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 Author
INDEX

[Upfront] The Month
[The Buzz] Club News
[The Party] Alpha Omega and Me
[Life Lived] Bits of my life
[Perceive] Read the Signs
[Blogosphere] Banishing cockroaches
[A CD Eye for the Arts] Travesti Duet
[From the Archive] Who's Zooming Who: Part II - July 1995
[Last Laugh] “Eet wheel not zeep”

[Upfront]
THE MONTH

Chairman, Gloria Fenton, leads off discussing her first AO Christmas party and its impact on her life.

Diane Frank on frenzy, films, freaks, 'fraidness, forgetting, french phrasing, photo op'ing and... um... forgetfulness.

Blogosphere: “many weblogs are densely interconnected; bloggers read others' blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others' blogs. Because of this, the interconnected blogs have grown their own culture” - so says Wikipedia. I'm connecting us to this "culture" by posting an enlightening Helen Boyd interview by Damian McNicholl which was originally shown on his blog a few months ago.

Artists, Bernard Buffet (FR) and Gusfaaf Sorel (BE) portray mid-twentieth century tranvestites.

Eleven years ago current member, Deborah Lee, talked of the self-abuse inflicted "trying to annihilate that which you know is the best part of your being..." (first time on the web)

There's humor, and more!

Elaine

[The Buzz]
LOCAL NEWS

December Birthdays

[The Party]
ALPHA OMEGA AND ME

By Gloria Fenton

I have been a member of Alpha Omega for a total of eighteen years now. I am not one of the original founders of the group, but I am an official old-timer in the group. My first A-O meeting was the 1988 Christmas Party that was held at a member’s house, as were all the meetings back then. I wore a new pull-over sweater that I had brought just for the meeting, along with a pair of dark brown slacks, and a pair of dark brown heels. My hair was even a medium brown color then.

In fact, at one time, my ex-wife Ellen, had worn my wig, and liked the style enough that she had her own hair cut to match it. The color was already a match to her hair color. As a point of irony, my wearing Ellen’s things had been a major factor in Ellen leaving me. Yet, except for the sweater and the heels, everything else I wore to my first A-O meeting were clothes of Ellen’s that she gave me to wear after she left me.

That meeting was my first time for me to be Gloria. Until a month before that meeting, I had never had a name before. So it can be said that Gloria came to life at the first meeting. I had gone to the meeting as Martin, carrying a suitcase full of stuff, but I drove home as Gloria. The part of my being that I had buried for thirty-eight years, deep inside me, had found life; and for the first time I was not ashamed of being who I was.

I knew that I could not go back to hiding the part of me that was Gloria. I also knew that as Gloria, I had so much to learn about being the new me. Meetings became my times for me to grow and learn. My third meeting brought about a major change for me. Our speaker was talking about wigs that night, and I was coaxed into having her fix up my hair. About twenty minutes later though my old medium brown hair was sitting on a table, and I was looking into a mirror as though for the very first time. There I was with a new hair style, and new hair color. The amazing thing to me was that my new hair just seemed to be a very real part of me. And so was created, Gloria, the blonde.

I had never been a blonde before, and had not really considered it, since Martin’s hair was dark brown, and I had virtually always had medium brown hair. As a point of teasing me about my new hair, Tanya called me “the blonde bimbo.” I have been blonde to the bone ever since then.

A-O helped me to find my life, helped me to discover the person I was and became and helped me then discover the things that truly were important to me, as Gloria, and as Martin. So began my dedication to A-O to help others discover the persons they are -- so they can find what is truly important to them. I was fortunate that Kathy understood me, and still does.

I have seen many people come and go in eighteen years. Only Deb and Elaine have more time in A-O than I do. Both of them have also, over those years, had their dedication to A-O through doing the newsletter and holding offices. I am so very proud to call them my friends, and A-O owes them gratitude for their caring.

For eighteen years, the Christmas Party has been a time for me to remember when I found my life, and I began on my own journey of discovery. The best is yet to be.

Sincerely, Glo

[Life Lived]
BITS OF MY LIFE

By Diane Frank

Holiday Season is frenetic for everyone, but add trying to put on a face and fix your hair before you go out the door in 30 minutes less than normal time and it becomes truly an obstacle course. That eyeliner and mascara you thought you had put down right here, migrated to over there, and you are running out of your favorite eye shadow, and wait where did that blemish come from? Oh my, the matching hose has a run in it and I’m down to my last pair… oh fudge! And, this doesn’t include having the right thing to wear. It’s a hard life.

