Transplant

A mere couple of posts ago I mentioned that the focus of Voyages en Rose would be changing just a tad to better reflect what passes for reality for me. There has been a slightly schizophrenic aspect to content here. I flail wildly between 3 broad themes:

- pensive, sometimes even bordeline trenchant explorations of the inner workings of this Cross Dresser's mind
- reportage on my various Voyages en Femme and general infiltration of a bigger, unsuspecting, sometimes curious and often blithely unaware or unalarmed world, and
- perky, insouciant reviews of lingerie and hosiery that can be found under the tag “Petra’s Pantyhose Parade”.

Three is a crowd as they say. Time for the lingerie to move out of the basement and find a new home.

I started writing about lingerie for a couple of reasons that did not take much thought at the time. Much of it had to do with not really having a clue about what my then recent, open and honest embrace of Cross Dressing would mean to me. I felt that a blog could be a great venue for figuring a lot of things out, but knew that if I did not have an editorial calendar to attend to I might let the effort rust. I knew that I required a structure around which I might better develop a discipline of writing. I therefore committed myself to a weekly product review, and built a complex, multi-variant grading algorithm that would enable me to develop a scientific, stacked ranking of my hosiery stash.

It was a bit of a lark at the time I must confess, but with time it has been a real pleasure, and a minor achievement to develop a body of knowledge and a reasonably well informed voice on these matters. I actually know my stuff, and take pleasure in the connoisseurship.

Today therefore, I am pleased to announce to you, dear friends, that such posts will be found periodically on a much more popular lingerie blog and overall hub for all things under it all, Guilty Pleasures. I have joined a terrific team of lingerie and style enthusiasts as a periodic contributor of views on and reviews of hosiery. My first post there is timed right for the onset of chilly winter temperatures, a comparative review of opaques from Hue and Berkshire.

In my posts for GP I will be assuming the voice of someone who simply knows and loves the subject matter. People visit Guilty Pleasures for lingerie know-how and shopping know-where. Therefore, my gender is a non-factor, and won’t be raised or alluded to there. There is only one Petra Bellejambes though, our internet is rich with bread crumbs, and readers will follow links back here from there, perhaps to be surprised, perhaps not. I hope that my gender will not matter, and the quality of thinking and writing will.

Certainly, it seems that my gender does not matter at all to Ally and Miss Tique at GP with whom I now periodically labor. I take this as a signal of a couple of good things:

First, that the iceberg of hostility that the Trans community needs to navigate around every day is melting, and can only, with time, get smaller, less threatening, drip by sure drip. People with accepting postures and open minds are out there. Clearly, my new friends are such people. Hooray for progress!

Second, this shows that people like me who love to write and are prone to swooning in the face of flattery are easy to motivate. Much in life comes down to time and money. There is no money in this stuff. But if my writing is useful or entertaining to others, I will think it a great use of time.

Team GP is well plugged in to a pretty network of designers, brands and vendors. We get the odd assignment from the network. My first essay for a Guilty Pleasures partner went up last night on Layla L’Obatti’s blog. Layla is a young, talented and determined intimate designer in the early days of the heroic struggle to build a beautiful business, Between the Sheets Lingerie, from scratch. Her stuff is made with love, and made here in America. I would love to see her thrive, and really hope that my Gift Giving Guide there helps shift some gorgeous product.

I’ll keep you all up to date about where and when these posts can be found. I will be back here over the weekend with a signature post on my acute need for a new signature. I found myself cursing my cursive style at a Macy’s counter the other day. This dizzying merry-go-round just never stops it seems.

Before signing off, I want to say a last little something to the amazing women who visit Voyages en Rose. I was not expecting you to gather here in such big, happy and beautiful numbers. Many of you are in the fashion business, or deep in the arts and letters. I would not be striding out in to your world without the superb encouragement you have tendered.

Thank you.

Always happy to see you here, and I hope you will join me in my new venues too.

I blame Yvonne Elliman.

Many Voyages en Rose readers are lovers of music. I know this from reading your blogs, and from the odd bit of private correspondence with you. Me too. This lifelong love transcends format (45’s, LP’s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CD’s, MP3’s etc) and genre. From Albinoni to Zevon, preference and predispositions do not readily emerge, and a quick flip through my stacks reveals either refined broad-mindedness or borderline schizophrenia depending on your own muscial points of view.

On the whole though, songs with lyrical content are the songs I go back to. I do like stories after all.

The musical stories that drive most expertly, persistently and deeply into my thinking and feeling are the ones that women sing, expressing their experience, from their perspective, and typically in response to some generalized shortcoming or specific fuck-up doled out by a guy.

And yeah, this goes back to Yvonne Elliman. I first heard her perform on the 1970 pre-Broadway opening recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. For the sonority and range of her voice of course, such a gorgeous instrument she possessed then, and probably still today. This 8 year old didn’t have the language to describe the music, but I had all the instincts I needed to be moved by it, to be riveted in place by it

Her voice, paired with with Tim Rice’s lyrics in “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” carried a depth of feeling, an honestly, a fully expressed emotion, that was startling to me. Freely admitted confusion, an understanding of her own weaknesses and worst potentials, complexity, hope, despair, the whole shootin’ works in a 3 minute masterpiece portrait of the full spectrum of human emotion, from high to low.

This stood in marked contrast from such then popular male vocal efforts as Tony Orlando’s “Knock Three Times” and the Archies truly lamentable multi-platinum tribute to all that is transparent, shallow and water soluble, “Sugar, Sugar”.

