I don't really know what I would have done if I wouldn't have this small body frame. Throughout my life, I've occasionally been called a girl. I'm very sure this has had some effect on the way I've ended into.
Thought, honestly when In own think about having a larger a lot more masculine body, I really think I would done the same. The only difference would probably be, that I would have waited longer before I'd accept myself for what I am.
As for passing, under my own eyes, I don't think I'll ever be able to pass. No matter how much time changes or goes by. For others, I think I'm able to pass just judging of the way people behave with me whenever they see me etc.
I look like a Girl
With Makeup on my Face
In Reality
A cute Kitty I am!
Chances are that some will never be able to pass without major surgeries, some will pass without trying, and most of us can pass if we only try. Another already posted their difference, and he looks totally like a man when he's not crossdressed and totally like a woman when he is. Myself, I was hairier than anyone else I knew, my hair was light, but you could see the difference compared to people with dark hair if I showed my legs. I have broad shoulders and I have a gut (thank God for shaping contraptions. I would say I look rather manly if you ignore my now-shaved legs and arms normally.
However, in the short time i have gone out, I have had an acquaintance complimented about the girl at his side and I managed to wave at someone who looked right past me and asked my friend where I was. Everyone will have different hurdles to pull it off, and that's what a couple forums on this site are for, right? There's tips for hiding just about everything.
I think it's more likely that the ones that pass either tend to have it easier than most or have the joy of a friend who will go out of their way to help them pass, as in my case. They tend to pass more often. But almost everyone, if not everyone, can pass. Distract from any masculine features and attract attention to the feminine features.
I don't think my body really had anything to do with it.
I am not petite by any means but that didn't factor into it.
Yes I do have some features that help and others that don't.
Once I accepted who I was that was it.
Whatever is wrong I can fix, and if I can't well then I will live with it.
Ever forward!
Warning: This post may contain up to 63% post consumer recycled Sarcasm ... or Peanuts."
"Sammy, really next time do try to make your point without being quite so abrasive." -RD
I like to use Donna Rose as my example and my inspiration. She was very much the man before transitioning, with enough work most of us can get there. It is just easier for the few lucky ones male and female!
Kelsy
Born female intended
" Don't die with your music still in you!"
All i can say is thank good for hormones because hormones did all the work. and because i left it late i am very lucky or fortunate
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Some people build walls around themselves......not to keep people outBut to see who cares enough to break them downSo thanks lisa for taking a bloody great sledgehammer to mine you certainly made short work of it
Loves you Poppetx
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hope that wasn't directed at me. I am a transsexual; I am never crossdressed. I have been on hormones for seven months and live and work full-time as a woman (the pronoun to use would be she). My name is Caroline and I plan on having surgery next year.
The major changes were from hormones. I was trying to show that I used to look very much like a guy, and that I never thought I would look like a girl, which is one of the reasons I postponed transition so long.
I hope Veronica was not talking about me, but I am the only one who showed photographs.
Caroline
It's Frances with an E, like Frances Farmer. Francis is a man's name.
I was speaking of you, but I just clicked new posts and didn't realize that it was the transsexual part of the forum. New to the forum, didn't realize they separated the two parts. But I said you completely look like a woman, so it's still a compliment even with the misunderstanding, right?
Veronica,
Thank you for your response and private message. Yes, the transsexual part of the forum is usually where transsexual women voice their opinion, contribute their life stories, etc.
The two photos are years apart, and seperated by therapy, hormones, hair growth and $15,000 of electroysis and laser. I cannot pass as a man anymore, even if I tried. (You can find a photo album showing the progression of my transition in the profile section.)
I feel I pass without a problem, but added the photos to show that I use to look like a man (before transition) in response to the thread's question.
It's Frances with an E, like Frances Farmer. Francis is a man's name.
From my observations, I think that the passable ones are:
- Too old or too young
- Really skinny or chubby
- Short
- Have feminine facial features
I'm only short
Otherwise, hormones, plastic surgery and facial feminization surgery are required. IMHO
With the disclaimer that I never claimed to be passable despite what others have said. So tell me, do you see anything remotely feminine about the guy on the right?