Just before the Thanksgiving weekend, I went with a friend from my book circle to see Fur: the Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. The late Ms. Arbus was played by Nicole Kidman with wonderful intensity. Now why is Diane Arbus of interest here? You don’t know her? I’m not going to put in the Wikipedia link here, but Arbus was an internationally known photographer whose oeuvre was pictures of the oddballs and weirdos in society. Us, among others. She was not attracted to pretty, but to the fringe. The movie suggests that her own discomfort with her compulsions (according to her unauthorized biography as a teen she… oh, read it yourself) lead her to feel more comfortable with the outcasts of society than with her privileged NY family.

Which gets me to my editorial point for the evening: To what extent do we stay in the closet or only hang out with other CDs for the same reason that Diane Arbus did - that our sense of being an outsider makes us uncomfortable being with “normal” people?

The usual story we tell is that we stay in the closet or go only to CD friendly bars and/or support groups because we are rightfully afraid of being out in public - of coming out and so on. But, maybe there is another component - that of finding people with whom you don’t feel like a freak, because they are freaks too. I think I went through a bit of this thinking eight years ago, when I first started dealing with who I was. I thought that maybe the demimonde of dark sleazy bars, where people stopped wrestling with their illicit desires, were where I could be comfortable. It turned out that didn’t work for me, so I had to find my way back into mainstream society, via Temple and my book circle. But I wonder how many stay because they feel most at home there, feeling themselves to be freaks at home among other freaks.

This Holiday Season continued with a bang, or maybe a shriek. Our own Chloe Prince led an expedition to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show – the live stage version - at Cleveland Public Theatre. I guess there were nearly 20 people who were lured out of their closets, their bars and perhaps their isolation by this venture. I couldn’t get a good count because as usual, we got there late and grabbed the first seats we could find. We stayed put because we had a good view. I was surprised that people tended to hang around their seats at intermission rather than meeting in the lobby, so we only got to say hello to Laura and Chloe, who of course go everywhere. I’m guessing also that we were the only people who recognized elsewhere in the audience, a certain former AO member, “CH” and her writing partner for a certain genre musical (in drab) and said hello. Where has our sense of history gone? And of course, someone wanted to get home, so we didn’t hang around afterwards. Still the accounts are that all had a wonderful time.

However, I wasn’t all that pleased with the production itself. Besides the glitches in the sound system, some of the actors were simply hard to understand even with the microphones working. And at this point, Rocky has lost the power to shock. The almost complete cross casting of parts was amusing but bland. And, missing was the audience participation. Yes, some people knew the lines to shout back, and the timing of the narration and some of the dialogue was clearly aimed at providing space for the ritual audience remarks that have grown with the cult status of the movie. But without an audience well grounded in all the interactive bits, the pace seemed off. Maybe another night with a better-prepared audience would have been a more engaging experience. This is however, the second production in a row where I think CPT has overreached its grasp.

The following day I was at Temple again. The senior group was having a cultural afternoon, and the program attracted me. I did get some ribbing from all these little old ladies and men about how tall I am. But nothing else. I really need to learn some more graceful comebacks for that sort of thing.

Tonight I’m just back from Book Circle, and besides getting a not-half-bad picture of myself with my good friend at her birthday party this summer… (there was a lesson there I was going to mention, but I’ve now forgotten.) That will have to wait until some other time. I’ll remember it eventually… and no! of course not. I’m not going to post that picture on the internet. But that’s also another story, as will be the rest of the Holiday Season. May all you and yours find joy and contentment in the season and the New Year to come.

[Perceive]
READ THE SIGNS

By Gloria Fenton

Seeing me now, it may be hard to imagine that I ever had a 36-26-37 figure, but I did. I had good muscle tone in my legs, and I could fill out a pair of hose and a short, pretty dress quite nicely. Believe me, when a woman tells you that you look better in her dress than she does, it is not necessarily a compliment. And when a woman starts wearing nothing but slacks or jeans, and does not buy pantyhose at all, it is a good sign that she does not want to see your shaved legs in her stockings.

Giving away her prettiest shoes so that you can’t wear them is also another good sign that a woman does not want to see you walking around “like a woman” in them. When a woman sees you in her panties, pantyhose, and bra, and tells you with tears in her eyes, that you look just like her, it is not a good thing to happen.

