Month: December 2023

Time kind of stand stills at this time of year, doesn’t it?

For many of us, the urgency of work minimizes or we may use what we have left of our vacation days. Our attention turns to family and the demands of the holidays of course, but the break from our everyday life kind of puts one into a weird limbo where hopefully we feel a little stressed… or more than likely a different kind of stress.

My point is that hopefully during this time of the year we can be a little more in touch with ourselves and spend a little time doing something other than the demands of our normal, everyday lives. 

Hopefully we can live in the present a little more during this time of the year.

But this time of the year is also about the passage of time. If you celebrate Christmas you probably think about Christmases of the past. Maybe a holiday cookie brings back memories of childhood.

If the holidays don’t inspire a trip into the past (whether willingly or not), the new year will probably do that for you. I think we all reflect on everything that happened or didn’t happen over the last twelve months.

And when I say “reflect on everything” I don’t necessarily mean we have wistful, pensive moments where we quietly think about the year with our hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. More often than not we are reflecting on the year as we sit in traffic waiting for the light to change or something equally mundane.

On a side note, I suppose one of the things I dislike about this time of the year is the general… insistence that we return back to our normal routines as quickly as possible. There’s not always the gentle, easing back into our day-to-day responsibilities. Most of us get one day off during this time of the year and we’re expected to resume sending pointless status reports again at 9am on December 26th.

But I kind of like looking back on the year. I like looking at what I’ve done and seeing if the wishes I made a year ago came true over the last twelve months. 2023 was significant in a number of ways in both of my lives. 2024 also has the potential to be a wonderful interesting year.

No one comes to this website to hear about what HIS life, so let’s talk about our femme lives. 

But not every year has to be about big Instagram-worthy accomplishments. If the only thing you did in 2023 is making it to 2024, you did an amazing thing and I’m proud of you.

Hannah’s biggest accomplishment for the year was starting the ‘Help Me, Hannah!’ videos for En Femme.

And yes, that was this year. I had to check. It feels like we shot the first episode forever ago.

I feel this was an accomplishment not because I host a video series but because this forced me to let go of a significant amount of control in terms of my appearance and my demeanor.

What I mean is that when I receive pictures from a photo shoot I carefully select the ones I like the best. To be clear, the quality of the picture is always perfect in terms of composition and lighting and all that technical and artistic stuff that Shannonlee always exceeds at. What I mean is that the model in the picture is the x factor.

I might have my head turned in a way that shows my jawline in a more masculine way than I would prefer. My shoulders might look a little squarish, or a million other things. Sometimes a picture is humbling but the saving grace is that no one else will have to see it. I don’t post pictures that I don’t care for.

But in a video I am constantly moving and turning my head and I am presenting myself as I really am. If I tilt my head up then my Adam’s apple is very prominent which is arguably a very masculine feature. My hands, which are constantly moving, draw the viewer’s attention which, like my Adam’s apple, are very much a masculine trait due to their non-feminine size.

Of course, all of this is from the perspective that one’s body parts must fit into either “masculine” or “feminine” standards, but I digress.

The videos also require quite a bit of spontaneity. I am more or less freewheeling in these things. I do have talking points written down that I refer to when I am filming but it would be awkward to hold and to read from a script. A teleprompter would be nice, lol. 

When I write a post, such as this one, I can take as much time as I please to do so. This particular post has taken several days to write and edit. I can change the phrasing to make my point clearer, even after I post. Each post is carefully written (despite the many typos that sneak their way in) and I think I create some fairly well written articles.

But in videos I am stumbling over words and tossing out “ums” and “ahs” like confetti. I often will reshoot a segment if my train of thought derails. There’s a pressure I put on myself to get it right but not tax the patience of Shannonlee as she patiently films me. 

It took a few videos to find my groove and to come into my own and begin to fret less about every little word and detail. I think having done this it makes for better, more sincere videos. More Hannah McKnightish, if you will, which I suppose is what En Femme wants.

