Burnout

I always used to conflate burnout with having a breakdown, and thought that once you recovered from the breakdown you were no longer burnt out. Not so!

I read this article recently after someone shared the link on facebook. I re-shared it. One person liked it, and nobody commented.

After reading that article, I realised that not only am I burnt out, but by my estimation, I have been for about 7 to 10 years. For now, I'm assuming that it is primarily because of my work but there have been some other issues over the years that I need to look at to work out whether they are causal or symptomatic.

Now I have to work out how I am going to change my circumstances to try to fix it. Changing jobs is not an option, so I have to work out how to change the one that I have. I also have to try to work through other problems that have been causing me stress and work out how to resolve them.

It's scary to realise that I have almost every one of the symptoms listed, and have blogged about my struggles with many of them.

I know that I have a long struggle ahead of me, and yet so far it doesn't even seem real...

Posture

Have you ever looked at yourself on a video from a security camera, and been really dismayed by your posture?

I have. Recently. :-(

No, I didn't do something wrong. The position of my office means that, without a closed circuit TV, I had no way of seeing people and vehicles come and go. For years, I had cameras feeding into TV tuner cards on computers, which I could feed across the network to watch on any computer. I had 4 cameras and 3 tuner cards, but didn't have any recording ability. There was only one camera that really gave useful results so I got into the habit of only using it.

After a while, I found that people would park near my office in a spot not covered by the cameras and unless I saw them drive in, I'd be surprised when they walked into the office.

Recently, ALDI (supermarket chain) had a special on a package of a small DVR and 4 cameras, so I bought one so that I could get better coverage of the yard from my office computer. I was thinking that it would work best to have a couple of cameras on the house and a couple on the garage, but they are too far apart to do that using one DVR, so when the price went down by $50 a few weeks later to clear remaining stock, I made the decision to buy a second one.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've installed both DVRs and 6 new cameras. I re-used two of the old cameras just to save time but will have to replace one or possibly both of them soon. I also had an interesting exercise in getting the software for the DVRs to work on my office computer, but that's a (very geeky) blog post in its own right!

The DVRs can be set up to only record when they sense image changes that they interpret as movement, and you can choose which parts of the image to ignore for this. This led me to start watching short sequences of video that the camera recorded.

I haven't walked around the yard en femme since I installed the cameras, but I have watched myself in my usual work clothes which, given that it's mid winter, cold and windy, includes a fairly bulky jacket.

Since I realised just how badly hunched over my posture is, I've been almost constantly making an effort to sit and stand up straight!

I'll have to keep checking the recordings to see if I can see an improvement in my posture. I'll also have to check it when I do manage to get out en femme. I'd hate to think that my posture en femme could be anywhere nearly as bad as I've seen in boy mode. :-(

Spiked

Have you ever stepped on a thorn from a citrus tree?

I have. Recently. :-(

The one that I stepped on was over 25mm (an inch) long, and it went straight through the sole of my well worn jogger, into the ball of my foot.

On the upside, I didn't have to worry too much about infection, as it bled profusely enough to clean out the wound. It also led me to dispose of a pair of old shoes that were overdue for retirement.

On the downside, I wasn't able to wear heels for about a fortnight, which led me to abandon plans of attending an event that I would have liked to have gone to.

In anticipation of Wednesday's nail appointment, I got my red siren stilettos out on Monday night and wore them for a few minutes to see if I could. As usual, they were tight but wearable.

It still aches a bit occasionally, but I'm guessing that by the time I next have an opportunity to wear heels (I'm guessing that will be when work slows down again in the next school holidays in about 3 months), it probably will have pretty much healed.

Admonished

I was planning on posting today, but this post will be entirely unlike the planned content... And just in case you're wondering, I have a few other things that I'll have to catch up on on my blog soon. I've been busy on predominantly non-crossdressing things but some do have implications for outings in the future.

I haven't been out en femme since the last nail appointment that I blogged about back in April. With work slowing down very slightly due to school holidays, I planned to take the opportunity to get to today's nail appointment en femme. In anticipation, I put in some extra effort to work on my paperwork backlog over the last week, and epilated my face on Monday night, expecting to do the remaining preparations on Tuesday night.

As with my plans for my nail appointment between Christmas and new year, on Tuesday afternoon someone else made plans that involve me without asking me, putting me in the same situation of having to choose between going out en femme and changing before going out in the evening at the risk of damaging my nails, turning up to the inlaws' place en femme, or abandoning my plans and doing the whole day in boy mode. Inevitably, changing too soon after the nails were done or turning up at the inlaws' place en femme weren't really viable, leaving boy mode as the only feasible option.

The reality is that my mood is a little down because of this, but having something upset my plans has happened so many times that it wasn't a surprise, and it wasn't as much of a blow as it would have been if I had got to Wednesday morning, then had something stop me.

At about the same time as finding out that my plans had been dashed, I was also admonished by an insomniac for neglecting my blog, and consequently failing to provide her with reading material!

At today's appointment, I went for a nail colour that I haven't worn in quite some time. It's a lot more subtle than the colours I generally wear now.

At the end of next week, I will be going to a daytime formal wedding. As was observed yesterday by a couple of women who will be going but are not particularly keen on dresses, makeup, etc., the irony is that the person who would most enjoy wearing such things (me) won't be allowed to, but they, who don't really feel like it, will be expected to do so.

Yes, I'm expected to go to a wedding dressed in a normal male suit...

At least I can match my nails to my tie. ;-)

I thought that you were a mannequin until you moved

With yesterday's post being so long, I forgot to mention the funniest thing that happened all day...

Where I parked at Kotara meant that the most practical way in and out was via a lift. In fact, it was the same lift where I overcame my fear of lifts about 4 years ago.

After walking the full length of the centre and back, I pressed the button for the lift and stood to wait for it. Before it arrived, an older woman pushing a shopping trolley arrived to wait for the lift, but made no attempt to push the button, which I was standing in front of.

As we entered the lift, she commented to me

"I thought that you were a mannequin until you moved."

