Siriano had another fun run-in with the evening’s host, Dirty Sexy Money’s transgendered star Candis Cayne.

Siriano was onstage and uttered his catchphrase “hot tranny mess.” Cayne came from backstage, my source says, and hissed, “I hope you aren’t talking about me.”

Siriano insisted he wasn’t, cooing, “You’re a hot tranny success!”

Contrast this with Dominique from “America’s Top Model.”

TVGuide.com: C’mon, you’re not at least a little sore about all the transvestite remarks you kept getting from the judges?

Dominique: Honestly, I took being called a transvestite as a compliment. I mean, transvestites are some of the most beautiful women in the world. They carry themselves sometimes better than most women. There’s so much grace, poise, and the makeup and hair are perfect.

Dominique, you are so hot tranny fabuliciousness.

Interestingly, a female friend commented that I’ve been trying too hard to blend in, and I well, blended in. She thought there was a bit I could do to look glamourous — but that looking that way would draw attention and was I ready for that. It was a good question. As a crossdresser attention is a two-edged sword. Am I getting attention because I’m
beautiful or because I’m being read — or both.

On one of my mailing lists someone asked whether going out en femme and not trying to pass is a sign of total acceptance of transgender expression, or just poor skills in transformation, or possibly a mild antisocial behavior.

It can be any or all or the above. There was a famous rich “character” named Neil Cargile who started cross-dressing (and was profiled in the New Yorker). He looked slapped together and there was absolutely no chance he’d be mistaken for anything but a guy in dress. OTOH, I wonder if he wasn’t a crossdresser, but rather just doing it for the
attention (he’d been an attention getter most of his life). OTOH, deliberately being sloppy could be a way of disguising that he really was experiencing transgendered feelings. We’ll probably never know.

On another list, someone else had some good definitions: “Passing” is the ability to present oneself as the gender they are portraying. “Minimal passing” is being recognized as the gender one is portraying in a public environment. “Ultimate passing” is being recognized as the gender one is portraying in a conversational environment. “Fantasy passing” is being accepted as the gender one is portraying among teenagers at all times.

What she calls “minimal passing” I think of as “blending in,” which is something I try for. I’d prefer to be seen as just another woman. (If society were a bit more accepting and I were a bit braver, I’d also like to do the Eddie Izzard-gender bending look some of the time, but that’s another story.) But realistically I’m going to be read some of the
time, which is why my other goal is being “presentable.” If you’re read and you act like you deserve respect, my experience is that you’ll usually get it.

Here’s my tip — drawn from Gerald Weinberg’s excellent “Becoming a Technical Leader,” which has a lot about learning to manage yourself before you manage others.

Many of have got a what family therapist Virginia Satir calls a “survival rule” — typically acquired so early in life often that we don’t remember learning them explicitly — deep somewhere in our psyche that disapproves of crossdressing. The good news is that its possible to transform these “rules” into “guides.”

The first step is to state the rule clearly and explicitly, for example:
I must always help everyone.

Next, acknowledge the rule’s survival value and strike a bargin with your unconscious mind. You might be tempted to get rid of the rule once you’ve stated it, but that would be a big mistake. Typically with “survival rules” the reasons behind it have been lost in the past and all that’s left is the strong emotions surrounding them — like the fear that something terrible will happen if we don’t help everyone all the time.

So even if you don’t know the origins, you can say to yourself “This rule has been valuable in enabling me to survive, so I have no intention of getting rid of it. I’ll keep it around for use when the proper occasion arises. I may add some new rules, but the old one will still be there if I need it.” Doing this provides the safety net your unconscious mind needs to accept the rest of the transformation. Your unconscious probably won’t speak to you in words, but your body will respond with feelings that tell you whether it’s OK to proceed to the next step.

The next step is to give yourself a choice. For example:
I must always help everyone.
becomes
I can always help everyone (if I choose to).

