In honor of our favorite holiday later this month, I will be repost past Halloween posts on every Friday this month. 

The following repost is from November 1, 2012, the day after I made my first appearance at work en femme on October 31 without a safety net. My previous two Halloween appearances at work enfemme (in 2000 and 2003) were under the guise of employer-sponsored Halloween costume contests. Halloween 2012, there was no contest – I was going in without cover and I’ll admit that it was a little scary. 

I was relieved that power was restored Tuesday night and I spent the evening getting things back in order after Hurricane Sandy blew through. (It’s amazing how quickly things get out of order when you lose electricity.)

It was bedtime when I finished and as I lay in bed, I realized that the next day was Halloween (and what was I going to do about it).

I had assumed that we would be without power for days. As a result, I did not prepare anything in advance for dressing up Halloween morning. But I wondered if I could I do it all in the morning and be out the door in time for work.

Considering everything I had to do, I determined that I could do it all if I got up early enough. So I set my alarm clock for 4:30 AM and I beat the clock waking at 4:15.

It had not occurred to me that making up every morning for a week at Fantasia Fair had accelerated my makeup routine. As a result, I was ready to go almost 30 minutes before I had to hoped for.

My wig was “Stacie” by Noriko, “a flirty hairstyle that has a wispy layered cut with flipped ends and swoop bangs.” My dress was the Ponte Heart Print Dress from Julian Taylor (via ideeli.com). Shoes were my old reliable black patent sling-back open-toe platforms; they are beginning to show their age, so it is time to find a new “old reliable.” “City beige” thigh-highs, black watch and bag and silver necklace and earrings completed my outfit.

To kill time, I styled my wig, then I decided to leave even though it was too early. It was raining hard and still dark, so I thought I could use the extra time to drive slower and safer.

When I arrived at work, there were two cars in the parking lot. I knew they belonged to co-workers who worked on the east side of our complex. That meant I would be the first person on the west side (first person turns on the lights and makes the first pot of coffee).

I did not have to run far (in heels) to dodge the rain because I was able to park in the closest spot to the entrance.

After I dropped my computer bag and purse in my cubicle, I used the ladies’ room to check my makeup, then I took a deep breath to face the day.

The kitchen is next to the restrooms, so I decided to start a pot of coffee first, then turn on the lights. Coffee brewing, I left the kitchen and the lights turned on; somebody beat me to it.

That somebody came around the corner, saw me, and greeted me as one would greet a stranger.

I said, “Happy Halloween,” but he was still clueless and continued on to his office.

As other people filed in, I greeted them and most figured out who I was because I was in or near my cubicle and my reputation proceeded me. Nonetheless, they were amazed at my appearance.

By the way, I went all out. I did not hold back in order to cling to any shred of my male self. I was certainly not a “man in a dress.”

When my boss arrived, I made a bee-line to her cubicle, saying “Happy Halloween” as I entered.

I took about a half minute before she recognized me and she was ecstatic. She checked me out and gushed over my appearance.

“He shaved his legs.”

“He even did his nails.”

“I hate him – he looks better than me.”

“I want your dress when you are done with it.”

She took my photo and emailed it to some of our colleagues in our other facilities. Throughout the morning, she brought people to my cubicle to show me off.

I never saw her act like this before. She was enjoying my femulation as much as I was.

My boss also suggested I play a trick on our president’s administrative assistant, so when she showed up, I went into her office and said, “I am the new hire for receptionist and you are supposed to train me.”

She was completely fooled. She said that no one had informed her of my training, but she was ready to have at it.

Before it went any farther, I asked, “Do you know who I am?”

She shook her head “no,” so I confessed and she was absolutely floored! She confessed that she really had no idea who I was nor that I was a male.

Returning to my cubicle, I heard the voice of a female co-worker who I have known for 16 years, so I paid her a visit.

“Happy Halloween,” I said as she looked up without any sign of recognition, then she recognized me. After she stopped gushing over me, she said that when she first saw me, she thought I was a former co-worker woman. She said the resemblance was striking.

At 10 AM, I had to attend a meeting (a “gemba”) concerning a new product. I walked into the middle of ten engineers standing in a circular fashion for the gemba, said “Happy Halloween” and they all smiled and took my appearance in stride except one engineer, who was shocked. A couple of the guys admitted afterword that until they heard my voice, they had no idea who I was.

