October 2002

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La Femme Silhouette

January 2003

Masthead 2003

Table of Contents

Important Notice
Never Say Goodbye
Sex Change for Clothing
Summary Book Review of Amy Bloom's Normal
My Skirt and Blouse give me magic powers
Moving
SPICE XI
Upcoming National Events

IMPORTANT NOTICE

It is with deep regret that I must announce the following statement.

Due to personal circumstances that have come up in my life, I feel that for the good of Alpha Omega, I must resign as Chairman of the Board for this coming year. Circumstances are that I may not be able to attend meetings; and, therefore, do justice to the chairman’s position.

I most sincerely hope the membership will elect a new chairman who can be an effective leader for Alpha Omega in the pursuit of its goals, and the goals of Tri-Ess. For fourteen years I have been proud to be a member of Alpha Omega, and to be of service to its members as I could.

I wish Alpha Omega well for the future.

Respectfully Submitted,

Gloria Sue Fenton

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Never Say Good-bye

Never say good-bye, good-byes are forever. Say, "until we meet again", for someday our lives' paths will cross again. AO has been a part of so many people’s lives that leaving something that is so dear to us is hard to do. There comes a time when we need to move on with our lives and find something new to meet our wants and needs. Sadly this time has come for many of us from AO. We all would like to extend our fond farewells. We hope for the best with all of you on your journeys.

May the road rise up to meet your feet.

May the wind always be at your back and

May the stars shine upon you and guide you on your life’s path.

Until we meet again we bid you all a fond farewell.

Cheryl, Lisa, Michelle,

Heleen, Karen, Diane Kent, Marissa, Ari, Gerri,

and other travelers heading on a new journey

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Sex Change for Clothing

Second to the jock strap, the piece of clothing associated most closely with men in Western cultures is the tie. While women borrow it, the same way they borrow shirts and pants, the tie has remained a quintessentially male garment....until now when someone got busy with scissors, needle and thread and performed a sex change operation on them. The following is take from the December 11th Issue of the Plain Dealer...the photo credits are from

http://www.style.com/styleapps/MSD/top.run?p=style&event=S2003RTW_PAUL

where the rest of Paul Smith's collection can be seen. (no copy or reuse restrictions)

Diane Frank

Dear MaryLou:

My husband has an amazing number of ties he no longer wears. You once gave instructions for making skirts out of ties. If you still have the "recipe," please print it again. —P.O., Golden, Col.

Dear P.O.: Not only will I give you the instructions, I can also report that Paul Smith, one of London’s top designers, just hit new highs on the fashion charts with his skirts made from men’s ties. In his case, the ties were all-of-a-kind (stripes), but an intarsia of many different ties would be right in the spirit of today’s patchwork mode. These instructions first appeared in a sewing book called Son of Hassle-Free Sewing."

"Ties should all be of the same fabric — all silk, all cotton or all polyester. Unfold ties, remove linings, press flat. Holding a tie against your body, decide how much to cut off at the top for desired length.

"Cut off all tops of ties to this length. Sew ties together to fit around your waist and hips. Join the two lengthwise, edges together, right side to right side. Pin seam, placing pins one-half inch from edge. Sew over pins. Remove pins. Press seam flat. For elastic waistband, fold over at top and pin. Tuck in raw edges at waist, leaving enough room to accommodate elastic. Pin. Sew over pins, leaving a 1-inch opening for elastic.

"Measure waist with elastic. Cut elastic to this measurement plus 2 inches for overlap. Snake elastic through waistline with safety pin. Sew opening dosed. Remove pins. If you wish, cut off points at bottom of skirt and hem. If you like the points, sew seam binding all around the outside of bottom, one-half inch from edge. When you come to the points, turn the seam binding over itself Turn seam binding in and hem."

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Book Review- Summary

I have completed a rather lengthy review of the recent book by Amy Bloom titled "Normal". The review is too long for publication in our newsletter, so I summarize quickly some of the key points here, and refer you to the complete review’s location on our web site.

