the negative side of the transgender community

While we all try to remain positive, there's always that dark side of our world that we're all aware of but don't want to admit or talk about.  There was a post last week on fetlife that really affected me, at the very least never want to attempt to transition.  The post basically says they are done transitioning for good.  All of her online and offline friends have blackmailed and extorted her (including those in the trans community).  Her reputation and career has been sabotaged, and she has been raped 5 times.

Now granted, we have no idea what the backstory is, it's just a rambling post.  However if you follow trans social media and news, you know that being trans is an uphill battle.  If you do come out, you potentially lose a lot of family and friends that don't support your life choice.  The same goes for employers.  While many states have protection, many don't and can literally fire people for being trans.

My trans life is very secretive.  Other than this blog and my fetlife account (which does have photos of me dressed up), the only person that really knows about my lifestyle is my wife.  And we wonder why some of us stay in the closet?  It's that horrendous fear that someone in our circle will find out about us and not be on board with supporting our lifestyle.  This could be as tame as simply ignoring the elephant in the room, to full on sabotage of wanting to out us and ruin our lives.  You hear about people only dressing up when they travel and I can see why.  The odds of you running into someone you know is about .001%.  Dressing up in your own area the odds are pretty good.  I blogged about this before.. I decided to wear nails and go grocery shopping, and damned if I didn't see a co-worker shopping there.  Murphy's law isn't just a saying.. if things can go wrong, it will go wrong.

recurring dream?

So I vividly remembered a dream, but what was weird is I didn't remember I had a similar dream until I revisited the same scenario.  So the first dream that I'm now remembering was that I was a drag queen at some bar/restaurant somewhere in a mall.  I don't remember what I was wearing in the first dream other than I had on heels.  This second dream it started out as me walking through the mall with the thought that I was on my way to work but didn't know what the job was.  I looked at my watch and saw that it was 6pm which was when I started... I walked to where I thought my job was, only to find that the store front was covered up.  I was like "what the hell?  Did they close? what's going on?".  I walked around a few times and when I circled back I finally realized that they had covered up the entrance with a giant white wall with a subtle swinging door for the entrance.  Once I walked through there it lead me down a long hallway, and then through the front entrance.  As I walked through the restaurant I could see several drag queens walking around prepping for the night.  For some reason one of the drag queens was William Belli and as I walked by she looked up, said "heyyyy" and did a little jig and I did a jig back.  I walked to the back room where the dressing room was.  I had a coat on to cover up my yellow floral dress, and had on bright yellow nike gym shoes.  I started to get my heels on and get ready to do my makeup.  It felt like a newish job, and I wasn't really sure what my role was.  Was I a performer?  Was I a bartender? A waitress?  Hostess?  I was worried how tiring this type of job of standing for a long time was going to be.

I wondered this morning why I was having a recurring dream about being a drag queen.  I have been super busy lately and haven't really had time for dressing up, so perhaps this was my brain's way of dealing with not being able to do so in real life.

What a weekend, taking baby steps!

So this past friday I got home early as usual.  My wife works from home, but she wasn't going to be done with work for a couple hours.  So I decided to dress up since it was the weekend.  I wore that sunflower top I got from rosegal, a pair of my black lacey pants, my new sandals, wig, earrings, short french manicured false nails..  I felt really good, feeling feminine without being over the top (dress, heels, the usual drill).  I actually had some good cleavage too, like passable.  Wife comes down, sort of surprised to see me dressed up.  She goes "I guess we aren't going to dinner", and I'm like "Why, were you planning on going out?".  To preface that statement, we rarely go out to dinner.  Not because I'm a bad husband, because she doesn't typically enjoy going out.  The times we do "eat out" it's usually me picking it up on the way home, or ordering out.  I half jokingly said "I look pretty good right now, don't tempt me".  she asked "Do you want to?", to which of course I said no.. But felt good knowing she would be ok going out in public with me dressed up.

