transretrogurl

I know, I know, I’ve been lax in writing stuff. In my defence this whole cosy-apocalypse pandemic has been, well, on, under, in and pressing down on my mind lately. Also I managed to sneak in not one but two flying visits to Boys Will Be Girls in the last three weeks, partly because I needed to get out of the house or go cuckoo-bananas and partly because the government seems to be in the middle of trying to lock us all down again; having an eight month hiatus from Sarah, not of my choice, has left me a little desperate when it comes to getting my fix.

The flying visits are great and a wonderful little adventure. Up at 4:00am, shave the face (the body gets done the night before). Hop in the car at 4:30, zip along the motorways until I hit the A40, sit in rush hour traffic into London (I genuinely hate driving in London due to everyone being a nutter but oddly enough rush hour is fine, as long as you ignore the motorcyclists who seem determine to steal my wing mirrors), eventually get to Cindy’s around 8:30, park the car, ten hours of sheer joy, then three or so hours drive back.

And the drive back is always amusing because I tend to get a mild reaction to the makeup remover, so I’m literally blinking the whole drive back, and sniffing my wrists ever five minutes or so to smell the fading scent of Chanel No.5. Home at 23:30ish, shower, sit in bed perusing the photos until 3:00am, up at 7:30 for work.

But, as per usual, I digress. Why the title of the blog?

Well, this whole Covid thing has left me with way too much time to think and way too few ways to have fun. So I have ended up thinking about everything a little too hard; hell, what else do we have to do?

See, the trans community is vast and there are many, many facets. On the whole we’re a friendly and supportive bunch, but there are distinct different types of trans as I have pontificated on before. But thinking deeply about it, which I seem to have done nothing but in the last six or so months, it becomes apparent that, at least for me, there’s something deeper going on.

Some of us want to be women. Some of us have a fetish around the emasculation side of cross-dressing, the loss of power, the adopting of a submissive role. Me? Well, it’s definitely a fetish, or has been for a long time, but there’s a simpler and more blunt reason for my cross-dressing.

I don’t want to be a woman. But I also, desperately, don’t want to be a man.

Come to think about it, it’s always been that way. I hate the machismo, the brutal one-up-manship (sic) of it all. And thinking about it gave me a sweet little epiphany – pretending to be a man takes a lot of effort.

Lately, given I now work exclusively from home and don’t have to exude the body language that we men seem to have to do around others, I’ve found myself, perversely, more relaxed than I have ever been. Sure, I’ve been anxious, snappy, the rest due to the constant fugue of Covid misinformation and mismanagement, but not having to constantly hold up the shields of masculinity is a joy.

And when I get a chance to dress the relief, because that is what it is, of buttoning up a dress and feeling it flow around my stockings is sublime. All the effort I have had to do on a daily basis just flows away and it feels natural, relaxing and contented to be dressed as a woman.

I genuinely didn’t realise the effort I have had to put in to the ‘drab’ personality. The off-colour jokes, the binge drinking, the sexism, the blunt ignorance of things that are gentle. It’s tiring and monotonous.

But I don’t want to be a woman. I’m not ignorant enough to think that adoption of a role or even transitioning would solve all my deep-rooted issues with masculinity. Femininity has its own pitfalls and traps. I just, well, don’t want to subscribe to the binary definitions we have; masculinity strong, blunt, coarse. Femininity weak, gentle, submissive.

I’ve been in relationships with women for twenty-eight years of my life and having been brought up in a sh*tty situation where you have to watch for micro-changes in a person’s mood or behaviours I’ve seen how crap the world can be to women. I’ve also existed in complete masculine environments, the military, Government, the worst examples of male-only groups.

Away from cross-dressing I’m always a little depressed as to why there isn’t an acceptable middle group. Why boys can’t be sensitive and gentle without being labelled as being broken or homosexual. It is not about the sex, it’s about the mindset.

I cross-dress for many reasons; the expression of femininity, the release of the stereotypical masculine rough edges and yes, the ability to be perceived as attractive.

And here’s the odd thing about all of this. If a middle ground was acceptable would I still do what I do? There is a component of what I do that is all about being different, being outrageously outside what is classed as ‘normal’. For a long time I thought, and was probably right, that the dressing was a two finger gesture to the bullies who made my early life so miserable. But again, we’re they bullying me because I was weak, or did they subconsciously see what I refused to admit myself?

As I get older and the effect of the bullies, childhood, society fades a bit in the list of things that are important it is just getting more and more obvious that Sarah is me, the drab person is a construct that takes a lot of energy to maintain. And Sarah is trans; not a woman, not a man.

I think the big take away for me from this is that I really need to assess who I am. The alpha male persona is getting too heavy to pretend, Sarah is a breath of fresh air. Yeah, this is probably down to over-thinking but what else have we got right now?

Anyway, I have two sessions worth of gloriously fun pictures to process; I promise to write some Frock Tales very soon.

Stay beautiful and always stay true to yourself, not stereotypes or what others think you should be. There is no wrong when it comes to your perception of who you are.