skirtcafe.org

Hi,
I've got lots of skirts, pencil skirts, ponte skirts, A-line, skorts and maxi shorts. My goal is to wear them out in public. I'd like to wear with women's flats, kitten heels, or wedges. Looking for support from my fellow skirt lovers.
RPF

Welcome aboard RPF. You've found a good set of folks here. Read through some of the other forums and you'll get a sense of the people here. Again Welcome aboard.

Welcome, RPF!

RPF wrote:Hi,
I've got lots of skirts, pencil skirts, ponte skirts, A-line, skorts and maxi shorts. My goal is to wear them out in public. I'd like to wear with women's flats, kitten heels, or wedges. Looking for support from my fellow skirt lovers.
RPF

Welcome, RPF, and rest assured you'll find the support you're seeking.

Welcome to the site RPF! Not sure where you are from but there are many folk here from around the world.

The hardest part is just where you are at at the moment. That FIRST time in public.

Be assured that most of the negative waves (or "demons") are really only in your head. Most folks either don't notice or care at all. Those that do notice might have a double-take or even give you a smile, especially ladies!

I would suggest choosing a place you do not normally go to get over that first time out hurdle. You will be surprised how little reaction you get from Joe Public.

Do you have a partner and does he/she accept your skirts? Quite a few here have "issues" with partners including myself. Read the posts here and continue with your contributions to the forum.

Good luck on your FIRST time out! It's well worth it I can assure you!

Ross

RPF wrote:Hi,
I've got lots of skirts, pencil skirts, ponte skirts, A-line, skorts and maxi shorts. My goal is to wear them out in public. I'd like to wear with women's flats, kitten heels, or wedges. Looking for support from my fellow skirt lovers.
RPF

I have pencil skirts, business and casual, I just love the cut of them and think they present a smart image. Also some kilts hence the name

skirtingtoday wrote:Welcome to the site RPF! Not sure where you are from but there are many folk here from around the world.

The hardest part is just where you are at at the moment. That FIRST time in public.

Be assured that most of the negative waves (or "demons") are really only in your head. Most folks either don't notice or care at all. Those that do notice might have a double-take or even give you a smile, especially ladies!

I would suggest choosing a place you do not normally go to get over that first time out hurdle. You will be surprised how little reaction you get from Joe Public.

Do you have a partner and does he/she accept your skirts? Quite a few here have "issues" with partners including myself. Read the posts here and continue with your contributions to the forum.

Good luck on your FIRST time out! It's well worth it I can assure you!

Ross

Ross,
Thanks. I dress at home for now. I enjoy wearing women's shoes (flats and 3 to 4" heels, pantyhose, dresses (especially like pencil skirts and A-Line), and sheath dresses. No wig and No make-up.
I'm working towards going out in public, perhaps maybe just the skirt...but to where?
I'm still trying to navigate around this forum, trying to find the latest posts and review the threads. Again, thanks for your welcome note.
RP

Caultron wrote:

RPF wrote:Hi,
I've got lots of skirts, pencil skirts, ponte skirts, A-line, skorts and maxi shorts. My goal is to wear them out in public. I'd like to wear with women's flats, kitten heels, or wedges. Looking for support from my fellow skirt lovers.
RPF

Welcome, RPF, and rest assured you'll find the support you're seeking.

Thanks, looking for some "...Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted." and perhaps some liquid courage!!

I have gone out in a running skirt. I read about a fella (google) who ran with a women's running skirt for the comfort. I don't run but do a brisk walk although when I comes across people I'll pick up the pace and job past them.

RPF wrote:I'm working towards going out in public, perhaps maybe just the skirt...but to where?

Just go shopping at the grocery store like Wal-Marts. I have found nobody there pays any attention to you or what you are wearing. I wear skirts about 99.9% of the time and wear every where I go. I wear at restaurants, movies, the spa, Lowe's, the mall and many other places.
If anything the most I get aside from an occasional I like your outfit from a woman, is a double take and then nothing. So get over the fear as it is all in your head!!

Fred

Hello RPF,

Welcome to the skirtcafe.

You were looking for some starting places so slip on a skirt and step into your heels and stroll down memory lane with me.

Long before I took this journey I had actively and openly crossdressed for a decade or so. I got to be nearly fearless at it because I often passed and when I didn't I figured no one would recognize me.

Nonetheless, when I realized I wanted to take this route I realized I was in a new closet and was having as much trouble as anyone else leaving it. So my first steps outside were taken in the very private backyard of the place I was renting. Then midnight, literally, walks on the streets in the neighborhood. It cracked me up one night when a bunch of teenagers caught up with me and one exclaimed, "That's a dude!"

Finally, came the night when I went to the local supermarket I used less frequently in a dress I had just bought at Costco. I figured late at night there would be fewer customers (true) and almost no chance of running into anyone I knew (I certainly didn't see anyone I knew). As is general practice around here now, they store their shopping carts outside so there's a natural delay at the front entrance. As I was getting my cart I noticed a mother and her grown daughter entering the store. Just as another member of this forum says, most people are too busy with their own business to pay attention to you. They sure didn't.

Not only didn't I get any second looks, I didn't get that many first looks. If anything the store personnel went out of their way to be helpful and nice.

