Tag: Ask Hannah

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I would like to take my cross dressing to another level. What ever time I have left on this earth I want to live it as complete female. This has been my dream and desire since I was very young. Please help if you can

Hi!

This all comes down to your goals and your perspective.

What does crossdressing/living as “a complete female” mean to you? Does it simply mean wearing femme clothes in boy mode? Does it mean buying a wig and learning makeup and wearing breast forms? Does it mean estrogen/orchidectomy/legally changing your gender and name? Is it a something in the middle?

I don’t mean to casually simplify this major change in your life but I ask that you reflect a little about what you want and what feels right for you.

I think your first step is to find a therapist. If you can find someone who specializes in gender, even better. If you have a regular doctor you may also consider asking for their guidance as well.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

In the beginning, to save a little money did you alter some of “his” clothes to be your clothes? If you did how did you go about finding a person to do that for you? There are quite a few of “his” things that I would like to be turned into mine.

This is something I never considered. I don’t think many “boy clothes” have any feminine potential in them, if you follow. But! I’m intrigued by your idea and I would love to hear about this in the comments.

I would imagine a seamstress or tailor could alter clothes for you. I had a gown altered about ten years ago when I lost a little weight. When I lost even more the dress was too big yet again. I should get it altered once more. I love that gown. I found a seamstress through google. I called a few places and told them I needed a dress altered. Through these conversations it became clear to them that I (with my boy voice and all) would be the wear of the altered dress… which opened the door to whether or not the seamstress was comfortable with someone like me.

Were I to get a dress altered now I would still call around and preface the request with “Hi, I’m a transgender girl and I’d like to have a dress altered. Is this something you could help with?” If they hang up on, well, fine. I wouldn’t want to spend that time and money on someone who isn’t LGBTQ+ friendly.

To your point, THIS side of me is expensive. Spending $50 on a dress to wear for a few hours which might never be worn again does indeed add up. It’s also frustrating to spend $12 on a pair of stockings which get snagged the first time putting them on.

But crossdressing takes time, money, and patience.

When I first had the opportunity to buy my own clothes (either from getting my drivers license and being able to go where I wished or getting my first apartment), I started with thrift shops. Clothes there were more affordable which gave me a chance to try different looks and different styles. Of course, back then this side of me was all about lingerie so most of my money went towards panties and bras and I didn’t really start buying “real clothes” until about fifteen years ago.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah


I am a guy of 59 and I have for a number of years now been wearing “female” clothing as part of my everyday wear, e.g skinny jeans long before they where available for men. I have also used leggings for quite a while and lately I have bought a few body con dresses. Dresses I do not wear in public, but skinny jeans, leggings, platform sneakers etc is part of my natural wardrobe.


Why, one might ask? Am I a cross dresser is another question? I am not sure myself, I do love women clothes as they are so much more comfortable (typically) compared to men’s clothes and that has been my main reason for wearing them. I am bald, I have beard but I do make up from time to time as I feel that color is fun but I could never pass as a woman (I think). I have never seen myself as a cross dresser but when I read your guide to cross dressing I started to think, absolutely not in a negative way but more of curious way and just wanted to reach out to see what you think.

I don’t think there will ever be (and I don’t think there should be) a set of universally agreed upon parameters and standards and requirements that, ah, absolutely classifies one’s gender identity or qualifies someone to align themselves with a certain label.

Are you a crossdresser? That’s up to you.

You might be a man that likes to wear dresses and leggings. Again, it’s up to you.

I think for some of us it might come down to how you view an article of clothing. Is it a dress or is it a woman’s dress? Are you wearing jeans or femme jeans?

On a side note, I think it’s kind of funny when department stores have sections named “Women’s Dresses” implying there is a section somewhere in the store for “Men’s Dresses”.

