Pride!!

Guess who attended the Pride parade with her friends last Saturday? Me!

And I mean the actual me, not the boy I pretend to be sometimes. That's kind of a big deal: this was the first time I've gone out and done something fun with my friends while presenting myself as a woman.

I had been quite certain for some time before that I was going to this thing and that I was going as myself. Of all places, being at Pride in the wrong gender would be absolutely heartbreaking. I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to find anyone to go with, but as it approached some friends of mine sounded interested and we made plans to meet there.

The night before I painted my nails in the colours of the transgender pride flag. I actually had to look up on the internet what order the colours go in, lol.

Represent!

Then Saturday morning I woke up and set about choosing an outfit. Part of me wanted to wear something a little slutty, since, you know, the whole "I never got the chance to be a teenager" thing that trans women always say, and Pride's the kind of place where that wouldn't be inappropriate. But since this was going to be the first time some of my friends would be seeing me as a girl, and since I wanted that to seem reasonably normal to them, I opted for a more ordinary outfit: a long brown skirt, a stripey purple top layered over a brown camisole, and my cute black flats. Once I got there part of me wished I had dressed a little more queerly, but I'm sure there will be other opportunities for that.

The parade route was only two blocks from my house. I walked there and, with a bit of texting back and forth, managed to find my friends. I was meeting four people there: only one of them had I had a proper coming out talk with (and that was back when I still identified as a crossdresser), another one I was confident knew I dressed as a girl sometimes but we'd never specifically discussed it, the other two I didn't know how much they knew or guessed. But when I got there, no one even batted an eye at my presentation, like it was so normal it wasn't even worth mentioning. Which was the best possible response, as far as I'm concerned.

I may not be "officially" out to very many people, but I make basically no effort to keep my identity a secret, so I guess it wasn't much of a surprise. Plus, my friends are all pretty open-minded to begin with. I am so grateful to live in a time and place where I can just be myself without necessarily having to worry about all the logistics of coming out beforehand. As great as that is though, I still hope to come out to these folks pretty soon: they've seen me dressed as a girl, they may as well know I identify as one too. I'm sure they won't be surprised then, either.

The parade itself was pretty cool, although I didn't manage to get any good photos. The Society of Edmonton Atheists had a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster and signs that read "Smile, there is no hell!" It got pretty quiet when they went by so, being the non-believer that I am, I made sure to cheer extra loud. (Of course atheism has nothing specifically to do with Pride, but neither do any of the many churches and other religious groups that were also represented, so I think it was okay).

After the parade the whole festival moved to a nearby park where they had like entertainers and food vendors and all that stuff. We walked there and got some lunch. Wearing layers and a long heavy skirt turned out to be a bad idea: it got up to 27°C (81°F) and I was sweating like crazy. But it was still a lot of fun hanging out there.

The un-cropped version of that photo is the five of us sitting at a picnic table— (I don't want to tell everyone about this blog just yet, so I had no way to ask if I could put their faces on it). The next day I kept going back and looking at it almost in amazement, like Wow, that's actually me, just hanging out with people like it's no big deal.

Afterwards three of us walked back to my house (well okay, one of those guys is my roommate, so his house too) and watched the soccer match between Canada and China, which was actually taking place right here in Edmonton, which seems crazy to me, but whatever. By that point the clothes I'd worn had become pretty uncomfortable, what with the heat and the fact that my push-up bra was digging into my sternum— (it works fine when I wear actual breast forms, but because those would've shown over my neckline I'd settled for balled-up socks this time)— so I changed into a lighter skirt and t-shirt and a more comfortable bra. Had a couple beers, grilled some veggie hotdogs, enjoyed the beautiful weather...

Later in the evening we met back up with the other two people we'd been at the parade with, plus two friends of theirs I hadn't met before, and we ended up all going out to a bar and dancing. Here's the thing though: by then it was late, I hadn't shaved since the morning, and that fact was becoming pretty obvious. I really didn't want to go as a beardy girl, so I had to make a quick decision between switching to boy mode and going with them or spending however much time it would take to shave and redo my makeup and then meeting everyone else there. I wasn't even sure where we were going, so I chose the first option.

And like, dancing's still fun, even in the wrong gender, but I felt weird about it. You see, there was this girl I met there, and I danced with her for a good chunk of the evening. After a few songs she and I were dancing together in a manner that was, like, fairly sexualized. And on the one hand, it's a positive thing that I'm finally starting to feel comfortable expressing my sexuality: between my gender stuff and the conservative Christianity I practiced for so long, I've had a shit ton of issues to deal with to get to the point where I can do something like that; (granted, I've still never actually had sex with anyone, but I'll get there eventually). But afterwards I realized: she obviously thought I was a boy 'cause that's how I was presenting, she's most likely straight, and she probably would not have been into that at all if she'd known I was actually a girl. Ick. It made me feel really gross, like I'd deceived her.

I don't want to do that again. What I do want now is to go out dancing as a girl, and preferably at a queer venue where I can meet queer girls. That's like, on my list of things to do now.