Next change the certainty of the rule (“survival rules” are usually absolutist in nature) to possibility. (Plus many of us also have a “perfection” rule that compounds things and you may need to address that rule before proceeding further.) So that:
I can always help everyone (if I choose to).
becomes
I can sometimes help everyone (if I choose to).

This still raises the issue of perfection, so the next step is to change the rule from totality to non-totality, so that:
I can sometimes help everyone (if I choose to).
becomes
I can sometimes help some people (if I choose to).

Once you’ve made these sorts of big changes, it’s relatively easy to decide when, where and how you want to apply the rule. You want to avoid replacing one rigid rule with another rigid rule, so it’s a good idea to come up with at least three examples as you transform that general into the particular. So for example:

I can sometimes help some people (if I choose to) when….
they ask me clearly for help
I have the skills to help them
I have the resources to help them
it fits me to help them
I choose to help them
I will be able to tolerate failure to help them

Once the transformation of the rule is complete it’s helpful to write it down. Then once you’ve had a chance to practice applying the new rule you can revisit the written version to see how things are going. This fulfills the promise you made to your unconscious and acknowledges that one isn’t perfect. So you may also want to revise or clarify one of the particular conditions. For example, you might find that:
it fits me to help them
is better stated as
the two of us can arrive an an open, explicit and limited contract for help, and I feel good about that contract

Changing “survival rules” doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, but it does work — although it’s not flawless.

First off, let me point out that woman aren’t born knowing this stuff, they learn it, which means we can too. I learned from watching “What Not to Wear” (which shows that women definitely aren’t born knowing how to dress stylishly), as well as Suzan Nanfeldt’s excellent book “Plus Style,” which intended for plus-sized women. It’s out of print, but usually available on Amazon for about $30-40 and is money extremely well-spent. There’s also lots of info available online if you go looking.

Let’s start by dispelling a myth—black isn’t slimming, tailoring is slimming. OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole. Dark colors do help make things appear smaller. But a big mistake plus-size women make is to wear stuff that’s baggy, which makes them look ever bigger. Whereas something that’s nicely fitted—not skin tight, will actually make you look slimmer. BTW, this also works well for male clothing too. It is scary to do initially, since you think it’s going to show off all the places you’d prefer to hid, but trust me, it actually looks much better if done right. Of course, there’s places where you strategically want some loose fabric — one of the great things about wrap tops is that bunched fabric near the waist is great for camouflaging a bit of stomach flab. But this illusion works in large part because the rest of the garment is fitted, so it doesn’t appear as if you’re trying to hide something.

Let’s dissect a “dressy casual” outfit I typically on outings to nicer places.
I’ve actually got broad shoulders and a short, thick neck. So I usually try to wear V-necked tops, which both makes the neck look longer (and therefore slimmer) and the V-neck also pulls the eye inward, minimizing the shoulders. I also usually wear a pendant necklace, which draws the eye down and away from the neck. Since the abalone sequins on my black knit top are pretty dramatic, I wear a small, subdued pendant, so it wouldn’t fight with the top.

My leather jacket has a bit of princess seaming which tends to be slimming. Also since the jacket was unzipped, it created a vertical line, which lengthens you and again is slimming. I’m six feet in 2″ heels, but there’s a number of women of equal height, so I don’t worry about it.

Most of the time out in public I’ll wear pants unless it’s a transgender event. I know, the horror… the horror… but the fact of the matter is women wear pants most of the time, particularly in the San Francisco where it’s usually cool and often foggy or windy. Wearing a dress or skirt in that weather will make you stand out regardless of what sex you are. So I wear a chocolate brown pant with stripes. The low contrast between the brown pants and the black top helps create a seamless line, which again can be slimming. On the other hand, one can also use contrast intentionally. For example, a dark top and light pants or skirt, will make your bottom half look larger. Which is why many women avoid this, but part of the secret is learning how to intentionally break “the rules” since our bodies are built differently that women. The stripe in the pants actually isn’t a good idea if you’ve got a big butt, because the lines emphasize the curve. Which is exactly what I’m trying to do. The pocket on the back of the pants, also emphasizes the size of the butt. Admittedly, wearing my Veronica 2 hip pads help a lot. (Glamour Boutique’s Sweet Cheeks pads, are a good, less costly alternative, since like the Veronica 2, it uses a single pad that wraps around each hip/butt check and avoids the lumpy look of other products that use four pads. The trade-off is that unlike the Veronica 2, the Sweet Cheeks aren’t custom fit.)
My boots are relatively narrow, at least compared to my male shoes, but I also chose a pant with a bit of a flared leg, which makes the boot look smaller in comparison. (Flared sleeves on a shirt create the same optical illusion, making your hands look smaller.)