After that I kept widening my comfort circle. As I recounted elsewhere, I almost always go to church in a dress or skirt and that was originated by a long conversation with my minister and the wonderful embrace I got from the congregation for, as one member put it, "trusting them with my true self."

I'm going to get my eyes examined and see my doctor tomorrow, in pants. Why in pants? Because ... I've still got a smudge of yellow on my back and I think we all do and aren't afraid to admit it. Whenever I go to my mechanic's, it's in pants. Why? Because it's so much a boy's club. Generally I don't go places in a skirt I haven't been to in pants or are nearly certain as to what kind of place it is. Why? Not because of my yellow smudge but because it's only common sense.

My church shares its parking lot with a truck accessories store ... talk about a place that should have sign saying "Macho spoken here." One Saturday I was going to a celebration of life at my church and saw a couple of store customers in the parking lot working with a truck canopy. So I balked at getting out of my Ford Explorer. After a moment I said to myself, "If you don't want people to see you this way, you shouldn't dress this way." I promptly hopped out of my SUV and walked into church. Where I ran into a friend who doesn't attend my church but does belong to my professional association. She greeted me like my black Liz Claiborne sheath was everyday wear for me. (To be honest, I was a little disappointed she didn't have anything nice to say about it, but maybe she was afraid it would induce a heart attack in her husband, who also knows me through the association and was standing right next to her.)

In short, it takes all of us time. It's like attempting anything else that's risky, if you're not afraid, it's because you're oblivious. On the other hand, doing it isn't really brave, which a number of people have told me I am for wearing dresses, unless you are afraid.

Pdx, when you go to the opticians and doctors then please go skirted. They as professionals are the last ones that should make you nervous. I have been to the doctors, dentists and opticians skirted and have had really good comments from them. One practice nurse didn't realise I had a short skirt on until she started to take my blood pressure and had to look down to my lap. So take your skirt in hand and hold your head up and again you will wonder what you were even worried about. And good luck.

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote:...I'm going to get my eyes examined and see my doctor tomorrow, in pants. Why in pants? Because ... I've still got a smudge of yellow on my back and I think we all do and aren't afraid to admit it. Whenever I go to my mechanic's, it's in pants. Why? Because it's so much a boy's club. Generally I don't go places in a skirt I haven't been to in pants or are nearly certain as to what kind of place it is...

I suspect we all retain some degree of trepidation. I know I do. But any more, I've actually come to enjoy the occasional slack-jawed gape or dark once-over, which I take as the other person not handling the situation as well as I am.

Clothes are, after all, just scraps of cloth. And if somebody doesn't like the ones I pick, it's their problem, not mine. At my age, I've earned the right to pick out my own clothes.

Be confident. Look people in the eye. Throw them a friendly smile. Never cower or shirk. The cowering or shirking will get you far more disapproval than anything you're wearing. Be yourself and stand up for it.

I always wear skirts or kilts to medical appointments, including the urologist, and I've found that medical people are very accepting and understanding of their patients. No bad vibes at all.

Hello RPF, and welcome to the board.

I caught in the "gathering" board that you live up in Northern Virginia. I can't imagine you having any trouble up there so close to D.C.

I wear some pretty girly stuff sometimes, and I do it here in redneck country U.S.A. (southwestern VA, near Bristol TN) And I DO NOT pass as a woman.... well at least not closer than 30 yards. (was mistaken for a woman when someone called the law on me in one of my skirts thinking I was breaking into a house! )

In fact, right now, I'm wearing a pink lacy blouse, with white flower prints all over it, and a long tiered white skirt with little floral patterns cut out, and my new "women's" flats (shoes), in addition to a wide white hairband giving me that 1950's housewife look (no that's not me in the picture). I wore this getup while doing my grocery shopping tonight with my wife, this is a small town, and this late on a nice Friday... LOTS of rowdy teenagers were out and about, and oh yes how they pointed their fingers and laughed... but pffft... whatever. I had a blast, and I think I looked damned good.

I too was nervous as hell when I got my first skirt. But now, for the most part I'm not really phased by it. Every now and then I get weak, but in reality, as others have said, a few stare, a few point, a few giggle, but in almost a year of doing this, and in some pretty girly stuff mind you, NOBODY has harassed me.

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote:Whenever I go to my mechanic's, it's in pants.

Got my old truck inspected last year in a t-shirt and black Macabi. It passed, and everyone was pleasant. Granted, the black Macabi is a unisex (not really girly), and of course my t-shirt and sandals were men's. I'm with you, I probably wouldn't wear what I'm wearing now, ESPECIALLY on a state inspection. I recommend we all should probably have at least one unisex/masculine style skirt for those occasions when such is called for, or would make life eaiser, such as a skirtcraft, Macabi, or kilt.

I'd LOVE to go to the doctors and dentist in a skirt. But unfortunately, I normally schedule these things right before work, and I'm always in my work uniform. I could schedule them on a day off, but who would want to sit around in a doctors office half the day when you're off?

Anyway... come on down to Bristol way RPF, put your favorite outfit on, and I'll hang with ya for a day... it's not so bad. We'll paint the town! We'll show em' something they've never seen before!