A woman telling you that you are more feminine than she is as you tug the hem of your skirt down is not good either. Nor is it good when a woman tells you that you look too pretty. A woman staring at your breasts while she knows you are wearing her bra is not a good sign. Her adding that you show more cleavage than she does is also not good.

When a woman sees you in her panties, pantyhose, and a pair of her dress slacks and she tells you about your panty lines, it is not a good thing. Having less panty lines than her is definitely not good. If she wears a girdle, and you don’t need to, I guarantee she will not like that. Looking good in her nightgown is not good.

Being able to wear smaller dresses, shorter than she wears, does not set well. Still being able to wear a skirt that shrank and become too tight and too short for her to wear is not good either. Wearing pierced earrings when she can’t is not good to do. Having a woman tell you that your wig looks better than her hair is not a good sign. Looking in a mirror too often to suit her is also not good, even if you know that she checks herself out in a mirror more than you do.

Knowing about, having, and wearing more make-up than her is also not a good thing. Nor is having more jewelry than her, and wearing her jewelry more than your own. Wearing her formal gowns in front of her is not a good idea. Shaving you legs more than she does is not good.

A woman knowing you are wearing her favorite perfume is not good. Wearing something of hers that you are not supposed to wear is really bad news. When a woman tells you that you look too damn good as a woman, it is seldom meant well. Wearing nail polish on your fingernails when she doesn’t is not good. Painting your toenails when she doesn’t is also not good. Wearing her maternity clothes is not a wise thing to do.

I would also not suggest having a woman see you in any work uniform of hers. In my case, it was waitress uniforms. I also wore a slip that fit me very well, only to find out later that the slip had been a gift, and that the woman in question had never worn it herself. It was not a good thing to do.

Wearing something brand new before she does is also not good. It is also not a good idea to see a woman in a very attractive outfit, and then tell her that you want to wear the outfit too, so you can see how it looks on you. When a woman finds out you wore a dress of hers, and then tells you that she purposely bought the ugliest dress she could find so that you wouldn’t wear it, it is not a good sign.

Having a woman find you dressed as a woman when she is not expecting it, is not good. Looking too much like her makes it even worse. Don’t’ ever tell a woman that you look better in her clothes than she does. In anger, I made that mistake twice. It is much worse when you sense that they think that, too. It is not good at all.

If a woman ever tells you that you are more of a woman than you are a man, it is not good. Worse yet is if she tells you that she sees you as more of a woman than she is. Even worse is when she tells you, that in her mind’s eye, you are a woman to her.

I have known everything that I have told you about in this article, but was too dense at the times they happened to know or do better. I got too hung up on my needs, and failed to recognize the things that should have been more important to me. I hurt others, and myself, so needlessly. So I would tell others that read this, to read the signs in your life. I saw the signs, but did not heed them. Don’t make the mistakes I did.

Sincerely, Gloria

[Blogosphere]
Damian McNicholl's Blog

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Banishing cockroaches

Last June in NYC, at the Lambda Literary Awards, I had the pleasure of meeting author Helen Boyd, a heterosexual woman married to a heterosexual crossdresser, whose book My Husband Betty was an award finalist. We exchanged books and, as I looked at its contents and cover, it set me thinking about these people and their community and the prejudices they must endure and fight to overcome. As the offspring of parents who were brutishly discriminated against in their own country, and as a member of a so-called 'alternative lifestyle' minority, I have absolutely no tolerance of prejudice and bigotry, or of people who herald these human flaws as qualities to aspire to, and shall in my own way try to shine the light of education on difficult subjects so that all cockroaches will eventually be exposed and banished.

I, too, have in my life been prejudiced against different kinds of people. It's inescapable, the product of being reared in a homogenized community. We learn it from watching our parents deal with others, from our teachers, from our vicars and priests, from all in positions of authority. I think all young people growing up in conservative communities are saddled with that burden, and we spend the rest of our lives--the intelligent, enlightened ones, at least--trying to erase the marks of that onerous saddle. With regard to crossdressers and the transgendered, my prejudice was based entirely on ignorance and laughter. By laughter, I mean laughing at, not with. I have had no dealings with crossdressers, nor have I made any attempt to befriend such people. After all, it is so much easier not to befriend those regarded as outcasts or defective by society; it saves one from having to explain how one came into contact and befriended such a person to one's 'normal' friends. In fact, until I met Helen, I hadn't pondered my prejudice about this to any degree, unlike for example, the way I occasionally ponder the paucity of black, Indian or Pakistani friends I have got, and how few of them I encounter at the dinner tables of my friends, both gay and straight, in suburban America.

