My avatar

[Leona]

I find my avatar very interesting to me, in this context...

So, most members here that are MTF have posted pictures of themselves, or pictures of beautiful women, and they alway express somehow that they are MTF.

Mine doesn't say that.

Quite the contrary, this picture is cropped. There was an 11 year old girl in this picture that I didn't feel it was appropriate to include as a general identity picture for me. She was dressed up as a stereotypical 2010's hippy girl. Below where you can see, well, the shirt is a tuxedo shirt. There's a cape, and a vest (decked out with silver sequins and a silver/gray background), black pants, and black men's dress shoes (styled as dress shoes, but designed for comfort like tennis shoes). This picture sorta lies about me.

But at the same time, it's honest to a fault. I got dressed up (besides it being Halloween, that was the test of my new jester costume, but at the time I was in a place hostile to buskers, so I haven't used it as a busker). I looked great, and I loved it! I put on the fool's act for the entire trick or treating experience. Some parents were freaked out, but the kids loved it. There was one girl we kept encountering who asked me to juggle and then giggled uncontrollably while I did so. So I incorporated her into the juggling, of course.

I used this pic because it expressed me as a fool, which is precisely what I am (so if you call me foolish, know that it is a compliment to me). But now I look at it and see that:

* It's not different than the girly pictures here. My wife said it best when she said that dressing up and putting makeup on to be a "woman" IS A COSTUME.
* The girly version of this pic wouldn't look any different.

There are several threads talking about the girl within. So here's the questions: Do you feel like you have to dress up to express the girl within? Can you express your inner girl without dressing up as a woman? Besides dressing as a woman, what other types of dressup have you been able to do that express the girl inside you?

These questions are just as valid for GGs as for CDs and TSs, so everybody is invited to answer.

[ErinSassyPants]

I was wondering about your avatar.

A fool is a fantastic thing to be. In Tarot the fool is the beginning, it is the fresh new start. The fool is the one who isn't holding onto the past.

I don't have to wear anything in particular to express my inner girl. I don't connect what I'm wearing to my womanness or femininity, though every so often wearing my Doc Martens type boots makes me feel like a powerful woman. Which feels very feminine and dominant to me. But that is more about bringing out a particular flavor or facet of my femininity, it's always there. I often wear mens clothing and it never makes me feel masculine.

[Leona]

Erin: I wear men's clothing every day and it doesn't make me feel masculine. Just like women's clothing doesn't make me feel feminine. I felt feminine before I put it on.... ;)

I also feel more dominant as a woman, which just kills the stereotypes. :)

I've been looking at my fool's costume again in part because the idea of the cold reading came up recently on facebook between me and a couple of friends, and I was once skilled in that particular art, and I see it as a way to make some extra cash while making some people happy.

Except I'm always the fool, so I can't guarantee anybody will be happy, because the fool still says what's on his/her mind. :/

Maybe I should rename myself to Giacamo.

[ErinSassyPants]

The stereotypes deserve to die!

What did you do with the cold readings to make people happy?

Giacamo...you mean because after you say fool~ish things you'll need to be able to race away?

[Leona]

Erin, dear sweet lady, if you want to know about Giacamo, you need to watch "The Court Jester", with Danny Kaye. The pill with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle...

Previously, the cold readings led to me putting down the Tarot cards, so they didn't make me happy. I tried too hard, I cared about who I was reading for. Oops. First rule: don't care about who you're reading for.

[Beverley Sims]

I dress to convince, no playing around with half measures.

[Zylia]

A lot of users had pictures of 'themselves' as avatar, so to me it seemed like a good idea at the time. It does express that I'm a MTF something, but I guess that isn't really inappropriate here. If I was into model aircrafts and this was a model aircraft forum, I might have used a picture of my favorite model aircraft instead of myself in a wig.

As for the question, I don't have a girl within that I can hide when I'm not wearing my 'girl suit'. The girl suit is the expression, perhaps even an exaggeration of a part of me, the same way I might wear a Hulk T-shirt (http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b579/zyliaz/IMG_4200_zps536f442f.jpg) to express that I like to read comic books. I don't have an inner duality, only an outward duality.