It was a golden musical era. Female songwriters were getting a shot at telling their own stories on their own terms. Janis Joplin hurled pieces of her heart at us. Carole King made the earth move beneath our feet. Carly Simon called out our vanity for what it was and told the world. Yes, of course, there were many gifted male songwriters doing deeply revealing, sensitive personal stuff (all due praise to Jackson Browne, Van Morrison, and Neil Diamond), and countless songs by chaps that remain potent today.

With that said though, I felt then, and still today, that much of the masculine emotion revealed in song was expressed, at least in part, in the service of getting laid. Soon. Now preferably. And would it kill you, O mighty Creator, to serve me up twins? Do this righteous dude a solid would you?

The female lyrics however seemed enlisted in the service of something of more lasting value. They seemed as to tap in to the wellspring of endurance and patience that women possess as a matter of survival, and nurtured in beautiful contrast to common masculine survival virtues.

I listened so closely to those songs as well because, dammit the women just sounded flat out disappointed by some guy, and by logical extension, me. I felt in some way responsible for the hurt, confusion, despair and weariness expressed in song. Perhaps, if just given a chance, I could make it all right.

O, there was so much to make right too. Guys were clearly capable of and perhaps mission driven to discover new frontiers of insensitivity. The hits just kept coming, the weariness started showing in more unpolished voices, and blown over gaping acoustical apertures, exposed nerves, cracking and creaking, with raw broken china scratchiness, Marianne Faithful, Stevie Nicks, Linda Thompson and Patty Smith.

My 80’s begin with Rickie Lee Jones, end with Sinead O’Cononor, and were punctuated along the way by Kate Bush and k.d. lang, each capable of stamping a nearly toxic dose of honesty, hope and hurt into a 3 minute tune, each terrific long form story tellers too, and each in their way a trailbreaking affront to rock-chick beauty standards.

Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Bjork, Natalie Merchant, Liz Phair, Aimee Mann and too many to name made the relative absence of male singer/songwriters the musical non-event of the 90’s. In hindsight, the guys contribution was simply not required. Beautiful, attractive performers, feminine, unashamed of their sexuality, self aware, easy on the eyes, easier on the ears, and happy to challenge your thinking about exactly what women were thinking.

Musically, the ‘Aughts and our current decade are, for me, mirroring and perhaps anticipating a broader change in society. Our beauty definitions have changed, Cougars prowl with quiet certainty in the beauty of experience. Musically too, the kids have left the nest and the mother is still possessed of a confident come-hither look. Lucinda and Emmylou, Patty Griffin, and yes, god bless her hopeful heart the still radiant Mavis Staples hits the studio and jumps on a tour bus in her 70’s.

These lives and stories, expressed in song have for me always revealed a different view of life. They possess a luring complexity, intricacy, deeper and different learnings taken from the seen and felt world, and have been just as potent a lure to my own curiosity about a woman’s experience as her clothing and appearance.

And so, yes I blame Yvonne Elliman. I thank her too. Whose praises do you sing?

The Art of Cross Dressing. Part II

Ed. If you did not read Part One, please set aside a few minutes to do so. Link here. This post should then provide better value.

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Yes, I relish the risk of Cross Dressing. I love the effect that it has on me, and on people around me. I am enthralled by the Art of it all. This drives me. These impulses and motivators, and the way that my pleasure receptors are touched when I act on them seem to me to be artistic, or at least creative, at their core.

Perhaps now is a good time to introduce a little more of me to help contextualize this theme.

I did a good amount of theatre in my 20’s. The high I took from working a stage is similar to the high I take from being Petra. The nerves prior to curtain, the attenuation to surroundings when on stage, the conscious blocking of movement, the ownership of personality, and presence while interacting with other players, the odd flower tossed by an admirer in the audience, it is all there, all of it. The satisfaction of knowing that to some degree you pulled off the performance, and that the immediate world briefly suspended disbelief is immense. If I had not worked in theatre I would have less, or perhaps nothing to compare Cross Dressing to. I did though, and damn it, but the likenesses of experience are profound.

It surprises me that I had not twigged to this earlier on.

For a variety of reasons, in my 30’s, I lost theatre and settled into technical lines of work. Lots of process, heaps of data, chains of command and the like. A couple of IPO’s that did nothing to fatten my purse too, but I am not bitter. It was a busy time building a career, and a busy time learning how to be a husband too. There was much to take me off the scent of creative pursuits. Great stuff, but different stuff.

I hit my 40’s with reasonable achievement on both the career and marital fronts. There was room in my life, and a creative, artistic activity snuck into the gap in the form of a big, beautiful piano. I had not played a note of music in my life. I started up pretty much the same way a 5 year old does and managed to become a pretty accomplished 7 year old before hitting a talent wall. I do play though, for minutes at a time, most days these days. The piano is a great source of joy for me. Certainly, the making of music is Art, even if in this field, I am no Artist.

Art has become much more central to my happiness over the last couple of years. I taught a course this past summer on the topic of Art History from Paleolithic times to the present day, viewed through the lens of technological advances. I cannot draw for beans, but I lit a room full of avid minds up expounding a theory of Art not as luxury, but as a necessity in the lives of our odd species. I gobbled up the research effort. It was delicious. I loved it and will refine the material for another go around the next time there is room for me.