My knowledge and experience of men dressing as women is limited--as will most likely be the case of my Brit and Irish peers--to bizarre and comic characters on the telly such as the effete Danny Leroux (I think that's how his name is spelled and he's Irish, I believe) and Dame Edna Everedge (Australian, and used to be pretty tight with Maggie Thatcher as their politics were the same) and the slaggish Lily Savage (now retired by her creator, Paul O'Grady) who began her meteoric rise at a South London pub called The Royal Vauxhall Tavern where I used to drink on occasional Sunday afternoons. In other words, my contact with crossdressers amounted to watching drag queens, both those on stage and the garish, sharp-tongued wags inhabiting the periphery of gay life.

My friend Lee of L&L also read My Husband Betty recently, found it fascinating and had this to say:

"The book was very funny and at times heart wrenching...the author does a wonderful job of letting us into her life both good and bad..."

So I've invited Helen Boyd onto the blog to shine a light and hope you enjoy learning about what she has to say about her friends and community.

DMN: Helen, thank you for taking the time to answer some of my questions.

HB: Thanks for inviting me.

DMN: The preface to your book begins: "I never thought I would write a book about crossdressing, but when the opportunity knocked, I couldn't resist..." You are a heterosexual woman who's married to a heterosexual crossdresser. Is this quite common in the crossdressing community?

HB: It’s very common – since gay crossdressers don’t end up married to women, and hetero crossdressers often think that getting married will keep them from crossdressing. So a lot of women find out years into a marriage, and are upset by having been lied to. I was lucky in that Betty told me before we got married, and even though I did a lot of research, I still wasn’t fully prepared. I should add that Betty never thought of herself as a crossdresser – that was more what other people called what she did, but she didn’t use a label – and has come, over time, to identify as trans, or transgender.

DMN: Can you talk a little about your relationship with your partner and share with us some details about the community?

HB: Betty and I had to forge our own community to some degree; we feel most at home with lesbians who are hip to transness, trans people who are hip to GLBT people, gay men who are hip to crossdressing, and tend to hang around most with other trans-couples (ie, where one person is trans and the other isn't, usually, like us). We think of our community as the queer community, which consists of a lot of smaller communities. We also, of course, have friends who are artists, especially actors (as Betty is one) and writers (because I'm one). But historically, the "straight" crossdressing community tends to separate itself from GLBT people, often while mumbling something about how straight they are. We found that hypocritical, and so never felt really comfortable in a community we were told we "belonged" in. Luckily, a younger generation of CDs is rejecting that homophobic and transphobic attitude, too.

DMN: What percentage of crossdressers are heterosexual and what percentage are homosexual, or is that too simplistic a categorization?

HB: It’s too simplistic. There are definitely both types, but any guesses at what the percentage is – even if you were to force all of them into one category or another – is unknown. A lot of crossdressers’ sexualities involve feeling “like a woman” sexually, by which they mean being somewhat coy and submissive, and being the one seduced. Some of the “straight” ones, as a result, end up experimenting with men not so much because they’re sexually attracted to men but because being with a man makes them feel like a woman. Some of them probably like men, too, and crossdressers will often have sexual relationships with each other, too. Sometimes they’re bisexual but their bisexuality is dependent on their gender presentation. And others, like Betty, only love women. (The whole “opposite sex” idea gets pretty complicated when someone switches genders, as you can see.)

DMN: Is it fair to say that the world of crossdressers is not discussed often in Western culture and is thus misunderstood? If so, what are the major misconceptions and how do you and your husband try to overcome them?

