Someone I'll NEVER see again makes me in Vegas, Atlanta, or a gay club? Who cares? I don't! I live in SoCal.Originally Posted by ReineD
My daughter's teacher, a fellow Elk, a business associate, or my mother in law catching me at the local Target, Macys, or eating at Norms? THAT THOT scares the bejeebees out of me!
U can't keep doing the same things over and over and expect to enjoy life to the max. When u try new things, even if they r out of your comfort zone, u may experience new excitement and growth that u never expected.
Challenge yourself and pursue your passions! When your life clock runs out, you'll have few or NO REGRETS!
The thought of being singled out, stared at, looked over, smiled at, or even followed seems to be a real issue with us. Insecurity? Maybe. In the last few weeks it seems that life has been brining these thoughts to the surface...and all in drab!!!
1) My wife and I were grocery shopping. I was casually dressed, no big deal. Suddenly my wife takes my arm and we turn in a different direction. I looked at her oddly. It turns out that a woman was paying a lot of attention to me. Did I see it? Nope! Would I have recognized it had I been paying attention...probably not. Would Tina have noticed it...unfortuanately I expect she would have! Why is that? Are we really so worried about it?
2) My daughter and I had to travel a lot a couple of weekends ago...a real tour of the upper east coast. We were shopping, on trains, walking big cities. What happened? For heaven's sake, I got looked at all the time. It got to be a little freaky! I kept turning around to see someone watching me. Both genders. I started to wonder what was wrong, so I had a bit of time and I found a corner of a store to settle into just to watch. What I saw was people watching other people...constantly! Stares, smiles, and then they'd just move on.
Maybe we really need to put ourselves in context of the human race and lose our paranoia just a bit. Unless we are dressed specifically to stand out, maybe the norm is to feel ourselves being watched, and maybe we are. But I'm watched in drab too, so how could it be different for Tina? Heck, she looks a lot more attractive than my casual male self!!!!
I assume that everyone who sees me knows that I am a CDer. My height and lumpy shoulders & arms are a dead giveaway but you know what....so what!!!! I present myself the best I can and dress for the surroundings to blend in rather than stand out. Maybe I'm a bit misguided, but by doing this I feel I am promoting our cause to some extent.
Ditto.... I have never had a bad experience but have had plenty of very very positive ones.
Ahhhhh, I find this the best challenge. Occasionally I'll get the "OMG look at this expression from one of them", followed by a group giggle which I don't class as a bad reaction. I always hit back with a big smile, and a "hello ladies" if I am close enough. That gets them smiling and giggling some more, and gives them a lunchtime story to tell at school the next day.
Tash
I'm read everytime I go out because I have a beard and I'm not going to shave it. I've only had one negative comment but many postive ones. I don't care what is said and laugh it off when I get a long stare. Billie Jean
You go Billie Jean!
Being read is part of the package. Very few of us don't get read (I suspect the stares at Sherlyn are the guys trying to decide if they should approach her). It is the ole' "if you act like a target, you become a target". Go out and have fun and all the reads in the world won't slow you down.
I havent had real bad experiences with any group, but I think people often tie in being read as being seen as an outcast when being read and being accepted are very different outcomes. I for one know I would pass because I played linebacker in college and have shoulders broad enough to part a Buick. So I expect to be read however it would be nice to be accepted though
Ah man, I'm in a biker gang. :-( OK not a "real" gang.
I figure on getting "read" at all times. One thing I tend to do though: I try to leave the house discreetly. My next-door neighbor has seen me, and made it very clear that she thinks I'm a pervert -- she tells her grandkids to "stay away from that guy".
I try my best to pass, but if I don't, no biggie. I hink the more common place we make ourselves, the more common place we become. I think of it as an educational experience, if people see us acting "normal" and not personifying the negitive steriotypes pertrayed by the media, then it serves to further our cause for exceptance
I don't go out much, and the few times when I have, for the most part, I have passed rather well. One woman asked me about my hair once, thinking it was real pretty. She didn't figure out I was a man right away. I get "ma'am'd" by the casual strangers.....so I really don't know why going out gets me all twisted up like it does. One thing is that my neighbors, who have lived next door to me for over 15 years, are retired and usually home. In fact, all of my neighbors know who I am, what car I drive, and that it's only me and my wife living in our house. So if they see a strange woman driving off in my car, it wouldn't be a big stretch for them to figure out that I'm crossdressing. My wife isn't real down with it (she tolerates it at best), so I don't much want to push the envelope with her.
My own thoughts are that unless you're a complete moron, you're going to realize I'm really a guy in about two seconds flat. I admit, that bothers me. I don't want to be "that crossdressed guy over there".....I want to be seen as a woman. I'm sure it's all in my own head, and that I shouldn't be worried one bit about what other people think. But between the neighbors clocking me and the constant thought that everyone I see just has to know I'm a guy in drag, I opt to stay in most of the time.
I know being read isn't that big of a deal. But it still bothers me.
Any money found in the laundry is MINE!
"This is no social crisis....this is me having fun!"
www.flickr.com/photos/tgmarla/
Very true.
