Hi, Everybody!

This thread is addressed to those who get out in public “dressed”. What I mean by “dressed” here is that you wear at least one item of female clothing that is visible to members of the public—whether female jeans, top, shoes, dress, whatever. Underdressing doesn’t count. And when I say “get out”, it doesn’t matter how often or seldom, regularly or irregularly, or for what length of time.

What I’m on about here is this: on this forum we have members who’ve never been out in public. Now some remain private out of choice, and as far as I’m concerned, THAT IS THEIR CHOICE, and I don’t want this thread to address that question at all. Rather, I’m concerned with people who would like to get out but just haven’t yet been able to take the plunge. A month ago or so I’d have fallen into that category myself.

When I decided that I wanted out, one thing that held me back was not knowing exactly how to go about it. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to just suddenly appear in public dressed the way I like to dress. I thought I needed to think about things and find a good way of going about it.

So I thought it might be useful to have a thread where those of us who are out, to whatever extent, can tell our stories. Each story will be different because our circumstances are different, as are our needs, goals, personalities, etc. E.g., I live in a small town. Lots of people live in cities. I wanted to be full time. Some people only want to get out on occasion. I work from home, so I don’t have a boss to worry about. A lot of people do. Etc.

I thought that if we give specific details as to how we went about getting out, rather than just vague encouragement like, “You can do it, girl!”, or “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” it might help those who’d like to get out. There are many testimonials scattered about this forum, but I thought it might be useful to have a lot of them gathered together on one thread. That way, those who want to get out can review our various stories, perhaps select those that best fit their own circumstances, and from them get ideas as to how they can go about getting out themselves.

Does anybody think this is a good idea? If not, you won’t reply. But I’ll start with my story:

The first time I got out was when I went to a nearby town for a weekend transgender workshop. Since I was among other transpeople, as well as LGB and GG allies, I had nothing to fear. On the Saturday and Sunday nights, however, a few of us went out on the town, to restaurants and pubs. It was safe enough because it was dark. I wasn’t going to be looked over too closely. But also I was among a group, so there was safety in numbers.

I learned three things from the experience: people don’t pay any attention to you. You can walk around as you like without having to worry about it. Secondly, whereas some people are really nervous about being out in public, I loved it. I took to it like a duck to water. Finally, I knew I needed to get out full-time. A weekend now and again wasn’t going to do it for me.

But as I said earlier, I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to just suddenly start appearing dressed in public in the little town I live in. It would be a shock for people, and they wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing. I decided it would be better to go around to various people—my landlord, shopowners, the manager of the post office, the librarians, etc.—to explain to them beforehand what I was going to do. That way I could answer any questions they had, but more importantly I could gauge their reactions. If it was uniformly hostile, then I might have wanted to think about finding some other place to live. But if they were OK with it, then I’d be OK. These were the important people in my life, and if they were on board, then I wouldn’t need to worry much about the rest.

As it turned out, I was amazed to discover that everybody was perfectly cool with it. Big surprise, but that’s the way it was. So I simply started getting out, and I’ve been out for a month now. Full-time—I haven’t worn any male clothing since the day Obama was re-elected.

You’re often advised to try and “blend in”. I don’t worry about that. In this little town, I’m not going to blend in since everybody knows me. I wear what I like, and that means trying to look as good as possible. I wear dresses and skirts—but I can get away with that because I’m not young, and women my age do still wear such things often enough. So I’m dressing my age, and I do think it’s important to do that.

In two ways, however, I do blend in, and I think these are the two chief advantages I have. First, as I said, I’m not young. I don’t think middle-aged women get scrutinized as closely as young girls do. Second, I’m very small, so I fit in well with my preferred gender.

I’ve been very lucky. People have been good to me. We often hear a lot about “small town prejudice”. I haven’t run into any of that. I think there can be advantages in being in a small town. For one thing, people know you. If you’re the decent sort, not a troublemaker, then they might find it easier to accept you. At any rate, I’ve found the people of this small town very accepting.

That’s the way I went about it, and it worked. I wish I could guarantee that it would work for everybody.

Best wishes, Annabelle