I have a feeling this directly applies to people with very few to no people in their lives, but would like others opinions as I'm sure my situation represents a really small segment of society. I started to put this in the Coming Out section but noticed how few replies this gets and only slightly better in RLE. So here goes.
In my six months of hrt my outward changes in appearance has been a slow and gradual one. Each new step at the time seemed huge! My first time wearing just nail polish was enough to not want to open the door for the mail lady. ::) That seems like a lifetime ago. My current every time out mode of dress now is women's jeans, makeup, lipstick, t-shirts that have a female cut to them, eyebrows now continually done, and always in womens boots with heels.
With the last card to be drawn being a skirt and then a dress yet to happen, a part of me says "That is when I have truly came out" OR have I already?
Yeah I know on the surface this seems like a lame question, but after looking through many entries in the Coming Out section it involved sitting down with someone and saying the words. Did I get robbed of the liberating experience being able to 'say the words' and providing a release of anxiety build up, or the other side of the coin, avoided much much grief by having no need.
Anyone here follow this path? If so, is there that lurking notion of non-completion, or one of YAY? and all others 2 cents worth. Dani
I had a phase where I tried the slow come out. I wasn't fully sure I was really trans back then, I was still kind of stuck in a religious environment, and to be fairly honest, I'm not even really sure what I was trying to explore, except that I didn't feel right in my own skin. I saw this girl in full goth regaialia walking down the street one day and was so transfixed by her that I followed her for several blocks trying to catch up so I could talk to her. Once I do, I go into this nervous blather. Part me me wanted to know if she was single, but most of me was just curious about where she got her clothes, her hair dye, and her makeup.
She basically just said, :if you want to go for the look bad enough, just do it". I also think I seriously creeped her out, because I was so jittery, and because I seemed to want to be her as much as I was hitting on her. Which, in hindsight... yeah. I did. But I couldn't admit that to myself back then.
So, I started with the hair dye, nail polish, then tired to upgrade to eyeliner. When Halloween came around that year, I attempted full drag for the first tim, under the guise of a Halloween costume. I was going as a goth girl, and it was the first time I ever used the name "Daria". I went to an amusement park with friends in full drag, expecting at least some of them to be in costume. Sure, Halloween was a month off, but we were going to a Haunted House they had set up at the park, so I thought, "yeah, I can get away with this". Needless to say, I actually ended up pissing off a friend in small part because of it, and also because I spent half the time hitting on this one girl who was supposedly his one college buddy's crush. She seemed into the drag and wanted to try on my blue wig, and it's not like this guy was dating her. I just met her, and my feeling on it was, and still is, "hey, you want to talk her up, go for it, but don't expect me to stop talkin her up myself." Beyond that, my firend's girlfriend, the one that got mad at me that night, she was kind of cool with me in drag, too, even though she was quick to point out what all I was doing wrong. She might have even called me Daria a couple times that night, because I was insisting people call me Daria. Because, you know, costume, in the role...
Who am I kidding? I was in so much self-denial back then it wasn't even funny.
Anyway, I only did the full drag twice that year. The theme park trip and one day, just out in the street on my own, going to the video store... because in hindsight, I guess I just wanted to see if I could get away with it. The test run didn't go great, but it wasn't exactly met with scorn, either. The video clerk had a trans sister, apparently. She alluded to such, at least. So I was probably another day, for her. I also didn't bother with the lipstick, so for all I know, she didn't pick up the fact that I was attempting drag. She might have just thought I was goth. No clue.
I toned it down for the day to day. If anyone got weird about it, I told them I was going through a "Jeff Hardy phase". For those who don't know, Hardy is a pro wrestler known for his unconventional style. Not really trans, but the stockings, multi-colored hair, nail polish, face-paint and whatnot, it was a decent excuse. Eventually, the church folk gave me enough of the stinkeye that I gave up the phase and bleached my hair out. Nevermind that this was also 2001, and all of this was taking place just after 9/11, when the church folk I knew back then were taling about the End of the World like is was a very good possibility that it was going to happen. People were spooked back then, and I wasn't helping matters looking all Marilyn Mansony in their eyes.
