...I've said too much.

    So you're in a conversation with a natal female friend, and she mentions something in passing that relates to fashion, or clothing. You know, girl stuff. And you forget for a moment that to her you're just another scruffy bloke, and venture an opinion that owes something to experience rather than to guesswork.
    Or as happened to me this lunchtime, you're sitting in the main public thoroughfare at work with your colleagues, and a colleague who has made a spectacular sartorial faux pas walks by out of earshot, and without thinking you say "Oh dear, wrong skirt!". You've said too much.
    It's funny, because most of my female colleagues know all about me. My male colleagues though don't, and must be in danger of having me pegged as something of a meterosexual by now. Scruffy, into cars and bikes, married to a gorgeous wife, yet long haired and notices women by their clothing rather than their other attributes.
    I have to watch that people watching thing, it'll be my undoing. Mind you, it's not as if that matters, in my industry nobody will care too much. I do have to consider how far I want it to go though.
    I don't care, I'd happily be girl all the time by now, but I have to think of my wife. To her it matters, she's been great all along but I could so easily puncture her buffer zone.
    Today being Halloween, I'm sure some of my American friends will have taken the opportunity to unleash their female alter egos on the world. We don't do that, so no funny costumes today in the office. But something struck me about it earlier that made me laugh. If we did the Halloween thing here, I wouldn't be taking part, it's too close to home. Silly, ain't it.

Dual-purpose

    It is now nearly nine months since I last had my hair cut in a male buzz-cut and just over seven months since I had the Long Chat with my hairdresser and started having my hair cut with a view to growing it out into a style suitable for both male and female presentation. In that time I've had it thinned and trimmed on alternate visits to my hairdresser, and though it has only gained a few inches in overall length I now have enough hair to cover my ears and reach down my neck, and I have the beginnings of the same wave that both my sister and mother have in their hair. Over a year on Finasteride has also in a small way reversed some of my hair loss, so fortunately I have little to worry about in the hairline department.

    In short, I think after today's very light trim I'm almost at the point of having a dual-purpose haircut.

    Being a bloke is an easy look to cultivate. You don't bother to dry your hair properly, you tuck it behind your ears and use a little bit of styling wax on top to give it a bit of body if it looks too slicked down. You're expected to look a bit scruffy, so as long as you do just that nobody bothers to look at how your hair is cut behind the facade.
    If I brush it out from behind my ears from this blokish start I can see where I'm going with it but something isn't right. Too flat, I just look like a bloke with a really bad haircut.
    So what's to be done? Wait for more length? Not a bit of it! I am now at the point at which if I blow-dry my hair, instead of looking uncontrolled as it would have in months past it settles in that pleasingly fluffy texture and stays where I put it. Five minutes with the hairdryer and when I look in the mirror I suddenly have a female hairstyle. The sides cover my ears and curl in towards my eyes, while behind my ears and on my neck the wave gives it an outwards curl. And the body given by the blow-drying gives it substance, bounce even.

    Pleased? I should say so!

    My most important critic, my wife, also rates it as a success. And she would not deliver such a verdict lightly. It's a short female haircut and there is room for improvement (the word she used for it was "retro"), but she voted it acceptable to wear to my support group meeting later in the month.
    I am like a teenage girl who has just discovered a grown-up look.

Mop-top

    It is now about six months since I last had a male haircut before coming out to my hairdresser and abandoning the buzz-cut I sported for most of my adult life. It is also about a year since I asked my doctor for Finasteride as a move towards preserving my hair should I find myself unable to stay as a bloke at some time in the future.
    On one hand, my hair has grown well. I've had several haircuts this year, to trim the edges and thin out the layers and even though it has grown longer my hairdresser's expert ministering to it has meant I have avoided the result looking too bad as it has become longer.
    On the other hand, it's at the frustrating stage at which I can start to see where it is going, but it is not long enough for my purposes. I can blow-dry it and tease as much life into it as I want, but it still doesn't quite look female enough. I'll be wearing the wig for a little longer I think. Sigh.
    Still, there is good news. Last year when I wrote about Finasteride I was pleased that I was seeing less loose hairs on my desk but I hadn't seen any evidence of returning hair where it had receded. I am pleased to report that sometime after Christmas, my wife noticed that a small mole that used to be outside the hairline now has hairs growing round it. Only a few millimetres advancement, but it is there, proof that something is working.
    No luck on the side-effects though. If I jump up and down I can imagine I have minor man-boobs but gynaecomastia it ain't. And to think, my doctor felt he had to warn me about that side-effect!

