A personal announcement, emphatic thank-you, and cheers to Fedora.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The usual rule of thumb is that your size for women's shoes is your size for men's plus two. It'll still vary from brand to brand (as it does with men) but that's the baseline.

Hmmm. I always heard it as a size and a half. Doesn't really matter, things that are X size all vary, as you say.

Radical Ans wrote:

I was discussing women's vs men's sizing with a female friend last week. She was blown away that, as a man, all I need to do to find my pants size is measure my waist and inseam.

I hate to tell you that vanity sizing has invaded the likes of mens clothing too.
Its impossible to find a 15.5/36 dress shirt at most stores that isn't mis measured and baggily cut.
Ah, the woes of the tall and wiry.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The usual rule of thumb is that your size for women's shoes is your size for men's plus two. It'll still vary from brand to brand (as it does with men) but that's the baseline.

Yep. I'm a 10 in women's, and an 8 in men's shoes.

What's so hard to figure out about size zero? That's clothing for ghosts, right?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Can I just say that shopping for women's clothing is way, way more fun than shopping for men's? Aside from the odd article here and there, I'm not really at a point where I should be shopping for women's clothing, but I'm doing it anyway because it's so much more fun. It gets overwhelming and expensive, for sure, but there's a variety in what's available that you just don't see for men.

Yeah, I sometimes wonder why men's fashion is basically so conservative, limited, and prescribed, whereas for women the world is their oyster. Take formal wear (please!): men get suits, and... suits. And let's face facts, they're all basically identical. But women have infinite choice in dresses alone, before even considering shoes let alone other outfits. (And I hate suits, so I try to just get away with a sweater and slacks when I can.)

And then there's the fact that women can also wear "men's" styles—from jeans and t-shirts and onwards—but absolutely and definitely not vice versa. Maybe kilts if you can provide a good reason to society. But nobody should be wearing utilikilts.

But this is all an intellectual question for me. I'm a jeans-nerdy-t-shirt-and-sneakers guy anyway, and fortunate with work that I can dress how I prefer (often to my wife's chagrin) so I'm not looking to change things for myself. But Clock, you sound like you have a pretty wide open road ahead of you now.

What we need now is a sleepover where we stay up all night doing each other's hair, swapping makeup tips, and reading crappy fashion magazines. Think of it as part of the process

clover wrote:

What we need now is a sleepover where we stay up all night doing each other's hair, swapping makeup tips, and reading crappy fashion magazines. Think of it as part of the process :D

Hell, I could probably use training in that, too.

I don't know how to use makeup. I barely manage foundation/blush/lip gloss for special events >_>

Remedial GWJer makeup training time?

I could use it. And I have 3 feet of hair here I need to think of something to do with besides a long braid down my back.

momgamer wrote:

I could use it. And I have 3 feet of hair here I need to think of something to do with besides a long braid down my back.

IMAGE(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eI0ZGxMRgA0/S_YbxqrWRCI/AAAAAAAAC5E/I7n42AZsCRo/s320/big_hair.jpg)

momgamer wrote:

I could use it. And I have 3 feet of hair here I need to think of something to do with besides a long braid down my back.

Three must make it hard to walk.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezjvyhsjcNE/T3Nx0Az9vGI/AAAAAAAAAXo/ECX7cCiPlcY/s1600/Hobbit.jpg)

LiquidMantis wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I could use it. And I have 3 feet of hair here I need to think of something to do with besides a long braid down my back.

Three must make it hard to walk.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezjvyhsjcNE/T3Nx0Az9vGI/AAAAAAAAAXo/ECX7cCiPlcY/s1600/Hobbit.jpg)

I'm curious how you think the braid would run down my back unless it was long enough to do that whole Shel Silverstein bit.

momgamer wrote:

I could use it. And I have 3 feet of hair here I need to think of something to do with besides a long braid down my back.

Haha, I have hair all the way down to my waist and don't even braid it, just brush it.

This may be the wrong forum to visit for hair and makeup tips

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

1Dgaf wrote:

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

Not sure if I should speak for her, but ClockworkHouse is essentially in the same position as Hypation. The family aspect doesn't make much of a difference since her wife is fully supportive.

1Dgaf wrote:

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

Yup. Well, tx. Gotta keep up, this thread moves fast.

Right, OK. Transgender, not transvestite. Fine. Good. Carry on.

Can we get a flowchart?
This is a fun/enlightening and amazingly informative thread.

1Dgaf wrote:

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

Hypatian is transgender, and is a 'she,' as well as Clockwork.

Yes, thanks. Am aware of the terminology - read out a letter from a transgender listener on pronoun use / gender in gaming after we discussed it on a show.