I wasn't quite sure what to make of that comment, or the contradiction of the fact that she didn't try to push the button! :-)

Another nail appointment

I went to my nail appointment yesterday en femme. That's two consecutive fortnightly nail appointments en femme. After the very long gap between going to The Lindy Charm School in October last year and the Saturday of the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival last month, I've now been out 4 times in under a month, all in red or reddish orange retro outfits. :-)

After wondering how I was going to top the outfit I wore last time I went out, I ended up taking a rather different tack. Instead of trying to decide which retro dress to wear, or buying another one, I went to my unloved wardrobe of things that I had before I started wearing retro. I found this modern wrap dress that I bought at an op-shop, probably for $7 or less. I decided that the combination of layered ruffles around the neckline on a relatively simple wrap dress would look okay in a vintage inspired outfit.

On Tuesday afternoon, I received a work cheque in the mail, but didn't get the mail early enough to go and bank it, so on my way to my nail appointment, I stopped in at my local building society branch, anticipating an interesting reaction from the staff who know me. That was not to be, as there was just one of the regular staff and she was busy with another customer. While I was there, I decided that I'd also withdraw some cash, and by the time I'd completed the withdrawal slip, a male teller who I don't think I've ever met before had come out to serve. He didn't use any gender pronouns at all while serving me, but processed the transactions on the accounts in my male name without hesitation.

There was a slightly interesting moment when the lending manager who arranged our home loan last year was walking in the door as I walked out, and looked at my slightly oddly as he stepped aside to let me pass. I suspect that he recognised me, and it wouldn't surprise me if he knew about me from the other staff, in view of the Halloween Tinkerbell outing a couple of years ago.

After my nail appointment, I dropped into the local Lifeline shop to say hello, then headed up to Charlestown to start looking for a red bra to wear with red dresses and tops, in the hope that it would be less obvious than a skintone one if it happens to be visible around the edge of the cleavage. Having found nothing suitable, I headed towards the lifts to the carpark, walking past the same customer and her daughter as I encountered a few years ago. Since I'm now wigless, I know that my appearance is a lot less different between male and female than it used to be, and their business page in Facebook is a friend of my boy profile where I've posted photos of my last 3 outings, so I have no idea whether they recognised me or not. I have no idea why I shied away from them again, but I did.

Having struck out at Charlestown, I decided to try Kotara. After walking the entire length of the top level of the centre and back, I couldn't find any underwear shops that were different to the ones in Charlestown. I thought that there was at least one.

Doing all that walking, I also identified a problem that I had with the same shoes on the Sunday at Kurri Kurri. My feet perspire when walking long distances, making these particular shoes slide up and down my heels as I walk. With socks, I use powder to absorb moisture, but that's not really feasible with tights or stockings, so I've added non-powder foot anti-perspirant to the shopping list.

I'm back to looking for other things to go out for. For the first time in a very long time, I even considered going to the Newcastle cafe night this week, but my wife had already arranged to go to a pilates class on Tuesday night so I stayed home with our son.

Love the outfit

I mentioned on Friday that my neighbour had liked and shared the photo from my nail appointment that I'd posted on my boy profile on Facebook, and that she had subsequently asked to tag someone else into the photo.

I forgot to mention that the text that I attached to the photo was "If you're getting you're nails done, you should look the part. :-P"

She later commented "Love the outfit. Reminds me of my younger years."

No negativity there. :-)

Neighbourly knowledge

If there was any remaining doubt that my next door neighbours, whose house is alongside our driveway, knew about me or not, events of the past few days have eliminated all doubt.

Following on from having posted the photo of the outfit that I wore to the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival last year on my boy profile on Facebook, as I mentioned, I also posted both this year's Kurri photos.

On Tuesday night last week (the night before my nail appointment), I made a joking comment on facebook about wearing a 1950s outfit to take my son to his school end of term disco on the Wednesday night because he was annoying his mother. My neighbour asked how my son felt about that, and I responded that I wasn't actually going to do it. It's a running joke that if he misbehaves, I'll embarrass him.

A couple of nights ago, I decided to post one photo from my nail appointment last week on my boy profile. As I did last year, I shared the photo with "only me" to begin with, and adjusted the date and time of the photo back to the day that it was taken. Last night, I changed the sharing of the photo to "friends", and by this morning it had a comment and several likes. Then during the morning my neighbour not only liked it, but also shared it.

While I was typing this, she also requested to tag someone else who I don't know in my photo, so that that person can also see the photo. :-)

Having been out 3 times in under a fortnight, I'm more enthusiastic about going out than I have been in quite some time, but there are a few catches with that. One is that the more time I spend getting organised and going out, the further I get behind on paperwork. Another is finding places to go when I do go out. A strange one that has come up as a result of last Wednesday is that I was so happy with that outfit (aside from a bra band that kept coming up at the back and a slip that came up and gathered around my waist) that I'm struggling to work out what I could wear to top it!

Shoe adjustments

As I mentioned on Friday, I bought a pair of Nine West patent leather flats on Thursday, after wearing them for a few minutes in the shop to see if they would fit and be comfortable. Great theory! Friday night, I thought that I'd start breaking them in by wearing them while sitting at my computer, as I've done for numerous pairs of shoes before.

It didn't take long to discover that the amount of pressure on the edge of the opening of each shoe above my big toes were going to make the shoes break my feet instead of my feet breaking the shoes in, so I dug out my shoe stretchers.

With a pair of lumps installed in the right place, I left the shoes to stretch for about 24 hours and, when I tried them on today, they were far more comfortable. While there is a little bit of pressure around the side of each shoe just behind where they've stretched, I'd say that I've fixed about 99% of the problem. What little pressure there is isn't painful like it was, and if I find that it does need more stretching, I'll have to drill more holes in the stretchers to put lumps in the right places. I'm just going to wear them and see how it goes.

I also mentioned on Friday that I needed to put some front half gel insoles into the red Siren heels that I wore on the Sunday of Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival and again on Wednesday because they are quite uncomfortable to walk any distance in.

I've come to the realisation that the problem is that there was a gap between the arches of the shoes and the arches of my feet, from the ball of the foot up to about the middle of the arch. It seems that the shoes are designed for someone with a longer arch but shorter toes, whereas all of my Tony Bianco shoes have the right length arch for me.

The solution, then, was to put a pair of inserts into the bottom of the arch to fill in that gap. I tried the ones from the old boots, and they worked but were scruffy and bent out of shape from the boots. The only drawback is that by filling in the gaps, the insoles increase the pressure on my toes a little. I need to try to find shoe stretchers that fit high heels so that I can stretch the toes of the shoes a little.