Another friend asked if he could take my photo sitting in his cubicle. I gladly agreed, he took it with his smart phone and sent it to his wife claiming I was his new administrator.

After his wife learned the truth, she replied, “OMG!!!!!!! That is soooooo funny! He looks really good as a woman. I don't want her sitting in your cubicle.”

Five co-workers took my photo throughout the day and graciously emailed me copies.

One co-worker said he was “speechless,” then added, “You missed your calling... you should have been a female impersonator.”

During lunch, I drove to the nearby Lowe’s home improvement store to get a replacement part for a piece of plumbing that failed during the storm. I now had no trepidation about going to Lowe’s and I found my trip very revealing.

Whenever I go to Lowe’s or Home Depot in male mode, I have to find and ask a store employee when I need help. Today, I had a male Lowe’s employee practically at my beck and call. When he saw me looking lost in the plumbing department, he asked what I needed and directed me to the exact location where the part was displayed. After I found what I needed, he came over and compared it to the old part I had brought along to make sure I got the right part.

That’s the power of a short skirt and high heels!    

Speaking of high heels, I wore them all day long (over 9 hours) and my feet felt fine. I guess sitting about two-thirds of the day helped. I did bring flats just in case, but I only put them on when I drove home.

After Lowe’s, I visited Walmart to buy some pet food and coffee. I noticed a few gents checking me out, otherwise, the Walmart trip was uneventful.

I also stopped at Dress Barn and bought nothing after perusing the racks.

I returned to work, ate lunch and felt tired; the 4:15 AM wakeup was beginning to take its toll.

I visited the two women in Human Resources who know about me being transgender. The HR woman, who is approximately my age, was enthusiastic and said I looked “great,” while the 30-something HR woman acted as if nothing was unusual and said nothing about my appearance.

Another female co-worker I have known forever stopped by my cubicle in the afternoon and said I looked “sparkling.” She also commented that I looked better than she ever did even when she went to the prom. She wondered if anyone at work had busted “my chops” and I happily admitted that no one had.

Except for folks stopping by to look and/or take photos, the afternoon was quieter than the morning.

Overall, I had a great day at work en femme. Not a discouraging word was heard; instead, I received a lot of compliments.

This was my third Halloween at work en femme. The first two times were in 2000 and 2003. About one-third of my co-workers were with the company back then, so they are aware of my preference for women's wear on Halloween.

I assume a few co-workers suspect that there is more to it than Halloween, but no one has broached the topic with me. If they did, I would tell them the truth.   

Thursday morning, my boss saw me and remarked, “Thank, God, you're dressed normal today.”

I responded, “What's normal?”

Wearing Venus

George Hamilton femulating in the 1981 film Zorro: The Gay Blade.

#10 – The Contest

#9 – The Hamptons

#8 – The Festivus

#7 – The Boy Friend (Part 1)

#6 – The Close Talker

#5 – The Yada Yada

#4 – The Little Kicks

#3 – The Bizarro Jerry

#2 – The Puffy Shirt

#1 – The Soup Nazi

Seinfeld is my all-time favorite television comedy series and I disagree with some of the top ten choices (numbers 3 and 8, for example) and the numerical order of the top ten. (“The Soup Nazi” is good, but most of the other episodes on the top ten are better than “The Soup Nazi”).  

And how can “The Chinese Restaurant” not be in the top ten?

“The Red Dot” is another episode that is top ten-worthy. Besides the humor of that episode’s plot, it also includes one of the few crossdressing references in the series when Jerry finds himself in the women’s department of a department store and he says, “I never feel comfortable in the women’s department. I feel like I’m just a little too close to trying on a dress.”

👩  👩  👩

Ninety minutes after the Seinfeld top ten, Kim Kardashian guest-hosted Saturday Night Live. 

I am not a Kardashian fan, but she is Femulate Her-worthy and she fills that slot in today’s post primarily because I love her hairdo in the Lotto Drawing segment of Saturday’s broadcast. 

Where can I get a wig like hers?

Kim Kardashian

Saturday Night Livealumnus Terry Sweeney femulating Nancy Reagan at his book party.

