Jennifer Ann Nelson
Journal Entries for Jennifer Ann Nelson
Tall TransWomen
February 24th, 2008 10:03 pm MST
Tall TransWomen As a woman I love to wear 3-4" heels. Their sound on pavement, the way they stretch my calves as I walk, the look and feel of my feet tightly wedged into the pointed toes of my size 11M heels, is all so special. And, they make my legs look great as well. So, they're part of the signal I use to say, "I am a woman." It's got to tell you something that I don't even own a pair of flats. My height of 5' 11" puts me just above the 95th percentile for women's height. That is, there are only 5 women out of 100 who are taller than me and 95 who are shorter. On average men are 5-6" taller than women. Thus, women who wear high heels come close to equalizing their height deficit with respect to men. Women who wear flats or tennis sneakers are giving away those 3-4 inches of height with all the equalizing effects height conveys. Are high heels power shoes? I think so. Tall men who are in public as women must learn to deal with their excess height if they are to pass successfully as women. The problem is, of course, exaggerated when we wear heels. My advice, girls, is to wear your height proudly. All my life I have watched tall women to see how they handle their height. Some stand straight and some slouch. Some wear flats and some wear heels. I want to emulate the ones who stand proudly in their heels. Others have pointed out that from a distance it's hard to judge height, particularly without a reference. Up close ones personal interaction should begin to dominate. From my own experience, it seems as if carrying myself in a stately manner, not unlike a model, and using eye contact and a big smile up close maximizes the "I'm a woman" signal I convey. Certainly having an even taller male companion helps as well. The good news is that tall genetic women are becoming more numerous. The younger generation of women seems to have more tall women. The population grows about an inch every generation. So if we can wait. . . Women who are fashion models are invariably tall. Many are over 6'. However, tall and thin go together in their case. So, recognizing you can do nothing about your height, girls, but wear it proudly my advice to you and to myself is to get the fat off. Six foot and 160# looks much better than 6' and 200#. The next value to work on is proportion, the 36-26-36 kind. Most male bodies are ill proportioned as females. I wear a corset and hip pads to achieve a normal size 14 look about 41-31-41. A final note. As more and more of us Tgirls go mainstream, passing successfully as women, and the public becomes aware that we exist in numbers, are we going to call into question the gender of all tall girls? Is she or isn't she? After all they can't tell us apart. We may even cause a blip in the height percentile curves as we get counted as part of the female normal distribution.
A Makeover
February 24th, 2008 10:01 pm MST
A Makeover This is what I wrote Amanda Richards after she did a makeover and photo shoot on me. I can't express how much I appreciated your artistry in doing my makeover. When I first saw myself in the mirror, I didn't recognize the woman smiling back at me. I saw a beautiful woman, young, modern, vibrant, classy, elegant and sophisticated looking like she had just stepped out of the pages of Elle Magazine. My smile for the rest of the day was real, I felt like I've never felt before. I was the woman in the mirror. I was the woman I had always dreamed I could be. Even that night when I looked in the mirror, I saw this same beautiful woman smiling back at me. Jim Bridges taught me a lot but you brought my face to a totally new level. Your color palette is so different from what I've been using that I'm going to have to get the complete MAC kit before I can even start to reproduce my new look. I have so much to learn but the wonderful result you showed me gives me the encouragement to get started. Amanda, you've turned the clock back 30 years! I'm now totally dedicated to getting that last 30# off. I want to look spectacular. Last year I watched a reality program called the Swan, where a group of women who considered themselves flawed, ugly and rejected were put through a rigor of diet, exercise, face lifts etc., never seeing themselves in a mirror until the final reveal. Dressed to the nines, they finally saw themselves for the first time as the beautiful women they had become. Watching the program I could feel their joy, elation and even disbelief as they saw themselves for the first time. Now, I truly know how they felt because I too was that woman. The photo shoot, seeing my new self in various outfits, is a wonderful remembrance of the day. I see myself in the green dot dress as elegant and sophisticated. With the corset pulled tight, my shape is so feminine. How I felt in the wedding gown is beyond words. I shall never be a bride, but wearing such an elegant and beautiful gown has always been a fantasy that has now been given life. Thinking back over the day and reviewing my pictures, I want to cry with joy. Thank you so much and God bless you. With love, your sister Jen
On Attending SCC '07
February 24th, 2008 9:57 pm MST
On Attending SCC ’07 One of my Vanity Club sisters who also attended the Southern Comfort Conference (SCC) (for transgendered women (and Men)) sent me the following note: "I loved your look, adored your clothes and just thought you were the best dressed woman at the convention. And I make those comments with all sincerity. Amanda worked her wonder, but you brought the mindset...that look. Absolutely wonderful." What she saw was everything I had hoped for. I went to SCC '07 not knowing exactly what to expect but knowing that this might be my only opportunity to present Jennifer to my VC sisters and to the world of transgendered women. My expectations for the conference were met times ten. I sent the following message to my VC sisters about SCC: My dear Sisters, I've just returned from attending SCC '07 my first T girl conference in over 25 years. I wish you could all have been there. It was so special to meet and share a dinner with 25 of our VC sisters most of whom I had never met in person but felt an immediate kinship with. For me the conference was inspiring. First, for the many gorgeous T women I saw and met. The hotel was filled with many of the celebrities of our world. One moment