1Dgaf wrote:

Yes, thanks. Am aware of the terminology - read out a letter from a transgender listener on pronoun use / gender in gaming after we discussed it on a show.

Then please be sensitive to the correct usages. Thanks.

1Dgaf wrote:

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

I usually find that the best way to be updated on a thread is to just read the thread, rather than to enter into one and ask semi-judgemental questions about the current status of said thread.

But that is just me.

SallyNasty wrote:
1Dgaf wrote:

Can someone tell me what's going on? Thread started, Mike and Fedora came out. Thread continued, Hypation said he was transgender. Now we have Clockwork, who I think is a man with a family, saying he's going to buy women's clothes. Is he a transvestite?

I don't care who people are, I'm just confused as to what's going on.

I usually find that the best way to be updated on a thread is to just read the thread, rather than to enter into one and ask semi-judgemental questions about the current status of said thread.

But that is just me.

IMAGE(http://frtim.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/madness.jpg)

Eh, it's all good. Confusing things are confusing.

I prefer the term "woman with a family."

Anyway, scariest part of transition aside from telling friends and family: voice work. It's surprisingly difficult and ridiculously intimidating. I have a fairly deep voice to begin with, so trying to raise it in pitch and make it sound natural has been a difficult process. I start feeling awkward and fidgety and self-conscious pretty much as soon as I start trying to speak like a woman, which in turn makes me overly aware of what I'm doing and throws everything off. I'll feel like I've really got a voice nailed down and then lose it the moment I try to use it with anyone.

But if you're curious about where I'm starting from—what the first picture in my magical girly transformation montage will look like—here's what I look like today. Kindly ignore the somewhat terrified, deer-in-the-headlights look I've got on my face. Pretty eyes, caterpillar eyebrows, soft lips, and an Adam's apple the size of a small truck. I've been growing my hair out and discovered that it's thinning a little on the top; it didn't bother me before, but now I'm terribly self-conscious about it.

Not a bad starting point, though.

*squee*

You're going to look awesome!

Alissa's a pretty name.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I prefer the term "woman with a family."

Anyway, scariest part of transition aside from telling friends and family: voice work. It's surprisingly difficult and ridiculously intimidating. I have a fairly deep voice to begin with, so trying to raise it in pitch and make it sound natural has been a difficult process. I start feeling awkward and fidgety and self-conscious pretty much as soon as I start trying to speak like a woman, which in turn makes me overly aware of what I'm doing and throws everything off. I'll feel like I've really got a voice nailed down and then lose it the moment I try to use it with anyone.

But if you're curious about where I'm starting from—what the first picture in my magical girly transformation montage will look....(elided so as to not run the pic all down the page)

Not a bad starting point, though.

With the voice it just takes time. There's a bad old joke about "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" and the answer is "Practice!" Last time you thought about this stuff you were wearing diapers. Thinking about it now feels weird. It takes a lot of work to re-train anything. In time you'll start to do it automatically. After still more time you'll have trouble ever stopping.

I've had to do the opposite. My speaking voice is in the low end of normal range for a girl, but my singing voice can go much lower. I had to figure out how to shade it to sound masculine for the many times over the years when I was helping pad out the tenor section. Now, if I sing along with a male it's hard for me not to match tone and color so I sound like a guy. I sang a duet with a guy at church not too long ago and it took us forever to work that out.

And as for the pic, you've got a lot to work with there.

I think there is some confusion here, yes. About pronouns and being judgemental.

If anyone wants to check, they can listen to the last show I recorded where I refer to the transgender listener that wrote in as 'she', always. Likewise the show a few months ago where I did the same thing talking about a transgender photographer in the fighting game community.

Now, can we agree that there is a difference between transgender and cross-dresser? (My mistake for using transvestite as a synonym for cross-dresser, apparently it's not the done thing anymore)

When I posted, I saw Clock's last post and wondered if she was a cross-dresser. Given that a cross-dresser is a man that dresses as a woman (or vice versa), but does not identify with the gender, I decided that the pronoun 'he' was the correct one.

Assuming she was a cross-dresser, it wouldn't have been appropriate to ask 'Is she a cross-dresser?' - because that's conflating cross-dressing and transgenderism when they are not the same thing.

If I had thought Clock was transgender, I would have used the pronoun she.

I realise there's lots of tenses and italics going on there, but it's a grammatically and etiquette-ally complex post.

I think the issue was with you referring to Hypatian as "he".

And in general, it's a weird, confusing mess with which pronouns to use for people when. See my post a couple pages back about whether or not to use female pronouns for myself. To be clear: I wasn't offended by anything you wrote and didn't think you were being judgmental.