Explaining my actions

I wasn't going to blog about this, but I decided I should explain why I outed Lana as a fraud on my Flickr stream. In some ways I feel guilty for doing it, but I can't deny a huge sense of satisfaction at the same time.

I might have outed her less publicly if she hadn't once written in her blog:

"[I hate] people who look at your online photos and ask 'Is that really you?'----well hello, why would anyone bother promoting someone else's photos and not their own.Asking this question only shows how insecure or jealous the Enquirer is anyway."

That comment was probably aimed at me. I'd contacted her via messenger just before, and asked some pointed questions along the lines of "how do you manage to look so good, when you say you're not a model?"

The blog has gone now, it disappeared last night along with her MSN space and Flickr stream. So if you're unsure what pictures I'm talking about, you're too late to find out!

There was something far too-good-to-be true about Lana's pics. They were almost all expertly lit and photographed, wearing fab clothes with perfect makeup. Even the "grungy" ones had a knowing, staged quality. Every new picture posted to Flickr was greeted with a flood of comments from other trannies praising her beauty and style, which she was all too happy to accept. But I started getting more and more trannies in my neck of the online woods privately asking "is Lana for real?".

It was difficult to prove, because the person (or people) Lana chose as her "avatar" wasn't a well-known model. I scoured loads of sites showcasing fashion models (I freely admit that I got a bit obsessive about it) but nothing turned up. Then, weeks after I'd posted it, someone replied to an message I'd left on a fashion forum, asking if the pictures on Lana's stream were of a known model. They included a link to the profile of a model called Amanda Jo. Jackpot! Once I knew the name, it was quite easy to find other pics of the same model to confirm the profile's validity.

I realise that this sounds like crowing. I suppose it is. Let me try and explain why I got so obsessed by it.

The thing that galled me about what Lana was doing was the fact that she was, perhaps unwittingly, making a lot of trannies feel in some way inadequate.

It took me a great deal of time, money and effort to get to the point where I got pictures I'm pretty proud of. And then I'd look at some pictures of other t-girls and think "boy, if only I could look like that", knowing deep-down that I didn't have the figure/face/budget to ever pull it off. That's the luck of the draw. I envy the t-girls who do it better than me, but at the same time respect them, because I know that it doesn't happen by accident. You might have a feminine face or figure, but you'll still look like a guy if you don't work hard to emphasize it.

I also respect the t-girls who'd are even less blessed in the face and figure department than me, if they've obviously made the effort. Other trannies will say the same thing, I think: no matter how you look, if you've made the effort you're welcome in the club.

Actually, that's probably the ultimate answer to the dumb question I'm sometimes asked: "how do I become a transvestite?"... Make the effort.

When someone decides to skip all the hard work, find some pictures of a person (or persons) they'd like to look like, and publishes them as their own; that's wrong. It's mocking me, and it's mocking every other t-girl who dared to put a real picture of themselves en-femme online and say "this is me".