Transitioning 101 - Makeup

Early on in this blog I wrote a short series of posts about makeup that worked well for me; and while some of that has changed over time, most of what is there still stands today.  That being said, the subject of makeup is a common one that I saw in the AskTransgender subreddit so I thought it would make a good topic for this series of posts.

Now, as with all of the posts in this Transitioning 101 series, what I'm writing about are my own experiences and thoughts and what you might have experience or what you may think may well differ from me and that's fine.

• For the most part I believe "less is more" when it comes to makeup.  I believe that there is a real art to applying makeup and making it look "natural" and for me it's been something that I've been learning over time.  Don't get me wrong, I do like to highlight something - be it with a nice lipstick, or maybe a bright eye shadow, but I try and focus on one area to emphasize and make everything else look natural.  I know there are plenty of people out there who don't agree and that's fine - and many of them look far better than I can ever hope to.  But I think for a great many women in general, but even more for Trans-Women trying to "blend in", a subtle touch when it came to makeup would be better.

• With that being said, one thing I try and keep in mind is that just because something looks good on someone else, it may not be for me.  The best example I have is red lipstick.  I just love red lipstick on a woman, I always have.  And for me, I think Taylor Swift wears it as well as anyone; but despite my proclivity to wear it around the house I seldom wear red lipstick outside of the house.  It just doesn't work as well for me as pinks and nudes do.  I wish it did, but it doesn't, so I'm judicious about when I go out with it on.  

• I believe that if your goal is to "blend in" then you really need to consider the time of day and where you are going when choosing what makeup (and not that it's part of the this topic, but the same can be said for clothes as well) you're going to wear.  If I run to the grocery store at 10am, I see very little makeup on, and for those that are wearing it, it's definitely a different look than I'd see out at dinner on a weekend evening.  Hey if you want to dress up and do your makeup for a night on the town to go grocery shopping, then by all means do so, but then don't be surprised if you get more attention than you might want.

• Perhaps the most important thing I can say here is that you shouldn't be afraid to go somewhere and ask for help with picking out makeup.  Places like M.A.C., Sephora, Ulta, etc., have all been very helpful for me.  They've helped match foundations to my skin tone for me, they've taken the time to show me how to properly apply certain things, helped me pick out shades of things that they thought would work well for me and so on.  And at all of the stores I mentioned, they've been very friendly and helpful.  I won't say it was easy for me to go into those places the first few times, but in hindsight I'm glad I did and the only regret I have is that I didn't do it sooner.  And while those stores carry more expensive makeup, for things such as foundation it may well be worth the price (it has been for me, especially early on before the laser really started doing it's thing on my face).  And while I still use expensive foundation when I'm dressing up, I've also been able to take that expensive foundation with me to places like Wal-Mart and match it up to far cheaper stuff to wear around the house or for those quick outings where I'm not getting "all done up".  Not to mention that some places such as Ulta do have some cheaper makeup of their own as well.

• I personally believe that a nice set of brushes is important - they don't have to be expensive.  I've got a couple that were a little pricey, but most of mine are cheaper - I really like Eco-Tools for example and you can pick those up fairly cheaply at Wal-Mart these days.  Same goes for e.l.f.  Actually it's not really a "brush", but my favorite tool is a $3 e.l.f. mascara/shadow guard (This one) it really makes getting my mascara on a piece of cake - especially for the bottom lashes.  Now some people aren't brush fans and use their fingers and/or sponges for most of their makeup, and in some ways I admire the fact that they are that proficient.  But for me personally I find I do a better job with brushes.  And definitely make sure to keep your brushes clean.

• Practice, practice, practice.  I'll admit that I was easily frustrated early on.  Not only could I not make myself look like the people I saw in magazines or even on Youtube, but I couldn't even look as nice as J or M did.  I'm not saying I can today either, but it's a lot closer now than it was back then.  

• Speaking of practice, it doesn't have to be expensive.  Yes, when I'm "going out", I do tend to use nicer makeup, but for practicing around the house the majority of makeup I use for that is cheap stuff from places like Wal-Mart, or even places like Dollar Tree.  Yes, it may be shades that I wouldn't normally wear, but I'm not concerned about that (at least not for the most part), but rather my technique.  For things such as eyeliner for example, I'd much rather waste a $1 on it at Dollar Tree than $10, $20, or even more on an expensive eyeliner.  And back to the "shades" thing, I tend to wear a lot of nudes as that seems to work for me; but when I'm practicing I tend to use bright colors intentionally.  The reason I do so is that those bright colors make it far easier for me to see what I've done as they stand out against my skin tone.  I'm not saying this is something everyone needs to do; but it worked well for me.