Nicki,
The only 5'4" T-girls here in LA are the perfect little Asians, and I don't count them 'cause it just isn't fair!
I do ok, have been asked out and flirted with by lots of guys, for example. I'm 5'8" and slender, no adam's apple, but don't have any of the three key attributes for facial passability:
Small chin, small, narrow nose, nor flat forehead. I have to compensate with voice, poise, and femme vibe.
-- Diane
Last edited by dilane; 08-04-2009 at 08:24 PM.
What a great bunch of posts.
I've been in this life forever and have rarely been ubable to read a queen. But even I have been fooled. Children are the most acute observers of gender behvaior. I've know lots of ts's in the NYC club world, those that were the prettiest were the boys who started the earliest on hormones. Especially (and ironically) some of the Puerto Rican who boys grew up in female only households and their femme side was accepted and even encouraged. Others ran away from home and found families in the houses.
Start 'em as soon as you know!
It's completely psychological. What you present people will address.
Last edited by kellycan27; 08-04-2009 at 09:25 PM.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I think being over 50 does make it easier to pass. I pass most of the time and have not had any clear episodes of being read. Once, recently, I had a clerk at Costco say "him" or 'em in reference to me but the clerk was distracted and kinda ditzy. Since I couldn't tell what she said and otherwise, she acted completely as though I was just another customer, I can't say that I was read. However, it stung just to have the notion of being read. I am so used to not thinking much about it.
I am blessed to have a red/white haired beard that grows very slowly. I also have a full head of hair which is only slightly graying at the temples. But clearly, I am a crone and as such most people don't pay attention to me. My wife says that after a certain age, people become essentially dismissed and as such no one really looks at them for long. She said many times that she would never go out in public with me dressed as a woman because she felt that I looked far too masculine and I would be a laughingstock. That was before I went full time. Now, she doesn't think anything of it and we also go to the ladies room together.
The strangest passing story for me was last year when I went to a new physician and during the exam, she was telling me that I needed a pap smear and other GG tests. I stopped her there and revealed my trans status. I had not had my orchi yet but was on HRT for seven years. It was like she got a bucket of water dumped over her. While she said she didn't have a problem with that, she then coded my initial visit and my wife's as something else so we had to pay $600 out of pocket instead of a completely covered exam. After months of arguing with the insurance company, they forced the clinic to pay us back.
Bottom line, I think that I pass because I am so old and nobody cares to look.
A work in progress
On Passing, I too did not think that in the beginning I would be passable either. On of the reasons I held off transistioning. If I couldn't pass I would not have done it. But the right mental attitude, most important part to me, hormone therapy, laser treatments, correct wardrobe, hair, etc looks what happens. Being slender build helps alot too.
But I have looked at photos from me in the past and the person in them does not look like me at all, very unhappy if even it appears on the outside that he is I know that inside he was not at all. And sorry I don't have any photos to post on what I used to look like, I do still have some, purged and shredded most all of them. And the ones I do have are not in digital format. But my mom made my brother, sister, and I DVD's of our family photos from growing up and in the earlier ones I see two girls and one boy, not two boys and a girl
And there is the time when I was giving blood at the company blood drive and the nurse testing my blood before hand told me that my iron level in my blood was high for a woman, she said that it was at a level a man's would be, I didn't tell her exactly why it was that high "hint being genetically male" I just told her that there is a lot of iron in my water at home. Which there was being on a private well.
Last edited by joanlynn28; 08-06-2009 at 11:25 AM. Reason: added paragraph
Joan Lynn
Just a girl stranded on her little red island amongst a lovely sea of blue.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, for those that mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind."
Dr. Seuss
OK, Here are some before and after photos.
The first is when I was in my androgynous phase, 2006 or so.
The second is last year. Of course, I am much prettier now...
A work in progress
The age thing does seem to effect. It is like there is this large span of life where the gender thing is most evident. Before a certain age masculinity has not developed, and after an age, it is like the masculine features tone down.
I guess maybe cause before and after, testosterone is lower.
It takes a true Erin to be a pain in the assatar.