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I have not written much recently. This is partly due to being unhappy at work. I just get home, eat go to the local pool to exercise ( my diabetes is getting out of control, so I must exercise.) Then come home watch TV and sleep. Rinse and repeat.
One of the reasons I write is to express my feminine side. I still don't know if I am really trans or not. I grew up wishing I was a girl. I was 3 or 4 when I asked why I was not a girl. When I dress now, there is no sexual thrill, just a sense of relief. When I am "made up" I just feel that I am looking at the real me.
Since coming out to my mother I feel a lot less "bottled up". I go away on short fishing holidays. Sometimes with my mother. Sometimes alone.
Often the ones where I am alone I meet up with a very understanding man. He encourages me to be Leeanna. I met up with him for a few days this month and we wnt out for a walk.
I am terrified of going out as Leeanna. Yet I feel the need for others to see me and to be out in the world as female. Is this odd or normal?
I have limited it to dark nights, often when it rains so I can hide behind an umbrella. Mike has been encouraging me to go out in daylight. When we were away last time we did just that. We went for a walk on the beach of the resort we were staying at on the east coast.
I have always worn dresses or skirts when going out. My logic is that if you see someone in a skirt coming toward you, you automatically think female. If you wear trousers (pants) you need more clues before deciding on a gender. Mike told me that I really should wear leggings as the majority of women wear them at this time of the year. Looking around before we went he was 100% right. I think nearly all the women I saw were not wearing dresses or skirts.
I was very nervous before we went for our walk. Mike held my hand for some of the time to make me feel safe. The first people we approached were a group of teenagers. They were a mixed group. I held my breath as we had to walk within inches of them as the path was narrow.
There were no second glances, We were just ignored. Nothing to see here. Just a man and a woman out for a walk.
It was so nice just to be ignored.
We passed several women, men and couples. I never got a second glance. I suppose I was too paranoid. Most people are too wrapped up in their own life to worry about anyone else. I realise that this is a long way from interacting with people in my female persona. Little steps.
This is me just before our walk.
Thanks for your help Mike x
Comments
Go for it
Depending on the country, and maybe even the region within a country, the whole “passing” issue can be a non-issue. My experience has shown me that confidence is actually more important than “passing”. And by “passing” I mean to have the appearance of the stereotypical female.
When I moved to north-central Europe just before the pandemic hit, I was still presenting male in public. Though my goal was to start my formal transition to female. But the pandemic with the resulting lock-downs changed all that. My formal transition is dead in the water.
But socially I have pretty much transitioned to the female presentation. For the last two years I have exclusively worn clothes from the female side of the spectrum. And I am even using my preferred [female] name in most social settings. And with some very obvious clothing clues I get consistently ma'am-ed on the streets and in shops. Even if I do have some obviously male characteristics. It is when my dressing moves toward the androgynous side of feminine spectrum that people become confused as to how to address me.
Gaining the confidence to venture out into the wild world is not easy. But when I let my insecurity of how I would be accepted as a female show in my posture and demeanor, that was when I would get unpleasant attention of tittering behind my back. However if I project “this is who I am, deal with it”, I get treated like a normal person. (Though normal is vastly over-rated!)
How Trans is Trans
You should read my article "How Trans is Trans"
You wrote:
That pretty much describes the feelings a trans person has. What may be confusing you is that gender dysphoria isn't the overriding push to transition that you hear so much about.
That also pretty much describes how I felt until I accepted myself as trans. From my tween years all through my teen and into my early twenties, I felt like that. It wasn't so much that I wanted to be a girl, or that I hated my body, it was the need to feel feminine. To feel feminine I had to dress feminine. In my mind that meant a skirt and blouse or a dress. It also meant all the feminine undergarments. Oh, I could abstain for a time (I did nearly a year once) but the need always came back. I was content at first to confine my dressing to in my own house, but then somewhere about 22 or 23 I felt the need to go out. Like you it was after dark. I did some very foolish late night walks.
I joined Tri-Ess because the members were primarily heterosexual married men and that seemed to fit me. After a time with Tri-Ess and crashing another club's social events (NW Gender Alliance) I became used to being seen in broad daylight. I spent most of my time out looking to see if anyone noticed I was a man in a dress.
But then I read a newspaper account of a cross-dresser who wanted someone to notice he was a man in a dress. He went to a local mall en femme and walked the length of the mall twice with no one taking notice. In he went back to his car and stripped down to his heels. With his purse over his shoulder and carrying his floppy hat in front of him, he ventured back into the mall. He got noticed. Security rounded him up and call the police -- indecent exposure.
I decided that if he had to get naked for anyone to notice then I certainly walk the mall fully dressed. It took a period of year for me to come to the conclusion you expressed. Everybody was just to wrapped up in what they were doing to pay any attention to me.
Never has there been an erotic element to my cross-dressing and never have I felt that compelling need to transition, none-the-less, I'm trans. Once I came to that conclusion, I slowly over time, piece by piece, I ditched my male clothes and exchanged them for female counter parts. When you look at it there's not much difference between men's jeans and women's jeans, only the shape of the person wearing them tells the tale. Likewise with shirts (like "Woman With" [a plus size online store] Big Shirts) and men's shirts; men's tennis shoes and women's. The list goes on and on. So I dress full-time en femme only sometimes no one can tell or seem not to notice.
Today, I went grocery shopping at Safeway. I just got back. I put on some dark green capri pants and a green an black print top that looks like I have on a black camisole under a top that hangs open gathered with catch below the bust line. My long hair pulled back a large crazy comb arrangement, women's flat and wearing mascara and lipstick. Less is more, makeup wise. I interacted with four or five different people without anyone blinking.
There are now two parts to my wardrobe. A definite women's clothes section, with mainly tops and pants of some kind and a smaller butch section that comes off masculine to those who need to see me as male, but are in reality women's clothes. I have nearly no men's clothe at all and none that I really wear.
Passing is highly over rated anyway. I'd much rather be recognized as a trans-woman and accepted as one.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Your story sounds a lot like
Your story sounds a lot like me. Money and family stop me from going further. I got to going out in public at 14.
It started with just wearing the underwear. Then grew to include a blouse and skirt. At fourteen my legs were still relatively smooth. They looked really good in my mothers chocolate-coloured tights. I added a scarf and a little lipstick and decided to go out. Later in life I would never take such a chance, but at fourteen you don't think of all the ways you can get caught.
Living at the top floor of a four story block in meant I would have to walk down four flights of stairs past everyone's front door. I got away with this and managed to walk down the street in his mothers cork wedge sandals. I had the idea of walking about a mile to a local park then return home.
These trips became a regular thing for a few months. I must have done this five of six times. On the last trip as I climbed the stairs I saw a school friend waiting near my front door. Time stopped. Stupid ideas of what to say went through my head. Instead I just pushed past and opened then quickly slammed the front door..
A few days later I told his friend that while I was "bunking off" my aunt came into the flat and I had to hide in the cupboard for an hour. My friend said he was on the stairs and a woman went by him. Had I really gotten away with it? The scarf did cover a lot of my head.
Leeanna
I do not pass
but it hasn't mattered. The other day a cashier called me "sir" before saying how much she admired my nails. I'm glad you have someone to share those moments with, although I'm also a little jealous!
huggles, hon.