Month: August 2023

Tuesday Morning

by Hannah

A friend emailed me Tuesday morning to let me know a mutual friend of ours passed away.

Loss and grief don’t always signal their arrival in advance. We’ve all experienced the death of a loved one after a long illness. Losing someone without warning comes with sadness but also brings shock and disbelief.

“I just saw her,” I thought to myself. “She was just as feisty as ever.”

She was one of the first members of the MN T-Girls. She was older than I am and was very much a mentor to me. She had belonged to many of the now defunct crossdresser support groups in the Twin Cities over the years and helped grow the group in terms of outreach and events. She organized our booth’s registration and logistics for the annual Pride event. She was funny, smart, and helped every girl feel welcome for our events. She believed in having a group for people like us.

Our events, especially next year’s Pride, won’t be the same without her.

I have a lot of feelings and thoughts racing through my head and heart. Some of these emotions are related to the duality our lives can have and the uncertainty of who knew my friend’s gender identity/identities and avoiding outing her to people she knew.

But for now I just want to say that I miss her and I always will.

Love, Hannah

Moot Monday

by Hannah

Hi! How was your weekend? Mine was exhausting. I’ve been working on a project for work over the last eleven months now and it should finally wrap up today. All of the difficult parts are finished, including a work trip last week. This was one of the biggest things I’ve ever done in terms of my career and it was mentally and emotionally and physically taxing.

But now it’s done.

And I think now that I am not running a million miles an hour things are catching up with me. This weekend was a rare weekend when I didn’t have a lot planned. It was nice because every Saturday in September has something going on, including shooting more videos for ‘Help Me Hannah!’ and the monthly MN T-Girls event.

I tried to carry on this weekend and tried to be productive but it was strange. Usually I can find the energy to do… stuff, whether it’s yardwork or reading a book but I felt like it took every ounce of me to do anything. I am not used to limits, lol.

And this all sounds very arrogant but I tend to be fueled by momentum, if that makes sense. I decide to do something and once my mind is made up I rarely get distracted and I get whatever thing I have planned finished.

But goodness this weekend was different. I feel asleep everywhere, lol. On the couch, at my desk, sitting in a chair reading, even donating blood.

I’m getting older, as we all are. I am almost fifty (omg) and I have to start slowing down sometime. I think aging will be very difficult for me.

But I will never be as young as I am ever now ever again so let’s try to live in the moment.

Anyway.

Today I am posting the second set of pictures from my most recent photo shoot. I am wearing lingerie from Moot buuuuuut I had to pair it with a bra.

Here’s what it looks like:


This is perfect for the cisgender male body and I know I have a cisgender male body BUT this doesn’t work for me when I am en femme.

Here are my three favorite shots of this set. I hope you like them!

Love, Hannah

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I think you have a hot set of legs do you have a work out to make them look so feminine and shapely?

Thank you! I try to stay in shape and I spend my time at the gym doing cardio. I used to chain myself to the Stairmaster but these days it’s thirty to sixty minutes on an elliptical machine.

All of our bodies are different and what works for one person doesn’t work for another. There are a variety of things one should consider before starting any sort of exercise routine and the first thing anyone should do is consult their physician.

Love, Hannah

Have a question for me?  Oh yes you do.  Ask me here!

Hannah’s Secret Fantasy

by Hannah

I am fairly well organized (but please don’t look in my closet as it is a MESS). I kind of have to be. I have a zillion folders on my laptop and I usually know where a certain photo or email or whatever is. This is true whether it is work-related, a legal document, or Hannah’s life.

In my work life as well as in Hannah’s world, I have folders labeled “various” which are more or less a graveyard for things that don’t really fall into any category but I know I need to keep for whatever reason. I rarely reopen these folders but when I do I find pictures or other things I had completely forgotten about.

Case in point, two weekends ago.

Unless this is your first time visiting my website, you probably know I heart lingerie. My infatuation ranges from simple pink cotton panties with a matching camisole to elaborate corsets. I suspect many of you share this adoration.

One of the more lively discussions our community has is “boy panties” vs “girl panties”. What I mean is a cute panty but designed for a specific anatomy. For example, “girl panties” are found at Victoria’s Secret, “boy panties” are found at Xdress or other designers.

