This came up in Zoey's thread a few minutes ago. I was talking about years ago going into Walgreen's to buy makeup and buying a bunch of 'cover' items to make it look like I was shopping for a woman. Bought makeup along with tampons and other stuff - I was so clever :D
Or when I had residue of eye makeup on my face that I thought was gone - or when buying clothes for my 'really tall' girlfriend ::)
But you had to be there for the best/worst one. I go into probably the largest wig store in Chicago in a very bustling neighborhood. Probably 20 people in the store. I walk in wearing huge sunglasses and refuse to take them off. The sales clerk starts helping me and I could barely see but no way was my 'disguise' coming off. She shows me a few wigs and asks if I want to try them on - uh no - I mutter. So I say - I'll take that one.
We go up to the register and it is a real human hair wig that costs $600 in 1988 dollars OMG !!! I buy it and scurry away. I get home, heart is pounding and I try it on........ it doesn't fit. :D I kept it for 3 years and threw it away. I may as well have lit the money on fire. :o
Would love to hear any you want to share and for those of you early in this journey - see it's not just you. LOL
Quote from: KimOct on February 06, 2019, 01:01:45 AM
We go up to the register and it is a real human hair wig that costs $600 in 1988 dollars OMG !!! I buy it and scurry away. I get home, heart is pounding and I try it on........ it doesn't fit. :D I kept it for 3 years and threw it away. I may as well have lit the money on fire. :o
Oh my Kim! That's a tough one to compete with. LOL And ouch. I've got a cringe going on from reading that.
I have to say, after the first few times of doing the usual "buy some pantyhose with other stuff" dance, I just decided to buy what I wanted to buy vs. trying to disguise it. I really never had anything exciting/embarrassing/odd happen except one time. And that turned out to be um...interesting. ;-) I was buying some hosiery for an outfit that I was going to wear on the weekend. At the checkout line there was me, and a lady behind me. The clerk looked at the items, gave that odd smile, and said, "are you sure those are the right color for you?" The lady behind me immediately came to my defense saying, "those aren't for him. I'm sure they're for his girlfriend or mom...etc."
I never said a word to either. But I DID take my time going out the door. Something about the clerk's odd little smile made me want to go back to her and tell her that yes, they WERE the right shade. Instead the lady that defended me came up behind me and told me not to let petty people like that bother me. For some reason, I just looked at her and asked her, "what if they are for me?" Wow! That sparked the most interesting and intense parking lot conversation ever, for me anyway. She was intensely curious.
It also lead to us getting getting together for coffee to talk...and then for drinks...any eventually much beyond that. We had a short fun, but very intense relationship. She was considerable older than me at the time and had some "complications" in her life.
I also did go back and talk to the clerk. There was something about the way she looked looked at me and the tone of her voice that had me very curious. That was interesting too. She was into domination and feminization/humiliation. Uh, I didn't even know what that really was at the time. I was a dumb kid that just started college at the time. She was 5 years older than me. I "saw" her a few times out of curiosity. She scared the hell out of me. I can safely say that her lifestyle was not my thing and seemed way over the top to me at the time.
My tries were a little cheaper than a $600 wig. I am lucky that have a healthy hair growth, no expensive wig for me. But a way bigger problem. I had those boobs growing, and it started to be harder to hide them, because from day one they dceided to sport erect nipples 24 /27, and those little guys started to hurt when constantly rubbing on the covering fabric. I thought something like a sports bra should be of help here. Bra yes, but how on earth do I find the right size?
Several trips to Walmart needed to be done, buying a cheap bra each time. I wonder what the checkout person thought, this guy is so cheap he buys the cheapest bra's for his spouse/girlfriend? I finally found the right size, and have now about 5 or 6 cheap bras laying round. I might bring them to Goodwill one of these days.
Now that i know my size, i can order the tings online.
But one of these days, i might want to do the trip to VS to get a really nice bra (I am a sucker for all lacy stuff).
I did not need to buy cosmetics, because my girlfriends helped me out with theirs.
Quote from: Dietlind on February 06, 2019, 01:22:46 PM
Several trips to Walmart needed to be done, buying a cheap bra each time. I wonder what the checkout person thought, this guy is so cheap he buys the cheapest bra's for his spouse/girlfriend? I finally found the right size, and have now about 5 or 6 cheap bras laying round. I might bring them to Goodwill one of these days.