A funny thing happened on the way to the loo yesterday

    Yesterday afternoon found me at my local Tesco store, picking up some supplies. Needing a quick toilet break, I diverted myself in that direction.
    The loos at this store are at the end of a short hallway. Facing you are two doors, ladies on the left, gents on the right. As I approached them a middle aged lady emerged from the left hand door, and politely held it open for me. I smiled apologetically and made my way into the gents. Blimey, I must be getting good at this girl thing, she could tell even though I had three days worth of stubble on my face in preparation for a really smooth shave for the support group meeting!
    Poor thing, she was probably mortified at her unconscious mistake. It did make me laugh, but not at her. I would like to think that she would have been tolerant enough to have held the door open for me had I been presenting female.
 

Go into the salon a bloke, come out slightly less of a bloke

    Last month I lamented that while on a visit to my hairdresser I was not presented with the chance to talk to her about growing out my hair into a more gender-neutral style.
    Yesterday I had the Long Chat with her and her colleague. I had my hair cut on Saturday so I had already talked about growing it out, but since she had other customers in the salon back then I needed to tell her why so that she could manage its growth. On Saturday she tidied it at the edges but left the main growth intact, it seems next time she'll thin the ends of the longer growth, something that will make growing the layers out more easy.
    So my wife and I went down the road in our lunch hour and had the Long Chat. And it went perfectly. There were the inevitable questions but they were both understanding and seemed to be relishing the prospect of creating a dual-purpose hairstyle.
    The next eighteen months will see me sporting a succession of annoying hairstyles as it grows out enough volume. At least under the care of an expert hairdresser I should avoid their also being embarrassing hairstyles.

Go into the salon a bloke, come out a bloke

    My city is blanketed with snow today. The main roads are full of nose-to-tail stationary traffic as our transport system has ground to a halt, and the town is half-empty. Very convenient if you need to do your Christmas shopping.
    This morning I wasn't in the car, nor was I at the shops, for today was haircut day. It was going to be a special haircut day too, if the chance had arisen I was going to have the Long Chat with L, my hairdresser, with a view to planning a move from my buzz-cut towards something more dual-mode. As long as what I end up with is acceptable in male mode and I keep it well-maintained under L's expert care, my wife was happy for me to do this.
    I like having a haircut. It's a chance for a trip into a female environment, and I like L. She's about my age and though I never knew her at the time she grew up not to far from me, so we have a lot of experiences in common. Sadly in the last few months I've found myself not looking forward to the experience as much as I might, the thought of never losing the buzz-cut has started to weigh upon me.
    Unfortunately though today L was not at work. Her road is impassable due to the snow, so she was at home ringing around her appointments to reschedule them. She must have tried to ring me but by then I was walking along a snowbound road to her salon, where I found her equally charming colleague S, having been ferried in through the snow by her husband who was gloomily looking through the window at the traffic.
    Damn. I wanted to have the Long Chat with L, I wouldn't have minded S listening in but not with S's husband in attendance. It's not his fault, he's not an unpleasant bloke or anything, it's just that he's a bloke. If that doesn't sound very odd, coming from someone who looks like me. All this can get a bit mixed up at times.
    So S gave me a haircut, and she did a very good job, she is after all an expert hairdresser. And I left the salon with a fresh buzz-cut rather than the trimmed-at-the-edges former buzz-cut starting the process of growing out that I'd hoped for.
    I don't know when the opportunity will present itself for the Long Chat with L. It depends on the circumstances next time I see her, or the time after that. And it also depends on how happy my wife is at the time, I don't want to increase her stress. But at least I feel as if I've achieved something. I may still have a buzz-cut, but something has changed. I have the chance of losing it for something better at some time, and that's more than I had a few months ago. I think that's a result.