Yesterday, an article came across the mojo wire via Atlas Obscura, “The Weekly Cross-Dressing Balls of 18th-Century Russian Royalty” by Sarah Durn, which goes into much greater detail than the Vogue article. 

The men would be required to wear the stockings, corsets, petticoats (up to five was customary), ruffled lace sleeves, hoop skirts, and elaborate sack back gowns that, on any other occasion, the women of court would’ve worn. The women, on the other hand, had to wear men’s embroidered waistcoats, full-skirted coats, breeches, white silk stockings, shoes with ostentatious buckles, a powdered wig, and an unwieldy sword.

In the metamorphosis balls, in which both men and women dressed as the opposite gender, there are two power shifts going on. First, Cole says, “there’s the power of somebody making you dress outside your gender.” Second, there’s the power play that “by doing it yourself, you are critiquing the power dynamics of gender and gendered dress.” By forcing their male courtiers to dress as women, Elizabeth and Catherine were reminding everyone who was boss. They made the rules. And even men had to follow them.

It is a fascinating read and I recommend it to all Femulate readers.

Wearing Madeleine.

Femulating Russian nobility in the 2019 Russian television series Ekaterina (Catherine). You can view the femulation scene from Ekaterina on YouTube.

In honor of our favorite holiday later this month, I will repost past Halloween posts on Fridays. The following repost is from October 2009.

Beforehand, I stopped at a local grocery store to buy a dessert for the party. The store was busy with after-work shoppers. One female customer checked me out closely (I figure she was trying to figure out my birth gender), another female customers said “hello” (I figure she thought I was a genetic female), and the high school-aged cashiers seemed bemused and/or amused (they knew).

The costume came together nicely and I received a lot of compliments. The gold sequins tunic was an Avon clearance item that I purchased last year for $20, the fishnets were from Hue*, and the shoes came from eBay. The accessories (beads, headpiece, boa and garter) were from one of those Halloween stores that open up in abandoned storefronts in the strip malls every year.

The shoes were a pair I obtained for a Marilyn Monroe Halloween costume I put together back in 2001. Despite their 3-inch heels and pointy toes, they were very comfortable and I could have worn them forever.

Just a word about the Hue fishnets. I am a big fan of Hue tights, so I decided to try their fishnets. They get my seal of approval because they are the first pair of fishnets that I ever wore that did not tear during their first wearing. It is not that I was more careful than usual; no, I was just as clumsy as usual, but the fishnets held up very nicely.

Anyway Happy Halloween to all of you out there in the blogosphere. And don't eat too much candy!

* An Amazon Associate link

Wearing Venus

Harry S. Franklyn, 1920’s professional femulator

Fantasia Fair, October 2008

I continued crossdressing as a 20-something throughout the 1970s. I was still closeted, but got up the nerve to Halloween crossdress on three occasions (and had the time of my life doing so).

Along came the November 1980 issue of Playboy containing an article about Fantasia Fair. The article was intended to be a humorous piece, often at the expense of the folks attending the Fair. Put that aside, I had never heard of Fantasia Fair and the article provided a trans public service by revealing the Fair to me (and to probably hundreds of other girls like me across the USA).

What a dream! And the Fair was on Cape Cod – an easy four-hour drive, so maybe I could attend and live as a woman for a week. But...

👩 It was expensive and I was only making $10,000 per year. 

👩 I was still mostly dressing out of my mother’s closet, so I didn’t have anything close to having a wardrobe for a week (and Mom was not likely to let me borrow hers).

👩 I was scared. Except for a handful of Halloween crossdressings, I had never been out among the civilians and I was ill-prepared to spend a week en femme among the population of Provincetown.

So I did not go. 

Attending Fantasia Fair remained a dream for over a quarter of a century until I finally attended in 2008 (and again in 2010, 2012 and 2014). During the ensuing 25 years, I joined a support group, attended long weekend trans conventions and went out solo en femme among the civilians, so the population of Cape Cod was no longer something to fear. 

I had a fabulous time each time I attended Fantasia Fair. Living 24/7 as a woman was initially thrilling and then became routine, but in a good way. I attended informative workshops, dined on fabulous food, enjoyed beautiful Provincetown and made a lot of friends.