When I went out to get Subway for dinner last night, I dropped into the supermarket and picked up a new pair of inserts on special for under $4. :-)

Oddly, while I know where the full rack of shoe products are in the very last aisle of the supermarket and went straight there, I was also looking for cotton tips, and noticed that there was a small range of one brand of shoe products in the personal care aisle, about 4 aisles away. I wonder how many people only see the small range and don't even realise that the others are there.

The other thing that I find amusing is that, every time I go there, the young woman at Subway who served me after I went to Kurri Kurri on the Saturday now comments that I'm not dressed up. :-)

Red patent flats

One thing that I've been aware of since I began wearing red retro dresses is that I didn't have any flat shoes to go with them. Obviously while wearing flats that don't go with the outfit isn't too much of a problem when driving, it is a problem once you get out of the car!

On the Saturday of the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, I alternated between mustard flats that fitted with the colours in the dress and my relatively comfortable Tony Bianco nude heels. Not having flats that went with the outfit, on the Sunday I left my flats in the car and did all of the walking in my significantly less comfortable red Siren heels. That's when I went from being aware that I needed red flats to being painfully aware that I really needed red flats. It also reminded me that I need to pull the front half gel insoles out of a pair of boots that I don't wear, and put them into the red heels.

In the lead up to the Nostalgia Festival, I looked around for red flats in all of the usual shoe shops, but not being out and about en femme meant that I didn't take the time to go through the various dress shops that sometimes have a small range of shoes, typically in the back of the shop.

Wednesday's outing to Charlestown Square following my nail appointment gave me an opportunity to take a little more time to look around the shops that I hadn't looked in before, and I noticed some pointy toed red leather flats on sale at Nine West.

Sadly, they didn't have my size, but they checked their computer and assured me that their Kotara store did. Given that the two centres are only a few kilometres apart, I figured that I'd go straight there, but it was closer to closing time than I realised, and the traffic was heavy so I didn't get there in time.

Happily, on Thursday morning, I had a job finish early, which left me with about 45 minutes before lunch in which to take a quick trip to Kotara. Of course, that meant that I was in my usual work clothes, but I didn't let that stop me.

When I got to the store, I asked about the shoe that I'd seen in Charlestown, in a size 10. While the sales assistant was out the back looking for them, I spotted an even more suitable patent leather flat with a rounded toe. When the sales assistant came back to tell me that she could only find a 9 1/2 in the pointy toed style, I asked about the round toed style, and she confirmed that they did indeed have that one in a 10.

After trying them on for a few minutes, I bought what had originally been $99 shoes, on special for just under $64. Yay. :-)

Finding an easier way

I have to say that I love the 1940s style teardrop hat that I got from The Lindy Charm School a few weeks ago, and I'm considering buying another one or two to go with other outfits.

When I wore it on the Sunday of the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, I felt that it worked beautifully with the outfit, but I struggled to pin it on as securely as I wanted. There was a small loop under the centre of the back, but nothing similar towards the front. I couldn't get a bobby pin to go through the loop and grip my hair well enough on its own, and ended up pushing a plastic comb into my hair under the hat to provide an anchor, then putting 2 bobby pins through the loop and diagonally under the comb. That held the back in place quite well, but securing the front meant putting a bobby pin over the edge of the hat between the two flowers. I was worried that that would damage the hat.

Last Thursday night, I went to Price Attack in Charlestown Square to see if I could find a couple of clips that I could sew onto the underside of the edge of the hat, and picked up a $10 pack of 4 snap open clips that are used with hair pieces. They have two holes at each end to allow them to be sewn on.

I sewed two onto the hat, and when I wore it yesterday, it was far easier and quicker to attach! :-)

Nailing it

For the first time in a very long time, I managed to get to a nail appointment en femme today.

The two ladies working in the salon were impressed with my outfit, and one wanted photos. I ended up messaging 3 of the photos taken with her iPhone across to my phone.

This is the same wiggle dress that I wore to The Lindy Charm School at Miskonduct last year, with essentially the same hairdo as I wore on the Sunday at the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival.

I came home briefly after the appointment, then decided to go to Charlestown Square to look for red flat shoes to go with the outfit. I spotted some red patent flats on special in a shop, but they didn't have my size. Apparently their Kotara shop does, but the traffic was predictably slow and by the time I drove from Charlestown to Kotara, it was closing time so I just continued home.

My son is going to a school end of term disco tonight. He annoyed his mother so much last night that when, while saying good night, I jokingly suggested that I could take him and pick him up again tonight. His response was to say NO! quite emphatically, but to cover  his face so that I couldn't see his big smile. My wife's response was a resounding Yes! :-)

Does not Compute error

I always make an effort to wear my wedding ring when I go out, whether en femme or not. It's a symbol of my commitment to my marriage, and wearing a dress doesn't make me any less married. When we had our wedding rings made, I had to convince the jeweller to make my ring narrower than he wanted to. He resisted, as he thought that making it narrower would make it look too much like a woman's ring. The result was a ring that's relatively narrow for a man's ring, but towards the wider end of the range for women's rings. I think it works both ways, although the nails tend to make it look feminine regardless of how I'm dressed. :-)

In response to my post yesterday, How can it not be obvious?, one of my friends commented on Facebook that perhaps people assume that I bat for the other team.

There is an annoyingly common misconception that crossdressers are homosexual. It is quite pervasive, and in the majority of cases, it's also quite wrong.

I remember reading a book many years ago where the author suggested that wearing a wedding ring might improve a person's ability to pass as female. Perhaps this also ties in with the misconception, in that a gay man dressed as female wasn't going to be married, and thus not going to wear a wedding ring. Obviously, with marriage equality, that isn't as applicable as it used to be!

Perhaps the same effect works either when somebody knows that I'm married, or they see that I'm wearing a wedding ring. They can see that I have no facial hair, very shaped brows, long hair, pierced ears and long painted nails but they assume that I can't be a crossdresser because of the pre-conception that crossdressers are homosexual, and conversely that heterosexuals are not crossdressers...

I call this a Does not Compute error. :-P

How can it not be obvious?

I went to Subway again on Saturday night, and the young woman who I was talking to on Tuesday night about my outfit from last Saturday was there again.

She enthused to the woman who was serving me about how great I looked when I was all dressed up, which led to me showing them the photos from last weekend on my phone.