Passing ships in the day

    A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of t-girls in a pub near Reading with a couple of my friends from the Swindon TG Group. I meant to write about it then, but circumstances conspired against me. It all went very well, my female presentation was about as good as I could make it but I'm sure I wasn't fooling many people.
    In conversation at our table one of the regulars said she could always spot a cross-dresser in male mode. I challenged her, saying that she'd never guess me if she met me in the daylight, and she was slightly disappointed to discover that my only genetic advantage in all this is almost hairless arms.
    A few days ago I attended a technical event for people associated with my line of work. A big group of geeks in a room. My attention was drawn to one of our group as we debated the merits of data manipulation strategies and I was reminded of what my friend from the pub night had said. He had beautifully shaped eyebrows, no visible beard shadow  and even less arm hair than I do. A quick double-take ensued. No tell-tale nail varnish traces on the fingers (looks guiltily at own OPI Nail Envy clear-matt coated nails) and no other signs. But there was just something about him.
    No possible way of ever knowing of course. Calie wrote something similar a while back.But I think I just encountered someone else like me. I hope if so that she's at peace with it all. Who knows, maybe I'll bump in to someone new who looks a lot like him at some trans-event some time. I wonder if we'll recognise each other?

Busy month

    So it's the end of another month, about as busy a one as I've ever had. Not enough time to sit down and use a web browser so there have been a lot of blog comments I never got round to making and one or two posts that never made it here. Aren't you all lucky!
    Reflections on a new job, one month in. I knew the work would be more interesting and I knew the environment would be less stressful. I didn't expect that along with that would come such an upsurge from the girl. I'm working in a mixed environment and I guess some girl envy must be creeping in, I'm surrounded by very intelligent, attractive and successful women and while I'm loving it because I've completely left the bloke act from my previous employer behind it would be too much to expect for some of the scruffy feeling not to get to me.
    But there is plenty for me to do and I have a new experience, that of being respected as someone with my particular speciality. I've experienced so many awful management cultures it's a shock to find an organisation that's at pains to get it right.
     Now I have my feet under my desk (specially raised, with extra-large office chair and monitor riser) I can look forward. The job shift has been a success and I don't want the girl to get in the way. Time to start planning another outing to keep her occupied I think. It might seem surprising in this environment, but I've only had a couple of chances to be out of safe spaces presenting female since my debut in May, the opportunities just haven't presented themselves.
    There's something to look forward to!

Meeting Jenny

    So, a couple of weeks into the new job, and it's all a little different. One part of working for a large organisation that's new, is meetings. Most things that happen at my employer require them, what with there being so many departments that all need to talk about stuff and all.
    But they aren't so bad really. No doughnuts, but the coffee's good. And most of my colleagues are female, so I never need to worry about putting up a front in them. I just sit there mentally in girl mode, at peace with the world.
    One brought a bit of a shock yesterday though. A bloke from sales, or marketing or something. All shiny suit and brightly coloured tie. With a big knot. I could never master those. Hand shake, blimey, his dad must have told him that a strong handshake was a sign of virility or something, there's no need to crush! I'm not going to play that game, when you look like me you can hand-crush for England but it it really necessary? This might seem odd, but I've found people still think I'm a bloke without all that. More's the pity.
    Anyway, he's straight into the slightly domineering bloke routine. I get the impression he's not annoying personally, in fact I'd probably get on quite well with him down the pub, but he just seems so over the top in this setting. Do genetic girls feel the same way when they encounter someone like this or do they just not notice it, just part of the scenery?
    I feel as if I've crossed a line somewhere.

Paved with good intentions

    The Ridgeway is one of our more accessible long distance paths, a neolithic flint trading route that snakes its way along the crest of the Chiltern escarpment from Buckinghamshire, crosses the Thames and then follows the Berkshire Downs all the way to Wiltshire. You can see for miles on a clear day like today from up there, it's a spectacular sight!
    Or so I'm told. I wouldn't know, I wasn't there today.
    Today we'd planned to take the train to Goring, walk up the Ridgeway for a few miles, then drop down off the hill to Cholsey, from where we'd catch the train home. A perfect walk on a lovely sunny day. We had a minor errand to run, so why not stop off the train at Reading, nip into town, then catch the local train to Goring? Fantastic idea!
    We'd forgotten that this weekend saw the Reading Festival. Reading station, when we arrived, resembled a war zone as the massed ranks of disheveled and mud-spattered youths had descended on it and changed mass transit into mass queuing. We could leave the station, but going back in would have meant a wait of several hours. What could we do?
    Simple. We went shopping. My wife was particularly pleased to find a shop that carries OPI nail products, even though they were at an eye-popping price when you're used to them in dollars. Rip-off Britain! I think a Desigual top she found in the sale might have helped soften that particular shock though.
    People-watching, a favourite pastime of ours. The Oracle turned out to be fertile ground today. The "Did I really just see that?" prize went to a lady in an adventurous cross between a pair of pajamas and a romper suit. You had to be there to believe it.
    So when we'd judged that the rock-fans would be long gone we wandered back to the station, which had mud everywhere from the festival-goers' wellington boots. A very successful day for both of us, but not the healthy outdoor exercise we'd planned.
    Never mind, there's always tomorrow for that, isn't there!