Now that i know my size, i can order the tings online.
lol, yeah I did the same thing. Then my friend told me I could actually take them out of the packages and try them on. Even the playtex ones? "Yes."
Quote from: CindyLouFromCO on February 06, 2019, 01:40:07 PM
lol, yeah I did the same thing. Then my friend told me I could actually take them out of the packages and try them on. Even the playtex ones? "Yes."
I did not have the guts to do that! I was sure that every female in the entire store would have come to kill me if I, in guy mode, would have tried those bras!
I later learned that nobody cares!
Quote from: Dietlind on February 06, 2019, 02:01:22 PM
I did not have the guts to do that! I was sure that every female in the entire store would have come to kill me if I, in guy mode, would have tried those bras!
I later learned that nobody cares!
Oh, I was out. But horribly. Bad makeup, thinking I could fit in while staring at people to see if they were staring at me. Lol.
I never acquired any clothes before I was out. Other than trying on my sisters clothes and my mom's shoes. I would take their clothes for a few days then put them back where I found them.
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Before I was full time I ordered clothes online from places like Old Navy and Victoria Secret (back when they had clothes and bathing suits too).
I never went out dressed in public until around seven months in outside of support groups a distance away from where I lived at the time.
Yeah the internet has made things easier for ordering stuff - I actually buy most of my tops now on Long Tall Sally online.
But in the days before you could get everything online I did some pretty silly stuff to get my stuff - makeup - clothes - shoes - breast forms - wigs ( I wore my hair very short before transition ) It was so scary at the time, I didn't want to be embarrassed but it makes for funny stories now.
Cashier: "Oooh. Those are pretty are they for your wife?"
Me: "Sure. Let's go with that."
Surprisingly enough, not too many stories along these lines, though I've done plenty of stupid stuff. Peak stupid may have been the multiple times I searched out a really deserted parking lot where I could change clothes in the car. That always made me feel really stupid.
I have (and still have!) had my share of embarrassment shopping. The time when a clerk gave me a knowing smile and told me that I needed to match the shoes with the dress, or someone would compliment me on my taste or tell me "you really know your stuff." Once a manager of a lingerie department told me I "needed to come work for her." To this day I wonder if there was a slight whiff of kink in the air.
I bought a bunch of shoes without trying them on as the cover story was always something along the lines of "buying them for my mother/girlfriend" and if they didn't fit I didn't return them because that would have been suspicious.
Later when I was brave enough to go out as a girl and go shopping but not brave enough to come out to my parents I had these various methods to dress up before going shopping at night.
When I dressed up at home, I waited until my parents were asleep and sneaked out of our apartment.
I used the elevator to go to the top floor, silently walked up to the roof and used the corridor there to reach the neighboring staircase, then gone down with the other elevator and exited the building from the neighboring street number. When I went home I did the same in reverse, go to the neighboring entrance, go up to the roof then use the corridor to get back to our staircase and used the stairs to quietly walk down the stairs to our level. There were a few times when neighbors were near so I had to hide, one time I hid in the garbage bin storage room until they left :D
The other method was to cover up women's clothes by a layer of men's clothing and bring the shoes and other clothes and shoes with me in a bag, in this case I didn't have to sneak out late but then I had to change elsewhere.
I used three places for that, the first was the bike storage at the floor level of our apartment building.
In that case I have never entered left or entered the building through our own entrance, always used the corridor at the floor level to go the neighboring staircase.
Other times I went to my garage and dressed up there, mostly in my car or in the rented storage room near the garage and ventured from there. That was even better because fewer people knew me there and they were already asleep by the time I got there.
You can order stuff from VS online and return them back to the nearest store. They will certainly take them back if you don't cut off the tags and have the receipt. They have a huge online selection and let you stack coupons if you shop bargains for sport. They easily have the most complicated rewards program I've ever seen.
The closest I've come to outing myself is buying black kitten heels at the nearest Target and trying them on to make sure they fit properly. I also bought some pantyhose. Since then I've bought Cole Haan shoes on Amazon, a red kitten heel and nude stilletos. I figured it would be easier to walk in stilletos if I did it as a three step process, starting off with kitten heels that had adjustable straps.