And then there’s my voice! 

Actually, I was very unfussed about my voice. It’s not something I am self-conscious about and I don’t really feel I have an overly masculine voice anyway. I don’t modify my voice at all but I do tend to speak a little lighter and in a more animated and expressive way.

I feel it’s an accomplishment to make peace with things in one’s life that once brought stress or negative feelings. This side of us requires willingly moving out of one’s comfort zone in soooo many aspects. Between lingerie photo shoots, going out in public, and these videos, I don’t feel I have a very prominent comfort zone anymore. Things that were once terrifying and unfathomable have become very normal and mundane. 

The world at large did not make these things easier or possible. These things required me to strut out of whatever cage or zone I was in.

I’ve no idea what 2024 will bring for me but I’ll be sure to let you know as things happen, lol.

Love, Hannah

I love allegory.

I think it’s incredibly helpful when it comes to explaining something complex and breaking it into a relatable content.

When it comes to cliches, I begrudgingly admit that most of them have value and ring true.

For example! It’s a bit of a cliche to say that society puts us into a cage. We are contained within barriers built and, well, enforced, by our world’s expectations of gender presentation and gender norms.

But! We can free ourselves from the cage.

Please note that this is not the same as being freed of the cage. No one is going to allow us to dress how we wish. We have to make the choice to strut out of whatever cage we are in.

But! It’s not that simple. There are going to reverberations when one lives their truth.

It sounds so… EPIC to describe someone wearing panties as someone living their truth but I’ll take it.

But! What happens when we leave the cage? The world we enter is limitless. We have no direction, no plan, no rules. The world is ours and this is terrifying and empowering at the same time. 

Have you ever seen a mouse escape their cage? They are off like a shot, like a pinball ricocheting off of every obstacle they encounter. You’ve no idea where they’re going but they don’t know that either.

They are terrified but they have a sense of freedom.

Or so I imagine. I’ve no idea. I’m not a mouse psychologist.

When we escape the cage of gender norms, we have these same emotions. We are afraid of leaving the space (in this case, a mental space) that although it confined us, it was familiar.  But we have this sense of potential, this unlimited world of gender presentation when there is no cage.

We dive in. We are lost in the Pink Fog. We are fueled by desire, by instinct, and by impulse. 

But eventually we come up for air and we begin to gather our thoughts. Our first coherent thought is likely “where is all of this going?”

And then, “who am I?” ”What do I want?”

Are we crossdressers? Are we transgender? Are we something else? Should we transition?

I think many of us think that transitioning is at the end of the journey we have just embarked on. And maybe it is, but I think the reason many of us think this is because of the momentum that breaking out of the cage created.

We take those tentative, those baby steps, out of the cage. But it doesn’t take long for many of us to be catapulted into euphoria. All of it feels wonderful. We never want to leave this feeling of the feminine. 

We want to feel this forever.

And I get it.

I do.

Transitioning is one way we think we can feel this always and forever.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that transitioning is right for every single one of us. I know it sometimes feels that every crossdresser is taking HRT but this isn’t the case. Reading comments on my posts is a very good reminder that there are countless girls out there who have no desire to transition.

So, how does one know?

A gender therapist can absolutely help.

Talking to other girls like us can also help. T-girl Talk typically involves makeup techniques for beard cover or where to buy heels that fit, but it also usually consists of feelings. Specifically how dressing and presenting en femme makes us feel.

And yes, dressing makes us happy. Who doesn’t want to be happy? Who doesn’t want to be happy 24/7?

(I mean, it’s not possible to be HAPPY 24/7, but I think we should focus on trying to feel at peace instead.)

Talking to other t-girls reinforced my thinking that transitioning wasn’t right for me. When we would talk about the undressing and going back to our male lives and presenting as masculine I was finally able to put into words why transitioning wasn’t and isn’t right for me.