The Fair is this week and I will not be attending, but I have my memories and they are all good.

Wearing Madeleine

Bryce Anderson, model

When teen boys began wearing earrings, our principal, Father B, announced that if any male student showed up wearing an earring, he would insist that that student begin attending school wearing a dress.

During our annual “Irish Minstrel,” the basketball team performed a tune on stage while dressed in Roaring Twenties drag. (They were all civilians in my opinion.) However, a couple of guys performed a tune while dressed as a bride and groom. The bride’s “my girdle is killing me” line did not dissuade me that the bride was one of us.

Fast forward 50 years and a high school in Burlington, Vermont, put on a drag show during its homecoming halftime show. Both students and faculty femulated and the ladies were very presentable. (See for yourself on YouTube.)

I could see Father B letting us do that at old Sacred Heart... NOT!

Wearing Delfi Collective Brooklyn

Martin del Rosario, Paolo Ballesteros and Christian Bables femulating at the premiere of the 2019 Filipino film The Panti Sisters. You can view the film’s trailer on YouTube .

In honor of our favorite holiday on October 31, I am reposting past Halloween posts on Fridays. The following repost is from October 2009.

My Halloween “costumes” in 1983 and 2017

On the other hand, when I attend a trans Halloween event (like a support group Halloween party), I dress in a costume that a woman might wear on Halloween. For example, for my support group’s past Halloween parties, I dressed as a school girl, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, French maid, bat girl and Playboy bunny, among other things.

Why?

For trans Halloween events, the answer is easy.

I dress in a costume a woman might wear because in the trans world, I normally dress as a woman. As a result, a “woman on the street” costume would not be a costume (unless I dressed like a street-walker).

For civilian Halloween events, the answer is more complicated.

I could dress in a costume a woman might wear for civilian Halloween events, but I never have.

Like many of us, my first forays in public en femme were on Halloween. Just dressing as a woman among civilians was a major accomplishment and the thrill of a lifetime of anticipation.

Dressing like a woman on the street rather than say a Playboy bunny, I might get fewer of those knowing looks that imply that I crossdress more often than just October 31. But I always femulate too well, not like the average guy in drag on Halloween, so I get lots of those knowing looks anyway, but I’m not sensitive about it. If someone confronts me, I come right back with, “Normally, I only crossdress on weekends” and they don’t know what to say.

So dressing like a woman on the street for civilian Halloween events does not buy me much with regard to fooling anyone about my proclivity to crossdress. However, the comment, “who is the woman (referring to me) not wearing a costume” never gets old.

I guess that dressing like a woman on the street for civilian events has become my personal Halloween tradition. That’s my story and I'm sticking to it!

Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulating C.C. Catch on Polish television’s Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar). You can view this femulation on YouTube.

Peter Scolari, who played Hildegarde on the crossdressing television series Bosom Buddies, died yesterday from cancer. He was only 66 years old!

👠 👠 👠

In her Friday post, Rhonda (of Rhonda's Escape fame) cited an article that explains how the Femulation Nation’s national anthem, Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” was inspired by crossdressers.

👠 👠 👠

Wearing Isabel Marant

Tom Hanks and the late Peter Scolari femulating in the television comedy Bosom Buddies.

The first time I attended a support group meeting, I knew no one. The person running the group emailed me where the group’s meeting hall was located, but she was not in attendance, so I did not even have one person to lean on at the meeting.

To make matters worse, instead of welcoming a newcomer and trying to make me feel comfortable, I got the cold shoulder. After less than a half-hour, I got out of Dodge, drove home and swore that was my first and last support group meeting.

But I had to get out of the house en femme and even though the support group meeting hall was just another closet, it was a step out of the home closet, so I went back. And the second time, a couple of people talked with me and I started feeling more welcomed. 

It is likely that when a newcomer shows up at a support group meeting, it is her first time out of the home closet. She is probably very stressed out and needs all the help she can get. 

I never forgot that first meeting and I promised myself that whenever a newcomer showed up, I would go out of my way to welcome her and chat with her if she was so predisposed.

I made some long-time friends that way.

Wearing Boston Proper

Piotr Gawron-Jedlikowski femulating Magdalena Narozna on Polish television’s Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo (Your Face Sounds Familiar) You can view the femulation on YouTube.