Month: July 2023

When I decided to go out en femme allll those years ago I started to think of where to go. One option would be the movies. I don’t go to a lot of movies but I thought if I was going to go out then a safe place would be a big, dark room.

When I started to think about fun outings for the MN T-Girls, movies again were at the top of the list. I mean, that’s what friends do, right? Go to the movies?

But after all this time, after over a decade of going out, I’ve not seen a single movie en femme.

Of course, like many things, Barbie changed that.

I went to see the Barbie movie this weekend with two friends and it was so much fun. I wasn’t that nervous about seeing a movie en femme, but it was a new experience and I didn’t really know what to expect. But like almost every interaction I’ve ever had, and like almost every little and every big thing I’ve ever done, it was a mundane but affirming experience.

We took pictures in the lobby to celebrate this new experience buuuuut I hated how I looked in the pictures. So, here’s a photo from earlier in the day.

I think we all know how humbling and frightening it is to present as femme. I think we all see the world through a different perspective than the world we normally experience in male mode. But I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Yes, I know what it’s like to struggle with my makeup or have my self-esteem take a hit when I don’t look as cute as I would like. I know how uncomfortable it can be to be stared at and wonder if that person over there is going to harass or attack me.

But when I revert back to male mode these fears and feelings disappear.

My wife, my sisters, my friends, and every girl on the planet do not have that privilege. This is the world they live in.

I used to think I knew what women experienced but I learned how limited my perspective was. Do I know what it’s like to have a mechanic talk down to me? Do I know what it’s like to have a repairperson ask to speak to my husband? Do I know what it’s like to be paid less than a man for the same job?

No.

We all have difficult lives and challenges, but I don’t think my life is harder when I present as male. Again, this is male priviliege.

I want to share one of the things a character in the movie said. This was spoke by America Ferrera’s character.

“You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.

“You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

“I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.”

I never expected a Barbie movie to have so many layers but goodness was this an amazing movie.

And yes, it’s just as “woke” as insecure men are saying it is which is another reason I looooooved it.

My favorite part of the movie is on my way out I said “Hi Barbie!” to a couple of girls dressed up for the show and I was given an enthusiastic “Hi Barbie!” in return.

Love, Hannah

I don’t believe that “passing” is a real thing. I don’t believe that passing is something we should be striving for. I think trying to achieve that can hold us back.

It held me back.

I didn’t start going out en femme until about a dozen years ago, when I was in my mid-thirties. I sometimes think about all the years when I wanted to go out but didn’t because I was… too tall? Too masculine? Too afraid? Too self-conscience? Too… all of that?

I wanted to pass. I really did. And I wanted to pass for three reasons:

1. Anonymity. I didn’t want to be recognized.
2. Safety. Non-binary people are ridiculed, harassed, and attacked.
3. I wanted to be so beautiful that no one would know the gender I was assigned at birth

As time passed, I grew restless…. I mean, I wasn’t getting any younger… but I was getting more confident and less concerned about what others might think of me. That’s one of the many benefits of growing older. I thought a lot about what was holding me back. And do you know what that was?

It was the weird, arbitrary expectations of what a girl “should” look like.

I mean, what is a girl “supposed” to look like?

Is it a certain height? If so, how tall is too tall?

Is it a certain facial structure? If so, what shape is that?

Is it a certain outfit? If so, what is a girl “supposed” to wear?

These are not questions that do not have an answer. And if you think that there are answers, well, you might be an asshole.

What I mean is that if you think some girls are too tall to be a girl, you’re probably an asshole. Yes, t-girls are usually taller than cisgender girls, but as tall as I am, there are many cisgender girls that are taller than me.

I realized I honestly couldn’t think of what a girl “should” or “shouldn’t” look like. My wife is five feet tall. She’s as feminine as they come. The girls listed on Stana’s Famous Females of Height are stunning and absolutely feminine.

Upon this realization I started to build the courage to go out. I no longer had the need to pass preventing me from doing this. It was like… no longer being afraid of the monster beneath your bed… because the monster never existed in the first place.

This was freeing but frightening at the same time.

After a little time I awkwardly stepped out of my car, meekly walked down the sidewalk, and after a little time I started to strut, hold my head up, and I’ve never looked back.

Every single time I go out and catch myself in a mirror I am thankful I stopped thinking about passing. But in a way I still think about passing, but not in the same way I used to. Instead, I think about why we try to. I think it comes down to a few reasons, the same reasons that held me back.