• Speaking of eyeliner, that is one of my pet peeves.  I just love it, I really do.  But I get frustrated when I see someone asking about what makeup to get started with and a bunch of people naming off 4 or 5 things and eyeliner being one of them.  Maybe I'm in the minority, but for me doing eyeliner nicely has taken a lot of practice, often frustrating practice.  I believe that it's easier to start with things such as lipstick/gloss, eye shadow, or even mascara.  And I believe that for many Trans-women that foundation and/or concealer should be more of a priority early on as for most of us there is a beard shadow to contend with.  I'm not saying that eyeliner isn't something to learn to use, but I just don't see it as something to drop on someone new to makeup.

• And lastly, let me say this - and it's really part of the upcoming "Shopping" topic; but the reality is that virtually nobody cares if you are in a store browsing/purchasing makeup, or anything else for that matter.  Most of the stores are just grateful that you are in there spending money.  And if you happen to run across an employee who is less than helpful then by all means either escalate it or go elsewhere (or both).  But whatever you do, don't go in with excuses like "it's for my wife/daughter/whatever", "I lost a bet", etc.  All you are doing is drawing attention to yourself that you otherwise likely would not have.  This is especially true at stores like Wal-Mart - the cashier(s) in general could care less what you are buying - until you give them a reason to care which is what excuses like those do.  And if you are visiting a "makeup store" such as Ulta, etc., be honest with what you need/want - it's hard for them to truly be helpful if you aren't being forthcoming.  Yeah, telling a sales associate that I needed help getting a foundation that would match my skin tone *and* cover any beard shadow wasn't the highlight of my day the first time, but because I was honest with her, she was able to get me what I needed and even took the time to apply it for me and explain what she was doing each step of the way and why she was doing it.  That visit was worth it's weight in gold to me going forward.

I intentionally avoided specifics on makeup brands and such here as I've touched on those elsewhere in the blog and really that's something that is more individual; but there are some posts earlier in this blog where I did touch on things that worked for me if you're so inclined - I believe there were 5 of them, scattered from November 2013 through February 2014.  But regardless of that, I hope something here was helpful to at least one person.

- M

Transitioning 101 - The Legal System

Among the last couple of threads I got involved with on the AskTransgender subreddit had to do with the legal system.  Let me say up front, I am (obviously) not a lawyer and I'm not here to provide legal advice.  That's not the point of this post.  Rather I'm going to make some observations and share some thoughts regarding my interactions with the legal system when it came to my transition.  Everybody's transition is different and everyone's experiences with their legal system are different, these simply relate to how it went *for me*.  So with that being said, let's touch on a few questions I've ran across and my thoughts on those questions.

• What should I wear to court for my name change?
  
  My opinion on that is that you should wear something that you are comfortable with.  For those of us who are MtF that might be a dress or skirt/blouse, for others perhaps not.  What I will say is that you should dress "respectfully" for the court.  Some judges simply won't care what you are wearing, but there are plenty who do and in my mind I see no reason to potentially antagonize a judge.  So I'd recommend against things such as blue jeans, shorts, flip flops, etc.  Now if that's all you have, then that's all you have, but even in that case try and look as presentable as you can.  For me personally I chose to wear a dark skirt/blouse, dark hose, dark closed toed (conservative) heels, some light makeup, and light jewelry.  I wanted to present as if I were heading to work for the day and I felt that I did; plus I wanted to "dress up" a bit as it makes *me* feel good to do so.  Now because I was going to court for both a name and gender change I didn't end up with the typical family court judge.  I did peek into that courtroom since we were early and I would have probably been a bit overdressed had that been where I was headed; but I would have been fine with that as I'd rather be overdressed than be under-dressed.  The courtroom I ended up in only had the court personnel and several lawyers and I felt my outfit fit in with what the lawyers were wearing, including my own; though she had the courtroom cleared for my hearing so I guess it didn't matter.

• Do I need a lawyer for my name change?
  
  That's obviously going to depend greatly on where you are going to court, but the general consensus is probably not.  In fact, when I did my consultations for my name/gender change, I saw three lawyers and all three said that the process here was simple enough I could do it myself if I chose.  However, the fact that I was trying to more or less go around the state statue on gender marker changes I felt I needed one.  I won't say she was "cheap", but I felt she was worth every penny I paid her as she made the process incredibly easy for me.  But if I had only been doing a name change I likely would have done it myself.  The best thing I can say is that a great many lawyers do offer a free initial consultation and I'd recommend that it can't hurt to take advantage of that in your own jurisdiction.  At worst you are out some time and at best you can get an idea of if you really do need/want an attorney for the process.

