Stepping out publicly as a woman is a powerful way to validate your female self.
In fact, I recently published a poll asking “How often do you go out in public as a woman?”
I was happy to see that the majority of my readers (transgender women and crossdressers) go out at least occasionally.
No matter how often you do it, I’m sure you can remember your first time presenting as a woman or crossdressing in public.
Since this is such an important gender-affirming step, I’d love to hear about it!
When was it? Where did you go? And what was your experience?
Please share with us in the comments below!
And if you’ve never been en femme in public, I’m sure you’ll find lots of inspiration in these stories.
As always, thank you for reading and participating!
Love,
Lucille
P.S. If you liked this article, you will love my FREE Unleash Your Inner Woman hypnosis mini session.
I was very apprehensive but I knew I had to get it over with do I could get on with my life so I got quite drunk and walked down to the corner store in a tight tank, fairly short shorts, and heels. It was dark so the only person who really saw me was the clerk.
Looking back that probably wasn’t the best idea on many levels and I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT but after that my anxiety was pretty much gone and I was able to move forward in transition.
My first time out as a woman I consider to be different than the first time I was cross-dressed. That was in Michigan in 1983, at a conference for cross-dressers. My first time hoping to be accepted as a woman was walking through a hotel lobby in St. Louis in April 2010. An acquaintance told me I should be able to pass convincingly. After hours of working up the nerve, I took that simple walk across the lobby. No one seemed to notice, and I was thrilled.
About three months later I did it for the first time in earnest. I took a vacation to very northern Wisconsin, and spent 3 days as Suzy almost the whole time. I was accepted and treated warmly. It was then that I really got the bug and started to do it a couple of times a week, though if I had known how dreadful I looked without really knowing how to do makeup properly, I wouldn’t have felt so damned confident!
My first time out? I went to a support group in Gretna, LA. It’s a suburb of New Orleans, and they rented a room in an all-suites hotel for their meetings. I’d rented a hotel room nearby (was even scared of dressing around someone else!) and went over to the meeting.
I thought that if I got out of the hotel room and got to the meeting that’d be enough. Then I felt confident enough after meeting these women to stand outside the room in the courtyard and felt fine. But I wasn’t going anywhere else, just back to the room.
Two hours later I’m on Bourbon Street following a girl in a zebra-print spandex mini dress. Yes, the middle of one of the most uninhibited tourist areas in America. And I wasn’t in a panic! She lead me through the place, even into some of the seedier shops. By the end of the night we were in a lesbian bar having drinks and she was telling me how nice I was…
So, yes, I liked my first time out.
The first time out of the private comfort of a room was back in 1999. I just went out of a hotel by myself and drove around a bit.
After I ‘revealed’ myself to my wife in 2005, for many years she didn’t want me to go out. Then finally we reached an agreement: she would allow me to go out at a time when all neighbours are asleep. Sadly, this also means that pretty much everything is closed by then. But it allows me some freedom to walk the empty streets in my heels!
The first time out ‘in public’ with someone else — you could say it was a ‘date’ — was in the middle of the night with a fellow crossdresser, at around 3 AM; we just walked a bit around a marina (which was closed but still had quite a few people there!), chatted a lot, smoked a cigarette or two, took a few pictures, and that was it. We narrowly avoided a group of youngsters who were half drunk on the beach and decided to look up the ‘strange, tall woman and her friend’ who were leisurely walking around and speaking with deep, masculine voices.
That was two years ago or so. In the mean time, my friend started her transition. Except for her, I just met a fan once, at a parking lot in front of a popular nightclub, but we both agreed it would be too risky for me to go inside — it was a rocker’s nightclub and quite a ‘heavy’ atmosphere. One drunken idiot would spoil our night very easily.
Some time ago, my wife and I got a voucher from my mother-in-law to stay at a hotel for a few days. It was on a very touristic location which I personally adore but my wife utterly hates it; she was also ill most of the time. But we had agreed I’d turn it into a ‘crossdressing vacation’. The whole region is very tolerant, since they have to be nice and friendly to all sorts of crazy tourists; to make sure there were no surprises, I actually warned the hotel receptionist that I would probably go out dressed as a woman and that he shouldn’t be surprised if he looked through the videocameras; he answered professionally by saying that it was more than fine. Talk about tolerance! That hotel was not even listed as LGBT-friendly!
