Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Many of us pass as women in public having made various changes to our bodies, dress, mannerisms, voice, etc.  As I've progressed in my transition (now all the way through GRS), I've found myself becoming more and more at ease with who I am, and less and less concerned about passing in public.  It started with my not bothering with makeup foundation on a daily basis (most days only a bit of lipstick and mascara suffice), trimming my fingernails to a function length and not using polish most of the time, and dressing in more gender neutral clothing for convenience (when was the last time I wore a pretty dress?).  I've found that I still pass as a woman without doing the things I used to very much depend on to pass earlier in my transition.  Still, if I go too far in this direction, I will get sir'd, or at least not ma'am'd.  The straw that breaks the camel's back is either 1) not wearing a wig (my hair transplant has not grown out far enough yet) or 2) slipping into my male voice accidentally.  If I avoid these 'mistakes', I'm consistently read as female.  In fact, because most women these days are rather lax in their presentation, minimal makeup and simple dress (top, jeans, and flats) seem to enhance passability. 

My question is how far can you relax your feminine presentation before you lose passing ability? 

My own feeling is that you can be pretty casual and still be feminine. My daily office wear is a t-shirt, jeans and sandals in the summer.

When i am so attired, i feel sort of not like putting on a lot of makeup and that is the one thing for me that puts my looks back into a more androgynous zone. (others have confirmed this). My style is pretty tomgirl or boho and i really only love putting makeup on a couple times per week.

Until I'm not wearing very baggy clothes or tight tops without a padded bra I'm usually good. I don't like my hair in ponytail but it seems that if my hair is in a reasonable condition I can get away with it as well, if it needs washing, no way. My voice is not quite ready for full-time as I cannot maintain a feminine voice long enough so that can be a problem.
I'm still trying to present as male at work and I'm failing a lot at that. I wore a baggy jacket the other day when I was going home and there was this guy behind me and he started saying something like 'Hey man ...' then he saw my face and said 'Sorry, I thought you were a guy...'  :laugh:

I'm going on 3 years of estrogen and I usally can go out a mess and get mam , but personally I feel more secure with lashes and eyeliner .

I hardly think anything would give me away, unless someone noticed that little piece of skin between my legs.

Keep in mind that I never had FFS, boob job, never wear makeup, etc... I just had the patience to let the hormones work.

I am mostly allow Estradiol work and change my body, since I know my transition journey is long term process. So I just patients let the process move along.

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I'm sure it varies from person to person. I also gave up on makeup within months and fingernails within weeks (I bite them, and the habit came back as soon as the fun of sparkly polish wore off), and I generally wear jeans and a T-shirt with sneakers to go out. OK, they're women's jeans and fitted shirts (and pink laces on the shoes), but nothing fancy. I get very dressed up for work these days, as I'm now an assistant director, but I still rarely bother with makeup. Since I'm kind of lazy, I gave up on aggressively trying to pass within the first year, and I still didn't have any issues.

I haven't tested on purpose how far I can dress down, but earlier this summer we were painting and I had to run to Home Depot in men's jeans, one of my old baggy T-shirts, and my hair tucked under a baseball cap (yes, I kept a few of my boy clothes exactly for messy chores like this where I don't care if they get ruined). It hit my dysphoria something fierce... but the people working there still did the patronizing "don't worry about it, miss" thing. :)

Of course, it helps to be a middle-aged woman. We're usually invisible anyway; it would be a lot harder to manage the kind of scrutiny that comes with being young and pretty.

I can relax it as far as wearing guy clothes, no makeup, relax voice, hair up. 4.5 years of hrt has done me well.

About the voice part, like the lowest pitch I go into is andro-female when I'm dead tired or sick.

@Jenna
That's certainly true about being young and pretty but I manage nonetheless  :angel:

Lately I've been wearing more makeup, just to cover up my eye bags but thats not even everyday, more like every now and again, minus work. I save my super nice makeup styles for when I go out dancing/partying.

I did have a major tipping point before though, which was my heavy facial hair. Once laser was done I could finally be super lazy about my presentation  8)

What a question. So many variables for people.

Clothing wise, I'm not sure about "relaxing".  Post teen nu-metal-cum-goth-typical-wacky-girl, Ive pretty much worn smart clothes or suits/smart dresses and so on. I still do, even though I'm no longer at work.  I always wear make up, even a smite of it if I'm going for the natural look.  I'm sure a t-shirt and jeans would be fine and I could stick a paper bag over me and still get by.  Unfortunately, I don't own jeans or a large enough paper bag so yet to trial this.

My voice is up for debate.  It's like a detuned guitar wrapped in barbed wire doused in burbon and thrown into a bonfire.  I blame my European heritage, and no one bats an eyelid anyway.  I get the odd "husky" comment but I'm fine with that. My German Grandma had quite a deep voice so I've just passed it back to there if Ive had any rare queries about it.

sharia