• Can I get my gender marker changed on my birth certificate?
  
  Again that greatly depends upon where you were born.  Here in the United States the laws vary from state to state.  Some states the process is actually fairly easy, some states appear to not allow it at all, and some like my own have various requirements such as surgery.  However, even in those states, the statutes are often ambiguous and in some cases that means with the right approach the change can be ordered by the courts when it might appear otherwise.  In my case, my birth certificate wasn't overly important to me, but my license was, so that's why I pursued it.  The fact that I do now have an updated birth certificate is nice, but in reality how many people will ever see that?  My license being changed was what mattered to me and if I had been able to get it easily changed I likely would not have pursued the legal avenue I used.

• What if I can't get my birth certificate or drivers license gender marker changed?
  
  Unfortunately many people run into this.  I can't tell anyone what is best for them, but had if it had come to this for me I probably would have pursued getting my passport changed.  The Federal government has greatly simplified the process over the last few years and the reality of things is that a Passport is often a better identification that a drivers license anyway.  Now in my case I have not bothered to change mine since I was able to change my birth certificate and license, but it is on my list of things to get around to.

• Does my state/city/etc have Transgender protections?
  
  Some do, most don't.  But even for those that do, how good are they?  There are plenty of employment protections out there for various things, but in a great many cases these mean little.  If a company, or simply someone within the company, wants to get rid of an employee the reality is that it's generally very easy to do and very difficult to prove it was discriminatory.  I'm not saying it's impossible to prove that, but it's almost always an uphill battle.  

• My job is discriminating against me, should I sue?
  
  This ties in with the above question and is one of my main agitations with the AskTransgender subreddit - everybody wants to tell people to get a lawyer and sue for the slightest thing.  Again, I can't/won't tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do.  What I will say is the following, and again I am not a lawyer, though my father-in-law is and I've solicited his thoughts as well.  Long story short, proving discrimination for anything is often difficult at best, and when it comes to gender identity it's often virtually impossible to do.  I'm by no means saying it cannot be done, as it can.  But unless you literally have a "smoking gun", it's likely going to be a long and usually expensive process and the majority of the people I see asking this question are usually working entry level jobs and simply aren't going to have the resources for a protracted legal fight that they likely can't win.  Now perhaps they can find an attorney that will take the case either pro bono or on a contingency basis, or perhaps a group that specializes in this sort of thing; but even then chances of proving discrimination is still likely a very uphill battle.  And what happens if you do win?  Do you really want to work for a company that you feel discriminated against you?  Or if you end up with a financial gain (either via a win or a settlement) have you poisoned your future job prospects by doing so?  And are you prepared to have your life put on display in court?  Again, I'm not saying that anyone should or shouldn't pursue legal action, that's a decision that each individual needs to make, but you had better be sure that the potential benefit outweighs the risks of filing suit.  I personally believe that if you absolutely feel you can/should sue then by all means do so, but I'd exhaust every other avenue first.

I think with that, I'll wrap this one up.  Again, these are simply my experiences and/or opinions.  Your experiences will obviously vary and you may well agree or disagree with my opinions (especially on the last two points) and that's fine.  I'm by no means saying I'm right and/or anyone else is wrong, but this is how things have been for me and/or how I see things.

- M

Transitioning 101 - My Thoughts On Various Topics...

As I've mentioned here before, during the last 12-18 months I've spent a lot of time on Reddit; and of that time most of it has been on the AskTransgender subreddit (henceforth referred to as ATG).  I tend to stay out of the debates there, and instead try and focus on sharing my thoughts and experiences where I think they might be helpful.  I wouldn't call it dispensing advice as each and every person is different and as such each and every person's experiences are different.  But I do know that as I chose to transition I personally found it helpful to read about other people's experiences about various things, such as choosing a therapist, going to court for a name change, what to expect from HRT, and so on.  Since I feel I benefited greatly from reading about others experiences I've always felt that I should at least try and "pay things forward" by sharing my own.  Hopefully at least one person somewhere found at least one thing I've shared helpful.  That's also part of the reason I started this blog back when I did.  It's not the only reason, in some ways it's sort of an "online diary" for me, but in reality the main reason was to share my experiences for anyone who might want to read them.