Some, perhaps much of the confidence or the carelessness required to create this curricula from scratch, and then to stand up and teach it came from my recent experience of building this blog into a home for another type of Art. The Art of Writing. A fair amount of effort goes into rendering feeling, thought and experience into words here on these bright pages. Arguably the effort falls short of art, but it is creative. A blank Word doc is “medium” as surely as a freshly shaved face, and the keyboard is brush, shadow and blush. Doing this labor has thoroughly awakened within me just how central works of creativity are to my happiness.

All of this, if I am on the scent, truly brings me closer to apprehending the big catch, the whole "why". Not quite though.

I am left with why Cross Dressing, as opposed to, well, something else.

There remains the possibility of an odd chromosomal arrangement somewhere inside. There remains the possibility that some suppressed childhood experience guides my life and interests. There remains the possibility that the second hit of purple microdot I took at the David Bowie Station to Station gig clear cut an odd neural path and got me behind the velvet rope that keeps tourists from getting a good bar stool in Club Gender. And who is (ever) to know?

Not knowing these things with any certainty, I can at least contextualize my Cross Dressing as satisfying Artistic urges.

Art, at core, is work in pursuit of truth. Truth has a close relationship with beauty. Much of what I see in the world that is beautiful is displayed by women. This beauty inspires. I feel envy for it in moments of weakness. I admire it in moments of clarity. I realize that I cannot have it all or always. I can, however, aspire to beauty.

The beauty that I see in women provides very stark relief from what is ungainly, unmusical, and unbeautiful about men.

In admiring womanly beauty, in acting on the admiration, in adopting womanly surfaces, and surfacing the better feminine self from within, I believe that I am able to stand further away from my ungainly, unmusical and unbeautiful masculine potentials.

Having done this, the sculpting, the painting, the performing, and having written about it all has been completely transformational for me. Transformational in the way that Art is supposed to be. Lasting in the way that Art is supposed to be. Beautiful in the way that Art is supposed to be. For me.

I do feel further away from ungainly, unmusical, unbeautiful potentials that were always ready to stumble into view in earlier years. Perhaps that comes to us all with time, with maturity, but I am quite certain that it came to me earlier than it would have otherwise as a direct result of the pursuit of this Art.

I am happy that this Art found its way to me.

And I am curious to know from you, my Artistic friend, if these thoughts ring true for you, if you feel these things too. Comments most sincerely welcomed.

Photo Credit for Female Magritte to Colin Carver

Laundry, and the Art of Cross Dressing. Part 1

Just a little more than a month ago I was finishing up the weeks worth of laundry I created for myself at the Southern Comfort Conference.

The mental laundry has tumbling between my ears a little while longer. Today, dear friends, I will do a little fluff and fold of these pretty and static charged thoughts with you. It is a big pile, two loads at least. Let’s just take on one of them in this post.

You see, a week long skirt-a-palooza was big stuff for me, and for a number of reasons. On a visceral level, I had not been out en Femme through the too long, too hot Atlanta summer months. I therefore felt a great deal of anticipation for the first Frolic en Femme of the Autumn season.

Beyond that though, on a cerebral level, I truly wanted to see precisely what a more pronounced, prolonged immersion within my feminine surfaces might surface from within me. Complex stuff, yes, and while comprehension of the motivations that drive this splendid behavior is likely not to be completely seized, we must try. What would we be if we did not try?

Getting to “why” is important to me. My own personal delight in having a “why” for things runs counter to a deeply embedded hedonistic streak that I am possessed of, and which has largely served me well in life. This attitude can be succinctly summed up by saying “if it feels good, do it, provided it does not frighten the cows and sour the milk”.

The hedonist is kept partly in check by a ravenous analytical appetite. Like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, I am half Vulcan. Unlike Mr. Spock, my other half is Lt. Uhuru.

Back now, to the laundry of the mind, spinning on the question: “what is my motivation?”

I have, since giving Cross Dressing a wide berth in my life a couple of years ago, changed greatly. I will confess that there was an element of fetish, of forbidden thrill, of tactile excitement in my earlier experiments with wardrobe. This element is gone, long gone. Much else is gone with it. I no longer furtively under-dress, or sneak therapeutic moments of partial dressing in to my days. When I do dress, I go top-to-toe, and take it out on the road. Doing less does not seem to address any needs or desires. Moreover, I harbor no lesbian fantasies, have little interest in the company of men, and have absolutely no interest in congress with them. In some ways my conventionality borders on kinky. Perhaps then, we can reasonably eliminate sex as a motivator for my habit.

I have, since giving Cross Dressing a wide berth in my life (and since sharing that truth with my wife of 15+ years), listened closely for signals, kept my ears open for the Syren song sounding off the rocky shoals of Gender Re-assignment. I simply do not hear the call. At some level, I may be shutting off some sensors, daunting and disruptive as that trip would surely be. Perhaps, but I believe that I have been open minded and honest with myself on this matter.

Again. Just. Not. Feeling. It.

Perhaps then we can eliminate gender identity disorder from the mix. My birthly, earthly inheritances are sources of happiness and accomplishment for me. My advantages are considerable. I can not imagine not being the me that I am. Male. Shaken or stirred, with a twist perhaps, but yeah, a guy.

What then, dear friends, am I left with?

A thought has been coalescing around my uncertainty as to motive. It goes like so:

There is an element of Theatre, of Performance in this dressing. There is an audience, unwitting as they are, who get to see the show. I am capable of a good performance, of inhabiting a character convincingly, and staying on stage without being broomed off from the wings or shut down by a caustic review.