So after behaving and eating healthy all week, we decided to have a cheat night.  We ordered from a chain fish place through uber eats.  Now I'm still dressed, so of course she asked "Do I need to answer the door?", and I go no.  She's like "are you sure?", and I say yes.  Uber driver comes to the door, it's a spanish looking woman maybe in her mid 30's?  I say "thank you" in the softest voice I can.  I always try to read their face to see if I can read their reaction.  She didn't seem to flinch, not to say she isn't questioning why this giant woman is answering the door.

So then the next morning comes, and my wife decides she wants bbq from the ribfest going on a few blocks away.  I'm no longer dressed but still have my short french nails on.  I drive down, park the car, and walk in not really caring that much if people see my nails.  It's early in the day so there aren't a ton of people either.

Saturday night rolls around, I've had several nails pops off.  For whatever reason, sometimes the shorter nails have more issues than the longer ones.  I believe the curve on the short ones don't match my nails, and therefore there's always a force trying to pry them away.  Lot of people that review nail adhesive on amazon have mixed reviews, and it's because all of them are using different nails.  After I put the longer ones on, I could feel how strong they felt.

Next morning I had to drive her to the airport, long frilly nails still holding strong.  I'm helping get bags out of the back, everyone clearly busy also dropping off family.  I head towards home knowing I'm low on gas.  I stop at a gas station, still nobody looking at my nails.  I stop at an automatic car wash, no weird looks from the attendant.  I stop at the grocery store, grab about 5-6 items, reaching for stuff on shelves, many housewives shopping early in the morning, no weird looks or comments.  I do use self checkout but sort of wishing I had used a human checkout person.

So after reflecting on this past weekend, I'm really feeling that if I continue to take baby steps I can build up my confidence to go out dressed up.  Might start with a car ride, maybe a drive through.. see where it goes from there.

Rosegal (plus sizes).. kinda sucks

So I tried YET another one of those import clothing stores.  Pretty sure it was a facebook ad that showed some cute outfits.  I sprung $70 on 4 items, shipping included.  It shipped in 2 orders, the first one took a week to fullfill, then the usual 10-15 days to get here from China.  Here's the first 2 things:
https://www.rosegal.com/plus-size-t-shirts/plus-size-ruffle-polka-dot-t-shirt-2312750.html

https://www.rosegal.com/plus-size-leggings/3d-jean-print-plus-size-mini-leggings-7347248.html

So the first top is a bit too short, clearly made for someone more petite than me.  The shorts are literally printed yoga like material.. They aren't terrible, but up close it doesn't look nearly as realistic.

So then a week goes by, still haven't received the rest of my stuff.  I contact customer service, they inform me one thing is still on backorder.  They ask if I want to cancel that one thing or substitute for something else.  I find another top to substitute, and they say it'll get swapped out and shipped the next day.  few more days go by, still shows the same items.. Then suddenly it shows shipped, but the substitute isn't in there.  When the package arrives, sure enough they didn't swap it out (which I was pissed off at the time), but receiving it I'm glad it didn't get swapped out.

So the first item is this:
https://www.rosegal.com/plus-size-t-shirts/plus-size-ruched-flounce-peplum-t-shirt-7366543.html

Looks great right?  Looks puffy and cute?  It's not, it's like literally a t-shirt with some frilly fringe attached, looks terrible.

Second top (that didn't get swapped out) I'm totally digging.  Good quality, really cute:
https://www.rosegal.com/plus-size-t-shirts/plus-size-open-shoulder-sunflower-print-keyhole-t-shirt-7384929.html

Would I order again from this company?  Probably not.

3d printed shoes on hold...

I still want to make them, but the sandals I ordered on aliexpress ended up fitting (with a slight modification to the top strap):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32968412298.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.2a514c4dh5mnTg

In fact I'm tempted to order another pair, maybe one in each color just to have them.

shoes 4 u - part two

So I'm doing it.. and I've realized tracing my foot is stupid because that's not how shoes are made.. So I instead traced one of my sneakers for the shape, and it looked far more normal.  I've also opted to only make a 3" wedge heel to save material.  I'm also printing in sections (bottom chunk, top thin piece).  It's not that different from real shoes.  They have the bottom chunk, the straps get glued to that, then a thin piece is glued on top keeping everything clean.