And please understand that this is my experience, my thinking. When it comes to any decision, how one person arrives at that choice isn’t and shouldn’t be THE standard when it comes to that decision. How I made the decision about transitioning or in this case, not transitioning, is how I made it. It’s not necessarily the same parameters someone else should abide by.

When I would undress and wash off my eyeliner and unfasten my stilettos, I would usually hum the lyrics from that Eurythmics song.

Back to life

Back to reality

Back to his life. 

How did this return make me feel? 

It felt like returning from vacation and I was unpacking. I loved my break from my everyday life but I love my everyday life. The vacation was nice and now I was back to my responsibilities but the life I returned to is, and always has been, very rewarding and fulfilling. 

My point is that going back to his life didn’t make me sad. I don’t feel anxious when I am HIM. Sure, I underdress in male mode so my connection to the feminine is constant and I am almost always daydreaming about clothes and going out en femme again but I don’t feel anxious or depressed in male mode. 

Many of us feel that we are en femme that this is the real us. And for me, this is true. But I also feel that when I am presenting as male that is also the real me. I know that my masculine presentation is not permanent. I’ll be rocking a dress soon. And when I do, I’ll be happy. I’ll be content. Or rather, I’ll still be happy. I’ll still be content.

Being en femme feels right for me. But for me, that doesn’t mean transitioning is the journey I should be on. Rather the deciding factor was how I felt when I wasn’t en femme. Again, I don’t feel anxious or depressed. I mean, sure, I don’t have as much getting dressed as a boy and it’s not as much fun running errands or whatever, but I don’t feel I am, well, not living my truth when I am HIM.

If you aren’t sure what is right for you, I encourage you to talk to a therapist to specializes in gender, I encourage you to talk to other girls like yourself, and I encourage you to think about how you FEEL… when you aren’t en femme. 

I truly hope this is helpful.

Love, Hannah

When we’re young the worst thing Santa could bring us is underwear.

But now? It’s the BEST. 

I hope you all have the happiest of holidays and a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.

Love, Hannah

After decades of working in the professional world, there’s little I dread more than the annual performance review.

You meet with your boss and discuss your accomplishments from the year as well as your, well, they call them “opportunities” but essentially it’s when you messed up (or you met the expectations but your company always wants you to EXCEED expectations).

You also talk about your goals for the upcoming year. I know they want me to say that I will improve whatever bullshit metric by 10% or whatever but my goal is to remain employed. 

And then if you’re lucky you get a 3% salary increase which they tell you is the highest they can give. 

After you and your boss go through the motions you return to work annoyed and, in a way, humiliated.

I hate it.

Fortunately I haven’t had a performance review in three years. My boss writes some stuff neither of us will read or ever think about and then gives me a raise and that’s about it. It’s wonderful.

But reflecting upon the year isn’t limited to the workplace. We have already begun to see lists highlighting the Best Movies of 2023 or The Most WTF Moments in Pop Culture of the Year and whatnot. I kinda like seeing these despite the fact that I haven’t heard of half the movies or have no idea who any celebrity is anymore.

These lists also trigger the thought of “that was THIS year?” when it felt like forever ago. 

Anyway, please indulge my ego a bit while I share several awards this website has been awarded for the year.

Well, ego probably isn’t the right word (well, it probably is) but I am proud of what I do. I am humbled and grateful for you all for reading and commenting on my posts. It really, really means a lot. Thank you all very much,

Without further ado, here we are!

100 Best Transgender Blogs and Websites

Number 11!

50 Best Trans Woman Blogs and Websites

Number 4!

60 Best Crossdressing Blogs and Websites

Number 9!

I am proud to be among such prominent bloggers and there are countless other girls who create wonderful websites who have more than earned a place on this list.

Love, Hannah

I have a habit of rereading posts after they go live. I get so absorbed in writing that sometimes I miss something, whether it’s a grammatical or punctuation error (if you spot one, please let me know) or sometimes I realize that something wasn’t as clear as I’d like it to be. It’s when I reread a post I can be a little more objective and read it as a reader, as opposed to reading with an editor’s eye.