One reason is that we want to be unrecognizable en femme. We don’t want anyone to see HIM when we are HER. I am grateful I work from home and all of my coworkers are scattered throughout the country. It is incredibly unlikely I will bump into a colleague when I am dressed up.

Another is for safety. This I absolutely understand. A small number of people hate us and may be inclined to harassing or even attacking us. We may want people to think of us as cisgender so we can minimize being clocked/read as a t-girl.

Finally, we may want to remove alllllll aspects of our male lives. We want our presentation to, well, overcome all the features our boy bodies and faces have. Our Adam’s Apple? Gone! Our masculine jawline? Gone! Our rectangularly shaped body? Gone! All of these aspects replaced my a heart shaped face and an hourglass figure. I will fully admit I do all I can to minimize or emphasize certain parts of my face. Makeup contouring and corsets help.

But all of these reasons are rooted in a desire to pass because we are trying to fit the antiquated standard of “what a girl needs to look like”.

Some people know exactly what a girl should look like. Again, these people tend to be assholes. They’ll tell you a girl should always be wearing a dress (size 2 or smaller) and heels (size six or smaller) and winged eyeliner sharp enough to kill.

At my most optimistic, I don’t think most people have a dress code in mind when it comes to what a girl should or shouldn’t look like. I mean, I knew what I wanted to wear but when I realized I didn’t have any… expectations for other girls I started to realize how arbitrary “passing” was. My wife is super cute in yoga pants and flip-flops and drop dead gorgeous on date night. Is she “more of a girl” in either look? No. She’s not.

So instead of trying to live up to undefined rules or guidelines or expectations of what a girl should look like, maybe we should focus on expanding the concept of gender itself.

And what I mean by that is that we should expand the concept of gender presentation to the point that gender is so ambiguous that boy/girl/feminine/masculine are terms that aren’t even used anymore.

We move gender from the binary to infinite.

Ten years ago when I filled out a government form and I had to select a gender the options were male or female. These days sometimes there is a non-binary or at least a “prefer not to say” option.

I’ve done a few questionnaires and surveys online about gender identity and sometimes the options are very inclusive and the list is loooooong for gender options. I love this. I would love to see so many options that gender is almost undefinable. When something can’t be defined it might just go away. In this case if gender can’t be defined then there are no standards for any gender.

It’s funny how often in a day my gender presentation can’t really be absolute. This upcoming Saturday I’ll be out en femme. But I will wake up that day in a nightgown with a few days of facial hair. I’m wearing femme clothes but stubble isn’t usually associated with a feminine face. So, what is my gender presentation at that moment? I’ll start to get ready for the day and I will shave my face, cinch up my corset and adhere my breast forms… and my body and outfit are feminine but I’m even taller than before thanks to my heels. My outfit might convey femininity but am I too tall to be feminine? Even though I am wearing cute girl clothes my face is very masculine until my makeup appointment. After layers of foundation and contouring I am as femme as I can be. Except for my voice. It is not the voice of a cute, feminine girl. After a few hours I’ll go home and soon my makeup will be washed off and my dress is hanging back in my closet. I will put on a t-shirt and jeans and go out to dinner with my wife. Am I masculine? Sure, but I likely have a few pesky flakes of mascara kissing my eyelashes. The day ends as it began, in a nightgown with my facial hair starting to grow back.

Throughout the day my clothes and appearance changed. Nothing absolutely in one binary or another. I will be outside of the binary the whole day. I usually am, even if I am not en femme…leggings in boymode, panties under my boy clothes… This is an example of how undefined presentation plus gender identity is. If I am not either, then are gender norms and rules even a thing? If they are not real, then how can one fit into one? How can one “pass” if gender doesn’t have strict, defined expectations? A girl can wear whatever she wants and she can look however she pleases.

To put it another way, would you ever walk up to a cisgender girl and say she is too tall to be a girl? Would you ever tell her that her face isn’t the right shape to be pretty? Or that a girl is supposed to wear certain outfits? Of course not. So why would you do that to the girl in your mirror?

Love, Hannah

I’ve heard it say that the world is uncaring, but people are not.

Things have never been easy for a girl like us. We are misunderstood but that’s not something that bothers me toooo much. I don’t NEED to be understood.

At the same time, I don’t need to understand anyone else. I just know there are others who have different interests and hobbies and identities that I can’t relate to but their choices don’t impact me at all. Let people live their lives.

