Something's Going On With Me : Femininity
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'm pretty dense, I can see I have something going on. I'm enjoying it. I'm flirting with it. I like not following the rules, I like doing what I please rather than what I was told I was supposed to do.
The Covid Masks save me from needing to decide about the moustache (so far). On the other hand, the Plague and the (wise) precautions close off the venues where I might step out and learn.
I lost track of CrossDressing and Transvestitism in the last forty year's of Transgenderism. Turns out, they're still around. There's a stylist in Pittsburgh specialising in cross dressing makeovers. Certainly, Hollywood has used the trope.
A portion of what I'm doing is obvious: the hair length, the hair color, the earrings. Sometimes eyeliner. So far, I haven't gone out in anything more outrageous. In this part of the country, you could get your ass kicked fairly fast for walking into the wrong place like that, or meeting the wrong people like that.
I'm a neophyte, and an old neophyte to boot. This would have been easier when I was 25. At my age, my Dad-bod isn't that readily adapted.
I talked with my Psychologist. I talked with my Endocrinilogist. I talked with my Psychiatrist. I'm fortunate to have a great support team.
I've chosen an initial femme-name. I've contemplated the problem of Shoes. I've become much more aware of how much women put into their daily appearance. I've started noticing the details of cosmetics instead of simply the impact.
Today I spend too much time with an online avatar generator, trying to spin-the-wheel and produce what might look like me if I were fully dressed out. It really engaged me. I realized it was like a child playing with Colorforms. There are, in fact, several research papers on the effect of avatar software offering genderqueer options.
There is definitely something going on with me.