Red Hat Society

[Davi]

Have any of you other ladies heard of they Red Hat Society? Does anyone know whether they would accept T-girls.or.not?

[AllieSF]

I do not know much about them, but do remember a very old thread here about them. It was maybe a few years ago. Do a search here and maybe you can find that thread and get some good information. Good luck.

[franlee]

The Red Hat group from arrond this area is mostly older ladies that are retired or in the well established years of their careers and consider their club as refined lot. They do things like going and looking at historic sites and other things of interest to a seasoned lady. I know because one of my GG friends is a member. They are not a real active group in my opinion but I sure don't think a CD'er would fit in. Matter of fact they would probably have a fainting spasam if you appeared and apllied for membership.

[RADER]

My wife tried to join a group about 8 years ago. Since she was only 59 at the time,
they rejected her. She was told that she had to be retired and over 65.
She is both now, but no interest in joining now.
Rader

[Roberta Marie]

My wife was a member of a local Red Hat group here a few years ago. I don't think that there is a national organization per se, and each local group is different. In her group, women under 50 were called "Pink Postulates" with the only distinction being that they wore pink hats to events and gatherings. When my wife celebrated her 50th birthday, the group had a big celebration and gave her her red hat. I think that the group that she was in would not have had a problem, for the most part, with a crossdresser, although some of the women might have.

There was one of the husbands of one of the Pink Postulates that went on several outings with them. He had a pink ball cap that he wore, and went along mostly, I think to help some of the older women in and out of cars and up and down steps. I was still in the closet at that time, and still had my own business and was much to busy to go on any outings with them.

[heatherdress]

Here's the web site - http://www.redhatsociety.com/membership/page1.html?

It's a friedship society for 50+ women.

[Leslie Langford]

I actually contacted a number of Red Hat chapters in the area where I live about 5 years ago to look into possibly joining them, as I had always had the impression that while older, these ladies were still a fun-loving, wild and crazy, "girls just wanna have fun" bunch of gals unwilling to "go gentle into that good night" as poet Dylan Thomas once put it. I think that's still substantially true, but overly CD-friendly - not so much. Perhaps a better word might be "tentative" or "wary".

While the local chapters have some degree of autonomy in the way they structure themselves, their governing body does stipulate somewhere in their bylaws that membership is restricted to women only. And while that essentially does rule out crossdressing transgendered types such as ourselves, they seem willing to accept post-op MTF's as what amounts to honorary members.

This distinction was made clear to me by the leader of one chapter, who confirmed that she actually had one MTF individual in her group. Mind you, all that was 5 years ago, and given all the interest displayed these days in the media regarding TG issues, our challenges, and with more and more anti-discrimination legislation being passed everywhere nowadays targeting both sex and gender discrimination, they may well have been forced to modify their stance accordingly now.

That said, I did have some chapter leaders express a willingness to consider me as a member on an unofficial basis as long as all the ladies in their group were O.K. with that. In one case, there was even a core group of about 12 within the larger membership that was so excited at the prospect of getting to know me that they wanted to arrange a "meet and greet" at a restaurant in their town just for that purpose. I was all set to go, but being somewhat distant from my home, the logistics of getting there and back and the time needed to prep myself en femme and then revert back to boy mode before re-entering my DADT world proved close to insurmountable. But where there's a will, there's a way, and I was almost able to pull it off until Murphy stepped into the picture. That "Murphy" was the sudden death of the husband of one of my wife's close friends, and we were obliged to attend the funeral that was scheduled on the day that - well, you guessed it...

We never did get around to rescheduling another get-together, and I can't help but think that some of the ladies ultimately lost their enthusiasm for it. No doubt, they must have thought that I had gotten cold feet and was just making a lame excuse not to attend after they had gone to all that trouble to make the initial arrangements. Still, I stayed in touch with the group's leader over the years, she is quite the "with-it" lady who is into all kinds of activities (including a recent trip to China), and we continue to be facebook friends.

The moral of this story is never say "never", and you can sometimes find allies and CD-friendly folks in the most unlikely and unexpected places. So yes, had I persevered, I probably could have gained entry into one of these chapters, but in the end, I dropped the idea and went on to other things.

[Tina B.]

It's a group for older women, and that should tell you right there, older people are not all that ready to accept alternate life styles.
My wife is a member of a group that used to belong to the red hatters, as they call themselves, but dropped out, they felt they got nothing for there membership dues.
Now they still get together, and wear there hats, and do what they always did, just don't pay the dues.
I have joined them for lunch when husbands where invited, unless you want to join in old lady gossip, there is not all that much to it.

[sabrinaedwards]

I have often thought that we should form a type of red hat for crossdressers. I have encountered them in casinos and I think that we could blend better than they do! I can personally say that I look at least as good in a dresss as the average Red Hatter.

[Eryn]

Folks, let's not get into a "we can do it better than them" thread.

The whole point to the Red Hatters is to display a bit of flamboyance. They don't have any desire to blend in!

[Miriam-J]

My mom's been doing Red Hats for a few years now, and she gets all bubbly just talking about it. They have a lot of fun and do a lot of stuff that just blows "stereotypical" out of the water. I get a laugh just listening to her. The basic theme seems to be "why not?".

Just the fact that they enjoy being unconventional for their age would, in my opinion, attract those who are open to alternative views of life - such as the odd crossdresser here and there. But I'd expect the actual acceptance to vary considerably from group to group. I liked the approach I read in Leslie's post about sounding the group out before attending, and it would probably go even better if your wife is already part of the group.

Certainly doesn't hurt to ask, discreetly at least.

Miriam

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Davi, My wife was a Red Hat Lady and I asked if she thought they would let me join she
rolled her eyes so far back that I thought that they got stuck, Well that was the end of that.

[Princess Chantal]

Folks, let's not get into a "we can do it better than them" thread.

The whole point to the Red Hatters is to display a bit of flamboyance. They don't have any desire to blend in!

Wished that there was a group of crossdressers that enjoy doing their outtings with a bit of flamboyancey and don't have a desire to blend in LOL As if that would ever happen!!!!

[Beverley Sims]

How about a red bag society for us....
I bet there are a lot of flamboyant old bags out there.
Seriously though the various support groups out there do a good job although some could and probably do spread their wings on occasions.

[linda allen]

I believe Marge Simpson joined that group in one episode.

[Stephenie S]

I have a good friend who happens to be transwoman and a member of the Red Hat Society. I assume they either don't know or don't care. But I understand you have to be invited to join. You can't just apply.

Stephie

[DonnaT]

I know at least one older CDer who is a member in the Richmond area

[Lynn Marie]

[SIZE="4"]The Emerald City CD group in Seattle meets with the Red Hat Ladies for dinner together usually once a month. I've not made one of their meetings yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I guess they're a hoot.[/SIZE]

[Jodi]

Several years ago at Lake Erie Gala, we had a red hat evening. A couple of the SO's were red hats and suggested it to the program committee. It was a lot of fun. Must also state that along with the red hat, the ladies wear something purple.

Jodi