As far as hands, mine are slim-fingered, but still pretty large. So I generally avoid bracelets and lot of jewelry, which draws attention. But it does help to “scale up” the size of jewelry to look proportionate. So I’ve got one ring that’s got a large stone (about an inch long) on it. Likewise, I’ve got a man’s watch that I actually bought for guy-wear, but was a bit too small (the face is 1″ and the watch itself is quite slim, similar to the Skagen watches). However, it ended up looking just right for femme wear. When I wear polish, I wear a light color that doesn’t draw the eye too much and since it blends with my skin color, it lengthens the fingers, which narrows the perceived width of my hands.

My face is broad—even for a guy—so I choose a wig that curls inward a bit at the sides, which narrows the face. I also choose one with some chunked highlights, which makes it look more “natural” than a mono-colored wig. Switching to a longer style also looks more feminine, although you don’t want to go too long and you should be aware of the length that women your age wear (often women tend to go shorter as they get older, but it’s not a hard and fast rule).

In summary, much of learning what to wear is just learning to how to use the illusions that clothing can create.

Here’s what I did.

First I started by painting the nails beforehand. I got a 3-foot length of 1/4-inch square dowel and applied a strip of double-sided tape (to hold the nails in place while painting them). Since the tape tended to “unfold” off the towel, I used some regular Scotch tape around the back to hold the double-sided tape in place. Then I put the nails down on the dowel, spaced about an inch apart to allow enough space to be able to paint the whole nail cleanly. Then painted like you’d normally would. (Since the nails can be reused, it’s worth putting on two color coats and top coat. Be sure to wait at least 10 minutes between coats and give it an hour to dry after the final coat to avoid smudging.)

It doesn’t have the same ritual appeal as doing them on you fingers, but it’s a lot less messy and you can do your nails ahead of time, so you’re not waiting for them to dry before going out. I went ahead and did a couple sets in different colors.

Once the nails were dry, I took them off the dowel and flipped them over and applied the glue, spreading it around the inner surface of the nail. (Be sure not to let the glue spread beyond the area where your nature nail will go.) I then let it sit for awhile (I shaved and did my make-up) to let the glue get tacky so it wouldn’t run off while I was putting the nails on. It takes at least an hour or two for the glue to dry to a gel, and this is critical, since nails won’t stay on securely otherwise–as I found out to my embarassment. However, once it’s reach the gel state, it seemed like it stays that way.

Just to be safe I left on the clear coat I normally wear on my nails before putting on the fake ones (to avoid any effects from the glue). (Note: I’ve since found the nails stick better without polish.) Once on, the strength of the glue seems to be comparable (or maybe a little stronger) than the Kiss One-Step nails I’ve used. I wore them for an evening (including doing a bit of typing on the computer), slept in them and even took a shower with them the next morning just to see how much they could take.

One did pop off while lifting a heavy box, probably it just got pushed at the wrong angle. I discovered that once a nail comes off, you can press it back on, but the bond isn’t that secure, so it would be better to apply new glue. Another came off in the shower, so like the One-Step nails, it may be sensitive to water.

Getting them off wasn’t difficult. I just took the orange stick that’s included with the nails and used it to loosen each nail, starting from the outside and working slowly in, so as not to use too much pressure.

There was a little bit of residue on my nails, but it came off with a good washing. (The bottle suggests using vegetable oil to clean up, but I didn’t need to.)