So what's my point with this post?  Well, the drama over at ATG has picked up again - the second time in less than a year - and I'm really tired of it.  For those to who don't hang out there, the long and short of it is that apparently the moderators can't get along again and the two newer ones (of the four that there were) have both quit very publicly and what followed were diatribes and plenty of post/comment deletions to the point that things were spilling over into other subreddits.  Frankly it's a shame that it's occurring at all, but to happen for a second time in less than a year is really inexcusable in my mind and I've had enough.  So rather than continuing to wallow in the mess that is ATG I've decided to focus what time and effort I was spending there back on this blog.

With that being said, rather than spending time there commenting on certain posts/topics that may catch my eye, I'm going to start a little series here - Transitioning 101 - that will contain my thoughts and experiences on certain topics that were common questions on ATG.  While this little corner of cyberspace doesn't have anywhere near the reach that ATG does, there are a few advantages to this forum.  Among them are no space limitations, most people who run across this will be actively searching for things versus simply trolling, and as I'm the "moderator" here I've got all the leeway I need to write as I see fit.

As I said in the first paragraph, everyone is different and each of our experiences with anything are going to differ.  As such, these topics will be a very YMMV.  Just because something worked well for me (or didn't), or because I had a good (or bad) experience somewhere, well it doesn't mean that's how it will be for anyone reading these.  However, that aside, I do hope that at least one person will find at least one useful thing in this little series of articles and if so then that will have made it totally worthwhile for me.  And if nobody does, well that's too bad, but I'd still rather dedicate my time here than continue to hang out in the mess that is ATG these days.

In any case I've got the first couple of posts in the series already written, so at least I'll be a touch more active here than I've been the last couple of months.

- M

Why Do So Many Have Such A Large Sense Of Entitlement???

Most of what I write here tends to revolve around either personal experiences and/or in relation to transitioning; but this particular topic really is neither; but it's been gnawing at me for a while now.  Perhaps I'm showing my age, but I'm just wondering at what point it became vogue for so many people to have such a sense of entitlement.

A great example of this would be the current "controversy" over ESPN's "Bracket Challenge".  The rules clearly stated that an entrant must be 18 years of age to be eligible for the promotional prizes.  Well as things would be there is a 12 year old who apparently chose to enter and finished tied for first and now there is a fair amount of clamor that he should get the prize.  For starters, the rules clearly state that the "Grand Prize" goes to a "randomly selected winner from the top 1% of entries"; so the fact that he finished tied for first wouldn't guarantee him anything to start with other than some bragging rights.  But even if that were not the case I have an issue with those (including he and his family) that seem to believe that ESPN should award him the prize.  He plain and simple violated the rules.  Why should that behavior be rewarded?  And in reality it would appear that by him doing so, he's knocked someone who followed the rules out of the top 1% and cost them a chance at the grand prize.  Look, assuming the young man did make those picks on his own, then kudos to him for finishing tied for first.  But, it should stop there.

Another of my (not) favorite examples is "so and so makes more money than me, but they haven't been here as long".  Did any of the people saying things like this ever stop to think that perhaps the people they are referring to might have more qualifications or experience?  Or that they've simply done a better job and are deserving to make more?  Or even that they simply negotiated their starting wage better?  For that matter, have they bothered to speak to the powers that be regarding what they make?  In general, it seems that the answer to most/all of those questions is usually no - they simply believe that they should make as much or more because they've been there longer.  Yes there are jobs (often union jobs) where they would, and while I personally was brought up pro-union and understand what they have done and continue to try and do, I am a firm believer in paying for performance over longevity.  I could go on and on with this particular instance as I dealt with it quite a bit as a restaurant manager over the years, but that's probably better meant for it's own post at some point in the future.

I have plenty of other examples, but rather than going into them I thought I'd wrap up by tying this into the Transgender community.  For me, I want to be accepted as a "woman" - it shouldn't matter if I'm a cis-woman or a trans-woman - I am a *woman*.  In order to do that, *I* believe that I can't expect special treatment/favors because I am in fact a trans-woman.  But I see plenty of others trying to use the fact that they are trans-women/trans-men to their advantage.  I've seen some do it for college/grad school admissions, scholarships, internships, etc.  Now I'm not saying that there aren't legitimate reasons to point out that someone is a trans-woman/trans-man, there are, rather I'm talking about those that simply use it to try and "get ahead".  Look, if that's what they feel they need/want to do, then that's their decision and that's fine.  But for me, I don't believe in doing that, and while I won't judge anyone else for doing it, I also cannot condone it as many of these same people would be the first to complain when they don't get treated the same as a cis-woman/cis-man.  So if they want to use their status as a trans-woman/trans-man to their advantage that's fine, but then don't come crying when it doesn't work out in their favor.

