Dear Jessica -
What a week!!! As you know, I've been involved with my theatre show since last Sunday, with the final performance being yesterday evening (Saturday). Generally, I suppose it was a good show, but unfortunately, it was rather an anticlimax for me after my 40th birthday celebrations [1] and my trip to Norwich on Monday [2], but I made something of it nevertheless - as you'd expect me to!
I wore my glittery nail varnish all week, of course, and yes, I did wear my kilt to the after-show party on Friday! I didn't have the time or the inclination to dress fully, so I wore it with just a red short-sleeved tee-shirt, white ankle-socks and trainers (and my male underwear, of course!). If anyone asked, I said it was a kilt rather than a skirt, although I don't think they were fooled - especially as I was wearing heavy mascara, loads of perfume, and large dangly ear-rings; I guess I was just a bit apprehensive at taking that final step and admitting what I was doing. But a couple of the girls said that the socks and trainers didn't go with the "skirt", and didn't I have any other shoes? Well, yes, I did actually - I'd put a pair of 3-inch heels in my car before I'd left home. "Oh, you should've worn them at the party", they'd said afterwards. Well, I'd reckoned at the time that maybe a third of the society's members knew that I was a tranny, but apparently, news of my birthday party had got around, and my internet site was becoming required reading, so had I worn my heels, I doubt whether anyone would've been particularly surprised.
A lost opportunity? No, not a bit of it! There was another party last night at the home of a couple of the society's members (who co-incidentally had been at my birthday party), so this time I wore the kilt as a skirt, with my heels, and showing the red varnish still on my toenails after my trip to Norwich. I felt a bit self-conscious at first, but apart from a couple of people lifting the hem to see what I was wearing underneath, everyone treated me exactly as they'd always done - the only comments I received were about how tall I'd suddenly become (!), and how relaxed I looked. Now, I know that some of my close friends within the society are aware that my real passion is clothing equality rather than 'true' transvestism, and they also know how frustrated I'd been feeling of late, having gone about as far as I could towards this goal through gender-bending. The next logical step was to actually crossdress, and I got the feeling that they were pleased I'd felt comfortable enough to do it in their presence. The interesting thing is that, by the end of the evening, I felt more at ease than I think I'd have felt had I been fully en femme.
Although I'm not foolish enough to think that the rest of the world is going to be so understanding, I'm happy to have broken down the barriers to crossdressing within the confines of my theatre group. I may never turn up at a rehearsal fully dressed, but I'm looking forward to being able to wear something genuinely femme once in a while, rather than having to hint ever louder through gender-bending devices such as large ear-rings, which, I've been told, make me look like an old hippie trying to recover his youth. How kind!!!
From a personal letter.