Gender identity is a highly personal choice and not one that needs anyone else’s approval or understanding. I work for a college and I work with many, many students with different lives and experiences. I’ve worked with girls who wear beautiful dresses who use they/them pronouns. It’s not what I expected from someone from someone who is (presumably) cis and dresses extremely feminine.

Gender identity and labels can change over time. I was crossdressing for years before I even knew of the word’s existence. I identified as a crossdresser for decades until I embraced identifying as transgender and, more specifically, bi-gender.

I mean, I am still a crossdresser. When I present as male I am wearing panties. I wear leggings and femme jeans in boymode. In a way how I identify is largely tied to my overall gender presentation… and it can change throughout the day. For example, last Saturday I woke up and stayed in my nightgown drinking coffee. I was in boymode… but wearing a nightgown. So, my overall presentation was BOY but I was wearing “girl clothes”. So, by my own definition, I was crossdressing. I then got ready for the day and I was in full femme presentation and I was no longer crossdressing. I was (and always am) a transgirl presenting as her gender identity. After my day I returned home, washed off my makeup and put on panties and boy jeans and was in boymode. So, I was once again crossdressing.

Does that make sense?

Some of us feel the need to identify as SOMETHING (and I totally get it) but some of us don’t. Don’t overthink it, don’t force yourself into a box or a label simply for the sake of having a word for who you are.

So, are you a crossdresser? It’s up to you. If you are interested in my perspective, I chat a little about this topic here and here.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I’ve been a CD privately for a number of years and I think I am ready to come out and express outwardly my feminine self. I am mature (75yo) what would you suggest would be age appropriate in my presentation of my feminine self. Thank you for your response would be appreciated.

Hi!

Two thoughts come to mind:

  1. Wear whatever you want

This isn’t very helpful.

My second thought is very dependent on what your, ah, goals are.

What I mean is that when I am out en femme I think about what I am doing that day and how I want to, hm, interact with the world. Essentially I dress for the occasion… be it going to the theatre or meeting a friend for coffee.

A common goal for us is to, well, blend in. I try to wear something that is appropriate, or, at the very least, an outfit that is not completely out of place for what I am doing or where I am going. I don’t try to blend in… but that doesn’t mean I will go out of my way to stand out.

What I mean is people are going to notice a t-girl that is over six feet tall. Flats won’t help at all when it comes to blending in. So, I may as well wear heels. If I am going to be tall I may as well be REALLY tall. Many girls wear cute leggings and comfy shoes while they spend the day at the mall. Now, I COULD do the same and I MIGHT blend in a LITTLE but I know that I WON’T. Again, six foot tall t-girl here. I’m not blending in. So, I wear what I want.

But! I still don’t want to look out of place. Most girls at the mall aren’t wearing stilettos and a bodycon dress. But that outfit is not necessarily out of place. A floor length gown? Yes, that is out of place.

If your goal is to blend in a little, then my suggestion is to look at what other women your age are wearing and plan an outfit that is similar to that.

Of course, it should be an outfit you want to wear. Be true to yourself.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I’m 6′ tall and weigh 185 lbs. I fit fairly well in a woman’s XL or size 14, but my belly pushes out. Can you recommend some sort of belly cincher that (1) works and (2) won’t break the bank?

Hi!

I don’t have toooooo much experience with cinchers but I swear on my life that a corset is the way to go.

I think this photo does a really good job showing how a figure can be complimented by a really good corset:

I am about the same build as you and I think the right corset would do the trick.

But!

Crossdressing takes time, patience, and money.

True, you can find a corset for about $60. I have had plenty of those but they tend to wear out and don’t really shape me in the way I would like. I think investing (time AND money) in a corset is absolutely worth looking into. I own two by Glamorous Corset and I will never ever ever dress without one. The Dita corset I usually wear is pretty affordable, actually.

