Somebody else’s problem
That possible TG sighting on my course today got me thinking about ‘passing’ again.
Some trannies really fret about passing. They go on and on about it. The highlight of their week is a successful trip to Sainsbury’s without being clocked by anyone. I applaud the achievement, but I don’t personally want to replicate it.
Leaving aside the fact that I personally have about as much chance of passing as an oversized kidney stone, I’m not that interested in going unnoticed anyway. I want to ‘pass’ just long enough that the person on the street’s initial impression is that I’m an attractive girl, and then for them to realise that I’m a guy who looks like an attractive girl.
Yeah, basically I want to mess with people’s minds. So sue me.
I’ve said this before somewhere. I want to look like a pretty tranny. That’s different from wanting to look like a pretty girl. In my head.
Some trannies I know seem to have a kind of Somebody Else’s Problem field.
The SEP field is a cloaking technology invented by Douglas Adams for a book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Basically you could park a spaceship fitted with a SEP field in the middle of a cricket ground during the Ashes and no-one would see it, because it’s Somebody Else’s Problem and doesn’t even register at a conscious level. It takes a lot less energy to make people think that something's invisible rather than actually make it invisible.
My TG friend Sophie has a brilliant SEP field. I’ve watched her walk down busy streets and not one person bats an eyelid. Despite the fact that she’s got several features that betray her genetics, she somehow sublimates them and passes seemingly effortlessly. It’s almost magical to see. I always felt a little guilty going out en-femme with Sophs because my natural Stick Out Like a Sore Thumb field almost always cancels her SEP field out!
I felt like that today with the girl in the training centre eating her lunch at her laptop. The Trannydar went ding and I was left with the strong impression I was witnessing a top-class SEP in action. And maybe if I blinked or tilted my head a certain way I’d see through to what was really there...
...or maybe it was just a girl with big-ish hands and a continental attitude to eyebrows.
...
Come to think of it she’s probably wondering who the nobhead who kept tilting his head and blinking was... :-/
Some trannies really fret about passing. They go on and on about it. The highlight of their week is a successful trip to Sainsbury’s without being clocked by anyone. I applaud the achievement, but I don’t personally want to replicate it.
Leaving aside the fact that I personally have about as much chance of passing as an oversized kidney stone, I’m not that interested in going unnoticed anyway. I want to ‘pass’ just long enough that the person on the street’s initial impression is that I’m an attractive girl, and then for them to realise that I’m a guy who looks like an attractive girl.
Yeah, basically I want to mess with people’s minds. So sue me.
I’ve said this before somewhere. I want to look like a pretty tranny. That’s different from wanting to look like a pretty girl. In my head.
Some trannies I know seem to have a kind of Somebody Else’s Problem field.
The SEP field is a cloaking technology invented by Douglas Adams for a book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Basically you could park a spaceship fitted with a SEP field in the middle of a cricket ground during the Ashes and no-one would see it, because it’s Somebody Else’s Problem and doesn’t even register at a conscious level. It takes a lot less energy to make people think that something's invisible rather than actually make it invisible.
My TG friend Sophie has a brilliant SEP field. I’ve watched her walk down busy streets and not one person bats an eyelid. Despite the fact that she’s got several features that betray her genetics, she somehow sublimates them and passes seemingly effortlessly. It’s almost magical to see. I always felt a little guilty going out en-femme with Sophs because my natural Stick Out Like a Sore Thumb field almost always cancels her SEP field out!
I felt like that today with the girl in the training centre eating her lunch at her laptop. The Trannydar went ding and I was left with the strong impression I was witnessing a top-class SEP in action. And maybe if I blinked or tilted my head a certain way I’d see through to what was really there...
...or maybe it was just a girl with big-ish hands and a continental attitude to eyebrows.
...
Come to think of it she’s probably wondering who the nobhead who kept tilting his head and blinking was... :-/
Labels: transvestism
But I know what you mean about those girls who just seem to exude chuztpah.. they just blend in so well. I just feel so awkward the whole time.. kinda attracts attention, or at least it feels like it.
Jo - I don't know, barring the fantatists (pretended to be the wife at a high powered meeting and won the big contract) I think it could well be possible that some of the "ropies" do pass away after all most women look ropy most of the time, I know I do and if they are going out confident that they will pass maybe they've got their SEP going too.
After all most people wander around in a semi daze they are thinking about what was on telly, whether the gunners are going to get relegated, what's for tea, Oh look shiny thing in the shop must buy that.
They are not on the look out for trannies so they don't tend to spot them ever, Then those that do tend to be polite enough or reserved enough not to shout out "Ohh look Mabel a tranny"
I've spotted far more trannies on the mean streets of fenland since I've been reading tranny blogs 2 years ish than I did in the previous *cough* lots years because now I know what to look for, now I'm constantly looking for the signs.
Bushy brows? Tweezer action.
Big hands? Pockets - well, maybe some self concious behaviour anyway.
Although I do think Jane is on to something. The whole mundanity of everday life, means that when we try to 'blend' in, no one notices. The finger pointing and sniggering only starts when you've got your stocking tops on show and 5 inch patent heels on your feet at Waitrose.
Allegedly...
