URNotAlone

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.