For the purpose of this little discussion, I am gently setting tucking panties/gaffs aside.

Girl panties are not designed with room for a penis or testicles, but boy panties are. Boy panties tend to have a wider gusset or larger leg holes.

I have a lot of panties. Like, a LOT. Some fit better than others, regardless of the genitalia they were designed for. Some panties looooked so cute at the shop or online but goodness they simply don’t fit.

I like certain panties for different reasons but they simply need to fit. I hate falling out of a panty or wearing one that is soooo, ah, roomy, that I may as well be wearing boxers.

Some of us hate boy panties because, well, they kind of miss the point. And I get that. However, I appreciate a cute pair of panties that are designed with a little more fabric to keep everything where it belongs.

One thing I do hate about boy panties is the extra room in the pouch. I appreciate the wider gusset but I like my panties to smooooooth out the front. A bulge is going to be there, which is fine, but I don’t want so much room that everything just… hangs there. There’s a difference between a subtle bulge and, well, LOOK AT MY PENIS.

This is what I mean:

Super cute but it’s almost like a jock strap.

These panties, from En Femme, are the perfect “boy panty”, if you will.

Cute, satin-y, and lace! And they smoooooth out everything. Love these panties.

When I feel the itch to add to my panty drawer(s), I sometimes feel the choice comes down to price. For around $30 I can get five panties from Victoria’s Secret or, well, one “boy panty”. I love having a lot of panties and I have gotten quite good at determining which “girl panties” will fit but sometimes I’m wrong.

I totally understand why Xdress and other designers have the prices they do. It’s hard to be competitive at a price point when you are a small business catering to a niche demographic compared to a giant corporation with a brand that is known around the world. I happily wear panties from Glamour Boutique, Moot, The Breast Form Store, Xdress, HommeMystere, and En Femme.

Anyway, back to that ‘various folder’.

As someone who wears panties all the time and as someone who thinks about panties all the time, it’s not surprising that I’ve fantasized about the perfect panty. Essentially this would be a girl panty with a slightly wider gusset. That’s it. No extra room in the front, just a little more fabric between the legs to keep everything in place.

As I mentioned earlier I love a cute matching panty/cami set. If I was going to design a panty I would obviously need a cami to go with it. I like camis because I can sleep in them and I can wear them under boy clothes without the risk that a bra has.

I make no attempt to hide that I am transgender. I celebrate it, I acknowledge it. As I daydreamed about designing lingerie I was inspired by some of my panties that have words on them. “GIRL POWER” or “LOVE” stamped on the back. I thought it would be fun to have expressions that mean something to girls like us on them. “PINK FOG” or “GIRL MODE”, for example. This terms don’t mean anything to most people but we all know what these phrases mean.

Over the years I got to know the lovely people at HommeMystere and was sad to learn that they have called it a day. A few years ago we talked briefly (lol, briefly) about working together and I proposed an idea about a small lingerie line that featured everyday cotton or satin panties with phrases that mean something to us. Something fun and playful and cute.

The idea never really went anywhere but I used some of the images on their website and edited them a bit to illustrate what I was thinking. These are the files that I rediscovered in one of the ‘various’ folders that are sprinkled across my laptop.

I still love this idea and I would still love to see it become a reality. So, if anyone out there is looking to partner with me, drop me a line, lol. 😉

Love, Hannah

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I’m curious to know if you ever have any of your dresses altered for a better fit. I find myself having trouble finding a dress that will fit my shoulders without looking like a potato sack below my waist. Seams to me, (seams… I crack myself up…) that I girl could find an oversized dress that fit up top and could have the rest taken in to fit the rest.

About ten years ago my wife gave me a stunning gown. It was a little big on me so I contacted a seamstress for alterations so it would fit better. I also had shoulder straps added to it.

After the dress was altered I lost a lot of weight and the gown no longer fit me. I wanted to have it resized yet again but I don’t think it could be altered a second time. I love the dress for a lot of reasons but the most treasured part of it is that it was given to me by my absolutely incredible wife.

I wish I had taken better pictures of it while it still fit.

Now, I could leave the post right here, but I know some of you might be asking what it was like going to a seamstress and how I managed to find one.