There is an element of Art, of Creativity in this dressing. There is bodily clay that is molded into new and attractive shapes. There is a frame draped in startling fabrics, a kinetic sculpture whose movements are changed, freed, constrained, and governed by dimensions of garments. There is my skin, a coarse canvas, smoothed, painted and beautified, an improvement on nature that I can see in a mirror and still feel surprised by.

There is something more. There is an element of exhibition, of sedition, of challenge to status quo in Cross Dressing. It may stem from some insecurity, a mad juvenile desire to be seen, noticed, to be paid mind to. In truth much of the friction of my younger years was borne of uncertainty about my value, insecurity about my place and progress in the world. There is abundant evidence in my more mature years though that this impulse has been largely stamped out, or corralled to a healthy degree. My present challenges to status quo seem better considered, more organic, and pretty well calculated for risk and effect.

I relish the risk of the Performance. I love the process of the Art. I am drawn to the challenge of the Status Quo. All of these things may be very important to me, and all very real contributors to my “why”.

It all requires a few more turns in the dryer before getting line dried here in Part Two tomorrow. I do hope to see you back here after a brief intermission.

My pals, M.A.C. and Macy

Long time readers will know of my smoldering love affair with the nice people at M.A.C. Skilled staff working with terrific cosmetics, in settings that are 100% free of the possibility of a hassle about gender/wardrobe incongruity. Lovely people with an abundance of passion and personality. Really, they had had me at "yoo-hoo!"

My inaugural M.A.C. trip was chronicled here. I have been back on a few occasions, slowly padding out the color palette and generally adding to my arsenal of tools and skills in matters of maquillage. I have also been discovering how beguiling a business the beauty biz is. The array of shades, textures, purposes, tools and etc. is practically infinite. And as is the case with shoes, you can never have all the stuff you want, or feel that you need. Again, as is the case with shoes, there is the possibility of a more attractive, more noticeable, more unique you, right there that you can try on and take away with you.

Unlike shoes though, the price points are low to the extent that it is easier to say yes, easier to open the purse and treat yourself.

Yes, this whole beauty business courts the client well, and pushes the buttons of borderline addictive personality types (moi? Pas de tout!) quite expertly. That and my seemingly inevitably destitute non-retirement aside, things are slowly picking up for me on the beauty front. I have been motivated in this effort in part by words of, well, perhaps words of encouragement is not the perfect word, from Mrs. Bellejambes.

“You look like you are wearing makeup. Too much of it. Way. Too. Much.”

Hmmm. In fairness I had to agree. I had been for some time using a Dermablend concealer/foundation cream and finishing powder, and really I have no complaint with the quality of the products. In hindsight though the advice I got at the ULTA shop where I picked them up was inexpert. They got my skin tone wrong.

I have switched over now to a couple of M.A.C. products that I highly endorse. Concealer here and finishing powder here. Terrific finishes, not invisible, but closer to it, close as I might get, or can expect to get given flaws of complexion.

If hitting a makeup counter en femme is beyond your reach or the limits of your nerve, really do not hesitate to engage with a technician in drab. Explain your requirements. Offer your hand up as a test area. Getting a quality product on your skin is easy. Getting the tone right is not. So give a technician a chance to get it right, and it will pay dividends in the form of beauty. If you feel as though you are invading a territory you are standing out like a sore thumb in, get over it. Chaps buy gifts all the time. And unless it is 9:30 A.M. you are likely not the first Cross Dresser they have met on the day of your visit.

Earlier this week I popped into the M.A.C. Pro Shop in Atlanta Perimeter for an inexpensive treat. My false lashes were not going to stand another wear, and so I dressed fully, did the make-up entirely minus my eyes, put a big pair of starlet sunglasses on and waded into the mall. I worked with a lovely technician for about 45 minutes getting a beautiful new pair of eyes painted on for the price of new lashes and a couple of shadow colors. I wanted these colors in any event (this is my year of purples and lilacs), and watching a pro work for basically no extra charge is great value. With a happy new look on, and the little extra confidence in the stride that goes along with it, it was time to say so long to Mac, and to drop in on dear friend Macy.

I really took my sweet time getting from A to B, and for a couple of reasons. Firstly, men rush through malls. A lady does not. I do still consciously need to moderate my pace of movement en femme. Next, and of equally vital import, you cannot really see what other people are looking at when moving at man-pace. So, in between longing looks at window displays and mental notes on the wardrobes of younger, hipper, prettier things than your correspondent, I was meeting eyes to see what was in them.

Lots, as it happens.

For the most part, males of the species who do notice you scan you pretty quickly. Top to toe with a slight pause somewhere between necklace and belt. Hmmm. I am glad that I am not too busty a lass. I think it might get tiresome. Legs, yes, they get a look too. How many of them perceived a difference about me beneath the surface? Surely some. Not one of them though betrayed shock, alarm, delight, bemusement or any strong sentiment by their facial reactions. And their eyes, when met go elsewhere. Just, kind of look away and move on.

And the women? Much better watchers. Again, they are moving more slowly, and are more receptive. There is a longer look, it takes in more details, but goes right back to the face. And then a Mona Lisa smile. The smile mostly seems to impart a message that goes like so:

“Wow, look at you. You are a guy, dressed as a woman, getting away with it, kind of, maybe mostly, but I got you, didn’t I?”.

And then the eyes lock on yours. This is a real invitation to engagement. I felt as though I was losing a game when I looked away. It is tough to not look away though, in a feigned act of indifference to the scrutiny, or simply because I am so easily befuddled and confused by women.