When I mentioned that she had said that she didn't recognise me until I smiled, she surprised me with the comment that, in spite of talking about my long painted nails several times, like the hairdresser last year and others before that, she hadn't realised that I was a crossdresser.

I am still surprised when that happens. A guy has no facial hair (not even beard shadow), very shaped brows, long hair, pierced ears, long painted nails and people don't put the clues together.

Really? How can it not be obvious? :-)

As an aside, the flower that I wore on Saturday was one of the first ones that I got when I started looking in op shops, that cost me $1. I'd actually looked at it when I was converting them and thought that it was probably the one that I'd be the least likely to wear. I thought that it was too big, and wasn't sure about the sort-of dirty looking off white colour. As it turns out, it was a good colour to go with the outfit, and once I put it on, I realised that it wasn't too big after all.

Recognition takes a smile

I went back to my local Subway restaurant again tonight, and the young woman who served me on Saturday night was working there again.

There were no other customers in the shop. We talked a little about what I'd worn, and I showed her the photos from Sunday.

I found two comments that she made quite interesting, and a question that she asked really amazed me.

The first was that she described my outfit as a China Doll look, and didn't see it as a 1950s or pinup retro style.

The second was that she didn't recognise me when I walked in the door as I had assumed that she did. It wasn't until I smiled that she recognised me. That reminded me of going to the local Lifeline op shop back in 2010, when my smile was also the reason why people who already knew me recognised me. :-)

The question that she asked, was how I managed to do my hair so neatly. Given that I considered it to be a mess of flyaways and not-quite-right details, I was amazed that she saw it as being neat.

She also asked me how I felt about people staring at me. I told her that it amuses me now, but when I first started going out, it had terrified me. I suppose that it's an indication of just how accepting the younger generations are now that she couldn't understand why anybody would be frightened to go out en femme.

Sunday at Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival 2014

I managed to make it to Kurri Kurri again today, as planned.

I got a lot of compliments on this outfit and quite a few people took photos. :-)

Aside from having some difficulty pinning it into place, I'm really happy with the hat! There is a small loop that I put 2 bobby pins through to secure it, and the bobby pins kept slipping in my hair so I put a plastic comb under the hat, then pushed the bobby pin under it, in much the same way as I secured the snood yesterday. I'm thinking about stitching a small comb to the loop to make it easier.

Unfortunately, I haven't managed to get a pair of red flat shoes to go with this outfit, so I wore my heels from when I got out of the car to when I got back to it, which proved to be a bad plan and shortened the time I spent there. I find that these Siren shoes are just not as comfortable as my many pairs of Tony Biancos, including the ones I wore yesterday. I have to remember to put gel front half liners in them before I wear them again!

I caught up with a few people, including one who is adamant that I should go to another event called Krankit next weekend. It's actually closer to home, but I'm not sure that it's as focussed on the '50s clothing, etc as cars in general. At this stage, I have no idea whether I'll go, or whether I'll still be catching up from taking this weekend off!

Continuing on from last year, I've posted both of the full length photos on my facebook "boy" profile. :-)

Saturday at Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival 2014

I made it to Kurri Kurri as planned, and also went to my local Subway restaurant to get dinner afterwards, dressed the same. The young woman who often comments about my nails was quite impressed. :-)

I didn't realise until I went to put them on that my nude Tony Bianco stilettos still have glitter on them that looks like it's from my Halloween Tinkerbell outing almost 18 months ago!

Tomorrow, I'm planning on going again, in a dress that I got from Miskonduct Klothing last year but haven't worn yet, the red seamed tights and red stilettos that I wore to The Lindy Charm School in October last year and a custom made 1940s style teardrop hat from The Lindy Charm School.

I'm really hoping that the rain holds off!

Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival 2014

It's that time of year again. The Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival 2014 is on this weekend, and I'm hoping to get there both days ~ in different outfits.

Happily, the new freeway that was supposed to open late last year finally opened last weekend, so I'm planning on going on both Saturday and Sunday. Provided that they fit, Saturday's outfit will be based on the dress that I wore last year, but with some different accessories while Sunday's outfit will be a new dress with the shoes that I wore last year.

Annoyingly, it's been raining for the past few days so the ground will be wet at Kurri Kurri even if it clears up enough not to actually rain over the weekend. I've had to plan options for dry and wet weather, mostly affecting whether I carry an umbrella or a parasol, and whether I wear suede shoes or patent leather on Saturday.

I've attempted to experiment with hairstyles recently, and not been happy with the results. I haven't worn makeup at all since I went to the Lindy Charm School in October last year, so I have no idea how my hair and makeup will turn out!

I know that I will see a lot of people who know me through my work, including a lot of clients. Having posted the photo of last year's outfit on my boy facebook profile, it's pretty clear that most people know how I'll be dressed this year, and I haven't seen any negative comments. If people are saying disparaging things, they're not saying them to me. :-)

Infamy

"Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar - Carry On Cleo (1964)

No, actually it's nothing like that. :-)

I went to get my waist-down waxing done today, as I do about every 6 weeks.

Chrissy, who does my waxing most of that time, told me a funny little story.

It seems that she and a female friend were at a bar, and her friend was chatting with 2 guys that she knew but Chrissy didn't. She wasn't paying much attention until the guys started talking about something unusual that they'd seen. This engineer came to their place to inspect a job, and he had long, bright red nails...

When one of them mentioned my male first name, she responded with both my first name and my surname, and confirmed that yes, they were talking about me.

So it seems that, while many people don't say anything directly to me about them, they certainly notice, then gossip about me later. I'm comfortable with that. If there is negativity, I'm not aware of it so it doesn't count. :-)

More on sex and gender

After thinking about my last post a bit more, I realised that there were a few things that I should have mentioned in my essay but didn't.

What I stated as fact about brain sex being determined before birth is the leading current theory, which has come from extensive research. It's not just something that I've plucked out of the air. If you're interested, I'm sure that your favourite search engine could turn up links to such research.

What I call brain sex is often called gender identity. Because physical sex and brain sex are both fixed before birth but gender is a social construct, I much prefer the clearer distinction created by using one term for the two fixed characteristics and a different term for the social construct. I don't think that the term gender identity provides the same level of clarity, as it associates a brain trait established before birth with a social construct in a way that could be used by some anti-transgender (generally churchianity) groups who tend to claim that being transgender is a choice.

Clearly, the research indicates that it is not.

