LGBTQIA

LGBTQIA

Today is the first time I heard this acronym meaning 

 "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and asexual" 

for a very inclusive grouping. Where some people could be count themselves under more than one category. Credit for introducing me to this new term goes to Helen Boyd's great en|gender blog at www.myhusbandbetty.com.

Searching online I found Lehigh University defines LGBTQIA as

 "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and ally" which should include everyone on the planet, in an ideal world.

It just goes to show the rainbow gets stronger.

LGBTQIA people are the only minority not federally protected.

Tights / Collants

Tights, like skirts, are a garment type that has crossed the gender line. Originally tight thin pants for medieval men, they are now in the western world thought be to female attire. According to Wikipedia: "anything up to 40 denier is known as pantyhose and anything over can be classified as tights". Although both male and female Jockeys, Fishermen wear pantyhose, brought in the ladies section for stores as they great for keeping warm, Pantyhose are almost exclusively female, while there are athletic tights which becoming unisex   

I have gone thought many pairs of tights or pantyhose in years I have buying my own. Besides tights getting worn and runs in them, many of fallen victims to purge of my feminine clothes. Below are pictures of current tights from MyTights.com or Macys

my tights and scrunched up with hosiery bag and washbag

my tights,pantyhose,holdup,footlets,etc spread out. Made of nylons or nylon and are sheer to opaque

Further descriptions of some of the items pictured..

• Nylon Footlets designed to be worn inside high heel shoes such as pumps, but not visible to anyone.
• Hosiery Washbag to protect your tights from getting wrapped in the rest of your washing machine load.
• Falke Hosiery Bag to store your tights in nice package. 
• Falke Soft Merino Wool Tights - Wool tights are great. Very warm and thick and unlikely to get runs as easily as nylons, plus they can replace Socks under trousers for cold winter days. 
• Berkshire Tights, Ribbed - Made in USA. Warm and available in the large size Queen1 and Queen2 sizes. I have 2 pairs of Queen1, one is pictured still in it's box, the other is the extreme right of the pictures. 

Crossplay / Cosplay

Cosplayers at a Cherry Blossom festival

Japanese Comics (Manga) and Animation (Anime) cover very board areas. But some of the most popular have interesting and strong female characters and much higher ratio of crossdressing than western fiction, just check out TG Anime Weblist. Just put "I My Me! Strawberry Eggs" into a search engine.

It seems to me that Anime/Manga conventions have popularized costume play (Cosplay) to mostly female characters, although maybe my reading of Maddybell.com Anime days has exaggerated this phenomenon. But I noticed that cosplay.com has a FAQ question How do you convert a man’s shoes size to a woman’s shoes size?. By no meaning, I am implying the majority Cosplayers are crossdressing. For example I don't think any of the Cosplayers in the picture (to the left) taken at a Cherry Blossom festival are. Crossplay is actually the term for crossdressing cosplay. 

In Japan Cosplay is very popular, check out Metropolis's article on crossplayer Jienotsu Nagashima. He is unusual and trailblazing for calling his professional kick boxing career a hobby to support his crossplaying. I like translated quote "A Dutch opponent called me gay for wearing my dresses, saying it disgusted him. I'm not gay. But I thought, "What would it matter if I was?" which came from this Australian Broadcasting Corp's Lateline video report. 

Thanks to the recent piece on femulate.org for inspiring to write this.

Triangular Garments

Me in a Sixties Dress

The dress and skirt are very simple but versatile garments really, but both can look to be triangular to a more tube like shape. There is a fabulous range in styles, shapes, fits and textures.

Restroom Sign

It is really a great shame that both like are considered almost exclusively female garments, at least in modern western society. And we are reminded for this every time we pass a restroom sign that triangular skirt/dress sign for Women/Ladies and a stick figure for Men/Gents. Should it change?

I love many Eddie Izzard's remarks on Transvestism, including "Women wear what they want and so do I" from Unrepeatable.

Of course Wikipedia as article about Men's skirts my core examples are...

• Togas in Ancient Rome & Greece.
• Sarongs in much of South Asia and a few westerners like David Beckham and Arthur C Clarke.
• Gho, a robe like, garment that all men are required to wear in Bhutan
• In Scotland Tartan Kilts are used for weddings, miltary and other functions. 
• In Ireland: Tartan Kilts for Bagpipe bands and plain saffron kilts some official Army functions, see pictured below. 
• The Celtic link to Kilts means it's niche in the USA, but there are many Kilt boosters. Just see amerikilt.com, sportkilt.com, usakilts.com and utilikilts.com. St Patrick seems bring the breaded leather kilts wearers, while Bethlehem's Celtic Classic has kilts everywhere. (There is also kilts for work-wear elsewhere as here on Sweden's blaklader.com)

Irish Air Corps Band kilts. (photo by William Murphy)

Line Drawing version of myself

Shipping Packing

Skirt and Top in Shipping Plastic bags

The weird and wonderful world of online shopping means orders can come from far and wide. In the case of Macy's the same web order can be spilt up into different shipments are sent from different states by varying means.

My most recent order from Macy's was split into 3 shipments from sent from Tennessee, New Jersey and   Connecticut.

The first shipment Denim Skirt and Karen Scott: Top coming a white plastic package by UPS, pictured to above. 

    The Lauren: Clip-on Earrings were by US Postal Service in a small envelope. 

    And My Makeup, Bra, free samples were delivered by UPS in big box with a
    hand written notes from the packer.
    This all seems a bit wasteful. 