HB: I think most of the time crossdressing is dismissed as a kink, or an eccentricity, but the feelings behind why people crossdress are much more complicated than that. It’s not like collecting vintage ties, and it’s not a “lifestyle.” It’s more a quality of life kind of need, along the lines of being gay or lesbian – yes, it’s something people can and do repress, but doing so isn’t a good way to be mentally healthy. But it’s also not entirely about sex, either, though it can be deeply connected to sensuality. I think the one thing I can say for sure is that most of what people think they “know” about crossdressers isn’t always right, and probably isn’t even usually right. Very few crossdressers fit the textbook definition of seedy men getting off on wearing women’s underwear. For some, the crossdressing is an outlet for gender dysphoria, and for others, a way of embracing sexuality in ways they can’t as men. Basically, there are as many reasons to crossdress as there are crossdressers (which is usually estimated at somewhere between 2 – 5% of the male population.) Many crossdressers are starting to identify as transgendered – either because they feel dually-gendered or because they have deep feelings of being gender dysphoric – that is, that they were assigned the wrong gender at birth, or that their gender is not the one that their genitalia presumably indicates.

DMN: What do you hope to achieve by writing My Husband Betty?

HB: Four things: 1) to provide crossdressers and their wives useful information, 2) to dispel larger myths the public has about who crossdressers are and why they do what they do, 3) to provide a book for counselors, therapists, sociologists, etc., who wanted to more more from an insider’s point of view, and 4) to provide anyone interested in unusual love story a good read.

DMN: How have you been received by your heterosexual peers and people whom you meet along with your husband for the first time?

HB: Our heterosexual peers are pretty open-minded, and I haven’t lived a particularly white picket fence kind of life – so my friends were fine with it. And Betty’s friends like her, so they were sometimes surprised but were also supportive – like good friends, they wanted their friend to be happy. Strangers who meet us for the first time usually can’t figure us out, and keep their distance, but it’s kind of remarkable: if we’re at a party and one person works up the nerve to ask us what our deal is, a crowd will gather pretty fast. So mostly, strangers are curious. Het women generally respond better than het men, but that really depends on the situation.

DMN: Can you share a funny incident or two as well as some that made you sad or were particularly hurtful?

HB: There’s one incident that’s both sad and funny, depending on how I’m feeling. Betty was in male mode one day when he decided to try on a pair of pumps at a small boutique here in Park Slope (a neighborhood with is very GLBT-friendly). The woman who owned the shop nearly hurt herself being open-minded, and immediately went into her best gossip-dishing I’m-speaking-to-a-drag-queen chatter. Then I said something about how the shoes fit, and she looked at me as if I’d beamed into the store at that second; she’d welcomed us when we both walked in, but after Betty asked to try on the shoes, I became invisible. So it was funny in the sense that people will go out of their way to be welcoming, often in ways that show they’re also nervous or uncertain, but sad because when someone assumes a man who wears pumps is gay means our relationship disappears.

DMN: Have you experienced overt discrimination or prejudice as a white heterosexual woman who happens to be the partner of a crossdresser?

HB: Not discrimination, no. Lots of misunderstanding, and I’m occasionally challenged in difficult ways. Some older gay men apparently think I’m the biggest fool that ever was, as *they know* that men who wear women’s clothes are always gay and that I’m deceiving myself. Lesbians likewise often look at me like I’m the biggest closet case that ever was. Wives of crossdressers and crossdressers themselves often assume I’m a lesbian because I’m okay kissing Betty when she’s en femme. None of these things are true, and it often makes me feel quite lonely – but hardly discriminated against.

DMN: Are you working on anything new?

HB: I’m working on a book now called Boy Meets Girl, which is about the things I've learned about gender in relationships as a result of being with Betty and as a result of meeting a lot of gender variant people since I published My Husband Betty. What I've noticed is that until or unless there’s a problem with gender, it’s invisible. We make huge assumptions about who a person was and who they’re supposed to be as a partner and lover based on gender – and I came into this relationship thinking I was pretty smart about gender, and didn’t do any of those things. But when your husband starts wondering if he should transition (that’s the PC term for a ‘sex change’ these days), you have to think a lot harder about gender, and learn a lot more. Boy Meets Girl will be a memoir of my struggle to figure out what it might mean to our romance if my husband became my wife, and how what I learned in the process might help others in relationships of all kinds.

posted by Damian McNicholl at 12:15 AM

TRAVESTI DUET

le travesti, 1953
Bernard Buffet (French, 1928-1999)
oil on canvas

Twee figuren: travesties uit de Lapin Agile, 1950
(Two figures: transvestites from the Lapin Agile)
Gustaaf Sorel (Belgian, 1905-1981)
gouache on paper

more from Bernard Buffet
more from Gustaaf Sorel

[From the Archive]
La Femme Silhouette - June 1995

WHO'S ZOOMING WHO - Part II

By Deborah LEE

Is this the end of this article? No, because I have not addressed the real issue I wanted to tackle ... abuse. Self-induced ABUSE.