Watching them not watching me

    Accompanying my wife to a hospital appointment kept me away from work today. With an hour or two to kill in the morning we went in to town for a bit of shopping. She needed a couple of cosmetics so we went to our local MAC outlet, on the street-facing downstairs windows of our Debenhams department store.
    While she was receiving the attentions of the sales lady I stood back and looked out of the window onto the street, did a bit of people watching. MAC outlets are popular because they offer damn good quality cosmetics and a makeover service with knowledgeable staff. I was curious though because a frequent concern from the timid centres on their location, they always seem to have large on-street windows meaning that passers-by can see the people receiving makeovers.
     So I stood there for ten minutes, acting the uncertain bloke in the girl store to perfection, and watched the passers-by. My wife claims she saw a teenaged girl glance in the window, but I must have missed her because I saw nobody take an interest in the store. On a Wednesday morning everyone seemed more anxious to catch their bus or seize an opportunity to cross the road than they were to gawp at the cosmetics.
    I'm not convinced I need a MAC makeover just at the moment, but it's an important lesson for going out in the world en femme in general, people only really see what's right in front of them.
    The afternoon saw us in yet another waiting room in the hospital on the hill. This one was completely devoid of reading matter and I hate people watching in hospitals, everyone's so sad. Happily a family with three amazingly cute kids provided plenty of entertainment. My wife was pretty convinced she misgendered the oldest girl's teddy bear, something which I'm afraid to say amused us mightily in what was probably not the right environment for it. Well, until we heard the child talking to her she did look very masculine, in a cuddly ursine kind of way!
    My wife? It's official, there is nothing wrong with her. We celebrated at our local café.

Things you can't say out loud

    There are some things you just can't say out loud.

    One of them has to be "That's a lovely skirt, I have that one too!". Women have those conversations all the time, as a silent observer I have heard many. But not scruffy blokes in conversation with their fellow office workers on a visit to the coffee maker.

    Unsurprisingly she looks far better in hers than I ever do in mine.

Visibility

    The other day I mentioned that I spent last Saturday afternoon at my local Gay Pride, in the company of a few other local t-girls.
    I was there as bloke, due to my wife's comfort zone. She doesn't feel comfortable with my going out en femme this close to home. I think it's an embarassment thing, for which I don't blame her. I'm a girl with presence. No problem with that, presenting as female is fun but I enjoy the company of trans people in exactly the same manner no matter what I look like. Same when someone organises a trip to a restaurant, there I am, the rather large bloke usually accompanied by his wife.
    As a day-to-day bloke, I have the ultimate "stealth". Damn I do it well! Bloke and then some! But am I really less visible when in the company of my trans friends?
    If you read this blog, you'll know by now that my size defines me whether I like it or not. I've lived in and around this town for most of my life so I'm part of the scenery. Business owners, shop workers and other long-term local residents know me by sight. I must be "Big bloke" to them, in the same way as there are local characters I recognise such as "Beardy bloke", "Scooter kid" and "Bible lady". If you live in my town, you'll probably bring those three to mind too. Hell, you probably know what I look like! So by going out with my trans friends I bring my slightly enhanced visibility with me and instead of being the drab one fading into the background of the restaurant alongside the slightly more flamboyant among my companions I stand out as someone people know by sight. And sitting there in the Pride field with my shoes off in the heat I think few who noticed my toenails painted in preparation for my support group meeting would be in any doubt that yes I was part of the group I was sitting with. Bizarrely had I been en femme with wig and makeup I would have blended in, I may be a large girl but I'm not as er... daring in my presentation as some.
    Does this bother me? Not particularly. Having decided that my aim is to be openly transgendered I can hardly complain if someone identifies me as such. In fact if someone does so then good, I'm out, there's one less place I have to hide.
    Of course, it's easy for me to say this. I'm large and loud, I kick the arse of life. Nobody's going to give me grief for it, even the thickest of chavs is going to figure out that's going to hurt. Maybe someone more timid wouldn't be able to. But if by being large and loud and visible I make it easier for someone less confident in the future to go out in drab in my town with their trans friends then I reckon I've achieved something. And for that the minor regret of not going out en femme is worth it.