So, yeah. I tried this once. Might even work if I tried it again, now. Maybe because I actually know what I'm going for this time, and maybe not go nearly as extreme.
Well I know some people feel like they'd just like to take it so slow and make such imperceptible changes that they wouldn't have to come out. It may have happened but I imagine it would be pretty rare. Besides its not like people who you've known over several years are just going to turn around one day and say "hey, didn't you use to be a guy/gal?"
Jumps up and down waving semaphore flags. Lighting a giant beacon. Screaming for attention ME TO.
Well sort of, my wardrobe has been andro female for years. I would wear buy the girls version of the top I was looking for, wear girls jeans and my place is filled with different coloured Dr.martins and converse. I even had my hair cut into a style that some would of considered feminine.
Now I've been on hormones for almost a year, I'm wondering how some of the professionals around me see me. (Real estate, pharmacist, hairdresser, laser tech). I have my gender neutral name and apart body nothing has really changed in my look.
I always say you don't need to wear a skirt or a dress to be a woman. It can also be how you present and how people react to you. Sounds like you are there already
Quote from: Ms Grace on January 11, 2015, 10:10:48 PM
Well I know some people feel like they'd just like to take it so slow and make such imperceptible changes that they wouldn't have to come out. It may have happened but I imagine it would be pretty rare. Besides its not like people who you've known over several years are just going to turn around one day and say "hey, didn't you use to be a guy/gal?"
I have been transitioning slowly, my plan was to transition while losing weight, was trying to keep it imperceptible don't really think that worked. Its been about a year and a half now and I have lost 160 lbs and have about 50 more to go to get to my goal of 180. I currently have nothing but womens clothes and there is no mode but being myself. I figure if I am transitioning may as well have everyone I know transition along with me. I have told my boss and a few of the women I work with, but not told everyone, just being myself so far everyone seems cool with it.
"With the last card to be drawn being a skirt and then a dress yet to happen, a part of me says "That is when I have truly came out" OR have I already?"
maybe get a shop assistant to pick you out a really fantastic dress. or a few to try. high quality. so you look HOT! then fk what anyone else thinks.
Thanks everybody ;D , I'm just going to fine tune this a bit. Like I said, in the very beginning were these weird moments when the changes I made met up with real people (like the mail lady. Aside from those few times, I never really caught myself paying much attention to the evolution in my attire, my makeup etc. It all just sort of happened, each part morphed right into the next and felt completely natural. I remember only one time in all six months that I retreated in a very real way inward into myself. I was grocery shopping and ran into (from a bit of distance) a former women coworker, she was looking straight at me and pointing at me and snickered and talked out the side of her mouth to someone standing beside her. I kept walking, didnt look down, went down an asile, sort of collapsed inward for about 10 or 15 seconds, then turned walked back down the asile, smiled to myself as I was thinking "I will not be mentally beat down by you" and continued my shopping.
All the rest of my six months have been absolutely day after day cool. I go everywhere I did before. The reason I mentioned the skirt and dress is these are my last two victories left undone. Clothes, well I have been spending an incredible amount of $ on high end clothes, boots up the proverbial yin yang, all closets are full full full.
I guess the main reason for this post was curiosity as to whether or not I unwittingly missed out on those unveiling of truth conversations that so many have had mixed reactions to. Even this topic is not too big of a thing with me. I suppose when all is said and done, I was 'completely' ready to go forward and enjoy every nuance of the feminine nature. Dani
Quote from: Newgirl Dani on January 11, 2015, 08:58:02 PM
Anyone here follow this path? If so, is there that lurking notion of non-completion, or one of YAY? and all others 2 cents worth. Dani
I started with something like that. I grew my hair and my fingernails long, mostly so that when I started asking for female pronouns and changed my name to a female name, no one would swoon from shock. In practice, people have since told me that they thought I was cracking and going off the deep end in response to my divorce. All of that concern morphed into understanding when I finally announced the name/pronoun change.
I would have loved to do it that way, but alas, a classroom, where I work, is a very gendered place. My students all called me Mr. G___ and it would have taken some sort of announcement to change that to Ms. G___.