Smile Please

Smiling is supposed to be easy.  We’re told that a frown takes far more muscles than a smile and that may well be true.  But I have to confess that in my life smiling has often been challenging.

First of all, there are the physical aspects.  If I show my teeth my smile becomes more of a ‘gurn’ – not a pretty sight at the best of times and even application of lipstick when I unleash my feminine side only serves to accentuate the grimace, not mask it.  And for some reason, if I try to smile any wider than Mona Lisa, the muscles in my face seem to go into spasm and twitch a lot.  Then there’s the simple problem that I don’t always remember to smile when taking selfies.  Hardly surprising as there are several other things to think about but still annoying when an otherwise decent looking photo is ruined by a miserable looking facial expression.  At least I do take photos because in my other life I recoil in horror as soon as I see a camera pointed in my direction, not least because an instruction to smile will soon follow and, in time, so will the resultant photo, attached as a jpeg to an email or WhatsApp message.

But strangely, despite the foregoing, these days I find myself smiling more and more.  Fundamentally, of course, I have good reason to because I’m finally living the dream – being out and about presenting in a way that makes me unbelievably happy.  As soon as I unleash the inner woman, all of the problems that go with ‘his’ life just seem to evaporate and leave me with the feeling that life couldn’t get any better.  I walk down the street and catch a reflection of a woman in the shop window as I pass and realise it’s me – something I’ve yearned to see in the 50 years I’ve been struggling with all of this.  A gentleman holds a door open for me; finally, the roles are reversed following the countless times I’ve acted out the ‘ladies first’ mantra drummed into me in my formative years.  A little stumble on an uneven pavement reminds me to be careful in my heels, something most guys will never understand.  The sensation of a breeze blowing my hair across my face, the gentle tug of earrings, the freedom of skirts and the slight constriction of hosiery all remind me that I have finally crossed the line emotionally as well as physically and it feels amazing.  Who could possibly resist smiling when the feelings of unbridled bliss are so powerful?

So, it’s fair to say that I have a head start here.  Or to put it another way, it’s easy to smile when you’re already smiling!   But in recent times, I’ve learned that smiling doesn’t only have to be a passive reflex; it has now become my weapon of choice when entering the battle zone that is the outside world.

It’s not been easy.  It’s one thing feeling the absolute bliss that comes with presenting in a way that I’ve dreamed of for half a century but it’s another thing entirely to maintain that when, internally, abject fear has taken hold.  But ironically, I’ve come to realise that smiling is the best cure for those jitters.  Think about it, we’re queueing up to buy something and we’re terrified.  We imagine that the worst is going to happen and questions churn over in our mind.  What if she realises I’m a guy?  What if he calls me ‘mate’ or ‘sir’?   We avoid eye contact and if we spoke any quieter, either to accept or decline the offer of a bag or to say thank you, a lip reader would be needed.  Needless to say, we almost always emerge unscathed, but what do those we interact with think?  Do they see our embarrassment, immediately identify us as a CDer or even consider us rude?  And when we do emerge, are we happy that things seemingly went well or do we have a sense of disappointment that our experience was benign at best?

Whilst I hope no one has ever thought I was rude, my early experiences were benign.  Eyes down, conversation limited to one-word answers and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.  I got out in one piece but I certainly never experienced the love and acceptance that so many of my peers here talked about day after day.  Naturally, fear was to blame for some of my situation, and I was also significantly lacking in self-confidence.  And a lack of self-confidence often points to a subconscious feeling that we shouldn’t be there.  It’s not unreasonable to feel that way; society often seems only too quick to take a dim view of male to female crossdressers (whilst being completely accepting when any traditionally male style is appropriated by the fairer sex!).

I can still remember the exact moment that things changed.  I’d been shopping, stopped at a café for a tea and pastry and was making my way back to my car.  I was standing waiting for the lift/ elevator with other shoppers and realised that I had as much right to be there and to have made choices about what to wear as every other person waiting.  The lift arrived and we all got in.  Someone made small talk and smiled at me, I smiled back.  The lift was quite full; maybe some didn’t notice the ‘interloper’ in their midst, maybe others did and just didn’t care.  But at that moment, I felt wanted by society – not to be singled out for special treatment but also not to be outcast because of my unconvential (for a male) outfit choice.  And now, every time I get into a busy lift, I make sure to smile.  It’s an easy thing to remember because I genuinely am happy to be out and about, but it also gives a message to others that I’m (hopefully) a nice person and not a threat.

And it’s not just in confined spaces.  Whilst I can generally walk unnoticed amongst other shoppers, some do look my way, the look on their faces suggesting that they’ve ‘twigged’.  I talked about a smile being my weapon of choice and in those situations, it really is a weapon.  Some smile back but most just avert their gaze and walk on quickly diffusing the situation before it even got going.

But I save my biggest smiles for shops, cafés and restaurants.  If I was in the sales assistants’ shoes, which customer would I be more likely to warm to – the one with their head down talking in barely audible monosyllables who looks like they want the ground to open up and swallow them or the one who smiles and looks like they can’t wait to do business with me?  My smile says that I have no problem with the way I am presenting so neither should they.  It sets the scene for the transaction, and a smile is almost always returned.

Now I want to be clear here.  I may dress like a woman and do my best to act as a woman would act but I’m not a woman and never can be.  Whilst I have as much right as anyone else to be accepted as a person, I have no God-given right, or indeed legal right, to be accepted as a woman.  It is up to each and every person I interact with to decide how they’re going to treat me and all I can do is to do my best to influence them to treat me in the way I aspire to be treated.  And the funny thing is, the more I smile, the more I get treated in exactly that way.

One of the most wonderful things about womanhood which is sadly absent from my normal world is the legitimacy of platonic intimacy.  Personal compliments are freely traded and there’s a genuine feeling of shared experience in certain situations.  I don’t know whether the assistant who complimented my choice of matching earrings and necklace in ‘Next’ (mid-range UK clothing chain) genuinely liked the items I was paying for, whether she said that to every customer, whether she said it because she wanted to make me feel at ease in what she realised was a world that was relatively new to me or for another reason.   But I like to think that my smile as I arrived at the counter pushed that little button marked ‘girl talk time’ in her subconscious!  Our exchange was brief, just a quick chat about the items I was buying and some of the other items on display, but I left with the feeling that the cost of the items I’d bought was a small price to pay for that wonderful experience.

So now whenever I go to pay for something in a shop, I smile at the sales assistant.  And it’s paid off.  I almost always get a smile straight back which signifies that connection has been made.  Service with a smile follows, sometimes accompanied by lovely comments about my (fake) deep red fingernails, hair or choice of outfit to try on!

Restaurants are more of a challenge but a smile as I enter and ask for a table sets the scene as far as I am concerned.  It lets the staff there know that I’m probably going to be a nice patron to deal with and, if they treat me well, they may well get a tip in return.  Of course, waiters and waitresses are often rushed off their feet and frazzled so I don’t expect the princess treatment every time but every so often, one will look my way & smile and, just sometimes, will make a nice comment that makes the whole visit perfect.

My feminine life never ceases to surprise me.  Considering the hangups I’ve had about my looks throughout my life, I consider it a minor miracle that I can now look at myself in the mirror and like what I see, albeit thanks to the wonders of makeup and a hairstyle that just seems to work.  I feel incredibly lucky that despite a very rocky road along the way, my situation is now accepted at home even if it isn’t exactly embraced with open arms.  The fact that I can walk amongst others largely unnoticed blows my mind.   And I never thought something as simple as a smile would unlock so many doors, banishing my fears and making me feel genuinely accepted and appreciated for who and what I am.