Macys delivery with note

Olympics

Recent Olympics are starting to get equality for women and men in the various sporting events. I found NBC's coverage of  Women's Athletics, Basketball, Boxing, Soccer, Swimming in particular to be great. 

As usual, Ireland holds out most hope to success with it's female athletes. This time Katie Taylor seems destined to Olympic Gold in boxing. According to Irish Times: Taylor marches on towards destiny.

Ireland’s Taylor and Russia's Sofya Ochigava in the women's lightweight boxing final

Although female Participation and interest in sport, must be continued to be supported, be continued to be supported outside the Olympics much more. For instance the attendance figures and media attention is hugely different for the men's and women's GAA All-Ireland Finals in Camogie/Hurling and Gaelic Football. It's unfair really as all 4 are equally great sports.

See http://www.irishsportscouncil.ie/Participation/Women_in_Sport/ for more.

Annalise Murphy, Irish Sailor

United States of Tara

Recently, my wife and myself  have being watching the Showtime series United States of Tara.

It's about Tara (my namesake, played by Toni Collette) who has Dissociative identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder, most of the personalities are female but one is male. Leading my wife to think my Tara is a different personality to my male persona, but this is not true. My female and male sides are always there, it's just that one persona exists in the closet and online, my thoughts and many of my actions, but is somewhat suppressed much of most days. Have other people come across DID being used to rationalize transgender-ism by partners?

Note: The series is actually very good. Toni Collette's acting is superb as usual. I loved her in Muriel's wedding, Sixth Sense, Japanese Story and Little Miss Sunshine. I also love the fashion on the show.. both Tara and her sister have a good variety of denim skirts.

Up in the air

Its not unusual by Solarina~Lucy Nuzum

One of my favorite photographers is Lucy Nuzum for the way she captures Femininity, and one favorite childhood
 activities "imagining to fly". Check out her work at 
flickr

As a bonus she is Irish and in Ireland with many of the backgrounds in Wicklow.

clip-on earrings

My Clip-on Earrings

Clip-on earrings are a great alternative for those who do not want pieced ears. Clip-on earrings have existed longer than any other variety of non-pierced earrings. The clip itself is a two-part piece attached to the back of an earring. The two pieces closed around the earlobe, using mechanical pressure to hold the earring in place. I do know genetic women in their 20s and 30s who did not have pieced ears. Yes, they are straight but they live in Ireland, where social pressures are different to those in North America

To left are my left current clip-on earrings including my new pair from Macy's of Lauren Ralph Lauren Earrings, 14k Gold-Plated Blue Glass Teardrop Clip-On Earrings. This new pair are more expensive then either of others but they much better quality and prettier. Comfort wise they seem rack in the middle of the pairs I have. The cushioned clip of the heart-shaped pair should be on all clip-ons as otherwise some pain in experienced, I think I got this pairs from Doreenfashions.com a few years ago. The pair from Macys are nice changes, still I might Magnetic earrings next time.

Lauren Clip-on Earrings

Lauren Clip-on  Earrings

From September 2012's Town and County: "There were no blue-hair teenage episodes in the Lauder household. Aerin has never even pierced her ears."

Online shopping

Over the years I have used a few different sources for clothing, makeup and supplies. All I accessed online.

The first company I used was Oxendales, an Irish Online/ Catalogue shopping company, specializing in plus size women's clothes. Including the taupe skirt suit and shoes in the picture to the left. Initially deliver was by courier on the doorstep of my shared house with tracking that allowed me to collect the parcel prior to my housemates arriving home, then catalogues starting in the mail under the name of Tara, which was not big issue as my other housemates were new to the house, and did who was the house before them. But Oxendales started using AnPost to deliver and request signatures, collecting parcels under the name Tara while in Boy-mode became bothersome. So despite good prices and great selection I stopped using Oxendales.

Moving to more discrete suppliers based in the UK, came next I can recommend the following provider of good products in delivered in plain packaging : 

• mytights.com - The best tights supplier, I know of, with efficient and neat delivery 
• doreenfashions.com - Friendly TG shop in London with online service with a full range of products. I got a nice phone call from them, once when I mistyped my credit card number. 
• Translife.co.uk - Specialist Transgender supplier with a really helpful website.
• Repartee.tv - Transgender and Crossdressing lifestyle magazine, well worth a look.

Since moving to the U.S. of A. I have been using Macys.com and quality, range and convenience has kept me coming back. Although I wait for the 20% discounts that come twice a year with my Macy's card to keep the cost down.

I suppose the lesson for my experience is use a combination of discrete TG suppliers for TG only items. And major stores whose parcels/boxes do not cause embarrassment, because not every TG person is or can be out of the closet.

tg blogging

Maybe the needs to write a blog about Transgender feelings in temporary in most part-time crossdressers, or maybe it has simply fell out of vogue. But most of the part-time TG blogs I used to read used are closed down, including..

•  Becky's blog (beckysweb.co.uk)
• Alex Kingsley  (tvdreams.co.uk/)
• Steph Angel  steph-angel.com/blog/
• joannasdiary.co.uk/blog/
• difficulty.wordpress.com/
• katsydney.blogspot.com/
• currantly.org

..and many others very inactive. Such as the class "Not dead" post by Gillian Stuart of 2 years ago.

Myself going for a dip

COGIATI

Being Tara inside and outside is only possible for me, one evening and night per fortnight.

According to COGIATI, I am as classified as ANDROGYNE.  I suspose this could be right but sitting on the fence between gender is not a pleasant or enjoyable place to be, so I take opportunity when I arises to cross our the fence. This blog is about on my time on the female side of the fence.