Sometimes when I read something, whether it’s something I wrote or didn’t write, something obvious, such as a question, leaps out at me. 

After a recent post was, um, posted, I played Devil’s Advocate for myself and asked why don’t I live this? Why don’t I wear a skirt in male mode? Why am I not out to everyone, gender norms be damned?

“This” being ignoring gender norms. ”This” being no longer obeying an arbitrary rule about what someone can and cannot wear.

Gender norms and arbitrary rules say, in part, boys can’t wear skirts or paint their nails or other “girl” things.

I wrote (or at least I THINK I wrote, I haven’t checked) in the aforementioned post that I am not rebellious by nature but I have a very difficult time following a new procedure at work if it makes absolutely no sense. Gender norms are like that. It makes no sense why people with a penis can’t wear leggings or a skirt.

It’s probably hypocritical for me to “obey” these rules that someone, somewhere, invented. If I want to wear something, what’s stopping me?

The truth is, no one. 

Also, no one is going to “let” me, but that’s another topic for another day.

Could I be arrested or issued a citation or asked to leave a store if I wore a skirt in male mode? Probably not.

It’s kind of funny because I don’t give a second thought to going out en femme but a simple skirt in male mode is a completely different adventure.

But… why?

There are two elements to consider when it comes to “girl clothes” in “boy mode”. And yes, I am using quotation marks here because the those two terms are arbitrary and subjective and pointless. 

The first element is, well, I’d be a boy wearing a skirt or whatever. Would I get stared at and pointed at? Possibly. Could some asshole bigot decide their worthless opinion about my outfit is worth sharing? Possibly.

But I can handle that. As someone who has been going out en femme for over a decade I have steeled myself for these occasions and I am pleasantly surprised at how infrequent these interactions occur. 

The second element is that I am recognizable in male mode. To be clear I am not famous or anything like that. The chance of me encountering someone I know is a real thing, but what is more likely is someone my wife knows recognizing me.

My wife knows a lot of people and it’s not uncommon for me to be at Target or whatever and someone approaches me and asks me to tell my wife that they said hi. Or I return home and my wife says that someone she knows saw me at the store or whatever.

(I suppose this is one the biggest reasons I mainly shop online for my clothes.)

If I am out in the real world wearing a skirt, then there’s a good chance someone my wife knows will see that her husband is wearing a skirt. Aaannnnd it stands to supposition that they might ask her about it OR think of her as the girl who has a husband who wears girl clothes.

And honestly I am not going to do that to her. My perspective on gender roles is mine and any effort to defy them is my crusade, if you will. I don’t want her to feel that she has to defend my outfit or explain my thoughts on defying gender norms. This side of us is a lot to ask of our partners and I try to minimize any stress that who I am brings.

Of course, I COULD take my own advice and travel out of the area and do what I please in a skirt, I COULD go somewhere where the chance of running into someone either of us knows is significantly reduced. 

BUT the whole point to wearing what I please is partially to due to just taking apart these arbitrary rules of gender and clothes and normalizing wearing what one pleases. It’s less about the thrill of wearing a skirt in male mode.

Does that make sense?

Sometimes I get frustrated with the world’s stubbornness to maintain these arbitrary gender norms to the point I just want to revolutionize. And my god that sounds extreme and arrogant.

What I mean is that I have thought about applying the mission statement, if you will, of the MN T-Girls to a different organization. The goal of the MN T-Girls is to normalize girls like us doing normal, every day things. It helps girls like me gain the confidence to be out in the real world and maybe, just maybe, helps others see that girls like us are, well, people. We are not the scary and confused perverts that some were led to believe.

I COULD try to start a “boys in skirts” group or whatever and get together and do everyday things with other masculine presenting people… but just in skirts.

But I won’t. 

Two reasons:

The first reason is minimizing the stress that this side of me has on my wife. If the goal of the group is to have a very public presence in an effort to normalize people wearing what they want, then it opens up the possibility of being seen. Again, I am not going to do that to my wife.

