The question was: “Are you curious about She-Males?”
That was the title of the email in my inbox this morning. And I had to answer in the fuck affirmative, ie FUCK YEAH!
Because who isn’t curious about She-Males? Like what do they call ‘em in French? “Elle mâle”?
My run-ins with She Males have been sadly, few. A statesque she-male prostitute stopped me and my then girlfriend as we walked through the French quarter in New Orleans.
She put her big mitt on my chest and looked us up and down.
She looked up (or down) at me, and shook her head.
In a very sweet, feminine voice, she told me “Honey, that fe-male make you look good.”
She then threw back her head, and out came a deep, throaty barking laugh that set her adam's apple a-bobbin'.
We weren’t sure who she was insulting. I think it was me. It was interesting she was able to attack my masculinity, both as a woman and a man. An interesting super power that goes unconsidered by the society at large.
For my mother’s memorial service at the severely Russian Orthodox church from where she was to be buried, my mother-in-law had to run out to a tranny clothing store near her work to buy a skirt (no pants on ladies at this Russian Orthodox. Moustaches on ladies are somehow okay, though. It’s a russian thing).
I know what you want to ask: is my mother-in-law a tranny? No, she’s all biologically intact, but my in-law’s auto repair shop is the thick of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, which the neighborhood that Gay Pride Forgot. It’s sort of a Vale of She-Male Hookers. It’s also sort of retro, in a gays-pushed-to-the-very-edges-of-civilization sort of way.
Anyway, she managed to find something that wasn’t too whorish. She was probably the first client that particular shop had in a long time that wasn’t asked what side she wore her skirt on*.
When Paula was in the hospital, chilling postpartum with baby Ruby, several of the night nurses (or were they called something else, like attendants? I don’t know the hierarchy here) were all of the gender we are discussing here.
They were uniformly gentle and sweet, with a wonderful ability to comfort a yelping newborn into a drowsy quiet. They also had an uncanny ability to drop some science, vis-à-vis nursing technique, to exhausted women.
We asked a she-female nurse how it came to be that so many men who are becoming women were on the ward, and she explained that in the counseling that each candidate has to go through, they are encouraged to network with other transgendered folks to find working environments that were chill about their gender reassignment.
The nurse also suspect that these gals were so hyper-feminine that they sought out opportunities to act as nuturers. So, babies.
But still, plumbing is plumbing. I don't how I'd react as a woman to getting bosom coaching from someone with an adam's apple. But see? I'm merely a he-male, more or less. So I am left to imagine these things.
Anyway, these are my experiences with the She-Male community. Not an unpleasant bunch of folks. Maybe I’ll take up that chappy on the offer he so thoughtfully dropped into my inbox. There’s a whole world out there to discover: the world of The She-Male.
* This a joke about a practice that a gentleman experiences when shopping for a suit in haberdasheries of quality, regarding the proper fit of a gentleman’s trouser. Around the crotch.
Because who isn’t curious about She-Males? Like what do they call ‘em in French? “Elle mâle”?
My run-ins with She Males have been sadly, few. A statesque she-male prostitute stopped me and my then girlfriend as we walked through the French quarter in New Orleans.
She put her big mitt on my chest and looked us up and down.
She looked up (or down) at me, and shook her head.
In a very sweet, feminine voice, she told me “Honey, that fe-male make you look good.”
She then threw back her head, and out came a deep, throaty barking laugh that set her adam's apple a-bobbin'.
We weren’t sure who she was insulting. I think it was me. It was interesting she was able to attack my masculinity, both as a woman and a man. An interesting super power that goes unconsidered by the society at large.
For my mother’s memorial service at the severely Russian Orthodox church from where she was to be buried, my mother-in-law had to run out to a tranny clothing store near her work to buy a skirt (no pants on ladies at this Russian Orthodox. Moustaches on ladies are somehow okay, though. It’s a russian thing).
I know what you want to ask: is my mother-in-law a tranny? No, she’s all biologically intact, but my in-law’s auto repair shop is the thick of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, which the neighborhood that Gay Pride Forgot. It’s sort of a Vale of She-Male Hookers. It’s also sort of retro, in a gays-pushed-to-the-very-edges-of-civilization sort of way.
Anyway, she managed to find something that wasn’t too whorish. She was probably the first client that particular shop had in a long time that wasn’t asked what side she wore her skirt on*.
When Paula was in the hospital, chilling postpartum with baby Ruby, several of the night nurses (or were they called something else, like attendants? I don’t know the hierarchy here) were all of the gender we are discussing here.
They were uniformly gentle and sweet, with a wonderful ability to comfort a yelping newborn into a drowsy quiet. They also had an uncanny ability to drop some science, vis-à-vis nursing technique, to exhausted women.
We asked a she-female nurse how it came to be that so many men who are becoming women were on the ward, and she explained that in the counseling that each candidate has to go through, they are encouraged to network with other transgendered folks to find working environments that were chill about their gender reassignment.
The nurse also suspect that these gals were so hyper-feminine that they sought out opportunities to act as nuturers. So, babies.
But still, plumbing is plumbing. I don't how I'd react as a woman to getting bosom coaching from someone with an adam's apple. But see? I'm merely a he-male, more or less. So I am left to imagine these things.
Anyway, these are my experiences with the She-Male community. Not an unpleasant bunch of folks. Maybe I’ll take up that chappy on the offer he so thoughtfully dropped into my inbox. There’s a whole world out there to discover: the world of The She-Male.
* This a joke about a practice that a gentleman experiences when shopping for a suit in haberdasheries of quality, regarding the proper fit of a gentleman’s trouser. Around the crotch.
Labels: Blogist Twaddle, Thinking about crap, Trifles and Joshes
posted by Greg Mills at 10:17 PM
4 Comments:
The Tenderloin as 'the neighborhood that Gay Pride Forgot'...that's gorgeous wording there. And rings remarkably true somehow.
Well, thank you. It's always struck me how the Castro is always pointed to as the triumph of the Gay Bourg, but no one ever talks about the Tenderloin and Polk Street. It's not a middle class dream down in those 'hoods. There are a lot of forgotten, preyed upon folks who don't see a lot of reason in flying the Rainbow Flag.
She-Males are so 1990's. Asian Lady-Boys are au currant.
G.
Sadly, the tranny hooker corner in Philly may not survive as the Philly gayborhood is thriving.
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