LOL
Only a girlfriend can get away with that sort of compliment :-D
Obviously I'm coming at this from a different perspective, but your training course goer could be a lot like me. I have big big hands, let's face it, but they're delicate, and I've had friends incredulous that they never realised the size, so clearly my hands generate their own little SEP field. Height? Is 6ft 2in enough? Yet some people don't pick up on that either. Voice? Sort of a cross between Cher and Mariella Frostrup I suppose. It's about bringing together all the little positives: manicuring, grooming, hip shape, the way you walk, the way you sound and speak, the subconscious mannerisms, and in cherry-picking the ones you can do best and in sufficient combination you can do surprisingly well.
Yet I had a friend a long time ago whose phrase was "Why dress to pass?" :-)
"My god, is that a man or a woman? I think it's a man but I could be wrong; it's hard to tell sometimes...not that I conciously look out for these things. Don't stare DON'T STARE but that is an adam's apple and the backs of her...or his...or it's...hands are hairy. OK, just because he's dressed as a woman doesn't mean I have to stare and make her, or him, self concious; they have a right to be here and express themselves like anyone else who am I to judge? You hear of people who think they're trapped in the wrong body and if I keep staring they'll think I fancy them which I don't...well, not much although they do look kind of convincing...or worse everyone else here will think I'm gay...maybe the tranny will think I'm flirting with them and there'll be some terrible social awkwardness...oh my god what if they're a nutter under that dress? What if they pal you up, invite them to your place and then butcher you like that tranny in that film? Or maybe they'll invite you to play some kind of kinky sex game with their transgendered friends oh no, not that, I couldn't bear that! What would my friends on the pub quiz team say? Just keep your head down, David, just pretend that they're just another man...thing...woman.
I think there is a broad spectrum of trannies from the fetish brigade where it's a sexual act right through to those who are en-route to TS. For me Kath is a different part of me, and she is as feminine as possible, so 'passing' is important, even though I've barely ever been out as Kath where people would get the chance to judge. I don't want to "want to mess with people’s minds" I want to mess with my own. If you've ever done role play (properly), that's the nearest I can get to explaining it, I 'role play' Kath. She'll never be a pretty girl, and I don't want to be a pretty trannie ('cause that would play with a different part of my head!) So looking like an average, middle aged woman, doing the shopping like lots of other average looking, middle aged women doing the shopping, is exactly what I'm trying to achieve.
The fact that it took me an hour and a half to look as good as a slightly stressed woman who's picking some stuff up, on the way home to feed the kids, after a tough day at work is neither here nor there!
On my one and only trip to Tesco's a few weeks ago, I wasn't aware of anyone noticing me and if they did, they didn't hit the fire alarm and start shouting TRANNIE while dancing around me and pointing, like I assumed they would. But I noticed some 'trannietriggers', like my path crossed another woman and I stepped back 'naturally', which was in a 'bloke way'. I was acutely aware that that's not how two women would pass each other but didn't know what I should have done 'differently'. Then in Tesco, the gg I was with went up to the clothing (sales) rack in an 'aggressive' manner while I held back, all ready doing the 'bored husband' routine while scanning the area from a distance. I then realised how 'odd' that would look to anyone else and dived in. Finally, the urge to look at people to see if they were looking at me. Of course if you look at people, they wonder why, and look back! It was *really* hard initially to look at the stuff on the shelves instead of other customers! Only when those female mannerisms are natural will you start to develop SEP. People want order in their lives. If the 'actions' are those of a woman, they think you're a woman. If there is incongruity, then they look closer to try and 'bring order' to what they are seeing. And that's when 'trannie' becomes part of their 'order'.
The brain is amazing at filtering out stuff; if someone turns up at work with new glases you might never notice, if they have a new hairstyle you'll notice for a week perhaps.
You could probably turn up to work in a blouse and, as long as it wasn't frilly, people wouldn't notice. You could turn up in a skirt and after a week they'd probably stop noticing.
Then they might notice they've stopped noticing and that would really mess with their heads :-)
A TS friend of mine told me that in her early days when she was flapping about being read in the street, her mum turned around and asked her "What makes you so important?"
It really made me stop and think, its so easy to assume that we're so fabulously interesting that people are going to be paying attention to us and not be wrapped up in their own worlds.
And Kath I can relate to those instincts giving the game away. I was in the ladies at a theatre once checking my makeup when a woman came to the adjoining sink to freshen up. We both had a moments eye contact in the mirror, and shared a polite smile. I realised she hadn't twigged but as we were leaving the loo, I instinctively held the door open for her. As soon as I did it I thought sh*t! She immediately did a double take, looked more closely at me and I saw the penny drop. Dam!
In town today I happened to see the towns resident OBVIOUS TRANNY. This old guys been at it for so long he's become a fixture. And you know what? Because he's now become a common sight; I didn't (and I'd say the same for everyone else) give him a second look.
I imagine these days, such "strangeness" is commonplace, and the enlightened 21st century person will take it all with out batting an eyelid.
I could probably walk around town naked and not stick out much. ;)
I find it depends on how cold it is!
Post a CommentPermalink Subscribe to comments: this post | all posts
<< T*Blog Home