There is another thing that is also established in the brain prior to birth, which hate groups tend to also try to claim is a choice. Sexual orientation.

Like brain sex, sexual orientation is a continuum from being attracted only to males through being equally attracted to both sexes to being only attracted to females, with a sizeable area of attraction to various transgender or intersex people that makes it impossible to illustrate it as a line.

Sexual orientation is completely separate from brain sex. Yes, you probably read that right. Who you are sexually attracted to is completely independent of the sex that you identify as.

The theory of brain sex and sexual orientation being independent but both being determined before birth explains not only heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality in cisgender people (people whose brain sex and hence gender role matches their physical sex), but also explains the same range of sexual orientation variations in transgender people.

The part about the relationship between brain sex and sexual orientation that most people struggle with is the fact that most people think in terms of heterosexual and homosexual. A person whose position on the gender spectrum shifts, whether temporarily or permanently, throws that whole concept into disarray.

Fortunately, there are a couple of concepts that solve this problem quite neatly, and can also be viably applied to cisgender people. They are gynephilia and androphilia. These two terms define who a person is attracted to without reference to who they are. Gynephilia is attraction to females, while androphilia is attraction to males. There are also, of course, bisexual, asexual (not sexually attracted to anybody) and narcissistic (sexually attracted to themselves ~ I'd say "eww" here but I'd probably offend someone :-P ).

So, for example, my gender role tends to vary between male and female, but I always remain gynephilic.

Occasionally, people claim to have changed their sexual orientation at the same time as changing gender role. In practise, in the long term most will admit that they are in fact revealing their true sexual orientation, having pretended otherwise to fit into social expectations.

I believe that western societies are gradually becoming more accepting of both gender variations and variations in sexual orientation, and provided that we don't experience any radical social lurches towards religious fundamentalism, I foresee a time when children will be comfortable being open and honest about who they are and who they are attracted to, instead of having to waste years struggling to be someone who others expect them to be. The benefits to the individuals and to the community as a whole are enormous.

An essay on sex and gender

I've been trying to complete this post for several weeks. I come to it, change a little, feel unable to complete it, save it and go off and do something else.

A few weeks ago, I exchanged a series of private messages with a cisgender woman who is struggling to understand how my transgenderism fits into my family, in which I am essentially a male ~ a husband and father, and whether my expression of femininity ~ hair, makeup, dresses, high heels, etc somehow implies that she is less female than I am!

I sent her what was essentially an essay. I originally intended to re-write it to fit the normal tone of my blog posts, but I've come to the conclusion that rather than trying to re-write it, I'll just quote what I wrote to her, with minimal editing to clarify things that she would have understood but others might not. I'm not sure how she took it...

To provide context to part of what I wrote later, I've included part of an earlier message, where I observed that:

The problem is that I know what the solution to my depression is. Spending time socialising "as female" is effectively the anti-depressant that I need, but like using a drug, the frequency has to be high enough to avoid bouts of depression between the doses. The Catch-22 problem is that if I get too depressed, I can't push myself to get organised and go out and it becomes a downward spiral of depression.

It really is as simple as that.

That led on to the main essay:

I do understand when people intend to be considerate, understanding etc but struggle to do so. As a child, my father (like many people in that era) was extremely homophobic, to the point that I feel that I have some homophobia ingrained into me, even though I consciously reject it. To make it even more complicated, that extreme homophobia effectively incorporated transphobia, because at that time all transgender behaviour was seen by most people as being a variety of homosexuality. The presumption of a connection persists to this day, and is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with other people's ideas of who I am.

If you think that it is difficult for you to understand, I assure you that you're not alone! Plenty of people who live it every day don't understand it either.

The first thing to try to get your head around (and it is difficult) is to separate the concepts of physical sex, brain sex and gender. Physical sex is an immutable biological fact ~ it's part of the DNA. Brain sex is a function of how the person perceives themselves, which is determined by hormonal "programming" that happens during foetal development. Like physical sex, it is immutable ~ it's what was programmed into the brain before birth. Gender is a social construct ~ it's generally what a society considers normal for people of a physical sex, but some societies have a category for "third gender", which basically recognises the existence of transgender people.

None of the three are binary male/female. Like intersex people who have a range of positions along the continuum between male and female, the brain sex can be ambiguous or even variable. The latter is how it is for me ~ it varies with context. Gender has an unlimited number of positions on a spectrum. When you look at someone and think "that's a male" or "that's a female", it is a gender attribution that you are making.

Crossdressing is seeking to temporarily align the gender role with the brain sex. In a social setting, it allows the person to behave in a manner congruent to how they think. That's where I'm at.

Transsexualism takes it a huge step further, involving hormones and surgery to alter the brain and body to approximate that of the opposite physical sex. I know quite a few people who have gone that way, including one who I've known for several years as "just" a crossdresser (their self-description), who has just started transitioning.

I can't see that in my future. At some point at the end of a day or night out, it is a relief to strip off that gender role because my mood has shifted away from feminine and I've satisfied the craving ~ I've got my hit, and I'm ready to do something else. To transition would be to trap myself in something that I don't want all of the time.

If you can get your head around all of that, you'll realise that "femininity" is a gender construct, and is quite separate from being a woman. If you ask yourself the question "am I a man or a woman" and you confidently answer that you are a woman, then that is what you are because that's what your brain sex is, regardless of physical sex and gender. If I ask myself the same question, my answer is either "yes" or "no" depending how much emphasis I put on the "or". I admire transsexuals for the fact that they are able to answer that question one way or the other, and that they have the courage to choose to adjust their entire life including their bodies to fit that.

Being a woman does not come down to makeup, fancy hair styles and dresses. For most women, other people will see you as a woman unless you go out of your way to look male. For someone whose body says male but their brain says (or screams) female, there is a need to alter the appearance so that most other people will see them as female. Because there are gender cues in hair styles, skin colour and texture, facial bone structure, body proportions and many other physical aspects, a crossdresser has to over compensate to some extent, drawing attention towards constructed feminine features to distract from masculine features. Likewise for mannerisms.

For transsexuals who use hormones and have had their body and face surgically altered, this becomes less and less of an issue, as the masculine features are removed or obscured, meaning that many tend to move more and more to living just like every other woman ~ little or no makeup, simple hairstyles and loose fitting comfortable clothes.

