transretrogurl

I am seriously hormonal at the moment, which is odd given the fact I don’t have ovaries and to date in my life the only issues with hormones I had was kinda growing boobs for a little bit during puberty, but at the moment I feel…..odd.

If you’ve been reading my posts you would have noticed a bit of a downtime followed by a manic blurting out of stuff around fighting the binge/purge T-cycle and coming to terms. Well, I’m still riding the wave and it’s and up and down trip. But I’m not going to throw on a Sisters of Mercy black PVC dress and daub myself in black eyeliner. I’m going to try something.

I find myself answering a lot of questions through emails and various contacts on websites and every time I’m asked the answers seem to squirm out differently. So this blog post is going to be me asking myself some of the questions I’ve got and being honest in my answers. It’ll be fun, I promise. And cathartic. For one of us at least, darling.

And it’s pretty long, so if you get bored I won’t be offended if you drift off.

Are you gay?

Always makes me chuckle. Honest answer? No probably not *but* given the fact I’ve been unintentionally celibate for seven long, long years and I wouldn’t have an affair with a woman out of respect and love for my other half, it kinda cuts down the options. If you’ve come from my Flickr account then there are a lot of picture descriptions that talk about Sarah and men-as-fashion-accessories. I write these because it intrigues me. She is, to me at least, an extremely sexual and attractive woman and it makes sense for her to be attracted to men.

See how I got out of answering that?

Now, when I’m Sarah I truly embrace the whole role. She fills every aspect of me, I delight in letting go of everything that ties me to the sex that I was assigned in the womb. I love thinking of her in intimate situations – not sex (mostly) but the delicate things that highlight the differences between the genders, kisses, touches, conversations.

It’s not about sex. Sarah isn’t easy. But she’s also not a prude.

Why the obsession with being a housewife?

So many reasons. Firstly, I’m into retro-fashion and the concepts of house-dresses, tea-dresses and the whole ‘woman’s place is in the home’ pre-feminist revolution ideas really appeal to me. Plus it’s the implication of her as a wife to a husband. I’d like nothing more than to spend a day, a weekend, a week as a housewife, tidying, cooking, watching Loose Women, all those stereo-typical feminine things. It’s a role-play, and if there was a service where I could hire a part-time husband for my photo-shoots I would do that every time – nothing highlights femininity by contrasting it with masculinity.

I may have mentioned this before but if I have, bear with me. When I first dress it feels odd, uncomfortable, restrictive and, yes, some of that feeling is very much fun in a kinky way, but if I stay dressed for a long time, say a couple of hours, over time I get an effect that is quite hard to put into words. It feels like I meld with the clothes, they fit better, they feel like a new skin and, most importantly, they feel *right*.

It’s an odd word and a concept, but if you’ve never experienced it, wow, you’re missing out. First time it happened to me I was wearing a 1980s house-dress, something Laura Ashley-esque, pottering around a tiny three-room flat I shared in Bristol with my first other-half. She always did a stunning job on my makeup, and this was before time and middle-age had conspired to make me a little pear-shaped, so I had a willowy figure and big hair. After an hour or so, once the pain of heels had settled into a dull ache, I found myself dusting the windows and it suddenly happened. A warm feeling came over me and I literally had to stop and hug myself tight, feeling the dress against me, and it felt like it was me. No dress-up, no pretend, I felt complete and normal.

So the housewife thing? Nothing beats that moment, especially if you are frocked up in something delightfully femm. It’s like a legal high and an instant sex change, can’t explain it better than that.

Do you plan to live as a woman full time?

Dear Lord, no. I have the ultimate respect for any T-Girl who makes that choice but I’m inherently lazy. The upkeep it takes to look good is a huge undertaking and I don’t have the stamina or any skills with a make-up brush. Plus, I like being a bloke a lot of the time. Well, not a bloke as such but you know what I mean. Sometimes it’s fun to leave the toilet seat up.

I have some very dear friends who have embarked on the journey to full time, and potentially beyond, and I’m happy that that is what they want to do and their destiny. Me, I love being Sarah occasionally – which is a fantastic word, as every time I become Sarah it’s an occasion I want to cherish. Doing it all the time would lessen her. Becoming her too often has already almost made me lose her.

Do you intend to transition at some point?

I like my genitalia. Yeah, it can end up abused (careful!) when I tuck and squash but when Sarah goes it’s nice to, you know, go back to the uncomfort of external organs. Plus I’m viking-tall and unlike Alexander Skarsgård I can’t get away with being tall and femm (go Google alexander skarsgård drag, I’ll wait…….see??? Hellfire, he makes an unbelievably attractive woman. Damn it.) so drab me will always be the one I return to.