I can get by with dressing in private, but I love being seen en femme. If I weren't so afraid of rejection, I'd do it in my hometown. First off, my crossdressing is about me- I've already said enough about how I came to terms with how I couldn't let go of it during my engagement -but other people matter. Nothing is quite as nice as being out in public. During my last few weeks at university I was out en femme almost every other day and I knew I must have been easy to read. Although now and then someone would do something really courteous....or even just normal. I really loved it when library staff would make eye contact and just do what they would do for anyone else. You're always aware of how people percieve you, but when you get the chance to interact with people in a completely ordinary way while dressed it's a very special kind of recognition. So far, I only have one friend who's willing to hang out with me while dressed, and I just moved away from her (not my choice obviously) and even though she's not my best friend, I think the fact that she doesn't mind me being dressed around her makes my relationship with her special in away that no other relationship is.
So...the prospect of being read can be intimidating, but depending on your circumstances, it may very well be worth it.
Brilliant thread. This has helped me enormously because I am s**t scared of being read and laughed at... but I love being out. I just like the feeling of being around doing normal things and being accepted I guess... but not as a freak show.
There is a guy at work who has come out and now dresses as he wants and he has been accepted by most of his female colleagues.
Awesome!
Kaz xx
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This Woman Within is Flying without Wings
Maybe the issue is more fundamental than we are making it. I'm pretty sure none of us enjoy losing...at anything. After all, how many of us would go to a casino and leave saying, "wow..it was great fun to lose all that money...let's come back and do it again some time!".
Given that, isn't it logical that after we spend all this time and energy transforming into our feminine selves we want to be successful as being seen and treated as the gender we are presenting. If we are "read", maybe the problem is nothing less than we feel that we have just "lost"!
Then, when we are dejected that we have "lost", we start to pile on all the sociological negatives associated with transgenderism, and it's a downward spiral. There have been many threads here that talk about acceptance of self and about the assumption that we will be read. Might that not be translated into, "being read is not losing!" In that context it's rather logical that suddenly it's a different mindset: not one of winning or losing, but just enjoying the moment, enjoying our feminine selves, and leaving the "game" behind.
tina
Absolutely, we as a group make entirely too much out of being read. As soon as I decided not to care I enjoyed life more and frankly, I think I now get read less often.
Let me share a couple of funny stories. Years ago I was a Navy Master at Arms (Navy version of Military Police), and one of the stops on my beat was the Enlisted Club. One busy night my partner and I were there and Maggie, the club manager, came to us in an uproar because she had seen a man dressed as a woman enter the women's bathroom and demanded that we do something about it.
Not an unreasonable request, this was in the 80's so attitudes (particularly on a military base) were a bit different. Besides, if this person was actually disturbing the peace we had an obligation to deal with it. But so far the only peace being disturbed was Maggie's, so we watched the bathroom door expecting to see a stampede of screaming women running out.
Never happened. We watched and finally I asked Maggie "Where is this guy?" She looked at me like I had two heads. "He just walked past you!" My partner and I looked at each other and back to her. "Point him out" I said.
She pointed at the alleged offender, and my partner and I looked at her like we had never seen a woman in our lives. She was flawless! Beautiful, well-dressed, expertly made up. I turned to Maggie and said "After looking at this person I have to tell you there is absolutely no reason for either of us to interrogate her or even bother her with this. Not enough evidence for probable cause."
Maggie was stunned. "But look at her!" she yelled. "See? Look at how thick her ankles are!" Again my partner and I looked hard at the suspect. Her ankles were in no way extraordinary, and to be honest this was the first and only time in my life that I ever heard of anyone getting read for ankles. Again I told Maggie there was no reason to suspect that what she was telling us was accurate. As far as we were concerned this was a woman. Case closed.
Second story. My therapist deals with TG clients (of course) and non-TG as well, and all of her clients know this. One day a client was leaving her office as another was entering, and they passed each other coming and going. As the second patient came in and sat down, she said "You really have to talk to that last patient. She's not passing at all!". The therapist's response - "That was a natal female!"
The moral of the story - it doesn't matter how good you look, someone will read you for what they perceive to be some real or imagined shortcomings. Don't worry about it.
Last edited by Michelle.M; 05-11-2011 at 06:34 AM.
I've gone to find myself. If I should return before I get back keep me here to wait for me so I don't go back out and miss myself when I return.
I would like to "pass" better. It would mean that I achieve my goal of looking natural. Unfortunately I really don't so I don't worry about it. For me it is about the freedom of being out as myself and not worrying about what others think.
yes I agree to bewear of high girls and the gangs. I have had no problems in public, a few knowing grins but that's all, just go out and enjoy,
School children have no special powers. They just have nothing better to do.
A group of high school girls at the mall are doing nothing but hanging out. Almost every adult at the mall is busy living their life. Shopping, or whatever with lots of stuff on their mind. Busy, busy, busy. A group of teenagers at the mall have nothing on their mind except entertaining themselves.
That's the reason they notice you.
Stephie
I find that people, at least in cities, are largely oblivious to their surroundings. They're plugged in to mp3 players and smartphones, walking along looking at the sidewalk. They'll run into you, bounce off, and probably couldn't even remember a thing about you 10 seconds later. No one looks around, behind, up.
That's why people who see odd things in the night sky are called nuts... 99% of folks never look UP.
I get noticed; I get read; no one cares. I guess that's one thing we can say about this self-absorbed cosmopolitan wasteland that is contemporary society.
Who cares about being read as long as we individually feel good about ourselves .
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