Spend some time reviewing their size chart and TAKE YOUR MEASUREMENTS before you invest in one. You should also follow their recommendations for seasoning it. Trust me.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I’m a older male that’s a crossdresser and on hormones . I feel bad because I’m over weight and looks are not so good neither . I would like to address doing make up to look more fem. Also help with types of clothing. I can’t coordinate colors.

Looking a certain way (and in this instance, presenting femme) comes down to an individual perspective. Looking femme is different from person to person.

Having specific goals (if you will) is helpful.

What I mean is that when I sit down for a makeover with an artist that is different than my usual artist I am almost asked “what are we doing today?”.

What they are asking is what kind of look am I going for. If I tell them that I want to look as feminine as possible, well, that doesn’t help at all.

Instead I’ll say things like:

I would like some contouring to create a rounder face

I would like to minimize my jawline

I would like very dramatic eyeshadow/eyeliner to draw attention to my eyes

I would like a very bold lipstick and for my lips to be overdrawn a little

The makeup artist now knows exactly what I want and what they are going to do.

If you want to look femme, fabulous, I can absolutely relate. But what does femme presentation mean to you? Is it a super bright pink dress? Is it a cute hoodie and leggings to blend in at the mall? Is it dramatic makeup? Are you looking for a more subtle look?

Think about what you want. Think about about femininity means to you.

I imagine that being on hormones will help you with shaping your appearance.

As for clothes… coordinating colors is tricky for me. I tend to wear dresses so matching colors for a blouse and a skirt isn’t something I have to do very often. When I do wear separates I tend to stick with two guides:

–Select my skirt OR top first. If the top or skirt is a color other than black (such as a pattern or a print) then I will almost always pair it with something black. In this photo I have a black top so I have a tan skirt.

Here is the opposite look with a patterned bodysuit and a black skirt:

–The other guiding star are mannequins, to be honest. Sometimes I would never think (or be brave enough) to pair colors or patterns with each other but when I see it on a display I get a better idea how it looks. Stana actually posted something today that you might helpful.

Our femme presentation is more than just the outfit. It’s what we feel comfortable in, what we feel cute in, what we feel sexy in, what we feel confident in, and what we feel beautiful in. I have surprised myself by feeling cute in an outfit that, believe it or not, ISN’T a dress or a skirt.

Femininity isn’t a dress size or an hourglass figure. Women are every shape and size and every girl is beautiful. If you do plan on changing your diet or exercise routine, please have a conversation with your doctor first.

And be gentle on yourself. Please.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I am a sweet MTF female, and love it! But I live in a very conservative, and rural setting, and there is really no one here I can find who thinks as I do. I love skirts, dresses, and other feminine clothing, and I also adore the thought of having a man in my life. I would adore being a wife. How can I find a man to fall in love with?

I have absolutely NO idea how to find someone. I have been happily married for a long time and given what the dating scene looks like these days I thank God I don’t have to navigate that.

Dating sites? Dating apps? I have no idea.

If you live somewhere that you feel is not as… welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community, you may need to consider a larger, more progressive city.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help. Stay safe!

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I know you love both of your identities, as male and female and highly value both lives. You do seem very happy and alive when discussing your outings as a woman. Do you ever sit and consider what your life would have been like, if you were born female? You appear to thoroughly enjoy female clothes and how you feel wearing them. I love wearing female clothes also, and at times I wish I had been born female.

You know, for someone who overthinks and considers every potential outcome and scenario, this is not something I have ever really thought about.

It kind of brings up the whole nature versus nurture scenario, doesn’t it?

When the doctor checked the little box for “MALE” on my birth certificate it shaped how everyone I would ever meet in my life would talk to me, interact with me, react to me, and see me. A lifetime of norms and expectations were set in stone without any consideration as to who I might be and what I might want.

It’s… not unlike an arranged marriage in a way. Like it didn’t matter if you loved or even liked this person, it was agreed that you were going to marry them in a few years and that was that.