I was face to face with Dr. Marci Bowers and was being introduced to her. Dr. Zukowski had a following of beautiful T women whom he had helped with facial feminization surgery. Three days in fem was a record for this girl. A record I intend to break. By the final evening my feet were sufficiently swollen from walking in nothing but 4" heels that I could barely get my 4" strappy sandals on my feet. Thanks Amanda for buckling them, I couldn't. The accompanying picture is me in the dress I wore for the final evening's festivities. This was another first, my first time out in a formal gown. Can you tell I loved every moment of it? Flying home I couldn't hold back the tears thinking about how I had been blessed in so many ways. I encourage all of you to make it to an SCC some day. You too will be blessed. As I reflected further on my experience at SCC and the conundrum of being transgendered I wrote the following: Lynn Conway estimates that transsexuals are roughly 1:1,000 to 1:2,500 of the population. No wonder the general population has so much trouble understanding us. We are not transgendered as a Halloween prank. We are, yes, a spectrum, from men who are satisfied to spend only part of their lives as women to the full blown transsexuals. I highly recommend Lynn's web site "Transsexual Women's Successes" if you're not familiar with it. Looking across the gender spectrum, probably 99.9% of men are congruent with being men and 99.9% of women are congruent with being women. These men have absolutely no interest in putting on a dress and the women have no interest in being men. Their gender and sex are congruent. This is at the heart of the misunderstanding the general public has about transgendered women. They have no comprehension of what it is like to walk in our shoes. (No pun intended.) They can't even imagine it. Many are even revulsed by the idea because it is so foreign to who they are. What woman would want to be a man? What man would want to be a woman? Yet here we are, women on the inside struggling to make the person we see in the mirror congruent with our inner selves. Being married and transgendered further complicates the situation. On the one hand our spouses have expectations of us as men and specifically as husbands. On the other hand we are transgendered. Denial, purges, prayer, nothing seems to change who we are inside. How can this conundrum make sense to those who are congruent as males or females? Imagine, as a mind game, that a beautiful genetic woman is made to look like a man; short hair cut, no makeup, no jewelry, no earrings, takes testosterone, has no breasts, grows a beard or shaves every day wears male clothes lowers her voice and walks like a soldier. Next, she's told this is who she is for the rest of her life which means, among other things, that all her relationships will change. Other women will look upon her as a man; i.e., one of them, useful but not girl friend material. She will also now have to relate to men as one of them. Remember that through all of this, in her mind, she is still a woman. Every time she looks in the mirror, every time she puts on her clothed every time she comes in contact with another person, who she is and who she appears to be are in diametric opposition. This is truly a recipe for disaster. Welcome to being transgendered. The keynote speaker at the SCC Saturday Luncheon was Jenn Burleton, herself a transexual woman, who works with children in the Portland, OR area whose gender and sex are in conflict. She reports (and I have read elsewhere) that children as early as 3 years old have been known to display gender/sex conflict. Not dealing with this can make them depressed, despondent and even suicidal (don‚t we know). The book, "Mom I want to be a Girl" is a good example of the conundrum faced by transgendered youth. Barbara Walters recently explored the issue of transgendered children in a TV special. Oprah just interviewed a 21 year old T girl who has transitioned. She knew something was wrong at a very early age. On the same program Oprah had a 16 year old T boy who had been depressed over being anatomically a girl. He had mastectomy surgery earlier this year. Both were happy in their new genders. Oprah has a follow on program October 12 where we will get to meet husbands and fathers who have become women, and their families. Growing up I prayed to God to make me a girl when I woke up. I wore my mom‚s clothes whenever I could and ultimately had my own. It wasn't until my late 30s though that I started seriously experimenting, asking myself the question what would I look like as a woman and could I fit into the normal spectrum of women? I saw the full spectrum at SCC. For this discussion I will ignore the too numerous guys with pot bellies wearing a wig and a dress. The Vanity Club girls are a good example of men who would be or are women. There were many women at SCC that you could only guess they were transsexual because they were tall and they were there. Many of them were gorgeous women by any standard. Next, there were a few drop dead gorgeous TS women and finally a few beautiful girls whom you would never read as transsexual even attending SCC. These girls probably transitioned early before testosterone ravaged their looks or they have gone through facial feminization surgery. I arrived at lunch Friday a bit late and looked around for someone who would be interesting to have lunch with who had an open seat next to her. I found a delightful young woman who recognizes her transsexuality but for family and work reasons has not transitioned. She is on the SCC working committee and gets out only about the 4 times a year when she attends SCC committee meetings and for SCC itself. I also met and shook hands with Dr. Marci Bowers, herself a OBGYN who transitioned in her 40's and has taken over where Dr. Biber left off. (She was also on Oprah's recent program.) I certainly don't know the answers but this is what's been going through my head since SCC. As I thought about those 3 days as Jennifer on the plane ride home I cried quietly to myself. I don't think the full impact of SCC has hit me even yet. In the last year I started loosing weight, learned makeup skills from a pro, built a new wardrobe and am now considering facial feminization surgery. I have come a long way. The need for congruence as a woman is very strong.
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