Way back when we used to get big, fat books called The Yellow Pages. They were delivered once a year that listed every possible business that one could imagine, from plumbers to mechanics to dentists. Like many things, the internet replaced these the need for them. But I sat down and turned to the sections for ‘tailors’ and ‘seamstress’ and I looked for someone in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis.

I’ve written about Uptown before and for decades it was known to be the queer part of Minneapolis. In high school I learned about queer coffee shops and bookstores and I remember thinking that if there was anywhere in Minnesota where someone like me could wear whatever they wanted, it was Uptown. Essentially I thought that this neighborhood would probably be a safe place for me to go as I felt that I wouldn’t be the first nonbinary person to wear a dress in their shop.

I called a few places to get quotes on alterations and once I found one that fit my budget I asked one of the hardest questions of my life. I disclosed that the dress would be altered for me, a physical male, and asked if that would be a problem for them.

Nope. Not at all.

Of course, were I to do something similar to this today I would disclose that I am transgender but I was still finding my comfort zone back then when it came to my identity and finding the closest terms I could find to describe who I was to someone else in context that they could understand.

I wanted to disclose this because if they were uncomfortable with who I was I wouldn’t want to give them my money.

I made my appointment and got dressed up and went out on a winter morning on a Friday.

This would be the first time I went out en femme during the day. Buuuut I don’t really count it as I only went to the shop and back home. Still, it was a momentous occasion.

I don’t remember exactly what I wore, but I am certain it was a blouse, a skirt, and boots. It was, after all, a winter day.

As luck would have it, the night before we received a significant snowfall and many roads were still not plowed yet making finding a place to park tricky. I was terrified about going out en femme back then and I wanted to find the closest parking spot possible so I could slip in and out of the shop as quickly as I could. I ended up parking a couple of blocks away and stepping out of my car to make the trek took a few minutes to build up my courage.

But like most things done en femme, it was a boring but empowering task. Easy peasy.

Over the course of three fittings, I was measured (everywhere) and tried on the dress several times before it was finished. The seamstress was lovely and talented and was the first person that had more than one conversation with Hannah besides my wife. Getting to know her allowed me to get to know Hannah, in a way.

I love this dress and I still own it. Every time I pass by a seamstress or a shop that does alterations I think of the gown, those appointments, and how amazing my wife is.

Love, Hannah

Have a question for me?  Oh yes you do.  Ask me here!

Pink Flags

by Hannah

We all know what red flags are. Big or small, subtle or obvious, basically a sign that something or someone is a BAD idea.

Green flags, obviously, are the opposite of that.

So, let’s talk about pink flags.

You probably don’t know what a pink flag is because I just made it up.

Based on your comments and emails, I get the impression that most of us here present as male for at least part of their lives. This could be HIM going to work or HIM interacting with certain family members, or like me. Usually male and SHE struts out on a couple Saturdays a month.

I think if you are bi-gendered there’s a chance you keep your gender identities separate or a secret from certain people or elements in your shared life. Essentially, few people in HIS life know about HER life… and the opposite of this is true. I work hard to keep any clues, if you will, hidden.

I try not to reveal any key information about HIM when I am en femme. I keep my job somewhat vague, I give a general idea where I live, things like that.

In male mode I am conscious of my panties peeking out from the top of my jeans. This can be tricky if I am wearing Victoria’s Secret and there is a giant PINK PINK PINK printed on the waistband. I also try to get every fleck of mascara removed when I wash off my makeup.

Ultimately I don’t think most people will notice or care or say anything if they catch a glimpse of pink or mascara. BUT there’s a few people in my life that I absolutely don’t want to be outed to. Some people in my life would make my existence absolute hell. Some people would change how they interact with me and my wife. I am not dragging my wife into negative territory because of my gender identity.

And YES, I could cut these people out of my life. I COULD accept that they are hateful or vindictive people. But the reality is that there a certain people that will ALWAYS be in your life. It’s hard to cut a hateful family member out. If a neighbor saw Hannah drive down my driveway and decided to harass me the only option would be to sell my house and move if I didn’t want to live next to someone like that. If a co-worker decided to “tease” me about my panties (it’s unlikely they would find out but paranoia keeps us safe) but if they did, well, what then? Report them to Human Resources? Doing that would likely expose my crossdressing to even more people.

