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| Your Innvestment | |
Vol. 8, No. 2 |
October 1999 |
Innvestments started its 1999-2000 season on the 13th of September with its annual business meeting, a discussion of upcoming events and with photo's being taken of some of the gals in their finest.
The meeting opened with lady president Liz reviewing the past accomplishments of the organization with emphasis on the past year and where she would like to see the organization grow and go to in the future. She applauded the fact that even with fewer members this past year we were still able to accomplish our full agenda. Comments were made about the membership drop but a review of the history of the group shows that every couple of years, as people mature and are better able to handle and cope with being transgendered, we go through a slump. Liz, as well as everyone hope that folks will still maintain their membership or at least their ties to the community.
Talk of programs for the coming year brought out a lot of discussion. The new board of directors will have to meet to lay out the upcoming program. Discussion on what type of entertainment to have for the Christmas party was also a topic of discussion. To have, or not to have, a female impersonation type program; to have entertainment at all, to have music and dancing, etc., was all discussed. A general idea was proposed to Candy who was asked to put the program together.
A report from the treasurer, Brenda was received, discussed and approved. A copy of which you will find on an adjoining page.
Election of officers took place with the following individuals being elected:
President: Julie W.
Vice President: Denise S.
Treasurer: Brenda L.
Board: Liz W.
Board: Candy S.
These ladies will work with the current slate through the end of December when they will assume the mantel of leadership on January first of the new year, 2000..
Brenda then took charge and set up her studio. She posed, and arranged those gals who wanted to have their portraits taken. All wanted another photo session and suggested that it would be a good idea to a have a hairdresser and a makeup artist available. In this way everyone could look their very best. After the meeting, all adjourned to the lounge where conversations continued.
Your
Innvestment is
a publication of Innvestments, P.O. Box 2194, Orleans,
MA.0 2653-2194. Innvestments is a non-sexual service organization
founded to support and to provide a socially acceptable outlet
for the crossdressing, transvestite, transsexual, transgendered
community located primarily in Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape
Cod and the Island. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint
any article appearing in Your Innvestment is hereby granted to similar
non-profit organizations provided that publication and authorship
credit is given. Any commercial use of Your Innvestment
material is hereby prohibited. Some material may have previously
appeared in print. Publication and authorship rights of material
reprinted from other sources remain with its originator.
The editor/s of Your Innvestment are not under any
obligation to accept information and advertisements. Information
and advertisements may be published in any form deemed acceptable.
Any information about services, products or sympathetic locations
published in Your Innvestment is not considered an endorsement
of such by the staff of Your Innvestment or the
Board of Directors of Innvestments. Innvestments is also
known in open source publications on Cape Cod and the Islands
as Cape Cod Cross Dressers (Triple C-D).
Liz W.........................................................President
Julie W..(stimpyl@capecod.net).........Vice President
Brenda L. (Brrendaa@aol.com)...............Treasurer
Judy T............................................................Board
Candy Scott....................................................Board
PO Box 354
Sagamore, MA 02561-0354
Tel.: 508+563-3160 (Keep trying)
Fax.: 508+563-1240
email: Candyscott@capecod.net
Membership (including newsletter) is $30.00 per-year (pro-rated after January) with a $15.00 meeting fee. Meeting fees payable only for those attended. This pays meeting location fees charged to the group, and for pizza and soda for all. Subscription only rates are $12.00 per year.
Page 3
October 1999 Page 7
J Our own Brenda went on an adventure last Tuesday. She went up to Carolann's in Framingham where she had a good evening. Then after spending the night in a motel she got all dolled up and went shopping in the Natick Mall as well as some of the other areas around Route 9. On the way back to the Cape she stopped in at the outlet center in Wrentham and spent a couple of hours there. She experienced no problems and had a delightful day. Some of the sales ladies even gushed and gooed all over her. She arrived home on a big high.
J Markie Robin was finally presented with her own special Cape Cod Tunnel Pass recently. Candy has been promising her one for a long time. It makes crossing the canal much easier for her now as the entrance is just down the road from her by Scusset Beach.
J Still keep Charlynn, Dawn and Joanne in your prayers, as well as any of our other sisters who may be sick but whom we may not be aware of.
J There is a discussion group for transsexuals that has been formed by PFLAG. It meets the 4th Sunday of each month at the Universalist Meeting House in Brewster at 7 in the evening. Call Julie for more details. Innvestments extends it's full support to this group.
Lingerie must be the "in" thing the past few weeks. In addition to receiving several phone calls about lingerie on line, there have been three different programs on the history of lingerie on TV lately (E, A&E and The Learning Channel).
October 1999 Page 9
This year, a la carte pricing allows
you greater affordability and accessibility to Fantasia Fair.
· You may register for individual days or the entire week.
· Varied housing choices are available through Provincetown
Reservations System to accommodate your budget and style preferences.
· Special events such as banquets, follies, and concerts
are priced separately.
4 October 1999 - Monday........................................Speaker
8 November 1999
(Note Changed Date) Mon.....Makeovers
4 December 1999 - Saturday..............CHRISTMAS PARTY
10 January 2000 - Monday ......................................Speaker
12 February 2000 - Saturday.................VALENTINE PARTY
6 March 2000 - Monday...............................Demonstration
3 April 2000 - Monday (May Change)...BIRTHDAY PARTY
1 May 2000 - Monday.............................................Speaker
5 June 2000 - Monday.....................................DINING OUT
15 July 2000- Saturday...................................POOL PARTY
12 August 2000 - Saturday..........................FAMILY PICNIC
From: Sally
Subject: Skirts to work
Date: Tuesday, September 21, 1999
Hi girls
Here's the latest on my efforts to persuade my company to allow me to wear a skirt to work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I had a meeting scheduled
for this morning with the company policy unit at their Lon-
don headquarters. I'd long been agonizing over what I should wear
for this, then decided in a flash of inspiration that I should
wear a skirt! Obvious really - it would give them some idea of
the sort of outfit I was asking about, and would also make it
clear that was serious in my intentions. After all, any guy who
braves the hour-long commuter journey into London on the train,
followed by a ten-minute ride on the underground, all while wearing
a skirt and heels, must be serious!
