The Cost of Being Yourself, Part 2: Getting Dressed.

Boy, can it be expensive to be transgender. The medications can be costly (I’m lucky with medications and the insurance I’m part of), the doctors can be expensive (again, lucky on the insurance), and there are a lot of things to worry about.  But one of the more depressing things is clothing and shoes.

Let me talk about it some more.


The Power Of Shoes

Starting at the bottom, we go with shoes. If you’ve ever gone into a shoe store, there’s men’s and women’s shoes, and if you’ve even measured your feet with a Brannock device, you can see it reflects different size information for men and women.

(The makers claim that a woman’s size is a man’s size plus one, but I’m not sure of that. My experience is that it’s closer to 2.)

So what does that mean for a transgender woman like me? Well, see, before transitioning, I had big feet. I mean, I wore a size 13, extra wide. I once was told by a store attendant to get out of their store to somewhere that sold clown shoes. (Yes, I reported them to their management.) Hormone Replacement Therapy can have some side effects including loss of height and a smaller shoe size, but it’s not a huge change, so my feet are still pretty big. I also have no arch, so I need some arch support

And you may not believe how many women’s shoe lines stop dead in their tracks at size 9 or 10, when I need a 14 or 15. Going shoe shopping is a source of pain and frustration for me.

My choices therefore fall into one of four categories:

  1. the Amazon Basics Ballet Flats, which has absolutely no support but at least looks cute on me.
  2. stores for drag performers
  3. Custom made footwear (dear heavens, the possible expense…)
  4. Sneakers (because sneakers are universal in most ways)

So I tend to go with 1 or 4, because 2 and 3 made my heart do this wobbly thing when I looked at it. But it would be nice to be able to get a nice wedge, honestly.

What about more fundamental things?

I can do okay with panties.  A little tuck, and it mostly works.

But bras… bras are pretty much designed, as far as I can tell, to make large women feel like there’s something wrong with them. And trans women, who are still trying to understand their bodies, really feel messed up.

Trans women have different bodies, and different builds, than cis women. If (like me) you weren’t able to get out of it until after puberty, you probably have a wider rib cage and wider shoulders. So when you start trying on bras, my experience is that you may find yourself going “what the absolute flying ♠♠♠♠ is going on here?” And the expense is crazy.

(Cis women know what I’m talking about. For something that feels good and doesn’t run the risk of putting holes in your flesh if something goes bad, you’re going to go into the triple digits.)

I’m still trying to find something that’s not a sportsbra that fits me. Most of them either have cups too large for me, or they ride up over my nascent chest and then I need to go into a private room to adjust it so it’s a bra again, not a cravat.

(This is not a joke.)

And then there’s the next layer up.

For me, well, as you might have guessed, I’m a big girl. I was a big guy, and now I’m a big girl. And holy mackerel does modern American retail hate big girls. It’s crazy.

It’s only relatively recently that anyone has been considering that space. There’s more than just a muumuu now. It’s a little depressing, even with that.

Even those stores, like Torrid and Lane Bryant, seem to concentrate their stuff at the smaller end in the stores, which means having to order online and pray it kind of fits well enough. And sometimes, it’s barely worth the money.

(I found this lovely blouse that screamed “transgender”. I mean, it was in the trans flag colors and pattern. It was glorious. And it ripped the first time I wore it.)

There’s also Catherine’s, but again, it’s mail order and hope.

It’s hard to hope sometimes. You get it, you try it on and prays it fits okay, and then you either decide it’s good enough or it needs to go back and then you wait for the refund. It’s stressful as heck.

I’m trying to live as myself as much as I can, but man, why have cis women not built gibbets and strung up some of these people that define fashion and what size is correct? (And then the fact you can order three of the exact same thing and then they’re different in size? No, that’s ridiculous.)

Being transgender is not cheap. And sometimes it’s a pain.

 

The first in the series can be found here.

A D&D Archfey Patron: The Prince of Fireflies

Ah, The Prince of Fireflies.

He is also known as the Great Voyeur, the Watcher Over Lovers, and the Bleeder of Hearts.

The Faerie of Taeliana are incarnate stories, and the Archfey are the incarnations of the most powerful themes in stories. The Prince of Fireflies is love stories, no matter how they end.  As an archfey, he does things for his amusement and to further the stories he embodies. (There is a difference between the fae and the faerie, which will be gone over later.) Click to continue reading.

Transgender Things: The Cost of Being Yourself, Part 1: Name Changes

 A name change is important – you want to be yourself, and when you’re transgender, your name is a big, big part of it. This got brought up in a comment on my last post, so I thought I’d go into a bit of detail about the costs for a name change here where I live in the state of Pennsylvania.

Click to continue reading.

Transgender Things: Reporting Some Excellent News, For Once.

I’m a little late on the Trans Day of Visibility, since it was March 31, and it’s now a week later.  But I just recently got some very awesome information to show. 

I am a proud scion of the state of New Jersey, and on the Transgender Day of Visibility, the governor of the state, the inestimable Phillip Murphy, declared it in an executive order as a sanctuary state. This means that if you prescribe trans health care, then move to NJ, or you’ve moved to NJ from a transgender-hostile state that bans trans health care, they won’t lift a finger to help you get extradited.

In addition, about the same time, the state opened a site at https://transgender.nj.gov/ to give a central point for transgender people to get information on the laws, processes, and resources in New Jersey they can access.

This is incredibly good news, and there’s the possibility of crossing the river again. So we will see…

And now, a bit of music that may be a little relevant.

Click to continue reading.

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