Becca and Dixie are a crossdresser & wife combination that are hard to beat. Both of them are committed to unity within the trans community as well as having alliances with the larger LGBT community. They run the Eureka En Femme Getaway (which is one of our favorite events) as well as the online group A Crossdresser’s Secret Garden and its website.
< Sis Becca
1. How did you come to start running the Eureka En Femme Getaway?
The idea of the Getaway actually started with our wedding – we were married in the Beckham Cave house in Jasper Arkansas and had 4 other couples join us (crossdressers and their wives), as well as a TS friend of ours from Florida. We were talking one night and someone mentioned we should do this more often. We started tossing ideas around and Becca mentioned Eureka Springs, thinking mainly because of its diversity and acceptance of the Gay community, it would be the perfect place to give it a shot.
A few weeks later Becca and I, along with another couple, took a trip to Eureka Springs and looked at the hotels there. The few that were in the downtown area were either too small, too costly, or not accepting. We walked into the Basin Park and after just a short talk with Misty, the hotel’s events coordinator, knew we had found a home. We signed a contract with her for 20 rooms. We got in the car and headed home and thought, WHAT have we done! WE do not KNOW 20 crossdressing couples, how in the heck will we fill the rooms! The small Tri-Ess group we belonged to at the time only had about 10 active members and those were husbands and wives, so assuming all would attend that is only 5-6 rooms out of 20. It was then that I (Dixie) decided to build the En Femme Getaway website with the hopes that we could fill the 20 rooms we contracted for. I worked furiously posting the Getaway on any and every TG website and online group I could find on the internet. By the time all was said and done, we had sold not 20 but 27 of the rooms (which was all we could get as the others had been booked!) So in the Spring of 2002 the very first Eureka! En Femme Getaway event was underway.
Everyone seemed to enjoy their time there so much, they were asking WHEN the next one would be…… Next one? We had not thought any further than then this one! Becca and I talked about it and thought ‘OK let’s give this a shot,’ so we planned one for the Fall of 2002, contracted with the hotel for all the rooms, and sold out. Since that time we have held the event twice a year (the only TG event to do that) and have sold out each and every time. This spring will be our 9th event, and many of those that attend have been back several times, with some of them having attended all 9 events!
Our first guest Speakers were Linda and Cynthia Phillips, who were instrumental in helping Becca in the early days. They were the originators of the first TG event (that we know of) – the Texas Tea Party. Since the first Event in the Spring of 2002, we have been blessed with many wonderful speakers: Helen & Betty, Lacey Leigh, Gina Lance, and Peggy Rudd to name a few.
What do you think are the best parts of it?
The people – seeing the joy and excitement on their faces as they step out of the hotel. Many of our guests have NEVER been out of the closet. The Getaway event was their first time to actually get out and enjoy themselves. The Getaway is quite unlike other event – we don’t have a plethora of seminars to attend that only tend to lead to a closet inside a closet. We encourage the girls to get out on the town and have FUN! After all, isn’t that what it is all about, getting out, having fun and being yourself?
Family. The Getaway has been described as a “Family Reunionâ€, and I think that is exactly what it is. I look forward to each Getaway and the chance to see ‘family’ members again.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Becca and Dixie”
From the Mailbag
Dear Helen,
First, let me say that i thought your book < My Husband, Betty > was excellent. I’m not a crossdresser myself and had figured that out before i read your book, but since a friend of mine’s picture was featured in it, i simply had to buy the book. It turned out to be a pretty fair description of the crossdressing world that i had seen in my brief and peripheral experience of it. At least, that’s my opinion.
You wrote: “it always struck me as ironic that VP, who put these standards & membership rules in place, prefers she-male porn and is living full-time as a woman – and has been for many years.”
Meanwhile….. On doing some internet research on crossdressers who use non-over-the-counter hormones (the rationale of this puzzled me) i came across the above quotation. Who is the VP you are referring to? I know Virginia Prince is a “transgenderist”, but i always assumed her tastes were of a rather vanilla variety. Do you know if she also uses hormones? If not, does she have a position on their use by crossdressers. She has a rather perscriptive personality on most such issues, so I’m just curious.