I used my recent experience as an example of the affects of abuse is. There was a goodly amount of physical abuse imposed on me by others. My dad was a self-made man and he was tough. Unfortunately, the only method he knew of communicating his displeasure with life, with us, was to use physical force. If the dishes weren't washed when he thought they should be, the dishes went flying and many times my mother or one of us kids too. I tried on several occasions to prevent the harm to mother and got between them and paid dearly for that action. I seemed to be able to take his abuse, sure there were tears, but the physical pain of abuse could not hold a candle to what I was doing to myself.

Self-abuse takes many forms. For me it was knowing I had a male body and my feelings betrayed the person my parents, especially my dad for I believe there were many times in my life that my mother subtly let me know that she knew I was special and had special desires and needs. I also had plenty of outside influences since I had two other brothers and of course, my school, schoolmates, church and at that time God herself that demanded that I take on the garb, and the responsibility to behave in a manor that would not compromise the fact I was born male and male I should be. The pressure I felt from my dad to be like him or make him proud of me was like God's wrath on me. I prayed for the quiet moments when I could be alone at home or home from school "sick" which offered me time to fantasize or better yet, indulge in my fantasy. This healthy outlet became a source of abuse since I wanted to be a girl and I would scheme and plot to have more time away from the "bastard."

That phraseology was another source of abuse since I on one hand believed strongly in the Ten Commandments and I took "honor thy father and thy mother" quite literally. So I knew my escapades into the world of feminine were not a form of honor that my dad would take lightly. So instead of honoring my spirit and emotional body I chose the path of abuse. "Kill the bitch!"

Secretly I loved what I knew I was and in an effort to protect and preserve my true identity, I hid her well in the deepest recesses of my mind. Unfortunately, burying me so deeply made it more and more difficult to allow my feminine manifestations surface. The process of allowing those feelings to surface and then vanquish, exile them was a very painful event. I promised myself that I would not go through that again. But like a junky, I wanted and needed to allow Debbie some time, otherwise I would die, that is the part of me that I loved. Years of this surfacing and burying my true nature was more mental abuse than my body could take.

When puberty hit, it hit with the force of a hurricane. I was tossed and bantered about with male hormones coursing throughout my body - trying to masculinize me. It did a pretty good job as my voice dropped and hair grew on my legs like I was Cheetah, Tarzan's chimp. Worst of all was the changes in the sex drive department. With no one to talk to (after all, we were proper and civilized), I was left to let nature take its course and be victimized by my ignorance.

I didn't want to be a boy, let alone a man and I hated my libido and I had another reason to hate my anatomy. Oh what I would have done to endure the process of menstruation instead of having erections and ejaculation. I'm sure you GG’s that are reading this are saying, boy, are you full of it. But if the process calls for pain and you are in harmony with your physical and emotional bodies then the pain is worthwhile. This process was to me a physical abuse. This maturation was a curse and it was pulling me further away from that which I wanted to be - a woman.

With the advent of puberty, I entered another phase of self-induced abuse. I found that inflicting physical pain on myself would deaden the pain of burying Debbie or trying to forget her. I turned into a masochist and that started another road to degradation. I am going to skip these details for I am too ashamed to admit to anyone that I hated myself that much to inflict that much shame and guilt on me. It was sad that the pain I suffered at the hands of others who I gave control of my destiny to was not enough, I had to endure my own chastisement. God forgive me.

I could go on and on about the methods of self-induced, self-inflicted abuse but I think you get the picture. If you are experiencing this kind of trauma, if you are trying to annihilate that which you know is the best part of your being, if you are self destructive, please get help. I'm not much into endorsing an expensive procedure or lining the pockets of those who are making in one hour what it takes me to earn in over four, but psychologists and psychiatrist do help. (Dr. F. if your listening. I'm not begrudging you your livelihood.)

If you ever want to talk to me, I will not publish your conversation in this or any other publication. I lay open my wounds in the belief and hope that I can either inspire you to end the hate relationship that you might have with yourself and help you realize that God made her world perfect and her creations are perfect whether we can accept it or not from our viewpoint.

