Moving on…

Was I assigned as a girl at birth in a previous life? Sure. Probably. Again, the odds are 50/50 when it comes to assigning gender and if reincarnation is real then it’s incredibly likely there was a previous, ah, version of me that was swaddled in pink blankets instead of blue.

But is who am I today, in this life (if you will) a result of who I was, who she was, in a previous life? Is Hannah an echo of a previous existence? I mean… who knows? It’s not impossible to think so. It’s not unlike a creation story, I suppose.

What I mean is that it’s fun to consider and impossible to confirm. It’s not a mystery to be solved and not a mystery that can be solved.

Creation stories are not unlike origin stories. And we as people all have our own origin story. What made us who we are? Nature and/or nurture? What shaped our gender identities? What influenced our attitudes? What relationships impacted our own? What experiences led to our perspectives?

You could obsessively trace back every aspect of yourself to what led to who you are. I mean, I do this. I have a wonderful marriage and it took a lot of experiences in previous relationships to understand how to be a partner to someone. Soooo many eggs to make this omelet.

Who I am, and more specifically who Hannah is, was shaped by trying different looks and different experiences. Who is she? What does she like to wear? What is her style? What is her personality? How does she interact with the world?

The only real way to know thyself is to have experiences to see how you respond to them and to see how these experiences make you feel. I created myself, I discovered myself. I saw my origin story, my creation story, in real time.

Buuuut if we step back even further AND if we flirt with the idea of reincarnation, who was I before I was born? Who was Hannah?

I received an email a couple of weeks ago where the sender offered their… hm perspective? the results of their research? of who I was in a past life.

To be clear, I don’t have a habit of sharing personal correspondence on this website, especially if the sender specifically requests that I keep their email private.

Buuuut I am sharing their email here. I hope this is okay.

In your past Life you were born in 1890.

In Paris. As a Girl,,,,,, your Aunt had the biggest Ladies underwear and foundation store in Paris. You had gone to work for her because of a new invention that was introduced to Women’s Stores. It was the Sewing Machine. Your Aunt purchased this new invention. Now there was no more hand sewing of all ladies garments. It was just like the computer today. Now ladies could sew 10 times faster with this new machine. Your Aunt placed you in charge of that department. Your Aunt gave you the run of the store.

The younger girls who lived in France hated the big rear end Bussels and of the heavy fabrics of the Dresses and Gown’s back then. The Garter belt was invented back then to hold ladies silk stockings up. It is this life back then that has cause you to recall all these feelings THAT ARE STILL DEEP IN YOUR MEMORY.

It is absolutely not a stretch by any means to speculate in a previous life I had some sort of connection to lingerie. Five minutes on my website would lead anyone to make the connection I am somewhat obsessed. It’s also not a stretch to suppose I was assigned girl at birth in a past life… not only because of my gender identity but also because the odds of being assigned boy or girl are dead even.

Is this my origin? Sure? Does this contradict the peek into my past life that my friend did? Yes. Do I believe this? No. But it doesn’t matter. I love a good story.

I have no idea what will happen after my heart runs out of beats. No one does. But we all have our faiths or ideas or hopes. Some believe that death is the end and I suppose from a scientific perspective that is absolutely true and likely. But when I think of myself, when I think of others, when I think of YOU and I remember how everyone has thoughts and fears and passions and dreams and how we have worlds inside of us… I can’t imagine that these worlds just stop. Our bodies will wear out, they will age, they will be impacted by disease or injuries. Our souls, our spirits can live forever.

Love, Hannah