While I have, at times, made an effort to make my makeup subtle and dress down to fit in such as when shopping, it's not why I dress. My recent move towards 1950s "pinup" style is because it is "a bit out there" but there are enough women getting around day-to-day dressed that way that it's not completely out of place. It generates attention, but it is good attention because people tend to admire or at least respect the effort and results. If I didn't have confidence in my presentation, I couldn't pull that look off. I needed practice dressing down and fitting in to build my confidence when I first went out, but with that confidence established, I now tend to want to express my individuality ~ by dressing like all of those other pinup girls. :-P

Note (added 13 March 2014) ~ A follow-up post can be found here.

Rearranging

I realised a couple of hours ago that we're now a month into 2014, and the only girly things I've done so far this year were to practice 1940s/1950s hair styling on a couple of nights while my family were away, and buy a couple of snoods.

One snood is black, which is a colour that I doubt I'd ever wear out but it was in an op shop for $2.50, so I bought it to practice with to see if I thought I could make a snood work for me before buying a new one. After the first night, I thought that I could make it work, so I went and bought a red one to go with some of my red dresses. The second night, I tried to put the red one on and couldn't get it to sit right. As you'll see in the photo, I've also discovered that quite a few of the artificial flowers that I converted for use as hair accessories probably aren't going to work ~ in general, they need to be fully open flat flowers so that the back can't be seen from any angle, or they need to be placed inside or under something, such as putting buds inside rolls.

I need to practice again, but I have come to the realisation that I don't feel comfortable in my own home when my wife and son are home, and tend to retreat to my office, which is in a separate shed. I'm yet to work out how I'm going to resolve that.

We still haven't heard back from the engineers about our house extension plans, but in the meantime I've begun a fairly major restructure of where things are stored in our house, including moving my breast forms and virtually all of my hair stuff (rollers, straightener, clips, accessories, sprays, etc) from the bedroom to a cupboard near the bathroom. I've also organised space for my makeup, but haven't moved it yet.
 
I'm also spending quite a bit of time at present creating an attic in our ceiling. It's something that I planned years ago and started by installing an attic stair unit, then didn't get much further with until a few weeks ago. We're fortunate that the ceiling space is quite open because it's a pitched roof. Of course, the ceiling gets quite dusty, so everything has to be either covered in drop sheets or stored in plastic storage boxes. So far, I've laid about 30% of the final floor area that I expect to be able to do, and filled it. That means that I've now got space in the house to rearrange a couple of rooms so that hopefully I will soon be able to have a wardrobe outside our bedroom in which to hang clothes that I plan to wear out, as well as somewhere to store jewellery.

I'm hoping that all of this work will mean that eventually, I'll be able to do my hair and makeup and get dressed in the morning while my wife is still in bed asleep, without having to spend an hour or more getting things out of our bedroom before I go to bed, stacking them wherever I can find space such that it adds considerably to the time taken in the morning, and still having to sneak back into the bedroom in the morning to find things that I've forgotten.

2013 - a year of disappointment

Clearly, Something has got to change in my life. Back in 2010, I managed to average an outing every 5 days over the year. In 2011, that fell to a total of 51 outings, or an average of less than once a week. With some major work related stress issues, the total for 2012 was down to 13 (about once per fortnight), and I didn't think that it could get any worse.

But it did! In 2013, I managed a total of just 5 outings for the entire year, including IMATS and The Lindy Charm School, that I pushed myself to attend because I'd paid in advance, and the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, that I planned months in advance for, because I didn't get there last year!

My sleep patterns are no better than they were last year, or the year before, or any of the dozen or so years before that. :-(

At around 85kg, my weight is still far too high. It's a couple of kilos better than last year, but about the same as 2 years ago. I have recently taken to having this old postcard photo of Betty Brosmer as the background on my computer, to remind me that I need to eat less so that I can have a smaller waist. Realistically, the thing that helped me the most to lose weight was going out frequently wearing a body shaper.

I'm still having a lot of trouble with disorganisation at home making it difficult if not impossible to get organised enough to go out en femme. The most recent example was that I seriously considered going to the New Years Eve cafe night, and got as far as straightening my hair and getting my red wiggle dress out, but couldn't get to the ironing board to press the dress.

We made progress with revising the plans for our house extensions, but we have to wait for approval from the civil engineers before we can submit them to council. I'm really hopeful that we'll actually get started on construction this year. To some extent, it worries me that I'm pinning my hopes on the house extensions making a big difference to my organisation and hence my ability to get out more often. I don't know how I'll cope if we put in a huge amount of time, effort and money and it doesn't help!

Perhaps the most troubling thing is the Catch 22 of outings and depression. Going out en femme helps to alleviate my depression. Not getting out means that the depression gets worse, to the point that I'm too depressed to fight all of the obstacles that make it difficult to go out.

Not like a character from a Jane Austen novel

The following has been saved as a draft blog post for over a year. I knew part of what I wanted to say, but not all of it. It occurred to me today that I now know the answer, and can can complete the post...

I have been pondering a line from the character Elizabeth Bennet in the Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice on and off for quite a while now.

I cannot bear to think that he is alive in the world and thinking ill of me.

While she was saying it in regards to the man that she was in love with (but didn't realise it at the time) and ended up marrying, I see a generic parallel in my life in general.

I know that I shouldn't care about the opinions of negative people, but I have a tendency not to want anybody to think ill of me.

I've finally realised where my whole thinking was wrong.

Elizabeth Bennet cared about Mr Darcy's opinion of her because it actually mattered to her, even though she wasn't aware of why at the time that she made the statement. In stark contrast, the attitudes and opinions of people who think ill of me must no longer matter to me.

For years, even when I knew that I was being rejected, I sought approval and acceptance from people whose opinion I should never have cared about. That includes a wide variety of people, including family members who have chosen to reject me because I was honest about who I am. It even includes some members of the trans community who have gone out of their way to hurt me. The apparent reasons range from political differences to jealousy, but I've finally come to realise that the reason is entirely irrelevant, and I shouldn't even try to work it out. I simply have to disconnect myself from anybody who has chosen to reject me, irrespective of their reasons.

As a scientifically educated political moderate, I've been rejected by radical socialists and deeply conservative pseudo-religious people alike. At the same time, I have genuine friends including some at both ends of the political spectrum. We might not see eye to eye on many issues, but we are still able to not only be civil but to be friends. Hence, a political difference doesn't have to be a reason why someone would reject me, unless they are too narrow minded to be able to accept a difference of opinion. 