In the jungle of the mall though, there is no doubt that the women are the Alpha predators, the Lions, and the chaps are either feral packs of teenage hyenas or easily herded stray lone herbivores.

Several herbivores had been corralled in fact into a nice pen just outside of a massive warren of fitting rooms in Macy’s. Rather a sad looking bunch, docile and sleepy, sunken into a too low peach-shade sectional couch. Penalty box, purgatory and not pleasant for the lads. Their lasses were obscured from view, doors slamming, hangers flying, winners and losers determined inside the fitting room, and in my 15 minutes or so within earshot of the place not once did I hear a woman say, “honey, what do you think of this?”

What I did hear was one of the Macy’s shop assistants engage in a lengthy and clearly expert discussion with the 4 or 5 guys in the antechamber to the fitting room about football. While I bided my time removing chunky jewelry, peeling off my cardigan, stepping slowly out of my skirt, unbuttoning and hanging up my blouse, on and on they went. The Macy's staffer really knew her stuff. Back and forth they talked and trash-talked sounding like something off ESPN, expert analysis, analysis that was way over my head, and moreover, of no particular interest.

What was of interest was just how perfectly my dress fit (mine is blue, her sister is pictured here). This feeling, is visceral. Everybody on the planet deserves to know just how fine the moment is when you try a dress on and can believe, if only for an instant, that this is as good as this dress can look. It is a wonderful feeling. I could have kept the feeling to myself. But I am more generous than that. Perhaps generous is not the right word for this moment though.

On the way in, I had noticed the tailors platform and panoramic mirror complex just next to where the chaps were seated. I wanted a better look at my soon-to-be-mine dress. I knew that this would come at the expense of giving everyone in the bleachers a look too. And I did not mind. I admit it. I sought the moment out. I felt, I believe, for the first time as though I was the Alpha predator.

Conversation slowed and then stopped while I exhaustively, critically 360’d myself in the 3-way mirror.

“Great dress” says the nice Macy’s lady, slowly, after some moments of silence.

The lads were wordless.

They both were right.

The Invisible Plane

I wonder about Wonder Woman. Yeah, I know … take a number.

Natives of the U.S. of A are of course familiar with her. I am not certain how far beyond these fruited plains the jurisdiction of the Hall of Justice Superheroes extended, but I suspect that her image is familiar to most visitors here.

For my fashionable friends of the natal, full-time female variety, perhaps you regarded her rich black mane and impossibly voluptuous figure with a degree of teenage insecurity and wished for yourselves all that she had going for her. Look back and smile now. You have more variety in your wardrobe, great gal pals and rewarding romantic lives. In these key quality of life indicators, you have Wonder Woman beat by miles.

For my gender plural, Cross Dressing friends, perhaps you, like me spent more time thinking on her boots, bracelets and bustier. Fair enough. This fashion motif is evergreen, classic and wholesome.

And for the kinky minority of you with periodic imaginings of exactly what she might be able to do with her magic lasso, well I am not the judging kind. Just be sure though to have agreed on a safe word before engaging in a life of crime would you my dear?

Now, where was I? Ah yes, the Invisible Plane.

A great idea at first blush, but fraught with issues. Parking for example. Skateboarders and minivans would be dinging the heck out of it. Presumably, snow would accumulate on wings and fuselage. I suppose that having a hangar would solve those problems, but then neighbors would know that you had a plane and start pestering you for rides here and there.

Filling up the tank too would be a little unsettling. There you are, holding the pump handle aloft, gas disappearing into the ether. Passers-by would consider you mad, quite mad altogether. Let us therefore assume that you could perform routine maintenance in a private setting, yes? One hopes.

Now, for some unassailable logic:

If: Wonder Woman’s plane can make fuel invisible,
Therefore: Wonder Woman’s plane can make Wonder Woman invisible too.

And yet it did not. Why not?

Here my thoughts went this morning after catching up on a recent post from my beguiling friend Janie titled “Past Passing”. Do go read it would you (and then rush right back). I got a little stumped leaving a comment on the post because as per usual, Janie brushed up against the far frontiers of figuring a lot of stuff out. She seems to be in pursuit of a Grand Unifying Theory of gender, beauty and etc. A fine use of time, say I, and I too aspire to achievement in this daunting and complex field.

In any event, what I could not fit into a cogent comment on that post I felt I might make a complete hash of on my own damn blog. Hence the whole invisible plane theme here.

To one degree or another, we Cross Dressers and everyone somehow affiliated with the TG Super Friends Hall of Justice are met with the same choice when we present to the world. We, at moments at least, long for complete invisibility. And perhaps through skill, practice and fortunes of physicality we can be invisible, fully cloaked and able to infiltrate, unseen, unnoticed by those around us as anything other than that which we (at least temporarily) aspire to be: a beautiful woman. To “disappear” thusly is exhilarating. I say this because I know from happy experience that I have.

And yet, something is missing, something is undone when the invisible plane confers invisibility on its pilot.

I believe that Wonder Woman chose to remain visible in her plane. And it must be said, if I had her figure I wouldn’t leave the house without a brass band and a lighting crew heralding my arrivals. But yes, Wonder Woman made a choice, and filled a need, a need we all have: a need to be noticed for who we are.

When the bad guys saw Wonder Woman hurtling towards them at super-sonic speeds, you know their behavior changed, and pronto too. Bolt cutters and switchblades were dropped in place and the cads ran for the shadows. If Wonder Woman had been cloaked perfectly within her plane, things would have changed, but perhaps too late. Crimes would be committed and the innocent would remain cowering behind locked doors.

