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I don’t think any transgender woman’s path to her own womanhood should be taken lightly.
We take many many years of experimentation before we reach a point where we can even venture out in the public’s eye without the fear of being made fun of, or worse. The problem is even those born female don’t have an easy path towards making it to woman hood. Another problem trans women have which extends far past what cis-women face is we don’t have any real mentors to help us with basics such as makeup and wardrobe. In most cases, we have to sit back and let testosterone ravage our bodies with unwanted male changes. By the time we can start hormone replacement therapy later in life, it is too late.
Also, as soon as we discover the art form of makeup and wardrobe, we also are faced with how to more completely present our new feminine selves to the world. I remember my very early days when I went to transvestite mixers up in Cleveland, Ohio as well as in nearby Columbus, Ohio. I found quite the layers of different people attending, all the way from those still dressed as their male self to those impossibly feminine women who I called the “A” Listers. Even though the “A’s” had been able to conquer the appearance part of being feminine, on closer inspection, it seemed they had a long way to go to capture the art form of having any class at all. In fact, I nearly changed my terminology from “A” Listers…