So, from now on I am going to make an effort to ignore people who choose to reject me. I'm going to try not to even think about why they are rejecting me, but simply accept that they have successfully argued for their limitations. I'm not even going to bother feeling sorry for them any more.

The best laid schemes...

Because of Christmas, I had to arrange my nail appointments around the public holidays and my nail technician's holidays. That means that I have only one nail appointment during my 3 weeks of holidays, and that is tomorrow. I actually arranged this appointment about 6 months ago, when the salon got its new financial year (July to June) diary.

Like so many times before, I planned to go to my nail appointment en femme. This time, I planned to wear the same outfit as I wore to The Lindy Charm School last month. In anticipation of that, I've been keeping up with all of the usual hair removal, etc.. I straightened my fringe for Christmas day, and planned on straightening all of my hair and having a go at putting it up tonight.

I figured that if I had success with my hair tonight, I should be able to get up around 9am and be easily able to make a 1pm appointment.

Tonight, I was informed that, without any consultation, it has been arranged that my son will be picked up at about 9am tomorrow by my father-in-law, and that we are to pick him up from my inlaws' place after having dinner there.

So now, I have to work out whether I'm going to go to my appointment en femme as planned, then rush to change back and risk damaging my nails before they have time to harden, turn up to the inlaws' place for dinner en femme, or, after weeks of anticipation, not do girl mode at all.

An observation about nail colour choice

I'm very aware that I haven't been out much this year. It's over 2 years since I stopped going to the cafe nights regularly, and over a year since I went there at all. Other outings have also been infrequent.

While outings have been infrequent, the desire to go out has not. At least once every day, I think about when I might next have an opportunity to go out en femme. Most of the time, particularly when I consult my work diary, I don't actually know when there will next be an opportunity.

For example, I have work booked after 3pm on the next three Tuesday afternoons, and when I went to cafe nights, I aimed to finish my scheduled work at 3pm so that I could actually finish by about 4:30. Of those three, there is only one that has a moderate chance of taking little enough time that I could finish by 4:30. The only other chance would be if I had a cancellation.

Sometimes, I find an opportunity and start planning an outfit and outing, only to have work or family wipe out the opportunity entirely. Sometimes, I try to push past the obstacles but it rarely works. The Halloween Tinkerbell plan this year is an example of this ~ I originally planned to do it, then it appeared that I was going to be in Sydney for the weekend. While my family went to Sydney, I stayed home but not to go out as Tinkerbell but because I had two lots of tax paperwork that had to be completed. I did one lot on the Saturday (missing out on Halloween) and the other on the Sunday (missing out on wearing a '50s outfit to Chromefest). I've had several people comment about the fact that I didn't turn up at Halloween, particularly those who saw me last year or had heard about it.

In spite of all of this, I choose my nail colours based not on coordinating with my regular male apparel but on what I hope to wear. I choose red, orange or bronze, because I've decided what outfit I want to wear next time I go out, or I've chosen something specific such as a pair of earrings that I want to build an outfit around.

So, in effect, by continuing to choose bold colours, I'm declaring that I still hope to go out en femme before (or to) my next nail appointment. I guess if I go back to neutrals that disappear into my hands or regular clothes, that will be an indication that I've given up hope.

Hair accessories

Yet again, I've been so over-run with work that I haven't had a chance to post. Then again, until yesterday I didn't have much to write about.

After going to the Lindy Charm School last month, I decided that I wanted some red imitation roses to go with the dress and skirt that I haven't worn yet, both of which have a red rose print on them. The right shade for those should also go well with the dress that I wore to the Lindy Charm School.

The imitation flowers that I got from the Lindy Charm School this year and last year started off as ordinary stemmed decorative flowers. The stems on most of these imitation flowers are glued into a socket on the back of the flower. It's quite easy to pull the stem out, pierce a hole across the socket then push a bobby pin through that hole. That's what had been done to the ones from last year. The ones from this year had had the stems removed but (possibly an oversight) hadn't been pierced, so they had to be pinned on using bobby pins on the outer petals.

On Tuesday, I was walking past an op shop, and decided to have a look for curtains for the house that we bought recently. While I didn't find any curtains, I spotted a bucket of artificial flowers, including one rose of the sort of shade of red that I was looking for and a rather large, almost white rose. At $1 each, I grabbed them both. :-)

On Saturday morning, I decided to have a look around a few other op shops. At one, I found a bunch of 7 bright orange artificial roses with no price label. When I asked the price, the woman first said 50c, then immediately changed her mind and said 20c. That was a price I just couldn't refuse!

After I got home, I got enthusiastic about removing the stems and putting bobby pins onto them. As luck would have it, a small metal spike to make the hole, followed by a bead reamer that my wife uses to clean up the holes in beads for making jewellery worked beautifully for making the holes.

Mind you, there is one flower in this photo that doesn't have a bobby pin. The one at the right end of the 2nd row, which I wore to the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, was actually made as a hair clip, and has a spring clip on it, making it a little less usable than the others. The middle and right ones in the bottom row came from the Lindy Charm School last year and the rest I converted yesterday.

I've now got quite a few hair flowers, so I'll need to try to find time amongst my currently insane work schedule to wear some of them. That's if I can get back down to a weight that works for any of my clothes ~ I've been comfort eating and I'm currently around 86kg. :-(

Lindy Charm School revisited

This post is now almost a fortnight overdue. Life got busy, and having a dramatic increase in our level of debt (to the highest it's ever been) combined with a high level of demand for my work as encouraged me to concentrate on that work because it has the potential to help reduce the debt!

On Sunday, 20th October, I went to the Lindy Charm School again, as I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I had hoped to do.

In preparation, on the Friday night I drove my son to Sydney to visit my wife's relatives, as planned. I then spent an inordinate amount of Saturday evening preparing myself for the outing on Sunday. I think that by the time I got to bed, it was only about 4 hours until my alarm was due to go off.

This has become a noticeable pattern for me. Like IMATS, the fact that I've bought a ticket to the event is ultimately what makes the difference between giving up before I get organised and actually following through.