Still, in spite of that little hiccup at the end there, overall it was a fantastic day. Definitely can't wait until I get to just be me all the time. :D

Sexism, shoes, and apologizing for femininity

Yesterday evening I picked up the book Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, and by two in the morning I was already nearly 200 pages into it. Time flies when you're examining systemic cissexism! :)

One point she makes is that our culture has a (often unconscious) tendency to see expressions of femininity as artificial and impractical, whereas expressions of masculinity are seen as natural and practical. She argues that this negatively impacts all feminine people, including men and women, both trans and cis; but that it is especially harmful to feminine trans women. After all, why would anyone go to such great lengths to choose artificiality and impracticality over more sensible options?

And reading about this I realized that I sometimes see femininity and masculinity in those terms as well.

Like when it comes to shoes.

Back in this post, for example, I was a describing an outfit of mine and wrote: "I had decided to femme it up a bit with a tunic, tights and silly high heels."

Now, why would I feel the need to describe my heels as "silly"? They weren't particularly silly, after all: just plain black shoes with a tall heel. I think it was a way of apologizing for being feminine. I was trying to say: yes, I know that heels are impractical and that I wore them anyway, but it's okay because at least I recognize that it was silly of me to do so.

But, as I see it now, there is a big problem with deciding that a certain style of footwear is impractical. Namely, that whether or not something is practical depends entirely on the goal of the person using it. If your goal is to hike up a mountain, then yes, high heels are very impractical. But if your goal is to feel sexy, you might find high heels to be very practical indeed— (depending, of course, on how you express your gender and sexuality). I certainly do.

Both of these items are in my closet. I own them for different reasons.

(And really, it's not like a suit and tie is good for much else besides feeling sexy, either. But when was the last time you heard someone call such masculine clothing silly or impractical?)

It just goes to show that there are lots of subtle messages I've picked up from my culture which are still influencing how I think about gender expression. In the future I'll be a little more careful to remain as unapologetic about my femininity as I am about my masculinity.

Wishful thinking

When I shop for clothes I typically try to get stuff that's practical. (And when I say clothes I mean girl clothes— I haven't bought anything from the boy's section since I started crossdressing for real last May). I'll buy jeans that I can wear as a boy, or a skirt that I could wear as a girl without seeming out of place. I think it's fantastic that so many crossdressers get all gussied up in cocktail dresses and ball gowns, but for me personally, I always kind of figured I'd wait until I actually had an occasion to wear something before I bought it. Well, I may not have bought a cocktail dress, but I definitely broke that rule.

I buy nearly all my clothes from thrift stores. For a crossdresser they have some definite advantages: the SAs don't ask you what you're looking for, and they usually have unisex fitting rooms, too. So, I was perusing a Value Village yesterday and had picked out a number of practical and needed items. I was just about to check out when I figured I'd try on some less practical stuff, just for the fun of dressing up. What I ended up getting, of all the silly things, is a two-piece swimsuit. And, I must admit, a pretty skimpy one at that!

All set for a day at the beach!
Now if only Edmonton had beaches instead of snow...

This, I suppose, is the epitome of wishful thinking— and not least because it's winter here in Alberta! :) I put it on when I got home, and though it "felt right," my body has never looked more wrongly shaped to me. It did look a bit better once I put a loose tee-shirt on over top. In any event, it was only five bucks— that's the other advantage of a thrift store— so it's not like I wasted a bunch of money.

At this point I haven't completely ruled out the possibility of medically transitioning, so who knows? maybe there will come a day when I can feel comfortable in this thing. One thing's for certain though: if I'm going to wear bikini bottoms, I'm going to have to learn how to tuck without a gaff!

I don't always...

I don't always wear girly sleepwear to bed, but when I do, it's an absolute joy waking up the next morning. There's nothing like starting off your day in the right gender! ^_^

The only downside (and it's a pretty big one) is that it makes having to change into boy clothes right away that much more miserable. Lately I've come to realize that my crossdressing is not simply about the fact that I like dressing as a girl; it's also about the fact that I hate dressing as a boy.

(happy sigh) :D

This past week has been good in some ways and frustrating in others. I'm starting school next week, but I decided to quit my job last week (ie, a week early) so as to have some free time in between. During that time I was able to dress a lot more freely than I usually am, since my roommates were, for the most part, at work during the day. This was wonderful, but it forced me to revisit a bunch of questions that, in many ways, I'd rather not have to deal with: would I dress full time if I could? would I transition if it wasn't so scary? am I, in fact, a girl in the wrong body??

When I first accepted my trans-ness and started trying to figure out what it means for me, I asked those sort of questions a lot. They caused me a great deal of stress and not a few tears, but I eventually reached the conclusion that I'm fairly happy having a boy body and transitioning is probably not right for me. Today I'm less certain about either of those things.

The freedom I had this week also forced me to face the fact that I will have to come out to my roommates at some point. It will drive me insane if I have to keep locking myself up in my room any time I need to dress and someone else happens to be home. My roommates are good guys and they're totally not homophobic or anything, so I think they'd be okay with it, but even still, coming out is always hard.