Bloke fraud

   Over the corridor from my office, there's another company. I have no idea what they do, they keep themselves to themselves, but I see their employees in the kitchen from time to time when I'm off in search of coffee. One of them is a stunningly flawless Chinese girl. Not only is she physically very attractive, she also has near-perfect dress sense and enviable presentation. In short, every time I see her I want to be like her. On bad girl fog days seeing her is torture, on good days a pleasure.
    Today she surpassed herself with a simple crimson shift dress. This was not lost on my two colleagues who launched into one of those slightly lustful blokey conversations about her. Not too disrespectful or coarse, after all both of them are nice blokes, just the kind of reactions you'd expect from heterosexual blokes discussing such a girl.
    I couldn't help myself, I joined in enthusiastically. After all, enthusing about her appearance as someone admiring her sounds very similar to enthusing about the same appearance as someone who wishes they could emulate it, and I have a larger-than-life bloke act to nurture.
    I'm such a fraud, sometimes.

Knock me down with a feather

   This evening was spent in the pub. With a group of blokes. From a circle of friends who share a rather geeky and mostly blokeish activity. Drinking beer and doing what blokes do in the pub.
   So as the evening dwindled, people slipped away and finally there were only two of us. Me, and A. A and I have a lot in common, we work in similar industries, we're into similar hobbies and we both have a history of dealing with depression. So we ended up talking about depression and its causes. Very weird conversation in which it slowly became obvious we were both circling round the same unsaid point.
    A? Alice, that is. We have more in common than we realised. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Lost in space

   A very short post about nothing more exciting than a morning spent wandering round a town centre with my wife pursuing that most basic of modern comforts, retail therapy.
   This morning I had a wig fitting with a very friendly hairdresser. It's important that my hair is right, if you're endowed with the level of presence I have people turn round to look at you in bloke form: so as a girl far more so. I only present as female in safe environments so it's not a forlorn hope of passing that's my concern, it's more a matter of pride, if something's worth doing it's worth doing properly. The outcome of this quest for perfection is that my new hair won't have arrived in time for my next TG support group meeting so to make up for this minor setback we hit the shops.
    What followed was a fairly unremarkable morning of girl shopping, mostly for her but with a few things for me. Boots (Chemists) had us hooked with their five pound cosmetic vouchers, Mrs. J had amassed several of these and since they had to be used in separate transactions I was pressed into service as Customer Number Two. My prize for this expedition, a colour matched concealer pen to better deal with an insomniac's panda eyes. Beyond that we tramped the halls, dodged the chavs and the speeding grannies on mobility scooters, considered several outfits for either of us and bought nothing. We ended up in Debenhams(department store) where Mrs. J bought some stuff for herself and one item for me. As she searched for her purchases I was amused to see the cohort of slightly shifty and embarrassed-looking blokes hovering at the edge of the lingerie section waiting for their wives. Having pursued that role in the past I was having none of this and played the New Man to perfection, even holding some of her prospective purchases for her as she sought more. A couple out shopping: fantastic stealth t-girl camouflage!
   Lost in space? With twenty minutes left until our train was due to depart, we decided it was time to leave Debenhams and head for the station. What a labyrinth that store turned out to be, I swear that exit was mobile! I was almost at the stage of leaving chalk marks on the mannequins to plot our route before we found the path to freedom.

Stop-n-grow rocks!

The web's an awesome place, isn't it. If you're not content with following the bedtime activities of a newlywed couple via Twitter, you can now come here to follow the fingernail growth rate of a transgendered British blogger. Does it get any better than this?

A while back I decided to get on top of my lifelong nail biting habit by applying a product called Stop-n-grow to my fingernails. This is a clear nail paint with an awful taste that reminds you to stop if the fingers end up in your mouth. Most importantly though it gives me a perfectly valid excuse as someone presenting as a bloke to practice an extravagantly femmed-up nail painting routine at work.

What can I say? It works! Every time my fingers have come anywhere near my mouth, the great taste of Bitrex has made sure they come away sharpish. I've now grown them out to the point at which they were slightly annoying before cutting and filing them back to a maintainable shape. And they're staying that way. If you've not spent decades biting your nails, you won't understand the feeling bestowed upon me by this simple achievement.