Although I expected to go out by daylight, my wife drew a line there and said no; she also declined coming with me on my drives. But at least I could go out much earlier than at my homeplace. I was certainly viewed by hundreds of people on the streets, chatted with two gas station attendants (both incredibly friendly and useful; one, the younger one, was definitely enchanted with my cleavage and couldn’t take his eyes off them), and went to a local LGBT bar — which was empty on that day! I still enjoyed myself utterly and those were my best vacations ever. Sadly, it’s quite unlikely that I will be able to do them again: not only I cannot afford a hotel, but my wife, after renewing her utter hate with that region, definitely doesn’t want to go ever again (ironically, in the mean time, I got vouchers for similar hotels in that region, but my wife forced me to give them up).
So these days I’m stuck to going out in the middle of the night all by myself and not going to any fancy place since everything will be closed…
After chatting and cajolling for ages on TVchix some other trans friends convinced me to come out with them. They made it very easy for me, picking me up a few steps from my front door to take me to a t-girl night in my nearest city.
It was brilliant when I was out, but those first steps out of the house – the breeze around the hem of my dress, the slight wobble on my heels as I dealt with paving slabs for the first time – felt like a huge deal.
I’ve been out quite a few times since though 🙂
My “debut” was in Las Vegas. I had my hair, makeup, nails, and outfit professionally done (by Amy at Glamour Boutique). I remember it like it was yesterday, that feeling of walking down the stairs to her car, being “outside” for the first time. So cathartic and so intoxicating all at once!
I was dressed as a girl with my 3 sisters from my earliest remembrances, and have several memories ( and a few black and white or old Polaroid color photos) being out with them dressed completely as a girl in the back yard or with our mother on errands at ages 2, 3, 4, 5 even into early elementary school.
But “THE” really true first outing as a girl was age 12 going to a Halloween dance at my friend Cindy’s mom’s boat club at a lake about 30 minutes from our town. It was a costume party for adults and there would be “some kids along too” (I was told).
She had seen me dressed as a girl for Halloween 3 or 4 times in our elementary school the prior 6 years, and knew I passed very well being very skinny, fair skinned, very long blonde hair, blue eyes, not even close to going thru puberty yet. I brought over a baggy cartoon mouse costume one of my older sisters had worn a few years back, and planned to wear that one-piece zip in back suit, gray gloves, and full cover mouse head with large flappy ears.
I was at her house that afternoon with her mom helping make party favors for the tables and her mom mentioned that Cindy was all set to help at the dance at the sign-in table at the door. I asked about her costume and she said it would simply be a fancy dress but with a Mardi Gras style feather + beaded mask over just her eyes. Her mom showed us the box with the 8 or so elegant masks, and I tried one on, and with my long hair they both said I “very easily looked just like a girl” and the plan was for me to work the sign-in table with Cindy in same attire: fancy party dress and fancy mask.
At first it was a very pretty shiny blue polyester dress, bare legs, black 1″ heels (i had on only white jockeys underneath) , and she added some jewelry and with her mom’s consent (checking me over) Cindy would do my make-up. When she was finished with blue eye shadow, pink lip gloss, heavy mascara + eye liner, and some blusher – my appearance was 100% a young early teens girl with the pretty feathered mask over just the top half of my face.
But even her mom joked that I could use “a little padding” up top and maybe some pantyhose as it was very chilly late October east coast, so Cindy and I went back to her room and I very willingly consented to wear one of her “old bras” (she didn’t wear any more), same for “old pair of panties”, but a new pair of Navy blue pantyhose and a polyester form-fitting sheer full slip. One rolled up sock in each cup and then the dress back on over that lingerie. We presented me back to her mom in version-2 and got smiles and approval. Last item was to style my hair pulled back in front to half-up with bangs in front, then the mask.
And so that evening, we drove to the lake and boat club, and Cindy and I covered the front desk sign in all night, greeted people in our fancy dresses and Mardi Gras masks, I even had a name-tag with “Sharon” and no one had even the slightest idea at all – as many people knew Cindy as her mom’s daughter, and I was introduced simply as “this is my friend Sharon”.
That was such a wonderful night to be in complete costume, but everyone only saw two 12 year-old girls in pretty dresses and feathered masks helping out the parents’ Halloween dance.
The first time I went out in public, I drove cross country. I wanted no opportunity to go and hide or back out. Once on the interstate, I was in all the way and loving every minute of it. Stopping at rest stops, restaurants, even the hotel, men would hold the doors open for me and I would catch them “checking” me out. I continue to go out in public and hope for the time I can throw away all my boring things.