Secondly, I think I need to, well, pick a lane in terms of what I invest my time and energy into. Taking on a second group, in addition to the MN T-Girls, would be spreading myself too thin.

I believe in living one’s truth and I do what I can to avoid being a hypocrite. I feel I am a LITTLE hypocritical by believing that one can wear what they want BUT not, well, wearing what I want. 

Love, Hannah

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of “sad bitch music” as some of my friends call it. One artist I really like when I feel like getting in touch with my inner sad bitch is Dar Williams. I discovered her a while ago with the song “When I Was a Boy”.

As you can imagine, the title caught my attention and like many things that I encounter in life I had to know everything about this song, particularly the lyrics.

I won’t forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy; I’m glad he didn’t check.
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other’s lives out on the pirate’s deck.
And I remember that night
When I’m leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it’s not safe, someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climb upon
And I don’t know how I survived,
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.
My neighbor come outside to say, “Get your shirt, “
I said “No way, it’s the last time I’m not breaking any law.”
And now I’m in a clothing store, and the sign says less is more
More that’s tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me
That can’t help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat

When I was a boy, see that picture? That was me
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they’ve got implants to put in, they’ve got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too

And like the woods where I would creep, it’s a secret I can keep
Except when I’m tired, except when I’m being caught off guard
I’ve had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard.
And I tell the man I’m with about the other life I lived
And I say now you’re top gun, I have lost and you have won
And he says, “Oh no, no, can’t you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could always cry, now even when I’m alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you.

I’ve heard the song is about what childhood is like before gender roles start being imposed on us… which happens really, really early. I also think that there’s an element of the song of a child not being aware of society’s gender norms. I think until gender norms are crammed down our throat we just do what we want, like picking flowers or climbing trees.

You know, kid things. Things that have nothing to do with gender.

It’s a blissful part of one’s life… doing what you wish before you’re told it’s wrong because of your body parts. I remember this time.

Which is kind of funny. To remember a relatively short part of one’s life, a part that happened decades and decades ago. but not being able to recall what I came into a room to do.

I remember wanting to wear lingerie when I was young. Of course, I didn’t KNOW it was lingerie and I certainly didn’t understand that lingerie was typically associated with sex. All I knew is that the mannequins at the department store wore the most beautiful nighties and panties.

I experienced the emotion I would come to understand as “longing” very early in life.

I didn’t know almost every single article of clothing was genderized. I didn’t know that boys and girls weren’t allowed to wear what they wanted.

And this was wonderful.

Sure, I knew my brother and I were boys and that my sisters were girls. This meant nothing to me. I thought this was as irrelevant as one’s hair color when it came to what one was allowed to wear or do or feel. It was simply an adjective.

Little did I know that this adjective would dictate every single aspect of my wardrobe and the emotions I was allowed to express for the majority of my life.

Eventually I realized that I never saw other boys wear what I wanted to wear (and what I wore in secret when I had the chance). I never saw a man wear a skirt. I’m not the sharpest stiletto in the closet but I acknowledged that most boys probably didn’t wear panties or dresses.

The reason I dressed in secret was not because I thought that it was wrong, but because I was sneaking into my sisters’ closets without permission. And that was wrong. That was a family rule. We were not allowed to borrow things without asking. The reason I didn’t ask was because, well, I really really really wanted to try on their clothes and if I asked, they might say no.

Even after the realization that I never saw boys wear what I later learned were “girl clothes” I still didn’t think it was wrong. I knew that every person was different and had different preferences whether it was a sport or movies. I assumed clothes were the same.

Learning that boys and girls were allowed or prohibited from certain clothes was stunning to me. It was the most ridiculous and confusing thing I had ever heard.

I can recall this moment perfectly.

I was five, almost six years old. My mom was getting ready to drive me to school and was applying her lipstick. She used to sit the older of my two sisters on the bathroom counter when she did this. My sister asked for lipstick too and my mom happily dabbed a little on her.