In the event, I wore a short-sleeved black jacket,
a white sleeveless V-neck tee-shirt, an ankle-length black skirt
with an 18-inch back slit, plain tights, perfume, a touch of mascara,
red nail varnish (left over from my birthday party at the weekend),
and simple 1-inch hoops in my ears. For the journey to London,
I wore Reeboks - partly because I couldn't quite bring myself
to wear my brand new grey-and-black strappy shoes with 3-inch
heels, and partly because I didn't know how far I had to walk
the other end in said shoes. But I bravely left my emergency trousers
in the car before getting on the train! The journey was easier
than I'd anticipated, with almost no-one passing more than a quick
glance over my unusual outfit. I arrived at the specified building
20 minutes early, changed into my shoes, and sat in the foyer
to reflect on the momentous possibilities which the forthcoming
meeting held if it went in my favor.
At 10 a.m. sharp, I was met by two women who
introduced themselves as my hosts. We stopped off at the canteen
to grab some coffee, then I was led to a small conference room.
On the way, I remarked that I hadn't been sure what I should've
worn to this meeting - a man's outfit or a woman's. One of the
women looked me up and down, then said "That's perfect -
a smart business suit. You look great." I thought so too
- although the skirt and jacket had been bought from different
shops at different times, so weren't really a suit at all! But
who was I to argue with these two women who are in charge of making
policies for the entire company?
We sat down in the conference room, then one
of the women looked me straight in the eye and said "How
can we help you?" What a wonderful question! So I gave them
a potted history of my childhood, then my 'coming out' in 1996
and how it had affected me for the better, then the latest twist
whereby I became a guy in a skirt with no wig or make-up. I said
that it was very important for me to dress this way, and I now
regularly wear a skirt everywhere except work with little or no
hassle. We discussed the possible pro's and con's of my mode of
dressing on the company, its employees and its customers, then
moved onto the full-time fully-dressed tranny, and the part-time
fully- dressed tranny.
The latter two raised a number of problems with
possible objections from female colleagues to the tranny's desire
to use the women's facilities, while in the case of the part-time
tranny, the issue of who would be answering the phone or signing
letters on any particular day was raised - it could understandably
lead to some confusion! In
Page 12
October 1999
SKIRTS TO WORK..Continued
contrast, what I was asking for seemed comparatively easy to grant
...... in fact, the initial questions had gradually become a discussion
- a discussion which seemed to revolve around the assumption that
I already *had* been granted my request.
The meeting continued. Since the 'diversity'
angle which is being preached so hard
in the company is being driven from the very top, there would
be no justification for any of my management or colleagues taking
offence at me wearing a skirt, since any case
of harassment could simply be referred to a higher authority.
The consensus was that having a few guys wandering around in skirts
was unlikely to scare customers away, especially with a reputation
like the company already has. There may be some religious objections,
and if the press got hold of the story and embellished it, things
might get embarrassing - but these were the sorts of issues in
which the policy unit had a lot of previous experience, and they
seemed confident that there would be no real difficulties
in practice.
The thorny subject of what was appropriate wear
then came up. Certainly, what I was wearing at that time was 'appropriate',
although possibly a bit *too* smart for the particular site on
which I work - it's well known that the dress code is comparatively
relaxed there. I suspect that in practice, I could get away with
wearing what the average 40-year-old woman wears, provided that
it's smart and tidy. And what of the geeks in the canteen who'd
found it so amusing to see me in a skirt the first time? "Could
I take a name or two and report them for sexual harassment?",
I asked, jokingly. "Actually, yes, you could," was the
unexpected reply. In retrospect, I suppose that's *exactly* what
it is! But sniggers and giggles are an occupational hazard in
this game, of course, and unless someone is particularly unpleasant,
I generally laugh along with them.
OK, I had one final question for my hosts. "After I literally
ran into my manager the third time I wore a skirt at work, I decided
it was prudent to play it cool until this issue was resolved ......"
Before I had a chance to finish the question, I received the answer.
"If you look in your wardrobe tomorrow morning, pull out
a skirt, and want to wear it to work, do it." I couldn't
have had a clearer answer than that, or one from a higher authority.
Janet Scott from the Beaumont Society had been
invited to attend the meeting, and turned up about 10.45. I have
to admit that I had a selfish motive for asking Janet to be there
- as well as providing moral support, I was confident that Janet
could dig me out of any holes I might inadvertently fall into.
However, in the event, I needed no moral support, and there were
no holes; furthermore, it seemed that the original question of
whether to allow men to wear skirts had been resolved - albeit
tacitly - before Janet's arrival, and possibly even before the
meeting began. But Janet is a master of the amusing anecdote,
as a result of which the meeting overran by nearly an hour without
anyone realizing it! I treated Janet to a two-hour lunch in the
canteen before we went our separate ways.
Full of confidence, I decided to wear my heels
for the journey home. While the trains were a lot less crowded
than those on the journey out, they were far from deserted - but
again, few people seemed to care. Me? I was floating on air -
I'd just done the most important hour's work of my life, with
implications which go far beyond my personal need to wear a skirt
to work. My company has led the way in a number of social issues
including full support for transsexuals during the pre-op, transitioning,
and post-op phases, and these practices have since been adopted
by a number of other companies. Who knows how far this new initiative
will go?