Best Regards,
Lori
Lori,
Yes, I was referring to Virginia Prince with that shorthand of VP.
From what I know – Virginia used hormones for herself until she got the breasts she wanted. Then, because estrogen disrupted her sex drive and/or functionality, she quit taking them. That said, she does live full-time as a woman and has for many, many years now – more than she lived presenting as a man at this point. In some ways, she’s like a transsexual who didn’t have bottom surgery.
If you want to know the whole scoop, you need to get Richard Docter’s book about her, From Man to Woman. That’s where I got the information about her liking she-male porn; she even admitted that if she were young now, that’s probably what she’d be doing. She was infamously oversexed.
I don’t know if she ever had a “position” on crossdressers using hormones, but I’ve met quite a few now who simply want breasts. Some of them use hormones to get them – and then “bind” for their male lives. In some cases, that kind of “treatment” is even recommended, to relieve body dsyphoria and gender role dysphoria by enabling the CDs to pass more easily when they do dress.
Like I said in the book, the definitive line between crossdressers and transsexuals is not so definitive. Often the distinction made is whether the person presents as female part of the time (= crossdresser) or all the time (=transsexual). Others make the distinction with body modifications – ie, hormone use and/or surgery. But there are plenty of transsexuals who opt not to have surgery, or who maintain male identities for their professonal life, & all sorts of other combinations. Still another distinction that’s been made (& one that I think is the least valid, to be honest) is that for crossdresser’s it’s sexual, and for transsexuals it isn’t.
This stuff is getting murkier & murkier every day, what with the internet & hormones being easily gotten, and according to some researchers, the largest category of people have always been the ones who don’t fit the “classic transsexual” or “classic crossdresser” definition.
Thanks for writing, and for the praise.
Helen
Scrawny Shoes
The other day, just for fun, Betty and I popped our heads into a shoestore around 14th Street – not the DSW, the other one. I had envied Tom’s shoes that night at Yale, and all of my own shoes are very very scrappy-looking indeed, which is fine for daily wear, but I’ve always believed one should have at least one pair of shoes good enough for church.
I found a sharp pair of Kenneth Coles – square toe, visible stitching – and was told first that they were men’s shoes. When I didn’t scare so easily, the clerk told me they only started at men’s size 7 which is at least a women’s size 8.
[sigh] I’m a women’s 7 & 1/2, max, usually a 7. [/sigh]
So I went to the women’s section of Kenneth Cole – just for shits & giggles, since I knew what I’d find – and found all these… scrawny shoes. Thin little ballet slipper shoes with thin soles or thin heels or both. It made me sad. There wasn’t enough shoe to any of them. I miss the era of unisex, urban shoes.
But, still optimistic, I went online and checked that shoe behemoth zappos.com. Women’s shoes : Oxfords revealed about 15 pairs, not all of which were actually Oxfords. I tried Men’s : Oxfords and found plenty, but nearly all of them started, like Ken Cole’s, at size 7. The ones that didn’t were either extraordinarily expensive or looked a little too much like the shoes an out-of-touch mom might buy her teenage son for his confirmation – or a funeral. And even he’d have the good sense to not like them.
So alas, I checked Dr. Marten’s, and they had shoes. Not the steel-toed ones I’d seen at Trash & Vaudeville, but shoes made for something a little less dainy than picking flowers.
At long last I gave in and checked ebay, where I bid on (and won) a pair of stand issue, unisex, black DMs. For $5.50. I bid and won another, slighly different pair, for $9. That will hold me for a couple of years, no doubt – the shoes I wear most often I bought before I met Betty. (We’re celebrating our 8th anniversary this April.)