It sucks living in this overly cautious way, but it is what it is.

Anyway.

I don’t think anyone suspects what my gender identity is. I don’t think anyone suspects that I am a crossdresser/bi-gender/transgender. I mean, if they saw Hannah at the mall and recognized HIM then that’s a different story.

What I mean is that I doubt anyone I work with or related to wonders if I am a crossdresser or not. Again, if they saw a pink waistband THEN they may wonder, but normal interactions likely do not cause another person to speculate.

BUT upon coming out, there MIGHT be things that, in retrospect, make sense.

When I came out to my wife, while we were dating, she told me that she thought there was SOMETHING about me, but wasn’t quite sure. My wardrobe wasn’t on her radar.

When I came to one of my sisters, she said that bumping into me in the women’s department at Target a few years prior made a lot more sense.

Gender identity is not something you typically confront someone about. I don’t think most people are that tone deaf when it comes to something so personal. It’s not something someone asks another unless that person is their significant other or close family member. It’s also not something that is discussed without, ah, evidence, if you will.

Evidence, or lack of a more appropriate word, can be one’s search history or panties carefully and lovingly hidden in a shoebox in the back corner of a closet.

Obviously I am protective of my gender identity and I am cautious of anything that might help someone connect the dots, if you will. I am aware, like I mentioned before, that some things, some clues, might make more sense in retrospect, but one thinking someone else is a crossdresser is usually not something a person thinks.

Perhaps because so many of us don’t fit the stereotype that movies and television shows portray someone like us as. Let’s face it, movies tend to show crossdressers as fetishists. A normal, well-adjusted, masculine presenting, emotionally secure person wearing panties isn’t something we see. Like, ever.

Representation isn’t getting better, but at least television shows aren’t portraying people like us in such a negative, harmful way as they used to. Buuuut the damage is done.

I have my quirks and my anxieties and the whole autism thing but I like to think I am come off, in my male life, as fairly normal. Coming out as a crossdresser would surprise a lot of people, I feel. Again, it’s not something someone else suspects about another, but I don’t think I fit the perception of how movies show someone like you and I.

Although I don’t feel I give off any loud or even subtle signals that I am more than I appear to be when I am in male mode, I am not surprised when someone says that something makes a little more sense in retrospect when I come out to them.

This is what I mean by a pink flag.

In the example of my sister bumping into me in the women’s department, that was a pretty big pink flag. But not every flag is so obvious. Truth be told, it’s sometimes difficult to not say something when that something is a little… well, it falls into the “how did you know that?” category.

What I mean is that if a girl mentions her lipstick keeps fading I have to bit my tongue from suggesting that she use an eyeshadow primer on her lips before applying her lipstick as the primer keeps her lipstick brighter and longer-lasting. Since most people assume I am a cisgender male, this little piece of advice isn’t something most cisgender men probably know.

I also find myself biting my tongue when I see someone wearing a cute dress and I have to restrain myself from asking where they got it.

I am not worried about waving a pink flag in the fear of someone making the assumption that my gender identity is more interesting than it appears. I am also less concerned about someone feeling that a comment I made previously makes more sense in retrospect after I come to them.

I mean, if I am coming out to someone I am making myself as vulnerable as I can. All secrets are out. But I also don’t plan on coming out to anyone else, so there’s that.

Love, Hannah

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I would like to meet another t-girl to be friends with. Where would be the best place to meet someone else who likes to crossdress?

Honestly? The internet.

It’s not like we all go out an congregate in specific places unless it’s a LGBTQ+ bar/nightclub, I suppose.

Some of us, including myself, are, well, visibly transgender. I don’t pass and I don’t believe in passing. I 10000000% expect someone to see me and realize that I was assigned male at birth. And I am 1000000000000% okay with that. It’s true, I was assigned male at birth.

In allllll the years I have been going out, I think it’s safe to say that I have seen about five girls in public that I was fairly sure they were transgender. They were doing, you know, normal things. One was drinking coffee at a café patio, another was at a dress shop… you know, everyday things.

I will never clock or out another transperson. I would never walk up to another t-girl and strike up a conversation with them BECAUSE of their gender identity. I would hate it if that happened to me. Yes, I am trans and I know I am trans and you know I am trans and I know you know I am trans and let’s just move on, lol.