For those who didn’t Google it, here you go. You’re welcome…

Why retro?

Ever worn a 1940s tea-dress? A 1950s swing dress for dancing? A 1960s mini-dress? A 1970s maxi-chiffon ball gown? A 1980s power-dressing pink suit? No? Well I have and the experience is just bloody sublime. Yeah, I’m a little obsessed, partly because I don’t want to live in the 21st century and my rose-tinted, horn-rimmed 1950s glasses tell me that it must have been deliciously fun to be a woman back then.

Of course it wasn’t. Women have it hard, a lot harder than men do, and those decades, even the 80s, weren’t a whole lot of fun for women. I just love the styles and the fact that the clothes are not what you see women wear nowadays. I love the idea of costume, always have, and in a way the retro-side allows me as a buttoned down, sensible modern-man to have some fun in a way that is utterly alien and different to my day-to-day life.

Would I want to spend all day in one of those outfits? Err, yes?

I went out on the town earlier in the year wearing a 1950s style navy blue frock with white polkadots and it had a silk-like lining on the inside that was unlike anything I’ve ever worn. It felt like luxury, pulled in tight around my bosom then flaring out over my legs. There’s just something about that previous sentence that makes me go weak inside. No idea why.

It’s also something I mentioned in my previous [Fashion] post about the clothes of now being less about fashion and more about conforming to a unreachable standard. I find retro clothes extremely femm and attractive compared to the body-con dresses we see nowadays, and to me the retro styles emphasise and encourage the body shape to be womanly. And they are a joy to wear.

Make-up and hair wise, again, I love retro stuff far more than today’s looks. We’ve become somewhat of generation that doesn’t take risks and it shows in the fashions and the limits of fashion. It’s like the movie industry – the money-makers have found the lowest-common denominator that appeals broadly, and the small, quirky fashion outlets suffer.

It’s shame, but on the other side it’s allowed retro-fashion to seep back in for those who want something a bit less mainstream, something more daring. I’m all for that.

Do you go out often?

LOL, no. I’ve been outside in the scary world dressed a total of four times in my life, twice as a teenager sneaking out dressed up (see previous blog entry on losing my, err, ‘spurting’ virginity in an awkward and gender defining way) and twice since Sarah re-emerged. Both times since Sarah re-emerged I had to be pretty well soused to go beyond the door, and as such both times had differing by similarly terrifying and ultimately disappointing results.

I feel to vulnerable to go out. Not physically (Viking blood) but mentally. I want to be Sarah out there, but the minute someone laughs or even does a double take my next-to-no confidence would go and I’d end up being him in her clothes.

It’s a shame and I intend to try to do something about it, but unlike some of my good friends who are both beautiful and brave I feel neither.

Do you dress often?

I worked this out for a laugh a while back. Since re-emerging as Sarah (27th March 2014) I have been dressed enfemme a grand total of…..wait for it….around 56 hours. So, 56 hours, or two and a half days, in two and a half years.

So, as a fraction, 2.5/912.5.

Or 0.27%. Yeah, ‘that’ often 🙂

What shoe size are you?

I wear a man’s size 10.5. I can squeeze my feet into a size 8 high heel. For about ten minutes before I feel like a Chinese woman with bound feet. A size 9 fits like a glove and, according to every woman I’ve ever talked to about heels, I get the same crippling pain after an hour of standing in them, so that sounds natural and correct.

What size dresses do you wear?

Oh, the life of a woman. When I was growing up (and not out) I could slither into a size 10, which was the same as my first other half and why I ended up wearing most of her clothes. And her mine. Which was probably one of the reasons we didn’t last as she really, really wanted to be the man in the relationship.

Anyway, I digress. When I stepped out, blinking, from the closet in 2014 I found myself having to buy size 20 dresses. I’ve lost weight, trimmed up, and now I can squeeze into a size 16 if I want to really go bananas with my corset, or size 18 which are starting to feel a bit large on me. Given my height it’s a nice balance, although one of my favourite looks recently (the Kitty dress) myself and Cindy had to peg to pull it in around me, which was both gratifying and a little depressing as I felt like a little girl dressing in her mother’s clothes as opposed to the trendy and alluring housewife I was aiming at.

And that’s it, for now….

Stay beautiful and quirky, you lovely people.