I for one have managed to lose (most of) my hang ups about passing. I do my best with what I have and take care to do things thoroughly. Out of respect for the fairer sex, I will always emulate them as completely and perfectly as I can.

But if my plurality, my fuller dimensions are ever to have freer dominion in this happy world of ours, my plurality must at some level, on some occasions, in new settings be as visible as good old Wonder Woman was in her sleek jet.

Otherwise, the bad guys will keep up with the capers, and the innocent remain cooped up inside, hoping for trouble to pass.

I am not a firebrand, a revolutionary, or a martyr (I think the whole martyr look thing was just done to death in the Spring/Summer collections of ’06), but I do feel a little responsible for pushing out some boundaries, inches maybe, millimeters likely.

I do imagine a day, 10, 50, 200 years down the road, tomorrow even, where beauty definitions will be much broader (no pun) and less tied to what we think of as masculinity and femininity today. I do imagine a day where how we express our fuller dimensions will be viewed as less aberrant, less threatening, less … well less everything that confronted you and I on our way to where we are this day.

But that happy day will not come with Wonder Woman invisible in the plane.

A new Autumn approaches rapidly. I am looking forward to it immensely. I will be ever vigilant in looking out for fellow Hall of Gender Justice stalwarts on patrol, making the world a more beautiful place, and safer for us all. You will be pushing boundaries out and bad guys further into the shadows with each step you take. You do have Super Friends, whether you have met them or not.

I imagine that I will be meeting with many of you at SCC in just a little over a week. Please watch out for my plane when parking yours.

Photo Credits to Comic Vine here and here, and much love to the nice people at Marvel.

Worlds Collide. Superman Survives

I have done a good job of integrating my two halves (or whatever fraction they actually constitute) for myself while keeping them separate from the rest of the world. I think on the whole that the people we interact with in our day to day lives like to have a simple set of instructions, a users manual if you will, for dealing with each other. I therefore provide the world with a pretty simple set of signals and surfaces to respond to.

I am largely known as helpful neighbor, competent marketing strategist, proud husband, and sometimes even as entertaining raconteur. Other things too, and sometimes no doubt less flattering things, but simple things. Perhaps complex things, but not complicated.

If I was largely known as helpful cross dressing neighbor, competent cross dressing marketing strategist, proud cross dressing husband, or as entertaining cross dressing raconteur it would complicate things. My dimensions would not be broadened, they would be limited. I like having large dimensions. I maintain those dimensions by carefully cloaking Petra. I may be a radical, but I am not a martyr. Thusly, the worlds are kept in separate and simple orbits.

The net result is that the world that I interact with day to day (as far as I know) with the exception of my wife, thinks that beneath my Superman cape, there lurks a Clark Kentish chap. They do not (as far as I know) suspect the presence of a Lois Lane.

But worlds did indeed collide. A dear old friend happened upon this blog and was moved to leave a very warm, accepting and loving comment.

My first reaction upon seeing the comment in my inbox was to look around the room for a defibrillator. The moment passed though, and my heartbeat returned to its usual over caffeinated rhythm. Yes, worlds collide, and it is not such a big deal.


I have friends with teenage kids early in their college years or about to escape from high school. There is a lot of focus and debate on what exactly they should study. I listen to the parents anguishing about the kid who wants to pursue the Arts when clearly a scientific or technical major is the track that leads to success. I tell them not to worry. To my thinking the most vital skills a youngster can acquire are related to how well they choose friends. If you do that well, whatever you wind up doing for a living and for a life will be done reasonably successfully.

I was pretty well into my 20’s before I figured out that I had a talent for choosing friends well. They have made all the difference in my life. My friend who found this blog is a former neighbor who Mrs. B and I met some 15 years ago when I first moved to Atlanta. We were first very causally friendly, and developed over time a genuinely close relationship. He has a house key and knows where the guest room is. At least one of the dogs sleeps with him when he camps out on his periodic trips back to Atlanta. Our friendship has survived car accidents (sorry about that one really), home remodeling projects (thanks!), financial disasters and the lack of maintenance that the long distances between us now allows.

And so the friendship will no doubt survive my cross dressing too I suspect.

We texted back and forth, but have not had a chance for a real talk yet, which I look forward to.

In the meantime, I will use this platform today to tell my friend that he probably has no idea just how highly myself and Mrs. B treasure his friendship.

And if you, dear reader, have had such good fortune as I in your choice of friends, don’t worry about the possibility of people seeing a little flash of lace beneath your cape. There is not so much Kryptonite out there as we fear.

Cross Dressing Character

I sometimes look back on older thoughts to see how well they true up with the present. The very first thing I wrote for this blog is still up on the right sidebar. Check it out with me now …

This desire has been with me forever now. It washes in and draws me out. I often swim against the tide. I sometimes let it pull. I don't believe that its going away though, and so its time for me to court it formally. And in giving it this space, perhaps understanding it better.

The desire I referred to was Cross Dressing. The tidal metaphor seemed a real natural.

I was moved to write about all of this after a very transformative transformation session. I had just then put myself in the very skilled hands of a woman who operates a Cross Dressing service. It had been 20 years or more since I had gone in for a top-to-toe, hair-to-heels treatment. Something tectonic happened. I realized (finally) that trying to keep the shifting plates from reorganizing my landscape was a poor use of my limited resources. Additionally, I rather liked the way the new landscape looked and felt. I felt complete. Becalmed and whole like never before.