There is one unexpected downside. In the past my nail-polishing has been fairly infrequent but as a little celebration of my newly tidy nails I've done it once or twice in the last week. For now semi-decent nails are a novelty, forgive me a moment's fun. Unfortunately though I'm not used to having a fingernail under which things can get caught, so I am having to be very careful to make sure I don't have a rim of rather colourful pigment left under my nails after cleaning away the paint. I can claim to my colleagues that it's paint from my car, but a simple glance out of the window would reveal it not to be the same colour. What do I do? Only buy nail paint the same colour as my car, or simply pick up an old car of the same colour every time I buy a new shade? What a tough decision!

The magic millimetre

A very short post. 

Stop-n-grow rocks! I have just under a millimetre's unbitten nail growth in the few days since I started applying it. Last night's celebration was lilac nail polish which looked so much better than on bitten nails. 

It'll be a week or so before they're fully fixed, at that point I'll have to follow Stace's example and reach for the nail file. I must resist the temptation to let them grow to vamp proportions.

Painting my nails at work

Yesterday morning before work, I painted my nails. Some time about elevenish, sitting at my desk at work in full view of my colleagues, I painted them again. And again before going home.

Going full time? Sadly not.

All my life, I've bitten my fingernails. It's a nervous compulsion so I've found it very difficult to stop. I've now decided it's time to get serious and stop it to grow some nicer nails, so I've bought a little bottle of Stop-n-Grow "willpower in a bottle", clear nail paint with an awful taste. It's water soluble and it needs reapplying after hand washing, so the best bit is that even presenting as a full-on bloke I can perfectly legitimately be seen regularly doing my nails.

I succumbed to the temptation to shamelessly femme up the process in the finest tradition of bored receptionists everywhere to see just how much I could get away with. 

Damn that stuff tastes gross!

Gender neutral hair

I once tried growing my hair long. Back in my generation's summer of love, listening to the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets as played by John Peel, I let it grow and grow.
In the end, it reached my shoulders. Long, straight brown hair. I ended up going to a hairdresser in the small town I grew up in and asking for the buzz-cut I've had ever since.
Why would I do such a damn stupid thing? Simple. Long hair turned out to be a pain in the arse. No matter what I tried to do to it, it wouldn't go backwards.
I looked like a very large Old English sheepdog. The folly of youth eh!
I like having a buzz-cut. It's zero maintenance. It is however, very blokey. Time for a change in a more transgendered direction? Since I present as male to the world at large, if I change my hair it has to be believable in that gender role. It also has to be presentable in a business setting, for example my work puts me from time to time in front of people with big chequebooks and a long haired style like my teenaged sheepdog look wouldn't necessarily go down well.
Searching the web, there's frustratingly little on gender-neutral TG hairstyles. Either that, or insomnia has temporarily wrecked my Google-fu. So I'm left wondering whether the first person other than my wife I come out to will be my hairdresser, who also cuts my wife's hair.
I like my hairdresser. She's about the same age as me and though we never knew each other at the time she grew up about ten miles from me. On top of that she's a lovely person and I think I would trust her in this matter. Having observed her at work, isn't turning up early for appointments at female-centric places great, she's a hairdresser of great skill so I am sure she could advise me well.
The trouble is, I don't know how to catch her alone, i.e. without her colleague, and what her reaction would be. Our relationship isn't such that I can take her out for a coffee so I'd have to walk into the salon and just ask her. I don't think she'd be transphobic, you get a vibe about people's tolerance levels, but it's still rather daunting. It would be much easier if I could walk in with a picture and just say "I want that style, how long will it take to grow and how many transitional stages will there be?", and let her figure it out for herself.
There's also my wife's comfort zone to consider. I guess all I can do there is ask her. At least I don't have to worry about coming out to her.
Why don't you just get a wig in the female style that suits!, I hear you cry? True, I could do that. I've located a TG-friendly wig fitting specialist not too far away. But it's one of those things that comes down to crossdressing vs. transgender. If I can present some part of the female me full-time, however subtly, I think it will be a lot more satisfying than being able to turn on the full-on glam look only when circumstances allow it.
It could be worse. Lots of blokes my age have started thinning, at least I don't stare down at a plugged-up shower every morning.