"Normal" contains a longer version of Bloom’s essay entitled "Conservative Men in Conservative Dresses," published earlier this year in the Atlantic Monthly. That article focused on heterosexual crossdressers in general and in part on Triess, our parent organization, the Society for the Second Self. The book also contains chapters on Female-to-Male transsexuals and on people dealing with intersexual conditions. The chapter on Female-to-Male transsexuals is essentially the same as an article published eight years ago, while the material on intersexual issues with the medical profession’s actions issues is new. I found those chapters, two thirds of the book, unexceptional. But the chapter dealing with heterosexual crossdressing remains controversial in its expanded form.

Bloom’s thesis in the book is that things that people in mainstream America think of as abnormal really are normal. She makes a pretty good case of this for both intersexuals and Female-to-male transsexuals. With heterosexual crossdressers, especially socially conservative heterosexual crossdressers Bloom only makes the case in such a back handed way, such that no one would want to be that kind of normal.

What Bloom does, and I dissect in detail in the review, is claim that crossdresser’s wives are in unhappy marriages, but that’s normal. The expected state of a heterosexual marriages is that the wives are unhappy: "and if the price of a good provider and a decent man is not much sex and a certain amount of constant pain, it is not an unfamiliar bargain…". It is clear from interviews conducted elsewhere that this use of crossdresser’s marriages as a link to understanding heterosexual marriage in general is not something I’ve imagined, as she states the linkage explicitly both in outside interviews and the introduction to the book. Again, this kind of normality, an unhappy marriage being what is normal about crossdressers is not a very nice way of saying that we’re normal. Nor do I think that heterosexual marriages are normally unhappy.

Another major problem with Bloom’s book is her uncritical use of Dr. Ray Blanchard from Canada’s Clarke Institute in Toronto as an expert source. Blanchard’s published work largely deals with sexuality as the motivation for male-to-female transsexuals. It is often appropriated to describe heterosexual crossdressers in a "point-the-finger-at-someone-else" game. Bloom uses this unexamined description of sexuality as a springboard to describe her own discomfort with the crossdressers she meets in a variety of venues. I examine significant problems with Blanchard’s work, its application, and Bloom’s use of the material. If you are faced with the need to be able to discuss this in an outreach effort, you should pay close attention to the arguments in this section.

Finally, we have to deal with Bloom’s observations. Even though her primary interest is to make a case against heterosexual marriage in general, I find her observations of the ‘scene’ to be reasonably acute and hard to ignore especially as she is a vivid and expressive writer. The problem though isn’t so much whether the bad behavior she observes is real as the question of whether this behavior is representative of the general TriEss member. Bloom admits that she hasn’t focused on people who are functional and happy, but on people who are dysfunctional and unhappy. Overall, I wish she had achieved a better balance, and had listened to critical input on her use of Blanchard.

The original article appears at

http://triess-alphaomega.org/Webmistress_Choices/DianeReviewsNormal.htm

Diane S. Frank

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My Skirt and Blouse Give Me Magic Powers!!! -- By Diane S. Frank

Yes they do. My skirt and blouse DO give me magic powers. You see, I rescued this damsel in distress from some evil monsters who had stranded her on top of a pillar in a cavern full of other monsters. And in her gratitude she gave me her all...er well her skirt and blouse. Which turn out to have protection charms against magic and charms that fortify some of my attributes. So of course I’m wearing them. Wouldn’t you?

Now don’t you wish that were true in real life? I’ve been enjoying a first-person fantasy role-playing game called Morrowind. While in other games I’ve created female characters, in this one I created a male one. In this game, except for a few elements, the gender roles are egalitarian. Magical power and fighting skills are not sex limited or defined. The only nod to convention was this joke inserted by the programmers...at least I think its a joke.

Here’s what the character looks like fresh off the drafting table: The golden skin, pointy ears and the Shogun hair style all say "High Elf". The second picture is wearing Mara’s magic skirt and vest. The last picture is in full battle regalia including wizard robes.

lt got me thinking about the magic of clothing. What magic do you feel, and what magic do you create and share with others? When I think about this too much, the whole notion of crossdressing bothers me. Several years ago I stopped thinking, "Oh, I’m putting on women’s clothes", and instead I think "what would be nice to wear to AO or some other occasion?" But there is a magic in getting pulled together, jewelry and hair that a suit and tie just doesn’t offer. How does it work for you?

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