That feeling was too powerful to not pursue. The pursuit seemed worthy of writing about too. Hence, all the bloggity goodness here.

I pointedly became outcome neutral about what Cross Dressing might mean to me. The thinking was to let the waves sweep me where they would, and have a good look around whatever shore they washed me up on. I realized I was running the risk of emerging in some unknown Illyria, as shipwrecked as Viola, with no bit parts left over for my own Cesario. Cross Dressing is a common gateway to gender reassignment after all. I worried, but went with it.

As it happens, I am fine with the largely masculine casting I have been assigned in my own drama. I am neither a big romantic lead or a tragically doomed prisoner of fate: just a reasonably well liked-protagonist with a flinty eye toward the human condition and the odd saucy aside for the groundlings in the cheap seats.

In this drama, I have the wonderful privilege, like Viola, of the odd costume change that effects an alteration of gender presentation. Like Viola, I see the world around me with the one set of eyes, and interpret the world with one (reasonably) constant heart. Like Viola, I have seen just how differently the world responds to me depending on whether I am presenting with feminine or masculine surfaces. Lastly, like Viola, I have found that I can present either surface without betraying anything within: I am essentially the same character always, and the clothes say less about me than I thought they might.

Yes, the importance of the surfaces, of the exteriors seems to have diminished to me. This has been an interesting and surprising finding.

What I find most surprising of late though is what is going on in the interior precincts: It is quite noisy in there.

I am practically under siege of my own thoughts. There is a steady, near constant storming and stirring of the mind having to do with matters related to dressing, gender, fashion, beauty and my relationship to it all. Like rain, these unbidden thoughts seep in through cracks in the day, through the brief interludes of idleness. Like wind, they gust and buffet when they damn well please, regardless of how busy I am and how much more my thoughts need to be on other issues.

This state of affairs has persisted for about 4 or 5 months now. My initial reflex was to think of this as a “problem”, something to be railed against (i.e. ...why won’t she just shut the hell up already?...), but I fought against that reflex.

In the same way as I initially let the desire to dress sweep me away, I decided to let my mind work as it will. Intuitively it seems to me that fighting against tireless, ceaseless forces is a sure path to madness, and a path I will be happier not taking.

I am now, only recently coming around to a model of understanding all the weather between my ears. And it goes like this:

At the time that I gave my surfaces the privilege of untrammeled exploration and presentation, I gave my interiors the same permissions. Perhaps I have sparked a reorganization of what happens behind the scenes, between the ears.

The brains of men and women famously and provably behave differently. Gender is a profound influencer of thought. Neural paths and cerebral processes that were suppressed and closeted as my wardrobe and desires were for long, long years have been given a wake up call.

When I made room on the surface for 2 distinct presentation layers, it took time and labor for it all to “normalize”. Perhaps a similar process is happening within. I therefore should not be surprised at all the noise. It is construction season in there you know.

I wonder if, in the fullness of time, my surfaces, my character and the very workings of my mind will all harmonize and seem fully in place, at peace and poised for whatever comes next. I think so. I am a hopeful sort.

I have remained fundamentally the same character regardless of “costume” I wear for the odd scene. I think that my character is better and fuller having access to “Petra”. My experiences have amplified some good things about me (empathy) and moderated some bad things (capacity for anger), but I am essentially the same person.

And this is a good thing.

I am glad too, to have access to new reservoirs of empathy for the human condition and a better ability to suppress anger just now as my brain sorts out how to process all of it. They might just come in handy, yes?

Out of Time

I have often thought, dear friends, that my spark of life was ignited a few decades late. Statistically, I am either late Baby Boom or early Generation Jones. Stylistically, I feel like neither. If I had access to a reliable time machine and a good alibi for my absence in the present, I would set the birth dial to the mid-30’s of the last century.

There I would be hitting my adult stride having missed the rigors of the great depression and the horrors of the greater war, slap-dab in the middle of the fat and happy 50’s. Jazz had yet to go off the rails, and drinking at lunch was encouraged. A quick course of Penicillin would get you past the worst class of STD you might happen upon. Dacron polyester fibers were still locked up tight in the laboratories of DuPont in this peak time for Couturiers and their clientele. And hidden just beneath the full, flared cocktail dresses and harmlessly hobbling pencil skirts of the day glimmered the Golden Age of Foundation Garments.

Yum.

Some of the very earliest posts here on Voyages en Rose were reveries to this not so distant past. The historically inclined of you might like to read them here and over here. The hysterically inclined however are encouraged to hang around here for a question of time with less sweep to it for a few moments.

You see, earlier on today I was busy hammering and sawing a Gemini reference into a different bit of writing. I failed. But then I started thinking about Gemini on its own terms. As little as I know (and truthfully care) about Astrology, I wondered if the heavenly twins might have a special message for people who express and experience as male and female.

Research bore fruit quickly. Here are the opening words of the # 1 ranked Google return for “Gemini characteristics”:

Gemini go everywhere together, hand-in-hand, symbolizing your dual nature. Our world comes in pairs: good and evil, male and female, in and out, yin and yang -- and you Geminis are living proof. Some might say Gemini are an entanglement of paradoxes, but the truth is that Gemini have an easy acceptance of opposites. Gemini world is one of duality. Gemini can like this and that, one thing and its opposite.

Well, that all sounded lovely, and there is more that rings true. You might want to read up on just how ambi Gemini is here. In any event, this skeptic was now paying full attention. Clearly, I am Gemini.