Meeting another crossdresser is next to impossible. I am defining ‘crossdresser’ here as someone who presents as male but perhaps underdresses. It’s not like you are going to walk up to that guy in a suit and ask them if they crossdress. They are also likely not going to signal that they are a crossdresser.

I know we need friends. I need my t-girl friends. It’s why I started the MN T-Girls. We tend to be very private, discreet, and fiercely protective people. Many of us avoid being noticed in public.

Love, Hannah

Have a question for me?  Oh yes you do.  Ask me here!

Related reading

Butterflies

Bonjour from (50th and) France!

by Hannah

Oh hi! Shannonlee and I shot two new videos for the Help Me, Hannah! series I am doing with En Femme.

It was fun buuuuuuuuuuut we shot outside and between the wind and background noise and people inadvertently popping into the shot it wasn’t always easy to film usable material. Nonetheless, she persisted. 😉

We shot the videos at the 50th and France shopping district which has a lot of upscale boutiques and restaurants and shops. It was a lot of fun, actually.

I am getting more and more comfortable doing these things. I think these will be the sixth and seventh videos and I feel they are getting better with each one. The finicky sound and microphone issues will always cause stress but hopefully those too get better.

Love, Hannah

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

How did you arrive at the certainty that you are content being bi-gender/part time female, and that you don’t want to transition to female full time? Also, how did you determine that you don’t want or need hormones and surgeries?

I feel this is something that most of us spend a lot of time thinking about. As soon as we acknowledge that this side of us exists, we start to wonder what all of this means and what, if any, our next steps are.

Does this mean we were incorrectly identified at birth? Should I start transitioning?

These are common questions. At the same time these are likely the biggest questions we will ever ask ourselves in our lives. Big questions usually cannot be answered quickly or without a lot of careful consideration.

Some of us, like myself, feel that no, we weren’t incorrectly gendered at birth, and no, transitioning is not the right decision. Regardless of one’s decision at these or similar questions, they likely came with the guidance from someone in the medical or psychiatry profession.

I know my therapist helped confirm my decision.

What I mean is that I never felt transitioning was the right decision. A little over a decade over I started therapy on a regular basis once again. My gender identity eventually came up. I discussed my feelings and thoughts on all of this. Not because I was conflicted or unsure, but I felt the perspective of someone a lot smarter than me would be beneficial. Essentially I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t in denial or if there was a question I should have been asking myself that I hadn’t thought of.

Luckily when it comes to gender identity, it’s not uncommon to think a LOT about who we are. I tend to overthink about everything anyway (thank you autism) so when we talked and talked and talked about all of this it was relatively easy for me to communicate my thoughts and feelings.

Once I finished bringing my doctor up to speed she asked a few questions, asked me to clarify a few things, and agreed with me that I am asking myself the right things and that no, I am not in denial and that no, transitioning is not right for me.

So, that was good.

But how did I come to that realiztion?

I think it came down to two things.

As part of my, well, research about gender identity and about others like myself, I learned a lot about why someone chooses to transition. Of course, not all of us make decisions about gender or anything else for the same reasons, but a commonality is that many transitioning people just felt that the gender they were assigned to at birth was, well, wrong. They felt at peace presenting or identifying as a different gender or using different pronouns. They felt unhappy when they had to wash off their makeup. They felt anxious when they returned to their male lives.

I am happy when I am en femme, but I don’t feel depressed when I unzip my dress or unfasten my stilettos after a day out. I don’t feel that either of my gender identities is the “right” one. I am comfortable with both/either.

Secondly, I have a very broad definition of gender. I don’t think genitalia matters at all when it comes to gender identity. I know some of us HATE their penis and I get that, but personally I don’t think my penis is tied to masculinity. Some of us feel that breasts symbolize femininity and again, I get that. And I DO have breasts, but they are kept in a nice box on the top shelf of my closet.

I feel I can present and identify as femme without estrogen or anything else because I don’t feel hormones or physical features really matter when it comes to identity.

Again, we all come to decisions that feel right for us, but this is how I knew.

Love, Hannah

Have a question for me?  Oh yes you do.  Ask me here!