I'm quite sure that there are those of you that will disagree - it happens with most of my "opinion" posts, and that's fine.  I'm always open for debate on anything, but for me personally I really do believe that as a whole the sense of entitlement - especially in the United States - has gotten completely out of hand and we are a worse country today because of it.

I could go on, but truthfully my mind is starting to wonder a bit, so I will cut this short now.  As far as a thumbnail goes, I'm going to go with a caricature that I had done a few weeks ago.  It was done by Marcus Sakoda who I ran across on Reddit.  He's very talented and I think he did a great job with the picture I gave him, which happens to be one of my favorite pictures of J and I.

-M

St. Louis Area TG Experiences - Part 10

I hadn't realized it, but I haven't posted one of these posts in nearly six months.  Part of the reason is that we are really "creatures of habit" and tend to visit the same retailers, restaurants, etc., but the reality is that the bigger reason is that anymore I really don't give much thought to how I'm treated when I'm out and about.  I simply "expect" to be treated well and the reality is that I almost always am.  I can't recall the last time I had a poor experience.  I'm not saying I haven't gotten referred to as "he"/"sir"/etc., I have a couple of times, but in each instance I/we had ran out at the last minute and I had went "as-is" without wig/makeup/etc, and in each occurrence it happened after I opened my mouth and spoke in a male voice (not intentionally, I just didn't think).  But even with all of that being said I have had a few (positive) experiences I thought I'd write about while they were still at least semi-fresh in my mind.  

UPDATE:  Since the "prior" posts links were getting a bit long, there is now a page with links to all of the posts:  My Transgender Experiences.

Restaurants:

• Longhorn Steakhouse (O'Fallon, Missouri) - I've been here a few times over the last few months, once with M, once with J, and once for lunch with both of them.  All three times the experience has been top notch.  Two of the three times I've been "done up", but even the one time I went in "as-is" I was treated wonderfully.  I'm not a steak person per se, so I tend to have a burger, but the food has been very good each time and the service top notch.  We don't go out for lunch all that often due to our schedules, but when we do, this Longhorn would be at the top of the list.
• Texas Roadhouse (O'Fallon, Missouri) - The last time I had been here was before my transition, so it had been a while.  No particular reason as the food/service had always been good, it just hadn't happened.  J and I hit there for an early dinner recently and the food/service was just how I remembered it and as with Longhorn, I could not have been treated better.  

Retailers:

• Sam's Club (Wentzville, Missouri) - M and I have had a Sam's Club membership since 1996.  However, I never, ever go, M always does.  Well lately there have been a couple of times where it would have been convenient for me to go by myself or with J and my card was my original one from 1996 with my old name and *really* old photo on it.  As it was both J and M were off one Tuesday evening so we decided to run over to Sam's and get this rectified.  I had hoped to be able to change my name in advance online, but while Sam's allows for secondary cards to be updated online they do not allow for the primary card to be done - at least I couldn't find a way to do it.  Not being sure what I might need, I grabbed my court order, my passport (since it had my old name/photo that matched my Sam's card), and my current license and we headed over.  Frankly I was shocked at how easy the process turned out to be.  Now there was a touch of confusion on the young lady's part who was helping me as she thought I was updating M's card - so once I clarified that no - I was in fact updating *my* card, all was good.  I think the whole process took maybe 5 minutes, if that, and a good portion of that was actually getting my photo done and the card printed.  All in all, it was a very painless experience - just how I'd like to think it should be.  And so I have a thumbnail for this post, here's a photo of J and I before we left the house.  Not one of my finer photos - it looks like I have a "pregnant pooch", but if that's the worst thing going on for me I guess that's alright. :)

• Costco (St. Peters, Missouri) - The same evening that J, M and I visited Sam's Club (as I discussed above), we decided to go to Costco and get a membership there.  Long term I doubt we need both a Sam's Club and a Costco membership, but we figured it wouldn't hurt to try it for a year and see which one works out better for us.  Since we were a "new" signup at Costco it took a bit longer than at Sam's, but the process went just as smooth.  The woman who helped us was polite and professional and a real pleasure to deal with.  The same could be said for our interactions with everyone else there as well.  I'm not sure how often we will shop there since it's a bit further from us than Sam's is, but I was definitely comfortable being there.

Well it's Monday morning and it's getting to be about time to start work, so I'll stop here.  As always thanks for reading.

- M