Purging

By Stephanie Julianna

The longer that you have been dressing en femme, I can guess that the number of purges in your life is greater than not.  I am not referring to sticking your fingers down your throat to vomit all that stuff you should not have eaten to forget about Covid and the world in general.  We are going to explore your stash of female clothes or the side of the closet that your wife allows you to hang your alternate clothing.      

So, let’s talk about good purges and bad purges and whether they work or are just another way to make clothiers happy when you refill your closet 6 months later.     

The number one reason most of us purge is because, as they say, going on the wagon.  We are stopping all this crossdressing thing and going “straight”.  “No more dressing, just going to appreciate my boring male clothes for the rest of my life.”        

You clean out the closet and drive to Goodwill, or maybe you drag the big black bags full of your favorite dress, skirts and unmentionables to one of those big yellow or white drop boxes at the local gas station.  All those anxious shopping trips trying to convince the SA that you are buying the dress for your wife for nothing.  Or, a wonderful day of shopping en femme wasted.       

Fast forward 6 months.  There you are at Nordstrom’s Closet or Kohl’s rebuilding your wardrobe.  I knew you’d be back so why didn’t you?  Simple. I was that girl, then Lady, many times over the decades.  Then something wonderful happened.  I looked in the mirror one day and said to myself, “Hey girl, I think I like you.” 

Over time that turned to love and for the first time in my life I felt complete.  I was 50.     

So if you think purges work, I am sorry to tell you that they truly never work.  You will dress again, in months, years or even decades, but you will dress again.  And it will feel wonderful.  Just accept it.     

For the record though, fashion does not stop while you are finding yourself.  You may have even mooned over the loss of all those dresses that you collected over time.  I can say with some certainty that the best thing that may have happened was for some of those fashions finding their way to the $1.00 rack for someone to buy as the basis for their next costume party.  The operative word is “costume.”  If it classifies as such, this is a great reason to actually purge it from your wardrobe.      

To illustrate my point I am including a few pictures of dresses that I loved to wear for many reasons and now would not get caught dead in.  So it’s OK to laugh.  I chuckle sometimes when I find forgotten pictures.  Some styles lasted years and others seemed to last only months.  And don’t get me started on wigs and hairstyles.  Growing pains.     

Purges for the sake of style are good.  They were never meant to increase your self esteem or happiness.  Keep the LBD, they never go out of style and dump the trendy stuff. 

Have fun shopping.

Steph, we love and miss you!!