As a follow-up to my previous thread, I did it! This morning I attending services at a local UCC Church for the first time and I went in fully female presentation. While I've gone out in public in mixed presentation numerous times, this was the first and most public time I've gone out presenting as female. I'm not anywhere near able to blend in or pass, but as I was doing my makeup this morning, a thought occurred to me. Why should I care if I "pass" or not. Passing or blending in is for their comfort, and this is all about being me. That gave me a boost of confidence that was truly liberating.
So anyway, the church. What an amazing community. People were so amazingly welcoming and friendly, it was almost too good to be true. Before the service I had a number of people come up and welcome me to their church. One in particular is a trans woman who I would later find out is on their "inclusion" committee (she invited me to join that committee at their next meeting). I won't get into the details of the service as this is not the religion forum, but afterward they have a social with snacks and drinks. Once again everyone was amazingly welcoming, affirming and just super open to interacting with me as.....well.....me!!!
There were two cases where other women gendered me as female. I admit I was a little nervous as to how that would hit me. The reality is it felt incredible. My heart raced both times and I felt a total sense of relief and excitement from it. I'm not sure what that means in the long run but right now I don't care, I loved it and it made this whole morning so amazingly enjoyable for me.
After leaving, I debated stopping for breakfast somewhere. However, I ended up deciding it was probably better that I take it a little slow, maybe next week I'll go that next step. We'll see. For now I'm just going to bask in a little "after glow" of a small yet major step in my journey. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to do this, I'm so happy I took your advice (as well as that of my therapist) and am starting to "get out there".