I asked to be next and was told that boys didn’t wear lipstick.

It was the first time I was told that people weren’t allowed to wear something because of their gender.

As I write this I can’t help but wonder just how many people who are cisgender can recall the moment they learned of gender norms.

The song hits me in a significant way as I can remember doing what people call “girl things” when I was young. When my dad was at work and my older brother at school, my mom and sisters played in the backyard. We picked flowers.

I didn’t know that this was wrong.

How strange it is to live on a beautiful planet that has given us everything we need to be anything who we want but being told that flowers are not for everyone.

Gender norms are maintained by humans. We created them. We did this to ourselves.

Of course, if we created them, then it stands to think that we can undo them. This is getting a little off topic (big surprise) but how did these norms start? Did some random person start walking around a village telling everyone that only girls can wear dresses which led to this “rule” spreading and then here we are?

Anyway.

I suppose my point is that life is blissful until we are introduced to gender norms and completely arbitrary rules. I have a very difficult time adopting new procedures at work if they make absolutely no sense and this defiance spills over to other parts of my life. I am not rebellious by nature but being told to do something, to wear something, because “it’s just how it’s done” does not motivate me to fall in line.

Love, Hannah

This time of the year is always a little weird for me.

I mean, I think it’s weird for all of us and for different reasons. I think the best way I can describe the last three weeks of a year is that things are winding down.

Of course, things are also ramping up in terms of getting ready to celebrate different holidays and likely year-end work related projects or whatever, but we are more or less in the “it can wait until next year” mindset.

The final weeks of a year always forces me to think back on everything that happened and as the new year looms in the distance, I think about what the next twelve months will bring. What do I want to do? What goals do I have? What projects should I take on?

I mean, there always things like “increase year over year productivity” or whatever that I’m sure my boss would love if I choose to do this. There are always projects around the house that need attention.

Buuuut I’m also thinking about what Hannah will do in 2024.

I’m at a point in my life where I have done (almost) everything I’ve wanted to do as well as things I’ve only dreamed of. There’s nothing, well, obvious about what to do next.

Buuuut this time of the year can be, well, very influential about what I take on in the upcoming twelve months.

What I mean is that as the year winds down, there are things (mostly work related) that demand a lot of my time and attention that, as I mentioned, are kind of at a standstill as we put new projects on hold until January. The bandwidth that is dedicated to work stuff has been freed to think about other things.

I’ve a restless heart and I can’t ease into a mindset of relaxing or enjoying a break. I need to use that bandwidth for SOMETHING. I need to PLAN things. I am more open to new challenges and projects that I normally would decline but with all this mental free time I tend to give them more consideration.

Case in point! En Femme and I have talked about doing videos for years but I felt I couldn’t commit to anything else. But they asked again right around this time in 2022 and I agreed.

Basically if you are interested in collaborating (or whatever) with me, this is the perfect time to ask.

So! I am thinking about what I’ll do in 2024. I’ll do more Help me, Hannah! videos, and more photo shoots so I am thinking about video topics and photo shoot themes. I am thinking about MN T-Girls events.

I’m also thinking about, well, stuff that isn’t related to gender. What I mean is that it would be fun to start a book group or do a new video series that has nothing to do with being gender non-conforming. I tweeted earlier this year about joining a local amateur ghost hunter group and honestly I was only half-joking.

To be clear, I don’t think I believe in any of that but it’s always fascinating to talk to people who have very different interests and perspectives.

I thought it would be fun to do a series of videos about different interests (such as ghost hunting) but this would require me to learn video editing and I don’t think I want to learn that.

I have a mindset of “anything is possible” right now and as inspiring as that sounds, I am also aware of overcommitment. Like, yes, right now life is a little less hectic than it normally is, but in a few weeks things will roar back to the same intensity as they normally have. Adding one more project (or whatever) onto the proverbial pile might be a mistake.

But for now, a girl can dream.

Love, Hannah