WE ARE WORTHY TO BE LOVED, ESPECIALLY FROM WITHIN!

Sincerely, your sister, Deborah Benton
P.S. And I'm proud to be her.

[Last Laugh]
A LEG UP

{From the October 2006 issue of W Magazine}

Too big to zip up boots…too thin to fill them out. Is there any cure for calf woes?

I fell in love in Paris. Not with a Frenchman, mind you, but with a pair of perfectly pointy, knee-high, black leather Christian Louboutin boots. But as I tried them on in Louboutin's chic rue de Grenelle boutique, our budding romance was rudely interrupted by my bulging calves. “Eet wheel not zeep,” the cool French salesman said with a disapproving stare. I looked down in horror. Could it have been that last Laduree macaroon that did me in?

Though I hurried out of the boutique in embarrassment, I later discovered that I was far from alone in my affliction. When I related the story at a staff meeting, well more than half the women in the room chimed in with similar tales. Carlos Mesquita, owner and manager of fashionista favorite Shoe Service Plus in Manhattan, sees the problem all the time. “They come in very nervous,” he says of the clients who flock to his shop to have their too-slim Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo knee-highs stretched. “They say, ‘The boots do not fit me; they're too tight. If you can’t do it, it'll cost me $1,200 or $1,600.' I have three guys working full time on boots.”

Believe it or not, Mesquita says he takes in almost as many pairs as he stretches. Some women's calves, it seems, are just too thin to fill out boots, and this season, footwear won't be the only challenge for those on both ends of the spectrum. After years of forgiving boot-cut pants, suddenly calf-conscious styles like leggings and tapered jeans are everywhere, leading some to seek drastic measures. New York plastic surgeon Gerald Imber says he's had a number of requests for calf-reduction surgery, though he has never performed such a procedure. According to Imber, it's muscle, not fat, that's getting in the way of boot zippers, and the size of those muscles is primarily determined by genetics. “There's not much fat coverage on the muscle, which makes it difficult to operate,” he says. “You'd have one hell of a scar.”

For those who want to bulk up below the knee, calf implants have long been an option, but such surgeries are still largely the domain of Mr. Universe types, perhaps because building enough muscle to fill out a boot is relatively easy to do in the gym. Denis Barry, a managing partner at the posh Upper East Side gym Edge, recommends calf raises, either with or without weights, and walking on a treadmill set to a supersteep incline. Women looking to dial down the size of their calves, on the other hand, don't have it so easy. In terms of exercise, the best Barry can offer is a recommendation to avoid the aforementioned activities. While many point to the StairMaster as a calf bulker, Barry begs to differ. “Unless you have the propensity to have huge calves, it's not going to be muscle building,” he says, adding that if one is overweight, the machine could actually help slim one's legs slightly - along with the rest of the body - because it provides a great aerobic workout. Barry adds that one exercise known to add girth to gams doesn't take place in the gym. 'Walking a lot in heels can make your calves bigger,” he warns. “It's a calf contraction the entire time.” No wonder so many fashion types have trouble squeezing into their boots!

In the end, of course, changing footwear is far easier than fighting nature. Jeffrey Kalinsky, founder of Jeffrey New York, a favorite of the shoe obsessed, contends that there's a boot out there for every leg. For skinny minis, he recommends pull-on styles, especially in stretch suede. “If your leg is too slender, it can look funny in a zip-up boot,” he says. For curvier calves, Bergdorf Goodman accessories czar Ed Burstell points to a slouchy midheight version by Manolo Blalmik and Chanel’s motorcycle style, both of which he predicts will be big this season. Not only do they slip on with ease, they provide calf camouflage, um, to boot.

- JAMIE ROSEN

{Photograph by RICHARD PIERCE}

Note [1]: Rainer Maria Rilke (December 1875 – December 1926) is generally considered the German language's greatest 20th century poet. His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the inexpressible in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety.

Rilke was born in Prague as the son of Josef Rilke, a railway official and the former Sophie Entz. A crucial fact in Rilke's life was that his mother called him Sophia. She forced him to wear girl's clothes until he was aged five.

Alpha Omega is a non-profit social support group for heterosexual crossdressers and their wives or partners. Also, members from related organizations, helping professionals, and approved guests are welcome when cleared through Alpha Omega’s officers. We serve Cleveland and nearby Northeast Ohio communities.

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