The Art of Transformation Coaching Femininity
- THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION
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- COACHING FEMININITY
- Meghan Laslocky
Sunday, December 18, 2005
"You can be in control of cross-dressing or it can be in control of you," Doyle says during a recent consultation.
"Elaine" (not her real femme name) is what Doyle calls a "serious" cross-dresser: A professional in the tech industry in the South Bay, a devoted family man in his 50's and a closeted cross-dresser since the age of 8, Elaine frequently goes out in public dressed as a woman, but fiercely protects her family from any knowledge of her cross-dressing for fear of destroying them.
Elaine travels alone on business frequently and uses the opportunity to cross-dress, though she always flies as her "boy self" rather than as a woman. "These days, yes." (Eye flutter.) "Somehow the idea of getting strip-searched at the airport is not my idea of a good time."
Elaine perches on the chaise in Doyle's office in brown pants and shoes, an Ann Taylor-esque beige knit top, a neatly tied brown scarf, pancake makeup and wire frame glasses. While her legs are always crossed, on occasion a pant leg snakes up to reveal a lightly hairy leg.
Elaine says that her style role models are Diane Keaton and Patricia Richardson, star of "Home Improvement."
"My look is 'get ready in 15 minutes,' " she says.
As usual in her femme role, Elaine has glued on mauve fingernails and garnished her regular wedding band with a cubic zirconia engagement ring.
Doyle has coached Elaine about once a month for three years. While Elaine says that her femme hand gestures (a finger twirl at her scarf, a flutter of the hands) now come so naturally that she has to put a lid on them while at work, she's still working on her confidence.
"My goal is to interact with people. Going out and being invisible is the first step, but that gets boring. The second step is not to be invisible."
So today Doyle and Elaine are working on a new, slightly sexier walk for Elaine, the fine points of sitting and putting on a coat.
Elaine's regular femme walk, which has taken her years to perfect, is, Doyle says, "a nice pretty walk for the grocery store." But with this new walk, she wants to add just a smidgen more sway for evening.
Elaine pads across the carpet while Doyle watches.
"Pull your weight up! You're like a ballerina! Soft steps, small steps! You've got space between your feet! Close it up!"
Doyle gets down on her knees, in her skirt, behind Elaine and moves Elaine's feet with her own hands, guiding a slight ankle swing in the new walk.
"Feel that? Feel where your hips are?" She explains that just a little bit of ankle swing makes for a gentle sashay that "doesn't all go into the butt."
Next they work on sitting, because even the most conscientious transgenders can slip into the habit of sitting with their heads and bodies in a stiff, masculine "I" form.
"They flop into chairs and keep their knees and feet apart. The kiss of death," Doyle says.
"Pull your pelvic area up. Instead of lifting, sweep with your pelvis into an S curve," she tells Elaine. When Elaine has settled into a nearly perfect diagonal posture with her legs crossed, Doyle knocks her on the knee and says, "Bring that foot down."
Elaine struggles. Her knees, she says, just don't bend that way.
"The secret is that both legs go in the same direction when crossed to create a pretty curve," Doyle says.
Elaine rises to her feet and sits in an S for the fourth time.
"That's good," Doyle says. "Nice and snaky."
Next in the lesson is putting on a coat like a lady. Elaine shifts her weight, tilting from hip to hip while pushing her arms into the sleeves of a brown knit jacket, but still can't get it right. "You haven't been practicing coats much, have you?" Doyle laughs. "But you're a swayer, which is really pretty."
Then purse practice. "Put your arm through the front, through the front!" Elaine gets it wrong, so Doyle demonstrates how to put a purse over one's shoulder and have it wind up behind your hip -- the most flattering and secure place for it. "Look where my elbow is."
Her elbow is, in keeping with her mantra of feminine posture, neat and tidy up against her body.
"Now you try again," she tells Elaine. "And put a knee rub into it."
And finally, to tunes from Enya, Sarah McLachlan and Alannah Myles' '80s hit, "Black Velvet," Doyle dances and Elaine mirrors her, a hip roll here, an arm spiraling there, fingers trailing their collarbones. They circle a chair and put their legs up on it burlesque style -- lead with the toe, knee in -- and Elaine closes her eyes in concentration and, one senses, joy.
"Femininity," Doyle says, "is a lost art. Women are becoming more masculine, men more feminine."
And no one, she laments, wears dresses anymore.
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