Lynne - I got exhausted just reading your escapades. Just thinking about all of the sneaking around I did over the years it was crazy. All the way from Mom's makeup at age 10 to hotel rooms on business trips as an adult. Then sneaking to my car at 3:00 in the morning to drive around for a few minutes.
I wish I was born 20 years ago now that we are starting to come out of the shadows but on the other hand I am thrilled I wasn't born 100 years ago because almost nobody ever came out back then and if they did they were considered insane.
I think those of us of a certain age are in a unique position in the gender evolution. Old enough to have lived in secrecy and felt the shame but at least young enough that we can live our lives if we find the courage.
Oops - this thread was supposed to be funny but Lynne's story and my own reminiscing got me thinking how crazy it used to be.
Would love to hear anymore stories funny or serious.
The stupidest thing I bought was a corset about 14 years ago. I have never worn it, as it basically tortured my waist.
In the store, the saleswoman strangely asked me whether I wanted a men's or a women's corset. I asked her whether her store indeed keeps men's corsets, which I had never heard about. She said yes, adding that there is a difference between women's and men's, because of some muscle of men. I asked her whether she had ever seen any man trying to purchase corset, and she said again 'yes'. So, I purchased one for men's there, later finding that it was just an ordinary corset with lace for women.
In retrospect, I guess she just tried to make me feel it easy to purchase women's underwear.
barbie~~
Yeah sounds a little bit like the 'I am shopping for my girlfriend' bit. As Ashley said that was in chapter one of the staying in the closet handbook.
Corsets OMG I have owned 2 - what a waste of money. They hurt - you can't breathe - and I'm STILL fat. :D
Quote from: KimOct on February 13, 2019, 06:47:30 PM
Yeah sounds a little bit like the 'I am shopping for my girlfriend' bit. As Ashley said that was in chapter one of the staying in the closet handbook.
Corsets OMG I have owned 2 - what a waste of money. They hurt - you can't breathe - and I'm STILL fat. :D
You mean I should safe my money, and try to get slim the conventional, but hard way?
In my case I didn't buy them to shape my body - I knew that doesn't work. I bought them just to play dress up back in the day. I didn't look much better with them on. Have zero desire to ever wear one again. It was just fantasy - now I am living the reality - corsets not included. :D
Quote from: KimOct on February 12, 2019, 11:53:44 PM
Lynne - I got exhausted just reading your escapades. Just thinking about all of the sneaking around I did over the years it was crazy. All the way from Mom's makeup at age 10 to hotel rooms on business trips as an adult. Then sneaking to my car at 3:00 in the morning to drive around for a few minutes.
I wish I was born 20 years ago now that we are starting to come out of the shadows but on the other hand I am thrilled I wasn't born 100 years ago because almost nobody ever came out back then and if they did they were considered insane.
I think those of us of a certain age are in a unique position in the gender evolution. Old enough to have lived in secrecy and felt the shame but at least young enough that we can live our lives if we find the courage.
Oops - this thread was supposed to be funny but Lynne's story and my own reminiscing got me thinking how crazy it used to be.
Would love to hear anymore stories funny or serious.
Thinking back it feels like I was in a spy movie with all the sneaking around, now it feels kind of funny and I probably took the whole thing way too seriously. I now live in my own apartment in another city and the situation is reversed, when I have to present as male(more like andro these days) I try to avoid my neighbors so they mostly only see me as female.
Back then, there was no internet. I did order a few things from catalogs, which was a mistake. They were uncomfortable, so I just burned them.
I had better luck with second hand stores. It might sound funny, but I had even bought used panties. The good thing was that I could feel the fabric, and made sure I didn't get anything scratchy. I was going to get strange looks whether I got the stuff second hand, or new. I went with second hand stuff so it would be cheaper if I had to dump the stuff and replace it later. My life was a mess back then.
Wow Sarah - burned them !!
But now I think about it one time I purged about 20 years ago I dumped at least a $1000 worth of stuff at a Wisconsin interstate rest stop in the garbage cans. ::) It is hilarious thinking about all of this stupid stuff. I worked hard at staying in the closet - now I am about the most openly transwoman you can imagine. Life sure can change.