And crossdressers wonder why I don’t like to talk about shoes. For me, shoe shopping is often a hostile universe, where my requests are so often met with comments like “these only have a small heel” or “but it’s not much pink.” As a kid, I wanted the round-toed sneakers the boys wore, not those pointy tennies girls were supposed to wear. Ah, to un-dainty my dainty feet. At least Betty & I got to laugh over the fact that if I ever transitioned, my feet would be my “tell.” Ironically, I grew up thinking I had very large feet, because – c’mon, you can guess this one – I had older brothers who convinced me I did. When I was 25 or so, I actually said, “I know I have big feet” to a shoe salesman, who then asked how tall I was. When I answered (5’6″) he looked at me like I was from another planet. “Those are small feet, for your height,” he said simply.
Ruined
There are times I wonder – if Betty and I ever did split up – if I could ever date regular guys again. I’m not sure I could take it, but I’m not sure what would be the hardest to deal with: the male privelege, or fitting myself into the ‘girlfriend’ box again, or just being with someone with only one gender.
But if I didn’t date guys I don’t know who I would date; it’s at times like this it’d be useful to be bisexual. I honestly don’t think I could ever date a crossdresser again because of the slippery slope. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to date women raised female-type women.
Ultimately it’s a damn good thing there is no break-up on our horizon, eh? I’ve been ruined for dating. I used to joke about being Betty-sexual but apparently that was one truth initially said in jest.
Trans for $200, Alex
Tonight “Trans” was a category on Jeopardy, and there wasn’t anything about transvestites or transgender or transsexuals. Trans-Canada things, and Trans-Continentals, but no trans as in gender.
Sometimes I wonder how out of touch I am these days.
Five Questions With… Arlene Istar Lev
Arlene Istar Lev LCSW, CASAC, is a social worker, family therapist, educator, and writer whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. She is the founder of Choices Counseling and Consulting (www.choicesconsulting.com) in Albany, New York, providing family therapy for LGBT people. She is also on the adjunct faculties of S.U.N.Y. Albany, School of Social Welfare, and Vermont College of the Union Institute and University. She is the author of The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide (Penguin Press, 2004) and Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families (Haworth Press, 2004). Additionally, she maintains a :Dear Ari” advice column, which is currently published in Proud Parenting and Transgender Tapestry. She is also the Founder and Project Manager for Rainbow Access Initiative, a training program on LGBT issues for therapists and medical professionals, and a Board Member for the Family Pride Coalition. Her “In a Family Way” column on LGBT parenting issues is nationally syndicated.
< Arlene Istar Lev
1. You work a lot with LGBT parenting issues. What do you see as the major differences between LGB parents and T parents?
Lesbian and gay parents deal with numerous issues of oppression, and depending on the state or locality in which they live, this can be minor issues of societal ignorance, to huge issues of public and legal discrimination. However, as difficult as the issues facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual people may be, they pale in comparison to the blatant oppression transgender and transsexual parents face.
In many states, lesbian and gay people can now jointly legally adopt their children as out same-sex couples; this provides their children with many benefits and protections. However, transgender people experience discrimination in all routine areas of family life. Judges determining parental custody will rarely award custody to out trans people, except possibly in cities like San Francisco that specifically offer transgender protections. Trans people are viewed by the courts as unfit by the virtue of their (trans)gender status. Additionally, adoption agencies do not see transgender people as “fit†to be parents, and the obstacles faced by transgender people wanting to be parents can feel insurmountable.
Lesbian and gay people have fought for the right to become parents. I remember a time when simply being an out lesbian would bias a judge’s custody decision. Although there are some localities where this still would be true, even in upstate New York in rural communities, judges minimize the issues of sexual orientation in making custody decisions. However, I cannot imagine the same being true regarding gender transition. In my book, The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide, a transwoman tells the painful story of losing custody of her son after her crossdressing was used to “prove” that she was a deviant and a pervert. The legal status of trans people, regarding their rights to their children, is reminiscent of LGB legal rights 40 years ago.
However, there is good news to report. Trans parents are coming out of the closet in increasing numbers. Many trans people who have positive relationships with spouses and ex-spouses are finding ways to parent together and address the issues the gender-transpositions can have on family life. Increasing numbers of people are choosing to have children as out trans people. Some FTMs are getting pregnant, placing medical personnel in a position to work with pregnant men, creating a radical and challenging new phase of queer parenting. Additionally, many MTFs are storing sperm before transition, so they are able to have biological children as the sperm donor/father with a female partner. Clearly, LGBT people have developed innovative family-building forms, and I suspect we are only at the beginning of this process.
