Atypical Trans Late Bloomer

There's a lot of challenges in beginning to present cross-gender. The clothes, the shoes, the accessories are an expense, and can be a significant expense so many people turn to Thrifting (as a verb) which is a common experience. But there are other factors - shoes (ugh!), and makeup / cosmetics. multi-jillion corporation Sephora has initiated a series of Zoom makeup tutorials to continue to support the early Trans community (and build customers, to be honest) called Classes for Confidence . So I signed up for the class and was very impressed at their initiative. Then I received an email suggesting I request a complimentary makeup kit to be used in conjunction with the Zoom class. Wow. Just wow. And it showed up two days later in discreet packaging. Double-wow. Smallish containers of about fourteen different potions and creams. It was really very nice of them (and an easy way to put a lot of sample product into the hands of an about to be customer-for-life.) The Z...

I have dresssed up en femme a few times now. I got my kit, my basic bag of clothing, from a few thrift stores. The ones in the richer neighborhoods have much nicer stuff. I've got a few scarves. I've got a few skirts. Two sets of leggings. Two brassiers. Eyeglasses and masks get in the way but improve anonimity. I have not gone out while dressed up. I am fortunate that my significant other is radically accepting of it all. In a perverse way, I feel calm and safer when I'm dressed en femme. I feel like I'm free of all the Toxic Masculinity bullshit I've been force-fed and had beaten into me since I was three years old. I feel a lot more comfortable dressed as feminine (in girl-mood, as Eddie Izzard says) and I feel heppy to be relived of all the male expectations. I'm much more comfortable with my feelings. That's perverse because where I live, there's a great risk of significant violence when you're dressed as something unexpected...

I have within the last ten days come to recognize that Something's Going On With Me. It's been there for a while. Now I have the "world enough and time" to ponder and pursue it. I've been growing my hair for a year now. Buzzcuts on both sides, the top grown out. It's an undercut. It's a bisexual bob that still needs to grow out. But I'm growing long hair after a lifetime of military haircuts. I'm wearing earrings. I had a mani-pedi in last fall. I wore nail polish for a few weeks last summer. I've worn a kilt in public a few times. My nipples have become sensitive to eroticism over the last few years. I've nurtured an interest in transgender women online in my circle of people, and then enlarged it to their circles of people. The notion of queering the gender norm is appealing to me. I like the way silky clothes feel on me. I want to feel pretty. I want to try out Femininity. I've been trying out eyeliner. So, even though I...