Except that I am not.

I just celebrated my birthday which makes me Taurus. I must tell you that I have never felt comfortable or natural in the constellation of my birth. If there was such a thing as Zodiacal Reassignment Surgery I would take a part time job to pay for it. I suppose I will just continue to live the lie. Alas.

But there is something that will make living that lie easier for me, and this I what I request of you as a belated birthday gift: Take a second, please, to answer this weeks poll. What is your sign?

We should be evenly distributed across the calendar, but we might not be. The more of you that participate in the poll, the more evenly we should be distributed. But, again, we might not be. Would it not be an interesting thing to find a larger than expected number of us gathered in the Third House, under Mercury, dualities and all?

I would not ask except in the furtherance of science. Or sceance. If you happen to write a lovely and popular blog catering to the CD/TG set, would you mind posting a link there and helping me jack the numbers a little? The more the merrier and the more accurate. Results and observations this time next week.

Comments, as always, desired and greatly appreciated.

The Cross Dresser on the Ramparts of Change

This post has been fermenting in the recesses of my brain for some time now, and has been uncorked in part as the result of a recent post on Gabrielle Hermosa’s blog. There, you will see the old pictorial of our species emerging from the muck, slowly shaking off fins, sprouting limbs and finally assuming a decidedly female form at the natural end of our possible progress. Nice bag in hand too.

Many of you are old enough to remember parts of the sixties. One of the more memorable cultural events of this tumultuous time was what was then known as the “Women’s Lib” movement. From a fashion perspective, things started off poorly in my mind with bra burnings. Tragic as the loss of countless innocent foundation garments to the angry bonfires of revolution was, change was clearly in the air, and change and I are old friends.

The bra burnings were a stunt, but there is always a kernel of substance within a stunt. The substance of the movement was that the rules were stacked unfairly in favor of the fellows, and that much needed to change. Broad challenges to gender role definitions and the status quo here and abroad were accepted and engaged.

Laws did, and continue still, to change. Most public sector and many private sector employers adapted their organizations to remove barriers to success in the workplace. Academic life here stateside was forever changed by the adoption of NCAA Title 9 rules mandating equal funding of women’s athletic programs. Elementary school curricula changed to mitigate gender biases in approaches to education. New role models in media, and on the streets we grew up on emerged. And new generations have been born and grown to adulthood with a different set of gender ideals and expectations than the ones we slightly greyer folk inherited in our youth. All good, and mostly great in my view.

Women now more commonly occupy more senior positions in more industries. A majority of college students in this country are female. The industries that depend on muscle-power are dead or dying. The industries that depend on brain-power are (relatively) thriving. Yes, wage gaps and all manner of subtle and not so subtle barriers to full and equitable participation remain, but those barriers are under siege everywhere. Again, hurray, says I.

Change has rough edges. Fashion for some time favored mannish fabrics, curve free silhouettes, and dull pallets. God awful shoulder pads even had their day. Overt displays of femininity, both behavioral and on the surface or were penalized. Avoiding the suspicion that the successful women was either dazzling or sleeping their way to the top was job one. We seem to have thankfully emerged from the worst of that. Femininity, surface or otherwise, is not inconsistent with success. All of this is arguable of course, and forgive me my broad brush strokes here. They are in service of a point. You ready?

The validity and the value of the female experience is sought, accepted and acted on, on it’s own natural terms more now than at any time in my experience. I suspect that this trend will continue. As it does, as the pendulum swings, as tides reverse, as societal plates shift and groan (ed. and as my metaphor hip-check the crap out of each other) a certain amount of displacement is bound to happen. The value and the necessity of a purely, brawny, traditionally male skill and sensitivity set is bound to diminish. We already feel this reality in many aspects of our daily lives.

My wonderings on the matter go like so: Do men more inclined, as I am, to discover surface and interior elements of our “femininity” have a shaved leg up on the competition?

This is a serious question. I am not interested in a revolution that makes it acceptable for me to take a meeting in a pair of heels rather than a nicely tooled brogue. I am not interested in working for an organization where my ability to mount the org chart (figuratively, dear friends) is dependant on my ability to smartly accessorize a pencil skirt and blouse ensemble. I am interested though, in providing value, and getting paid for it, where the demand is greatest, where my competition is disadvantaged, and where my skill sets are well adapted for the need.



I have a client whose customers are 99% female. The founder and CEO of the organization is about my age. Her prototypical customer has a college education, leads a growing family, and has growing economic power. The product my client sells to her client is a highly emotionally charged gift. Men do not get it, or buy it. I strategize with my client on how to engage better with her perfect prospective customer.

I am the only male outside consultant / contributor to her businesses growth. My client has commented, surprisedly, that I “get” the business, and that I understand her customer. This is a key to my continued utility. This reinforces a personal belief I have that the Cross Dressing is merely a surface aspect of a bigger, whole, true me. This really makes me happy and then I want to go shopping with my client. But not really. OK, I do. I could help her out a little. In the meantime, we are able to help each other out with our businesses in a way that could not have happened 20 years ago.

I do not have 20 years of work ahead of me, but you might have.

So dear friends, over to you. Do you believe there is something that you have, beneath the surface, integral to your worldview that you can leverage to your benefit? Are you better enabled than most of your workmates to understand women, work with them, work for them, learn from them, and make their world better? Does your secret endow you with secret powers?

Comments welcomed, as are business referrals if a marketing consultant with a uniquely cultivated view of the female consumer is required.