Sunday's outfit consisted of the dress that I got from Miskonduct at the end of August, my red Siren stilettos, a pair of red seamed nude tights that I bought directly from the UK a few months ago (which I thought worked very well with the dress and shoes), a pair of red fabric covered button style earings that I got from Miskonduct last year (which look like a miniature version of the buttons on the dress), and a bright red handbag that I got from Miskonduct in early October.

I gained quite a bit from the day at Lindy Charm School, including many details that I didn't remember at all from last year. Being very conscious that I could remember so little from last year, I made an effort to pay attention to a lot of details. I know that I need to practice soon, but I'm more confident that when I do, I will be able to remember the necessary details.

A little trim and...

As I mentioned last week, I needed to get my hair trimmed before I go to the Lindy Charm School workshop later this month.

Today, like every second Wednesday, was a nail appointment day. As is so often the case, by the time I got to bed on Tuesday night, I was so exhausted that even though I had epilated my face, trimmed my hairline and arm hair, going to my nail appointment in girl mode ceased to be an option because I really needed the extra sleep!

Knowing that the Lindy Charm School workshop isn't until after my next nail appointment, I decided to go with bronze on my nails this time and go red next time. Sadly, this was the end of my favourite bottle of Face of Australia limited edition Molten Metallic Bronze polish.

After getting my nails done, I went to the Building Society then, as I was walking back to my car, decided to stop in at the hair salon that my wife and son go to, to see if I could get an appointment. It turned out that I was able to get an appointment later in the afternoon. In the process of making the appointment, she knew who I was relative to my wife and son, which became quite relevant later on...

The first thing that she did was take my hair out of the plait, brush it out and show me the 75mm (3") or so that she wanted to take off, pointing out that the ends were thin and scraggly. I agreed with her ~ the length that she removed was about the length that I knew needed removing last year!

When she asked if I always wore my hair tied back, I answered "not always". In conversation, I offhandedly mentioned that the length that was coming off had been making it difficult to do things such a 1940s 3-roll. No reaction. I took that to mean that she had realised from the painted nails, pierced ears, long hair and lack of facial hair that I was a crossdresser, but as the conversation continued it became obvious that she had not.

When she went to trim my fringe, I mentioned that the biggest problem that I have with my fringe is that some hair is sometimes in the fringe and sometimes not, and that I often end up with some hair that is too long for the fringe but too short to tie back.

In the ensuing discussion about the fact that the shape of my hairline meant that the sides could not be brought forward into the fringe, I commented that I trim the hairline and when I wear makeup, I shade the hairline to make it more rounded. She asked why I wear makeup!

"Because I'm a crossdresser."

As has been the case so many times before, she had no idea until then. Apparently when I made the remark about the 1940s 3-roll, she just didn't believe that she'd heard straight and ignored it.

Of course, this led to many of the usual questions. How did my wife feel about it, did I dress in front of my son, etc..

As usual, there was no negativity, just genuine interest because she hadn't had the opportunity to ask these questions of someone who is openly a crossdresser.

Coincidentally, the hairdresser is the mother of one of the women at Price Attack in Charlestown, where I bought the hair donuts and green nail polish for my Tinkerbell outfit last year. The daughter has certainly seen me in girl mode before, and I think that she has also seen my Tinkerbell photos from last year.

Were you at IMATS?

If I go to get Subway for dinner, I often also go to the Woolworths supermarket in the same building while I'm there. The vast majority of the time, I'm in boy mode ~ including tonight.

And so it came about that tonight I grabbed a few things and took them through a self-service checkout. After realising that there was nobody minding the self-service area, I walked around to the service counter and asked if they had the Aussie Animals cards that they are currently giving away with purchases, as my son is collecting them.

As she handed me the cards, the woman behind the counter asked me "Were you at IMATS?"

It's not something that I expected to be asked, and it seemed like it took about a second for my brain to process the question.

After I confirmed that yes, I had indeed been there, we had a brief conversation about it.

She complimented me on my presentation, and seemed quite genuine in her compliment. Considering how unhappy I was with my presentation, I was quite happy with the compliment. :)

It turned out that it had her first time at IMATS. She recognised me from the supermarket, but she was with a friend who didn't even read me. She was surprised that I was there mostly for the presentations, as she had apparently spent up big while she was there and wasn't really aware of the presentations.

It was apparently her first time there, and she seemed surprised (possibly even impressed) that it was my third time there.

I guess I tend to sound like a broken record on this point, but I find it interesting to note that, contrary to the claims of many crossdressers who won't even set foot outside their door in girl mode, there is once again no negativity at all in a relative stranger's response to me.

No Tinkerbell this year

This morning, I looked at my diary and realised that I have a nail appointment on Wednesday 16th October, ahead of the Lindy Charm School on Sunday 20th. The obvious thing to do is to get my nails done red.

A conundrum arose, in that I planned to go to Halloween in Cardiff on Saturday 26th in essentially the same outfit as last year, including having my nails done in the same glitter green polish. That would be in the same fortnight between nail appointments as the LCS. Okay, so I'd have to change the polish myself between appointments.

Except that I was also considering going to Chromefest on Sunday 27th, and that would definitely be a 1950s outfit event, for which I'd want my nails red again.

So I began considering options such as applying Magic Tape (special sticky tape that is designed to be removed without damaging whatever is underneath it) to my nails, and painting it green so that it could be peeled off to reveal the red for the Sunday.

So far, so good.

Then the wheels fell off.

It doesn't appear that I'll be doing Halloween or Chromefest this year.

Instead, I'll be helping my wife's relatives who will be moving house that weekend ~ into the house that we're buying to rent to them!

You can't hide with Google around

I mentioned a few days ago that I had chatted to a makeup artist who stopped me at IMATS to tell me that she read my blog, and joked that she was stalking me on my blog.

Out of curiosity, I wondered if I could find her using Google search. The first search turned up a web site that I suspected was hers, so the second search was an image search for the name of the owner of that site, and the very first photo result was her.

It took around 2 minutes to go from "I wonder if I can find her" to "Yes, that's her", while looking at her Facebook profile photo! Of course, I sent her a friend request. :-)

While it's good that you can easily find something or someone that you're looking for, the downside is that someone else can do the same to you. For example, I postulated that if I can find someone that easily, surely with the right search terms (probably a very small number of words), it would be trivial to work backwards from my female online persona to my real world life.

The answer is yes, it is. Then again, with how out I am on facebook, and in real life (particularly with my nails), I don't greatly care if people join the dots.