Understanding someone can often be two very different extremes. If I meet someone who I feel is different from myself, I can look at them in two ways:

1. That’s who they are and it doesn’t affect me at all
2. I need to understand every single facet of their life and try to understand exactly who they are and why they who they are

The key to this is knowing which perspective to have. I think it comes down to the relationship you have with them.

For example!

Do I need to understand why my neighbor likes to cut his grass every Saturday at 6am?

No. It’s annoying and noisy but I don’t need to understand that.

Do I need to understand why my work colleague is obsessed with hockey?

No. It would be nice to have a conversation with him that doesn’t involve “the game last night” I don’t need to understand that.

Do I need to understand why a relative has based his entire personality on golf?

No. It would be nice to not be asked every single Friday if I want to hit the links with him but I don’t need to understand that.

Do I need to understand why the person driving in front of me needs to have the loudest motorcycle in the universe?

No. I think you get it by now.

On the flip side, do I need to understand my wife? Absolutely. Do I understand everything about her? No. I don’t understand why true crime podcasts are part of a relaxing evening but I don’t need to understand why that is. I just need to know what she enjoys and that’s enough. Do I need to understand what she is feeling when she is overwhelmed at work while taking care of her aging parents at the same time? Yes.

I need to understand the important things when it comes to the important people in my life. This is what I dedicate my emotional and mental bandwidth to. It leave no room for trying to understand the choices and lifestyles of people that I don’t know.

(and now I scroll back up to the beginning of this post to remind myself where I was going with all this)

Oh, right.

I don’t expect to be understood. I don’t understand the whys and hows of who I am. I do know that there are a large number of people who don’t understand the gender nonconforming community. If you are among that group, let me tell you something: you don’t need to understand us.

Why not? For two reasons:

1. Even if you do understand ONE person who is GNC, you understand exactly ONE person who is GNC.
2. I am not striving to be understood. Hell, I am not even expecting to be accepted. You just need to, well, come to terms that there are eight billion people on the planet and we are all different. I look, dress, feel, and think differently than you. If you need to understand ME, all you need to do is remember that every person on the planet is a person and with allllll the aspects that make up a person, it’s a given that everyone is different from each other. Whether it’s a taste of music or religion or political affiliation or gender identity, no one is exactly the same. Roll with it.

When I am out en femme I encounter hundreds of people. It might be someone I walk by in a parking lot or share an elevator with or order a coffee from or another person in line waiting to check out. We are in each other’s lives for just a few moments. We will likely never see each other again. We will have no impact on each other. You don’t need to understand me. I am a stranger. I always will be.

You don’t need to understand the t-girl you saw. Just remember that I am a person and we need to be kind to one another (or at least not be cruel to one another). I promise I am not trying to understand you, either. Yes, I see that you spent hundreds of dollars on a pair of sneakers but I don’t need to understand WHY. It doesn’t affect me. At all. Why bother psychoanalyzing you? On the flip side you see me in a bodycon dress and four inch stilettos. You don’t need to understand why I am dressed the way I am.

As I said earlier, life isn’t easy for a girl like us. Even without considering the rest of the world, we put enough stress on ourselves. We wrestle with our feelings, our identity, our presentation. We worry about the real world and what people will think. We fight countless battles emotionally and internally before we even get dressed.

With all of the debates and laws that are being discussed it’s logical to think that our already hostile world is becoming even more so.

But I don’t think the political environment is necessary reflective of the people.

I have friends and colleagues all over the country, including cities in some of the most conservative states that are passing and proposing the majority of anti-trans laws. By and large, my friends tell me that the city they live in is a lot more progressive and accepting than it would appear. But the problem is that wrong people are in charge and the laws are passed are not necessarily supported by the community.

Pro-choice rights are a good example of this. The majority of people support at least some degree to abortion access, even in states that have passed very strict bans.

I suppose my point to all of this is that we live in a world with a lot of anti-trans laws but when I am out in the real world, I am not seeing a shift that aligns with this legislation. I am more fearful that ever that given the recent rise of proposed and passed laws that I will be harassed or worse when I am out.

But it hasn’t happened. Not in my experience. And I hope you haven’t had an increase of harassment either.

Sometimes I am either naively optimistic or unfairly pessimistic. But I think with the current environment I am both. I think people are more comfortable and kind to transpeople than ever and at the same the political situation will just get worse.

The potential is there, I believe the support is there, we just need the right people making laws. Voting will get us there. I am proud to live in Minnesota with having recent laws banning conversion therapy and protecting gender affirming care.

