How was your experience when going for a makeover and a wig fitting for the first time? Did you go presenting as male or as Hannah? Were you nervous of more people and not just your wife knowing your male identity?
When I do things FOR Hannah, I do them AS Hannah. This includes makeovers, dress alterations, wig fittings, and shopping.
There are very, VERY few people in Hannah’s life that know my legal name, so my male identity isn’t known. But I am fully aware that everyone that sees Hannah knows that I am transgender. I am aware that it’s very, very unlikely that anyone thinks I am a cisgender woman.
I schedule my appointment as Hannah, for Hannah, not under my legal name.
Almost every aspect of presenting as ourselves is out of our comfort zone, especially for the first time. But if we want to DO things then we HAVE to leave our bubble. Yes, it’s scary (to say the least) to leave the house for the first time for a wig fitting, but it’s not like we have a choice. It’s not as if someone is going to drive to your house so you can try on new hairstyles in the comfort of your own living room.
Getting my makeup done, and almost everything I do, has become very commonplace these days. I forget that I am transgender, in a way. I forget that people will look at me that way. I forget that some people may have a problem with non-binary people.
Not caring, and forgetting the gender I was assigned at birth is, I think, a better feeling than passing.
I walk into the salon for my makeup appointment, I find my seat for a play, I try on dresses, I order coffees, I just do things, oblivious that some people are looking at me and “figuring” out I am transgender. This almost aloofness is a blessing. If you act like you don’t care that you are transgender, most people won’t care either.
And if they do? That’s their problem. You probably won’t know what they think anyway. I mean, are you going to ASK them? That’s just weird. Never ask a question you don’t want the answer to.
But yes, getting my makeup done, and anything else for the first time, was full of anxiety. But when you remember that although this is the first time you have had a makeover, it’s not the first time, or the last time, your makeup artist has had a transgender girl (or however you identify) in their chair. This is normal for them. Soon it will be normal for you as well.
Love, Hannah
Have a question for me? Oh yes you do. Ask me here!