There is, of course, no reason that a trans person could not be as competent a parent as any other person, but like LGB people, they will likely have to “prove” that to the powers that be. In my experience, children take gender transitions in stride; it is adults who find the whole issue confusing and shocking. Older children might have more difficulties accepting gender changes, particularly as they near their own puberty. It is my contention however, that families can weather many challenging issues, and transgender status is no more, or less, challenging then other issues that families face.
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Tired Dyke, Shopping
First: crossdressers, if there’s a day you shy ones want to go out & buy yourself lingerie, make it Valentine’s Day. There were all sorts of fumbling, sheepish, weirded-out guys in Macy’s today buying last minute Valentine’s gifts, to whom I wanted to say: Now really, even if you’re not a crossdresser, isn’t this really for you, anyway? Why don’t you go get yourself a pair of silky boxer shorts & objectify yourself for her instead?!
But I didn’t. So as is usual, I probably looked a little cranky as I walked up to the register with a handful – a handful, mind you – of underwear for Betty. And as the woman pushed the buttons, she happened to notice they were all smalls, and shot one glance at my ample butt, and I’d felt somehow she managed to press a button that made the word DYKE appear on my forehead.
So, yeah.
Shayla & Shirene
When I was researching My Husband Betty, I went to the SPICE conference, and there we met a young, enthusiastic couple named Shalya and Shirene. (Okay, she wasn’t Shayla then, but I can’t remember her original femme name.) But Shirene nodded at everything I nodded at when we were in workshops, and then the four of us – plus the lovely Penny (whose name wasn’t Penny then, either) & Jayme – sat in the hotel lobby and talked about sex the rest of the night!
Shayla & Shirene are going to be on Inside Edition this coming Friday, February 10th. Do watch them; they’re a lovely, articulate, optimistic couple, who are (if I do say so myself) fantastic representatives for the trans community – especially the much-neglected crossdressing set.
^ me, Shayla, and Shirene, at IFGE ’04.
It's a Boy Meets Girl
It’s finally official, and I finally get to say it outloud: I’ve sold my next book, tentatively titled Boy Meets Girl, to Seal Press.
Their blurb:
•The author of MY HUSBAND BETTY writes about her husband’s crossdressing and the possibility of his undergoing a sex change, which frame her commentary on the pressures (both emotional and sexual) that traditional gender roles can bring to our relationships, marriages, and partnerships.
Thanks for all the support and encouragement and patience.
Five Questions With… Jade Gordon
Jade Gordon is the artist and author behind the trans-amorous comic Lean on Me.
< A drawing from Lean on Me featuring the two main characters.
1) What motivated you to start drawing “Lean on Me”?
I thought it would be a good way to pick up chicks!
Oh, a more serious answer, eh? What motivated me was a fiery burning need. I am a genetic female who tends to prefer femininity in a romantic partner, regardless of physical gender. I had been repressed for a long time, and I just started to crack. I had to start expressing what I really felt somehow. I was, at that point, spending a lot of time alone in a small, dank apartment, stewing about my true feelings. I decided to try putting my ideas into a visual form. I had never done sequential art, and I think I instinctively knew that I could work out what I was feeling with fictional characters a little easier than direct confrontation.
I also really, really needed to reach more people like me. I grew up in an environment where loving someone of a different ethnicity was very wrong, never mind color, and anyone who was anywhere in the realm of GLBT wasn’t allowed to exist because it was the ultimate in wrong. I found myself not just leaning toward lesbian, but also embracing people who were, in my previous environment, the sickest of sick – the *crossdressers*, the *transvestites*. I *knew* in my heart that I was perfectly normal and healthy in my desires, but I felt like a complete alien among women who typically seemed to prefer freaking out about partners that wanted to crossdress or transition. The comic helped me connect with other women who maybe didn’t immediately want to kick their man to the curb just because he was pretty sometimes.
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