Someone commented on a post recently who stated that it’s never been a better time to be LGBTQ+ and I have to agree. Despite all the legislation and the flurry of hatemongering, this is very much a two steps forward, one step back time.

Love, Hannah

Someone commented on a recent post that I didn’t approve.

It was filled with some inaccurate information and was rather mean-spirited.

I used to feel bad about not approving comments but I have gotten over that. I knew if the comment would go live there would likely be a very hostile discussion that I was afraid would spiral out of control.

My website is a reflection of what I believe and feel and think about. And I know that a lot of what I write about may be different than what others think.

And that’s okay.

If my perspectives don’t align with your own there are likely other websites that do. And if there isn’t a website that matches your values, you can create your own.

This all sounds bitchier than I mean it to be. 🙂

Some people “hate-read” my website. No matter what I write about I get nasty emails from the same people. Please don’t do this. Don’t read a website that angers you. Don’t bother sending these emails. Please spend your time doing things that make you happy.

To be honest I don’t even read emails from certain people. I do save them, however. My life has been threatened and I think retaining these messages is PROBABLY a good idea. At the same time, just because I don’t approve a comment it doesn’t mean it’s gone. I save these, too. Just in case.

I am absolutely open to another’s perspective. And sometimes my mind changes and I see things in a different way.

BUT there are a few things that I can’t imagine ever shifting my perspective on and it’s a very touchy subject. I absolutely support queer representation for kids. I think it’s important that people of all ages can see others like themselves. This could be a gay character in a book or a non-binary person in a television show. I wish I had seen others like me when I was growing up but “a man wearing a dress” was always played for laughs or as a fetish.

Representation is at odds with some people. Some people think that anyone, in real life or fiction, that is not heterosexual or cisgender, is corrupting or grooming children. That’s ridiculous. No one is “recruiting” anyone. I didn’t get the idea to wear a dress because I saw a drag queen. I was inspired to wear a dress because I saw my sisters wearing one.

The purpose of this post is to not convince anyone if they’ve already decided that any and all queer representation should be banned.

On the same note, there’s not a single comment or email anyone can send me that will change my mind either.

Remember, queer content doesn’t mean sexual content. Do I think a ten year old should read books that have two characters, of any gender, having sex? Of course not. Do I think it’s good for a kid to read a book about someone having two moms? Absolutely.

Are we clear?

Over the last few years we have seen legislation, such as in Florida, that have been referred to as “Don’t Say Gay” laws. Essentially it’s the banning of any discussion or content that has anything to do with sexual and/or gender identity. You know, “to protect the kids”.

A teacher in Florida was under investigation for showing a movie that had a gay character in it. This violated Florida law because of their ban on content that contains references to sexual identity. If you are going to pass a law like this, then I feel you need to enforce this law for heterosexual/cisgender content as well. Would a teacher be under investigation for showing a movie that had a straight person in it? I mean, isn’t heterosexuality also a sexual identity?

My point is that we as members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community are under the microscope in a way we have never been before. Everything we do or say or post online is going to be scrutinized and likely be judged or interpreted in the worst way.

So, that sucks.

What this means to me is that I can’t say or do ANYTHING that would leave the door open to such wild and inaccurate interpretations.

For example:

I am a big fan of drag queen story time. And I love typing that because some of my readers who hate-read my site get soooo mad lol. I get looooong emails and comments that I don’t read or respond to… but I do save them as I mentioned earlier.

I think it would be fun to do something similar to this. I am not a drag queen but I would love to do some sort of story time. I love books and I think it would show solidarity with our drag queen sisters.

Buuuuut for some people there is no difference between a drag queen and a transgirl. To some people I am, and I always will be, a man in a dress. If I did anything like this I would be called a groomer or something similar.

So, that sucks.

But I suppose this is the goal of some people. To prevent someone from doing anything and everything to the point where I hesitate to even leave my house and forcing us to go back into the closet.

Luckily (or stupidly) I am tooo stubborn to do so.

I think we need to be on our best behavior, so to speak. That’s not to say we should stop pushing for change and equality and representation, but we need to be careful.

As I mentioned anything that we say or do, if it can be interpreted in a negative way, it likely will be. Everything we say or do can and will be taken out of context. Our behavior and actions, in a way, need to be bulletproof.

The comment I mentioned at the start of this post referenced a Pride event where some in our community chanted “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your kids”.

And my God, was that the wrong thing to say.

Some of you will disagree with this, but according to some of the chanters this was meant to mock the fears of some people. In our community we are thought of as groomers and sexual predators and perverts. There is the fear that we are coming to recruit children into our community.