Growing up I wanted to wear dresses and beautiful and interesting clothes. Underwear didn’t have to be ugly, baggy, ill-fitting boxers. Underwear could be cute, colorful, lacy. I was drawn to “girl clothes” and no matter my genitalia I wanted what I wanted. This is nature.

But then nurturing came crashing through. My parents bought me boy clothes. I was given blue things and steered away from anything pink. I had toy trucks. You get the idea.

And to be fair I loved the toys I had. My sisters had dolls but… well, they seemed kind of boring to me.

A closet full of pants couldn’t extinguish the fire that burned in my heart for dresses. But I wasn’t allowed to listen to it. It’s not like I was explicitly told that I couldn’t wear dresses but let’s face it, in a world (especially back then) when gender norms rule I didn’t HAVE to be told.

But of course I wore dresses and skirts and anything I could whenever I could.

My interest, my fascination, my yearning to wear femme clothes was only fueled by these opportunities. It’s like a piece of cake. It looks amazing and the first bite is heaven and it only makes you want a second taste. To continue this metaphor I devoured the entire cake and at this point, probably several bakeries.

As the years went by this part of me grew and I began to understand and accept and eventually embrace who I am and what I wanted to wear.

I got to know the part of me that would eventually become Hannah.

BUT I also grew as the masculine presenting person that most of the world knows me as. He made friends, found a career he (usually) likes, and became who I am today.

And this person, the male side of me is, well, happy. Satisfied. At peace. He has a fulfilling life. I like HIS life.

As I matured both of my gender identities grew and found themselves and found happiness. They are not in conflict with each. They have their contrasts but it’s a wonderful mixture of the two. I am forever charmed by the differences and polarizing opposites they seem to have. This past Saturday I bought a ladder and cleaned the gutters which is a very manly thing to do. This upcoming Saturday I am getting a makeover and wearing a lot of pretty clothes for a photo shoot.

As I look at my life and my lives, I realize that nature, well, it won. How I was raised, how the world thought I should be didn’t stamp out the femme part of who I am.

If the “FEMALE” box was checked then my nurturing would have been very different. My dresser would have been filled with the clothes he wanted to wear. There would have been no effort to prevent me from wearing any dress I would have wanted to.

I really don’t think I would be bi-gender if I was raised as a girl.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I don’t feel that I was born in the wrong body.

What I mean is that I was always drawn to the femme side of the world. It was, and is, endlessly captivating to me.

But I never had the… pull when it comes to the other side. There wasn’t ever anything masculine that appealed to me. I never was curious about what it would be like to wear a tuxedo but I daydreamed constantly about wedding dresses. I wanted painted nails, not nails with dirt under them from playing football.

However.

Being raised as a boy put me on the path I am on now. Over the decades I’ve grown as a person, created a life, and fell in love. I love my life, I love who I am.

And I don’t want anything to change.

If I was a girl at birth, I can’t help but think I would still be ME. That’s the nature side. But I would have been raised differently and have gone in a different direction. That’s nurture. I think I would still like the same things I like, I can’t imagine not falling in love with my wife, regardless of my gender.

At this point in my life I am both of me, I am all of me. Things would have been different if I was born with a vagina instead of a penis, but honestly? I have no complaints. I am very glad things turned out the way they did.

Everything works out in the end.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I’m a child counsellor and I’m working with a 15 year boy who is a ‘cross dresser’. He is desperate to find support, or support groups but when he goes online he ends up down rabbit holes and can often feel persecuted. I’ve tried to research this for him but end up on transgender pages. He says quite clearly he is a straight man who likes to dress as a woman when he can. He does not identify as transgender.

My question is, where can we find support that just focuses on the cross dressing element of him, without presuming there is a desire to transform any further than that?

Hope you can help guide us.

I hope I can help, too!

Before I dive into your question, I want to share my own personal thoughts and perspective on how I define “crossdressing” and “transgender“.

This is a HUGE oversimplification and I absolutely acknowledge that not everyone will relate or agree with me.