[Leona]

I love how you put that, Zylia, that you don't have an inner duality, only an outward duality. I'll have to remember that.

I do find the girl in your avatar pic quite attractive, so you're doing something right as far as expressing your outer duality.

[ErinSassyPants]

I just youtubed and watched about the vessel with the pestle, I think the whole movie would drive me nuts! My husband will love it.

I found in my previous job I had to care for the process not the outcome, I had to trust that the process would bring the best outcome for all involved.

[MysticLady]

I find my avatar very interesting to me, in this context...


Thanks Leona for the explanation, I was starting too wonder about you:heehee:

[Leona]

Oh Erin, Danny Kaye is at his best in that movie! Even the duel at the end is better than the introductory duel in the Princess Bride. That movie rocks from beginning to end. You'll love it, too. :) It definitely has something many of the movies at the time didn't have: strong female characters. Also, the princess is played by the detective lady, her name escapes me right now, but I think her series was Murder, She Wrote. But in this movie, she's young and quite attractive (not that I didn't find the detective lady attractive, but she was kind of old, so it was less sexual and more "figure out what's in my pants" sort of attraction).

As for processes, in my line of work, we call them procedures, and they matter a whole lot. You can't just look at a car and guess what's wrong with it. You need to follow certain procedures, because following those procedures will reveal what's wrong with the car. It really is that simple. You really can diagnose a car using a flowchart. But in this case, the outcome follows directly from the procedures involved, and depending on the core values of your company (and you!), you can get very different results. I worked for a brake shop that had as its core value restoring brakes to OEM specifications. Most of the aftermarket doesn't care about OEM specifications, they care about safe brakes. As a result, the brake shop charged less per item compared to other shops, but the total quoted price was always higher than other shops because their target was so much higher. The shop I'm at now is a standard aftermarket shop that just keeps the brakes operating safely. I like what that presents to the customer.

And what you present reflects a bit of who you are. In my shop, we present as people who care about our customers, what kind of money they have to spend, and keeping their total expenditures low. In many areas (but not brakes), we come out cheaper than everybody else even with a higher hourly rate than a lot of shops. Even in custom exhaust, we're usually cheaper than our competitors, and we're the absolute best in town at what we do. It's much like the general gender discussion that happens around here. You have to present firstly as who you are, or else your presentation will never work. Many people can act like women, but it takes a genuine Woman(tm) to BE a woman, regardless of what genitals she was born with.

I get distracted. I bought a guitar today, because my juggling skills are far out of practice and I want to perform NOW. So I bought a guitar. I'll do silly renditions of popular songs, I'll do the Lumberjack Song, and I'll tell jokes. In this town, that should be a hit. :)

[Tawne]

Hi Leona, I find this topic very interesting! I love your avatar and the story behind it. People may think you're a fool, but maybe you are just fooling them hey? Just from reading some of your posts you seem quite intelligent IMO. Anyway to answer your questions dear...

Do I need to dress up to express the woman within? No, I've been doing it since I was born, it is just a part of who I am. Although I find with the use of my "costume", I can play the role more completely and be in character. I don't think I've ever done any other kind of dress-up before so I can't answer your last question sorry.

[Leona]

I like how you point out that the costume does help you to express yourself. Just like with my fool costume, it DOES help me to behave more like a fool. But it's not Dumbo's feather at all, I can still be a fool without the costume.

Same with the girl suit. I already felt feminine, that was probably why I put it on, and then I feel like I can express it better. I wonder, sometimes, if the guys at work notice when I'm being girly, because I obviously dress up as a male mechanic at work, even though I may be expressing myself as more feminine than usual.

I want to also point out that the change in my avatar didn't change what my avatar fundamentally expressed. :)

[edith]

Interesting topic. I don't feel like I have a girl within. I don't have to dress to express the elements of my personality that our culture has deemed feminine. I do feel like my compulsion to crossdress has put me in touch with those feminine aspects and helped me appreciate them and made me better able to accept them while retaining my male identity. In that sense, pretending to be a woman has definitely made me a better man.