Because I still don't have a 3d printer big enough to print the entire shoe shape in one shot, I've also had to split it in half (but good enough for proof of concept).  I'll have 1/4-20 bolts going through a chunky center to join the 2 halves.  I don't know how well I'll be able walk in them, but I'm mostly building them to work out all the assembly issues:

So this is what it will look like when printed.  In the base will be brass threaded inserts that get heat-staked into the base, and then screws on top attach the thin top to the bottom:

 This is my strap layout.. one going over at the toes, and then a criss-cross pattern for the rest.  I'd really like a back strap to really lock it in, but again at this point I'm just seeing if this is even feasible.

So last night I printed my first chunk in the front, and I'm using some 3/4" elastic as the straps for now.. I don't want to have to deal with leather right now.  I have to say, even with minimal ribbed walls in the base it feels strong (I was able to walk on it just fine).  There's slight creaking, but I also weigh 300lbs.  Once I have something that works, I would probably opt to add more walls, or possibly fill in all the gaps with that foam you use to seal up cracks in walls.  This should give better support and make it more squishy.  I placed the quarter next to it just to show the scale of how big size 17 womens feet are.

crossdress custom wedge shoes large feet size 16 size 17 size 18

No shoes for you!

So early on in my crossdressing life which was somewhere around 16-17 years old, it became very clear I was going to be stuck wearing womens dress shoes.  I wear a size 14-15 mens, which is 16-17 womens.  Let me tell you there are no manufacturers that make female sneakers in those sizes, nor do they make wedge sandals in that size.  As if fitting in wasn't hard enough, it's even harder when you can't dress casual to fit in.

So I finally said "that's it, I'm going to figure out a way to buy womens casual shoes if it kills me".  I searched aliexpress to see if there's some chinese factory that might cater to this, nope.  Etsy! of course, lots of homemade items on there including shoes.  I contact the 4 sellers on there that seem to cater to such a thing, all of them pretty much say the same thing.  A size 49 Euro doesn't exist as a pattern, and therefore they can't produce in that size.  Now I realize that might be true, but if you're truly a shoemaker wouldn't you try to cater to the customer?  I even offered extra money for the additional material and headache, they still said no.

At this point I'm beyond frustration.  Not being able to buy clothing is like making being transgender illegal.  I got really depressed because while I was pretty sure I was stuck, confirming it makes it much more real.  Then it hit me, I'm an engineer.  I'll make my own dam shoes if it kills me!

Now there are certainly a lot of challenges and uphill battles, the first being that my foot barely fits on a standard sheet of paper.  Size 17 womens means my foot is just over 12 inches long, or 300mm.  However, if I rotate my foot diagonally on the sheet of paper, it JUST fits.  So after I have my foot traced out, I scanned it in, and then I can trace that in a vector program to clean it up.  Once I had my 2D vector file, I imported it into solidworks and started figuring out the best way to turn a flat vector into a heel.  I found that converting it to sheet metal I could add a bend, then I can extrude the chunky underneath.  I cut out a chunk in the center to reduce printing time (because I was sure I wasn't getting it right on the first try), and managed to squeeze it down to a 10 hour print job.  I also had to print at 90% scale since it still doesn't quite fit on my bed (8.5" x 8.5") but figured that was close enough.  This morning I woke up to a finished part on my printer bed

I put my foot over it, and while it's a tad small, it felt like a shoe.  I now realize that the foot has an arch when you extend it, so the flat I modeled is incorrect

I've updated the model this morning, and it's starting to look much closer to a real heel bottom.  Not only is the arch correct, but I also tapered the sides so the bottom is a slightly smaller footprint.