Being Me

What a curious notion, the gender reveal party ...

This is the Alice Cos Group , a dance group from China that features only males in their cast. They are all, to put it mildly, simply gorgeous and dammit, I'm just a little jealous! Admittedly, at my current age (let's just say that I go back a few decades and leave it at that) there is zero chance that I would ever be able to pull off the look even remotely as well as they can, but hey, a gal can dream! I'm also really jealous that they actually live a life practically straight out of a Fictionmania story; I would have leapt at such a chance at that age. Ah well, such is the dice of life. Anyways, a sample of their work:

Back in 2017, the Canadian government announced that it would allow a third option for gender on the passport which, basically, is an X for unspecified. Fairly recently, US airlines have started to allow for two additional options when buying tickets: unspecified and unidentified. Canadian airlines are pending guidance from the federal government before they proceed. All of which leads to me to ask, why is gender even on either? The prevailing argument I have heard is about identity confirmation, but I'm not really buying that. My passport has an "M" designation, but there is no law that specifies that I can't travel dressed and appearing very androgynous or feminine as long as the photo and I match up, at least within and between countries that don't kill transgender people. It's not like they check inside everyone's pants or up everyone's skirt at passport control points. Airlines also don't stop to confirm your bits before allowing you t...

Ever wondered how to shop online as your lovely self? There's a way and it's called, in the credit card industry, the authorized user. What is that you say? It's simple... An authorized user is basically a second card on your account where you simply need to provide some basic information, such as first, last, date of birth, and the like, but don't specifically have to provide additional identity information. Why? Because the credit is still only extended to the primary card holder, they're just authorizing another person to make use of it and thus they still hold liability. That means that the credit card issuer doesn't care and doesn't have a legal obligation, known as KYC, to confirm. So, needless to say, I have a credit card as lil' ole me, set up with Paypal as well, that lets me shop online for lots of clothing, shoes, and other feminine products as Joanne and have them sent to my home address. For spendier items, where you need a signature, ...

We're into sweater weather here in Ontario and that means cozy slippers, fleece-lined leggings and a nice wood fire. My last post was about comfy too. I think I reached those years where over-sized sweaters and fuzzy slipper socks are my go-to choices in evening wear. All that aside, I was thinking about the choices I have been making in clothing purchases lately and a great deal of them have been leggings/jeggings, hoodies, t-shirts, and other casual choices. Even some of my recent shoe choices have been way more on the casual side, despite the fact that I clearly enjoy heels as well. These sneakers I recently purchased, by Blowfish, are a great example of fun and casual that's caught my eye recently. Pair these up with a nice jegging and over-sized sweater, and you'd fit in nicely in almost any mall or store setting. Dressing to the nines is fun, but I highly recommend a major stock of casual in closet as well.

It's often a truism in the trans community that when we dress, we dress UP . However, there's nothing wrong with the comfy casual either! Consider, it's highly likely you own a few sweatshirts and that you find them comfy. So, extend the length of those a bit and you have a dress with all the same comfort. I couple these, usually, with leggings. A basic black legging with a grey hoodie dress is a comfy casual for lounging and being feminine at the same time. While leggings are a bit tricky when it comes to hiding nature's sins, but when worn with a longer tunic of some sort they work wonderfully. Wear some, you'll understand why so many women do. 😘

It's not too often that I'll drop super serious money on a dress and that is mostly a function of how frequently I'm likely to wear it. As a consequence, I tend to buy more inexpensive options and if I only get a few wearings, so be it. However, I'm a real fan of the Kate Spade look I have to admit. It's is ultra-feminine, chic, and arguably only rivalled by Ted Baker when it comes to hitting my like buttons. Both are also very spendy and that's really hard to justify when I don't get a lot of opportunity to wear. Now, with the dress pictured to the left, my spouse was all over my buying it. At the outlet, the dress was going for 75% off of list price and that put the price at $129.39 with taxes! Consider that, at the time of this writing, the very same dress can be had for $279.00 USD or, in Canadian dollars, $365.31! I think they call that a steal. So why was I buying it? Well, these shoes... A while ago I had picked up these shoes from 2 Lip...