Of course, this isn’t true.

A non-binary person isn’t trying to inspire someone else to BE non-binary. If someone is non-binary they already had the idea, the thought. But it’s the representation that there are others like themselves that is important.

I am very much a fan of dark humor, mocking the unsubstantiated fears of those that blow a dog whistle, and sarcasm.

This is what the chanters, according to the chanters themselves, were doing. And yes, I KNOW, some of you will think that they were one hundred percent serious so save yourself some time from sending an email.

But we can’t do this. Especially when it comes to the biggest fear that some have.

Again, I enjoy sarcasm and mocking but I try my best to be careful about saying something that can be taken out of context when I discuss something very serious and important. Something that could be very damaging to either a relationship, my professional life, or our community.

We need to be better. We can’t give the haters any ammunition, so to speak. That chant will be taken out of context for eternity. It’s the “proof” that some people will use when they accuse us of as being groomers.

The damage is done. We have always had a difficult hill to climb but this chant has added uncountable miles to the top. I fear this has set us back for decades.

Love, Hannah

About twelve years ago I started to become active on different forums and message boards, particularly crossdressers.com. These sites were and are still invaluable when it came to makeup techniques, encouragement, gaining confidence, and sometimes a needed reality check.

I don’t really go to sites like these anymore. I feel they were so important early on in my journey but as my confidence grew and going out en femme became more normal I didn’t really need them as much as I used to.

But that’s just a testament to how important and helpful they were. They accomplished what they set out to do… give a girl assurance and support.

I met my first in real life t-girl friend through crossdressers.com and if it wasn’t for her I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to go out for the first time that fateful night way back when. Thanks Liz. 🙂

One aspect of sites like these that I didn’t like at all was the… hm, competition that some in our community promote. This was represented in two key ways:

1. Discussing who among us was more femme
2. Discussing how girls like us were more feminine than cisgender girls

HATED this.

None of this is a competition. I know it’s meant to be a compliment but I hate it when guys tell me that I am prettier than “a real girl” or that they never would have suspected I was trans (or that they don’t care that I am).

I also hate when girls in our community discuss who among us “passes”.

I think this is a reflection of how some people look at gender presentation in a binary sense and that there are standards that one must meet to be femme. Like, how tall is too tall to be a girl? What shoe size does one must wear to be considered feminine?

And so on.

But I am going to tell you something.

I am guilty of this.

What I mean is that I never look at a girl (cisgender or transgender) and think whether or not she “looks like a girl”. I never think that a girl is prettier than another girl (unless I’m thinking about my wife 😉 ).

What I am guilty of is that sometimes I meet a t-girl and think to myself that I never would have guessed they were trans.

Last month was Pride and at the festival event thing I met a lot of girls who identified as something other than cisgender. Some of the girls were post-op, pre-op, or, like me, no op. Some disclosed they were on estrogen, some are not, some were still deciding if that was right for them.

I also spoke with a lot of girls who said they were cisgender and were looking for resources for a friend, their kid, their spouse, their sibling.

There was one girl in particular who I chatted with and after a few minutes she started to share details about what her transition was like.

Internally I thought to myself “I never would have thought she was trans”.

She was pretty and kind and friendly but inside I was feeling guilty? ashamed? that I looked at her and assumed she was cisgender. I hated that I made that assumption based on her facial structure, her voice, her mannerisms, her physical appearance, her age, her height…

Part of me wanted to tell her that I never would have thought she was transgender. Not to, well, compliment her, but more because that thought was so loud in my head that I almost blurted it out.

But telling a girl that is, well, the anti-thesis of what I believe about gender: that there are no standards about what a girl must look like.

I am not sure if this is something I need to work on or if this is more normal than I realize. Perhaps it’s more important that I recognized a thought that I had isn’t, well, appropriate to share.

Someone told me that the first reaction that we have is a result of what we were conditioned to think. The second reaction is what we really feel.

I hope this is the case. In this situation my first reaction was “she is cisgender” but perhaps that is the result of being taught for decades what a girl is “supposed” to look like. My second reaction/thought of “there are no standards to femininity and I shouldn’t say anything” is what I really feel.

This has been on my mind for a few days. It’s unsettling when something happens and it forces us to consider whether or not we are a hypocrite. Part of me feels I was/am a hypocrite. My core belief is that there are no standards on what one must meet to be femme, but here I am completely misgendering someone in our community and making an assumption because of how they looked.

What do you think?

Love, Hannah