So far, so good–I can use something besides the One-Step nails, which can’t be painted. (Since they’re French manicure-style, you get a two-tone appearance if you try to paint them.) But the real test was whether I could more than one wearing out of them.

With a little scraping (with both the orange stick and my fingers), I could get most, but not all, of the old glue off the inside of the nails. (I didn’t think to try the vegetable oil.) Applied a new layer of glue over the old, and lo and behold it seemed to work as well as it did the first time.

Some caveats, I didn’t wear the nails that long–less than a day–so I suspect like the One-Step nails, it only good a few days at most. Second, the old glue does accumulate, so I’m not sure how many wearings you can get out of them. (But I’ll let you know once I get some road time with them.)

One nice advantage of this method over the One-Step nails, is you can prepare a duplicate set (sans glue) which you can throw in your purse with a set of nail (sticky) tabs–or a tiny bottle of the glue–for use in emergencies. Donna T. suggests using Glue Dots, which look interesting, but I haven’t used them myself.

• Avenue, which carries both plus-sized clothing and shoes. I’ve found their Cloudwalkers to be quite comfortable.
• Designershoes.com
• Lane Bryant Catalog — I’m not a fan of their clothing, which is dowdy compared to the Lane Bryant retail stores (which are a separate company), but they’ve got a lot of large-sized shows.
• Pierre Silber has a good range, but leans more toward club/fetish shoes.
• Womenshoesplus.com

Payless Shoes and Nordstorms carry large sizes and Nordstrom’s Rack (their discount outlet) in particular often has large sizes at good prices.

The good news–the author, Paula Begoun, generally likes MAC products, although she thinks many of the Full Coverage shades don’t match well (I’ve noticed mine seems a little peachy) and are a bit heavy. She really like the Illuminare foundation that some others have mentioned. No word on ColorTration unfortunately.

The even better news–many of the product reviews are available for free on her website, which also offers a line of skin and cosmetics that Begoun create herself out of frustration with existing products. (Yes, there is a bit of conflict of interest to her reviews, which Begoun is upfront about and in her book she doesn’t rate her own products for that reason.) Haven’t tried any of the Paula’s Choice stuff yet, but some of her skin care product look interesting.

For what’s worth, a female friend of mine tell me women are generally so preoccupied with finding a stall, or talking with someone, or checking their make-up that they’re not usually paying much attention to what’s going on around them, so it you’re quick and confident about it, you probably won’t have problems.
Generally, it’s best to go in, do your business–making sure the feet are pointed the right way, wash up (women don’t skip this step) and get out. Don’t adjust your make-up, strike up conversation, etc. And be sure to clean up the seat if you miss–it’s just good manners regardless of how you’re dress.

If someone is confrontational, just let them know you don’t mean to intrude but you really need to pee and it’s not safe for you to use the men’s room. If they’re still confrontational, then discretion is the better part of valor–so just go ahead and leave. It’s not necessarily illegal, but you can get charged with “disturbing the peace” or whatever other charge that might come to mind of a cop–and you’re the one who’ll have to disprove it.

If there’s a single-stall restroom, then using the women’s isn’t really an issue. In the States, there’s an increasing number of “family restrooms” that are also single-stalls (also with baby-changing tables) and single-stall restrooms for the disabled that are the best choice for the crossdressers out on the town.

Say something to the effect of “thanks, but I’m not interested” or “I’m flattered by your interest, but I’m hanging out with my friends tonight.” You don’t have to make a big deal out of him being a man, although if it’s a “mixed” gay/straight bar, letting him know that you’re not into to men might be appropriate if said in a matter-of-fact way. Then go back to what you’re doing and don’t act intimidated. So far it’s worked for me.

If he doesn’t take no for an answer, then let the management know you’re being bothered. That’s one reason I tip well, it tends to make the bartenders be protective of their good customers. If they make a scene with him, then it is wise to be safety conscious leaving afterwards and perhaps have someone walk you to your car.