When I am in male mode and I am wearing panties, a nightgown, leggings, femme jeans, etc. then I am crossdressing (because I am masculine presenting and using male pronouns while wearing clothes that society tends to view as “for women”).

When I am in full makeup, a dress, my wig, wearing breast forms… then I am no longer crossdressing. I am presenting as feminine. I am a transgender girl. A gender that is not the same gender that most of the world sees me as (since I present as male to most of the people in my life). I am presenting as one of my gender identities.

My OPINION is that your client is transgender IF they are, in your words, dressing as a woman… as opposed to JUST wearing femme clothes. I think once we include a wig or using femme pronouns we have stepped over the boundary of “crossdressing”. Again, this is my OPINION.

BUT transgender does NOT mean they ARE, or WILL, or WANT to transition. I am 1000000% transgender but I have ZERO plans or desire to take hormones or legally change my gender.

I had a very hard time making the transition (no pun intended) from only identifying as a crossdresser to identifying as trans. What held me back from this was thinking that transgender ALWAYS meant, and HAD to mean transitioning. It doesn’t. It might for some, but it doesn’t for everyone.

It’s my opinion that if your client is wearing a wig, makeup, and wanting to present feminine than it MIGHT be more than crossdressing. If their interest was ONLY about the clothes as opposed to wanting to present as a girl, then it MIGHT be JUST crossdressing.

Does that make sense?

Over ten years ago I started a website where I wrote about my experiences and my perspective on my gender identity. I wanted to make it clear that who I am had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to transition. I wanted to see if there were others like me… people who loved femme clothes, people who loved makeup and had a femme name (even just on occasion) BUT didn’t feel that transitioning was the right decision for them.

Turns out there are a LOT of others like me.

When I meet others like myself, either in real life or online I sometimes need to clarify that YES, I am indeed trans but no, I’ve no plans or desire to be full time or transition. It might get a little repetitive but it goes with the territory. And YES there are people who don’t think that I am transgender because I am not, will not, and have not transitioned but I ignore them. What do I care what they think of me? They don’t make the rules about who is and who is not trans.

You can absolutely be trans but not make any physical or legal changes.

Resources and support SPECIFICALLY for crossdressers MIGHT be a challenge. Googling ‘crossdressers’ will likely return a lot of sexually explicit material which is both not helpful and not appropriate for a minor.

Could I suggest your client start their own website? There are quite a few options out there (such as WordPress, the site I use) that offer free blogging sites. This might be worth considering if they feel alone.

I mean, it’s what I did. It took a while to gain followers and to be noticed but by consistently writing and posting it eventually happened.

By writing about my own experiences and perspectives I am able to connect with countless others like me. I think your client will likely find that there are many others like themself. I mean, I relate to your client. I present en femme AND I have no desire to transition.

And gender identity has nothing to do with sexual identity. What we wear has nothing to do with who we are attracted to. Your client being straight doesn’t necessarily mean they are not transgender, does that make sense? I mean, I am married to a cis woman, I have no experience or desire to be physical with a man AND I have more panties than a typical Victoria’s Secret. My sexual identity has nothing to do with what clothes are in my closet.

I really hope this helps. I am not recommending THIS website or THAT website, but rather I want to offer a perspective that maybe your client can relate to.

Love, Hannah

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

Ask Hannah!

by Hannah

I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but the Breast Form Store is sending out emails for the Hera breast forms with you in a red dress on a sofa.

At least I’m pretty sure it is you…

Yes! It is totally me.

I was lucky to review these forms and I am absolutely over the moon about them. I gave the Breast Form Store permission to publish certain photos and I was giddy to see them use one in their marketing.

I absolutely appreciate when I am notified when my pictures pop up across the internet so thank you for letting me know. Usually when this happens I am credited/identified but sometimes it’s for content I would prefer I wasn’t associated with… if you know what I mean,

Love, Hannah

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